MSNBC "All in with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: Interview with Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham
Interview
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
HAYES: All right, Trymaine Lee there in Antelope Wells, New Mexico. Thank you for that great report.
Joining me from New Mexico`s Capitol City, Santa Fe, is the state`s new Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham. She`s the first Democratic Latina governor in the country. She pulled most of her states National Guard troops from the border the same day the president gave his State of the Union Address.
Let we start with that decision. Why did they pull the National Guard troops from the border, governor?
GOV. MICHELLE JUJAN GRISHAM, (D) NEW MEXICO: Well, Chris, as you`ve been doing in this segment, I have visited the border many times. And right after I was elected I, in fact, went
right to Sunland Park and was participating in looking and reviewing and asking questions of our National Guard and the Border Patrol Agents. And there`s no emergency. And frankly they could not
justify the presence of the National Guard in terms of a national security issue.
And so that -- we have so many things that we need to be doing. And in fact the federal government is not meeting its responsibility on immigration issues in any stretch of the imagination. I made that decision. I actually gave the National Guard and border patrol several weeks to answer questions about the kind of activities, what they were doing, what kind of emergencies they were seeing, what kind of national security issues were present, and they were not able to defend anything of that nature. And as a result, I made the decision to pull those troops from the border.
HAYES: The president is announced an intention to declare some kind of national emergency. The details of that are yet to be determined or announced, but what do you see as your role as governor of that state, what would you do in that capacity were the government to use that emergency, those emergency powers to do things in New Mexico?
GRISHAM: Well, I`m certainly going to join, I hope, the chorus of so many elected leaders and law enforcement folks that this is a terrible and unfortunate tactic that president is taking. It`s an additional effort at more campaign-like stunts. His own Department of Justice is being reported by national news outlets don`t think it`s going to pass any legal muster, because there is no emergency, and it really sets the worst kind of precedence for separation of powers.
And so this affects everyone in congress, affects governors. And we will join whatever legal
action and related efforts to make sure that we keep the executive branch in check.
This is nothing more than a power grab. And it`s stoking fear. And frankly it makes us less safe and is using resources that are intended for other purposes in this country.
HAYES: You just won an election just a few months ago. And I`m curious, you`ve got a state that is a border state. You look at the national political discourse over the last three months, how ranking in the number one to number three or four issues in that campaign you just ran in your state on the border, where were these issues?
I mean, what the president talks about, the state of emergency, was that at the center of the campaign that you just ran?
GRISHAM: No. In fact, in my general with -- I was running against another former member of congress. We were both in congress in that general election. We were both against the wall, because we live here. We know the impact it has on families, on humanitarian efforts, and most importantly our economy. The fabric of what makes this a multicultural safe state and we are really working in New Mexico to bolster our economy. So we were both on the same page on that issue.
And immigration and the border wall were not primary issues in the campaign, because we`re living in a totally different reality than what`s being manufactured by the president.
HAYES: All right. Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, thank you so much for making some time tonight. I really appreciate it.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source