MSNBC "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Elizabeth Warren

Interview

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O`DONNELL:  We recorded our interview tonight with Elizabeth Warren before the breaking news of Robert Mueller`s letter of complaint to Attorney General William Barr.  Here is that interview.
 
Joining us now, the senior senator from Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren, who is also a Democratic candidate for president.  Thank you very much for joining us tonight, Senator.
 
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE:  Thank you for having me.  I`m glad to be here.
 
O`DONNELL:  I want to get your reaction to what Vice President Biden said this morning about impeachment.
 
WARREN:  So, look, I read the report, as you said.  And when I got to the end of the report, there were three things that were very, very clear.  The first is that a hostile foreign government attacked our 2016 election with the purpose of helping Donald Trump.
 
The second is Donald Trump welcomed that help.  And the third is that when our federal government tried to investigate after Donald Trump was inaugurated, he did everything he could to try to stop that investigation, to try to derail that investigation, to try to send that investigation somewhere else.
 
And the actions that he took are well documented.  It`s all right there in the report.  I got to the end of that report and I said, look, this is not about politics, this is about the responsibility of Congress as a co-equal branch of government, and I think it`s time to open impeachment proceedings.
 
O`DONNELL:  And there is a difference there.  Because the vice president is saying that the House should investigate and then -- but he`s also saying if the president blocks the investigations, then they have no choice.  That actually puts him in a slightly tougher sounding position, let`s say, than the House leadership, which continues to want to hold to the idea that it has not yet developed the information necessary for an impeachment hearing.
 
WARREN:  So, you know, look, I just don`t know how anybody reads that report and reads the documentation of the president trying to get the White House counsel to fire Mueller.  And when Mueller refuses to do that, tries to get the -- the president tries to get the White House counsel to lie about it.
 
And when he refuses to do that, the president tries to get the White House counsel to write a letter lying about it.  And then when he won`t do that, the president castigates, goes after the White House counsel for having taken notes about what he had tried to get him to do.
 
You know, it`s that way over and over and over through that report.  There are 10 separate instances that are fully documented.  There`s plenty of testimony about it, plenty of documentary evidence about it.
 
There is enough there that we should open the impeachment proceedings now, in my view.  You know, look, opening the proceedings doesn`t mean that you stop an investigation, it means that you can continue an investigation.
 
But, look, that`s how I read it.  I read that report, the Mueller report.  And when I got to the end, it is perfectly clear to me that what Donald Trump has done are impeachable offenses and that it`s now up to Congress to step up.  And stepping up, in this case, means opening an impeachment hearing.
 
O`DONNELL:  I don`t want to belabor impeachment because it amounts to the issues.
 
WARREN:  Sure.
 
O`DONNELL:  But I just want to ask you one more thing.  You say that`s how I read it.
 
WARREN:  Sure.
 
O`DONNELL:  And it sounds to me that I`m hearing it -- this is how I read it as a Harvard law professor, as a trained lawyer.  And I`m wondering if you feel as if you have certain advantages, legal experience, and advantages in reading it over some of your colleagues?
 
WARREN:  No.  I mean, yes, those things are all true that I am a lawyer and, yes, I`ve taught at law school, but this isn`t hard to read.  I mean I really want to be blunt about this.
 
I do not understand how somebody could read 448 pages of the Mueller report, and Mueller lays out in pretty clear terms exactly what the grounds are for obstruction of justice and what the documentation is for each piece along the line.  This is not hard to follow.
 
In fact, most of the pushback that I hear is about the politics of it.  And for me, this is a point of principle.  This is about whether or not each person in the House and then if the House votes it over to the Senate takes a vote and says that those efforts to obstruct justice are OK or they are not.
 
And I think everyone in Congress should be called on to take that vote and then to live with that vote for the rest of their lives.
 
O`DONNELL:  One element of the politics of it are the presidential politics.  And there is a belief -- or I shouldn`t -- let`s call it a fear instead of a belief among some Democrats, Democratic strategists and some Democratic officeholders, both in the House and the Senate, who worry that impeachment proceedings could help empower President Trump in his re- election campaign, especially if there`s no hope of removing him in a Senate vote.
 
And you could be on the ticket running against President Trump for re- election next September.  Don`t you have any concern that the -- that some kind of impeachment process might actually help energize his campaign against the Democrat in November?
 
WARREN:  Look, there are some issues that are bigger than politics.  And one of them is whether or not a president of the United States is above the law.
 
You know, I understand that in a dictatorship, everybody circles around the president and protects him.  But that`s not the way the Constitution divides power in our country.  It says that no one is above the law and that includes the president of the United States.
 
And the tool to make sure that the president is not above the law, the tool given to Congress is an impeachment proceeding.  This is serious.  This is about a foreign -- a hostile foreign government that attacked our election system and an investigation into that that was blocked by the president for his own political purposes.
 
This is a moment when we have to stand up in Congress.  It`s not a question of political party or the next election, it`s about what we think is right.  And I didn`t go into this thinking, oh, great, you know, let`s see if we can stir up a big impeachment fight.  It`s the conclusion I`ve reached by reading the whole report.
 
And I urge everybody to read that report.  I urge all of my colleagues to read that report and tell me how they can stand by and say, you know, that kind of behavior may be just fine in a president of the United States.
 
It`s not fine.  No one`s above the law.  Not even the president.
 
O`DONNELL:  Thanks to Senator Elizabeth Warren who joined us earlier.

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