MSNBC "All in with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Chris Murphy

Interview

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HAYES:  Under Nadler, the House Judiciary Committee is now launching a massive investigation of the President requesting documents from 81 entities and individuals close to him.  And they`re targeting the exact category of conduct that yielded articles of impeachment against Nixon, abuse of the president`s power.
 
To help understand what that category means, how we should evaluate this president, I`m joined by Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  Senator, I`ve already seen colleagues of yours including Chris Van Hollen expressing their shock and dismay about the reports about the president lobbying his administration to file suit to block that merger.  What`s your reaction to it?
 
SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D), CONNECTICUT:  Well, I think as you correctly pointed out, this is a long line in abuses.  The fact of the matter is it may be that that merger was worthy of high level of scrutiny whether or not it was because of the malevolent motives of the president, but it`s just more and more proof.
 
Listen, you`ve got -- you`ve got a couple different avenues here.  You`ve properly identified impeachment as a means by which you can try to control a president who has gone far afield of ethical norms, but you can also take powers away from him that were granted to him through the legislative process.  Approval of mergers would be one of them.  You could -- you could put more boundaries around the President`s ability to influence that decision.
 
Right now in the Foreign Relations Committee, we`re talking about sanctioning Saudi Arabia because the President has refused to do that, has violated the law and not given us a report on the culpability of the Saudi regime that he`s required to do.
 
And so Congress can also take steps to just handcuff the President, to take powers away from him, to do more ourselves if we find that the abusers are maybe short of impeachment but still worthy of being addressed.
 
HAYES:  You know, you just mentioned Saudi Arabia.  I want to follow up on that because that`s a place in which you know, Jared Kusner is meeting with MBS.  He has the security clearance granted by the president over the objections we now know of almost everyone in that White House including intelligence agencies, his chief of staff and his White House Counsel.
 
And new reporting that the body of the Washington Post columnist that was apparently hacked to death was burned in an oven at a Saudi diplomat`s home, and a briefing today that you walked out of frustrated that you got no more information.  Where is the administration, where are we on this situation?
 
MURPHY:  So we had another briefing on the Khashoggi murder behind closed doors briefing today that was so devoid of any relevant information that the chairman of the committee, Jim Risch who`s been a reliable supporter of the president asked all of us Democrats and Republicans to stay behind after the briefing was done to talk about what to do next.
 
And I think there`s a growing sense on this issue from Republicans and Democrats that Congress is going to have to take the reins of the U.S.- Saudi relationship ourselves because the President is unable to get it right.
 
Now,1 we are going to do everything in our power to try to figure out why Trump has the Saudi relationship so backwards.  We`ve got an emoluments lawsuit in court right now that may seek to divine whether the president has financial connections.  Clearly the House will have some ability to find out those answers as well.
 
But as we try to explore those links between the President and the Saudi government, Congress may be in the process of just taking back some of the reins of foreign policy and you know, that`s probably a good thing for the long run of democracy anyway.
 
HAYES:  Here`s another example of that right?  So when you`re talking about abuse of power, how to rein in a President who many feels abusing power.  The vote now that the House kicked off to essentially withdraw the President`s declaration of emergency about the southern border, something that seems facially preposterous since he said he didn`t have to do it himself.  It now looks like the Senate has the votes to pass that revocation of the emergency declaration.
 
MURPHY:  Yes.  And you know, Rand Paul who maybe isn`t always the best vote counter in the United States Senate claiming today that there are at least ten Republican votes which you know, gets you a little bit closer to a veto-proof majority.
 
You know, listen, again, there are so many different ways that you can check a president the Free Press checks the president, the Judiciary checks him, and Congress checks him.  But you are also right that the ultimate check is impeachment.  And what know is that the President`s behavior has already crossed the threshold of what was brought for impeachment before the House in the Nixon administration and the Clinton administration.
 
In fact, he crossed those thresholds in the first weeks or months of office.  And so that is another means if these other means fail to control this president.
 
HAYES:  You know, in all of those cases right, so when you`re talking about it may be an override on the Saudi sanctions, you`re talking about possibly getting to a veto override although I think that seems unlikely in the case of the national emergency declaration or were you to talk about removal of film office pursuant to impeachment in the House.
 
You know, those all require a degree of bipartisanship.  They do they require essentially margins that so far have been very difficult to muster except for a few Russia-related pieces of legislation.  I guess the question always is, is that changing?
 
MURPHY:  Well, I think that that`s why somebody like Mark Warner who`s the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee was you know so careful to try to you know, maintain bipartisan agreement as they went through their Senate investigation.  Because he knew that if they uncovered something impeachable, if Mueller did as well, he needed to be able to still work with Republicans.
 
I also think that we all overestimate some of the informal ways that Republicans check this president.  I complain just as much as everybody else does about their general silence.  But I think Mitch McConnell and others have made it pretty clear behind closed doors to President Trump that if he actually did try to fire Mueller that there would be consequences.
 
HAYES:  Right, yes.  It`s a good point.
 
MURPHY:  And I think the only reason that Mueller is going to be able to deliver a report that I think will ultimately see the light of day is because Republicans have quietly made sure that he gets to do his job.
 
HAYES:  All right, Senator Chris Murphy, thank you for your time tonight. 

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