MSNBC "All in with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Ro Khanna

Interview

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HAYES:  My next guest represents one of the areas where the President wants to send migrant detainees, Congressman Ro Khanna, Democrat from California.  This is -- this is government by trolling fundamentally.  It is -- it has an ugliness to it that`s very obvious.  I guess I`ll ask you to react to it even though it`s obviously not a serious proposal.
 
REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA):  Well, it`s a total stunt.  Chris, has you know, migrants, have the right to move before their courts proceeding.
 
HAYES:  Yes.
 
KHANNA:  So unless Donald Trump literally wants to build a Berlin wall around San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, the plan is totally unworkable.  I mean, migrants, even if you put some there they can move.
 
Second, his own ICE director has said that it`s going to be an extraordinary cost.  I mean, you have Fox News railing against people in four seasons like detentions.  You really think Conservatives are going to want to pay for the transportation of people to these cities?  So it`s a complete propaganda move for his base.  It`s got no basis in the law.
 
HAYES:  Here`s what strikes me the fundamental problem.  There`s a -- there`s a challenge at the border.  I don`t think it`s a crisis.  It`s not you know, they`re -- Colombia got half a million Venezuelans and I mean we`re not talking about anything like that right, but there`s a challenge.  There`s a capacity challenge, a logistical challenge, the courts are challenged.
 
There is a problem to be solved in some ways.  That could be solved if there were people serious in good faith that wanted to undertake it.  Can you take this President at his word in good faith on anything having to do with immigration?
 
KHANNA:  No.  Because Chris, if you wanted to solve this issue, there are two concrete things you could do.  First, you wouldn`t be cutting aid to El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.  The Vanderbilt study shows that our aid which is about $450 million, put that in context compared to $700 billion of a defense budget, our aid has reduced violence there by nearly 50 percent.  And the reason people are coming here is because they`re fleeing violence.  So you would think one logical thing would be help them reduce violence.
 
Second, you would have in-country processing.  Obama had that.  He actually said let`s process these cases in Guatemala, in Honduras, in El Salvador.  Guess what this president did, he cut that program.  So obviously he`s got no real interest in doing the things that are going to solve the crisis.
 
HAYES:  You know, this is also -- there`s also a flailing quality of this.  So the president is posturing as tough.  He`s posturing as a meanie, right, (INAUDIBLE).  But the fact the matter is they`re acting befuddled and impotent fundamentally.  I mean, they really do seem frenetically panicked that they are not up to this task.
 
KHANNA:  Well, I think he has no basis in the law.  He doesn`t understand what he can do because as he uh needs these correctly said that after twenty days, you have to give someone a court process.  And there`s nothing the President of the United States can do to overturn that.  That`s Congress and that`s the courts.
 
And so if he doesn`t have any creativity in how to solve this and doesn`t have legal advisors offering him something, the only thing you can do is go out to Twitter and rally his base but there`s nothing concrete in solving it.  And at some point, people are going to see through that.
 
HAYES:  Well, then, what happens next?  I mean, the problem is he`s the president.  Like he can -- he`s yelling at the T.V. screen and he`s you know, he`s calling into Rush Limbaugh with his idea that`ll teach the lids by bussing in the immigrants, but someone -- like there`s an issue that has to be dealt with.
 
KHANNA:  Well, at some point, one hopes -- and this is where I hope Congress comes in where we can be honest with the American people about what it`s going to take to solve this issue.  We ought to be frankly increasing our foreign aid to these countries.
 
I had members of Congress colleagues of mine recently go to El Salvador.  And one of our programs there is helping kids learn computer programming.  And there were a thousand kids who said I want to be computer programmers in El Salvador.  We don`t want to come to the United States.
 
Now why wouldn`t we be funding programs like that?  Why wouldn`t we be funding more immigration judges to process these cases?  And I think what it`s going to take is leadership to say yes, we don`t -- we understand there`s a challenge.  We can`t have people just coming here without some proactive solution, but let`s talk concretely about what`s going to solve it.
 
HAYES:  All right, Congressman Ro Khanna, thanks four times tonight.
 
KHANNA:  Thank you, Chris.

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