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

Interview

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HAYES:  All right, Jacob Soboroff, as always, thank you.  My next guest launched his own investigation, helped blow the whistle on the administration`s child separation policy Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon.
 
Before we get into what happened today and what happens next, just for the record replaying those lies from Kirstjen Nielsen about we have no such policy.  She said it under oath before Congress, before the American public time and time again.  I mean, you got your hands on the document that showed that to be a lie.
 
SEN. JEFF MERKLEY (D-OR):  Absolutely.  It`s so disturbing to see an official the United States lying to the American people.  Now, it`s not rare in this administration.  We`ve seen it from Trump.  We have seen it from official after official.  But in this case, there`s a well-documented path.  In fact, it was just two weeks into the administration when they first started publicly talking about child separation.
 
And as you noted, there were thousands, an estimated thousands of children who were separated from their parents even before zero tolerance was launched by Jeff Sessions.  So she has lied to the American people.  She`s been in charge of the darkest most evil policy we`ve seen in America in a very long time.  I`m glad she`s gone.  She should have resigned in protest long ago.
 
HAYES:  What happens now?  I mean, obviously, lots of people like yourself have called for her to leave that job.  But how is today`s news landed on Capitol Hill?  It`s very rare to see an outright purge against a federal agency like what we`re seeing a kind of decapitation of the political leadership.  What`s the word on Capitol Hill as your colleagues and yourself watch this?
 
MERKLEY:  Well, people are bracing for the battle to come because the president wants someone who will be even worse than Kirstjen Nielsen.  And Kevin McAleenan, well, he`s been in charge of some of these policies.  He`s been in charge of the blockade which prevents people from asserting their international right to ask for asylum on the border.
 
Children have often been absolutely unable to get any form of opportunity to ask for asylum.  He`s been in charge previously of child separation.  He now has this idea which I would call a chooser trauma because he`s saying well, maybe the families will have to choose, maybe I can make them choose between locked up in internment camps or being separated from their children.  Which trauma do you want to inflict on your child is what he`s advocating for.  We`re going to be in a big battle over this.
 
HAYES:  Well, you might be in a battle or the president might attempt essentially an end run around the Constitution`s advice and consent provision insofar as he`s done in many other places which is what do you do if he just elevates essentially enacting which he appears intent on doing and then just never comes to the Senate with the nominees, something he`s done at the Department of Defense apparently.
 
MERKLEY:  The battle will go to the appropriation bills on how the president spends money.  It`ll go to the court.  So we`ll be in a battle no matter what strategy the president chooses to enhance internment camps in America or enhance child separation.  These do so much damage to children.  And there`s a great alternative called the Family Case Management Program that costs less and people chew up their hearings and that`s what the president says he wants.
 
HAYES:  I want to read you what the report of what the President said to border agents behind the scenes during his visit last week.  He told border agents not to let migrants in, tell them we don`t have capacity.  If judges give you trouble, say sorry judge I can`t do it.  We don`t have the room.
 
The President appears quite openly to be searching for people that will quite literally disobey and break the law for him.  What are you going to do about that?
 
MERKLEY:  Yes.  Well, this is why it`s going to be battle in every tool we have, the funding battle, the court battle, and the public relations battle.  I`ve been down on the border a few weeks ago in Tijuana.  I went to seven of the shelters across the border.  I met with families who had been rebuffed at the border time and time again.
 
They were allowed to enter their names into a book in which after a number of weeks they might possibly get a credible fear hearing.  But those under 18 were not allowed to even put their name in the book.  They were stranded on some of the most dangerous streets in the world at various border town across our southern border and it`s a horrendous thing to do.
 
And the result is eventually they have to choose from being in danger on the streets with the sex industry, with the gang industry, with kidnappings, with brutality, with rapes or go cross the border illegally.  And so the President is actually incentivizing people by blocking the ports of entry.  He`s incentivizing people to cross between the ports of entry, the exact opposite of what he`s told the American people.
 
HAYES:  Right.  Senator Jeff Merkley who has been focused on this issue quite a bit from the beginning, thank you very much.
 
MERKLEY:  Thanks, Chris.

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