CNN "Anderson Cooper 360" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Richard Blumenthal

Interview

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COOPER: We're talking tonight about what supporters of the president tout as a virtue, but what House Speaker Pelosi clearly sees as weakness, and it depends on how you see it, his willingness to punch back or his inability not to, even if it ends up hurting himself, which is a terrible way of putting it, and it's one I'm not sure our next guest would share.

He is Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, and member of the Judiciary Committee.

Senator Blumenthal, what do you think it is about Speaker Pelosi that so gets under the president's skin?

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT): Speaker Pelosi is a smart, strong woman who clearly has his number.

[20:20:02] Added to her personal effect him is the fact that courts are beginning to start the dominoes falling. And the disclosures ordered by the courts in New York, the New York state legislature requiring additional disclosure of his financial affairs are I think are driving him in this direction.

But beyond the name-calling, there is a profoundly important point here, because Nancy Pelosi went to that meeting prepared to talk about infrastructure, and to try to reach a compromise. So did senator Schumer. And the president said to them you can't legislate and investigate at the same time. That is really holding hostage the needs of the American people and the American system of government.

O'DONNELL: Yes, I get the criticism that a president should be able to, you know, deal with investigations ordeal with criticism and also do the people's business. Does it help, though -- I mean, clearly there is a strategy for speaker Pelosi saying just this morning that President Trump, you know, may have committed impeachable offenses, talked about maybe he needs an intervention from his family or his staff.

Is that helpful, though? Saying that he needs an intervention is clearly something that's going to agitate him.

BLUMENTHAL: Well, saying things that will agitate him really is an unknowable beforehand. There is so much that seems to agitate him. I think Speaker Pelosi is absolutely right that we can do oversight and scrutiny, which is Congress' responsibility under Article I of the Constitution, and at the same time legislate, which we need to do on rebuilding roads and bridges and rail and other infrastructure, on health care, improving the prescription drug costs, which are way too high, on veterans issues, on tax reform.

We need to do both at the same time. And for the president to say he cannot do both, no legislation unless you stop the investigation is fundamentally a betrayal of the American system of government, and it is hostage-taking in the worst sense of the word. The president needs to be held accountable.

COOPER: There are a loft Republicans who say the Democrats don't really want to work with the president on things like infrastructure because they don't want to give the president any kind of, you know, positive thing to run on in 2020. He is certainly making it very easy for Democrats not to work with him because he himself is saying I'm not going to work with you.

BLUMENTHAL: It will be on him if there are no accomplishments because very clearly, he will be the one who is the obstacle. Let me give you a couple of very practical examples. Just today, Anderson, by very bipartisan overwhelming vote, we approved disaster relief and overcame many of his objections, for example, to aiding Puerto Rico. We also did a bill on robocalls that protects the American people against these unsolicited and unconsented calls.

Yesterday in the armed services committee where I serve, we did the National Defense Authorization Act and by an overwhelming bipartisan majority, approved a measure that will provide hundreds of billions of dollars. That measure is not optional for the president of the United States. He can't say I won't legislate or cooperate with you until you stop investigating, and it will be on him very clearly if those measures are not approved.

COOPER: Do you think that either an impeachment inquiry or actual impeachment should go forward at this time?

BLUMENTHAL: I think the American people want accountability, and there will be accountability, either through an impeachment proceeding in the Congress, or through the courts, possibly criminally, or through the court of public opinion at the ballot box.

The important driving principle for me is accountability, and I think we have a responsibility, which we as yet have not fulfilled. We're trying to present the case to the American people. And the Mueller report, which I've read twice is an extraordinary document, but most Americans won't read the book. They will watch the movie through the hearings that are presented, and ultimately, the case has to be presented to them. That's the experience of Watergate.

COOPER: Just lastly, you reintroduced legislation to guarantee equal access to abortion everywhere as a response to the several states now passing laws restricting access to abortion. It's got 42 co-sponsors in the Senate. None of them are Republicans which means the bill isn't going to pass. Obviously, you know that better than anyone.

What is the goal if the bill doesn't right now have a shot at becoming law?

BLUMENTHAL: We introduced this measure because of the absolutely dire danger to women in states like Alabama and Georgia, Kentucky, Ohio where these draconian, demagogic measures have been passed that absolutely eviscerate women's reproductive rights, but also to stop the gradual erosion, the chipping away at Roe v. Wade, and yes, all of the 42 so far are Democrats, but also keep in mind, as has been reported by CNN repeatedly today, more than 70 percent of the American people want roe to be surviving as fundamental constitutional law.

I hope we will have bipartisan agreement eventually on that measure as well to protect women's health care, because ultimately, women's health care affects all of us. Men need to stand up and fight back too.

COOPER: Senator Richard Blumenthal, I just want to ask you if you could stick around for a moment. The White House just made what could be an important move to get testimony from investigators. I want to get your comment on it when we return.

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COOPER: There is breaking news just in the last several minutes on a serious move from the president's campaign to investigate the Russia investigators.

CNN's Jim Acosta is back for us on the phone with details.

Jim, what have you learned?

ACOSTA (via telephone): Well, Anderson, what it looks like is that essentially the President has signed a memorandum ordering all agencies and federal government to cooperate with the Attorney General William Barr's investigation of the Mueller investigation essentially.

He wants full cooperation from all the relevant agencies with the attorney general who has pledged to look into these allegations from the President that he was improperly spied on, illegally spied on during the campaign.

You heard the President earlier today, Anderson, in that wild press conference that we saw inside the White House where he was once again accusing certain people inside the FBI who have since left the FBI of what he called treason.

And so he is obviously very serious about this and has signed a memorandum to, you know, various departments of the federal government, Treasury Department, Defense Department, Secretary of Energy and so on, ordering declassification of information, ordering that information be turned over to the attorney general to conduct this investigation.

Now, Anderson, I just want to caution that, you know, this is coming on, you know, an evening after the President has been engaged in a lengthy back and forth, a war of words with Nancy Pelosi and my suspicion is -- my strong suspicion is in the next 12 to 24 hours, you're going hear some of the President's critics wonder whether or not he is trying to shake a bright shiny object in front of folks to take the attention away from an exchange with the speak that many people in Washington feel did not go in the President's direction, did not go well for the President.

And this goes right back to what the President has talked about, the attorney general has talked about, and that is this notion of investigating the investigators, that the Mueller investigation, the FBI investigation, before there was a Mueller investigation was handled improperly.

But, Anderson, as you and I both know, because you talked to many experts on this subject as of I, there are many, many sources who have spoken to us on air, on record, on background and so on who have said, listen, it would have been law enforcement malpractice for people in the law enforcement community, the FBI, the intelligence community, to not investigate what was going on behind the scenes with the Trump campaign and these possible ties to Russia during the 2016 campaign, Anderson.

COOPER: Yes. Jim Acosta, appreciate with the breaking news. I want to good back to Senator Richard Blumenthal. Senator, I mean, is this just trying to distract from a day of very bad news for the President in terms of his own performance? I mean, is the memorandum telling agencies to cooperate with the attorney general, is that really necessary?

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT): As a former United States attorney and a state attorney general for some 20 years, I am baffled by this memorandum. There seems absolutely no reason for it. Agencies have a legal obligation to cooperate with the attorney general of the United States. And it seems much more like an effort to distract with, frankly, a dull rusty object, not a bright shiny one, and I think that we already have two investigations ongoing into this area.

The Mueller report contains graphic detail about how the investigation got started with credible information about Russian spying, that the FBI began addressing through a counterintelligence investigation. So the need for this memorandum or whatever it is, in fact, seems far from apparent.

COOPER: Yes. Senator Blumenthal, appreciate you sticking around. Thank you very much.

BLUMENTHAL: Thank you.

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