CNN "CNN Newsroom" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Cory Booker

Interview

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SCIUTTO: Joining us now is Democratic candidate for president, Senator Cory Booker.

Senator, we appreciate you taking the time this morning.

SEN. CORY BOOKER (D-NJ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: No, thank you for having me on.

SCIUTTO: So let me start, if I can, and we respect the effort. Poppy and I have interviewed too many parents of children lost to gun violence on this program. And I know you've encountered many victims as well.

But I want to get to a practical question first, and that is -- that is how. Republicans control the Senate. As you know, many of your Democratic colleagues, they are reluctant to take on the NRA as well. How do you get measures like this past Congress, including an assault weapons ban, where many have failed before you?

BOOKER: Well, this asked question of how it's been asked before in our history of times of great moral crisis. Civil rights legislation failed time and time again. And a lot of people were asking how. And a lot of people were saying that activists were asking for too much and demanding too much.

[09:40:12] But we brought a fight in the civil rights movement like Congress had never seen and overwhelmed the racist rants of people like Strom Thurmond, who were trying to block that legislation.

This is a moment where we have a national crisis. In my short lifetime, more people have died due to gun violence in all the wars in American history, from the Revolutionary War to the present. The carnage in our communities, the fear that we see from neighborhoods like mine, where we just had a shooting two blocks from where I live this weekend --

HARLOW: Yes. Yes.

BOOKER: All the way to people in communities around this country. Enough is enough. And so I'm the guy who's helped dealt with this issue on a very personal level. People I've lived with in my buildings, people from my neighborhood, an assault rifle killing, Shahad Smith (ph), on my block last year. Enough is enough. We're going to bring a fight like the NRA and the gun lobby, and those people who don't stand with the majority of Republicans who believe we should be taking steps to end the carnage in America. I will not only lead this fight, but we will win this fight.

HARLOW: So, Senator Booker, one thing that really stood out to me this morning reading your proposal, which you've just unveiled today, is that you propose a mandatory interview for every person who would like to purchase a gun. Tell us a little bit more about that. Who would be doing the interview? Would that person be the ultimate decider on if an American can buy a gun? And what would they be looking for?

BOOKER: Well --

HARLOW: And, on top of that, would they get a second shot at an interview ever or does this person decide yes or no for the person's lifetime?

BOOKER: Well, let's not exaggerate what this is. It's actually really simple. We do it for passports. We do it for TSA pre-check. We make sure that the documentation people are putting before aligns with the truth. And so this is just basically licensing.

HARLOW: OK.

BOOKER: We do this for people who are driving cars. It's not --

HARLOW: But so I understand, the interview would be a more factual interview, you know, are they who they say they are, not an interview about their mental health or assessing their ability to have a gun and use it judiciously.

BOOKER: Yes, again, we -- this is not something new. We do it in many states. Connecticut did this and they dropped the gun violence in their state by over 40 percent, deaths by suicide by over 15 percent. There's nothing that is, in fact, not shown evidence based in this plan that would drive down gun violence and shift the terms of the debate, which have been shaped, not by legislators, shaped not by Americans. It's been shaped by the corporate gun lobby that has an insidious agenda to get more of these killing machines in the hands of people that are going to do harm.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Yes.

BOOKER: And our -- and our legislation has been shaped in dramatic ways. Most people don't know that consumer product safety literally had -- the one industry that's been exempted is the gun lobby. So we have different regulations for toy guns and no regulations for weapons on our streets that are killing so many people.

SCIUTTO: And people often forget the financial incentive.

I want to ask, if I can, where the party is in this big Democratic field for president, and you, yourself, because, as a senator, you started your time in the Senate as a relative moderate. You publicly defended private equity, for instance. But you've moved in a more progressive direction during those years, and as you've run for president, supporting marijuana legalization, for instance, but also now, during this race, Medicare for all, green new deal. And I just wonder, because when you look at the CNN polling, many, arguably most Democratic voters, are more moderate than that on the big issues. Is the party moving too far to the left and does that reduce your chances of beating Trump in 2020?

BOOKER: Well, I actually reject your analysis. Since the time I was a mayor, I'm a pragmatist. I had to fix things when I was the chief executive of New Jersey's largest city. And, in fact, if you look at tweets going back to 2009, my positions then are consistent with my positions now.

And, by the way, things like getting institutional capital into Newark to build our first new hotel, it created hundreds of jobs. Now we have four or five new hotels in Newark. These are the things that make a difference for the people that live in my community. I was the only person in the United States Senate that lives in a lower income, inner city, black and brown community. I don't have time for ideological purity that undermines progress for people right now.

And so my positions have been consistent about what are the kind of things that make a difference for families that are struggling.

SCIUTTO: Senator, to be fair, how do you achieve Medicare for all now? How do you pay for it? How do you achieve the green new deal now? How do you pay for it? I mean these are issues that sound great on social media, but how do you bring that to reality?

BOOKER: Well, you and I share the same frustration. If we reduce this campaign to sloganizing, then voters are going to be shortchanged. And that's why in my town halls, I have substantive conversations and I'm telling people know that we're not going to be able to flip a switch and get Medicare for all to fix this savagely broken system where we spend more money than any other country on the planet earth and get worse results than any other industrial nation. And so the way you do that is by beginning to take steps towards expanding access and lowering costs, by creating Medicare for all who want it or reducing the Medicare eligibility to 55, which would help us lower costs in the private insurance pools.

[09:45:21] And so if you actually listen to what I say beyond the initial value statement that everybody in America should have a right to health care, the pragmatic plan is very similar to how we turned around a city. When I told people, hey, we in Newark are going to double the production of affordable housing. The how was very hard. We had to think of creative ways. But if you go in Newark right now, we achieved our goals and turned around a city on many bigger issues.

My whole career has been about running towards problems people said were impossible to solve, but being very pragmatic and bringing together uncommon coalitions to produce uncommon results.

HARLOW: Can I --

BOOKER: The best evidence of that, as a United States senator, is people told me we couldn't pass comprehensive criminal justice reform with a Republican president. Well, I led that on the Democratic Senate side with Dick Durbin and got things accomplished by being pragmatic and working across the aisle to find common ground.

HARLOW: Senator Booker, before you go, just one final question on your gun proposal, since you've just released it this morning.

Your fellow -- your competitor in the 2020 race, Congressman Eric Swalwell, has also, like you, proposed an assault weapons ban. But he's proposing a buy-back programs where Americans who currently have those guns could sell them essentially to the government. But if they don't, within a certain period of time, they would be prosecuted, so subject to be thrown in jail perhaps. Are you supportive of the same measure?

BOOKER: Well, first of all, when I was mayor of the city of Newark, again, I have a record on dealing with gun violence. We -- we did a lot of gun buy-backs. And even other creative ideas that I think we should have when I'm president of the United States.

The critical thing is, I think most Americans agree that these weapons of war should not be on our streets. And, again, some --

HARLOW: But would you -- would you prosecute people? Do you support the government buying them back and, if not, potentially people could go to jail if they don't want to sell them back, yes or no?

BOOKER: Again, we should have a law that bans these weapons and we should have a reasonable period in which people can turn in these weapons. Right now we have a nation that allows, in streets and communities like mine, these weapons that should not exist.

SCIUTTO: Senator Cory Booker, good to have you on. We look forward to keeping up the conversation.

HARLOW: Yes.

BOOKER: Yes, thank you very much.

HARLOW: Thank you.

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