CNN "CNN Newsroom" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Gregory Meeks

Interview

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BALDWIN: Rare, indeed, that that happens.

Kaitlan, thank you very much in Tokyo.

Let me bring in Democratic Congressman Gregory Meeks of New York. He is a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs and Financial Services Committee, as well as the Congressional Black Caucus.

So, Congressman Meeks, a pleasure. Happy Memorial Day to you.

REP. GREGORY MEEKS (D-NY): Thank you.

BALDWIN: So let's just start in on President Trump and what we just heard there. You heard him in the clip at the news conference saying very happy when he was asked about these missile tests from Chairman Kim, and the fact that he obviously is not even listening to what his own aides, what his own national security adviser is saying, not on the same page.

Your reaction to that?

MEEKS: I wish I could say, Brooke, that I'm shocked. But this is more of the same from this guy who's the president.

He seems to side and the people that he likes is people like Kim Jong- un, Putin, Orban, Erdogan, all strong-arm-type people that's living in what I say is close to fascist-type societies, where it's just dominated by the executive.

And it's a constant. I mean, whether you're talking about Europe or Asia, he says one thing, while his people say another, and there's always this conflict. And so, therefore, with our allies, they are confused. Where does the United States stand?

BALDWIN: Kim Jong-un is clearly testing this president. What do you think it would take for President Trump to disavow this relationship? What would Kim have to do?

MEEKS: Well, I don't think that there's anything.

I think Kim is playing the president. He played him in the first summit. He played him at the second summit. So Kim realizes that the real low-I.Q. person is the president, and he can continue to play games with him all along until Kim gets what he wants.

In fact, Kim has already gotten what he wants, the world stage.

BALDWIN: Attention.

MEEKS: And he has -- you know, now Kim is going around the world talking to other world leaders. I think he went over to Russia to meet with Putin. He couldn't do that before. So he's already gotten what he wanted.

BALDWIN: I want to play this clip. This is Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the president's closest allies up on Capitol Hill, and he had this view of the Trump-Kim relationship.

Let's play it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): I don't think it's remotely possible that Chairman Kim will give up his nuclear weapons until he feels the threat to do so.

I'm glad the president's engaging him. All those before President Trump failed on their watch, and President Trump has finally got Kim Jong-un's attention, but I'm not naive about this. I think they're trying to run out the clock on President Trump.

The only way Kim will give up his nuclear weapons, if he believes he's better off without them. And you got to make the threat of military force real if he continues to develop missiles and bombs directed at America.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BALDWIN: His last point, make the threat of military force real for North Korea. Do you agree with the Republican senator?

MEEKS: Absolutely not.

I mean, if I listened to this -- the senator, he wants to go to war North Korea. He wants to go to war in Venezuela. He wants to go to war in Iran.

I mean, where does this stop? So, it is absolutely insane, I think, what he is saying and how -- and what he's advocating. I think that the way that we need to go is multilateralism. So, if we go back to with the South Koreans, and with the Japanese, which are very important to put the pressure on the North Koreans collectively, because...

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: So, you don't think putting that military pressure on North Korea, if after all of these -- the summits, that's not going anywhere, and he's testing the president and he's testing these missiles?

MEEKS: No, I think that we do what we have done before, because the military presence is there. We have our military there.

It's this president that stopped the drills that we were working in conjunction with South Korea.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: With South Korea.

(CROSSTALK)

MEEKS: So we are there and ready to do that.

This president stopped that, because, as I said, I think that he's been played already by Kim Jong-un.

BALDWIN: On your point -- you rattled off all those various dictators around the world who -- these strongmen.

[15:15:02]

On that issue of Trump and these dictators, Senator -- Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar said something that I think took a lot of people aback when she was speaking about listening to Trump's inauguration speech. And she's sitting next to the late Senator John McCain.

And she let us into what the late senator was saying at that time.

Roll it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: John McCain kept reciting to me names of dictators during that speech, because he knew more than any of us what we were facing as a nation. He understood it. He knew, because he knew this man more than any of us did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: And then, Congressman, just as we have been talking, we will throw the tweet up.

Actually, his daughter Meghan McCain just tweeted. She says: "On behalf of the entire McCain family, Senator Amy Klobuchar, please be respectful to all of us and leave my father's legacy and memory out of presidential politics."

So, do you think that that's fair, that people should -- I mean, I don't know. I can't crawl into Senator Klobuchar's mind, but she was just pointing out what Senator McCain was pointing out almost ahead of his time, he was prescient at the time, mentioning all the dictators, but to Meghan McCain's point, keep him out of it?

MEEKS: Yes, I think what the senator was trying to say is, once upon a time, the Republican Party had someone and some people that would stand up to the president, because it's so important for us to show that we are an equal branch of government, the legislative branch.

BALDWIN: Yes.

MEEKS: And so, therefore, she was just pointing up that we had individuals who stood up and would stand up against this president and his acts.

And now you don't have those voices anymore. And so she's basically indicating we're missing something in Congress, so that we can have folks that will stand up for our branch of government against and hold accountable the executive branch of government. And that's what's lacking and missing right now.

I mean, I listened to Senator Graham. He's not there. Some would have thought that he would have been the one to stand up. And you see, he's gone 180 degrees in the different direction.

And you hear virtually nothing from anyone in the Republican Party, basically, standing up for the institution of the legislative branch.

BALDWIN: It was John Boehner -- wasn't it John Boehner who recently said, it's no longer the Republican Party, it's the party of Trump?

Congressman, thank you very much. Congressman Gregory Meeks, good to see you today.

MEEKS: Good to be with you, Brooke.

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