CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Chris Van Hollen

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

BLITZER: I'm sure they will. OK, Jim Acosta at the White House,

thank you.

Joining us now, Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland. He's a member of the Appropriations Committee.

Thanks so much for joining us. Democrats in the House and Senate say they would like to start pursuing President Trump's personal financial and corporate records as part of a lawsuit over his businesses.

What do you hope to learn from those records?

SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D), MARYLAND: Well, Wolf, the Constitution is very clear. That Presidents of the United States should not be benefiting financially from foreign governments when they're in office. And there's a whole lot of evidence that, on many decisions, President Trump is putting the welfare of foreign governments ahead of our own people.

And so, this is a lawsuit -- and I'm part of this lawsuit -- to get additional information about Trump's finances, specifically whether or not and exactly how he's benefiting from these foreign investments.

Take the Trump hotel in Washington, D.C. You've got a lot of foreign governments deciding to use that, including Saudi Arabia, that cozies up to the president. And look what Saudi Arabia's getting.

I mean, the president looks the other way when they murder a New York -- excuse me, Khashoggi, a "Washington Post" writer. Now the president has essentially used so-called emergency powers, abusing the process, to send the Saudis more arms. So these are the kinds of things we have to look at.

BLITZER: Do you have any specific evidence, Senator, that the president is acting in his own personal financial interests rather than the interests of the United States?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, you can see, Wolf, that one of the most profitable hotels right now is the Trump hotel in Washington. And part of the reason it's doing well is that foreign governments are choosing to send their delegations there. So that is one clear set of, you know, evidence.

We need to look into it more deeply. And if you look at a lot of the president's foreign policy decisions, it's hard to explain them, if not for the president having a personal interest at stake.

So this is part of the regular discovery process. Again, this is written right into our Constitution. The president had an opportunity to essentially divest himself of his ownership interests. He chose not to. And now it's perfectly appropriate for Congress to determine whether there is a constitutional violation.

BLITZER: Yes, it's the emoluments clause, Article I, Section IX, Clause VIII which says that no president should, quote, "accept any present, emolument, office or title of any kind whatsoever from any king, prince or foreign state."

That's what you're referring to. Let's turn to the latest fight, Senator, between President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden. It all started with the president embracing Kim Jong-un, as the North Korean dictator taunted Biden. Now Biden says the president is behaving beneath the dignity of the office. That's what Biden's campaign is saying.

What do you make of that?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, Wolf, it was a despicable statement. And unfortunately --

[17:15:00]

VAN HOLLEN: -- every time the president of the United States goes overseas, he embarrasses our country, he embarrasses himself.

And this was just wrong on two counts. I mean, number one, taking a potshot like this at Biden overseas but, probably more importantly here, siding with a North Korean dictator, a brutal dictator, who essentially murdered an American citizen, Otto Warmbier.

And instead of holding Kim Jong-un accountable, he's playing pattycakes with this North Korean leader, while he not only insults Joe Biden but he's standing next to the Japanese prime minister, Prime Minister Abe, who made clear that North Korea's firing of ballistic missiles violated the U.N. sanctions regime.

And you have Donald Trump, our president, standing right next to him, saying, oh, no, no problem, it doesn't matter, very much like we saw President Trump do when he stood next to President Putin in Helsinki, siding with the Russian dictator over U.S. intelligence agencies on the question of Russian interference in our elections. So we see a pattern here.

BLITZER: You were referring to Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader. The Trump campaign has responded to Biden's campaign statement. Let me read a portion of what Trump campaign just said.

"That's rich coming from Joe Biden, who bashed President Trump while standing on foreign soil earlier this year in Germany. From the Iraq War to the Russia reset, Joe Biden has been wrong on virtually every foreign policy call in the last four decades."

President Obama also went after Donald Trump during a 2016 campaign event while he was abroad.

Can Joe Biden claim the high ground here?

VAN HOLLEN: Yes, Wolf. The issue here is not so much criticism of Joe Biden, as crass as it was. It was President Trump deciding to essentially second and endorse the comments of the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un, who's a brutal dictator, who is, as I said, essentially murdered Otto Warmbier and has been violating U.S. sanctions. And yet when the moment comes, you have the president of the United

States, Donald Trump, siding with the remarks of Kim Jong-un.

What this tells me is that the North Korean dictator knows how to play Donald Trump. He is playing him beautifully and at the expense of our national security. When the president looks the other way in the face of violations of the sanctions agreement and the president continues to elevate Kim Jong-un on the world stage without getting an agreement to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.

BLITZER: Senator Chris Van Hollen, thanks so much for joining us.

VAN HOLLEN: Good to be with you.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source