CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Hakeem Jeffries
Interview
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BLITZER: We will see what happens.
Joe Johns at the White House for us, Joe, thank you very much.
Joining us now, Congressman Hakeem Jeffries. He's a Democrat. He serves on the House Judiciary Committee. He's also chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. He's a leader in the House of Representatives.
Congressman, thanks so much for joining us.
REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D), NEW YORK: Great to be with you, Wolf.
BLITZER: All right, so let's begin with this growing feud between the president and the speaker. He called her statement that she would like to see him in prison disgusting. You heard that.
Do you believe it's OK, first of all, for the speaker of the House to tell her colleagues that she would like to see the president actually go to prison?
JEFFRIES: Well, I wasn't in the meeting and so I'm not really in a position to elucidate clearly on the speaker's comments, other than to say that she has maintained consistently and publicly that the House is going to do its constitutional duty, but we're going to do it in a dignified fashion.
We're going to follow the facts. We're going to apply the law. We will be guided by the United States Constitution. And we will see where that leads us.
BLITZER: Well, what do you believe, Congressman? Do you believe the president may have committed crimes and should wind up in jail?
JEFFRIES: Well, there certainly is reason to be troubled by the pattern of behavior that was outlined particularly in volume two of the Mueller report and in volume one of the Mueller report, where the special counsel made clear that Russia attacked our democracy for the purpose of artificially placing Donald Trump at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and that Donald Trump and the Trump campaign embraced Russian interference.
[18:10:13]
That's deeply troubling as well. What we want to do as House Democrats, led by Jerry Nadler, the chair of the Judiciary Committee, Elijah Cummings and Adam Schiff, is to gather all of the evidence.
We want the unredacted Mueller report, because we can't trust the attorney general to have presumptively made legitimate redactions. We want the underlying documentation. And we ultimately, I believe, should hear from Bob Mueller publicly, who needs to tell his story to the American people.
BLITZER: As I mentioned, you're the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. You're one of the Democratic leaders in the House. As you know, at least 59 of your members, Democrats, they want to at least begin impeachment proceedings against the president, but I take it you disagree, as does the speaker, Nancy Pelosi.
What would it take for you to support opening a formal impeachment inquiry?
JEFFRIES: Well, I support the process that has been laid out right now by Chairman Nadler, which is, we're going to have hearings on obstruction of justice beginning this Monday, hearings on abuse of power, and hearings on the culture of corruption that appears to exist at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Once those hearings have been conducted, we will see what comes out and then we can decide how to proceed at that point. In the interim, I think the House Democratic Caucus will continue to be united around getting things done for the American people.
Donald Trump has suggested that we haven't been doing anything. He's not paying attention. The Senate is not doing anything. We have passed bills to lower health care costs, to protect people with preexisting conditions, to drive down the high cost of lifesaving prescription drugs, strengthen the Affordable Care Act, deal with the gun violence epidemic.
The problem, Wolf, is that we continue to send bills over to the Senate which under Mitch McConnell has been a legislative graveyard.
BLITZER: Well, he doesn't even allow a lot of those bills that have passed the House of Representatives, where there's a Democratic majority, to even come up for a vote. What, if anything, can you do about that?
JEFFRIES: Well, we're going to have to raise the stakes and have a public discussion, so that the public can decide, do we want either a functional Senate or are we going to replace the Senate?
At the end of the day, the Senate needs to at least put forth some ideas as to how they're going to confront the issues that are top of mind for the American people, which include the skyrocketing, out-of- control health care costs, as well as our desire to try to find a bipartisan pathway to fix our crumbling bridges, roads, tunnels, airports, and mass transportation system?
We know that the president sometimes signals that he wants to do it and then, at other times, throws a temper tantrum, runs off to the Far East, and claims that Democrats are not interested in trying to find common ground.
We actually want to find common ground legislatively, but, at the same time, we're not going to shirk from our oversight responsibilities to investigate a potentially out-of-control executive branch.
BLITZER: Should the speaker get the final say on whether Democrats eventually wind up opening up an impeachment process, or should that fall to the chairman of your committee, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Jerry Nadler?
JEFFRIES: Well, I think it should fall to everyone, but the speaker
is the first amongst equals. And she has set forth, I think, what is a standard that the overwhelming majority of House Democrats continue to embrace, which is that in order to proceed toward impeachment, the case should be compelling, the evidence should be overwhelming, and the sentiment around impeachment should be bipartisan in nature.
We don't have any love for Donald Trump. But we do love the American people. And in order to proceed down the road toward impeachment, we have to make sure that we take that solemn responsibility in a way that is done that doesn't further divide the country, but tries to bring the country together, bring the country along in terms of bringing forth the facts that have come out in the Mueller report.
BLITZER: As you know, our congressional correspondent, Manu Raju, has now been reporting that the Judiciary Committee chairman, Jerry Nadler, privately, privately, has been pushing the speaker to open up this impeachment inquiry.
Do you worry that the growing divide among Democratic leadership could potentially wind up hurting the party?
JEFFRIES: Well, we are the most diverse legislative caucus in the history of the country. We have more women now serving in the House of Representatives than ever before, more African-Americans, more Latinos, more Asian Americans, more Native American women, more members of the LGBTQ community.
We come from all over the country, urban America, rural America, suburban America. So, we embrace the diversity, which includes a diversity of perspectives. At the end of the day, I'm confident that we will come together and speak with one voice.
I was on a call with Chairman Nadler earlier today and other members of the Judiciary Committee. We were unified with respect to the approach that we're going to take next week with the start of the obstruction of justice hearings.
[18:15:07]
BLITZER: Congressman Hakeem Jeffries of New York, thanks so much for joining us.
JEFFRIES: Thank you, Wolf.
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