CNN "State of the Union" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Cory Booker

Interview

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TAPPER: Hello. I'm Jake Tapper in Washington, where the state of our union is once again grieving after a mass shooting in the U.S.

Overnight, what has become tragically familiar sight in this country, mourners gathering to remember innocent people gunned down in a mass murder, this time in Virginia Beach, where 12 people were shot to death at the Virginia Municipal Center -- the gunman, a public utilities employee wielding two handguns purchased legally.

This latest massacre is calling new attention to the debate over gun control, an issue that's already been front and center in the Democratic primaries. On Saturday, 2020 Democratic candidates gathered in California for that state's Democratic Party Convention.

One of the 2020 candidates, Senator Cory Booker, threw out his planned convention speech after the shooting and delivered an entirely new one focused on ending gun violence.

And Democratic presidential candidate Senator Cory Booker from New Jersey joins me now live from San Francisco.

Senator Booker, thanks for joining us.

You said yesterday that mass shootings in America -- quote -- "cannot just go on in our country." And you have unveiled a comprehensive gun reform plan.

Now, ATF says that the two weapons used in the attack were handguns, not semiautomatic assault rifles. And they say that they were purchased legally.

How would your plan have stopped this tragedy, if at all?

SEN. CORY BOOKER (D-NJ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, Jake, again, this is a tragedy today, but you know that every single day in the United States of America, in the aggregate, we have mass shootings that go on in neighborhoods like mine.

I live in an inner-city black and brown community. You were there yourself. Moments after you left, we had another shooting in my neighborhood.

We are not helpless to stop this. This is a uniquely American problem. We have carnage in our country at levels that no other nation sees, more people dying in my lifetime due to gun violence than all the Americans that died due to gun violence in every single war from the Revolutionary now -- war until now.

And so this idea that we are helpless to stop this is -- the evidence points differently. We know that everything from licensing, like that Connecticut did, dropped gun violence in their -- in their state by 40 percent, suicides by 15 percent.

We know that there are communities like Oakland that did things by treating gun violence like a public health problem and by investing in communities, empowering them. They were able to lower gun violence.

I have a comprehensive plan that...

TAPPER: Right. BOOKER: ... people say is bold, but I will tell you that -- I will

tell you what. It's not bold. It's commonsense, evidence-based things that we can do to lower gun violence.

We are not helpless.

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: But you keep saying -- I'm sorry to interrupt, but you keep saying, we're not helpless.

So I'm saying, what would have prevented this tragedy? I mean, I think that's one of the issues that people wonder about when there are these horrible tragedies. What steps specifically would have stopped the massacre in Virginia Beach?

BOOKER: And you have taken a look at the 16, 17 things we have in my plan that would drop the levels of violence overall, from one-handgun- a-month laws, all the way to investing in the kind of mental health and the kind of community empowerment strategies that would do something about it.

In the aggregate, we can do things that dramatically lower the levels of violence in our community. But we have allowed this debate to be framed by the corporate gun lobby that has so eroded common sense...

TAPPER: OK.

BOOKER: ... from even stopping the CDC having money to study this problem, from stopping consumer product safety commissions having the ability to regulate in this space.

So, enough is enough.

TAPPER: So, I...

BOOKER: We can do so much more.

[09:05:00]

TAPPER: I hear you not talking about this specific massacre, but talking about gun violence in general, so let's talk about your proposals in general.

You have called for federal gun licenses that would require fingerprints, an interview, a gun safety course.

I want you to listen to former Vice President Joe Biden, who seemed skeptical about your proposal when he was asked about it in New Hampshire. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEPH BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't know whether -- where that is in terms of -- under the Constitution, whether we're able to do that. My guess is we could. But I think it was a lot of things we can do directly now. That's not going to change -- gun licensing will not change whether or not people buy -- what weapons -- what kind of weapons they can buy, where they can use them, how they can store them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: What's your response? Is Vice President Biden correct that gun licenses aren't what ultimately is going to help here?

BOOKER: Look, there are states that have done this that have seen precipitous drops in gun violence.

We need to start looking at the things that work. And I'm -- enough of excuses. There are millions of Americans that live now in fear, fear of letting their kids go to school, fear of going to their house of worships, fear of walking in their own neighborhoods.

We need to have a much more courageous empathy for others that are dealing with this crisis, instead of waiting until it visits upon our neighborhood, our community, our mosque, our concert. We can do things about this problem. We know it.

And the only thing that seems to be lacking is a sense of moral urgency. But, unfortunately, after what happened in Virginia Beach, you see that growing.

And so I -- I'm sorry. You have your choice in this presidential campaign of a lot of folks. If you want someone who's going to take a fight on this issue, take a fight to the corporate gun lobby, take a fight against apathy and indifference, take a fight against the NRA, then I'm your person, for being a person that lives in a community where, on Fourth of July, you see children that react to fireworks with fear, hiding under beds, hiding in closets, because of the post- traumatic stress that happens in neighborhoods where you see shrines to dead kids on street corners.

TAPPER: Mm-hmm.

BOOKER: You know, I'm an African American male. We're 6 percent of the nation's population, but we make up over 50 percent of the gun violence victims.

TAPPER: So...

BOOKER: This is something that's going on all around our nation. Enough is enough. I'm bringing a fight to this. And we will win this fight.

TAPPER: So, you didn't specifically criticize Vice President Biden, but it sounds as though you're saying that you would fight more than he would.

But let me ask you, because the Obama-Biden administration, you're proposing something very bold, in your words, perhaps far-reaching, certainly. President Obama, Vice President Biden, they were not able to get even modest gun control measures through Congress when they were in office after Sandy Hook. So, my question for you is, how are you going to do it? Even if you're elected president, you might not have a veto-proof majority in the House and the Senate.

And, if you do have that, you might have a lot of Democratic members who come from states where gun rights are very important, such as Montana. How will you be able to get something passed, where Obama and Biden were not able to?

BOOKER: Well, this echoes to me the civil rights movement, where civil rights legislation passed time and time again. The longest filibuster in the Senate was Strom Thurmond trying to stop civil rights legislation from happening.

And people said it couldn't be done, that there were states that were standing firmly against it. But you know what happened is, we had leaders that called to the moral imagination of our country, called to the conscience of our nation, built the kind of coalitions necessary to tear down segregation.

And so here we have a nation that has untold levels of carnage and violence and shootings every single day, suicides, 90 to 100 people dying every single day.

I believe we -- that just because we have failed in the past doesn't mean we will fail in the future.

TAPPER: Mm-hmm.

BOOKER: I believe it takes grit and fight and will.

And we could muster that in the United States to do commonsense things that do not take away people's Second Amendment rights. The only people that should be afraid of the kind of legislation I'm pushing are gun runners, criminals, and the corporate gun lobby.

TAPPER: So, Senator, we only have a little bit of time, but I do want to ask you about impeachment.

After special counsel Robert Mueller spoke this week, you came out. You tweeted that Congress should begin impeachment proceedings immediately against President Trump.

I'm a little confused, because Mueller didn't really say anything on Wednesday that he hadn't written in his report. What made you change your thinking?

BOOKER: Well, it was a few weeks of seeing a president who wants to undermine congressional -- excuse me -- constitutional intent, and say that he's above the law.

He has not been complying with subpoenas. He has not been complying with legitimate congressional inquiries to continue the investigation that Mueller very specifically said it's on Congress now to continue after he put this report forward that clearly indicated that there is potential corruption and obstruction of justice.

[09:10:06]

This president is not above the law. He should not be able to stop the checks and balances on the executive. And I feel like we have a moral obligation now to investigate this president.

Impeachment proceedings will give us more legal leverage to be able to get the information Congress needs to get to the bottom of what his administration has done while they're in office.

TAPPER: Senator Cory Booker, live in San Francisco, thanks for joining us this morning. We appreciate it, sir.

BOOKER: Thank you for having me.

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