CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Rashida Tlaib

Interview

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BLITZER: Everybody, stick around. There's a lot more we need to discuss, but joining us now from Capitol Hill is one of the Democratic congresswomen who was personally attacked by the President, Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. She's a member of the Oversight Committee.

Congresswoman, thanks so much for taking a few moments and joining us.

TLAIB: Thank you for having me.

BLITZER: I just want to get to some of the sensitive issues, and you can share your thoughts. Have you personally been receiving death threats as a result of what the President has been leveling?

TLAIB: We haven't received death threats, but I can tell you, overwhelmingly, so many people are actually calling -- American people from all across the country, calling and apologizing on behalf of the President.

So many of them are very saddened by what he has said. So many people really want the message to be out there that they belong, that they're loved, that we're all very much American. And, you know, that's what I'm hearing a lot.

And then, look, some people are calling, obviously, very hateful messages to myself, repeating word by word what the President tweeted out. It's very unfortunate. I mean, these are failed policies that he needs to focus on fixing this country rather than attacking us personally.

BLITZER: Are you concerned about your safety?

TLAIB: I'm always concerned about my safety, Wolf. Look, I'm a mother of two boys. I want to go home to them every single day if I can, and I do always worry about that. But my district, the 13th congressional district, didn't elect me to work and fight for them from a place of fear. So I won't allow, like my grandmother taught me, for any bully, even if it's the President of the United States, to silence me, to have me stop fighting on their behalf.

BLITZER: We just spoke to Congressman Will Hurd of Texas. He's a Republican. He bitterly attacked, criticized, went after the President for issuing what he called these racist and xenophobic statements. But have you or any of your colleagues among the four of you received any direct communication from the leadership -- from the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives?

TLAIB: I can tell you a couple of members are just personally reaching out and just apologizing. It's very unfortunate that people -- other regular American people, including my colleagues, are apologizing on behalf of the President.

You know, this is a dangerous ideology, Wolf. This is a dangerous ideology that is seeping into policy-making, from caging up children at the border to even this whole debate around the census question, the citizenship question on the census.

All of this is all tied to this ideology of the President that is extremely dangerous and really impactful. I can tell you, every single day, all of his actions can be looked to as impeachable offenses because they completely, completely blatantly disregard the United States constitution.

BLITZER: Have you heard from Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader in the House?

TLAIB: No. And, look, as long as I'm hearing from my district, as long as they are telling me to stay strong, that they continue to tell me this is why we sent you there, is to push back against this hate- filled rhetoric, we -- you know, if you look about this, I got elected a year -- a couple of years after he -- he's been in office. This was very much a referendum.

This is a community that is predominantly non-Muslim, Wolf, and elected the -- one of the first of two Muslim American women. If that is not a referendum, if that is not a message that they're sending to the President that we all belong, that they don't support the Muslim ban, that they support a country that puts us all together but unites us all together to make us stronger, I don't know what does.

BLITZER: The whole nature of what's going on right now, did you ever anticipate you would be facing these kinds of questions, that you would be personally attacked the way you have been by the President of the United States?

TLAIB: Absolutely not. I mean, it's not -- you know, it's obviously expected with -- you know, from the 2016 campaigning. Even in the city of Detroit, I remember him coming down and me asking, very loudly, in a hall, have you ever read the United States constitution? Because he was supporting banning Muslims back then, talking about Mexicans being rapists. I mean, so many things that, I think, very much divide our community -- communities across this country and very much are very un-American.

Very unfortunately, he got elected president of the United States. But then, here comes the most diverse, the largest incoming class since Watergate, ironically, that is now leading the majority in the United States Congress. Again, if that is not a referendum in itself of the American people rising up and saying enough is enough, I don't know what is.

[17:50:08] But thank you so much, Wolf, for having me on the show, and I really do appreciate being able to at least let folks know -- especially that young girl that maybe looks like me that may have heard the President say this, I just want her to know that she belongs, that she is loved, and that she is very much seen and heard by myself and member -- many members of the United States Congress.

BLITZER: You're a child of immigrants here to the United States. I'm a child of immigrants here to the United States as well. And all of us can relate specifically to what's going on because I'm sure you've heard basically most of your life, go back to where you came from. Talk a little bit about that.

TLAIB: I mean, look, I can tell you that me being a child of Palestinian immigrants, you know, I spoke very much Arabic and English in my household. I love the fact that I have that background, that I'm rooted in being a child of immigrants.

Because so much of the lens that my mother had when she saw things in the United States, from all the beauty of it, she said, you know, we never had that in my country, but we have it here. That she only went up to eighth-grade education, but then she saw her daughter graduate from high school. And then she saw her daughter graduate from college and onto law school and become a United States congresswoman.

If that is not truly the spirit of what we have to be pushing forward from the leadership down, I don't know what is. That is something spectacular that I want my son. You know, when I tell him every day that he is loved, that all the things that he might be hearing in school or from certain kinds of outlets, that he knows that more people are like us. That they love each other, they believe in unity in our communities, and to be able to come from a place of love and respect for each other.

BLITZER: As you point out, you are the first of two Muslim women to serve in the United States Congress. Why do you think President Trump specifically chose to paint the two of you as disloyal? He just tweeted, by the way, a few moments ago, certain people hate our country.

TLAIB: No, I think he's the one who hates our country. Because I'm an American, just like anyone else, and I can tell you this is a failed presidency. And he knows it. 333

He has a failed border policy where, right now, there are children dying in our care. He has a failed policy on health care. To this day, we have people struggling to pay for insulin, can't have affordable access to health care, to prescription drugs. You have a failed system on our education crisis in our country.

This is a failed president. He's a lawless president. And that's what he wants to distract us from. He wants us unfocused.

And I'm going to tell you right now, we are so much zero -- even more zero focused than we ever have in saying, you know what, as we're doing this press conference, as he's tweeting out, we know, right now, there are ICE raids, agents knocking on people's doors without warrants.

This is the United States federal government coming into homes, to communities all across this country doing something that is very much illegal and very much unconstitutional.

BLITZER: What do you think of the fact that the President falsely tried to associate Congresswoman Omar to al-Qaeda. What do you make of that lie? We all heard it on television earlier today.

TLAIB: Because he's Islamophobic, Wolf. I mean, this is exactly his M.O. He has nothing else to deliver for the American people.

I can tell you, right now, I have the third poorest congressional district in the country. The corporate assaults on working families are very real. Their lives have not changed for the better under this president's leadership, under this president's rule very much.

So many of them are saying, he hasn't done enough on all of the issues that matter to them around their quality of life. Poverty among children has actually increased in our country. We see, right now, that schools are -- the education and special education in our country has not been fully funded. You know, all these things.

As I'm continuing coming between Detroit and the -- and Washington, D.C., I get text messages, e-mails from people at home telling me, please do something about the prescription drugs. Please do something about the health care crisis. And that's exactly what we're trying to do, to zero focus on that.

And that's what they want -- he wants us to do. He wants us -- to distract us from the fact that we are pushing forward on an agenda that, I think, really truly results in bettering the -- our country and very much bettering the lives of our American -- our American people.

BLITZER: The President was actually applauded by some of his supporters over at the White House today when he defended his remarks, his tweets from the weekend. Clearly, there are Americans out there who enthusiastically embrace his kind of racist rhetoric. What's your message to them?

TLAIB: No, I'm -- there's more of us than them. There's more love -- there's more love for unity, for respect for each other. There's a love that this is a nation of immigrants. There's a love that, yes, universal 3health care is a human right.

There is more support for an agenda as we push forward around economic justice, racial justice, environmental justice than there are around this hate rhetoric.

[17:55:08] BLITZER: Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, thanks so much for joining us. Good luck out there. And we will stay in close touch.

TLAIB: Thank you, Wolf.

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