MSNBC "All In with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: "Mueller to testify before Congress tomorrow."

Interview

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HAYES: Today the oldest and largest civil rights organization in the country voted unanimously to support the impeachment of the President of the United States. The leader of the NAACP saying in a statement "Trump needs to know he`s not above the law and the crimes that he is committed and he must be prosecuted. The NAACP came -- vote came after months of internal conflict among Democrats around the issue of impeachment, and it came one day after the organization heard from two of the leading voices on either side of the impeachment debate. Rashida Tlaib who came to Washington D.C. vowing to quote impeach this MF`er and Nancy Pelosi who once said of impeaching the president "he`s just not worth it. Joining me now one of the key members of Pelosi leadership team Congressman Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus who will be questioning Robert Mueller tomorrow when he appears before the House Judiciary Committee. I will begin with a question that I just asked your colleague Mike Quigley which is the relationship between high crimes and misdemeanors as a sort of constitutional threshold that you have to consider as a member of the House and the testimony tomorrow. Aren`t they inextricably bound? Isn`t it the case that you can`t be thinking of that in the back of your head as you talked to Robert Mueller?

REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): Well, they are certainly connected based on historical precedent. Of course, some of the articles of impeachment that triggered the resignation of Richard Nixon related to obstruction of justice and the article of impeachment that was passed out of the House of Representatives in addition to one or two others related to the impeachment of Bill Clinton which of course I opposed but also involved obstruction of justice. One of the things that we need to establish tomorrow is that obstruction of justice is a serious crime under federal law that undermines the integrity of judicial system and prohibits investigators from seeking the truth on behalf of the American people. I would expect that that is something that Bob Mueller will affirm and we`ll take it from there as it`s applied to Donald Trump and his behavior.

HAYES: I want to give you a theory of the ways in which you and Nancy Pelosi and others in House leadership sort of view this moment and get your response to it. So I think there`s some people who view the leadership as basically thinking that it is tactically unwise to impeach the President of the United States politically, that it`s just unwise, but that it`s hard to keep the reins on the caucus. And ergo the more derogatory information you uncover about Donald Trump, the harder it makes your job and leadership in restraining the caucus from wanting to impeach.

JEFFRIES: Well, our job is pretty simple. Follow the facts, apply to law, and be guided by the Constitution. That is what Speaker Pelosi has eloquently laid out. The case should be compelling, the evidence should be overwhelming. The case for impeachment and the sentiment around this should be bipartisan in nature. And so we`re just marching toward undertaking our constitutional responsibilities as a separate and co-equal branch of government. Tomorrow will be an important step in that direction with the testimony of Bob Mueller.

HAYES: I want to ask about the budget funding deal that appears to be cut which looks like I think probably is a pretty good chance of passage. There`s lots of ways in which it is responsive to Democratic priorities on social spending particularly. But there`s one question I`ve seen raised which is that it creates a debt ceiling time bomb in the first quarter of the next president of the United States, right. It gets rid of it for the rest of Donald Trump`s term and then let`s say a Democratic president were to be sworn in and Mitch McConnell was running the Senate, are you worried that you have handed Republicans a loaded weapon that they have already used once against Barack Obama back in 2011?

JEFFRIES: What we need to get through the week, let alone a month, the year, and the next election, and so particularly under this presidency --

HAYES: Is that the -- wait, is that the thinking though?

JEFFRIES: Well, listen, I think that it was important to remove the uncertainty of a potential debt ceiling explosion at this particular moment which could have had devastating consequences with an irresponsible president. And so the deal that was negotiated by Speaker Pelosi and leader Schumer was an incredibly important one. It will elevate House Democratic caucus priorities in areas of investing in education and job training and infrastructure and affordable housing creation as well as childcare, and then we`ll deal with what we have to deal with in the aftermath of the next election. But there`s a lot of work that we have to execute upon before then and we`re going to continue to do that.

HAYES: Before the president`s tweets about four of your colleagues and them going back to their countries and the send them back chants, immediately preceding that, there was a quite open rift in the Democratic coalition and caucus. You know, the House Democratic Caucus official Twitter account tweeting at the chief of staff for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to keep congresswoman`s name out of your mouth. Tensions obviously very high and spilling out to the public. What is the current state of things in that caucus?

JEFFRIES: Well, we are a diverse caucus, we`re robust caucus, we`re very passionate caucus. But at the end of the day, we understand that we`re stronger together than we are moving in different directions. And so every single member of the caucus is incredibly important from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to (INAUDIBLE) and everyone in between. The progressives are important, the new Dems are important, the Blue Dogs are important. And we have a job to do on behalf of the American people with respect to lowering health care costs and driving down the high cost of life-saving prescription drugs and acting a real infrastructure plan, and fighting for everyday Americans. And ultimately that`s what unites us.

HAYES: If those are the priorities as you just enunciate them, I just want to ask about today`s resolution that passed 398 to 17, a resolution opposing efforts to delegitimize the State of Israel and the global boycott divestment and sanctions movement targeting Israel. Why was that a priority given the priorities as you just enunciated them, giving everything that`s going on, why was that important for leadership to bring up for a vote now?

JEFFRIES: Well, you know, the decision was made to move that legislation out of the Foreign Affairs Committee which happened last week and a normal cost of regular order would be to bring it to the floor today. It obviously received an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote amongst both Democrats and Republicans. I support the effort to make sure that we denounce any efforts to delegitimize the State of Israel. There few members who have a disagreement but we can agree to disagree without being disagreeable on this issue and on many other issues.

HAYES: All right, congressman Hakeem Jeffries, thank you so much for joining me tonight.

JEFFRIES: Thank you, Chris,

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