MSNBC "Hardball with Chris Mathews" - Transcript: "Trump admits discussing Biden."
Interview
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MATTHEWS: I`m joined by Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Senator, once again, you see Trump in action making these Benghazi comments, this email stuff with no claim of actual information, no claim of actual guilt on the other side, just throwing crap out there. But let`s talk about the president, what he did admit. He admitted talking to a leader of a foreign country, trying to get dirt from him on a political opponent, using his goodwill, generally speaking, it doesn`t have to apply, it seems to me, to whether it`s the foreign aid that he`s holding up, freezing at that time, $250 million in foreign military aid or a visit to the White House. It`s the goodwill of an American president for sale, your thoughts, to get dirt, Senator Murphy.
SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): Think of it this way, Chris. If the Mueller report had included evidence of a phone call between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, in which Donald Trump asked Vladimir Putin eight different times for his help in the 2016 election, that would have been the smoking gun. I don`t think Donald Trump would be in office today. And I don`t know that it matters that that call happened with Ukraine instead of with Russia. And as you mentioned, the quid pro quo really doesn`t matter here. Obviously, that would elevate people`s concern, but there is an implicit threat in every single conversation an American president has with another world leader asking them to do something, especially with a country like Ukraine that is so dependent on U.S. support. So even if he didn`t say explicitly, if you don`t investigate the Biden`s on this B.S. charges I`m making, you`re not going to get the aid, of course, Zelensky would consider that if he didn`t accede to the president`s direct personal request to him, that there would be consequences. And I think as far as we know, Zelensky did not instigate an investigation of the Bidens. And guess what happened, the aid got cut off.
MATTHEWS: You know, I grew up in a time where we looked out for countries that were vulnerable to Russia, the ones that lived on its borders, and we were the good guys, whether it was Hungary or Poland or wherever, Ukraine, we were the ones that helped those captive nations become free. And here he is, the president of the United States -- just your thoughts on the history here. Here`s the president of the United States saying, okay, we know you`re vulnerable to the Russians, they have taken part of your country already effectively. Do you want our help or don`t you? If you want our help, give me the dirt on Biden.
MURPHY: No. Listen, this was part of the reason that I went to Ukraine three weeks ago. I had heard that Zelensky was beside himself about the cutoff of aid but also very confused about whether these overtures involved in the 2020 election were official requests from the U.S. government. This is a moment where you need to support Ukrainian sovereignty and their independence. And the kind of corruption that we`re trying to root out all over the world is exactly what Trump is displaying right now. The idea that the president would use the power of his office to try to bully people in to digging up dirt on his political opponents is exactly the kind of corruption that the State Department of the United States tries to stop and counter all over the world. The example that we are setting is going to handicap our efforts at anti-corruption in every corner of the globe if we don`t hold the president accountable.
MATTHEWS: Well, Senator, today, the president suggested blocking military aid to Ukraine would be appropriate. In fact, Trump linked the aid package to Ukraine`s handling of corruption. Here we go.
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TRUMP: Let me just tell you, what Biden did was wrong.
REPORTER: What did you tell the Ukrainian president about Joe Biden and his son during your phone call?
TRUMP: Well, you`re going to see, because what we are doing is we want honesty. And if we deal with a country, we want honesty. We`re supporting a country. We want to make sure that country is honest. It`s very important to talk about corruption. If you don`t talk about corruption, why would you give money to a country that you think is corrupt?
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MATTHEWS: What do you make of that, Senator? Because what he`s doing there is tying together the idea that going after Biden is part of his job, going after Biden is part of his job to remove corruption.
MURPHY: Right. Well, he`s making up the allegations against the vice president. And I think that`s really important to understand. This prosecutor that Biden and the entire world community, the IMF, the G7, all of our European partners were asking to be let go. This prosecutor was corrupt to the bone. And by the way, this prosecutor was not undertaking an investigation or a prosecution of the company that Hunter Biden was associated with. And so there was no investigation to shut down or to stop. Yesterday, Mike Pompeo went on T.V. and accused Joe Biden of election interference, which is a brand new preposterous charge, I guess, alleging that Biden somehow interfered in the American election in 2016. It just shows that they are literally making it up as they go along. And let`s see the transcript of the phone call. Maybe the president of the United States lays out 10 or 20 different corruption investigations that he thinks the Ukrainians should be prosecuting and Biden is on that list. I doubt that`s the substance of that call. I bet the only single investigation that the president raises in that call is the one against his likely 2020 presidential opponent.
MATTHEWS: Well, according to The Wall Street Journal, Senator, when asked if the whistleblower`s complaint should be turned over to Congress, as law requires, Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas today said, is it a whistleblower or a leaker? I don`t know which. What do you think? I`ve watched the first branch of our government under Article 1, your branch, the United States Congress, you have had rights under statute to get things like Trump`s tax returns delivered over to the Ways and Means, and Senate Finance Committees, and now you`ve got a statute that says they have to turn over the whistleblowers complaint. What`s going to happen?
MURPHY: Well, the house is going to have to bring this to court. I mean, Senator Cornyn`s comments suggests a circling of the wagons that`s happening amongst Republicans. That`s completely predictable. I mean, how does Senator Cornyn know the substance of this complaint? He can`t because it hasn`t been delivered to Congress, unless he has been read in on the classified nature of it in a way that the rest of us haven`t. So I would advise the House to go to court immediately, compel compliance with a statute which is 100 percent clear, get it before all of us and that will help us decide about how to proceed.
MATTHEWS: Is this impeachable on its merits, Senator, going to a foreign government and trading your goodwill as president of the United States, your office, basically, so you can get dirt on an opponent to use it against him in the next election?
MURPHY: So I have not recommended the house so far that they proceed with impeachment. I`m going to give it some hard thought in the coming days. But I do have trouble understanding how we would allow for there to be no accountability. I think if the president gets away with this using the awesome power of his office to try to destroy his political opponents, trading away the credibility of the United States globally, I don`t know that we rescue our democracy from that transgression. I think there likely has to be accountability and I`m going to think hard about the question of impeachment in the coming days.
MATTHEWS: Well, let me put it simply to you, not whether it`s good politics for Pelosi to move impeachment in the House, not whether you want to have to face the request in the Senate, which I`m sure you could, on its merits, is doing what Trump just admitted to doing over the weekend a high crime?
MURPHY: Well, certainly if the president of the United States is using the executive branch inappropriately in order to try to destroy his political opponents, that certainly would rank among the category of offenses that could be impeachable. I am trying to get more information about this other than the president`s bumbling statements in order to make that determination. But if the president is using the power of his office to try to trade away American national security to benefit himself personally, there likely has to be some consequence for that.
MATTHEWS: Thank you, Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut.
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