CNN "Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees" - Transcript: "Interview with Sen. Richard Blumenthal"

Interview

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COOPER: Well, so much double talk and double standards, it's hard not to be confused. It's always good when somebody has what they want to say already written out is actually reading off it when they're being interviewed on TV.

Senator Richard Blumenthal joins us now, Democrat of Connecticut and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

First of all, this reporting on the extreme measures that are being considered to protect the whistle-blower, how real is the danger of this whistle-blower being revealed to you?

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT): The danger is very real and urgent. Protecting whistleblowers is a long established practice.

I have worked with Senator Grassley. It's been bipartisan. I'm seeking to protect whistleblowers in other situations and through legislation, other means. And protecting this whistleblower is particularly urgent because of the president's threats. There is --

COOPER: Not just -- not just for the safety of this person, this person's career, but as a message to other potential whistleblowers out there, even in the future, that you will be protected if you come forward. If you can't protect this person, then it sends a chilling effect, I would imagine, on the rest.

BLUMENTHAL: Speaking truth to power takes courage and protecting whistle blowers is absolutely essential to stopping waste and fraud in government but also to deterring retaliation and retribution which is all too common.

COOPER: When you hear, you know, some of your fellow senators, members of Congress saying, oh, well the president was joking when he called on China and the Ukraine to investigate the Bidens, I mean, there is no evidence that there's any humor in this president on this subject at all.

BLUMETHAL: Anybody listening to the president finds it anything but laughable when the president of the United States invites interference by a foreign government in our election or sells out our national security as he was doing then, as he did in the conversation with the Ukrainian president and, frankly, as he did when he welcomed Russian interference in our election in 2014 when he was a candidate. That is hardly laughable. It is deadly serious and that's the reason why the focus on in fact this abuse of power and offense against the Constitution is so important in moving the impeachment proceeding forward.

COOPER: It seems like that ends the idea, oh, he's joking, which I guess I first heard it from Rubio, then Jim Jordan seemed to go along with it, now Blunt does. It seems like, you know, the other possibilities are either -- well, it's fine what the president said, asking for pressure of a regime like China who is not known for fair, investigative powers, or it's not OK. There's no -- those are the two answers that are possible. They've made up this oh, it was a joke because it spares them from having to choose one or the other real answer.

BLUMENTHAL: The silence of my Republican colleagues is absolutely unsustainable and inexcusable. They can no longer rely on these bogus, debunked conspiracy theories on the one hand, or dismissive sayings that it's laughable or unserious on the part of the president.

Look at the transcript, the president's own words, in talking to the Ukrainian president inviting, soliciting him to interfere in our elections, to dig up dirt on a political opponent and then to talk about it in the way that he did in that clip about China.

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That kind of talk is a grave threat to our national security, interference in our elections. And also the failure to take action against him will embolden those tactics and embolden our adversaries.

COOPER: Is it just -- I mean, is it pure and simple fear on the part of those members of Congress who have remained silent? Because I -- I mean, I suppose one on one many would say something different than -- I'm sure they're not silent one on one.

BLUMENTHAL: There is no love for Donald Trump on the part of many of my Republican colleagues and there is severe disdain for him and growing --

COOPER: Do you hear that? People say that to you?

BLUMENTHAL: Absolutely, and the conversations I have with many of my Republican colleagues. There is growing fear for our democracy in the polarization, in the divisions that Donald Trump is enhancing and deepening.

But they, on the other hand, fear his potential opposition of them in a Republican primary. That's the Rubicon they have to cross. Their silence is unsustainable. History is going to judge them partially. The voters will.

This decision, whatever it is, on the future of the president will haunt them.

COOPER: You say it's unsustainable for them to remain silent or acquiesce. Why do you think it's unsustainable? If President Trump gets re-elected then certainly they will be rewarded for their silence.

BLUMENTHAL: I think it's unsustainable as a matter of conscience. I think it's also unsustainable politically. But in terms of their duty, the reason they are in these jobs and their oath of office, it is unsustainable in a matter of conscience.

COOPER: Do you -- I mean, do you believe though in this day and age there is a lot of people who still have a conscience in that sense and would sacrifice their job or risk -- run the risk of being primaried?

BLUMENTHAL: I have to believe people continue to have a conscience in these jobs but I also think they will begin to see shifts in the American public. You know, I --

COOPER: And that's what it's going to take, shifts in the American public and then that gives them the cover/courage to then move along?

BLUMENTHAL: That's what eventually moved the Republicans in Watergate, the sense that the American public seismically and tectonically was moving against them and their positions were no longer sustainable. I think the same phenomenon is going to happen here.

And I sense it as I go around my state. I talk to colleagues who are seeing this shift in their states, and that's why you see Senator Portman saying, as he did, I have no hope that it's going to happen without additional confirming corroborating evidence before the House, but I'm still hoping it will.

COOPER: Senator Blumenthal, appreciate your time.

BLUMENTHAL: Thank you.

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