MSNBC "All in with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: "Senator Cory Booker unveils climate plan."

Interview

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HAYES: And joining me now 2020 presidential candidate Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey who`s today released his $3 trillion plan on climate change and environmental justice. The prime minister of the Bahamas there talking about the devastation in that set of islands. This comes actually you know, years after Hurricane Maria. But it does feel like a matter of time -- just a question of when, of how many climate disasters we`re going to see increasingly here in the mainland of the United States.

SEN. CORY BOOKER (D-NJ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Tragic fires and the increase of those fires, the flooding in the Midwest, these horrific storms, this is something that is coming at us. It`s really barreling towards civilization and we must act with a much graver sense of urgency or else the cost of inaction now is measuring for our economy and trillions of dollars can -- they`re predicting in the next -- by 2100 it could shrink the U.S. economy by more than 10 percent if we do not act.

HAYES: By 10 percent. Do you -- what is your understanding of -- I mean, the fundamental problem here, and I want to talk about your proposal is that it`s an issue where there`s one political coalition having a debate about it and one political coalition not, right? Like it is just a one-sided conversation right now.

BOOKER: I mean, in terms of human species it`s bigger than that. There`s only one major political party on the planet Earth that is -- that is denying that this is a problem with the sense of urgency. I mean, that`s how singular what a small handful Republicans because let`s not paint each other with broad brushes, Republicans polling them.

HAYES: That`s true. That`s true. Rank and file folks and --

BOOKER: Just everybody kind of understand it. And by the way, open your window. Most Americans are seeing wacky weather. The hottest months ever recorded in the -- in the last month that we`ve had. So this is -- this is no longer up for debate in most Americans hearts and minds except for a narrow group of leadership that is doing the bidding of the fossil fuel industries and other massive corporate lobbyists who were trying to stop us doing action. And meanwhile, the consensus of global scientists are saying if we do not act with a sense of urgency in about an eleven-year window, the catastrophic effects when humanity -- in fact, read the military reports. Those are things are scary to me when you -- when our own U.S. military is saying we better plan for planetary crisis migratory problems, extremism, famines, the kind of things that if we do not act that we will see on the planet Earth.

HAYES: So if this is urgent, before we get to the details, to me there`s two questions about a climate plan. What`s in the climate plan and how high is it in the list of priorities. So my question you is, is that -- if you were elected president of the United States and you have a unified Democratic governance, let`s say --

BOOKER: Right.

HAYES: Is climate the first thing you move on? It`s that the first domestic --

BOOKER: So this is the thing about my plan that I`m excited about. It`s what I did when I was mayor. When we had another Republican president who then refused to join the Kyoto accords, I turned to my city and I said, OK, climate will be the lens through which we view everything that we do. So I was a guy that said, hey, our prisoner re-entry programs are going to be putting people to work on urban farms because in our city we need to pull the more of that carbon out of the air. We said that our job training programs are going to be about environmentally retrofitting buildings, union jobs. So as president, it`s the same thing. There`s nothing we can do anymore that`s not viewed through that lens, and that`s changing the practices how we procure things. It`s where we invest. It`s our R&D. It`s our AG bills. Everything has to now be about meeting this crisis. Because if not, by the time my second term is over, our planet will be slipping into a crisis.

HAYES: And you`re specific in the plan like -- Elizabeth Warren also did this and a few others have broken outright, where there`s -- where you can take executive actions, right, as president and where there`s legislative need. But we`re talking about the amount of money you`re talking about here. And we`re talking about a kind of fee and dividend system, right, on some of the biggest polluters, right? You put a fee on carbon. The dividend is giving back to households. That needs legislation.

BOOKER: Yes.

HAYES: So like the question again is, is that the first thing you legislate on?

BOOKER: Yes, because it`s tied to a lot of other things. Look, there`s many Americans calling out for a massive infrastructure program. This is in line with what infrastructure looks like. I`m an environmental justice guy. It`s a guy that lives in a city that has a massive lead problem right now. Well, most people don`t know this. There are 3,000 communities, 3,000 jurisdictions that have -- where the children have more than twice the blood lead level of Flint, Michigan. We should get rid of all the lead pipes that are going into residential area, schools. This should be something that should have been done decades ago, frankly, but we haven`t done it. So, so much of what I`m doing relates to other aspects whether it`s R&D, whether its infrastructure, whether it`s jobs. Boosting the economy, our plan would create millions of jobs in this country.

HAYES: So you see that as a priority like a package together?

BOOKER: I see a package together that will touch on a lot of other priorities. Again, climate has to be the lens through which everything that we do.

HAYES: I want to ask you another issue which is obviously front of mine right now after the shooting in West Texas, a horrible massacre there. There`s really interesting polling on gun control right now, gun safety measures that is showing higher levels of support than there have been for a while. And one thing jumped out of me was this from Quinnipiac poll. Do you support requiring a license to purchase a gun? 82 percent which it`s a very polarized country. You don`t get a lot of 82 percent in polling. That is part of your campaign platform. What do you think of that number?

BOOKER: Well, first of all, when we came out on this, a number of people in the Democratic field took potshots at me calling for licensing. It is something that works. This is evidence-based. Connecticut did it. They saw their shootings drop 40 percent, suicides drop 15 percent. It is common sense. Someone who needs a license to drive a car, shouldn`t you need a license to own and to buy and possess a firearm?

HAYES: You think it`s constitutional.

BOOKER: Absolutely. And again, even --

HAYES: Even with the court`s post tell our jurisprudence do you think though?

BOOKER: I absolutely think so. Look, we have -- most people -- we have restrictions on our First Amendment rights.

HAYES: Right.

BOOKER: Common-sense restrictions like this. Law-abiding citizens have nothing to worry about in purchasing a gun. This will dramatically stop the ability for people who want to do horrendous things to get weapons.

HAYES: 82 percent polling. I don`t think -- I don`t know how many votes would be in the U.S. Senate if you call this for vote tomorrow, 30 maybe. I mean, there`s a gap right now between what the public is telling pollsters and what the institutions of our various political leadership views as the frontier of the possible.

BOOKER: So, as the one guy in the Senate that lives in a neighborhood where people get shot, that had -- someone last year get killed with an assault rifle on the top of my block. The reason why I came out so early with a bold plan that includes things like licensing which split my own party on notice that you should not have to wait until a mass shooting comes to your state, your community, your neighborhood to feel this sense of urgency. I wanted to move the national conversation. And so, I -- when you say only getting 30 something votes, I`m telling you right now that our party needs to -- needs to get on board with bold vision on what`s going to protect our country because governments are formed for the common defense. We have lost more people in the last 50 years to gun violence in our country than in every single war in America combined. The carnage is going up. We see -- the terrorist attacks that we`re now having, the majority of them since 9/11 have been right-wing extremist groups, the majority of those white supremacist groups. We have to understand that we are in a dangerous, perilous time. And if our party is not leading with a vision to protect our country, then what the hell are we -- why are we forming? And again, as a guy who`s coming from a community -- remember, the majority of people murdered in our country are black men and this to me is not something -- there should be moral clarity on this and that`s why he came out with the kind of bold plan that I have.

HAYES: All right, Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, nice to have here this evening. Come back soon.

BOOKER: Thank you.

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