MSNBC "All in with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: "Log Cabin republican quits."

Interview

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HAYES: We learned today the Trump administration will not be providing the flu vaccine to immigrants held in its detention centers. Neither CBP nor its medical contractors administer vaccinations to those in our custody. They claim they are doing this because immigrants are only supposed to be in their custody for 72 hours or less, but we know that is usually not the case. In some cases in 30, 40 days. Now, aside from the egregious cruelty here, one would think that perhaps the very strong CBP union that so vociferously supports the president would maybe, I don`t know, want to have working facilities where there isn`t the constant threat of flu epidemics, maybe. This comes on the heels of news yesterday of a sweeping class-action lawsuit filed against the Trump administration over the absolutely horrible medical care in immigration centers. And this is all the latest in a constant series of policy announcements and actions designed to deter people from migrating to the U.S. to seek asylum by convincing them that our administration hates them, will make their lives miserable and perhaps endanger their health. Joining me now is Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon who was instrumental in shining a light on immigrant detention centers more than a year ago. He`s the author of the book America is Better Than This: Trump`s War Against Migrant Families. Great to have you here.

SEN. JEFF MERKLEY (D-OR): Good to be here.

HAYES: First, your reaction to this policy decision that they will not provide flu vaccines to migrant families that border detention camps.

MERKLEY: Is this America that we have refugee children three of whom have died of flu over this last year and is being --

HAYES: Specifically of flu.

MERKLEY: -- of a flu, that was a contributing factor to their death. And here we have folks who are just absolutely packed into tight spaces. I`ve seen maybe 150 packed into very small rooms, and disease travels enormously in that situation. So why would we not provide a vaccine when people come in? They say because they don`t do them. Well, change your mind and do them. This is the same factor when I was confronting the administration over the lack of medical care for children coming across the border and they said well, we don`t do that. Well, change your policy and do that.

HAYES: I mean, part of it seems to me is that these facilities are designed to hold people for less than 72 hours where they don`t have programs in place to do these kinds of things are now holding people for 30 and 40 days. So there`s this crazy mismatch between what the facility is designed to do which is like basically an overnight holding cell and a jail that becomes a long-term place where people have to get you know, the basics of life.

MERKLEY: Well CBP facilities, they have held people for several weeks. They do attempt to move people out in three to five days. But three to five days is plenty for flu to spread among the population. And this is just part of this ongoing strategy, for example, this law -- this mass action lawsuit that says that Trump appealed to say well, we don`t want to be held to the law to provide hygiene and nutrition. Are you kidding me, for Refugees, for children, for people fleeing persecution, we`re not going to provide just the basics when people come into this country?

HAYES: There`s news tonight that they are planning on trying to tear up or change the Flores Settlement. The Flores Settlement, of course, is a civil suit and a consent decree entered into by the plaintiff`s parties and the government that guides the detention of minors particularly in families. And it will permit family detention beyond the 20 days that is currently the limit by Flores. What do you think of that?

MERKLEY: Well, if we go back a year, the last June in 2018, the Trump team held a press conference with the president and a whole bunch of senators and said we`re ending child separation. But the fact is the document that was in front of the president didn`t in a child separation, that was done by a judge. What it did was have three strategies in it to terminate the limit on holding children. We want to be able to hold children and FAMILIES indefinitely in family internment camps. They`ve been at this through a strategy of overturning a former court decision, of passing regulations, or passing a law. And this by the way, this aspect of passing a law, this shows a vast difference between Democrats and Republicans. There are 40 Republican senators who signed on to a bill that Senator Tillis had for indefinite detention of migrant children and their parents and that could go on for years being held in prison in America like World War Two with the Japanese-Americans. There are 40 Democratic senators who have signed on to my bill to stop the cruel treatment of migrant children and not one Republican. So what a divide we have that the president has created.

HAYES: Although we should note that President Barack Obama did experiment essentially with family detention during the big crisis in 2014. There were periods of time in which the Obama administration did try to hold families together for long periods of time before they abandoned that partly under judge`s pressure.

MERKLEY: And a recognition that it was just absolutely wrong for the children because of so many child psychologists and therapists have come forward to say when you imprison a child, you are doing deep damage.

HAYES: I want to ask you a question about the economy -- this today, JP Morgan put out a forecast that the tariffs currently that are part of the president`s sort of unilateral trade war -- of course he hasn`t gotten congressional authorization due to this, he`s doing it through executive action on somewhat dubious natural security grounds -- could cost us families up to $1,000 a year. That`s $1,000 Trump tax.

MERKLEY: That`s right. And the same analysis says that if the tariffs go up to 25 percent, it might be $1,500 to a family wiping out any little few dollars that the working-class families might have benefited from the 2017 tax bill. They never noticed an improvement. They will notice when they`re losing $1,000 to 1,500 out of their annual income.

HAYES: What is it -- how does it play in Oregon?

MERKLEY: Well, I must -- I must say it`s chaotic. There is the relationship that we have with Asia so we are trading state, so that reverberates a great deal. You have groups like Columbia Sportswear or Nike that will be profoundly affected by these tariffs. We do not have the same agricultural commodities as the Midwest --

HAYES: That are exporting, right.

MERKLEY: That are exporting so that changes that dynamic. But what people really see is why this is a chaotic enterprise. It doesn`t seem like there`s a coherent plan to actually bring manufacturing back. It`s basically a stone-throwing contest. We`ll throw these stones, they`ll throw back at us and who gets hit? Well, we`re all waiting to see who`s next.

HAYES: Today there`s news that Congressman Ben Ray Lujan was the highest-ranking House Democrat to come out to support an impeachment investigation has come out in support of it. Laura Underwood who was in a front-line district in the Illinois suburbs where she switched -- she flipped a seat that had been held by a Republican, she came out supporting the current inquiry which was called an impeachment inquiry recently in court filing. The count of Democratic House members supporting impeachment 126. Do you support an impeachment inquiry?

MERKLEY: Absolutely. Before I would have said I`m waiting for the Mueller report, let`s see what he says. But what did he say? He laid out four cases of obstruction of justice in which he said all three essential components have substantial evidence and this included witness tampering. And if we are going to truly have above our Supreme Court those words "equal justice under law" then we can`t have a situation where the evidence is all laid out that the president committed crimes and we don`t even have a conversation about it in the House of Representatives.

HAYES: Do you and your colleagues anticipate this is something that you`re going to be dealing with on your side of the -- of Capitol Hill when you come back in the fall?

MERKLEY: Well, we only deal with it if the House acts.

HAYES: Right.

MERKLEY: And so we`re waiting to see what happens there.

HAYES: Do they tell you? Like are there -- I was wondering if you guys talk to each other in the House and Senate, not that much.

MERKLEY: Well, a fair amount.

HAYES: It`s sort of a separate conference.

MERKLEY: It is and sometimes it seems like a half a world away. But on this topic, there is a lot of conversation. And I think there`s a growing understanding that while Trump is damaging our institutions, he`s damaging the court, he`s damaging the presidency, Mitch McConnell is damaging the Senate, but there`s other institutions like principles, like equal justice under law. And for the House not to act deeply damages that principle.

HAYES: All right, Senator Jeff Merkley, it`s great to have you here in studio. Thank you for coming through.

MERKLEY: Thank you.

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