MSNBC "All in with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: "Trump and advisers downplay economic concerns."
Interview
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HAYES: I want to bring someone who has spent a great deal of time considering the gun crisis, 2020 Presidential Candidate Senator from New York Kirsten Gillibrand. Senator, what do you think of the president sort of back and forth on this? Is there any possibility of this White House-backed by the base that it is backed by and with Mitch McConnell and the Senate breaking through the opposition?
SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND (D-NY), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don`t see it. He`s been unwilling to stand up to the NRA, unwilling to stand up to special interests in Washington. And we all know that the center of corruption in Washington is the money and greed that runs Washington. And you know, we`ve seen enough gun death in this last decade. It`s absurd and outrageous that Congress refuses to act. It`s absurd that Mitch will not call Republican senators back to Congress so that we could actually vote on the measures that were passed in the House. It`s just a lack of leadership. And this president is beholding to the NRA as any Republican right now.
HAYES: You were -- you`ve had an interesting trajectory in this issue. You were -- you had an A rating at the NRA as a Democratic member of Congress up -- in Upstate New York and I think your views have changed quite a bit on gun and gun policy. I guess my question to you is, is persuasion possible on this issue? I mean, it does seem quite polarized, it also seems like for the reasons you know both in fundraising and sort of the organizational muscle in NRA that there isn`t a lot of like back and forth, people listening to arguments on this, but maybe people are persuadable. What do you think?
GILLIBRAND: I believe they are. I`ve had a proud F rating for a decade now, and I can tell you common sense gun reform like universal background checks, banning large magazines and military-style assault weapons, and having a federal anti-gun trafficking law. Those are common-sense ideas that most NRA members support. And so you can go into a red part of a state or into a red or purple state and talk to hunters, Second Amendment supporters, and say why should a four-year-old child die on a park bench in Brooklyn because an illegal weapon was sold out of the back of truck directly to a gang member? That`s what happens in New York every day. That`s what happens in Chicago every day. And so they can understand that this is something we have to deal with. They can understand that in America today we shouldn`t be willing to live in a world where you can`t go to a Walmart to do your back-to-school shopping with your kids because there could be a shooter. You can`t go to a church service or a Bible study. You can`t go to a concert with friends. That`s not the America we want to live in. And so you can go to those white ladies in the suburbs and say very directly to them, do you want to live in that kind of world or do you want to make it much harder for people who shouldn`t have these weapons make it harder for them to actually get access to it. I think we can find common ground and agreement.
HAYES: But that`s common ground, an agreement on the on the voter basis which I agree with you. I guess the question is like a political like senator to Senate -- I guess I`m trying to ask do -- is there a space in the U.S. Senate in which you have exchanges with your colleagues on something like this where there is an actual active set of arguments and back and forth and give-and-take that`s happening or on this issue does that just space not exist?
GILLIBRAND: No, I think it does exist. In fact, after Sandy Hook, one of the bills I wrote was an anti-federal gun trafficking law. And we got 58 votes. That`s just too shy of the 60 that we needed. And I knew exactly how to get those votes. And if we had that vote today, I believe it would pass. I also believe our universal background checks bill would pass today. I think people are tired of it. And the fact that the Parkland kids started a nationwide March marching out of school, marching on Washington, I think it`s changing people`s perspectives. And if not members of Congress yet, certainly the mothers and grandparents and fathers of these kids and they live in all 50 states. And so I believe that the nature of this debate has changed because we have such fearlessness coming from the next generation. And I think they`re demanding that we hold members of Congress accountable who won`t stand up to the NRA. And it`s one of the reasons why, Chris, as a presidential candidate, the first bill I introduced as a candidate was getting money out of politics. We`ve got to go to the root of the corruption which is the greed in Washington and you got to take out political corruption by publicly funding elections, clean elections.
HAYES: You were just at a reproductive freedom forum I believe in Missouri if I`m not mistaken. You have been someone who`s spoken a lot about reproductive choice and about the judiciary particularly and its importance. I want to read you this. Preet Bharara tweeted this and it`s not a novel insight on his part, but I thought it was well said. He said, given the makeup of the court in Trump`s explicit promise, if he`s re-elected, Roe is gone, choice is gone. Dem candidates might consider repeating us like a mantra every day. First of all, do you agree with that as a descriptive of where things stand and do you think there has been a sufficient emphasis on that point in the campaign so far?
GILLIBRAND: Yes, President Trump has had an all-out attack on women`s rights and he`s emboldened 30 legislatures around the country to pass anti-choice legislation with the intention of overturning Roe. I think President Trump will try very hard right now to try to put forward a case to overturn Roe. It`s why he chose Gorsuch, it`s why he chose Kavanagh. And so as president, I will only nominate judges and justices that see Roe as the (INAUDIBLE) that it`s been. It`s provided a constitutional right for 40 years to a right to privacy. And one of the reasons why I want to make that September debate stage, Chris, is because candidates aren`t raising this issue. They`re not being asked about it. It`s why I went to the frontlines in Missouri. It`s why I went to the frontlines in Georgia. So I hope your viewers will go to KirstenGillibrand.com and help my campaign. Send a dollar so they can make the September debate stage because these are the issues that we have to be addressing, because President Trump is literally starting a war with America`s women. And if it`s a war he wants, it`s a war he`s going to have and frankly it`s a war he`s going to lose.
HAYES: All right, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, thank you so much for sharing your time.
GILLIBRAND: Thanks, Chris.
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