CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: "Interview with Rep. Joaquin Castro"

Interview

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KEILAR: Sunlen Serfaty, thank you.

And with us is Texas Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro, who is at home in his district. He is a member of the Foreign Affairs and Intelligence Committees and he's joining us from San Antonio. Thank you, sir, for being with us.

REP. JOAQUIN CASTRO (D-TX): Yes, thank you for having me.

KEILAR: Your fellow Democrat, John Garamendi, as you heard says the House should take a formal vote on the impeachment inquiry. Do you think that that's something that should happen very soon, as he does?

CASTRO: Well, I mean, if the speaker said that she's not completely taking it off the table. But it's not essential, it's not required by the constitution and the investigation is well underway. Republicans in the White House have also used this as a distraction to distract from the fact that they have a President who has abused his power. Who asked the Ukrainian President for a favor so that he could benefit politically.

And the scandal has continued to grow and it grew so much so quickly that the White House got to the point where they're trying to put the brakes on it by shutting off Congress's ability to investigate what happened. And so we're going to continue to do that investigation. We may get -- we may decide to actually put it to the floor for a vote. But if Trump thinks that is going to save him, they're close to 230 members of Congress who have said that they support an impeachment inquiry. So, that vote is not going to save Donald Trump.

[17:10:23]

KEILAR: What do you say to these Democrats who are now saying they want one and they want it now?

CASTRO: We'll have a chance to discuss that on Friday. So I look forward to that discussion.

KEILAR: OK. So Democrats are planning to issue more subpoenas than we've seen. It's unlikely, of course, the administration is going to allow you access to many witnesses and documents that they have control over. Without this information, can Democrats still make a convincing case to the American people?

CASTRO: Well, we're going to do everything that we can to get people to voluntarily cooperate. This has been a fair process throughout. So we have a very fair -- a very -- in a very fair way asked people to come forward. But, look, if the White House and Donald Trump try to completely stall this investigation, try to keep it from not happening, well, then we're going to take every legal avenue that we need to to get the information that the Congress needs and that the American people deserve to see. So we'll do everything within our legal rights to do that.

KEILAR: When you don't get the response from these subpoenas or voluntary interviews especially for instance of folks at the State Department, it's clear Democrats are making this case, they can roll that into an article of impeachment for obstruction, do you worry at all that --

CASTRO: Right.

KEILAR: -- the American people are maybe numb to this idea of obstruction? It's hard to think that maybe the case but post-Mueller report it does seem like it doesn't impact people as much as it did. Are you worried they're numb?

CASTRO: Yes, I mean, look, I agree that there's a lot of political speculation that can go on around that question, but that can't distract us from doing our job for the American people and moving forward with this investigation. We have to plow forward.

And if the White House won't cooperate because they're dead set on protecting a corrupt and abusive president, then, we have to take every legal action that we can to get the information that we're entitled to that the American people are entitled to. And if we have to go to the courts and handle this, hopefully expeditiously, then I think that will happen as well, that we will move to enforce these subpoenas.

KEILAR: On Friday, you were scheduled to hear from the former ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch. She was really pushed out after being targeted by Rudy Giuliani. Do you think you're still going to hear from her?

CASTRO: I can't say for sure. I hope so. I mean, in this story that's developed it looks like she was the fall woman, so to speak, that she was cast aside, perhaps because she was more honest and had more integrity than the other cast of characters. So I hope that we're still able to hear from her. But, you know, that remains to be seen.

KEILAR: Are you getting close to the hearing from the whistleblower?

CASTRO: Yes, that's, you know, as Chairman Schiff has said, he's still negotiating and the committee staff is still negotiating that appearance. I'm confident that during the course of this investigation, that of course we'll hear from the whistleblower.

KEILAR: I want to ask you about a different subject which is our other huge story we're following today. Turkey is now bombarding the Kurds in Northern Syria. The Kurds have been allies in the American fight against Isis. The White House put out a statement today saying, "The United States does not endorse this attack and has made it clear to Turkey that this operation is a bad idea." What's your reaction to that?

CASTRO: You know, President Trump has always had an erratic foreign policy. Really, you could take a high school student who could probably design a better foreign policy than this President has. But he's really taking it to a new shameful level by betraying a core ally, an ally, who on behalf of the United States fought against Isis, has detained Isis fighters, has helped restabilize Syria and to give, basically to give Turkey and Erdogan the green light to go kill the Kurds, an ally of ours, is just shameful.

And you also see two conflicts messages coming out of the White House. On the one hand they're giving the green light for Turkey to go ahead and do this killing and on the other hand you have President Trump saying that if Turkey actually does something to the Kurds that he is going to destroy Turkey's economy. I mean, it's just completely manic. It makes no sense the sentences that are coming out of President Trump's mouth at this point on this piece of foreign policy.

KEILAR: Congressman, thank you so much. Congressman Joaquin Castro joining us. We appreciate it.

CASTRO: Thank you.

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