CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: "Interview with Rep. John Garamendi"

Interview

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BLITZER: Barbara Starr at the Pentagon, thank you.

Joining us now, Congressman John Garamendi. He is a Democrat who serves on the Armed Services Committee.

Congressman, thanks so much for joining us.

REP. JOHN GARAMENDI (D-CA): Sure.

BLITZER: And I want to get to this issue of Syria in just a few moments. But you have just returned from leading a congressional delegation to Ukraine. You met with the Ukrainian defense minister, the foreign minister, the senior staff for President Zelensky... [18:10:00]

GARAMENDI: Right.

BLITZER: ... the top American diplomat in Ukraine, Bill Taylor, the charge d'affaires.

What can you tell us about this trip?

GARAMENDI: Well, I can tell you that Ukraine is an exceptional country and they have exceptional leaders.

Given all that's happened to them, given all that the president has done to this new president, who came into office on cleaning up the corruption, on leaning to the West, totally dependent upon the West, and specifically America, and then for Trump to do what he has done, they are showing enormous strength, enormous courage.

They're soldiering on. They have lost almost 14,000 people, soldiers to the Russians in the battle. It is a hot war. They're going to make it. They're going to do it, despite what Trump has done to them. It's just -- well, chalk up one more win for Putin.

But they -- they're going to soldier on. I was very, very impressed, very impressed by what they intend to do.

BLITZER: We have seen some of Bill Taylor's text messages, Bill Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat...

GARAMENDI: Right.

BLITZER: ... the acting ambassador in Kiev right now, including one where he said -- and I'm quoting now -- "I think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign."

What did you learn from him during your conversations?

GARAMENDI: I learned that we have a very good man at that embassy. We had a long conversation about what is going on in the country, about his own long career in the diplomacy and also in Ukraine, a good person, obviously a person that saw what was the problem and spoke out, or at least in an e-mail laid it out.

He was -- well, the morning that that e-mail became known, we met with him just moments afterwards. And he acknowledged that it was there and he said it was the right thing to do. We're lucky that he's there.

We are just going to have to try to overcome the enormous problem that Trump has created in that country, to say nothing of what he's created here in the United States.

BLITZER: Does he believe that the president of the United States was squeezing the new Ukrainian president, Zelensky, for dirt on the Bidens in exchange for U.S. aid, U.S. assistance, for a high-level meeting in Washington with Zelensky? GARAMENDI: Yes, we didn't discuss that.

However, his e-mail indicates that he was very much aware of what was going on and obviously concerned about it. Just, given the nature of the meetings we had, we didn't ask him. We were not there to investigate. That's going to come in the halls of Congress in the days ahead.

BLITZER: But what was your impression, though, based not necessarily simply from the top U.S. diplomat in Kiev, but from others with whom you had conversations, including high-level Ukrainian officials?

GARAMENDI: Well, I think Zelensky said it as well as a person in his position could possibly say it.

And that's, oh, it wasn't pressure.

Well, what else is he going to when he's totally dependent on the United States and NATO allies for the continuation of his efforts to push Russia out of his country?

Clearly, they knew what was going on. These are not naive people. These are extremely smart people. They know that they're going to have to mind their P's and Q's. They're going to have to say the right thing at the right time. They can't further anger the president, who, clearly, in the days ahead, has the power to withhold money once again.

And so they're going to be careful. They're smart. They also want to deal with corruption. In the meeting with the minister of defense, we had a long conversation about their efforts to root out corruption in the military.

And they actually would like to have an inspector general team go to Ukraine and teach them how to establish an inspector general. We can see what good that brings to America when we have such a person in place.

BLITZER: So you met with the foreign minister of Ukraine, the defense minister, the senior staff for President Zelensky.

GARAMENDI: Right.

BLITZER: Did you discuss the whole issue, the Biden issue, Hunter Biden serving on the board of this Ukrainian gas company? Did you discuss any of the allegations that the president of the United States and Rudy Giuliani have leveled?

GARAMENDI: Actually, we did not.

However, the foreign minister alluded to it in our opening. And we quickly put that out of the way and got to the things that I wanted to deal with there, which is, how can we support Ukraine? What can we do further?

How can we avoid the kind of problem that Trump ha created, establishing relationships, making sure that money flows and whatever additional support they might need? That's why we were there.

The foreign minister did allude to that, and we moved on.

BLITZER: How did he allude to it? What did he say?

(LAUGHTER)

GARAMENDI: I don't remember the exact conversation, but he said that, with all the things going on, he recognized that we were there at a difficult time.

[18:15:00]

BLITZER: But he didn't want to get into specifics, because he felt under pressure from the U.S.?

GARAMENDI: Well, of course there was pressure from the U.S.

It's in the president's own transcription of his phone call. There's considerable pressure; $400 million of critical military aid was put on hold. And then there was a phone call. And then there were further discussions, all the things Giuliani and everybody else involved in trying to dig dirt.

So, of course they knew there was serious pressure. And keep in mind that the minister of defense had been on the job two weeks when we arrived. And he's trying to gain civilian control over the military, deal with the corruption in the past.

And they have enormous tasks. And Trump -- all that Trump managed to do was to really hit that government right in the gut at a very critical time, as they were trying to build their new government and to deal with the mandate that the people had given them, not only a 75 percent vote for Zelensky in the presidential election, but then an overwhelming majority in their Parliament.

And then for Trump to come in and to hit him as to hit that government and that president, as he did, it was only one winner, one winner in all of that, and that is Putin, an enormous gift to Putin, on top of all of the other things that this president has done for Putin, everything from demeaning and demoralizing our national security agencies, the FBI, CIA, the joint -- the nuclear agreement with Iran, all of these things, and now Syria.

Boy, you just chalk up -- put the scoreboard up there in just the first five innings, win for Putin, win for Putin. And once again, every time, it's another win for Putin and another harm to our alliances and to our really key allies.

And keep in mind that Ukraine is an ally. Ukraine was invaded by Russia. Crimea was stolen from Ukraine. And a war is going on now, right now, in Ukraine. It's nighttime, and the mortars are falling on top of Ukraine's soldiers now.

And what does Trump do? Well, he tries to get dirt on Biden and leverages, extorts the new president. It's unconscionable, what's happening. And then for our NATO allies,

more than a billion dollars of critical infrastructure taken from our NATO allies and Eastern Europe and put into the border wall. Unconscionable. One more win for Putin.

BLITZER: Congressman Garamendi, thanks, as usual, for joining us.

GARAMENDI: Thank you.

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