CNN "Erin Burnett Out Front" - Transcript: "Interview with Rep. Joaquin Castro"

Interview

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BURNETT: All right. Pamela, thank you very much from the White House tonight. And let's go out front now, the vice chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro, also sits on the House Intelligence Committee and I appreciate your time. Good to have you with me, Congressman.

REP. JOAQUIN CASTRO (D-TX): Yes.

[19:04:57]

BURNETT: So look, you said, I know that Democrats should start impeachment proceedings this Friday today if the Acting Director of National Intelligence, Trump's pick, Joseph Maguire, doesn't hand the goods over to Congress beforehand when it comes to the whistleblower. Are your colleagues on board with this or do you fear this could be like the Mueller report, Democrats rant and rave but don't get there as a group on impeachment?

CASTRO: That's a great question and I think the answer is that more and more Democrats and more and more Americans are on board with opening an impeachment inquiry. It's clear. I believe it's clear that there were serious obstruction of justice issues that should have opened an impeachment inquiry before. But certainly, the President of the United States abusing his power and trying to take out a political rival in Joe Biden by having the Ukrainian president do it is something that nobody should stand for.

So I think that once Nancy Pelosi set that Thursday deadline for the whistleblower complaint to be turned over to Congress, if that's not produced then I believe the next day, Congress, the House of Representatives should open a formal impeachment inquiry.

BURNETT: So there's some in the White House who hear what you're saying and it's sort of music to their ears. I mean one White House official today told CNN this is Mueller 2, we've seen this movie before. Are you concerned this will be a repeat?

CASTRO: I don't think so. I mean, look, we've got to see all of the evidence but I think the American people realize at this point that the President has abused his power in different ways that he routinely lies about all sorts of things. And these are the kinds of things that an impeachment inquiry is set up for. So there are things at stake here that are larger than the politics and quite honestly larger than the fate of the Democratic Party or the republican party in 2020.

If the Congress, if the House of Representatives sees all of this going on and sits back and does absolutely nothing with respect to impeachment, not only will it normalize what Donald Trump is doing, it will encourage future president, Democrats or Republicans, to take the same kind of brazen actions and basically disregard the Constitution and disregard the Congress.

BURNETT: So here's what President Trump said about his conversation with the Ukrainian president today. Here he is.

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TRUMP: The conversation I had was largely congratulatory, was largely corruption, all of the corruption taking place, was largely the fact that we don't want our people like Vice President Biden has done creating to the big corruption already in the Ukraine.

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BURNETT: As a point of disclosure, obviously, you're the chair of your brother, Julian's run for the White House. Here's what his rival Beto O'Rourke tweeted today though, Congress, when he tweeted, "We don't need the transcripts. The President admitted to asking a foreign power to investigate a political opponent. Impeach him." Given what Trump has admitted, do you think the transcripts are necessary?

CASTRO: Actually, I would agree with Beto on that. I mean, I think we could have started the impeachment before this, but certainly what we've heard already, I think, is enough to start at an impeachment inquiry and more than that, we are derelict in our duty to the people, the American people if we don't start it.

BURNETT: Apologize for my cough.

CASTRO: That's OK.

BURNETT: Joe Biden, tweeted out today, he told Trump to release the transcripts in a tweet when the President said, "I could." He said, release them. I'm curious what you think, though, Congressman, because legally, obviously, you don't need a concrete threat for a quid pro quo but if these transcripts come out, they don't have that direct threat. Does that just muddy the water and cause this to backfire politically?

CASTRO: I mean, look, the President is going to make every kind of argument to support his position that he can, but he's already admitted that he was talking to the Ukrainian President about a political rival. The reporting has been that he mentioned this eight times, that he may have mentioned this up to eight times, so he's clearly insisting on the Ukrainians taking up this matter with respect to Joe Biden and his son and that can only be to benefit Donald Trump politically, because he believes that that could be his rival the next fall.

BURNETT: So Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez today tweeted, "At this point, the bigger national scandal isn't the President's lawbreaking behavior - it is the Democratic Party's refusal to impeach him for it." Obviously, you're for impeachment, and you're now putting a deadline on it. Do you agree with her that that is the bigger scandal, the hesitancy within your party?

CASTRO: I don't know. I mean, look, I hadn't weighed one against the other, but I do think that she's right that if we sit back and we don't do anything, then there is basically a stain on us as well. We have a responsibility according to the Constitution when a president abuses his or her power in this way to take action. And if we don't do anything, then that is a kind of scandal, yes.

[19:10:01]

BURNETT: All right. Congressman, I appreciate your time. Thanks so much tonight.

CASTRO: Thank you.

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