CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: "Interview with Rep. Steve Cohen"

Interview

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KEILAR: All right. Jim Acosta at the White House. Thank you.

And joining me now is Democratic Congressman Steve Cohen of Tennessee. He's a member of the House Judiciary Committee. Thanks for coming on Congressman.

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN): Brianna, nice to be with you.

KEILAR: I want to begin with President Trump now backing away from calls for universal background checks on gun purchases. Do you have any hope that Congress in the administration will be able to get something done on gun violence?

COHEN: No. Because Trump and McConnell are both lock step with the NRA and they will not want him to do anything and much of the Trump base is against any changes. Even -- except they are for background checks. 90 percent of the country is for background checks but he's not going to do the NRA doesn't want it so we're going to have a hearing on the 4th of September on bills, on background checks, on the red flag laws and try to -- and on high-capacity magazines but Mitch McConnell, the grim reaper, they won't go anywhere.

KEILAR: What does it take to get something done on the federal level do you think?

COHEN: It takes a new president. Takes a new Senate majority leader. Takes people of the country coming to grips with the fact that we have a leader who is not capable of leading this country. The economy is in danger because the president has no clue. He doesn't have an economist. He has got a TV commentator. They don't know what to do. I've been with some of the leaders of around the world in the last several months and they are pretty much the folks I've been with and top financial people concerned about the United States going it alone with the tariffs on China and they think will harm the world economy rather than acting in concert with our allies and they have no faith in Trump and I have no faith in Trump.

The truth of the matter is my father was a psychiatrist. I think about him often and I think he should be here today rather than me because when you listen to the previous report you had, that is a paranoid delusional individual blaming even Fox News and the media for the problem with the economy and saying everything is fine and everything is wonderful.

There is an interview I just read back from 1990 where Trump cavalierly said depressions occur in the economy on a regular basis and there is not much you can do about them. Well, he can't do much about anything. Unfortunately.

KEILAR: The president is pointing the finger at Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. He thinks that it was a mistake for the Fed to raise interest rates. He wants to slash them even further. What do you think needs to be done to stave off a recession?

COHEN: Well, I'm not sure if there is a way - there are ways you can do probably in the economy but that takes in effect later on and really we should have been -- we should be trying to have world trade, have engagement with other countries and not hurt our economy. He's admitted finally that the tariffs hurt the consumers. They hurt Americans and they hurt -- dry up our economy and our spending. We should pass the minimum wage. Every penny that goes to workers who are getting a minimum wage increase will go into the economy because they're living hand to mouth. And that money will be spent on goods and services and help the economy.

The Trump tax cuts put money in the wealthy who put them into -- about a third of that, 25 percent of 30 percent of that went to overseas holders of stocks. And they got the benefit of the tax cut. And the upper 1 percent got so much of it they just put it away in savings and they don't spend it in the economy because they didn't need the money. But the working people, middle class people, people earning $150,000 or less, that is where the tax cuts should have gone. So the tax scam has come back, the pigeons have come have back to roost on the tax scam and on the tariffs and tariff man has got us in real trouble.

KEILAR: I want to talk to you about what comes next now after the firing of the New York City police officer who was involved in the death of Eric Garner. You sit on the House Judiciary Committee where Chairman Nadler has vowed to hold hearings on legislation to address the use of force by police officers. What specifics would you like to see in that legislation and what really are the chances of it getting out of Congress?

COHEN: Well, it will be difficult but there is a bill I have which has a bipartisan support that would require there to be sensitivity training of cultural differences among police personnel and law enforcement personnel throughout the country. Lacy clay and I have that together. Lacy kind of put together the portion of the bill that deals with training of police officers and the portion I have deals with having independent prosecutors when there has been a force used that could amount to deadly force or deadly force in fact was used to see to it that the prosecutors were not the same prosecutors in the jurisdiction where the law enforcement officer operates. They have a hand and glove relationship and there is no way that the public would see that result of whether to bring an indictment or not. Whether to charge an officer as being something that the facts dictate.

[17:15:11] So it is important that you have a separate prosecutor from where the officer is. This took -- in this case in New York it took a federal judge to make the decision. Local authorities did not make it. The local district attorney general didn't make it and they didn't bring an indictment which I think they should have.

So I think our independent prosecutor bill is one thing we might see. There are statistics bills that we have that would require the Justice Department and on statistics of crimes with minority communities and to see if that might bring more attention to them. The law on deadly force was out of emphasis and attorney here named Walter Bailey was the lead counsel and that pretty much set the law and I think the law of deadly force is appropriate.

KEILAR: Congressman Steve Cohen, thank you so much for joining us here in THE SITUATION ROOM.

COHEN: You're welcome, Brianna. Always good to be in THE SITUATION ROOM.

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