MSNBC "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell" - Transcript: "Kurt Volker, resigns."

Interview

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O`DONNELL: We have been in breaking news mode for most of this hour. We started the hour with breaking news from The Washington Post, the news that President Trump told two senior Russian officials in that photograph, in that meeting in Oval Office in 2017 that he didn`t care at all about Moscow`s attack on the U.S. election, the election in which the Russians helped Donald Trump win the Presidency. White House officials were worried about the President`s message to the Russians, according to The Washington Post. And just in the last few minutes, we have been discussing The New York Times` breaking news story tonight, that the White House used a highly classified system to hold the phone records of Donald Trump`s calls with Vladimir Putin and the Saudi royal family. On Monday, seven freshmen House Democrats co-wrote an op-ed piece in The Washington Post about why they support an impeachment inquiry from a national security perspective. The piece was entitled "these allegations are a threat to all we have sworn to protect. Joining us is one of the co-authors of that piece, freshman Democratic Congressman Jason Crow from Colorado. He`s a former Army Ranger, who won a Congressional district last year that a Democrat has never won before. Congressman Crow was one of those seven Democrats who published that op-ed piece in "The Washington Post." Congressman Crow, I want to get your reaction to the breaking news tonight, which is a confirmation of the whistleblower`s report about the treatment of Presidential phone call records. It indicates that the records of the President`s conversation in the Oval Office with those high ranking Russian officials in the first few months of his Presidency were treated the same way as his phone call with the President of Ukraine, and it turns out now phone calls with Vladimir Putin are treated that way, phone calls with Saudi royal family are treated that way, and that is a break with the way previous Presidents have treated these phone records.

REP. JASON CROW (D-CO): Yes, that`s right. So much of this is troubling on so many levels. I`ve spent the last couple of days trying to wrap my brain around all these allegations as more and more comes to light. There is a couple of common themes to all of this. Number one, it all seems to be related to helping Donald Trump win re-election. Everything that he does seems to be geared towards how can he help his election and better his prospects in 2020. And I think it is important that number two, if you think about the national security aspect of this, and just the complete disregard for our national security professionals, our troops, people who have taken the oath, who are putting their lives on the line to defend this nation. And context is really important. When President Trump was talking about Javelin missile systems with President Zalensky, these are weapon systems that are needed to prevent T-72, Russian T-72 tanks from moving forward and invading Ukraine. And we have tens of thousands of U.S. troops in Europe that are in harm`s way, if that would happen. So, I take this very personally.

O`DONNELL: Yes, and you go to the transcript of the phone call, and President Zalensky brings up the Javelin missiles, that`s the last sentence he speaks before Donald Trump says, but we want a favor, I want a favor. And Donald Trump stays on the favor for the rest of the phone call and never ever returns to the defense of Ukraine.

CROW: Right, that`s right. And what that tells me is that it is not obviously what he`s concerned about. And somebody who has taken oaths all of my adult life to defend the constitution, to defend this country, dedicate a lot of my life to the security of this country in Iraq and Afghanistan as an Army Ranger, everything that I do, I`m always thinking about those soldiers who are in Afghanistan and Iraq and around the world right now carrying weapons to defend us, and how can we keep faith with them and make sure we are protecting them and their families, and for these allegations to go really to the core of that is shocking to me.

O`DONNELL: I want to get your reaction Congressman to something the President said when he was visiting with the diplomatic corps at the United Nations Mission. And a lot of those people had brought their kids in for the day to see the President and he said that whistleblowers should be treated the way we used to treat people convicted of treason, which of course means execution. What was your reaction when you heard the President saying that?

CROW: I was really mad. This is something that again goes to the core of my oath. These are men and women who have taken the same oath that I`ve taken many times over in my adult life, who`s given up their lives in some cases, put their lives in the line every day, our diplomatic corps, our intelligence officers, our military professionals. They`ve dedicated their life to this country. And for the President to say something like that and to threaten those folks either explicitly or passively, cannot stand. And my message to them is very simple. This Congress will do everything in its power to make sure we are protecting you and keeping faith with that sacrifice.

O`DONNELL: Congressman Jason Crow, thank you very much for joining us, and really appreciate your perspective on this tonight.

CROW: Thank you for having me.

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