CNN "CNN Newsroom" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Maxine Waters

Interview

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And now, I want to bring in Congresswoman Maxine Waters. I want to give you a chance, Congresswoman, to respond to the legal brief filed by President Trump's attorneys just this weekend. So let's go through this kind of point by point.

The president's lawyers write, the article of impeachment submitted by the House Democrats are dangerous attack on the right of the American people to freely choose their president. This is a brazen and unlawful attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election and interfere with the 2020 election. Your response?

REP. MAXINE WATERS (D-CA): Well, that shows you that they're not prepared to or feel comfortable with dealing with the questions. The House of Representatives have impeached the president of the United States and we have two articles of impeachment. Why don't they relate to that? They are trying to talk about a witch hunt. They are attempting to have people believe that somehow this is improper. But their response is not legitimate and it does not speak to the issues.

[18:25:00]

And so we suspect that they will try everything. They will talk about process. They will talk about illegitimacy. They will talk about whatever they can come up with to try and abort (ph) having to deal with the articles in the impeachment resolution.

CABRERA: Well, isn't one of the articles of impeachment when we talk about abuse of power, isn't that also what the Democrats are arguing? Doesn't have to do with interference in the 2020 election? And what I'm reading here is they're flipping it and saying, by impeaching the president, Democrats are, in effect, interfering in the 2020 election.

WATERS: I don't think we are talking about the same thing. They are saying that because, again, they are trying to come up with some kind of way to deal with the fact that they cannot answer the real questions. We are talking about evidence. We have evidence that this president interfered with the Russian connection that they have. We have all of that that information.

But we have basically concluded that what he did in the telephone call to the Ukrainian president is what is before us. He tried to bribe into create a false investigation on the Bidens. We have all of the evidence. We have all of the information that's needed for the American people to understand that we are dealing with facts. They are no facts.

CABRERA: Well, the president's attorneys would argue that he is conducting foreign policy and that his conversation with Zelensky was in the nation's best interests and they write that the Democrats are trying to seize the president's power to determine foreign policies saying in the first article, the House attempt to seize the president's power under Article II of the Constitution to determine foreign policy. To that, you say what?

WATERS: I say that that is not a legitimate argument. I would say to you that when you take a look at the facts, you will understand how this president has disregarded the Constitution, disregarded the facts that the Congress of the United States had legitimately appropriated almost $400 million to the Ukrainian country, and that this president tried to hold it up. He did hold it up, as a matter of fact, and tried to use that as leverage to get the president of Ukraine to create this false investigation.

And so I think there is a difference in what they're talking about, the facts will show that he has undermined the actions of the Congress of the United States and then the Congress decides. Don't forget, the Congress of the United States decides what is impeachable.

CABRERA: Let me move to the second article, obstruction of Congress. The president's team points out that Democrats did not try to enforce the subpoenas in court and they write to the contrary when one subpoena recipient sought a declaratory judgment as to the validity of the subpoena he had received, House Democrats quickly withdrew the subpoena to prevent the court from issuing a ruling. And that's true, right? Democrats withdrew the court subpoena for Kupperman, for example, and never even subpoenaed Bolton, who Democrats say is such a crucial witness now. Was that a mistake?

WATERS: No, it was not a mistake. The Congress of the United States and the House of Representatives have not only subpoenaed, they have requested, they have asked for voluntary efforts on behalf of those that they would like to have come before the Judiciary Committee and give their statements and to tell what they know about what is going on. And so whether it's a subpoena or it's a request or whether or not the Judiciary Committee has reached out to all of those people that we think have some role in this, we have done our work. We have done what is necessary. And just because what we --

CABRERA: But Democrats have not had it going through the court process.

WATERS: The court process is extremely slow. For example, I have subpoenaed information from Deutsche Bank about the finances of the president of the United States. And we have gone through the lower courts. We have gone through the Court of Appeals. We are not getting heard until March. The Supreme Court will hear my subpoenas in March. The court takes its time in responding.

And so I think we have moved in a very credible way to get the information that we have needed. The president has blocked that. The president has used his so-called executive power to intimidate and he has not allowed the witnesses to come forward. And so he has obstructed the Congress of the United States.

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He has obstructed justice.

CABRERA: So, now, we have the Senate that will rule on these articles, and we keep hearing Democrats saying you want a fair trial that includes witnesses. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), CHAIRMAN, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: We'll be fighting for a fair trial. As I mentioned before, that is really the foundation on which this all rests. If the Senate decides, if Senator McConnell prevails, and there are no witnesses, it will be the first impeachment trial in history that goes to conclusion without witnesses.

REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D), JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: The most important thing is that the American people deserve a fair trial. The Constitution deserves a fair trial. Our democracy deserves a fair trial. And we believe that a fair trial involves witnesses, it involves evidence, it involves documents.

SEN. DICK DURBIN (D), JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: A fair trial, everyone understands, involves evidence. Evidence would be documents and witnesses.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Democratic Senator you just heard there, Sherrod Brown, saying he'd be OK with Hunter Biden testifying at the impeachment trial. Would you?

WATERS: Yes.

CABRERA: Explain.

WATERS: Let them call whomever they want the call. They're free to call witnesses. We want to call our witness. And I believe that, in fact, if he puts that to a vote of the Senate, that the Senate -- we will have enough votes on the Senate side to agree that there should be witnesses, so he should -- he should go ahead and put it to a vote.

But what he cannot do and should not do is say to the public that he is not going to be fair, that he is talking to the defendant, the President of the United States, and he is working with him to see what the President wants to do. That's not fair. We need the witnesses. I think that we will continue to try and force

them to come up with the witnesses that we need to have a fair trial. And, again, if he puts it to a vote on the Senate, I think we'll have enough senators that will agree with that also.

CABRERA: I want to switch gears to the 2020 race and, specifically, the role that race is playing in the battle for the Democratic nomination.

A new poll finds eight in 10 African-Americans think President Trump is a racist. And so, it's not a surprise to see Democrats trying to reach out to African-American voters, especially ahead of Martin Luther King Day.

Andrew Yang's press secretary tweeted out a video of him performing with a Black choir this weekend. We reported earlier Michael Bloomberg's speech today on economic justice for African-Americans.

At the same time, African-American candidates in this case have not fared well. Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, both dropped out. Deval Patrick has expressed frustration. Are you comfortable that those at the top of the field are representative of your party?

WATERS: Well, I'm comfortable that the Democratic National Committee tried to put together the criteria that was necessary in order to reduce the number of people in the debate. I think that they really did try.

And, yes, I'm disappointed that we don't have African-American or people of color that are absolutely involved in the debate and in this campaign. And I'm hopeful that we can continue to try and figure out how to make sure that we have a debate in the future that will include more people of color and more diversity.

But I do think the Democratic National Committee did the best job that it could possibly do. And, yes, our presidential candidates are trying to appeal to African-Americans. African-Americans will determine who gets the nomination in this Democratic Party, and that's very important.

We're going to turn out to vote, and we're going to turn out to vote big. We're going to turn out to vote because we know where our best interests lie. It certainly does not lie with the Republican Party.

And we are concerned about all of the issues that you've heard so much about, whether it's healthcare --

CABRERA: Right.

WATERS: -- or whether it's dealing with the economy. We are concerned about that issue, all of those issues, but we want this president out of office. We do not want this president to be re- elected. He has not been fair, he is dangerous, and he is causing this country to be in an unsafe situation. And so, that, too, is going to be big motivation for the African-American community.

CABRERA: Congresswoman Maxine Waters, thank you very much for joining us this evening.

WATERS: You're so welcome, and thank you.

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