CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Interview With Sen. Mazie Hirono

Interview

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All right, Lauren Fox, thank you, Lauren Fox up on Capitol Hill.

Joining us now, Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, a Democrat who serves on the Judiciary Committee. Senator, thanks so much for joining us.

SEN. MAZIE HIRONO (D-HI): Good evening.

BLITZER: Let me get your reaction right away to the president's truly extraordinary victory speech today.

HIRONO: Well, you're seeing on full display the petty, vindictive, spoiled brat Trump. Expect more.

BLITZER: Well, let's talk about that.

The Senate has clearly spoken now. The president was acquitted. Do you think that your House colleagues...

HIRONO: No. Wolf...

BLITZER: Go ahead.

HIRONO: He wasn't acquitted. It was a rigged trial. You don't get acquitted when you don't even get to call witnesses or relevant witnesses or have the documents because the president stonewalled all efforts on the part of the House to get the information they requested.

So there you go. It was a rigged trial. He can run around saying he was acquitted, but you don't get acquitted in a rigged trial.

BLITZER: Well, I just want to point out, Senator, there was a roll call, guilty or not guilty.

HIRONO: Yes. Yes.

BLITZER: Not guilty was the majority.

HIRONO: Yes.

BLITZER: And the chief justice of the United States announced that he was acquitted, that he was not guilty.

HIRONO: But the American public knows that it was a rigged trial.

So, OK, you're found not guilty in a rigged trial. I don't think that they that they think that this was all kosher. No, it wasn't.

So, meanwhile, you have the president crowing about it, which is totally expected. And now it's anything goes for this president and this administration. And all his enablers, they're sitting there congratulating each other, when we know full well that he's going to do some other vindictive, harmful thing, including, by the way, I think he's going to go after people's Social Security and Medicare.

He's already proposed tremendous cuts to Medicaid. So that's coming down the pike to pay for his $1.5 trillion in tax cuts for the richest people in our country. And I have to say, one of the biggest whoppers of his State of the

Union was when he said: I am protecting people with preexisting conditions.

That is such a big, fat lie that I almost fell out of my chair, because we all know that, if he wins in his challenge to the Affordable Care Act that's before the Supreme Court, no one will be protected. People -- 30-million plus people with preexisting conditions will not be protected.

And yet he says that at his rallies. He just lies.

BLITZER: On that point, yes, the Affordable Care Act did include the provision that people with preexisting conditions would be able to get health insurance.

HIRONO: Yes.

BLITZER: And he opposes the Affordable Care Act, as we all know.

HIRONO: Totally.

BLITZER: Let's talk a little bit about your colleagues in the House of Representatives.

Should they investigate, continue the investigation by formally subpoenaing the president's the former National Security Adviser John Bolton?

HIRONO: I do think that the people of our country should know what John Bolton would have said.

And, apparently, he has declined to put in an affidavit. And so the alternative for the people of our country to know what he was going to say is for them to subpoena him.

But I think that all this kind of information will come out eventually, sooner, if not later. And there will probably be other kinds of instances where I hope whistle-blowers are not totally deterred by the fact that this president will go after any whistle- blower who dares to point out wrongdoings by this administration and him.

BLITZER: President Trump strongly attacked Republican Senator Mitt Romney of Utah for his historic vote to convict a president of his own party, saying he doesn't like people who, in the president's words, use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong.

What's your response to that?

HIRONO: The president can't recognize a person who votes his conscience if hit him in the face full on.

The president has no shame. He doesn't recognize honor. He doesn't recognize any of these kinds of traits that we would want in the president. So I'm not surprised that Mitt Romney, who, really, he followed his conscience -- he followed his conscience.

And the president can't recognize it, because that's the kind of guy the president is, who has no conscience, who has no morality.

BLITZER: Were you in the Senate chamber when Mitt Romney spoke so passionately yesterday?

[18:15:04]

HIRONO: I watched it.

And, believe me, I was very much moved by the struggle. It was very clear. And yet he did what he needed to do. And he voted his conscience. And I wish I could say the same for some of my colleagues, who -- it doesn't matter that they say, oh, we have concerns about this president and how he's going to act.

And yet they vote to let him go. And so full -- we can expect more of the same, if not worse. And, already, the vindictiveness is manifesting itself, in that the Department of Homeland Security has said to New York, we're no longer going to let your people participate in Global Entry.

So that is vindictive. They can come up with all the nice little excuses, but he's going to go after cities that -- sanctuary cities and other places, because that's the kind of guy he is, so, vindictive, petty, small-minded.

It's all about Trump all the time every time. We can expect more of that.

BLITZER: Senator Hirono, thank you so much for joining us.

HIRONO: You're welcome.

BLITZER: Thank you.

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