CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) Is Interviewed About Attorney General Barr's Threat To Resign

Interview

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Let's get some more and all of this, Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware is joining us. He's a member of both the Judiciary and Foreign Relations Committees. Senator, do you think the attorney general is serious about this threat to resign?

SEN. CHRIS COONS (D-DE): Wolf, I hope he is. I think he should resign. Frankly, the fact that 2,000 former Department of Justice employees have signed a public petition calling on him to resign and the fact that four career prosecutors withdrew from the Roger Stone case after the unusual, even unprecedented interference by President Trump and the attorney general in sentencing recommendations for one of Trump's cronies, Roger Stone, suggests to me that he's lost the confidence of a lot of folks in the department.

And the President's ongoing public attempts to interfere in the independence of the Department of Justice should give the attorney general real pause and given that President Trump is unbounded is now handing out pardons like party favors to the corrupt and well connected, he should resign.

BLITZER: Do you think the attorney general, senator, is genuinely concerned about the President's interference in this ongoing criminal cases or is he simply upset that the President is doing so publicly?

COONS: I think it's the latter. Frankly, one of the reasons I voted against Attorney General Barr in his confirmation hearing was both his positions that are very expansive in terms of his view of presidential power and of the fact I just wasn't convinced in his confirmation hearing that he understood the role of the attorney general, his loyalty to the constitution, not to any individual president.

And I think some of the more recent developments in the Department of Justice have been alarming, and so I'm concerned that this is all for show. And frankly, he is just trying to throw us off of the scent.

BLITZER: What if anything can Congress do at this point?

COONS: Well, that's part of what I think is the tragedy of the outcome of the impeachment trial is that President Trump having not just -- not been removed following the two-week trial in the Senate of the United States, but now emboldened. We're going to see him behave more and more egregiously, I think, in terms of coloring outside of the lines, operating beyond the guardrails of the constitutional system.

So, I frankly think that as long as a Republican majority in the United States Senate will not in any way speak up against or challenge President Trump's unconventional behavior, his threats to our rule of law will simply grow in the weeks and months ahead.

[17:25:11]

BLITZER: You've endorsed the former Vice President Joe Biden. In our new CNN Poll of Polls --

COONS: Yes, I have.

BLITZER: -- as you notice Senator, Bernie Sanders is actually leading the former Vice President by double digits and Michael Bloomberg is right behind him. You can see the numbers there up on the screen. How is he going to turn this campaign around beginning with tonight's debate?

COONS: Well, Wolf, you're going to see a vigorous attack by Joe Biden on the records of some of his opponents and a defense of his own record of public service. There are three issues that I expect to hear from Joe on the campaign stage tonight.

First is healthcare. He deserves the accolades for having been side by side with President Obama fighting for the Affordable Care Act. Mike Bloomberg, Mayor Bloomberg, didn't support the Affordable Care Act, didn't support the Wall Street reforms of the Obama-Biden administration. And Joe Biden knows how hard it was to get the Affordable Care Act passed and why passing Medicare for All and taking away great health care from the culinary workers and other unionized workers of the State of Nevada isn't what they want.

Second, Las Vegas was the scene of one of the deadliest shootings in American history. Three years ago, 59 people were killed, hundreds injured. And Nevada's state legislature has passed stronger background checks to try and promote public safety in the State of Nevada. Joe Biden is the only man on that stage, the only candidate on that stage who has taken on the NRA and won, not once but twice.

And last, Joe has a long record of standing for organized labor. He was on the picket line with the culinary workers today, and I think that combination of his record is a real Democrat, not a Democratic socialist, not a Republican, but a real Democrat who has fought for labor, fought for health care, fought for our protection against gun violence. We'll stand him in good stead on that stage tonight and lead him to a strong finish in Nevada and South Carolina next week.

BLITZER: It sounds like he is going to go after Bernie Sanders and Michael Bloomberg. We shall see in a few hours.

COONS: Yes.

BLITZER: Senator Coons, thanks as usual for joining us. COONS: Thank you, Wolf.

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