CNN "State of the Union with Jake Tapper" - Interview with James Clyburn

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Majority Whip Clyburn, thanks so much for joining us today. We have a lot to get to.

But I do want to start on the shooting of Rayshard Brooks. The Atlanta police chief has now resigned, protesters very angry. They have been tear-gassed. Some set fire to a Wendy's there.

What's your reaction when you saw the video of that police shooting?

REP. JAMES CLYBURN (D-SC): Well, thank you very much having me, Jake.

I -- I was very incensed over that. And you wonder, sometimes, when you're dealing with an issue like this out here for two or three weeks, and then you see a police officer still being insensitive to the life of a young African-American man.

Now, the fact of the matter is, he was drinking, fell asleep in the Wendy's drive-through. So, how -- and they have already patted him down. He had no weapon on him.

Where did they think he was going to go? So, he's running away. My goodness, you got his car. You can easily find him. Get back up. But, no, you fire bullets into his back. That is not what you call corresponding force.

And so I think the mayor is right. This did not call for lethal force. And I don't know what's in the culture that would make this guy do that. It has got to be the culture. It's got to be the system. You have got an African-American woman mayor. You have got a woman police chief.

So, the sensitivities that we look for in people are there, but it's not ingrained in the institution. That's why I have been saying you have got to restructure our judicial system, restructure our health care system, restructure our educational system.

We know that. All of these things have been put together in order to maintain suppression of African-Americans all the way back to 1865. People forget, Reconstruction didn't last for 12 years. All the stuff that we talk about Reconstruction, that's not Reconstruction. We institutionalized second-class citizenship of black people during the Jim Crow era.

I get a little upset when I hear people say, well, you know, the civil rights movement was the second Reconstruction. Come on now. What you have is a second Confederacy, is what you have got. The first one reacted to slavery.

Now we have got -- we have a second one in the '60s reacting to Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. And now you have got another one taking place. I would just say this is the second part of the second one.

TAPPER: Let's talk about policing reform.

[09:05:00]

You have introduced a bill in the House. Senate Republicans, led by Senator Tim Scott, are poised to introduce their own bill this week.

When I talked to Senator Scott on Friday, he told me that the Democrats in the House vs. the Republicans in the Senate are taking two different paths on a couple items, reducing the number of choke holds.

Your bill would just ban them. They would disincentivize them, I suppose. He also said you're distances away on this issue of qualified minority, which would make it easier to sue police in civil court.

Is their bill a nonstarter for you, or do you see a potential for compromise?

CLYBURN: I never call anything a nonstarter. There's always potential for compromise, in my opinion, when you're trying to do legislation.

Our system is designed that way. We were designed to have a House do its business. The Senate will do its business. And we try to come together in a conference to see, can you work out the differences?

I have seen conferences produce a better result over a compromise. So, let's just let both houses do whatever they're going to do, and then let's get down to the serious business of reconciling our differences.

Once again, we have got a Senate that is made up totally different, one African-American Republican, two African-American Democrats, and then 97 others. So, we need to bring those others and these three together and come up with something that we over in the House, with 53 African-Americans, can do something to reconcile, well, three -- 54 -- 53 Democrats and one Republican.

TAPPER: I want to ask you about the defund the police movement, which is an issue in the Democratic Party, in the progressive movement right now.

Some organizers on the left say that the only way to reduce police violence and police brutality is to slash police budgets, cut the number of officers.

One activist, Mariame Kaba, wrote in "The New York Times" this week -- quote -- "Yes, we mean literally abolish. The police efforts to solve police violence through liberal reforms like these have failed for nearly a century. Enough. We can't reform the police. Why on earth would we think the same reforms would work now?" -- unquote.

What is your message to her? What is your message to those in your caucus, the Black Congress, such as Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who we're talking with shortly, who is also saying defund the police?

CLYBURN: I would simply say, as I have always said, nobody is going to defund the police.

We can restructure the police forces, restructure, reimagine policing. That is what we are going to do. The fact of the matter is, the police have a role to play. What we have got to do is make sure that their role is one that meets the times, one that responds to these communities that they operate in.

I didn't grow up in fear of police, even in a segregated environment. We never feared the police. But, all of a sudden now, I do fear the police. The young blacks fear the police.

Why? Because we have built in a system that's responding, once again, to Brown v. Board of Education and everything that comes with it. When I was growing up, we didn't have black police. And I remember when the first black policeman -- remember his name to this day, two of them. One name was Gilliard (ph). One name was China (ph).

The fact of the matter is, this is a structure that has been developed that we have got to deconstruct. So, I wouldn't say defund. Deconstruct our policing.

TAPPER: All right, Majority Whip James Clyburn from South Carolina, thank you so much for joining us this morning. We really appreciate your time and your experience with a lot of these issues.

CLYBURN: Thank you very much.

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