NBC "Meet the Press" - Interview with Cory Booker
Interview
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
CHUCK TODD:
And joining me now is Democratic Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey. Senator Booker, welcome back to Meet the Press. You've called this a "moral moment" for this country. But these protests are also trying to spur more than just awareness. They're trying to spur a policy change. What are you more confident in, that we're meeting a moral moment, or that we'll actually lead to changes in our policies?
SEN. CORY BOOKER:
Well, they're the same. In fact, when I look at everything from the suffrage movement, to the labor movement in this country, it's always been the people in the streets, often young people, who have demanded and forced a change in consciousness that made policy changes possible. I've been working all week with Kamala Harris and allies in the House to get real policies proposed. And we'll be releasing a bill tomorrow for things that should've been done in this country a long time ago -- banning certain police practices, creating deeper accountability. And so I'm just grateful to see this kind of nonviolent protest outpouring in the streets because they are leading. They're putting the pressure. They're creating a possibility that our policies can reflect the spirit of this country, that we can be, in the law, a more beloved nation.
CHUCK TODD:
You know, you have a unique set of experiences. You've been a mayor, you're a federal office holder in the Senate. Where should most of this change be enacted, on the local level or on the federal level?
SEN. CORY BOOKER:
It's got to be enacted on every level. We are a society where we are culpable. We have created a nation distinct from any other on the planet Earth. We incarcerate the plurality of the human beings incarcerated. One out of every three women on the planet Earth that are incarcerated are here in America. We've taken so much of our treasure -- between the time I was in law school to the time I was mayor, we were building a new prison or jail every ten days. And explicitly and complicitly, we all have made a decision that we are going to treat mental illness with prison, jail and police.; addiction with prison, jail and police; poverty with prison, jail and police; and overwhelmingly, African Americans with prison, jail and police. We now in America have more African American men under criminal supervision than all the slaves, men that were slaves in 1850. This is astonishing. This is unacceptable. We need to be more courageous in our compassion for one another, more, more ambitious in our imagination, that we can create a society that's not so over-policed, or where police -- we don't tolerate certain tactics that have had a generation in fear. You said at the beginning of this that 80+ percent of Americans think this country's out of control. Well, for black people in this country, we've thought this country is out of control in the way it polices our communities and individuals for a very long time. And this awakening is so important to create real, substantive change, not just lip service from politicians.
CHUCK TODD:
Tell us how, tell me how your thinking has changed. Being a mayor, at one point you fought -- you didn't want the federal government to -- you fought some of the oversight over the Newark Police Department at the time. In different ways, you've embraced it since. What have you learned over time about this issue?
SEN. CORY BOOKER:
Well, it shows the insidiousness of institutional racism. We are a majority black city in Newark. We had a majority black city council, black mayor, black police chief. And we knew we inherited a police department with decades of challenges. And so we went to work when I got into office to reform our police department. But we didn't have the data. We didn't have the transparency. And it took the federal government and their accountability and their systems of data analysis to show that we were not moving as fast as we should. And so we took on a very ambitious plan, that stood from everything, from changing our municipal court system with drug courts and veterans courts and youth courts, to pulling in experts from John Jay College to say, "You don't have to arrest people to create safer neighborhoods," that there are other ways to go. And I partnered with the ACLU before I left to set a national standard, collection -- data collection practices. So I learned the hard way that this is not a system that is always explicitly done by overt racism. This is a system that's really baked, that we all have to take responsibility for and get practices that, like you're going to see in the bill we're going to release, that just give greater transparency and greater accountability for those who are doing policing.
CHUCK TODD:
I want to ask you about defunding the police. Last night in Washington, D.C. on 16th Street right next to the Black Lives Matter letters, the phrase "defund the police" was painted down there. There is a lot of passion around that issue. And when you hear that -- the phrase may mean different things to different people -- but when you hear that, what's your reaction?
SEN. CORY BOOKER:
Well, I understand clearly the sentiment and the substance behind the slogan. And so while it's not a slogan I'll use, if people just dismiss it and don't get deeper into the substance. As I said earlier, it is not a mark of a beloved community to prey upon the most vulnerable in your society. We are using police. And, as a guy who ran police departments, I would have exhausted police officers saying, "Why are we using police to deal with the fragility or vulnerability of our society?" There's so much money going into our police departments that it's a more expensive way to deal with it. I remember being surprised in Seattle with a housing group called Plymouth Housing, where they showed me a data analysis where they looked at what was more expensive for society, providing supportive housing for Americans with mental illness that were homeless, or leaving them on the streets. And they found out they were able to save Seattle millions of dollars by giving people supportive housing because homeless people left on the streets with mental illnesses end up in hospital emergency rooms and jails. And so this is the outrage that I think people on the streets are feeling and that I share, is that we are over-policed as a society, that we are investing in police, which is not solving problems, but making them worse, when we should be, in a more compassionate country, in a more loving country -- and I know love is at the core of our ideals, but it needs to be made manifest in our policies -- we would actually spend less money. We would elevate human dignity and human potential. And we would set a standard on the planet Earth for how we treat those who are vulnerable, as opposed to what we're seeing right now.
CHUCK TODD:
Senator, when you were running for president, you were quite critical of former Vice President Joe Biden, and you questioned whether, you questioned whether his past, whether he had the credibility, given his record on some of these issues, to be a reformer on this. Where are you now?
SEN. CORY BOOKER:
Well, I fully put my faith in Joe Biden to be the person who could preside over this transformative change. And I'm going to tell you right now, the heroes for me, as I look at great presidents past, the time of LBJ, for example, an extraordinary, capable leader, like Joe Biden. But the real heroes in that generation were the people who were sick and tired of being sick and tired. And if there are protesters listening to this show, I just pray, and I want to say to them with all sincerity, stay on the streets in your nonviolent protests. Stay demanding change. And I think that Joe Biden's election can do that. And look, Donald Trump can't center himself in this. This is such a bigger moment than him. This is not a referendum on one person in one office. This is a referendum on who we are as Americans and who we're going to be to each other. This is a moral moment. Will we become a more loving and compassionate society, not with our rhetoric, but with our laws and our rules and how we treat the most vulnerable? And so this is that moment that I think Joe Biden can be the president for, but the responsibility is not on any individual. It's on all of us.
CHUCK TODD:
Right. Senator Booker, Democrat from New Jersey, I have to leave it there. Really appreciate you coming on and sharing your perspective with us this morning. Thank you, sir.
SEN. CORY BOOKER:
Thank you.
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