CNN "State of the Union with Jake Tapper" - Transcript Interview with Cory Booker
Interview
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Joining me now, Harris' close friend and New York -- I'm sorry -- New Jersey Democratic Senator Cory Booker.
Senator Booker, thanks so much for joining us.
I know that you and Senator Harris are close friends. I know that you're overjoyed by her selection to be Joe Biden's running mate.
On a policy level, however, some advocates for criminal justice reform, which is a major focus for you, were very critical of Harris' record as district attorney and as California attorney general when she ran for president.
How do you now convince those people who care about criminal justice reform to support somebody who, frankly, I heard a lot of talk during the primaries that Kamala is a cop?
SEN. CORY BOOKER (D-NJ): Well, again, there are always going to be critics, but let the work that she's done speak for her.
In the United States Senate, she and I partnered together on the Dignity Act for women in prison that was adopted in multiple states around the nation. The criminal justice reform bill, which got passed and liberated thousands of people, predominantly black and brown folks, from prison, she and I championed.
The Justice in Policing Act that we authored with House leaders and the CBC leaders, but, in the Senate, she and I were the authors of that.
So, as a guy that's been in the trenches with her on every major issue relating to everything from policing to reentry, she has been one of the great voices in the Senate helping us to gain ground and move ahead. So, at this point, you compare that record with Donald Trump's record
and what they have been doing, from the putting children in cages, all the way to really abject failures, frankly, in this pandemic, around releasing people from prison that did not have connections to the president himself.
[09:45:02]
They have done a great job getting the president's friends out of prison.
TAPPER: But President...
BOOKER: But this is...
(CROSSTALK)
TAPPER: President Trump signed into law a bill that you worked on, though.
(CROSSTALK)
BOOKER: ... between Biden and Harris.
TAPPER: But President Trump signed into law a criminal justice reform bill that you that you worked on.
BOOKER: And I'm proud...
TAPPER: I mean, so you can say what you just said, but you're ignoring this other thing that -- this other accomplishment of President Trump on the subject of criminal justice reform.
Meanwhile, during the Democratic primary, you were also critical of Joe Biden's record on criminal justice reform. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOOKER: Mr. Vice President has said that, since the 1970s, every major crime bill, every crime bill, major and minor, has had his name on it.
And, sir, those are your words, not mine.
We have a system right now that's broken. And if you want to compare records -- and frankly, I'm shocked that you do -- I am happy to do that.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Since then, criminal justice reform has even become a bigger issue nationwide, especially amidst the national protests following the murder of George Floyd by police.
Do you stand by your previous criticism of Joe Biden?
BOOKER: Well, again, I want to say very clearly that this is a -- you talked about me working with the Trump administration to gain ground for the liberation of African-Americans from prison.
I'm very proud of that. But yet this is an administration that has gutted the Department of Justice, has stopped the consent decrees that were going on with police accountability, a number of other things that have been a poor record of this -- in fact, rolling us backwards on civil rights, on criminal justice reform, and on holding local police departments accountable.
As far as Joe Biden is concerned, I'm proud of the hard-fought primary that we had. He emerged from a wide field of people as our choice, as our champion. And I'm proud of that. And I'm proud of the dialogue that we had, rich, vibrant dialogue.
And now I am confident, looking at their criminal justice plans and partnering, especially now, as he's done, with Kamala Harris, one of the champions on criminal justice. I have no worry about the degrees at which Joe Biden will be tearing down the awful institutions of mass incarceration in America, that he will be a champion to help get the bill that Kamala and I wrote on the Senate side done that creates just -- excuse me -- police accountability.
So, as a United States senator, as an African-American, I am excited about what Biden and Harris will do for advancing criminal justice, rolling back mass incarceration, an really, frankly, having a broader view of what public safety is by investing in things like health care, environmental justice, education, and more.
TAPPER: So, let me ask you.
President Trump and his campaign have been floating this false, completely false notion that Senator Harris, who was born in Oakland, California, in 1964 and is an American, may not be eligible to be vice president.
Were you surprised when they started to do that?
BOOKER: This is something I think that many Americans know -- I know it from my family -- is, when you have African-American women who are rising up in positions that there have never been African-American women in before, that people are going to viciously attack them on gender and race.
The words, the gendered words that this president has been using about Kamala, attacking her in extraordinarily awful ways, just reflects the demeaning and degrading language he's used about blacks, about black and brown places, about congresspeople, telling them to go back where they have come from, when they were born in this country.
This is nothing new, nothing surprising.
TAPPER: Yes. BOOKER: What I don't think Trump understands is that Kamala Harris
has been fighting this fight her entire career, rising to positions where she was the first African-American woman in -- time and time again.
So, if there's anybody that's ready for this kind of mess, it's Kamala Harris. And so Donald Trump can pick a fight he -- if he wants. But he is the proverbial bully in the playground that is about to get knocked out when he steps up against this dynamic duo that will beat him in November.
TAPPER: So, let me ask you about Governor Murphy of your home state of New Jersey, has just made New Jersey a state that will send ballots, voting ballots, to every registered voter in the state.
It's called universal mail-in ballots. There are only nine states that are doing it. New Jersey is, I believe, the latest to do it. The third biggest city in your state, Paterson, New Jersey, held a vote-by-mail election in May.
And four men, including a city council member and a city council candidate, have since been charged with election fraud. Nearly 20 percent of the votes in that election have been disqualified, though, to be clear, most of them were disqualified due to mistakes in how the ballots were filled out.
[09:50:09]
But, in any case, it doesn't really exactly breed confidence about the process.
How can you be sure New Jersey is ready to do this statewide?
BOOKER: Well, look, voter fraud is incredibly rare.
And when it's done absentee ballots or in mail-in ballots, what -- the great -- the reason why it's so easy to find out is because you literally have a paper trail. That is why, as was mentioned earlier in your show, from North Carolina to New Jersey, it was easy to expose and to hold people accountable.
And we know it is incredibly rare, as we have seen multiple states in America be doing all vote-by-mail for some time.
So, what concerns me is not these spurious claims that somehow there's going to be mass voter fraud. We know that's not true from the experiences of everybody from Utah to the state of Oregon to even here in the state of New Jersey.
What concerns me is an all-out attack -- they're not even hiding it -- by the president of the United States to undermine the United States Postal Service, to underfund it, to allow a mega-donor leading it to overtly do things to slow down the mail...
TAPPER: Yes.
BOOKER: ... put a choke hold on this institution and make it very difficult for states to do...
TAPPER: Thank you.
BOOKER: ... what they need to do to ensure that Americans will have the freedom to vote amidst the pandemic.
TAPPER: Yes.
Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, thanks for joining us today. We appreciate it.
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