CNN "The Lead with Jake Tapper" - Transcript Interview with Dick Durbin

Interview

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Joining me now is Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin.

What's your reaction, Senator, to the president's comments to Bob Woodward?

SEN. RICHARD DURBIN (D-IL): I try to put it in context.

Presidents throughout history, when they're facing a national crisis, have a responsibility to lead. They certainly want to calm the American people. Franklin Roosevelt did it after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. George W. Bush did it after 9/11.

But it's unacceptable that a president would deliberately mislead the American people about the seriousness of this public health challenge and then, frankly, say things that were contradictory to that fact, suggesting we can reopen the economy early, ignore the need for masks, that somehow this was all going away with another one of his medical quackery views.

Clearly, what Woodward has done now is to spell out, with tape- recorded messages, what this president did and failed to do at a critical moment in American history.

BROWN: We just passed 190,000 deaths in the U.S. from coronavirus.

Are you worried about how many people may have dismissed health guidance because they were taking their cues from the president?

DURBIN: Absolutely. There's no question about it.

And the fact that he was briefed in January about the seriousness of this, and still was diminishing it and downplaying it as it was unfolding in the United States, leaving governors and mayors and others on their own to try to assemble the necessary things to protect themselves and to save American lives, this refusal to move forward in a national basis, to organize this, and be ready to fight this, unacceptable.

And the president deliberately misled the American people. That is what is scandalous.

BROWN: President Trump has already been impeached by the Democratic- led House. You are the second highest-ranking Democrat in the Senate.

How do you respond to this?

DURBIN: Well, I can tell you that he betrayed the American people's trust with the way he handled this coronavirus. And we're paying for it dearly.

Not only did he mislead the American people, but he refused to take sound medical advice, and still does to this day. When Dr. Fauci or others say things that make him feel uncomfortable, he does everything he can to exclude them and take them off the television.

It's just something the American people now clearly understand. When it comes to leadership, this president has not shown the responsibility we ask of a president.

BROWN: And, of course, we are now less than two months from the presidential election.

Today, Joe Biden, called Trump's comments a disgrace and a dereliction of duty. What does Biden need to do now?

DURBIN: Well, I think what he needs to do is get elected, first and foremost, on November 3. And the American people will make that decision. I certainly hope they will take this into consideration.

And, secondly, to really rally the American people to treat this in a very serious manner. The United States has 4 percent of the world's population, 4 percent. Twenty percent of the COVID-19 deaths in the world are in the United States, 4 percent of the population, 20 percent of the deaths. This has been an abject failure in dealing with this pandemic, this

public health crisis. We need a leader like Joe Biden who will stand up and say, America, let's get it together. We can do this.

BROWN: But, really quick, what do you say to the White House that says, look, he was just trying to urge calm, he didn't want people to panic, things were -- there was imperfect information back then?

DURBIN: Well, of course, the president should be urging calm, as Franklin Roosevelt did in World War II, as George W. Bush, a Republican, did after 2020 -- 9/11, 2001.

But it's not acceptable to come the nation by misleading and lying to the nation, as this president did. He knew how serious this was. And he said just the opposite when he was interviewed in front of a camera. That is on the record.

BROWN: All right, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, thank you so much.

DURBIN: Thank you.

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