CNN "CNN Newsroom" - Transcript: Interview with Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill

Interview

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KING: An interesting family gathering today for House Democrats, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee will brief fellow members this afternoon on last week's losses. As of now, more than a half dozen house incumbent Democrats lost their bids for reelections. Democrats will still maintain their majority in the House. But there's been some intra party fighting between moderates and progressives about who is to blame for that smaller majority.

New Jersey Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill won her reelection race and joins me now. It's good to see you, Congresswoman. So in this meeting today, if you have to make a point about what happened and what needs to be done, what would you say?

REP. MIKIE SHERRILL (D-NJ): You know, I think I would draw in my experience as a naval aviator. We used to do aircraft mishap boards after a mishap. And the point wasn't to assign blame. The point was to dig deep and figure out what went wrong and how we can fix it. We need to all move forward together in the caucus, we have a lot to get done. And if we use the next couple of years to fight each other, we're just not going to be able to get on a path that really helps the American people.

KING: Well, if the President-elect is watching, he might want to make your secretary of state because that was very diplomatic. But, you know, you understand what's happening. And look, I've been here a long time. You know, fights within families happen. They happen. We're in the Thanksgiving. We're in the Thanksgiving season and the Christmas season. We're all used to this. But as you know, there has been some finger pointing and there have been more centrist and moderate members like yourself who say, you know what, they threw the socialism label at us, they threw, you know, Medicare for all at us, they threw, you know, government takes care of this, that, and the other thing at us. I want you to listen here to a couple of the progressives, one in Congress and one about to join Congress saying no, no, this is not our fault.

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REP. ILHAN OMAR (D-MN): All of those members who are part of the Progressive Caucus, who are also in those swing districts, won their races or are on track to win their races.

JAMAAL BOWMAN (D-NY), CONGRESSMAN-ELECT: I disagree with the notion that it's the fault of progressives, especially when you look at how much progressives organize across the country to help Joe Biden win.

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KING: You know, I spent a lot of time at maps and I know your district is different than their districts. But how did Democrats come together and say, look, we all have to give, here's our plan, or can you do that, given the diversity and the size of the caucus, and the fact that some people come from very different places, some people come to places much more liberal than you do?

SHERRILL: Well, I think we can do that because there are so many things that we're fighting for. We want to make sure that we're handling this health care crisis, the pandemic in the nation. We need to get past it so we can then handle the economic crisis. We're delving deep into how communities of color have fared so poorly. And why that is and how we can make sure everyone has access to health care and prescription drugs. These are things that everyone in my caucus wants to fight for, we can do that together.

And I think, though, that there has to be an understanding. If we want to get that accomplished, if we want to get legislation passed that's going to improve the lives of the American people, we've got to hold the tough districts. We have to hear from people in the tough districts about what just went on, how hard it was, and why that was difficult, because let's face it, we have a President who has just basically run for four years on dividing the country on fear mongering and really scared people, I think, in many areas into voting for him.

So what was it that scared people about the Democratic Party? How can we do better? Because we're working so hard for the people of this country, I think we've got to be laser focused on how we continue to do that. But we also want to make sure that we're fighting for the right things, that we're fighting for what people care about, because we're not connecting in some ways in these tough districts.

KING: Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill, I'll circle back as go through this, shall we say interesting family discussion. We'll call it a family discussion for now. We'll see if it escalates from there. Appreciate your time today very much. Thank you, and congratulations on your reelection.

SHERRILL: Thanks so much.

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