CNN "Anderson Cooper 360" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Steve Cohen

Interview

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COOPER: That happened on the streets in New York City last week. So why are these Republicans staying silent? If the answer is they don't want to offend bigots and haters and conspiracy buffs who might also vote Republican, then their silence is a deafening roar.

Joining us now is Tennessee Democratic Congressman Steve Cohen, who sits on the House Judiciary Committee. Congressman Cohen, how do you push back on these disgusting comments without giving oxygen to this person who is at this point, essentially a taxpayer funded troll?

REP. STEVE COHEN (D-TN): Well, it's sad to see that Members of Congress have gotten to this low level. They don't understand history. They don't understand the Holocaust. You know, it was not just Nazi, Germany; it was Poland where some of this more severe, serious concentration camps were Auschwitz and Birkenau.

She doesn't understand and she's not -- she obviously -- the comments she made about lasers starting the California wildfires, she has got a real problem with Jewish people. I think she's playing to her base.

[20:05:22]

COHEN: And a lot of Republicans today have no experience in government. They don't have much knowledge of history and they're just trying to become social media stars, they raise money that way. And that's what they're talking about.

What they're doing is celebrity through social media, raising money with no sense of conscience, no sense of pride to pass legislation, and no sense of making America a country where people work together and try to have peace and both be together in all pursuits.

COOPER: I mean, just you -- and she is raising money, and she'll donate some of that money to other Republicans, and they'll continue to be quiet and they'll thank her until they'll take her money.

If the House Republican leadership won't condemn her for this. I mean, I'm not sure what it's going to take.

G.O.P. leadership spoke out against then Republican Congressman Steve King back in 2019, after he made remarks defending white supremacy. They stripped him of his committee assignments. They didn't do that with Marjorie Taylor Greene, Democrats led that effort. Why do you think Republicans are more comfortable condemning King than they are Greene? Have we changed so much?

COHEN: Maybe we've changed. Marjorie Taylor Greene and the Boeberts and the Cawthorns. There's a few others that have come up, some of them I hardly know until they make stupid stuff like it was like a typical visitors' day on January the 6th, and you realize who some of these people are. But that's so much that came in in this new class.

McCarthy doesn't want upset them. McCarthy has got eyes on being the Speaker, which he didn't have before, and so he has shown no leadership at all.

The Jewish Democrats in the House are putting a letter together. David Cicilline has been a primary force and we will be sending it to McCarthy and ask him to take some steps because we saw what happened on January 6th, and that was easily forecast. You could see violence was going to occur with Trump's remarks.

We say things with Asians and that was again Trump's remarks and these remarks about Jewish people, which Marjorie Taylor Greene has done rather consistently will lead to violence against Jewish people more and more, and it needs to stop and Republicans don't need to sit on the sidelines, and they need to step up and they certainly shouldn't be frightened of these fringe characters who Mitch McConnell calls Looney Tunes.

It's just, they've gone off the rails and it's just -- it's sad, in fact, they have no perspective in history and understanding. There used to be something called Godwin's law, a journalist law that most legislators and congressmen will have learned about, which is you don't compare anything to the Holocaust, because it was such a horrific act that nothing is comparable.

But Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn't get it. She thinks wearing a mask is comparable to a Holocaust. She needs to be [AUDIO DIFFICULTY].

COOPER: Congressman Cohen, I appreciate your time. We are having a little trouble with your connection, we appreciate your time tonight. Thank you.

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