MSNBC "All In With Chris Hayes" - Transcript: Interview with James Clyburn
Interview
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REP. JAMES CLYBURN (D-SC): Well, thank you very much for having me, Chris. I think we`re at a crossroads on that. I`ve been arguing now for some time that our democracy is at peril. All you got to do is look at the vote today, only two Republicans voted, you know, to get to the bottom of what happened on January 6 and why it happened. Only two Republicans, that`s just cannot be. We need to know why there was an insurrection on January 6. Who was behind it? Who financed it? Exactly what it was all about?
But that`s why we were parallel because that`s a bipartisan issue. There`s nothing partisan about trying to find out who is trying to overthrow our government, who is trying to overturn elections. These things are very, very important to find out if we are going to do what is necessary to preserve the integrity of this great democracy.
I`ve been wanting for a long time we need to look to history. And no matter how things may look, we have a democracy that has really been tested in a way that has never been tested before.
HAYES: You noted the roll call vote today. This was to impanel the select committee to investigate. It did pass 220 to 290. But you noted that only two republicans, it was Adam Kinzinger and Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming to vote in favor.
What does it say to you that it seems every one of these votes to come up, there are fewer and fewer Republicans willing to cross party lines? I mean, when you look back to like a majority of Republicans voted in the House not to seat the electors to overturn the election, but a sizable chunk did not. Then you go to the impeachment and you had about, you know, double digits of Republicans, I think if I`m recalling correctly, willing to impeach the president. Now, we`re down to just a committee and we`re down to two Republicans. It seems the further we get away from it, the worst those vote tallies get on their side.
CLYBURN: Well, often, the further you get away from any issue, it lessens the impact. If you remember the day after the insurrection, you remember what Kevin McCarthy said on the floor? You remember what Mitch McConnell said? These people were ready to lay the blame at where they thought it needed to be. And that is on Donald Trump.
Then a few days later, that story is changed. And it`s changed even more today. Now, Mitch McConnell is saying we don`t need to do anything. We don`t need to find out what happened. We don`t need doing a thing about voting. The further you get away, the more happy they are to think the danger has passed.
But it has not passed. It is there in our future. And I would say to the American people, it is time for them to demand that their elected officials do the things that are necessary to preserve the integrity of this great democracy, because he is at peril.
HAYES: Final question for you is on another vote that regards insurrection and regards the monuments and statues of traders to the United States that are in the United States Capitol to this day. 120 -- 67, Republicans voted, including Kevin McCarthy, with Democrats, everyone to vote to support the removal of those statues from the Capitol. But you still have the majority of Republicans who stood against it. How do you see -- what do you -- what`s your read from that vote?
CLYBURN: Well, my read is that there`s been a flip in the country. You know, this document on the floor, and he talked about those Democrats of old who tried to preserve slavery, and second-class citizenship for people of color. Well, those Democrats reformed themselves.
Back in 1948, they started making the move to change this country. And it was those Democrats who did not want to make that move, they left the party. And guess where they went? They went to the Republican Party. Strom Thurmond was one of them. He was a Democrat in 1948. And in 1964, over the Civil Rights Act, he left the party, and many of them became Republicans.
My parents were Republicans. They got chased out of the Republican Party, and those disaffected Democrats took over the Republican Party. And that`s who`s perpetuating this thing today. The Republicans, many of whom used to be Democrats have now decided they`ve got safe haven in the Republican Party.
John C. Calhoun has got a statue here standing in South Carolina. John C. Calhoun wouldn`t fight to preserve the Confederacy. He died 10 years, more than 10 years before the Civil War broke out. John C. Calhoun is here because he fought to preserve slavery. That`s what made him a big guy in the minds of many South Carolinians.
And now, in Yale University from which he graduated, change took his name off the college up there. Clemson University that he help to found, they have decided to take his name off the Honors College. Charleston, where he`s buried, took a statue down. But yet, the state of South Carolina keeps his statue up here. And we here in the Congress were going to do what`s necessary to put that in the dustbin of history.
HAYES: James C. Calhoun, one of the -- one of the great -- Calhoun, one of the great villains of American history. Congressman James Clyburn, thank you so much for making time tonight. I appreciate it.
CLYBURN: Thank you for having me.
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