CNN "CNN Newsroom" - Transcript: Interview with Ruben Gallego

Interview

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BLACKWELL: Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Ruben Gallego of Arizona. He was on the House floor when that mob attacked on the 6th, and helped some of his colleagues out of the House chamber.

Congressman, thanks for being with us.

I first want to get your reaction to the list of these additions to the committee, potentially. Three of them voted to object to the 2020 Electoral College. Two of them also signed on to that Texas lawsuit that challenge the votes from some swing states. Your reaction to the choices?

REP. RUBEN GALLEGO (D-AZ): Well, look, this is Kevin McCarthy's attempt at basically bringing a clown show to Congress, especially with the lead clown being Jim Jordan.

This is a very serious event. There was an attempted insurrection. We have police officers that died. We had police officers that were injured. And the fact that Kevin McCarthy still is not taking this serious tells us more about who's in control. And that's more likely Donald Trump than Kevin McCarthy.

So the fact that Donald Trump's making the calls and who is on this committee, I think, should really disturb us, because that's the person that at the end should be investigated in this whole process.

BLACKWELL: Well, Speaker Pelosi has the final call here. And she told our Manu Raju that their votes on the 6th, that's not a criterion for if they will be appointed to the commission. Should that be one of them?

GALLEGO: I certainly think it should be one of them. That doesn't have to be the whole equation.

But certainly allowing someone like Jim Jordan, who is a -- again, a walking clown show, on to a very serious committee is just ridiculous idea.

That'd be like putting someone of that caliber on the 9/11 Commission, something that I think everyone took very seriously. So you can't have that type of distraction for something that we seriously have to investigate. With Jim Jordan, all he really does is throw bombs and will just basically obstruct for the president and overall the whole investigation.

BLACKWELL: I want to get your reaction to something that Jim Jordan said in just a moment, but just so we clear this up, a vote to object to the certification of those electors, you don't believe that should be a disqualifier to be a part of the committee?

GALLEGO: I think it has to be part of it. It has to be part of overall their whole portfolio of what they have done since they have gotten to Congress, what they have done since January 6.

It'd be difficult, I think, for us to start knocking out a lot of Republicans, because most of them did vote in a majority for questioning the vote. But, again, it's also your comportment since January 6. And Jim Jordan has been an unabashed obstructionist for the president and, again, is just not professional enough to be on this very serious select committee.

BLACKWELL: All right, here's that aforementioned statement from Jim Jordan, I want your reaction the other side.

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JORDAN: We know what this is about. This is about going after President Trump. I mean, the Democrats, they don't want to talk about anything else. So they got to talk about this.

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BLACKWELL: What do you say to that?

GALLEGO: Well, this is about not -- this is about us stopping another insurrection.

And it's not just Donald Trump. It's the enablers like Jim Jordan, like the Stephen Millers, people that were in the media, in the punditry world that helped build up the insurrection of January 6.

So it's not just about Donald Trump. This is about our country. It's about our country and preserving democracy and the safe transference of power from one party to another. And that's why Jim Jordan wants to distract about this, because once we start getting down to the meat of it, we're going to see that there were certain Republicans and certain Trump enablers that really put this country on a lifeline, and nearly destroyed our wonderful democracy.

[14:25:09]

And this is why people like Jim Jordan should not be anywhere near this select committee.

BLACKWELL: Yes, as I mentioned, you were at the Capitol that day.

And we now have the first sentence for one of the rioters. Paul Hodgkins pleaded guilty to obstructing the congressional proceedings. Sentencing guidelines were 15 to 20 months. Prosecutors wanted 18. The judge sentenced him to eight.

You believe that's too lenient. What's the message from that sentence?

GALLEGO: Well, the message from that sentence, especially for many of them that are being prosecuted right now, is to try to hold out and see if you could at minimum get eight years.

I think there was a very bad decision made by this judge. I know people that have been busted with small amounts of weed that are spending more time in jail, and this person tried to get themselves involved in an insurrection.

And the excuse that they got taken up in the moment is not an excuse when you're a person of that age. So I'm very disappointed. I hope that that's not a trend that we're going to see. We seriously need to punish and harshly a lot of these insurrectionists, or else we will have another insurrection at some point.

BLACKWELL: One more before you go, Congressman, and this is on Afghanistan, leaning on your membership with the Armed Services Committee there in the House.

ISIS, a division of ISIS, has now claimed responsibility for rocket attacks near Kabul this morning, ISIS, not the Taliban. We know the Taliban is stronger there than it has been over the last 20 years. And U.S. troops are leaving over the next several weeks.

Are you convinced, are you sure that the U.S. will not have to go back or send troops right back into Afghanistan after leaving, considering what we're seeing there now?

GALLEGO: Look, I'm not convinced that we're not going to be somehow involved in one way or the other back in Afghanistan.

Certainly, what we're not going to be involved is another occupation, because, clearly, after 20 years, occupation has not brought any stability to Afghanistan, and we're just going to find ourselves in an endless rotation of troops there.

We have the capability to strike from afar. We have had the capability for quite a while. When it becomes a real threat to the United States, then I think we will take care of it then. But this idea that us having more troops there for another 20 years, an endless mission, in which Afghanistan does not stabilize itself, is not in our national security.

At the end of the day, we have to look out for our national security and hope that the -- and assist where we can with the Afghans stabilizing themselves. But, clearly, having thousands and thousands of troops there over 20 years has not made a difference. And we shouldn't really follow 20 years of bad experience with 20 more years of even worse experience.

BLACKWELL: All right, Arizona Congressman Ruben Gallego, thanks so much.

GALLEGO: Thank you for your time.

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