MSNBC "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell" - Transcript: Interview with Hakeem Jeffries

Interview

Leading off our discussion tonight is Democratic Congressman Hakeem Jeffries of New York. He`s the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus and a member of the House Judiciary Committee.

Thank you very much for joining us tonight. We really appreciate it.

And as a member of the Judiciary Committee in the House and now seeing what the Senate Judiciary Committee has revealed you, too, have oversight jurisdiction of what goes on at the Justice Department. What are your first thoughts about what can be done about this?

REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): Well, good evening, Lawrence. Great to be on as always.

You know, Donald Trump`s behavior continues to make Richard Nixon look like a choir boy. And there is no bottom. There never will be. That is how corrupt this particular individual who used to occupy 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is and how much he has corrupted the Republican Party, which is no longer a functional governing party. It`s a cult.

I think we came very close to losing our democracy, and the more information that is revealed the clearer that becomes. And so I expect on the House Judiciary Committee side we`ll continue to explore this information, probe it, present it to the American people. Of course, leading that effort in the House is going to continue to be the select committee. And then we`re going to have to try to figure out how we can hold some of these individuals accountable for their behavior whenever and wherever possible so as to hopefully deter it from ever happening again.

O`DONNELL: Well, you know, on the deter it part when I was reading this what I kept seeing, and this is something that the Trump era really revealed for us so vividly, is that everything the committee staff, the Democratic committee staff finds to be a violation, it is almost entirely a violation of norms and a violation of ethical standards setup after Richard Nixon. And it`s all based on this old-fashioned Washington notion of a gentleman`s agreement that gentlemen simply wouldn`t simply make phone calls like this and gentlemen simply wouldn`t make requests like this.

And there`s no structure to police this kind of activity. And there`s no -- going forward there`s no structure to police this kind of activity.

JEFFRIES: Well, certainly, we`ve learned as a result of what took place during the Trump administration as you indicated that norms are no longer enough in terms of the preservation and continuity of our democracy. Chairman Adam Schiff is leading that effort to try to address this issue and put into place laws and statutes to govern what is appropriate conduct so that hopefully we never have to confront an out of control corrupt administration like the one that existed when Donald Trump was in office.

Now, of course, we`ll have to confront the dynamics in the Senate with a Republican Party that refuses to govern in a credible fashion. But the first step we`ll have to take is to move this legislation in the House and then make our case to the American people as to why it`s important to their well-being.

We can`t really have a functional economy. We can`t really have a functional society that takes care of the needs, the hopes, the dreams, the aspirations of the American people if democracy breaks down. And that`s why this issue should be important to every single American.

O`DONNELL: The report clearly shows that there isn`t currently a way to control this kind of behavior. You know, and there`s always discussion about -- well, you know, there`s a process and, you know, there`s a limit to who can have contact with the White House and the Justice Department. But those things are just there to be trampled on by someone like Donald Trump.

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And going forward, unless you can actually legislate the internals of how the Justice Department operates, which, by the way, is no easy thing. I have no suggestion about how you write that law. It`ll be very complex to write that law in a sensible way. But it`s hard to see how this would be stopped in the future.

JEFFRIES: Well, certainly I think there has to be consequences to behavior that goes beyond a policy violation that becomes a statutory violation and a violation of law, and perhaps imposing criminal consequences where appropriate. We should explore all of that because, again, our democracy is fragile. And we`ve seen that. And we`ve seen that in so many ways including the January 6th violent insurrection, and we`re going to have to do things differently and not simply wish it away.

And I believe that Democrats in the House, the Senate and certainly President Biden are all prepared to lead us forward both in terms of getting things done for every day Americans as it relates to improving their quality of life and improving access to opportunity in every single zip code and protecting our institutions, our values, our norms and the heart and soul of our democracy, and that`s the job that is in front of us.

O`DONNELL: The Senate did vote tonight to extent the debt ceiling in effect to December. Eleven Republican votes for the cloture motion, which is not the same thing as voting to raise the debt ceiling. Mitch McConnell was one of those 11 votes, but it looks like we`re on track for a similar kind of drama in December.

In the meantime, will you be able to put the infrastructure package together in a reconciliation package that could also include a debt ceiling extension or expansion so that you wouldn`t have to go through this again?

JEFFRIES: Well, we`ll have to have that discussion in terms of whether that`s the appropriate way to go or whether we can deal with it in conjunction with the effort to make sure we enact the full spending bill to keep the government open on December 3rd and moving forward. In the interim, we`ve got to get the infrastructure agreement over the finish line, fix our crumbling roads, bridges and create millions of good paying jobs and at the same time make the investments in child care and home care and health care, expanding access to Medicaid, making sure we deal with the climate crisis and green our economy with the fierce urgency of now.

That`s what`s in front of us over the next few weeks. I suspect we`re going to get these two transformative pieces of legislation over the finish line. And then we`ll have to deal with the debt ceiling that now will expire on December 3rd in tandem and I expect that`s what we`re going to do.

O`DONNELL: Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, thank you very much for starting off our discussion tonight. Really appreciate it.

JEFFRIES: Thank you, Lawrence.

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