CNN "The Lead" - TRANSCRIPT Classified Documents Discovery Creates Growing Crisis For Biden; DOJ Wants To Interview People Hired To Search Trump Properties; Idaho Killing Suspect Will Spend 5 Months In Jail Without Bail Until Next Hearing; House Foreign Affairs Committee to Probe Chaotic 2021 U.S. Withdrawal from Afghanistan; Death Toll Rises After Tornadoes Sweep Across the Southeast. Aired 4-5p ET

Interview

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Let's bring in Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna of California.

Congressman, thanks so much for being here. Good to see you. Happy New Year.

Are you at all concerned about the inappropriate way these documents were handled from 2016 until they told the Justice Department and the National Archives about Alaska cyber? And also, who might have had access to them?

REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA): Jake, we don't expect our leaders to be perfect. We do expect our leaders to have character and integrity. Obviously, people make mistakes. I mean, documents should not be in a private residence or outside of the agencies. But, the point is that the president is showing character.

He is cooperating fully. He is not attacking the Justice Department, he is respecting the independence of the process. And I think people will look at this and say, this is why we elected him.

TAPPER: The White House did not disclose this for months and to this day, all that we officially know about the documents is what Biden's lawyers have told us. There hasn't been some sort of impartial or law enforcement source that is coming, given us an explanation. You saw Karine Jean-Pierre, White House press secretary, not answer questions today.

What grade would you give them on how they've handled this?

KHANNA: I think they're fully cooperating. Look, I think eventually we need all the answers out. But right now, you have a special counsel. You have an investigation. The main thing is that they need to be cooperating with them.

[16:10:01]

And who knows what the Justice Department has said. They may not want people talking about it publicly until the investigation is going on. But, at some point, I do think that the president and his team are going to have to answer all the questions.

My guess is, the president probably wants to get all the facts before coming and giving the answers.

TAPPER: He had some -- he had some questions for Trump on that "60 Minutes" clip from a few months ago where he said, he was worried he doesn't understand how anybody can do something so irresponsible. He's worried about sources and methods being compromised.

Obviously, the two situations are somewhat different, but in both of them, you have information that is not supposed to be out there, out there.

KHANNA: One of the things we could just be constructive about this. You know, as a member of Congress, when I got to see classified information, I can never take it out of the SCIF. I can't bring it to my house or to my office.

Why can't we have that kind of a protocol in the executive branch? I mean, I don't see why these documents should ever be leaving the White House executive branch.

TAPPER: It's the end of Speaker Kevin McCarthy's first full week on the job. And this week, the Republican majority took its first full start steps into launching its long list of investigations, including Hunter Biden's business dealings, the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, President Biden's withdrawal of Afghanistan, U.S. troops, DHS Secretary Mayorkas handling of the border crisis. Now of course we have added to this, Biden's handling of classified documents.

Do Democrats have a strategy for dealing with all of this? And some of them that might be constructive such as the origins of COVID or that withdrawal from Afghanistan, might Democrats cooperate?

KHANNA: Jake, I know you get outside the beltway. Do you real people ever talk about the stuff? They talk about.

TAPPER: Afghanistan and COVID, sure.

KHANNA: Not -- here's what I hear in my district. The price of bags, inflation, are we going to have a recession, what are we in doing to improve the economy? That is -- those are the issues. That is what the Republicans campaigned on.

They want the American Congress to work to solve problems. They don't want endless investigations. Do they want accountability in Afghanistan? Sure. I'm not saying don't have accountability. I'm on the armed services committee. Fine. But don't make that the central focus of what you're trying to do.

TAPPER: McCarthy made a lot of key concessions to the rebels to get the gavel. One of them was a green with just one member, one member regardless of party could force a vote to vacate the speaker. He also did a lot to liberalize the process, to make it easier for any member of Congress to introduce amendments, to introduce legislation.

This is something you might like as a progressive, right? I mean, like, I can imagine people who are progressives, who kind of felt constrained by Pelosi's leadership or whoever before that, Tom Foley, before your born, thinking this is a great opportunity. Like to -- I mean, did you see a silver lining here I guess is my point?

KHANNA: Well, let me be fair-minded, there are certain forms that are good. The fact that a bill has to be introduced 72 hours before. The fact that you have an open rule which means any member can offer an amendment. That's a good thing. The fact that it does give some rank and file members more of a say.

But here's my problem. In doing all of this, Kevin McCarthy made a commitment to some of the far-right in his caucus that he was going to hold his country up and not increase the debt ceiling, not pay the debt that we already owe, not about future spending.

And that's what I find so concerning. It's not the reforms. Those reforms are fine.

TAPPER: Well, what he agreed to I think is some kind of countervailing spending cuts when -- to accompany any vote to raise the debt ceiling. I mean, just as a member of Congress, the U.S. government spends much more money than we take in. This has been a problem for decades. I'm not blaming it on you.

But this is a problem. We can't keep undoing this as a country forever, because -- I mean, the amount of money that our country spends just on paying the interest on the debt, that's money that could be spent feeding kids.

KHANNA: We have a $32 trillion debt. I acknowledge that's a problem. But let me put it simply. You got a credit card bill that's due for past debt you've accumulated. You might as a family think, let's think about better future spending.

Are you going to say, no, we're just going to default on the credit card debt? No, you pay the debt. And the United States government should certainly pay the debt.

If you want to have a conversation afterwards in how we cut spending and I can say we ought to cut defense spending and we can have the debate. But don't hold the prestige of this country hostage on debt ceiling. We pay our debts. We're the United States of America.

TAPPER: I hear you. I guess their point is nobody pays attention to the need to rein in spending or at least have the balance sheets lineup unless they are forced to. But I get, you don't agree with that method. Last question before you go. It seems likely that Senator Dianne

Feinstein is going to retire. Are you going to run for Senate?

KHANNA: I said I'm looking at it. But we have got a number of great people in the race. I'm particularly interested what Barbara Lee will do. She's been actually someone I have admired since I was a kid, one of the strongest anti-war voices. So I'm going to wait to see what she -- what she decides.

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TAPPER: All right. Ro Khanna, congressman from California, good to see you. Thanks for being here.

KHANNA: Thank you.

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