CNN "CNN Newsroom" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Denny Heck (D)

Interview

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BROWN: Absolutely. If it doesn't happen on Twitter before then.

Boris Sanchez, thank you very much.

Joining me now to discuss, Democratic Congressman Denny Heck, he sits on the House Intel Committee.

Congressman, thank you for coming on.

REP. DENNY HECK (D), WASHINGTON: You're welcome.

BROWN: First question, your reaction to what the president said about bringing Russia back to the negotiating table and turning G7 back to G8?

HECK: Well, a couple of things, Pam. The first of which is he demonstrates yet again seemingly infinite capacity to shock and amaze people. Secondly, you know, if you look back over the last 18 months of his administration, the president has clearly been a whole lot tougher on our traditional friends and allies, whether it is Justin Trudeau and Canada or Theresa May in England or Angela Merkel in Germany or Emmanuel Macron in France than he is on Vladimir Putin.

The truth of the matter is that he has systematically alienated the very foundation of coalition countries that has enabled us to grow global peace and prosperity by and large over the last 70 years. And the problem I have with it is what's the strategy here? It's not clear to me what he sees as the endgame here.

BROWN: Do you see, though, looking at his side, what the benefit could be in having Russia back in the negotiating table for what is viewed as an important summit happening right now in Canada?

HECK: Well, I guess I would quote one of my favorite leaders in all of history, Sir Winston Churchill, who said it is better to jaw-jaw than to war-war, and so talking is better than not talking. That said, anybody who has raised children, anybody who has raised children knows you don't reward bad behavior. So until and unless Russia gets to the point where they're willing to cease their bad behavior, whether it's the annexation, which is frankly a clinically sterilized word, means invasion.

[10:20:03] Their invasion of Crimea or their interference in Western democracies, then I see no objective or constructive purpose to be served by rewarding their bad behavior.

BROWN: What do you think is the overall signal being sent here? What's the big picture? The president has been sparring with our U.S. allies over Twitter ahead of the G7 summit. And yet at the same time, he made it very clear he is looking forward to going to Singapore for the North Korea summit. He'll be cutting out of the G7 early to go to Singapore and now he's making this overture to Russia on this. What is the larger signal here, you think?

HECK: There is no larger signal. That was my earlier point, Pam, I was trying to make. There is no strategic framework here. We are basically --

BROWN: But hold on, what do you think our allies think? I'm not talking about strategy, I'm talking about the signal to our allies. What do you think they think?

HECK: Our allies have made pretty clear what they think. Whether it is Prime Minister Abe in Japan who has signaled his concerns about the impending summit in Singapore, or the other G7 nations. They made it pretty clear what they think of this. And it is not much, by the way.

BROWN: All right, and let me just ask you this, because there has been this Twitter back and forth between the president and Macron and Trudeau after the U.S. imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum. What do you think of this strategy that the president is employing here? He says he's employing, to level the playing field when it comes to trade?

HECK: So you can't conduct diplomacy by tweet feed and you can't conduct trade policy by tweet feed. I don't believe the president really does have a strategy other than what is it that I can do to dominate the news cycle for the next 24 hours. What is the most outrageous thing I can say. And, of course, he's gone to incredible lengths here including this suggestion this morning that we ought to readmit Russia into the G8, notwithstanding Russia's continuing extremely bad behavior. So I don't believe there is a strategy other than how do I keep myself at the top of the news cycle hour in and hour out.

BROWN: Anything else you want to add, Democratic Congressman Denny Heck, on what we heard from the president this morning ahead of the G7?

HECK: No, I think that if the president were to pick up the phone and call me, however, Pam, what I would say to him is that throughout the nearly 250 years of American history, we have been allowed to grow and to prosper and to create the American dream for a lot of reasons, including the fact that both our northern and our southern border were occupied by countries that we considered not just allies, but friends who largely shared the same values and to alienate those countries is to do so at America's peril. I hope he'll reflect upon that and change his course of action.

BROWN: Congressman Heck, thank you for coming on, sharing your perspective.

HECK: Thank you, Pam.

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