MSNBC "The Beat" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Chris Murphy

Interview

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O`DONNELL:  If the president meant to intimidate Democrats in Congress last night with that strange line saying there cannot be war and investigation, it`s not working, but today`s reaction by the House Democrats has given us even more to discuss with the senator who says the Trump administration is an ongoing foreign policy garbage fire.  
 
And joining us now is Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut. 
 
Senator, thank you very much for joining us.  I really appreciate it. 
 
I have to say, when I saw your tweet yesterday, that is language that is -- that you don`t find very much of in past usage in the United States Senate, but it made be wonder throughout the speech what is Chris Murphy thinking?  To be calling it this garbage fire and to listen to that speech last night, was it what you expected it to be? 
 
MURPHY:  Well, listen, I guess I had very low expectations for the speech last night.  It was maybe milder than I would have thought.  He didn`t, frankly, move us, you know, backwards in terms of the ongoing debates we`re having about trying to keep the government open and operating.
 
But, Lawrence, I think the reason that I get upset, the reason why I use strong language when it comes to both national security and gun violence is that, you know, our number one responsibility as a government is to -- is to keep people safe from harm.  So I get upset when six years after sandy hook we haven`t done a thing to meaningfully reduce the trajectory of gun violence, but I also get upset when this president is making our country less safe and more vulnerable to attack by the way in which he has withdrawn America from the world, the way in which he has partnered with murderous dictators like those in the Middle East, the way in which he has tried to create this impression that the Christian world is at war with the Muslim world, which just feeds terrorist recruitment efforts all over the world. 
 
So I do think that this administration`s foreign policy has been a garbage fire, but that`s because I think ultimately there`s a lot greater likelihood that something really bad is going to happen to the United States if this president continues to withdraw America from the global stage and set up these dividing lines between himself and people that look different than him. 
 
O`DONNELL:  I want to go to that strangest line, possibly strangest line we`ve ever heard in a State of the Union Address.  I`m just going to say these words.  I`m not sure I know what they mean or what they were intended to mean.  The president said, if there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation.  It just doesn`t work that way.  What was your interpretation of that? 
 
MURPHY:  Listen, there were many lines in that speech that I couldn`t follow.  That was certainly one of them.  It sounded like a threat.  It sounded as if he was saying that if you proceed with these investigations against me and my administration, I`m not going to work with you on legislation that is important to the country, which is, of course, unacceptable and untenable. 
 
The other connection was between I guess the statement about war and the statement about peace.  There, listen, I think there is a caution for Democrats when it comes to some parts of Trump`s foreign policy.  Trump is not wrong to oppose these endless wars.  He`s not wrong to try to chart a path forward where we get out of Afghanistan and Syria.
 
So Democrats should reflexively oppose every piece of Trump`s foreign policy, especially when he`s trying to bring some of our troops home.  He`s doing it in a backwards way, but I do think there is a warning here for Democrats to find places on Trump`s foreign policy agenda where we can try to refine his instincts so that they are for the betterment of the country. 
 
O`DONNELL:  Well, if the president -- the president seems to be saying there cannot be war and investigation.  He says it just doesn`t work that way.  That is exactly the way it did work during the Watergate investigation, the Vietnam War was still going on and was going on after the investigation was over and after Richard Nixon had resigned the presidency.  So we have seen that happen. 
 
And parenthetically, there was also legislation going on at that time.  Congress was able to continue --
 
MURPHY:  Correct. 
 
O`DONNELL:  -- to act as a legislative body, while just some members, in fact very few members were engaged in the work of the investigative committees of the president. 
 
MURPHY:  Well, and presidents will often make this argument that any time you are attacking them, you are making the country weaker.  That just isn`t true.  It`s never been true. 
 
It`s our responsibility as a Congress to do oversight over the executive branch, and I would argue both on domestic matters and foreign policy matters.  Just because we`re questioning the president`s wisdom in foreign policy doesn`t mean we`re making the country any weaker.  In fact, I think the obligation`s going to be on Congress in these coming years to represent the United States abroad if Donald Trump won`t. 
 
So, yes, this idea that somehow you`re compromising America`s national security by standing up to the president domestically has no parallel in U.S. history and is not exactly how the Framers imagined the relationship would work. 
 
O`DONNELL:  Senator, I want to get your reaction to something the president said today about Congressman Adam Schiff.  The president an avid television watcher, the most avid television watcher in the history of the presidency, pretends not to know who he is. 
 
Let`s listen to this. 
 
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O`DONNELL:  Your reaction to that, Senator? 
 
MURPHY:  Well, listen, the Mueller investigation has already returned countless indictments connected to the Trump campaign`s connection to Russia during the 2016 election, and so, we all know that there is significant smoke and possibly some serious fire to the president`s involvement in what may have been an attempt to manipulate and steal a U.S.
election.  And so, as Democrats we`re just doing what we think the country expects of us, which is trying to get to the bottom of all of this, trying to get to an answer so that the country can come to some conclusion as to what happened in 2016, and, frankly, what may still be happening now. 
 
Obviously, one of our great worries is that some of the most bizarre aspects of the president`s foreign policy vis-a-vis Russia and Saudi Arabia can be explained by the president`s existing financial ties, his family`s financial ties to those countries, and so, we have an obligation to get those questions answered. 
 
Now, let me say this, I and I think Adam Schiff hope the answer is not that the president tried to steal the election nor is he making foreign policy decisions based on his family`s perspective income.  I`m not wishing for the end result of this to be a scandal that dwarfs those that already exist today, but we at least have to try to get to a conclusion and to get to an answer. 
 
O`DONNELL:  Senator, before you go, let me ask you a personal question what it was like for you on the floor last night.  When I was working in the Senate, I saw Democratic senators on their way to State of the Union Addresses by President George H.W. Bush, and then for many more years I saw Republican senators on the way to the State of the Union Addresses by President Bill Clinton.  I never saw an angry senator on their way.  I saw bored.  I mean, both parties incredibly bored and thinking how am I going to fake it getting through this thing to make it look to the audience like I`m interested? 
 
When I read your anger yesterday and I thought about you making that long walk over there to the House chamber to sit on that floor for what turned out to be an hour and a half of a speech that you were angry about before it was given, I just couldn`t help wondering, what is it like for Senator Chris Murphy to be sitting there and sitting through this? 
 
MURPHY:  We`ve just never had a president who purposefully lies to the nation and uses big stages with all sorts of American pomp and circumstance like the State of the Union to perpetuate these lies.  So it makes me so angry about what this president has done to the institution, what he has done to some of the most sacred traditions that bind this country together.  And so, I am angry when I`m on my way to these State of the Union speeches because I worry that we can`t recover from this ongoing daily assault on objective truth. 
 
And when it happens on the most serious platforms, the State of the Union speech, it sends an even -- I think more serious signal to the country that our concern for what still remains of truth in this country is winnowing away even faster.  So, yes, I am angry.  Listen, in the end, the speech wasn`t as bad as I had expected, but I had pretty low expectations going in. 
 
O`DONNELL:  Senator Murphy, I have never seen an Irishman manage anger better.  Senator Murphy, thanks very much for joining us tonight. 
 
MURPHY:  Thanks.

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