CNN "Anderson Cooper 360" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Mazie Hirono

Interview

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COOPER: All right. Kaitlan Collins, thanks very much.

I want to get reaction to all this now from a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono joins us now.

Senator Hirono, you hear --

SEN. MAZIE HIRONO (D-HI): Good evening.

COOPER: Good evening.

You hear the president saying he doesn't plan or he doesn't think it likely to let Don McGahn testify before Congress. He already let him testify for 30 hours before the special counsel. The whole thing is done.

What do you say to that?

HIRONO: What I say is we should always remember that there are two things that the president cares most about. One is protecting himself. The second is money.

So he is in the process of protecting himself. You can explain a lot of what the president does by knowing that he will do anything to protect himself.

COOPER: So is there -- what is the option? If he exerts executive privilege, what, it just goes to the courts?

HIRONO: I think that's one of the modus operandi of Trump when he was in business, that he would delay things. He would file lawsuits, or he will file for bankruptcy, leaving everybody holding the bag. He treats the presidency like he is still running a business in the kind of ways that he ran his business, which are very questionable tactics.

So I think, yes, I don't think it bothers him very much if he asserts executive privilege over somebody who has already testified and have them that go to the courts and hope that it gets strung up through the election. He does not care about that sort of thing.

COOPER: Speaker Pelosi said today that Attorney General Barr lied in his testimony and committed a crime in front of you and the rest of the Senate Judiciary Committee. I'm wondering if you agree with her. And if so, is there anything to do about it? Because Senate Democrats obviously don't have the majority to force any kind of recourse.

HIRONO: Well, that's a sad thing. And if we had Republicans in the Senate who have cared about truth as much as I would hope they would, then we'd be able to get somewhere. [20:05:05] But thankfully, the House is in Democratic hands, and as

Speaker Pelosi said, he -- Barr lied regarding his answer to the question from Charlie Crist and also on the Senate side, in his response to Chris Van Hollen.

COOPER: I want to play your answers you had in response to the attorney general yesterday. I just want to play this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HIRONO: From the beginning, you were addressing an audience of one, that person being Donald Trump.

But now we know more about your deep involvement in trying to cover up for Donald Trump. Being attorney general of the United States is a sacred trust. You have betrayed that trust. America deserves better.

You should resign. I think you know what I'm talking about. Please, please, Mr. Attorney General. Give us some credit for knowing what the hell is going on around here with you.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): Not really -- to this line of questioning. Listen, you slandered this man --

BARR: What I sort of want to know is, how do we get to this point?

HIRONO: I do not think I'm slandering anyone.

GRAHAM: All I would say --

HIRONO: Mr. Chairman, I am done. Thank you very much.

GRAHAM: And you slandered this man from top to bottom. So if you want more of this, you're not going to get it. If you want to ask him questions, you can.

HIRONO: Certainly have your opinion.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Were you surprised to hear senator graham saying you slandered the attorney general?

HIRONO: Well, truth is a defense of slander and opinion is not slander. So, but we saw the chairman going off and he did that.

But the only person who can sue me for that, not to mention as legislators, we have some protections as to what we say, but the only person who can sue me is Barr. So there you go.

It was very disheartening yesterday to watch and listen to the attorney general of the United States act like he is a defense attorney for the president. He did that very well. What he didn't do very well was be honest with the people of our country. And that is why he's not the only time he's very good at obfuscating and skirting questions. He couldn't even answer my questions whether it was OK for the White House counsel to be told to fire Mueller and then to lie about it, whether it was OK to dangle pardons before witnesses and all of that.

He wouldn't answer that. He kept going back to the criminality aspects of it. So, I call this -- there is a moral dead zone in the Trump White House.

COOPER: You know, the Republicans will push back and say, well, look, you know, you and others have said the attorney general is acting like the president's lawyer, not the attorney general for the people of the United States and for the United States. Republicans pushed back and that and said, look, Bobby Kennedy was the attorney general under JFK. He was clearly aligned with JFK. They say Eric Holder was close to President Obama, was clearly in their opinion watching out for President Obama.

The idea being that what Barr is doing, whatever you may think of it, is not that dissimilar from what past attorneys general have done.

HIRONO: That's what they'd like everybody to think. But you have an attorney general who auditioned for the job by writing a totally unasked for 19-page document that said a sitting president cannot be charged with obstruction of justice. That's about half of the Mueller report, part two, basically.

And guess what? When the Mueller report comes out and Mueller says there are these indicators and factors relating to an obstruction of justice charge, he couldn't come to a decision on that, but leaving it as it was and Barr jumps in and says, oh, well, there is no obstruction there. Very much like his 19-pager.

And then you have the attorney general who puts out a four-page -- first, he called ate summary, then it's really not a sum risks and then we find out in a bombshell that just a few days that we find out that Mueller had contacted and written to Barr saying you have not characterized our work accurately. And then you have the attorney general before all this comes out regarding the Mueller letter, you have the attorney general having a press conference.

COOPER: Yes.

HIRONO: -- to make the president look good.

What is that? Let's talk about what we're confronted with in the here and now. We have an attorney general who is acting like the defense attorney for the president. He should have taken that job as defense attorney when the president offered it to him.

COOPER: Justice Department will allow Mueller to testify? I mean, obviously, not to the Senate, because Lindsey Graham has made it clear he won't ask Mueller to testify, but at the house.

HIRONO: I think when Barr was asked that, I think he said he doesn't see why not, but I think there will be why-nots because maybe the president will put some pressure on his attorney general to say he doesn't want anybody testifying.

[20:10:06] As far as the president and Lindsey Graham are concerned, it's all over.

It is not all over because we need to get to the bottom of what's going on here. So, you know, the House thankfully is proceeding with their investigation, and I think the next step for Jerry Nadler is to issue a subpoena for Barr to testify, and we all know that he's talking with Mueller directly about Mueller testifying and whether or not the president can force everyone not to testify, that lead to more lawsuits. This is what the president wants.

COOPER: Yes. Senator Mazie Hirono, appreciate your time. Thank you.

HIRONO: Sure.

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