CNN "Anderson Cooper 360" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Katherine Clark

Interview

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COOPER: Yes, and then you never worked there, initially to begin with, that's like on day three, they like you, they fire you and then they don't even know who you are.

Jim Acosta, thanks very much.

Joining us now as Democratic Congresswoman Katherine Clark, who helps oversee funding for the Labor Department. She tweeted today and I quote: Somehow Secretary Acosta managed 53 minutes of victim blaming, but he couldn't manage to say the two words we need to hear: I resign.

Congresswoman Clark, what's your reaction to the reporting that we just, heard that White House officials think Acosta handled himself well today?

REP. KATHERINE CLARK (D-MA): Well, it certainly not surprising coming from this administration that they continue to side just as Secretary Acosta did, with the powerful, with the wealthy and not with the vulnerable in the children. We have an outrageous case here where Secretary Acosta, when he was the U.S. attorney, sided with Jeffrey Epstein and his lawyers who he apparently knew from legal circles, and decided to settle this case in secret from the victims, giving very unusual settlement agreements like providing blanket immunity for unnamed coconspirators.

[20:25:13] And yet there's no apology, today there is nothing that says I regret this. We've just heard blame shifting and evasion, and we need to hear those words that there will be responsibility and accountability.

COOPER: Do you think if he had come forward and said, you know, I regret the deal looking back on it, I wish I had pushed harder, that that would, that would reflect well on him? It certainly not something, obviously, the president of the United States like to hear people apologizing for something. But would that have worked for Acosta better than what he did today?

CLARK: Well, it certainly wouldn't have been a start, that's showing he has some basic human decency. But really what this comes down to is that if we cannot trust Secretary Acosta when he is looking at a draft of a 53-page indictment showing a sexual ring that involved minor girls, these were young girls with coconspirators and Jeffrey Epstein at the very center, if he chose them and made this very unusual deal that resulted in the most incredibly luxurious sentence I have ever heard of, where you go to state jail for 13 months and you get a work release six days a week.

And the fact that he is now our secretary of labor, he is in charge of making sure that children are not exploited in the labor market, that they are not trafficked, he is in charge of equal pay, making sure that workers can be whistleblowers and talk about conditions on the job, and he continues to choose the very powerful over victims. So how can we possibly trust him to be a secretary of labor and choose American workers?

COOPER: Do you find it ironic that Acosta said that his message to any other of Epstein's victims is that they need to come forward, given the fact that he worked for a president who routinely attacks and derides victims when they do come forth with allegations of sexual assault and even when it's rape against him?

CLARK: Yes, ironic --

COOPER: This doesn't seem like a case where there has been a lack of people coming forward. It seems like there's actually huge numbers of people.

CLARK: There are huge numbers of people coming forward. There are huge numbers of victims that Secretary Acosta knew about at the time he made the secret a sweetheart deal for Jeffrey Epstein, and it's beyond ironic. It is really disgusting and it is frightening to think that he thinks it is appropriate to look into a camera and tell victims to come forward, when we have his actions and we have the actions of a president that when faced with his own rape allegations just several weeks ago, his defense, was that woman is not my type.

This is the administration that we are dealing with. This is the actions of this particular secretary. Unfortunately, this is a continuation of how this administration expresses misogyny, doesn't believe victims of sexual assault and continues to choose the very wealthy and rigged the system for them to the exclusion of everyone else.

COOPER: Katherine -- Congresswoman Katherine Clark, I appreciate your time. Thank you very much.

CLARK: Thank you, Anderson.

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