CBS "Face the Nation" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Michael Bennet

Interview

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MARGARET BRENNAN: We turn now to Colorado Senator Michael Bennet. He joins us from the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines. Good morning, Senator. It looks like a lot of fun there right behind you.

SENATOR MICHAEL BENNET (D-Colorado/2020 Democratic Presidential Candidate/@MichaelBennet): Good morning. It is unbelievably fun. We actually just finished singing the "Star Spangled Banner." Everybody stopped and put their hand on their heart and sang it together.

MARGARET BRENNAN: All right. Well, you tweeted this week that if you are elected you promise voters that they won't have to think about you for at least two weeks. Is it a hard strategy to try to get people to be passionate about being moderate?

SENATOR MICHAEL BENNET: I think that people are so sick and tired of waking up in Donald Trump's reality TV show. I think they're sick of a President who is dividing us. I mean, it's very clear what he is trying to do. He acquired power by dividing the American people against themselves. He is trying to hold onto the power by doing the same thing and every day he just tries to keep the reality TV show alive. I think Americans want to go on with their lives. They want to build their businesses, they want to raise their children, they don't want to wake up, you know, feeling like we're on the cusp of some crazy new thing with North Korea or Iran or-- or that-- you know, the President is tweeting out conspiracy theories about somebody who killed themselves in New York. They want--

MARGARET BRENNAN: Mm-Hm.

SENATOR MICHAEL BENNET: --a President who is actually doing their job so they can do their job confident that we leave the country in a better place for our kids and grandkids and-- and-- and confident that we've situated America's leadership in this world again. So that's what I meant by that. I think that people can check in every two weeks and see how I'm doing.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Colorado, where you're from, is the state that has a lot of gun-- gun owners, but it's also experienced horrific gun violence. And they've made some changes at the state level. Is that, essentially, what the country should be talking about because it doesn't seem that anything gets through Congress right now?

SENATOR MICHAEL BENNET: I-- I think that is what we should be talking about. You know, my oldest daughter is nineteen. She was born the year after the Columbine massacre happened in-- in my state. And my state--which is a Western state, the Second Amendment state--we passed the background checks that are waiting for Mitch McConnell to put on the floor this summer. And over that course of that almost twenty years about every year, about two or three percent of the people that try to buy a gun in Colorado can't buy a gun; and they are murderers and they are domestic abusers and they are convicted felons of violent crimes. There is nobody who could defend any of those people having a firearm. If we can do it in Colorado, certainly, we could do it nationally. We have-- we have--

MARGARET BRENNAN: But you don't expect that to happen in September?

SENATOR MICHAEL BENNET: --put limitations--

MARGARET BRENNAN: You don't expect to vote on background check?

SENATOR MICHAEL BENNET: Well, I hope that it will happen. I-- I hope it will happen. But I believe with what-- I believe what Mike Bloomberg said earlier on your show, which is that the politics of this issue are changing in part because the tragedies are mounting up which is a terrible way for us to deal with it. But also because the public is being galvanized by organizations like the-- the kids from Parkland and the Moms against Guns, and that's making a difference. And if it does not come to the floor, we need to make sure that every week between now and November we're making this a voting issue. I'm not saying just the politicians. I mean all of us are making this a voting issue so that people that refused to let the American people have a vote on the floor are turned out and--

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah.

SENATOR MICHAEL BENNET: --replaced with people who will take the vote.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You--

SENATOR MICHAEL BENNET: I mean, we're not even-- like, Mc-- McConnell can vote however he wants. But why doesn't he just put it on the floor so that every senator could be held accountable for their vote?

MARGARET BRENNAN: You've been talking about ending hyper-partisanship. Do you think it is helpful for Democrats and your fellow candidates to be linking the President to these mass murders?

SENATOR MICHAEL BENNET: Well, I'd-- I-- I-- here's what I think. I think Donald Trump is, as I said, has a strategy that is a-- to-- to divide the country so he can win. He believes there are enough people out there. He thinks it's thirty-eight or thirty-nine or forty percent--

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah.

SENATOR MICHAEL BENNET: --that can keep him in office if the rest of us are not paying attention and not--

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah.

SENATOR MICHAEL BENNET: --as strategic. And I don't think we can play into that. We have to unify this country. That is what the people of Iowa want--

MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.

SENATOR MICHAEL BENNET: --the people of Colorado want, in South Carolina and New Hampshire. We have to unify this country to close over a broken Washington and to close over a President who is a guy who is, you-- you know, goes to our worst impulses rather than our best impulses every single day of the year. We have both in our country. We've got the best impulses--

MARGARET BRENNAN: Mm-Hm.

SENATOR MICHAEL BENNET: --with times we have our worst impulses. I think we should have a President who asks us to do our best.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay.

SENATOR MICHAEL BENNET: And I think we have to have a President who asks us to come together.

MARGARET BRENNAN: All right. Senator, thank you. And I think I hear a child behind you, so nice focus.

SENATOR MICHAEL BENNET: There are-- it's--

MARGARET BRENNAN: It's a fair.

SENATOR MICHAEL BENNET: It's not my child though, so.

MARGARET BRENNAN: All right. All right. Well, good luck to the parents. All right. Thank you--

SENATOR MICHAEL BENNET: Thank you for--

MARGARET BRENNAN: --very much, Senator.

SENATOR MICHAEL BENNET: Thanks so much.

MARGARET BRENNAN: We'll be right back with--

SENATOR MICHAEL BENNET: Thanks, Margaret.

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