MSNBC "The Beat with Ari Melber" - Transcript: "McConnell under fire."

Interview

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VOSSOUGHIAN: All right, so tonight, the Trump administration also expanding so-called expedited removals claiming the power to deport any undocumented immigrant anywhere in the U.S. who can`t prove that they`ve been here more than two years potentially without ever even seeing a judge. I`m joined by Senators Mazie Hirono and Tim Kaine who`ve been a patiently standing by. We appreciate you guys talking to us this evening very much. You were just inside one of these facilities. Senator Hirono, what did you see?

SEN. MAZIE HIRONO (D-HI): We knew going to these facilities that there were not going to be the kinds of hundreds and hundreds of people that have been there even six months ago, but nonetheless to see the cells, even the agents refer to these places as cells is to realize that if there are 12 people, 13 people cramped, as have been the case in these cells, that is no way for us to be treating people who are just wanting to seek asylum in our country. So that`s one thing. What we see is a dysfunctional kind of system and it starts with the president and his attitude toward others especially immigrants and he is doing everything he can to stymie the ability of people mainly fleeing from the northern triangle countries to seek asylum as they are legally entitled to do. He is doing everything he can. He`s sending them to Mexico to await their asylum hearings. And now we understand that he wants them to go to Guatemala, one of the countries that so many people are fleeing from because it happens to be one of the murder capitals of the world. So it`s as though he wants all these other countries to step up, in the meantime our country is not, and we are a country of immigrants.

VOSSOUGHIAN: Senator Kaine, I want to play some sound from a boy named Abner, 17 years old interviewed by our own Julia Ainsley. This was an NBC News exclusive interview talking about the conditions that he faced inside of a facility. Let`s take a listen to that.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (TEXT): When we had to drink water in the sink, well, they didn`t give us anything to get it with. So with the hands, like that, all dirty and they didn`t even give us a cup or anything to get it with. We would sometime wash our hands because we didn`t have anything to clean ourselves soap or anything. We would grab the water like that and drink it because we didn`t have anything to grab it with.

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VOSSOUGHIAN: So Senator Kaine, he`s talking about the fact that he wasn`t even given a cup to drink water with which we know is incredibly essential especially in climates like where he was being detained. He was given nothing to wash with like soap. We have instances of not even a toothbrush for young children. What needs to change? What needs to happen to improve conditions in these detention facilities?

SEN. TIM KAINE (D-VA): Well, Yasmin, we have to have minimum standards for them. The House passed a bill this week for health and safety standards for any of these facilities and the Senate needs to act on those. Second, we have to fight against the kind of overcrowding we saw because we talked to families who had similar experiences but as Senator Hirono said, we were in a different posture because the attention that was put on these facilities has caused the government to dramatically reduce numbers, so the numbers have come down. So if you`re in a facility that`s run by Custom and Border Patrol and they have -- it was built for 100 adults, so now they have 750 kids in facilities that aren`t air-conditioned, that are dangerous, where kids are you know, getting communicable diseases and they can hardly isolate them from each other, they don`t have the supplies to deal with the numbers. But here`s the problem, CBP after they do intake and they clear somebody, they call HHS and they say we have a child that the Office of Refugee Resettlement has to pick up. HHS was saying sorry, we can`t do it. And so the numbers were growing and growing and growing in these facilities and it was completely intolerable. So the first step was an important one, the attention that`s been drawn by congressional visits, by journalists who in good work has forced other agencies to start doing their job so the numbers have come down. But the president`s actions on say, cutting off asylum claims and people back to unsafe locations, whether it`s a single mom being forced to go back to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico or a family being sent back to Guatemala, you can`t send somebody back to an unsafe location. So we have to fix those laws, insist upon minimum standards, and keep the public focus, attention, and pressure on so that these facilities are run in a way that would comport with American values.

VOSSOUGHIAN: So, Senator Hirono, what do you make of this -- go ahead. Go ahead.

HIRONO: Well, I also saw that interview with that young man and so we know that these facilities, the longer children are in these facilities the more traumatized they are, and this can be lasting trauma. And so there are alternatives to detention. We don`t need to have more and more children being deemed unaccompanied minors because we are so narrowly defining what a family member is and making them go through ever-higher hoops so that the children do not have to be deemed unaccompanied minors and therefore in the custody of ORR, Office of Refugee Resettlement. So there are a number of things that we need to do. But for the children who are being traumatized, we need to have social workers, we need to have childcare experts available to talk to these kids, not just volunteer or nurses aids, etcetera. We need professionals because we are damaging these children by the thousands with our policies.

VOSSOUGHIAN: Senator Kaine, what is your reaction to the news that this American citizen was improperly detained as an illegal immigrant?

KAINE: It`s of a piece with other things we`ve heard. Look, the policies of the administration, Yasmin, are right at the sort of nexus of cruelty and incompetence. So there`s an intentional cruelty and then there`s also sort of an incompetence about oh wow, this guy had records that showed he was an American citizen. We didn`t pay attention to him. You saw the same thing in the family separation policy. They separated families but they didn`t keep good records about where the kids were going so that here a year after, they`ve been ordered to reunite families, there are still children who are not able to be reunited with their family. So what the administration is doing is this sort of cruelty coupled with an incompetence that`s leading to results like this American being detained for weeks losing 26 pounds while in a detention. He never should have been in there in the first place. But that is an acceptable by-product to the -- to the administration that is insisting upon these cruel and incompetent policies.

VOSSOUGHIAN: While I both have you here, I go to ask you this question. House Democrats as you well now know now saying they`re going to start an impeachment investigation, not an impeachment inquiry. Your own colleague Senator Ed Markey I believe yesterday stood on the Senate floor and said we need to start in the impeachment inquiry. Senator Hirono, I`ll start with you on this. What are your thoughts? Is it time?

HIRONO: I called for -- I called for the Senate -- for the House to begin an impeachment inquiry the day that Robert Mueller gave his press conference making it very clear that the Russians had interfered with our elections big time to that but for the Office of Legal Counsels admonition, I think that they would have made a decision regarding indicting or charging or sitting president. And so you know, I call for an infinite impeachment inquiry about three months ago I think.

KAINE: I`m not -- I`m not surprised that more in the House are reaching the conclusion after Mueller`s testimony. The testimony I think was pretty clear that look, we were blocked from recommending an obstruction of justice charge by an OLC document. And Mueller has said when the normal legal process is blocked dealing with the president, the only remedy is a congressional remedy. And if you give conduct like this a free pass, then you`ve essentially said that there`s no standard. The House was going to do what they`re going to do and Mazie and I are in the Senate. The Senate becomes a juror in something like this and we would take it up if it came to us. But the Mueller testimony elaborating on the report demonstrates that there have been a whole series of breaches of the behavior that we would expect from the office in the most serious ways.

VOSSOUGHIAN: All right, Senators Tim Kaine and Mazie Hirono, thank you both. I appreciate it.

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