CNN "Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees" - Transcript: "Interview with Sen. Chris Murphy"

Interview

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COOPER: Yes, Gary. Thanks very much, appreciate it. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut joins me now. He's made gun control a public priority of his since the Sandy Hook school massacre in his state in 2012.

Senator Murphy are you any more or less optimistic tonight that Congress will actually act on other new gun control measures or background checks. As you know, all Senator Mitch McConnell has said is that he'd consider some form of red flag law, so-called or background check, but no details.

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): Well, I wake up every day optimistic. Optimistic, because I know eventually democracy catches up to the Senators who oppose 90 percent of their constituents who want things like universal background checks.

But there does seem to be some interesting new momentum around this issue of extending background checks to make sure that it covers all gun sales. There has been discussions happening between Republicans and Democrats in the Senate, including the White House. Discussions continue this week.

As you mentioned, it still all rests on the decision of one Senator, Mitch McConnell, as to whether he wants to bring compromise legislation before the Senate. He may be unlikely to want to divide his caucus right down the middle and put a very controversial vote in front of his members.

But there is a chance that we could get a deal that would extend background checks to the tens - hundreds of thousands of sales all across the country today were criminals and people who are seriously mentally ill can get guns without having to go through one of these checks.

COOPER: Is McConnell's strategy, in your opinion, an attempt to kind of slow walk this so that whatever gets debated, doesn't get debated when the public is paying as much attention as they maybe now or emotions or as raw as they are now.

MURPHY: Well, we don't reconvene until after Labor Day. And of course, the worry is that you and many others won't be covering this subject as often as you are today, and Mitch McConnell will be asked to deal with whatever the crisis du jour of early September is, which is why we'd like to lock in an agreement on a piece of legislation that Republicans and Democrats can support.

And we'd like to get the President, who has made a bunch of noise about supporting a background checks deal, we'd like to get his imprimatur on a specific proposal. Because if we lock that in now, it makes it much harder for Mitch McConnell to deny us a vote, especially given the fact that the House has already passed in a bipartisan way a universal background checks bill. So it is only the Senate that's standing in the way of that kind of progress.

COOPER: It does seem with the President that he will pay lip service to the idea of what he's now calling meaningful background checks. In the past, after Parkland, he talked about rising the age of anybody being able to buy a long-gun, and also more on background checks.

But it seems like often that's just something to affect the day's news cycle and get a headline that he's - you know, wants meaningful background checks and then he doesn't really follow through, because he talks to the NRA or others.

[21:10:00] MURPHY: Yes. Right. I mean, I was at the meeting at the White House right after the Parkland shooting in which the President seemed to endorse not only universal background checks, but bans on assault weapons. And then within 24 hours, the NRA had been in his office and he has changed mine.

I spoke to the President this weekend I can't tell whether he is more sincere, but he certainly believes that there is a deal to be had on what he calls a meaningful background check bill. The devil is in the details as to what he means about that.

But he is certainly you know talking to a lot of members of Congress on both sides of the aisle about trying to get something done and I intend to stay in touch with him and try to keep his speech to the fire. Because I know in the end, Republicans aren't going to support background checks legislation unless the President supports it. The only way that we get enough Republicans to get 60 votes in the Senate is if the President is pushing them to get there. I remain pessimistic that that's how this is going to play out. But I'm glad that he is still interested in this.

COOPER: Senator John Barrasso, one of our Republican colleagues is #3 person in Senate leadership. He said the other day that he doesn't think universal background checks have much of a chance and is skeptical even of red flag laws which are supposed to be kind of the easiest measure to pass.

Do you think the NRA and others could leverage Republicans in the Senate to vote against even that?

MURPHY: Well, my Republican colleagues are really nervous, because the NRA, just isn't as powerful as they used to be. They're having a crisis at their board level because they are hemorrhaging members. People just aren't signing up to be part of the NRA like they used to. In part, because NRA is so out of step with their own membership, 80 percent of NRA members want universal background checks and yet the NRA is lobbying against the bill.

So I think Republicans right now are in a tough spot, because the NRA is not going to ride to the rescue of their members who vote against a background checks bill on the floor of the Senate.

COOPER: Do you really think the NRA is in that much trouble, because I've talked to some people who say, look, don't think just because they have internal issues and concerns over budgets and stuff that they're not a powerful organization that wields power.

MURPHY: Well, yes, I mean, listen. The NRA's power has always been about perception. I mean, I made the argument to you that they are a paper tiger. That over the years they have lost a lot more elections that they have won.

That the retrospective on the 1994 congressional midterms is not really about an assault weapons ban that beat Democrats - the assault weapons ban was really popular in 1994. It was about the health care law and an unpopular President.

I don't think the NRA is as powerful as they make it out to be. But that perception of their power is really what's at issue right now. And a lot of Republicans that knew that they were taking a risk by voting against the majority of their constituents on gun issues, now are just asking questions as to whether the NRA is going to have their back.

And those are the kind of questions that ultimately may lead us to get over the finish line. Again, I think this is tough to do with a President who was backed by the NRA and Mitch McConnell who has been so close to the gun lobby.

But I've got to stay at this, because every day that we allow for all these guns to be sold without background checks, lives are being lost.

COOPER: Yes. Senator Chris Murphy, I appreciate your time. Thank you.

MURPHY: Thanks.

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