CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: "Interview with Sen. Cory Booker"

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

BLITZER: Rene, stay on top of this. We will get back to you, very disturbing development.

Also tonight, a new twist in President Trump's efforts to punish two Democratic congresswomen. Israel has backed off its refusal to let one of the lawmakers into the country, citing humanitarian reasons.

But Representative Rashida Tlaib is refusing to accept Israel's terms.

And joining us now, Democratic presidential candidate Senator Cory Booker. He's a member of the Foreign Relations and Judiciary Committee.

Senator, thanks so much for joining us.

I want to get through a bunch of issues, but let me get your reaction.

Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib now says she won't be visiting Israel and the West Bank after Israel placed restrictions on her trip.

[18:25:00]

She says -- quote -- "Visiting my grandmother under these oppressive conditions meant to humiliate me would break my grandmother's heart."

What do you make of this?

SEN. CORY BOOKER (D-NJ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I think that she should make the decision that she believes is personally right for her.

But I think the outrage here is the president United States, the language he uses to talk about two sitting congresspeople, the lies that he tells that are so venal, that they literally put their lives in jeopardy by whipping up the kind of hatred.

And then for him to reach out for the Israeli government, have them change and capitulate to a president that pushes this kind of hate, is just wrong as well. So, this is an unfortunate situation and, again, just is another testimony to the moral vandalism of this president.

BLITZER: Like so many other members of Congress, the House and Senate, you called on the Israeli government to reverse its position and allow these two congresswomen to come in.

But why do you think Prime Minister Netanyahu reversed Israel's original decision and apparently gave into pressure from President Trump?

BOOKER: I mean, that's something that he will have to answer to himself.

What I know is that President Trump asked, and he complied. And I think that was a capitulation of the values that I know the Israeli people speak to. It's a violation of the values that we speak to, that here are two great nations, where we have a deep, deep relationship.

And to deny two sitting congresspeople elected by their constituents and their communities entrance into the country is to me unacceptable. And on top of that, the way that President Trump is continuing to describe these women are patent lies, and they're dangerous lies, because they appeal towards hatred, they appeal to the kind of violent sentiments that we see, unfortunately, too often in our country now, where white supremacists are using the words of this president to attack a vulnerable population.

BLITZER: So that gets me to the new plan you have unveiled to combat hate crimes and white supremacy.

Your plan would require the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI to focus more on this threat.

When you look at the Trump administration's approach to this issue. What are your biggest concerns?

BOOKER: Well, first of all, we're not talking in any way about a proportionate response to the problem.

International terrorism seems to have motivated the spending of billions of dollars. And it seems to have motivated a tremendous amount of bipartisan cooperation on this issue.

But now we are, since 9/11, the majority of our terrorist attacks have been right-wing extremist groups, and the majority of them have been white supremacist actors. This is a major threat to national security. And this is the administration that even changed the categorization. It's no longer violent white supremacy.

They now have an amorphous category of racially violent extremism. And so this is an administration that won't even focus on the issue, won't even talk to its proportionate challenge to our nation's safety and security and is not allocating the resources that they should.

If I am president of the United States, I'm going to make sure, as we have with other major threats, that we create a White House office on hate crimes and white supremacist violence to make sure that we are prioritizing what has now become a challenge and a threat to thousands and thousands of lives in our nation.

This kind of violence is on the rise. And we need to have a president that will focus on it with strategies to actually solve this crisis in our country.

BLITZER: Senator, on the issue of gun control, another 2020 contender, Beto O'Rourke, just proposed the national gun registry and gun licensing system, a mandatory buyback of assault-style rifles. You say your plan, though, on gun control, in your words, is the most

far-reaching plan of any other candidate. Can you still say that?

BOOKER: Well, first of all, I'm really happy that there are presidential candidates who criticized my plan and now are turning to embrace it.

The idea of gun licensing is something that I have talked about from the very beginning as a commonsense strategy, one that has in states like Connecticut, where you need a license to drive a car, Connecticut said, hey, you should have a license to buy and own a firearm. It's common sense.

And they saw violence in their state drop 40 percent, 15 percent less suicides.

When I first came out with that part of my plan, I took criticism from folks that are now moving to support and embrace my plan. This isn't about politics. This is about truly what is a threat to our nation.

In the last 50 years, more people have died to gun violence than who died in all of our wars from the Revolutionary War to present combined. We have a government that was forming this nation, one of the fundamental reasons for the common defense.

And this government now is failing to defend our country, and is so capitulating to fear that we're literally now sending kids back to school and telling them, we can't protect you, so we're going to teach you how to shelter in place and how to hide.

[18:30:00]

That's unacceptable. We need bold vision and plans to do common sense things that are evidence-based like my plan that will reduce gun violence in our country and deal with this epidemic.

BLITZER: You addressed this crowd over at the Black Church PAC event, where you are right now.

In the new Fox poll, by the way, you're polling at around 6 percent among black voters. Joe Biden is at 37 percent among black voters. What's your plan to win over their support?

BOOKER: Well, Wolf, you and I had been around long enough to know that polls this far out have never been actually predicted in our party since Carter about who's going to become president. And even in the African-American community, you know, even Barack Obama at this far out was polling behind Secretary, then Senator Clinton in the African-American communities.

Polls are not, at this point, what's important. What's important is what you're doing on the ground. And everybody from the Des Moines register, even in The New York Times of recent have taken note that we are building the best organizations in the early primary states. In Iowa, we lead all of the top five candidates combined in endorsements from state legislators and activists. We are building an organization to win.

And I'm confident in our pathway and there's more people, record numbers, now are going to corybooker.com to be a part of this movement. I'm very excited that we are going to continue with our message of healing, bringing people together to beat Donald Trump, but that's not enough. That's the floor. But to get us to the ceiling of actually addressing the injustices and expanding the opportunity of America.

BLITZER: And I know you've qualified for the next Democratic presidential debate next month in Houston. Senator Booker, thanks so much for joining us.

BOOKER: No, Wolf. Thank you, again, for having me on.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source