CNN "State of the Union" - Transcript: Interview With Sen. Chris Murphy

Interview

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TAPPER: Joining me now, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, also a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Senator, I want you to take a look at what the president's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani just tweeted this morning -- quote -- "After three witnesses, no evidence has been presented of any offense. The first two permanent diplomats had no direct knowledge just overhearing things. The third one had no knowledge, not even hearsay. This is a travesty" -- unquote.

What's your response to Mr. Giuliani?

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): Well, the -- the crimes and the offenses that have been detailed in this testimony are absolutely damning.

I mean, it's now absolutely clear what happened. The president was using taxpayer dollars, security aid to Ukraine, and a White House meeting in order to extort the Ukrainian president into trying to interfere in the 2020 election, trying to help the president destroy the Bidens and the Clintons.

And Ambassador Taylor and George Kent testified to the fact that they were carrying out the orders of the White House to get this corrupt deal done.

Now, the White House is going to rely on this idea that the people who were getting the direct orders from the president, who were talking to the president directly, are largely not testifying before the committee. And, of course, there's a reason for that. The White House isn't allowing them to testify before the committee.

The White House is violating the law in keeping them from the impeachment inquiry. Why? Because they know that those are the individuals who were actually getting most of the direct orders from the president, and they don't want that to be on the record.

So, the White House can't have it both ways. The White House can't say, well, you know, Mick Mulvaney and Rudy Giuliani aren't testifying before the committee.

Well, there's a reason for that. The White House is prohibiting them from doing so.

TAPPER: Kent and Taylor weren't saying that they were carrying out these, as you -- as you put it, corrupt orders. They said that they heard about them and they objected to them.

MURPHY: Right, but that's, you know, how civil servants work, right, is that they get orders from -- from the White House, often through intermediaries.

In this case, it was clear that Gordon Sondland was talking directly to the president and then coordinating an effort amongst the Ukraine team to tell the Ukrainian president that he wasn't going to get his security aid unless he started investigating the president's political opponents.

And I think we are going to learn that Gordon Sondland, as we already know, was pretty regularly talking to the president. And, in addition, Rudy Giuliani and Mick Mulvaney were talking to the president. And they, in turn, were telling Volker and Taylor and others to carry out those orders.

[09:20:14]

TAPPER: Ukraine's foreign minister told Ukrainian news agencies on Thursday -- quote -- "Ambassador Sondland did not tell us and certainly did not tell me about a connection between the assistance and the investigations. I have never seen a direct relationship between investigations and security assistance. Yes, the investigations were mentioned, you know, in the conversation of the president, but there was no clear connection between these events" -- unquote.

So that's the Ukrainian foreign minister. How do you respond to that?

MURPHY: Well, I respond to that by noting that Gordon Sondland himself took the extraordinary step of going back and amending his testimony to make absolutely clear that, yes, indeed, he did tell the Ukrainians that they were not going to get their security aid unless they opened up investigations that the White House was recommending.

And we all know that the only two investigations that the president mentioned to President Zelensky was the investigation into the Bidens and the investigation that would relitigate the 2016 election.

Now, the Ukrainians are always going to try to put a good spin on this. The Ukrainians aren't going to come out and accuse the president of extortion. Why? Because they are presently reliant on the goodwill of Donald Trump in order to keep that country safe. They can't take on the president, because, at any moment, he could stop the security aid once more.

So nobody should be surprised when the Ukrainians are trying to put as good a spin on this as possible, are trying to stay in the president's good graces, because, right now, the president still holds enormous leverage over that country's independence and sovereignty.

TAPPER: Obviously, a lot of Democrats care about this quid pro quo in Ukraine. And the case, as you've noted, relies on Gordon Sondland. He's testifying on Wednesday in an open hearing.

Now, as you noted, he -- Sondland has already amended his closed-door testimony once. He did not mention anything about this July 26 phone call between Trump and Sondland that David Holmes testified about on Friday. David Holmes says he heard President Trump pushing for the investigations.

Is Gordon Sondland a credible witness? And, if not, how can Democrats rely on his testimony?

MURPHY: Well, Gordon Sondland clearly didn't tell the truth in his initial testimony. And I don't know why he decided to ultimately come clean about the fact that they were engaged in an extortion campaign.

But he did so. And I think, over the weekend, Mr. Sondland has to decide whether his primary loyalty is to America or whether his primary loyalty is to president of the United States, because it seems clear that he was, in fact, talking pretty regularly, potentially, with the president directly.

And if that was the case, then he needs to explain that. Ultimately, this is about his legacy. And if it comes out that he misled the committee in his initial testimony or outright lied, there are real consequences for him down the line.

TAPPER: Holmes, David Holmes, who testified Friday, he says he was a notetaker for the meeting that you and Senator Ron Johnson had with the Ukrainian President Zelensky in Ukraine.

Holmes testified that Johnson, Senator Johnson, told Zelensky that he was shocked by President Trump's negative view of Ukraine that Zelensky, in his view, would have a difficult time overcoming.

What was Zelensky's response to Johnson telling him that the president, President Trump, had a negative view of Ukraine?

MURPHY: Well, you know, we walked into this meeting.

And, normally, you engage in, you know, diplomatic formalities at the beginning. But that's not how this meeting went. Zelensky immediately launched into this question about the security aid and desperately wanted our help and advice as to how to turn that aid back on.

And so, you know, part of the meeting was about trying to help Zelensky secure a meeting with the president to make the case that the aid should flow once more.

At the end of the meeting, I did remind him that it was not going to help Ukraine for them to get involved in American elections, that he shouldn't be listening to Rudy Giuliani's corrupt requests. And he agreed.

You know, he said that he understood that Ukraine needed to stay out of American politics.

But, of course, for him, it was life and death. If the security aid didn't get turned back on, he was going to have soldiers dying, as they were during the time we were there on the border.

So, you know, it was a tense meeting, because Senator Johnson, you know, was relaying to him the -- what -- he -- what the president had told him about corruption in Ukraine being an issue.

And, of course, at least I didn't know at the time behind the scenes they were telling Zelensky that what corruption meant was getting investigations started to help destroy the president's political opponents.

TAPPER: Ambassador Yovanovitch was -- she testified Friday. She was asked about the -- being prepared by the Obama administration during her Senate confirmation for a question, a potential question, about Hunter Biden.

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Take a listen to Congresswoman Stefanik pushing her on this.

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REP. ELISE STEFANIK (R-NY): Quote: "The way the question was phrased in this model Q&A was, what can you tell us about Hunter Biden's, you know, being named to the board of Burisma?

So for the millions of Americans watching, President Obama's own State Department was so concerned about potential conflicts of interest from Hunter Biden's role at Burisma that they raised it themselves.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Now, I get that, in your view, what's going on right now with President Trump is a much, much bigger deal and much more important than the Hunter Biden situation.

But just point blank, should Hunter Biden have taken that role on the board of Burisma while his dad was vice president?

MURPHY: Well, I think, in an interview, Hunter Biden himself admitted that he had possibly made a mistake.

But let's be clear. Hunter Biden didn't do anything illegal. And his father, the vice president, didn't do anything illegal or unethical. And all of these attacks on the Bidens and the effort to bring the whistle-blower in to testify are just an attempt to try to put more chum in the water and distract from the corrupt scheme that is at the heart of this inquiry.

You know, Marie Yovanovitch wasn't the ambassador at the time. So, as you know, you often get briefed in anticipation of these confirmation hearings for the worst-case scenario, so it's not, you know, out of the ordinary for issues like that to come up when she's getting ready for testimony.

TAPPER: Senator Murphy, thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it.

MURPHY: Thanks, Jake.

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