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

Interview

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We were hearing from our sources -- CNN was hearing from our sources earlier in the day, there were some officials saying, well, perhaps the Iranians had intentionally missed so as to not draw a counterattack from the U.S. But from what we're hearing over at the Pentagon, there were top officials, including the Joint Chiefs chairman, who were very much convinced that the Iranians were trying to kill Americans in this attack.

And so, it may have been an amazing stroke of luck that no American service members were killed, Anderson.

COOPER: All right. Jim Acosta, thanks very much.

More now on the briefings. We mentioned Senator Chris Murphy sat in on it. He joins us now.

Senator Murphy, you heard from Senator Lee earlier. He also called the briefing today, quote, unacceptable, disgraceful, very insulting.

I'm wondering how you would characterize it.

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): I mean, I don't know that I would use all the same words, but it was fairly extraordinary, to hear the administration tell Congress that we can't debate war and peace. In fact, the Founding Fathers, as Mike Lee pointed out, vested that power solely in the legislative branch.

And you know, this idea is regularly trotted out by the administration. It was echoed by Mitch McConnell on the floor of the Senate yesterday, that if you're criticizing the administration's policy when it comes to war overseas, that you're somehow doing damage to the country or to our troops. That's just absolutely ridiculous. And I'm not going to let this country slide into war again like we did in 2003, when the Bush administration bullied opponents of that war into silence.

The other problem, though, and frankly the bigger problem with the briefing today, was that there was no evidence of an imminent and specific threat. And I can't get into the details. But that was fairly shocking to many of us, the lack of evidence of an actual, imminent, immediate threat, because without that, the president doesn't have the authority to take military action without coming to Congress first.

COOPER: The president, over in the past couple of days, has said that they were planning a very major attack, I believe that was the phrase he used at one time, in a speech.

Can you say if that is accurate or not?

[20:10:01]

MURPHY: Well, I think a lot of us worried when the explanations shifted over the weekend. Some administration officials were using the word "imminent," others weren't. Some people said it was days, others said it was weeks.

I mean, that all started to sound a little suspicious, if there was a set of facts that underlied this decision.

No, Anderson, I can't get into the details, but I can definitively say that there was not evidence presented of an imminent attack. And, of course, that's what the administration was telling us all weekend.

And you know, when you're not straight with the American people about why you go to war, about why you risk American lives, it's devastating to the credibility of the federal government, of the president, and, you know, ultimately, of Congress, as well. And that's why many of us were very worried coming out of that briefing today.

COOPER: Can you explain, you know, Mike Lee was saying in the nine years that he's, you know, been in -- been on Capitol Hill, he's never seen a briefing as bad as that. What was so different about it? Was it -- I mean, were you able to ask questions? Did you have a question to answer? Was it just not specific? Can you elaborate at all?

MURPHY: Yes, I mean, I've been in a lot of very bad briefings. So I'm not sure where I would rank this one. But it was -- you know, it was insufficient, first of all, in the sense that we've waited six days to get a briefing. All 100 senators were in that room, as far as I know. And the administration stayed there for an hour and 15 minutes and then got up and left.

Only about 15 senators got to ask questions, and they apparently had to be somewhere else. I mean, I'm sorry, that's not taking your responsibility seriously to report to Congress if you can only give all 100 senators about 75 minutes.

And then, with you know, the lack of specific details around the threat, to me, I think was a signal that the intelligence doesn't exist, but the alternative isn't really helpful, either. That they had the intelligence and they're not telling us.

So, yes, it was insufficient from a number of standpoints and, you know, I can see why both Republicans and Democrats are walking out of that briefing, you know, angry.

COOPER: We mentioned the divide that we've seen amongst some Republicans based on Rand Paul and Mike Lee.

I want to play something that Senator Lindsey Graham said about Senator Lee and Senator Rand Paul being dissatisfied with the security briefing. So you'll hear Senator Graham first, then Senator Paul's response to him on Wolf Blitzer's program.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): I think they're overreacting, quite frankly. Go debate all you want to. I'm going to debate you. Trust me, I'm going to -- I'm going to let people know that at this moment in time, to play this game with the War Powers Act, which I think is unconstitutional, is whether you mean to or not, you're empowering the enemy. I know you don't mean to, but live in the real world here.

So, debate all you want. This is a constitutional democracy, but get ready for a lively debate.

SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): You know, I think it's sad when people have this fake sort of drape of patriotism and anybody that disagrees with them is not a patriot. He believes in this unitary theory of the executive that presidents can do whatever they want. The only way you can stop them is by defunding a war. That's not what our Founding Fathers said, it's not what the Constitution says, and he insults the Constitution, our Founding Fathers, and what we do stand for in this republic by making light of it and accusing people of lacking patriotism. I think that's a low gutter type of response.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: It sounds, Senator Murphy, like that Lindsey Graham was kind of echoing the message that you were told in the briefing about don't debate this.

MURPHY: Yes, that's right. And it's just a ridiculous argument that gets trotted out every time that the hawks, the neoconservatives want to go to war. They tell us that if you criticize our path to war, that you're being unpatriotic.

I mean, frankly, that's insulting. And it belies the fact that our troops are actually fighting for us and protecting us overseas and to protect our right to disagree with each other and to speak our minds.

The reason, though, Anderson, that we want the ability to debate this is because many of us think this was a very bad decision to escalate the war in a way that is already accrued to the detriment of U.S. national security. I mean, let's just be honest about the fact that today, Iran has restarted its nuclear program, on their way to a potential nuclear weapon. Our troops are getting kicked out of Iraq. The counter-ISIS mission has stopped.

All of that is a consequence of what happened on Thursday. And so, we want the chance to debate this in the United States Congress, because we believe, as the people's representatives, we need to write a policy that has gone very wrong.

COOPER: Senator Murphy, appreciate your time. Thank you.

MURPHY: Thanks.

COOPER: Coming up next, two top White House advisers on today's presidential address and why this president cannot seem or to or not interested in uniting the country, even in a moment like this.

Later, an airliner goes down in Tehran at the height of the crisis. Tonight, the deeply troubling questions about what exactly caused that airliner to go down and whether someone made it happen or was an accident.

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