CNN "Newsroom" - Transcript Interview with Mike Braun

Interview

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[10:30:00]

SEN. MIKE BRAUN (R-IN): No one was talking about tweaking it or reforming it to where it would benefit law enforcement to take this stigma off of their shoulders, and give redress to these individuals and end up losing a life or have their rights trampled.

So it'll be the lynchpin if we get back to it, but Schumer derailed it and the White House maybe could revive it. Otherwise, we'll miss a moment.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Wow. What do you say to folks at home who say, Here we go again? Because we've seen moments like this before. We've seen, for instance after school shootings, you know --

BRAUN: Yes.

SCIUTTO: -- a momentary burst of public demonstrations and interest. But it fails to move Capitol Hill. What do you say to folks at home who say, Why can't you guys sit down and come to an agreement?

BRAUN: It's a frustration, I think, that confuses and just has people, What is going on here in D.C.?

When I ran, it was to interject into that process. Main Street entrepreneur, running -- building a business from scratch into a national company. You've got to be accountable, you've got to take care of your customers or you're out of business. It's a good analogy.

That doesn't happen here because I think people are so nestled into the current dynamic, you end up having these lack of resolutions on all important issues currently.

SCIUTTO: Yes, you -- listen, you and your family, you turned around a truck body business, so you know what it takes to turn things around.

BRAUN: Yes.

SCIUTTO: I want to ask you about the broader political environment here. President Trump's poll numbers across the board, not looking particularly good. And yet he continues to double down on fairly divisive strategy here. And even you have said that you'd recommend something of a change in tactics, right, going forward. What adjustments specifically do you want to see from the president?

BRAUN: Number one, he got here because he was a manifestation of frustration that we've just been talking about as an outsider. And in his time here, you know, he comes from the outside. I at least had the benefit of being on a school board 10 years, and a state legislator for three years. So you learn a little bit about how hard you can push and what you can't do. Style is a big deal. I think it did him well when he got here.

And I'm going to look at the merits of the case. The strongest economy we've ever had, a lot of regulations, we're overburdening. He's responsible solely for rolling them back. A lot of issues are actually better than what they might seem, but sometimes it gets lost in the haze when maybe you've got too many things that you're having to talk about in the daily course of trying to navigate this place.

So, yes, I think it's plenty of time to turn it around because the economy was -- he was going to win in a landslide, I really believe it. You never know what's going to come along.

If the economy bounces back and you can still make the case that if we go to the policies that were in place with Obama and Biden -- people will hunker down and regardless of what happens with COVID-19, this economy won't be the same if we go back to the old rules.

But Republicans need to learn new tricks too --

SCIUTTO: Right.

BRAUN: -- don't stick our head in the sand about climate, health care, police reform. So we need to do better, but please don't think that we're going to be better off economically if we go back to what was before President Trump.

SCIUTTO: Just quickly, is the president uniting or dividing the country right now?

BRAUN: You know, I think there's so many different issues out there. I don't know how anybody would navigate through being impeached and all the effort that went into that, having the biggest health care nightmare and disaster that's come along since 1918, and then police reform. I don't know that any politician, where the heat's on you like it is being the president, would have any better way to navigate through it.

It's a time to soul-search, see what you need to do, get back on track. And I think he can still win in November, I really do.

SCIUTTO: Senator Mike Braun, appreciate you joining the broadcast this morning.

BRAUN: You're welcome.

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