CNN "Newsroom" - Transcript Interview with Ted Lieu

Interview

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The Russian government is blasting the report calling it baseless and quote, new fake stories. With me now Democratic Congressman Ted Lieu, he's a member of the House Foreign Affairs and Judiciary Committee and represents California's 33rd District. Good to see you, Congressman Lieu.

All right before I get to --

REP. TED LIEU (D-CA): Hi, good to see you.

WHITFIELD: Thank you so much. Before I get to the "New York Times" reporting, how about your response to now a third report of a Russian military aircraft coming very close to Alaska.

LIEU: Having served an active duty, I know our Air Force is the best in the world. And they're going to continue to intercept Russian planes they try to enter our airspace. This latest incident does show that Russia is not our friend, and Vladimir Putin is not Donald Trump's buddy.

In fact, Russia has engaged in a series of hostile actions against the United States, including a systematic and sweeping category elections in 2016, followed by what this "New York Times" are reporting, which is the pain of bounties and militants to kill us troops.

WHITFIELD: So let's talk more about that "New York Times" reporting and Russia of course blasting that reporting. You know that Russia offered bounties to Taliban linked militants to kill U.S. troops. The "Times" reports that President Trump was briefed on it in March but still has not authorized a response.

So as a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, what do you want to hear or see from the White House in the form of a response to this?

LIEU: If this story is true, it is outrageous behavior by the Russians. They're essentially, hey, no attention to kill U.S. troops, and the outrageousness adak (ph) behavior is only match by the outrageousness of the behavior Donald Trump. Not only did he do nothing, he actually invited Putin to the G7 Summit last month, that sends all sorts of signals to Russia, that our President is not protecting our troops.

What I want to see is increased sanctions on Russia. In fact, this story is true. And we should also definitely do diplomatic signals to Russia. Appears none of that has actually happened and I do not understand why.

WHITFIELD: And then a lot closer to home for you now, your state of California was the first to shut down with coronavirus and now it's experiencing an uptick and, you know, there are lots of discussions and debates now about the mandating of masks. You know, the reopening or the delayed phased in reopening of businesses and then Florida now a seeing 9,500 new cases within the past 24 hours. What are your concerns about California and how it should move forward?

[12:45:21]

LIEU: Governor Gavin Newsom has done a terrific job suppressing this virus. However, we know it's also highly contagious. And when you start to reopen, you're just going to get more cases. And that's what we're seeing in California. We know in the last two weeks, we had an increase of about 32 percent in hospitalizations.

And that just goes to show that when Donald Trump says that there is no testing, there'd be no cases, that's just absolutely false. People aren't showing up at hospitals because they have a positive COVID-19 test. They're showing up at hospitals because they're gasping for air. And so what we need to do is more testing, more contact tracing, and make sure everyone does social distancing and wears masks and washes their hands.

WHITFIELD: So Governor Newsom was the first to, you know, shut down, you know, a state, California. Do you think it is time to make preparations to have a second shutdown?

LIEU: It would depend on the county. Some counties are doing well, some are not. So Imperial County in California, for example, is getting a high surge of cases. And the governor has said that they should go into shutdown mode. So it really depends on the county.

WHITFIELD: OK. And then in just the last few weeks, President Trump has said that coronavirus, you know, is dying out that the reason we are seeing a rise in cases is because of an increase in testing. And then you got the Vice President who said this yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We stand here today we believe we've made progress. But as we are reminded, as we see cases rising across the south, that we still have work to do. To one extent or another, the volume of new cases coming in, is a reflection of a great success and expanding testing across the country.

And one of the things that we're seeing among the cases and we hear this in Florida, we hear this in Texas and elsewhere is that roughly half of the new cases are Americans under the age of 35 which is at a certain level, very encouraging news. (END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: So how concerned are you and how potentially damaging are these mixed messages from the White House and the Coronavirus Task Force?

LIEU: It's incredibly damaging because we're not just seeing an increase in positive tests. We're seeing an increase in hospitalizations across many states in America. And the fact that younger people are becoming affected is not good news. It's not that younger people only interact with other younger people. In fact, they interact with people of all ages and they can affect others some who have pre existing conditions.

And at the same time, Vice President Pence can't even bring himself to say wear masks, even though his own surgeon general in the Trump administration says to wear mask, as well as the CDC director. So this conflicting message from the President and Vice President Pence is really confusing to American people. All the science and all the data says if you were a mask, you reduce the spread of COVID-19.

WHITFIELD: Congressman Ted Lieu, thanks so much for being with us. Be well.

LIEU: Thank you.

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