CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript Interview with Cory Booker

Interview

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I want to discuss his legacy with the New Jersey senator, Cory Booker. Senator Booker, thanks so much for joining us. How great of an impact did Congressman John Lewis have on our country?

SEN. CORY BOOKER (D-NJ): I think he is probably one of the more greater Titans over the last century, really. And the powerful thing about him is his career, his age was 80. But he was -- since he was a teenager, he was on the frontlines of the fight for justice in America. The youngest person to speak on the March on Washington, leading a major protest from freedom rights to pivotal marches like the fall on Bloody Sunday on the pediment Edmund Pettus Bridge.

But even in his senior years, he was there at the center of the well of the House of Representatives, fighting for just about every major issue from immigration reform to the rights of LGBTQ Americans. He's got an extraordinary career and he did it in a way and a society that can often being too materialistic, too much about possessions and position.

He showed you that in this country, you have true power which comes from your capacity to love, your dignity, your grace, and your unrelenting commitment to make true the virtues of this country put down on our founding documents, but yet to be achieved in a reality for all. BLITZER: He's truly an amazing American. I had the honor and pleasure of interviewing him on many occasions, and he was always, always wonderful. You told the Atlantic, Senator, earlier today, and I'm quoting you now, there are lots of ways to honor him, and I will be very frustrated if we stop it with words and not with real legislative action. So how do you want to see him honored?

BOOKER: Well, you know, I'm scrolling through Instagram and Twitter today and seeing lots of people post niceties to him, and we all should I have, but the reality is, is John was insistent on so much more, and I don't think he wants his legacy to be the words people say about him in his death, but how we choose to live like him while we have our remaining years here.

And so there is unfinished business. I can't imagine the sting that he must have felt to literally bleed the southern soil read for voting rights, than to watch those voting rights to be eroded with the Shelby decision and with state law after state law, as one state North Carolina federal judge said that they were now designing laws with surgical-like precision to disenfranchise African-Americans, and so there's a lot more work to be done.

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And I think that the beauty and the power of Congressman Lewis was that he held a sense of redemption, redemptive opportunity to the bull Connor's, to the man that fractured his skull. But what he was really often challenging was those of us that are comfortable, those of us that are bystanders. He said, and you said it in your tape, he challenged us to get in the way. He challenged us to be about good trouble, not to just be witnesses to history, but to get out there and make it happen.

BLITZER: In December, as you know, the House of Representatives passed a bill to restore the Voting Rights Act. Congressman Lewis gambled in the final vote and it was very, very moving. But that bill, as you know, is now stalled in the U.S. Senate. Do you have any hope that his passing might lead to any movement on this legislation?

BOOKER: Well, you know, Mitch McConnell calls himself the Grim Reaper, and he uses that because he says he takes pride in stopping a lot of bipartisan bills that come from the House. They get stopped in the United States Senate. And when it comes to voting rights, I don't have confidence that this is something that he's going to prioritize in his remaining months as majority leader.

Where my confidence comes is our ability to perhaps a shift the Senate and the White House. And if that happens, I know there are people of goodwill on both sides of the aisle who understand that this is an error shouldn't be restricting the franchise, but making it more fair, equal, and open. And so, I have a lot of hope that by January, with a growing movement, with the loss of titans from Vivian to the Lewis and others, people who led the way for us for so long, but a rising generation taking to the streets now.

I have a lot of hope for our country, but it's not naive hope, it's bloodied hope, it's better hope, it's catalyst hope that that's willing to work. Hope is indeed a muscle. That's going to be a part of that work to make sure that the memory and the legacy of John Lewis is the legislation we pass in the coming Congress.

BLITZER: All right. Senator, thank you so much for joining us. I wish we're meeting under different circumstances. You and I, and I think almost everyone agrees, he was truly, truly an amazing leader, a great, great American. Thanks, as usual, for joining us.

BOOKER: Thank you, and thank you for recognizing his deep kindness and gentility showing that the best of our -- we show our best of ourselves when we're decent to each other and I just appreciate that, that you recognize that and often show that yourself, so thank you.

BLITZER: Yes, we're going to have a lot more on his legacy coming up here in "The Situation Room," including some interviews that I was privileged to do with him over the years. That's coming up later.

Senator Booker, thanks, as usual. We'll, of course, continue this conversation. Appreciate it very, very much.

BOOKER: Appreciate you. Thank you.

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