MSNBC "All In with Chris Hayes" - Transcript Interview with Chris Murphy

Interview

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I`m joined now by Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat of Connecticut who`s a

member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. And I want to start on

the second story there, which has been building over the weekend. Your

understanding of what happened with Russia and what the President did or

did not do and what the meaning of it all is.

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): So I think we have to rewind a bit here. At the

beginning of the Trump presidency, open-source reporting told us that

Russia was starting to get more aggressive in Afghanistan. They were

allegedly reportedly starting to funnel weapons directly in through

intermediaries to the Taliban. They were getting more involved in the

political process, something they weren`t doing to that extent under the

Obama administration.

The reports from this weekend, though, suggests Russia has been playing an

entirely different game, that they are actually paying bounties for the

heads of American soldiers, that they are paying out cash to Taliban

operatives if they kill American soldiers. If that is true, it is a level

of engagement in the Afghanistan theater that we have not seen previously,

and it demands a response.

And what the New York Times says is that as you mentioned, the Trump team

talked about this. They reviewed options including asking Russia to stop.

And even that was deemed too hot for Trump`s taste. We didn`t even ask them

to stop. And that does beg the question, what on earth could Russia do to

us that this administration would actually take seriously?

HAYES: That question of the response, you know, struck me as not an easy

one, right? So, in this case, if you have that intelligence, and if it is

actually verified, right, this is one of those tough governing challenges,

right? We`re not going to go to war with Russia. We`re not going to, you

know, try to arm other militias that might be fighting the Russians. Maybe

you can mobilize international efforts, put sanctions on them although

they`re being sanctioned all over the place.

So it`s not easy. They`re not some button to press. But it`s precisely

those kinds of hard problems that are what presidents are for, and just

seem -- just completely be on the capacity three and a half years into this

of this particular administration.

MURPHY: Well, and once again, as you reviewed, we sent the exact opposite

signal, right. We could have tried a number of different means to affect

their decision making in Afghanistan and save the lives of brave young

American soldiers. But instead, we invited them back into the G7. We

engaged with him on multiple occasions without even mentioning the fact

that we apparently knew they were putting bounties on the heads of American

soldiers.

And so we effectively greenlit their assassination campaign against

American soldiers, which is, of course, in many ways worse than doing

absolutely nothing at all about it.

HAYES: Right. You are from a state that is -- was very, very hard hit by

Coronavirus in the initial -- the initial phase in March in April, among

those trio states, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut that was a sort of

Epicenter, probably the worst outbreak in the world, those three states

together.

What is the conversation on Capitol Hill right now among you and your

colleagues and everyone in the U.S. government as we watch this start to go

sideways, as we watch states starts to walk back, as we see case records

being set in Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and these shrinking group

of states that maybe things are still trending in the right direction but

who knows if that`ll hold?

MURPHY: Yes. We have less than 100 people in the hospital today which is a

record low. We have positive test rates of under one percent. And we were a

hotspot just two months ago. What we did was pretty simple. We closed up

our economy and kept it closed until our rates got low enough. And we

developed a mask wearing culture that was apolitical. Republicans and

Democrats wear masks in Connecticut.

And so, what`s so dangerous is that knowing what needs to be done in order

to control the affection in places like Florida and Texas, they are

unwilling to copy our success. We were the guinea pigs. We showed the rest

of the country how you actually do this right. And it`s unforgiveable in

many respects, that these other states are not going to follow our example.

We wanted help to fund our response as we were trying to figure out what

worked and what did not. Now those states are going to be asking for help

from the federal government while at the same time they refused to

implement the steps that we know could get the virus under control.

HAYES: Final question for you. Is there -- I feel like in some ways we`re

back -- we set the clock back to late February, early March where you could

kind of see what`s coming and I just feel like there`s a gap between what`s

bearing down on us in the urgency. Do you, Senator, and your colleagues,

Democrat and Republican alike, understand that extraordinary action will

have to be taken if we see cases raised up again.

And I`m not even talking about governor shutting down their states. I`m

talking about the members United States Senate passing more rescue relief,

extending unemployment benefits, extending programs to help small

businesses because if those states shut down again, everyone is in a lot of

trouble.

MURPHY: The answer your question is no. Right now, Republicans are actively

frustrating efforts in the Senate to pass any kind of relief efforts to the

state. Actually, just an hour ago, we asked to bring up legislation before

the Senate to get an additional amount of relief to states to help them

build out new anti-pandemic infrastructure and that effort was objected to

by Mitch McConnell and his lieutenants.

And so, it looks as if we`re going to go on break for two weeks over the

Fourth of July, having invested absolutely zero new dollars into these

states that are seeing the virus expand. Those states, at the same time,

are refusing to take the public health steps that would actually contract

the virus.

And we`re heading towards catastrophe, states unwilling to do what evidence

tells them is necessary to contract the spread of the virus and a

Republican Congress unwilling -- in the Senate, at least -- to pass

legislation that will help those states. God save us all.

HAYES: Senator Chris Murphy, thank you so much for making a little time for

us tonight.

MURPHY: Thanks.

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