MSNBC "Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell - Transcript Interview with Cory Booker

Interview

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O`DONNELL: Joining our discussion now is Democratic Senator Cory Booker of

New Jersey. He`s a member of that Senate Judiciary Committee.

Senator, thank you very much for joining us tonight.

It`s so ironic to hear Senator Cornyn talk about something being developed

behind closed doors.

Correct me if I`m wrong, but isn`t that the way the Republican legislation

was developed?

BOOKER: Incredibly so, behind closed doors. That`s the way they operate.

You remember that toxic Trump tax plan was done behind closed doors, not

through normal process.

So to get lectured by them about this being something that they are

sincerely trying to do, to me is outrageous, because I`ve seen this from

the criminal justice reform legislation we passed to how immigration reform

was done in the years before I came to the Senate. When they`re serious

about something, they`ll put it through a committee or create a gang of

eight or gang of ten, you`ve heard of these before.

There`s no desire to get something substantive done. They`re pushing a bill

on the floor that does not answer the demands of so many of the people out

there on the streets that want to see an end to the killing of unarmed

black people, because let me just be clear, it would not have stopped the

awful practice, like our bill does, that got Breonna Taylor killed in her

bed. It would not have stopped the awful chokehold that our bill bans that

got Eric Garner killed. It would not allow George Floyd`s family to hold

those officers accountable in federal court through civil rights claims.

These are all things they don`t address. Our bill does. And it`s just so

frustrating that they`re setting up process to fail so they can turn the

page and not rise to this moment in history.

O`DONNELL: Senator McConnell is saying just let us put the Republican bill

on the floor. You have enough votes to block them procedurally from getting

the Republican bill on the floor. He`s saying let us put the Republican

bill on the floor, and then it`s open to amendments. You can bring in the

Booker/Harris amendment to ban chokeholds by American police officers, and

then it`s up to a vote in the Senate, and 51 votes, it will go into the

bill.

What`s wrong with that approach?

BOOKER: Well, every major civil rights organization agrees with us, over

130 organizations signed on to a letter that this is a plan set up to fail,

because what Mitch McConnell has -- said he would do is in the Senate he

would make a 60-vote threshold for everything. That means we would need to

get 14 senators to defect and do chokehold legislation, to defect to end

racial and religious profiling, to defect to stop military equipment to be

given to police departments.

And he knows he can stop those amendments from passing one by one by one by

one. And so, it`s not a serious offer. He set the system up to fail. And

getting on this bill, letting him go through these processes, to me, would

be an exercise in futility when he`s preordained the result.

So what we`re asking for is just simply to allow us to come together,

because there are Republicans that have already -- one has introduced

legislation on qualified immunity. I`m having conversations with other ones

about other things. I think if we sat down and started working on this, the

way we`ve done other things, we could come up with a bill that honors the

moment and actually creates real accountability in American policing.

O`DONNELL: Yeah. I mean, him imposing a 60-vote -- asking for an agreement

of a 60-vote threshold for amendments does make amendments impossible. It

doesn`t seem like that long ago, but I guess it was, Senator, when I was

working in the Senate and it took exactly 51 votes to get your amendments

onto a bill.

So what about this other procedural possibility? Letting the Republican

bill go to the floor with a 60-vote threshold, absolutely you won`t get any

amendments on that bill. But then it just goes into conference with the

bill from the House of Representatives, what Nancy Pelosi and the House

Democrat`s bill, and from that, either something comes out the Democrats

vote for or it doesn`t.

Why not leave that negotiation to what is the conference committee that

could produce a bill that both bodies could vote on?

BOOKER: Yes, well, that`s the point. If it went into the Senate, we would

have to vote it out. So he would have to get 60 votes to go to conference.

And that`s the absurdity of what he`s proposing. First of all, you`re not

going to get Democrats in good faith to vote for a bill that doesn`t

address any of the issues that are core and purposeful to us.

But you don`t have to go to conference. I`ve watched in the Senate in the

short six years I`ve been here so many in what they call four corners

negotiation. We did it on criminal justice reform. We have the White House

at the table.

We had members on the Republican and Democrat side of the Senate. We had

house members at the table. We all got together and hammered out, because

we all desire to get something done. So this idea that you have to go to a

conference and have a negotiation is just wrong. I can tell you confidently

that Nadler, the Head of this Congressional Black Caucus Karen Bass they

would love to get into a room everybody and start to negotiate what real

reform would look like. We do not need to go through these processes that

Mitch McConnell is establishing to get into a room for negotiation.

In fact, I don`t think I can remember a time when Democrats have pleaded

this much to please sit down in a room and negotiate with us. What Mitch

McConnell clearly wants to do is to turn a page and be able to point a

finger of blame at Democrats is opposed to accepting responsibility for

what is really needed right now, which is not partisanship.

It`s to address generational long - generations long problems, that even

king, when he stood on the march in Washington and people forget in his I

have a dream speech. He specifically called out police brutality. From that

to the Kerner report to the 21st Century Task Force and Policing. I can`t

tell you how many times this country has studied it held commissions on it,

done reports on it, all the things Republicans are calling for in their

bill yet again.

People are not marching in the streets saying we want a commission. They

are not marching the street saying we want more data. They are marching the

street they say they want to stop police from choking them to death. They

want to stop being profiled based upon their race. They want to end no-

knock warrants. They want have transparency in the police departments. And

if a cop or a police officer does wrong, they want to make sure that

federal authorities can prosecute them and either they won`t have

impossible standards to reach. This is not that complicated, we can get

this done if we sit together and have a real conversation about what will

save black lives in this country.

LAWRENCE O`DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: Senator Cory Booker, thank you very much

for joining us tonight. We really appreciate it.

BOOKER: Thank you very much. Thank you.

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