CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript Interview with Tammy Duckworth

Interview

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Senator, thanks so much for joining us.

In this newly released White House official video, the president says it was a blessing from God that he contracted the coronavirus. You have said the president's negligence actually caught up with him. He clearly sees it very differently.

What do you say to the president, as he actually continues to downplay this virus?

SEN. TAMMY DUCKWORTH (D-IL): Stop jeopardizing the lives of Americans and stop jeopardizing the national security of our country.

You are acting negligently. And it is a dereliction of duty, the way you're behaving. He's put those immediately around him at risk. But he's also now continued to send out messaging that is contrary to what science tells us we should do, when -- to avoid contracting this deadly illness and to avoid spreading it.

He's modeling the absolute worst behavior. And we have 210,000 dead Americans right now that attest to the fact that this virus is deadly.

BLITZER: It's very deadly, indeed.

We watched, Senator -- we watched this evening as a U.S. Marine guard stationed outside the door at the West Wing of the White House, as a result of the president's actual return to the Oval Office. That Marine guard only stands there when the president is in the West Wing in the Oval Office.

I wonder what you, as a former -- as a veteran of the U.S. military, make of the president's putting members of the U.S. military, White House staffers, several of them, White House, not just officials, but those who work at the White House, potentially at risk by refusing to do what the CDC says he should be doing, isolating in what they call a safe room at the White House?

DUCKWORTH: Were he not the president, if he were a typical commander of a military unit, he would be relieved of duty. He would be fired.

You cannot jeopardize the well-being of your troops the way he has. And, remember, it's not just the Marine guard, Wolf. It's also the military aides that are around him, some of whom have already tested positive since the president has become ill.

Remember that you have got a military aide who carries the football with the nuclear codes in it there. He has put the commander in chief of the greatest military on the face of the Earth in danger, himself, and he's gotten himself sick, and now he's getting everybody else around him sick.

If you were a typical commander, you would have been relieved of duty. And that is -- it boggles the mind he would do that, not just to the military men and women who wear the uniforms, but think of their families watching their loved ones having to carry out the orders of this commander, who continues to show no regard whatsoever for their well-being.

BLITZER: Yes, I spent seven years as a White House correspondent, and it's not just the senior staff, and several of them have come down with coronavirus, but it's the porters, the butlers, the cooks, everybody who cleans up over there. It's regular people who potentially could be endangered.

Let's talk about something else that's very significant for millions of regular people out there right now. As you know, after the president tweeted that the stimulus talks with the Democrats in the House and Senate were off, eight hours later, he seemed to signal, well, maybe they're still open to a deal.

What does this mean for your constituents right now who are struggling, who are unemployed, can't pay the bills, can't pay the rent, struggling to get food on the table?

They're understandably frustrated with Washington's inability right now to provide desperately needed assistance.

[18:30:02]

DUCKWORTH: Well, they're desperate. They're scared. I remember what it was like to be a child, you know, with my dad who is unemployed and who literally couldn't put food on the table. I mean, that's where millions of Americans are right now. They can't make their rent. They can't make their mortgage of payments. Those protections are gone. There's no more unemployment insurance. Their kids are hungry. Their kids aren't in school. And this president continues to get in the way of any type of a conversation we could be having, any type of negotiations we could be having.

He should be sending a message to Mitch McConnell, pull up the HEROES Act that has passed the House, let's have a vote on that, or at the very least, come to the table and negotiate. Remember that Mitch McConnell has yet to attend any of these negotiation briefings.

And let me tell you the real consequences of that. Peoria, Illinois is laying off firefighters. Rockford, Illinois, they're not filling police officer positions that are empty. You have all of these municipalities who are not getting the funding, so they can't provide health and safety services to their citizens, in addition, to all of those hungry kids out there who do not have food on the table today because this president, these Republicans in the Senate refuse to negotiate a rescue package that's desperately needed by so many Americans in the middle of a pandemic that this president made worse.

BLITZER: Yes. And it was really amazing yesterday when the president announced that he was ending all discussion at a critical moment like this. Then he reversed himself a few hours later. Senator Tammy Duckworth, thanks so much for joining us.

DUCKWORTH: Thanks for having me on, Wolf.

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