CNN "Erin Burnett Outfront" - Transcript: Interview with Senator Chris Murphy

Interview

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[19:20:04]

GOLODRYGA: Yes. They've just got days left until Sunday for this Congress so that seems to be one of his tactics. Always great to have you on, Phil. Thank you.

Well, one senator who made a passionate plea to his Republican colleagues on the Senate floor today to support the $2,000 stimulus checks straight up is Democratic Senator Chris Murphy.

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SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): There are 52 of you. In the next 24 to 48 hours, you get to decide do you protect the billionaires or do you choose to feed that 11-year-old kid. The only thing that can stop $2,000 payments to struggling Americans right now is 52 Senate Republicans. Some things in Washington aren't that simple, but this is.

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GOLODRYGA: And Sen. Murphy is now OUTFRONT with us. He sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Senator, always great to have you on. So is this a non-starter for you if McConnell combines these three issues in this bill?

MURPHY: Well, McConnell is intentionally trying to kill the $2,000 payments by lumping them in with a voter fraud commission that presupposes there was some massive mail-in voter fraud and this repeal of liability provisions for internet companies that's completely half baked. There's an easy path here.

There is a bill to increase the payments to $2,000 that has passed the House of Representatives with a lot of Republican votes. The President will sign it and it's pending before the House. We could vote on it tomorrow and send it to the President's desk and everybody in this country making less than $75,000 would get $2,000. That would save a lot of lives in this country. We have four days left in the legislative session. We are not going to

be able to pass a new piece of legislation with massively complicated internet reform and a voter fraud commission in it. So McConnell, if he moves forward with that proposal, he's making it clear that he wants to kill the $2,000 checks.

If he brings up the House bill, then we have a chance to pass it, get it signed into law and help a lot of people in this country during a very tough holiday.

GOLODRYGA: So ultimately, he may be getting what he wants and that's not passing any bill that's going to be sending $2,000 checks out to families. But given that Republican senators, now Perdue and Loeffler, have embraced the $2,000 checks, do you think it could help give them an edge to win in these crucial runoffs that will decide who controls the Senate in Georgia?

MURPHY: Well, listen, I don't know how this plays out in Georgia. All I know is that my folks in Connecticut desperately need this help. Right now folks are getting evicted as we head into January. Moms and dads are having a tough time putting food on the table. They need that help.

I mean, listen to ultimately, people in Georgia are watching what Mitch McConnell is doing. I mean, he is playing games with the lives of Americans by coming right up to the zero hour before he tells us what he's going to do with this $2,000 payment. And I think folks in Georgia who want to give Joe Biden a chance to succeed, who don't want Mitch McConnell to continue to play these games.

They know that a vote for Jon Ossoff and a vote for Raphael Warnock is a vote for much better, much more efficient, much more compassionate government. Let's see what happens in the next few days.

GOLODRYGA: And, of course, I don't have to tell you what happens in Georgia really sets the balance of power in the Senate going forward. But Sen. McConnell also announced that the Senate will begin to proceed tomorrow on overriding President Trump's veto the National Defense Authorization Act. The House overwhelmingly voted to override the veto last night including 109 Republicans. Do you think there are enough votes in the Senate now to override it?

MURPHY: I do. I think there's no doubt there'll be enough votes in the Senate to override the President's veto here. There's a pay raise in that bill for our troops. There's a provision that the President really doesn't like that renames bases in the country that were named after confederate generals. This is a really important piece of legislation for the country's security.

But I also think there are 60 votes there for the $2,000 payment bill. It's true, as Phil said, that it splits the Republican caucus. There's probably a good number of them that don't want those $2,000 payments and that group may include Mitch McConnell, but I think there are 10 to 20 Republicans that will vote for the $2,000 payments. And so if that bill came to the floor, it would easily get 60 votes. GOLODRYGA: Interesting. Before you go, I want to ask you about a

conversation I had last night with retired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman. He was a key witness in the President's impeachment probe, as you know, a highly decorated Army veteran who you have called a patriot. He told me that he has no regrets about coming forward to testify, but listen to what he told me when I asked him if he believed the military did all it could to defend and protect him from retaliation.

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LT. COL. ALEXANDER VINDMAN, FORMER DIRECTOR FOR EUROPEAN AFFAIRS FOR THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL: The bottom line is no, they haven't. And I think in certain ways they probably have misrepresented the former Secretary of Defense Esper, probably misrepresented the amount of support I was receiving. At no point did any senior leader, civilian or military attempt to contact me, and indicate that I was still in good standing in the military.

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GOLODRYGA: He retired shortly thereafter, this past year, after 21 years in the military. But in terms of what precedent that could set for others who want to come forward and do the right thing and tell the truth when they see what happened to him in terms of what lawmakers could do, should they look into that?

MURPHY: Well, that's heartbreaking to hear from Col. Vindman, but it's unsurprising not only did he not receive any support from the military chain of command privately, but he didn't receive that support publicly. And frankly, we should expect that our military leaders are going to publicly speak out in defense of whistleblowers, because they should be just as interested as citizens or members of Congress in getting to the bottom of wrongdoing when it happens on their watch in their own administration.

What this President has done to make it hard, impossible, maybe for future whistleblowers to come forward, that has real serious consequences for the country. And I do think that Congress is going to have to figure out how we can better protect whistleblowers.

There's a pretty strong statute on the books right now that the President just ignored. But we may have to look as to how we can apply that to others in the military chain of command to try to require better behavior by folks who could be in a position to protect people like Alexander Vindman.

GOLODRYGA: Yes. I don't have to remind our viewers the hell that he went through in the past year and a half of following that impeachment trial. Senator, thank you so much for joining us. Happy holidays.

MURPHY: Thanks, you too.

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