MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript: Interview with Chris Murphy

Interview

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SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): Thanks for having me.

MADDOW: Let me get your reaction to the Biden administration`s plan to buy and donate half a billion vaccine doses to the world.

MURPHY: Well, I think this is an extraordinary announcement and it`s a recognition that American power really, in the end, is not about our Army, our Navy, our Air Force. It`s about our example. It`s about our reputation.

And for 100 years, it was America that offered the big solutions to the big problems of the world, right? It was America that invented the Internet. It was America that saved democracy in Europe after World War II.

And that light has been fading. It faded fast over the last four years. China has taken advantage of it.

Now, people look often to China to provide solutions to big problems. As Chinese technology that`s now the backbone of the Internet rather than American technology. Here is the opportunity for America to, once again, capture the world`s imagination. This is about American bigness, it`s about American boldness, and it is perfectly timed as the president makes his first foray back to Europe.

It makes people just want to be part of the American experiment again. It wants them to align themselves economically and diplomatically. It also is good for America from a purely selfish standpoint because we`re in a race to try to stamp out this virus and experience as quickly as we can, so that we don`t end up with a variant that is immune to the vaccine.

So, it ends up protecting us to inoculate the role as fast as possible. It was a whole lot of friends and begins to rebuild our ability to create partnerships that are good for the country.

MADDOW: The idea of building partnerships and winning friends, I listened to a really interesting interview today by President Biden`s national security adviser Jake Sullivan. He did an interview at the BBC upon arriving in the U.K. for the start of this trip and he stressed a couple of points about the move.

He said, as you know, the other two countries in the world that have been making a very big deal out of the fact they are distributing their vaccines abroad are China as you mentioned and also Russia, Jake Sullivan making a point that this will put the U.S. in the position of far outpacing, China or Russia, in terms of the number of vaccine doses that we have distributed. It`s a higher quality vaccine than anything China or Russia is distributing, number one.

But he also went out of his way to point out it`s without strings attached. This is being done through the WHO, to strengthen the WHO. It`s being done to the COVAX initiative, and it`s not something the United States is asking for anything in return. We`re not using this as leverage or putting any sort of strings or prerequisites on any country who is going to get any of those things.

Do you agree with that approach?

MURPHY: I do, and it`s, of course, reminiscent of the Marshall Plan. It`s been compared to that over the course of the last 24 hours, appropriately, right? The Marshall Plan was criticized by some because it didn`t come with many strings attached.

We basically said to Europe, if you are interested in building a participatory democracy, if you are interested in an open economy, in which American companies can compete, then we are willing to be your partner. And the bet was that level of generosity would be paid back overtime. And, of course, it was.

We have created millions of jobs in the United States because of our partnership with Europe. And it was the Europeans who came to our defense after September 11th as we fought back against those who attacked us. So, that theory worked.

Now, it`s a different world today than it was in 1945, but psychology hasn`t changed. People are going to notice that if you want the Russian vaccine, if you want Chinese investment, it`s going to come with all sorts of the strings you talked about.

America wants to be your partner, ultimately down the line. We may come asking for something, but it`s going to be, I think, the way in which we approaches vaccine distribution campaign that will help to sort of rebuild the reputation of the United States, which under Trump became entirely transactional, which ended up pushing a lot of folks away.

MADDOW: As the president sets off on this foreign trip, he`s doing the G7 summit, has a lot of bilateral meetings with our most important allies. It`s going to end this meeting with Putin.

I wanted to ask you about this hearing that happened today in your committee about Belarus. This crisis in Belarus, including a state sponsored hijacking of a commercial passenger plane in order to arrest a young opposition journalist. Putin obviously is bringing Belarus very tightly, even more tightly into their camp in the wake of these incredible abuses by the dictator there.

Today, your committee heard among others the main opposition figure in Belarus, may very well have beaten that dictator in the last election he rigged. She said the country is becoming, Belarus is becoming the North Korea of Europe. That`s what Lukashenko is doing there. And that, of course, has implications not only for Belarusians and the way they live, but also for how much of a threat that poses to Europe and that neighborhood as Putin, again, embraces that country as its dictator seems to be going off the rails.

Do you expect there will be new sanctions there, and this is potentially a new global flash point the president is going to have to confront on this trip?

MURPHY: Listen, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya is a remarkable leader. I was in Lithuania with Senator Shaheen and Senator Portman last week meeting with her. And we should offer her and her democratic movement support.

Listen, does it matter to the U.S. in the end whether Belarus is aligned with Russia, or aligned with the West? Probably not. That`s a decision for the Belarusian people to make.

But we should stand squarely behind their right to make it. And now with the downing of this plane, with a state sponsored hijacking having taken place, we need to send an unequivocal message to the world and other dictators who would-be dictators that if you cross this line, there are going to be horrible costs.

So, yes, I think there will be additional sanctions and maybe that doesn`t have an immediate impact in Belarus, but it at least has a chilling effect on this kind of behavior, in other parts of the world. But I also think we need to support other mechanisms to try to uncover what`s happening in Belarus. So, we talk now hearing about supporting independent journalists to make sure there are people inside and outside of Minsk that are telling the story about the kleptocracy that Lukashenko has presided over in the way that Alexander Navalny did to Vladimir Putin.

So, it`s not -- sometimes, we get so hung up on sanctions that we forget there are ways to get under the skin of dictators, and supporting independent journalists, supporting the true story of his brutal regime. That can go a long way towards helping the pro-democracy movement there.

MADDOW: It is a remarkable thing how Putin truly independent journalism can be against authoritarianism.

Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, it`s always great to have you on the show here tonight. Thank you so much for being here, sir.

MURPHY: Thanks, Rachel.

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