CNN "State of the Union" - Transcript: Interview with Cory Booker

Interview

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SEN. CORY BOOKER (D-NJ): Again, we're making meaningful progress.

And I'm committed. We have to have a nation where we end, I think, what has been a more revealed anguish and agony of many Americans, not just these horrific videotapes that we see almost like a drumbeat in our country, but we live in a nation where generations now have had to teach their children that their encounters with police could end in your death.

And they are buttressed by the personal stories of African-Americans. I don't know a black male in my circle that doesn't have stories of unfortunate encounters with police or, frankly, painful or humiliating ones, including the person negotiating on the other side with me, Tim Scott, who gave a speech on the Senate floor detailing, as a United States senator, his unfortunate encounters with police.

We have a challenge before us. And our work is to address that challenge. And we're making good progress, hopeful progress, but we still have some work, a lot of work to do.

BASH: So, let's dig in on the work that you have to do.

One of the sticking points, I don't need to tell you, is what's known as qualified immunity for police, which effectively shields officers from lawsuits.

I know you and your fellow Democrats want to end that. Republicans say, for the most part, that it needs to stay.

I want you to hear what the House majority whip, Jim Clyburn, said on this show a few weeks ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JAMES CLYBURN (D-SC): I will never sacrifice good on the altar of perfect.

If we don't get qualified immunity now, then we will come back and try to get it later. But I don't want to see us throw out a good bill because we can't get a perfect bill.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Senator, is ending qualified immunity for individual officers a red line for you, or do you agree with what you just heard Congressman Clyburn say?

BOOKER: Well, what I agree with what he said is that we need to at some point get qualified immunity.

It's what I'm determined at this negotiating table to get. And these are labels that a lot of folks don't know what they mean. This means that, in the United States of America, any profession that -- where you violate in a serious way the civil rights of another American, should someone be shielded?

This is not about going after good officers. This is about when officers have breached the civil rights of another American citizen. And, to me, we need this to create real accountability.

[09:15:00]

So, I'm at the negotiating table fighting for that. We have to have a nation where, when you do wrong -- again, not the good officers, but when folks have done wrong, violated someone's fundamental, constitutionally protected rights, that there is not a shield in the judicial system, but true accountability, where they are not above the law, but are held accountable by it.

BASH: I hear you that you're fighting for that at the negotiating table right now.

But is it possible that you're willing to have less than in order to get the broader bill and fight that fight another day?

BOOKER: Again, I'm not negotiating this in public.

I have said where my line is. We wrote a bill with Senator, now Vice President Harris in the Senate, along with our House allies, Karen Bass, Congressman Nadler, that said very clearly we want to eliminate qualified immunity. And that is where we're starting clearly.

You have heard very publicly the red lines on the other side. And, again, this is one of the big issues that we're working very hard to see if we can bridge this wide gulf.

BASH: There's another big issue that you're working on, which is lowering the threshold to criminally prosecute police officers.

Republican Senator Tim Scott, who you're working with very closely, has said publicly that's off the table as far as he's concerned. What's your response to that?

BOOKER: Again, I start with our fundamental American values.

When someone violates the law -- again, this is not about the officers out there who every single day go into tough situations, do their job. This is about people who violate the law, often ending in someone's death.

We have seen the videotapes of these things that do not comport with not just our common values, but even police -- the police profession looks askance and looks down on. We have to have real criminal accountability.

And, again, nobody in America, from the president of the United States all the way down to all of our citizens, should be above the law. And this is, again, something that I'm working with.

And, look, I have had some incredibly constructive conversations with police leaders who know that what we are seeing now because of videotapes and body cameras, which we didn't have generations ago, I'm confident that these same things were going on.

It's why Martin Luther King on the March on Washington put police brutality in his "I Have a Dream" speech. Now we're seeing this every single day. The profession itself, here in New Jersey, applications to the state police are at historic low, about 90 percent less people even applying to be New Jersey State Troopers.

We have a crisis of policing in America.

BASH: Well...

BOOKER: It's not new, but we have to come together and fix it.

And one of the things the public needs is trust, transparency, accountability, to make sure that we all feel confident that our policing is meeting the standards of our nation. If we keep saying that police officers are somehow above the law, that will never establish the kind of trust that we need in America to move forward.

BASH: And, Senator, you well know you're up against a good number of Republicans across the aisle who are still questioning whether there is a need for federal police reform at all.

John Cornyn told "The Washington Post" that he thinks Derek Chauvin's conviction for George Floyd's murder shows that there are already avenues in place to hold police accountable.

Your response?

BOOKER: My response is, I wouldn't have a negotiating partner in Tim Scott if Mitch McConnell didn't believe that this is something that we should be at the table trying to work through.

We are, on the Senate side, working in good faith to bring this to a conclusion. I, in one of my negotiations, sat with Karen Bass and Tim Scott in, of all places, the Strom Thurmond Room in the United States Senate. And you had three African-Americans sitting around a table trying to work this out.

I know there's going to be a lot of folks who have a lot to say about this before we have finished our work. And, God willing, we will land this one a bill. But, in terms of what I know from the Senate, people like Senator

Lankford on the Republican side, Senator Sasse, Senator Cornyn, Senator Lindsey Graham, on their side, I know that there are people that believe that we should be at the table trying to negotiate a solution. Whether we get there or not still remains to be seen.

We have the White House working to be supportive, the Problem Solvers on the congressional side. There are a lot of people who know the crisis we have in this country, where millions of Americans this time last year were bearing witness, as we will have the anniversary on the 25th, to a brutal murder that ignited peaceful protests in every single state in the nation of people demanding change.

[09:20:08]

BASH: And...

BOOKER: And the federal government has a responsibility, I believe, to deliver substantive, meaningful police reform.

BASH: Well, Senator, I want to change topics, but what an image that you just painted for us of the three of you, black senators, sitting in the Strom Thurmond Room. That's pretty remarkable.

Before I let you go, I have to ask about the January 6 commission that Senate Republicans are throwing cold water on, the notion of creating this bipartisan commission. They argue that it would be redundant. There are already hearings, investigations going on into the interaction.

What's your response to that?

BOOKER: I have seen bipartisan commissions form over tragic days in our country. Obviously, we all know the extraordinary job done after 9/11.

I was on the Senate floor when it was laid siege to, where they had to escape the vice president of the United States as people were chanting to hang him, as we saw, as we fled the Senate floor. And I saw police officer after police officer, three officers severely injured. Ultimately, one from New Jersey was killed, Brian Sicknick.

To say that this wasn't one of America's most shameful days, as Confederate Flags and anti-Semitic slogans were waved triumphantly in our most sacred civic space, is, to me, outrageous and unacceptable.

We should be coming together in a bipartisan way to do a thorough investigation to make sure that the second time in American history that our Capitol was taken is the last time, and that the deaths and injuries of officers, we should honor them by coming together and doing the necessary investigations.

BASH: Senator Cory Booker from the great state of New Jersey, thank you so much. Keep us posted on your negotiations. Appreciate it.

BOOKER: Thank you. BASH: And Senate Republicans are backtracking, as we just talked

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