CNN "Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees" - Transcript: Interview with Chris Murphy

Interview

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SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): Well, my sense is that that deal right now has 20 votes, not 60 votes, we're going to have to take a deep dive into the agreement that they've reached and, you know, square it with the needs of our voters.

I think many of us have had two concerns. One is that some of the numbers in the bill for heart infrastructure just aren't good enough. Let me give you an example of the Northeast Rail Corridor, that's vital to my state of Connecticut getting more people on the train back and forth to Connecticut and New York and Boston.

The numbers I've seen in that bill, you know, barely just fix the things that are broken on the rail line, never mind actually decrease travel times for people

Second, in my state, if you fix the roads and the bridges, well, that helps people get to work. But people can't afford childcare. Infrastructure is not just asphalt. It's the assistance that many people in my state need to be able to afford to leave the house and get back to work.

So, I think that second package that Kaitlan referenced, a bigger package outside of hard infrastructure, we're going to need to make sure we see a path to get that done.

COOPER: Many Democrats obviously have been pressuring President Biden to go it alone on infrastructure. I mean, if it does, in fact, end up on Biden's desk for his signature, does it prove that that bipartisanship is still possible in Washington? Or should we not get ahead of ourselves?

MURPHY: Well, my constituents back home don't really care so much about process, I'm going to be honest with you. If you're making their lives easier, if you're allowing them to be able to get back to work, they don't really care whether Republicans and Democrats or just one party voted for it.

What the President is proposing whether it be in the rescue plan earlier in the year or in the jobs plan that is all bipartisan in the sense that Republicans and Democrats out in America support it. My constituents just want us to get things done. They're not really as focused on this issue of bipartisanship as the inside the beltway punditry seems to be.

COOPER: As Kaitlan noted, something else President Biden talked about today is the rise in violent crime, the increased murder rate in the U.S., "New York Times" columnist Tom Friedman wrote a column warning Democrats about embracing defund the police

He said, "Biden needs to keep rallying his party tightly around his right answer: transforming police and sufficient policing, not defunding the police. Because if people feel forced to choose security over democracy, concerns about stealing outside their door over stealing an election -- beware. Way too many will choose Trump and his cult."

President Biden did reiterate he is not in favor of defunding the police and never has been. But I am wondering what do you make of some of your colleagues who do support a defund the police agenda?

MURPHY: Well, first of all, I think it would be ridiculous for us to view this through a political prism, so I get that columns get written, giving us political advice, what we should be doing is making changes to law enforcement to properly respect civil rights of citizens, and actually investing in things that prevent crime.

I think a lot of, you know, people out there who are very frustrated with the way that money is spent today is that they see an under investment in things like summer jobs and summer camps and an over investment in police.

So, one of the things I liked about President Biden's proposal today is that yes, he's saying we need to spend more money on targeted law enforcement, a different kind of law enforcement. But he also had in that proposal, money for summer jobs and money for summer program to get these kids off the street to give them something productive to do over the course of the summer.

When I'm in the north end of Hartford or the east end of Bridgeport, that's what people want, want. They want police who are going to respect them. But they also want some other options for kids right now, who don't have a lot of productive avenues during the summer.

COOPER: Why do you think it is though, that we are seeing this uptick? I mean, it's always hard to just as it's hard to explain exactly why crime goes down in cycles across the country at the same time. It's hard to explain sometimes why it goes up, but I mean, it's probably a multi-tiered issue, but do you have any sense?

MURPHY: Well, I do. I mean, I think if you look at the sort of scope of American history, crime tends to go up, violence tends to increase when there's more economic desperation and there's been a lot of economic desperation out across America over the last year and a half. Now, it's starting to get better with the passage of the rescue plan, but violence is a lagging indicator.

[20:30:19]

Also, there's a lot more guns out there. And we saw record gun sales last year, many of them were sold to criminals. Many of them were sold to traffickers because we don't have universal background checks. And so, unless we pass universal background checks, you're going to continue to see this record level of gun sales lead to record levels of crime. COOPER: Senator Murphy, appreciate your time. Thank you very much.

MURPHY: Thank you. Thank you.

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