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

Interview

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HAYES: Back in late June, we saw an extraordinary scene play out in the White House driveway. President Joe Biden flanked by Democratic and Republican senators walked out to announce to reporters they had brokered a big bipartisan deal that would include $579 billion in new infrastructure spending. It was the kind of scene that we don`t really see happen that much anymore because these kinds of big bipartisan deals on major domestic priorities really haven`t happened for over a decade. I mean, back -- you probably got to go back to the George W. Bush administration.

Well, today almost exactly one month later, that deal is at risk of falling apart. The bipartisan group has been unable to hammer out key details of the plan, funding for highways and public transit among other unresolved issues. Initially, lawmakers were hoping to deliver a finalized bill today after a Senate vote to advance undrafted legislation failed last week. But after a month long slog, there is still no physical agreement to show for it.

One of the people who works in the Capitol and is watching all this with some interest makes these deals for a living is Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. He says he is not sure he will vote for this bipartisan package. And let me just start where things are.

You know, Senator, we have not done a day by day coverage of this because it`s been a little bit of Waiting for Godot about when it`s going to show up, and if it`s going to happen. There was a deadline last week, there`s a deadline now. What is your sense of A, how real it is and be how much the entire agenda stands or falls on whether this happens?

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): A bunch of questions there. But A, I think this is going to get done. I think it is to be expected that after having gotten the agreement on the broad outline, the details are hard to consummate. But why is that? Well, it`s because this bill is not just spending, its policy as well.

Every five years we pass new authorizations to determine how we`re going to spend highway money and rail money. Normally those bills in and of themselves are month long negotiations. This bipartisan baggage envisions, you know, spending $500 billion in additional funds and infrastructure but also setting those rules for the next five years. So, the details are, you know, hard to get to yes on for both sides. I think we`ll get there.

If it does blow up, and I don`t think it will, It`s not a done deal for the President`s agenda. Why? Because we have this second process called reconciliation in which we can pass all of this plus the human infrastructure spending that we all want to invest in, like child care and home care. We can do that through reconciliation. So my hope is that we`ll do both.

My hope is that Republicans will get to sign on to the parts that they like, then they will oppose reconciliation, but will still pass with Democratic votes, some pretty big investments in people`s lives separate aside from hard concrete infrastructure.

HAYES: You know, it`s interesting to me that we just talked to the top of the show about January 6 and about the sort of continuing perpetuation of the big lie is this sort of litmus test for Republicans. It`s striking to me that that doesn`t seem to be the case on more prosaic and in some ways as important matters of policy.

So, you`ve got, you know, Trump putting out a statement saying you know, don`t do the infrastructure deal, wait until we get proper election results in 2022. Don`t let the radical left play you yadda, yadda. That doesn`t seem to me, and maybe -- tell me if I`m wrong here, to have the same thing on Capitol Hill or to draw the same blood or have the same sort of power over office holders as the stuff on January 6 or election stuff does.

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MURPHY: Well, remember, that we`re still only talking about a group of maybe 10, 11, 12 Republicans in the Senate. But for those Republicans -- but for those Republicans, I mean, I think right now they are faced with a decision as to whether Trump and his policy arsonists are going to rule Washington and rule their party or whether there`s going to be the ability to find these kinds of agreements.

Trump thrives in a world where government can`t solve people`s problems. Trump will continue to rule the Republican Party if he is allowed to tell folks that the only path forward to solve their problems is the division of America, the division from us from our neighbors. If government actually steps in and actually does something about your child care costs, actually supplies working class people with tax cuts, putting more money in their pockets, then sort of Trump`s line is much less attractive.

And there are 10, 12, 15 Republicans in the Senate who don`t want to empower Trump, and they see delivering on something like infrastructure as a means to sort of cut against his argument and the future that he will have controlling that party.

HAYES: That`s an interesting way of looking at it. I don`t think I quite thought of it in those terms. We should note that a lot of this stuff is very popular. This is just, you know, AP National Opinion Research Council polling on infrastructures from last week where you`ve got, you know, 83 percent favor roads, bridges, and ports and pipes supplying drinking water 79 percent. Rail service, I shall say, which is I know important to you, much lower on there. But you seem hopeful that that is going to get done in the end.

MURPHY: I think one of my worries is that in order to consummate this deal, some Republicans are going to push for some of these numbers to come down. And, you know, in this agreement, there`s about $30 billion for rail in the northeast. We have $40 billion just state of good repair projects. Projects that, you know, are just patching what we have back together.

So, I haven`t decided my vote on this not because I don`t want to vote for it or that I don`t expect to vote for it, but just I want to make it clear that if some of these numbers get lower in the final negotiations, it makes it hard for people like me who rely on rail transit to get the folks I represent to and from New York -- from New York and Boston every day, it makes a lot harder for me to vote for it.

HAYES: Final quick question for you. Speaking of a bipartisan compromise, you`re introduced legislation with Senator Lee among others on reforming the War Powers Act. And this comes as we have withdrawn from Afghanistan essentially all of our combat troops. There`s the idea that we may continue to reserve the right for airstrikes against the Taliban as we have airstrikes across the world and Somalia recently in the last few days. Briefly, and quickly, how would this change the state of sort of perpetual war we find ourselves in?

MURPHY: Well, it ends the forever wars. So, it would cut off funding automatically for wars that aren`t authorized by Congress. And even when we do authorize wars, it would limit those to two year periods of time. I just think, Chris, that the American people are smarter than the Washington D.C. foreign policy consensus when it comes to the ability of the United States military to change political realities in far off places. And that`s why our founding fathers required that Congress consent to war.

So, our legislation, bipartisan, would just make it a lot harder for presidents to go to war without authorization from Congress and debate amongst the American people.

HAYES: All right, Senator Chris Murphy, we will continue to watch that legislation which I think is quite important. I appreciate you coming on tonight.

MURPHY: Thanks.

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