CNN Newsroom: Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) is Interviewed About Guns in America

Interview

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Jim, good to be with you. Sorry about that.

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Well, Jim, this is a national disgrace. The United States is unique in having this problem. These mass shootings, the daily toll of gun violence. And there are things we can do.

President Biden's absolutely right that we should reinstate the ban on semi-automatic assault weapons. We had that in our country decades ago. We can do it again. We should also look for some of the things Congress is prepared to fund for states. And one of the big issues in this terrible shooting in Tennessee was the absence of red flag laws. There had been red flag laws proposed in the state legislature. They were -- they were knocked down. But that could have provided the kind of warning in this situation to prevent the shooter from being able to get a gun.

So, there are a number of things we need to do on an urgent basis at the national level, and certainly at the state levels as well.

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Some of them sometimes, but they seem to have gotten in this mindset where they have this automatic response, this automatic refrain, we're hearing it right now, you just played some clips, that shuts down the conversation. And what we need is continued pressure. And it is -- you know we just passed the anniversary of the March for Our Lives, a student movement that has made some marginal, small progress. And we did pass, of course, the Safer Communities Act. But what we're witnessing in Tennessee and other places around the country just shows how far we still have to go in passing common sense gun safety laws.

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Well, I think the hope here is that on occasion in the past, when there's been a national uproar and national outrage about the lack of progress at the national level on gun safety, there has been some action in Congress. Again, the Safer Communities Act was a small step, but it was a meaningful step, especially in the area providing more funds for mental health and aimed at school students and others in the community.

But without these other measures that President Biden, myself and others have called for, I fear that we're just going to - we're going to see this repeat itself over and over again. So, small steps hopefully can add up to bigger and faster steps, but it -- the public continue -- needs to really be engaged. You know, the student movement did help bring about some changes in the laws, both in Florida, after the terrible shootings in Parkland, and at the federal level. But we need folks not only to be outraged about what's happening, as we all should be, but really decide to make this a voting issue.

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I mean this has to be an issue that people decide is a priority when they go to the polls.

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Well, Jim, I'm listening to all the testimony here, and there's no doubt that the bank executives are the primary culprits here. They obviously took a lot of risks they shouldn't have. It turns out from the testimony that the Fed regulators were monitoring Silicon Valley Bank. They were very worried about it. They had provided certain directives to the bank. And then the question is, could they have taken more recourse earlier?

But the reality is, we're still getting to the bottom of this. I hope there's going to be emerging, bipartisan consensus that at the very least we need to change our laws so that we can claw back any of the (INAUDIBLE) compensations, you know, from the chief executive officer, to top executives, that they -- where they cashed in just before the bank collapsed because of their own incompetence.

So, we have some laws on the books to reclaim those monies from the very big banks, but there is a loophole here that I and others are working to close right now.

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Well, there's certainly should be an investigation. And I believe the Justice Department and the FBI will look into whether or not there was insider knowledge of what was happening and that people cashed in, for example, the CEO sold $3.6 million of company stock 10 days before the crash. Now, if you can -- if they can demonstrate that he sold that, you know, knowing based on inside information, then clearly there's criminal culpability.

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But, Jim, I think regardless of whether or not there was criminal culpability here, nobody should be able to profit from their own mismanagement. And that is why we need these claw back laws in place for banks the size of Silicon Valley Bank and other sized banks, not just executives at the very biggest banks.

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All right, good to be with you. Thanks.

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