CNN "CNN Newsroom" - Transcript: Interview with Representative Ted Lieu

Interview

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[10:30:00] REP. TED LIEU (D), CALIFORNIA: One difference is there was an actual agreement here to silence Stormy Daniels, and it's very clear that the payment was directly meant to make her not say anything negative during the course of the campaign.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: There is no ambiguity about that at this point. Even Michael Cohen admits that there was money that was paid and it was for a nondisclosure agreement for silence there. So there is that. We will have to see what the courts say about that ultimately.

Do you think there is any reason, again, as a prosecutor, former prosecutor that this "60 Minutes" interview should not air Sunday night?

LIEU: I don't know why Michael Cohen and Donald Trump are trying so hard to keep this "60 Minutes" interview from airing if they weren't scared of it. So there is clearly something that Stormy Daniels is going to say that they're very scared of. But our First Amendment is very vast and broad and the Supreme Court and other courts are very unlikely to prevent a news organization from airing information to the American public.

BERMAN: You asked the Justice Department, you asked the FBI to get involved. You haven't heard back from them, have you?

LIEU: Have not. Typically the FBI does not acknowledge whether an investigation is happening or not happening. But we write these letters to get them to try to do one.

BERMAN: All right. The president overnight released his plan to deal with school safety and to deal with the school shootings. This epidemic that has faced our country right now. He has put together what he considers to be a task force to deal with the issue and he wants to perhaps give some funding to arm some faculty members in schools. No mention of raising the age limit to purchase a weapon to 21.

Your reaction to the president's plan.

LIEU: It looks to me like the president is scared of the NRA. And I find it ironic that he was criticizing Senator Toomey for being scared of the NRA because he wasn't going to raise age limits to buy guns. And the president's tweet this morning is just factually wrong where he said there is no political support for this. A recent poll showed that over 80 percent of Americans would support raising the age to 21 to buy firearms.

BERMAN: Congressman, I don't know if you had a chance to watch the Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos last night on "60 Minutes." And she's pertinent here because she's going to lead this task force that the president just set up to deal with school safety.

On "60 Minutes" last night she was asked about vouchers and school choice and whatnot, and she had -- she gave a performance that has not received stellar reviews, I'll try to be polite here. We're just getting some information from our White House team that the White House, White House officials watched in dismay as Betsy DeVos struggled to answer basic questions about the nation's schools.

What is your reaction to how she handled the interview?

LIEU: I did watch the video clip and I was shocked because it's not as if they were asking her a hard question, such as, you know, when did the Cleveland Browns last win a playoff game. It was a core question about her core competency on an issue she cares a lot about. And so it's very interesting she couldn't answer these very basic questions. And that leads me to think that there is something not well with the secretary of Education in terms of how much she knows actually about the subject of education.

BERMAN: Do you have faith that she is the right person to lead this task force on school safety?

LIEU: I do not. And partly -- I'm not even sure why we need yet another task force. It is not as if we don't know a lot about this gun issue. We know that many of the mass shootings that occurred did occur with AR-15 style weapons. In addition we know that background checks, raising the age limit, and banning bump stocks are good things to do, not clear why we need yet another commission.

BERMAN: Congressman Ted Lieu of California, I know you'll be welcoming the president with open arms as he visits your state later this week.

LIEU: Thank you, John.

BERMAN: Thanks, Congressman. I appreciate it.

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