MSNBC "All in with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Maxine Waters

Interview

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HAYES:  Julia Ioffe and Matt Miller, thank you both.  Joining me now, one of the Democrats leading the investigations into Donald Trump Congresswoman Maxine Waters of California.  She chairs the House Financial Services Committee.
 
First let me start on this topic and I want to talk about Don McGahn as well, but your reaction to the President now apparently according to Politico, I have not seen the news alert myself, but saying he`s going to lobby his Attorney General to investigate Joe Biden and his political opponents and sending his emissary to get dirt from the foreign government?
 
REP. MAXINE WATERS (D-CA):  Well, as you know, I am not shocked or surprised by anything this president and his minions do.  As I`ve said over and over again, this president is a dishonorable, despicable human being and he`s undermining our country, he`s undermining our democracy, he`s disregarding the Constitution of the United States.  And this president should have been impeached a long time ago.  I know --
 
HAYES:  Well, let me --
 
WATERS:  Yes.
 
HAYES:  Let me -- I want to ask you a question about that because that has been your stated position publicly on this show for -- do you have conversations with your fellow members of Democratic House leadership about this topic in which you make this case to them?
 
WATERS:  We talk about what is going on in this country, in this president in our meetings.  I talk about it with my colleagues.  Of course, I`m in the caucuses, I`m in leadership meetings etcetera, etcetera, and I know that Nancy Pelosi, the speaker is trying to do everything that she possibly can to steer us to a win.
 
And I know that she firmly believes that we`re on the right course.  If in fact, we continue to go with the hearings and our committee`s oversight responsibilities taken care of.  She believes that this will inure to our benefit.
 
I simply believe that the President of the United States is dangerous.  And if he gets away with what he is doing now, he will have changed the role of the presidency in the future, and I think that is bothersome that he is undermining and ignoring the House of Representatives, the Congress of the United States.
 
In my own committee where we have sought documents from Deutsche Bank, he`s suing Deutsche Bank to try and keep them from giving us the documents.  We`re going to have to go into court.  He has vowed that he`s going to fight us tooth and nail.  He`s going into court opposing our subpoenas.  And I just don`t think that we should not impeach him.  We should impeach him.
 
HAYES:  There`s a -- there`s a story about Don McGahn, the White House Counsel that just broke right before we came on air.  The Wall Street Journal reporting that the White House reached out to him twice asking him to publicly say the President did not obstruct justice after the Mueller report was released, and he rebuffed them twice.  What do you make of that and would you like to hear from him before Congress?
 
WATERS:  Oh I certainly would like to hear from him.  I think he does have courage.  I do think that he`s an honest human being who has done the right thing so far when he left, and I`d like to have him in committee really telling what he knows.
 
HAYES:  Where are things in terms of the lawsuit?  There`s been escalation obviously.  There`s a sort of parallel thing happening with the Oversight Committee subpoenas that have gone before a federal court is going to expedite that.  Do you anticipate something similar with the Deutsche Bank situation in terms of getting your hands on those documents you`ve requested?
 
WATERS:  Well, absolutely.  We`re going to have to go into court.  We`ll be represented by our general counsel, staff will be there.  And we believe that we have the opportunity to get the documents.  We believe that the court will side with us.  And so we`re pursuing all of those underlying documents and we`re going to keep doing the investigations.
 
I`m chair of the Financial Services Committee.  I`m going to do my work and I`m going to do everything that I possibly can.  At the same time, I know that there`s growing dissatisfaction with this president and I know that increasingly the numbers are going to change.
 
What surprises me more than anything else is that the Republicans in particularly the right-wing conservative Republicans are not patriotic.  They are allowing this president to have this relationship with Putin and the Kremlin and Russia who are unknown enemies.  They`re working with them and they have not stopped.
 
He will not criticize them, he will not do anything to even deal with the fact that they undermine our election system.  That has shocked me.  That has surprised me.  Even though I said nothing does, but the fact that the Republicans whose claimed to be so patriotic, who claim to love this country, are signing with the president and Russia against our democracy.  That shocks me.
 
HAYES:  All right, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, always great to have you.  Thank you.
 
WATERS:  You`re welcome.  Thank you.

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