CNN "Anderson Cooper 360" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Seth Moulton

Interview

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COOPER: Yes. Pam Brown -- Pam, thanks very much.

I want to get reaction now from Democratic Congressman, presidential candidate, veteran Seth Moulton.

Congressman, as a veteran, as a lawmaker, I'm wondering what goes through your mind when you see the president of the United States overseas not only giving a murderous dictator a huge benefit of the doubt, but also joining that dictator in bashing a former vice president, who is also of course running for president.

[20:10:02] REP. SETH MOULTON (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You know, I know we're not always going to have presidents we agree with, and we've had some terrible presidents in our history. We've had presidents who are immoral, who are backwards, who have terrible policies.

We've had presidents who are criminals like Richard Nixon. I don't think we've ever had a president who is so fundamentally unpatriotic. I mean, even Richard Nixon served as country and was proud to do so. This president is much more interested in siding with dictators if it's good for his ratings. And that's pretty pathetic for the commander in chief.

COOPER: Sarah Sanders yesterday dismissed any claims that President Trump was siding with Kim Jong-un over Vice President Biden. She said they just happened to agree. I mean that just -- just logically that does not make sense. The president went out of his way to use Kim Jong-un's comments as a means of criticizing Biden and talked about how he doesn't believe Kim Jong-un would break a promise to him.

MOULTON: I mean, you presented both sides of the stories. You showed a clip from the State of the Union, and you showed a clip from his press conference today. The difference is in the State of the Union, he was clearly reading from a teleprompter, from words that were given to him to criticize North Korea.

When it came to his personal feelings, he sided with this dictator. You know, when I was a marine in the First Marine Division, actually serving under General James Mattis, who would, of course, become Trump's secretary of defense, our division motto was "no better friend, no worse enemy than the United States Marine."

That should be the motto for the United States of America. No better friend, no worse enemy. That means that your allies trust you and your enemies trust your resolve. That means that we strengthen our allied partnerships in the Pacific to contain North Korea, to put pressure on them, to strengthen the relationship that we have with South Korea, with Japan.

And it means that we show ultimate resolve to North Korea that we are not going to put up with them firing off missiles. Trump is doing the exact opposite, and it's why he is so fundamentally unfit to be our commander-in-chief.

COOPER: It was interesting to me when he was asked about, you know, is it hypocritical or inappropriate for you to be, you know, bringing up Biden and siding with Kim Jong-un, a murderous dictator, over an American former vice president, it doesn't -- there wasn't even any recognition of the actual question itself. He just went on to say, Kim said this, and I agree with him.

To me, fundamentally, the president has no sense of actual shame. And so, any question you ask which is based on somebody who has perhaps an inkling of shame, of regret, that's not something this president either has or at least is willing to ever acknowledge.

MOULTON: No. No sense of honor, no sense of integrity. It reminds me of when I showed up as this, you know, college student going to marine training for the first time. Really didn't know what I was getting into.

One of the very first lessons that you learn is that you can drop out of a run and they'll probably let you try again the next day. You can fail a test and they'll let you retake the test. But if you lie about anything, you're gone that afternoon.

That's how important trust and integrity is when it comes to our national security. And I understand that there are going to be Americans who agree with Trump and Americans who disagree with him. But the fact that we fundamentally cannot trust this president, that everybody serving on the front lines, everybody out there today, tonight, risking their lives for the United States of America under the command of this commander-in-chief, you can't trust a single thing that he says. I mean, that's how dangerous it is to have Donald Trump as president.

COOPER: Well, it also seems like the people in his inner circle know that. I mean, the people who work around him. Obviously they won't say this, but they know that when they leave and if they leave under circumstances that are, you know, less than ideal, it's a good chance the president is going to attack them, go after them, try to destroy them like Rex Tillerson, who he now is calling an idiot and all sorts of names.

MOULTON: Not exactly your model public servant, but yes.

COOPER: Yes. It's -- you know, you talk about a kind of trust from a national security standpoint, but it's clear even the people in the inner circle, they cannot trust the president, that what he says to them or what he says to Sarah Sanders is true enough that Sarah Sanders can actually go out and say it, which is one of the reasons they don't have press conferences.

MOULTON: Right. So here's the problem is you have a fundamentally great Americans like Secretary Jim Mattis, who were in there every day trying to hold the line. You know, we're talking about going to war with Iran right now, and Jim Mattis was the one who when Iranian mortars were fired at our embassy last September said, no, we are not going to escalate. So, you have people like Jim Mattis who are doing the right thing.

Then you have people like John Bolton, who know the same thing about the president and are taking advantage of it. John Bolton's goal is to get us into a war with Iran. So, he's using the president's untrustworthiness and his fundamental weakness, isn't any credibility as commander-in-chief to push us into war with Iran in a way that's frighteningly reminiscent of how John Bolton pushed a draft dodger George W. Bush into a war with Iraq.

So, it's so dangerous. That's why I'm in this campaign talking about national security as an issue, talking about why we as Democrats have got to take Trump on as commander-in-chief. This is what makes him the most dangerous as the president of the United States right now.

COOPER: Congressman Moulton, I appreciate your time. Thank you very much.

MOULTON: Thanks, Anderson.

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