Fox News "Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Ben Ray Lujan

Interview

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WALLACE: House Democrats have made a lot of news this week, hammering the president's immigration policy, delaying the Robert Mueller hearings, and breaking into open warfare inside their own party.

Joining us exclusively here in Washington, Assistant House Speaker Ben Ray Lujan, who is the highest ranking Hispanic in Congress.

And, Congressman, welcome back to "Fox News Sunday."

REP. BEN RAY LUJAN, D-N.M.: Good to be with you again, Chris.

WALLACE: Well, you just heard Kellyanne Conway say that these raids that have now started, the ICE raids, she doesn't like to call them raids, are a normal enforcement effort. They are for people who entered this country illegally and have been ordered by the administrative process to leave the country. They've gotten a deportation order. They've had their day in court.

As she points out, President Obama did it, why can't President Trump?

LUJAN: Well, Chris, just as Congressional Hispanic Caucus and members of the Democratic membership have been saying all along is, we would just want the president to simply use his time to go after criminals and felons, not children and families. And that's the concern that many of us have. Many American-born children are terrified that they may come home from church today or if they go to school tomorrow, that they come home from school and their parents are gone.

WALLACE: In fairness, their parents did come illegally and have gone through a process and they've received a final deportation order.

LUJAN: But again, the president should be using his time to go for the criminals on the felons as opposed to the children and the families, and that's what we're talking about here. I'm terrified as to the fear that the president is instilling in families. The impact that this is going to have on small businesses across America. People whose only decision may have been to come to the country and the way that they did, but are working in restaurants as chefs, they are teaching our kids in schools, they're serving in our military defending the United States of America. I think that the president should concentrate his time on the criminals, not on those families.

WALLACE: I want to switch to a related subject, Democrats celebrated when President Trump decided he was not going to try to push to have a question on the census about whether or not people are citizens. But here's how the president described your party's opposition to that question.

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TRUMP: They probably know the number is far greater, much higher than anyone would have ever believed before. Maybe that's why they fight so hard.

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WALLACE: Question, why is it wrong in a national census, accounting of all the people in the country, to ask, are you a citizen or aren't you?

LUJAN: Chris, I believe that the Founding Fathers envisioned getting an accurate count of everyone that's in America and there should not be questions being put on this information gathering initiative that's going to discourage people from answering their doors to answer that very question. And the concerns that many people have, or most people have, not just Democrats, but Republicans, especially coming off the U.S. Supreme Court's decision that gerrymandering is allowed based on partisanship advantage is President Trump recently even admitted that the reason for him gathering this information was for partisan gerrymandering, but also to cut programs from communities. And so, if our Republican colleagues want to cut access to food programs, school programs, housing programs, they should just put their vote up or down on the House floor and the Senate floor as opposed to trying to hide what they're trying to get done.

WALLACE: Let's talk about the delay in the Robert Mueller hearings as I discussed with Kellyanne Conway, from this Wednesday, July 17th, to the following Wednesday, July 24th. That will only be two days before Congress leaves Washington for six weeks for the August recess. Isn't that going to make it pretty darn hard for Democrats to build on anything that Robert Mueller should say? I mean, one of the points here was to try to build momentum to pursue the president in whatever he did or didn't do, but if you have this big hearing and then you leave two days later for a month and a half, what does that accomplish?

LUJAN: While I support the work of Chairman Nadler and the members of the Judiciary Committee, the Special Counsel and his report are only one part of this. Now, I want to encourage everyone across America to read the report, make sure you get your eyes on those 438 pages, but also to tune in, because the Special Counsel will be answering questions associated with what's in that report. And I want to make sure the American people tune in. But, Chris, make no mistake, there are many other investigations that are being looked into. The importance of understanding the allegations associated with tax evasion, with money laundering as well, the importance of getting financial documents from Deutsche Bank, or even understanding the president's tax returns, even those that have been made available at the local level in New York even.

So, look, there are many areas that have to be looked into. This is one area and two days of important tuning in by the American people into the questioning that will be taking place.

WALLACE: Tensions inside the House Democratic Caucus went very public this week. Speaker Pelosi dismissed these four freshman congresswomen who are the so-called "squad" this way. All these people have their public whatever.

This is Pelosi talking about "the squad": All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world, but they didn't have any following.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responded: The persistent singling out -- it got to a point where it was just outright disrespectful -- the explicit singling out of newly elected women of color.

Is Speaker Pelosi losing control of the Democratic Caucus?

LUJAN: Chris, look, I'm always a believer that -- well, the answer to that question is no. Second, I've always been a believer that when you have disagreements with your colleagues, you have a conversation with them. You sit down, you talk. I mean, that's what we should be doing.

WALLACE: But you didn't have that. I mean, you had Nancy Pelosi dissing "the squad". I can't believe, this sounds like high school. Dissing the squad in a Maureen Dowd column in "The New York Times," and then you had AOC firing back in an interview in "The Washington Post." They're not sitting down and talking.

LUJAN: Well, this week, the Speaker was very clear that if numbers' of a difference of opinion or if they had questions of even the speaker, that they should take the time to sit down and talk, and that's been my approach all along. I think it's something that I've learned from predecessors and even my colleagues, and even Speaker Pelosi.

And, look, as a person of color, as the highest ranking Hispanic in the Congress, I can tell you that Nancy Pelosi has lifted up my voice to make sure that I've had opportunities and that my voice has been heard as well, and I continue to look towards her leadership for the good of the country.

WALLACE: You talk about doing this quietly, doing it in private as a family. Friday night, your House Democratic Caucus issued a tweet, a public tweet, couldn't have gone more public, going after AOC's Chief of Staff. I want to put this up.

He had attacked -- the Chief of Staff had attacked a Democratic Congressman for, quote, enabling racism.

Here was a tweet from the official Democratic Caucus: Keep your name out of your mouth. So much for in-house talking.

Are some members -- honestly, are some members of your caucus losing patience with AOC and some of the other freshmen shooting inside the tent?

LUJAN: Well, first, saying those things about Congresswoman Sharice Davids is absolutely wrong. As the Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, I got to know Sharice. I actually had a big role to play in that important race where Sharice won and flipped this important district as well.

But again, I'm of the approach that you need to sit down and have a conversation and bring people into that room to do that. I think that this week and into next week, you're going to hear more from our Democratic colleagues about the importance of that.

But again, the tone of what was included in that specific message to Sharice Davids, a Congresswoman from Kansas, was wrong. It's something I did not support.

WALLACE: I finally, I want to talk -- the president, surprise, has been tweeting this morning, and I want to put up a tweet, because he specifically has been calling out progressive Democratic Congresswoman who come originally from countries, his words, whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe.

And he says this: Why don't they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came, then come back and show us how it is done.

Your thoughts about President Trump saying to duly elected members of Congress, go back to your homes?

LUJAN: Chris, that -- that's the first I'm hearing of that. That's a racist tweet. Telling people to go back where they came from? These are American citizens elected by voters in the United States of America to serve in one of the most distinguished bodies in the U.S. House of Representatives. I think that's wrong.

And especially with all that's going on across America, for the president to spend time saying such racist things this morning it sounds like?

WALLACE: Yes.

LUJAN: Look, the horrendous detention facilities that we have across the country, that Vice President Pence brought attention to, that even he said smelled horrendous, that the inspector general has called out, that the commissioner on human rights from the U.N. has said these facilities are in horrendous condition, the price of insulin, which has increased over a thousand percent --

WALLACE: Right.

LUJAN: -- that's what the president should have his attention on, not picking these fights and especially sending out racist tweets.

WALLACE: Congressman Lujan, thank you. Thanks for sharing part of your weekend with us. Please come back, sir.

LUJAN: I look forward to it, sir.

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