CNN "Anderson Cooper 360" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Paul Mitchell

Interview

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COOPER: Yes, looks like it. Jim Acosta, thanks very much.

Congressman Paul Mitchell who was among a number of Republican lawmakers who decried the tweets, he did not -- he was not among the four House Republicans who voted yesterday for the resolution condemning them. The congressman joins us now.

Congressman Mitchell, thanks so much for being with us.

First of all, I'm wondering what you make of the president continuing to go after these congresswomen tonight and also the crowd response of send her home for one of them?

REP. PAUL MITCHELL (R-MI): I wasn't aware that that was part of his political strategy. I think we need to focus on more civility. Frankly, we need to address problems that we have in this country and you can't do that when you are name-calling.

And both in the House itself as well as in the White House, we need to work on actually having civility and talking about the issues and not personal attacks because we are really not accomplishing much, in my opinion, on Capitol Hill. We spend time with -- and see what names we can trade one another, simply not productive in this way. My tweet was it's beneath leadership to do this. And frankly, I felt the resolution only exacerbated the situation.

COOPER: Yes, I want to read part of what your statement was on Twitter to -- you said, inflammatory statements targeting anyone on the base of their ethnicity or origin are wrong.

Do you see -- I mean, targeting someone based on their ethnicity or origin -- do you see these comments as racist?

MITCHELL: Well, let me put it this way. My youngest son we adopted from Russia, and someone said that he is not American, that will be fairly personal to me.

I don't think -- identity politics are destructive to this country. They are separating us from our solutions to problems. And, you know, Anderson, we've got problems.

COOPER: Yes.

MITCHELL: Immigration, cost of health care, pharmaceuticals, go with whatever you want. But we're not talking about those things right now. What are we talking about? We are talking about who is the most unpleasant person? Who's the most un-American?

It's something not addressing what we need to address to deal with our immigration problems. It's a whole long list. We're not doing that.

COOPER: Yes. You also said on the radio, I think it was on Monday. You said: We don't tell people to leave the country just because we disagree with them.

You know, I was -- you look back in history books and whether it was people coming from Ireland to escape the famine, Irish, there were signs -- Irish not allowed, go back home. Russians, Germans, Italians, certainly, I mean, every wave, Chinese, who came.

So, in this day and age, to have an auditorium full of people whipped up by the president to chant send her home, it's depressing to me. The politics aside, it just seems like, is this really where we still are?

MITCHELL: Well, Anderson, my family came in through south Boston. I'm Irish. They came in during the potato famine.

A lot of immigrants come into the country. What we expect of them is that they will work to be Americans. They will work to accept our American system. They will work to make improvements, if they wish.

But I think the idea that we -- I criticize people based on their identity because they don't agree with a political position -- it is no way to solve problems, as I said.

[20:10:08] We've got to talk about policies, rather than talk about identity politics, which people make wrong assumptions about people when they do that. And it's destructive.

COOPER: The president said today that he is, quote, not unhappy with the result of his comments. CNN reporting from those acknowledging the president says he considers this whole conversation to be a political success for him. So, it seems likely that it will continue.

I know you said, I think it was on the radio you said perhaps in a statement, you told the White House about your concerns about the statements earlier and that you would like to be able to sit down with the president for ten minutes or so and talk about your concerns. It doesn't seem like that's a conversation that even if it happened would have much meaning for the president, given that tonight he is -- it's a cliche to say doubling down or tripling town but he has gone all in on this.

MITCHELL: Well, first, I think his elected officials, a member of Congress you stand up for your principles in the policies you said you would pursue. My principles, I say that using identity politics is the wrong way to go about this.

I believe in my district, it's not a productive thing to do. The tenth congressional district was a big supporter of Donald Trump, there are a lot of supporters there. I support his policies. This tactic in terms of political strategy, I

have questions about it. I'm not the president, but it's not my style and will not be my style going forward.

COOPER: So, you spoke out on Twitter about it and very eloquently tonight, you ended up voting against the House resolution to condemn his language. Can you just explain that? Some people said -- you know, how do you thread the needle? But maybe you say it's, you know, one was political, one is more of sort of ethical stance.

MITCHELL: Well, I think the resolution itself, first, you couldn't read the title of the resolution of the House rules, you could've been actually called out. The speaker spoke about it and his words were taken down because they violate our rules. The parliamentarian said they did.

My opinion, when it's done is simply additional -- exacerbated the situation, additional name-calling, and that doesn't help the situation. We didn't need to do, that it's one more political stunt in a series. It seems to be the only thing we do.

I refer to life on the Hill as the circus. I've been told that's not very nice and we should call it something else like a train wreck. We spend more time doing that than we do getting things done.

Do you realize how much time we spent voting on nonbinding resolutions? They are not changing your life, Anderson. They're not changing America. They are not solving problems. A nonbinding resolution is just paper.

COOPER: Just finally, I understand that argument. I guess my question is, if labeling something, I mean, isn't it -- aren't there times in history when it is important to, whether or not it's effective, whether or not it violates the decorum rules of the House, to, you know, if somebody is the president of the United States and they are saying something which is racist or, frankly, clearly just designed to divide people, to call it for what it is? To use those words, racist? Demagogue, whatever it may be.

MITCHELL: Two things. I don't think there's any question that I've taken a stance to be clear, it is clear.

COOPER: Absolutely, yes.

MITCHELL: They see my statements. I have request at time, I don't know I'll get it.

The second of which is you don't address divisive words buy more divisive words. At some point in time, people need to be leaders, to step up and get on the things. So I won't participate in that and I declined to support that resolution.

I was clear why in my statement, what you read parts of, and I think that -- I know that message has gone through, and I will do the best I can to talk about what I think is important.

COOPER: Congressman Mitchell, I appreciate the conversation. Thank you.

MITCHELL: Thanks, Anderson. Have a good day.

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