MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show - Transcript: "Senator McConnell upset being "Moscow Mitch.""

Interview

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REID: Cory Booker also saying Democrats must rally around the Democratic candidate and also he plans on being that candidate. Joining us now is New Jersey senator and 2020 Democratic nominee, Cory Booker. Senator Booker, thank you for being here.

BOOKER: It`s really good to be on, Joy. Thank you for having me.

REID: Not a problem at all. OK. Let`s talk a little bit about last night. And you and Senator Biden really went head-to-head at certain points during the debate. Several candidates did, but you did in particular, you did drop the dipping in the Kool-Aid and don`t know the flavor line which as a Generation-Xer I appreciated. But the question you`re going to have with Senator Biden is that he is very strong among African-Americans. Looking at this polling, Steve Kornacki sent this to me last night, voters 65 and older who are African-American, 58 percent support Senator Biden; 27 percent among 18 to 29. He only has 28 percent -- 27 percent among younger voters. But, you know, as they say, it`s the voters with the church hats that vote, right? The black folk with the church hat vote. The older folks vote. How do you chip into his record if he`s the guy defending Obama, who black voters love, and you`re the guy contesting some of that Obama/Biden record?

BOOKER: Well, first of all, Vice President Biden has nearly 100 percent name recognition. I was very sober when my team told me when I started this campaign in February that even among black voters, I had less 60 percent name ID. I`m still introducing myself. Remember, Barack Obama was also a new candidate on the scene who was trailing dramatically Secretary Clinton in 2008 or then Senator Clinton. So, we have a long way to go in this campaign and a lot more introduction to make, and as a guy who not only is a person that has come up in an African-American community, went to that black church and was raised in that black church and my mother teaching. But I`ve represented a majority black city for most of my career, more years as a mayor than even as a United States senator. So I feel that at a time where we have to understand that a key segment of the coalition that we need to win is going to be African-American voters, that the highest performing segment of our coalition is African-American women, we need to not only have a person that polls high in the African-American community but can energize that community in a dramatic way, in the way that Obama was able to accomplish.

REID: Right --

BOOKER: I think I`m the best person to do that.

REID: Well, speaking of Obama, let`s go back to him for a moment. When President Obama -- when then just Senator Barack Obama was running for president, his critique was against George W. Bush. So he was able to critique the previous Republican president and launch himself into public prominence that way. You`re now in the position of critiquing President Obama. So I guess my question is with black voters, is Joe Biden in a stronger position with the most reliable black voters, older voters, because he`s defending Obama and you`re critiquing Obama?

BOOKER: Well, I don`t know how that spin resulted. Anybody that watched the debate, I was talking about Vice President Biden`s record, not Obama`s. Heck, I had many conversations with President Obama during his time as president about reforming the criminal justice system. It was Joe Biden that bragged, saying that every crime bill since the 1970s, major and minor, has had his name on it. That`s his words about his record. This is not about the Obama administration at all. I don`t see how that spin came out of this election. This is about a guy that has literally put his name on, championed that bills that created three strikes you`re out, incentivizing states to create longer sentences, having more prisons and jails built from the time I was in law school to the time that I was the mayor of the city of Newark. A new prison or jail being built every 19 days. You know since 1980, our prison population has gone up 500 percent in this country with an overwhelming disproportionate impacting of African-Americans, even those no difference between blacks and whites and using drugs or dealing drugs. But this drug war has been incarcerating African-Americans at about four times the rate. So that`s nothing to do with Barack Obama. That is the person who said this is my record. And the reason why that history is relevant today is because there are people in prison today for life sentences on drug crimes because of that tough on crime era. And what I`m asking for is two things. Whoever the nominee is, one, own up to your record and say, hey, I made a mistake. Vice President Biden said that very passionately about his mistake on the Iraq war vote. Say it, speak to the pain and the destruction of our communities, parents being taken away from children, of the bills that you put into law. And number two is, have a bolder plan that you`ve got to deal with the issue. I know that there is a crisis in our country of having people who have been locked up who have addictions, who have mental illnesses, who are poor. We`ve got to get rid of this system that`s creating this problem in our country. And I just want to see whoever the nominee is, especially if you want to appeal to African-American communities, you`ve got to show that, hey, I`ve got your back. That I`m going to be a bold progressive on the ending of mass incarceration.

REID: So the crime bill obviously, even though Hillary Clinton had nothing to do with it, she was just married to the guy who signed the crime bill, wound up being a huge problem with her with younger African-American voters, particularly younger African-American men. Is it your concern that Joe Biden essentially would have the same challenges that Hillary Clinton did in breaking through with young black voters? Is that part of your critique with him?

BOOKER: So, you saw what -- I`m in Detroit and you saw what happened here. Everybody from Russians to some of the Republican messaging was targeting African-Americans and trying to dissuade them from voting for somebody. So, we still got in the last race, in the presidential race, the overwhelming percentage of African-American voters that voted for the candidate, but the energy, the enthusiasm, the turnout, the total base of those voters was a lot smaller. We need to have a candidate that can withstand those kind of attacks, that can still have African-Americans look up from church, look up from their community and say, hey, that presidential candidate has got my back. I am energized to go out and vote for them. And so, yes, I`m making the case very plainly that I am the person to do that. The full coalition that we saw with Obama, to energize record turnouts that we saw in African-American communities. That`s going to make the difference between winning Michigan or not, winning Pennsylvania or not, winning Wisconsin or not. In fact, if you look at the measure of the black vote that fell off between 2012 and 2016, that`s the difference between winning those three states. And so, again, I`m making the electability case here. We need to have the best candidate to energize the full spectrum of the Democratic base. I know I`m the person to do that.

REID: Well, I can tell you that GenForward has a new study out that shows young African-Americans overwhelmingly identify with the Democratic Party and believe the Democratic Party is the party that cares about them. So, that is going for the Democrats but as you said, it`s got to be a turnout game at the end of the day. And part of the argument that I think a lot of political scientists are making and Jason Johnson was making this point last night, is that the way to turn out, particularly young voters, is to make the case against Trump. Are you concerned that right now, the Democratic Party is making a lot of cases against each other and not as many -- not really articulating clearly what threat Trump poses to the United States?

BOOKER: Right. God, I said that two or three times last night. I mean, during the health care debate, that was my point. It`s like we`re seeming to forget, I think I used the words "eyes on the prize". We`ve got to keep focusing on who we`re really fighting against. And that was a lot of -- you know, a lot of the groups are saying I won the debate, was one of the reasons was because I kept bringing it back to the urgency of beating Donald Trump. We need a candidate that actually can unite our party. The full spectrum of our party, bring us altogether. And so again, I`m -- that`s the theme of my campaign, is this idea that we are as a nation need to put more "indivisible" back into the "one nation under God" and as a party, we need to find a leader that can speak to the progressives, to the so-called more moderates and not pit us against each other. Especially not what I saw in these debates using Republican tired tropes against -- to have Democrats wielding them against other Democrats. That`s unacceptable to me. We must beat Donald Trump. Every person in this race must commit to that cause above and beyond their own individual ambition. And if they`re not the nominee, they need to fall in line and support the person that is so that we can win.

REID: And I guess the last question on sort of this same vein is, are you concerned that Democrats are now in such a circular debate about health care that that is where they are now and that the debate really is over whether to replace the Affordable Care Act with something else, something better, something different, and not focused really on Donald Trump?

BOOKER: No, look, I think we`ve got to realize where we are. We are so far away from this game. In football parlance, we haven`t even started preseason games yet. This is the August two-a-days. I`m sure that we have a lot of time to winnow down this field. As you said, there`s only seven of us that have made the September debate stage. I think this will get more on a fine point, and especially when you start coming out of those two early primary states and get ready to head towards Nevada and South Carolina, you`re going to see a very small group of us still there. So a lot of the hand wringing right now over what`s happening in the summer over these debates, that doesn`t speak to our party. I think the themes -- by the way, the policy plans are really important, but remember, we have not always seen the person with the best policy plans become the president of the United States. Case in point, where we are right now. We need folks that can speak to the heart, to the gut, as well as to the head, and that can have the kind of theme that can rally, unite, inspire and engage everyone in this party. And I think that that sentiment, the person who is best at calling to our common aspirations, I think that`s going to be the kind of person that can energize young folks and get, you know, my mom`s generation, as you said, the church-going African-American ladies out of their seats like the pastor does, coming to the crescendo. That`s what`s going to be I think the exciting-ness about this election, is who`s going to call to the soul of our party and our nation best. There`s a lot of time for that to evolve.

REID: All right.

BOOKER: I think Trump spoke to our darkness. The person we`re going to choose is going to be the best one that`s going to bring the light.

REID: All right. New Jersey senator and 2020 presidential candidate, Cory Booker. Good luck to you and thank you very much.

BOOKER: Thank you very much.

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