CNN "The Lead With Jake Tapper" - Transcript "Interview with Sen. Mazie Hirono"

Interview

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This afternoon, the president denied knowing anything about the story. Ross denies he threatened to fire anyone at NOAA.

Joining me now is Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii.

Senator, your reaction to President Trump's comments today and the news that the White House was directly involved.

SEN. MAZIE HIRONO (D-HI): Once again, how you could trust anything that comes out of this White House, because you have a president who lies every single day. And on something like this, this is serious business when you're predicting that a state might get hit by a very big hurricane. This is not any time to be fooling around and so, it could have ended if the president said, oops and they move on.

But no, they create this entire drama around trying to make the president look good. And this is par for the course for this administration.

And you have the commerce secretary calling the head of NOAA from Greece no less to tell him you better fix this, and, you know (ph), which led to their statement and now that the chief scientists said NOAA very much disagrees with this, basically not relying on science and facts as to where a hurricane is going to hit and he wants to do his own investigation.

So, the chaos continues. And, by the way, Mulvaney who I think is at the heart of a lot of this, aside from -- you know, Mulvaney is very much oriented to protecting the president, being a yes person to the president, at every turn.

TAPPER: Uh-huh.

HIRONO: But Mulvaney is the same guy who when the U.S. Department of Agriculture, for example, began to move some of the researchers and scientists to the West Coast where they don't want to be said this is a really good way to get some of them to retire, which is a good thing.

No, it is not a good thing when the scientists and the people who are actually doing the fundamental work of these departments retire because of this kind of shenanigans.

So, you know, that is when I call Mulvaney to resign and I renew my call for him to resign.

TAPPER: So, Senator, your part of a group of Democratic senators demanding answers --

HIRONO: Yes.

TAPPER: -- from the Department of Commerce's inspector general about whether Secretary Ross pressured NOAA to back the president.

HIRONO: Yes.

TAPPER: What specifically do you want the inspector general to do and uncover? HIRONO: I want the inspector general to tell us whether or not there

was undue political influence or whether these kind of actions were based on a political -- political -- politically driven as opposed to something that's fact-based.

I would say that the conclusion is pretty clear. But when you start threatening people with being fired or if they don't do what Ross wants, then you create a situation where you need to get to the bottom of it and that's why I had the letter signed on by quite a number of my colleagues in the Senate.

TAPPER: NOAA's acting chief scientist, Greg McLean, said that he is investigating why NOAA's leadership backed Trump's false claims against what the scientists were saying and he's looking at whether NOAA's scientific integrity was violated. Have you spoken to Mr. McLean at all?

HIRONO: No. But I certainly share his concern. And so, that's part of the -- what I would like the inspector general to determine whether or not this kind of response to what the president did is unwarranted and in fact it compromises NOAA to a very great extent, it compromises the weather service and the science behind their information that they impart to the public.

You know, Hawaii has been hit by hurricanes before. We had a huge one in 1992. Hurricane Iniki and we're still recovering from some of that. So, this is serious business when you start changing maps to indicate that a hurricane is going to hit a state.

TAPPER: All right. Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, thank you so much. Always good to have you on.

HIRONO: Thank you.

TAPPER: Some breaking news now. New CNN polls on the 2020 race and the one thing that potential Democratic voters all seem to agree on.

Stay with us.

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