CNN "CNN Newsroom" - Transcript: "Interview with Rep. Michael Bennet"

Interview

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JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: A lot of headlines, gets lots of folks on the left end of the progressive movement excited, but doesn't necessarily, as you said, get to all the details.

Today, is it possible to win the nomination, whether Democrat or Republican, outside of that ideological bunker?

SEN. MICHAEL BENNET (D-CO), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Oh, I think so. I definitely think so because I think that's where the American people really are. Look, Elizabeth has said on the debate stage that now is the time to think big. I agree, it is a time to think big, but my ambitions are different than hers. You know, I want to reduce childhood poverty by 40 percent in this country. We can do that in a year for three percent of the costs of Medicare for all. I want to cover everybody with universal health care coverage with a public option, and I want a climate plan that actually engages our farmers and ranchers in that work so we have a durable result.

We have different ambitions. One is not smaller than the other. I think what's important is for us to figure out in this campaign how to be able to get some oxygen for ideas that are different than the ones that actually circle the earth on Twitter really quickly, but maybe by the time they land don't make any sense to actual living, breathing humans in America, as opposed to just what's happening on the Internet. And that's what I'm trying to do in this campaign.

SCIUTTO: So assuming, though, that that bunker, the ideological bunker does supply the Democratic nominee, that these pie in the sky perhaps unrealistic promises without explanation of the costs wins the nomination because it excites people and makes them feel like they're going to get something, possibly get something for nothing. If that happens for the Democratic Party, is Trump likely to be re-elected?

BENNET: Well, first of all, something for nothing is just an empty promise. We've had enough of those out of Washington, D.C., and I think we've had enough of those from the coastal elites who come up with these ideas that don't make sense in the middle of America. It makes it more likely he gets re-elected. I hope he'll be beaten by whoever the Democratic nominee is. But I can tell you this, there's a reason why 39 out of 40 Democrats

who ran for the House of Representatives in the last election and won, swinging the majority to the Democrats, 39 of 40 ran on a public option like mine. They didn't run on Medicare for all. And a lot of them beat people in the primaries who did run on Medicare for all. So if -- it seems to me, if we want the best chance of beating Donald Trump, if we want the best chance of getting a majority in the Senate and we want the best chance of holding on to the majority in the House, then running on the public option, not Medicare for all, is where we should be. And I would say, you know, my plan for ending childhood poverty is where we should be.

SCIUTTO: I want to ask you about impeachment because that may very well precede the 2020 election. There have been some smoke signals, if you can call them that, from the Republican side, public comments from Lisa Murkowski saying in no uncertain terms that what the president did with Ukraine not acceptable, Mitt Romney, you're aware of his comments. Lindsey Graham, we noted, saying that he's at least open to the possibility of impeachment.

You have a lot of private conversations with your Republican colleagues, I know, because you work across the aisle in the Senate. I'm not going to ask you to break any confidence you would have with them. But I'm curious, are you hearing more private expressions of support for removing this president than we hear publically from the Republican side.

BENNET: I would not say privately that I'm yet hearing private expressions of support, but I am hearing private expressions of people saying they're horrified by the president's behavior. And they're horrified that he invited Ukraine to interfere in our elections. They're horrified that the White House chief of staff admitted that it was a quid pro quo. They're particularly horrified by what the president did in northern Syria by abandoning the Kurds there. Something that I think there's a consensus in the Senate no other president in history would have done.

And, you know, that's -- we have to stand up to tyrants here and abroad. That's what we're all about. And I think, you know, as I said last night, that's why we have to make America America again. You know, we've had enough of this guy and I do think there are president -- Republicans in the Senate who are getting awfully tired of having to defend him.

SCIUTTO: Yes, standing up to tyrants used to a relatively bipartisan, non-controversial point.

BENNET: It was. It was. Let's hope for that again.

SCIUTTO: Yes, and yet here we are.

Senator Michael Bennett, thanks very much. We wish you the best of luck.

BENNET: Thanks, Jim. Thanks for having me. \

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