CNN "Erin Burnett Out Front" - Transcript: "Interview with Gov. Andrew Cuomo"

Interview

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BURNETT: Out front now, Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York. And Governor Cuomo, I appreciate your time. Look, you know a lot of people in this field and you know Governor Hickenlooper well and many of the others. As I said, still 23 running in the primary that could be a whole another slew of two debate nights. I mean is it time for people to start getting out.

GOVERNOR ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): Well, Erin, people will make their individual choices. I know Governor Hickenlooper. He's a good man. And my guess is each person is going to assess their own options. It is a big field, you're right, and not everybody can win, obviously.

So I think you'll start to see individual candidates who have options making other decisions. Some people are term-limited, some people are running because it's good exposure and it's for the future, et cetera. So it's candidate by candidate and everybody will make their own decision.

BURNETT: I want to turn now, if I may, Governor, to your new proposal today. So in the wake of the multiple mass shootings, you're proposing a law that would allow New York to prosecute mass casualty hate crimes as domestic terrorism. What explicitly would this allow you to do now, Governor, I'm sorry, you to do that you can't do now?

CUOMO: Yes. I think we are at a point of transition, Erin. We have our terrorism law that was written right after 9/11 and the national phenomenon on terrorism has been that it's about a foreign entity or a foreign entity that radicalizes an American citizen.

[19:30:05] We are seeing a different type of terrorism now. We are seeing domestic terrorism defined as hate crime motivated terrorism by Americans, Americans who may be radicalized but not by a foreign entity. They are radicalized by hate.

What we saw in El Paso was a mass murder hate crime.

BURNETT: Yes.

CUOMO: And I'm saying that should be considered terrorism. When you have a terrorist attack, a mass murder based on a person's race, religion, creed, et cetera, that is truly domestic terrorism. Even if you don't have a foreign entity involved, and it should receive the same penalty.

BURNETT: So this comes as CNN has reported that the Trump administration rebuffed efforts by DHS for more than a year to make combating domestic terror threats including those from white supremacist a greater priority. And in that document, when it finally did out, they did not use the words white supremacy.

Governor, here is what Trump said after the shootings in prepared remarks from prompter. Obviously, the shootings I'm referring to are in Dayton and El Paso.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: In one voice our nation must condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy. These sinister ideologies must be defeated. Hate has no place in America.

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BURNETT: Governor, Joe Biden says we have a problem with the rising tide of white supremacy and we have a president who encourages and emboldens it. He, you know, referred to him as sleepy in the prompter, insulted the way he read it.

Do you believe President Trump condemns white supremacy?

CUOMO: Look, I think the president says one thing on Monday. He says something else on Tuesday, right? For the president to get up and say hate has no place in America is just wholly hypocritical, right? He is divider in chief, for him to say we condemn white supremacy.

After Charlottesville, he said there are good people on both sides of the discussion, it's purely hypocritical. I mean, he just -- he changes what he says.

And there is no doubt that from his mouth and from his administration, they have fomented hate. They talk about an invasion of immigrants.

We're shocked that people go out and buy an assault weapon and there is an El Paso shooting after we have people saying we're being invaded by the border? So, of course, he is fomenting this.

He does it for political reasons, I believe. I believe he appeals to his base. I believe it works for him politically.

I believe this is the old strategy of divide and conquer. It's how he ran for president. I want to build a wall.

That's not a unifying message. That's not a positive message. He has never had a positive message for this nation.

It's always been negative. It's always been divisive. And what he said in that clip, what he had to say or the speechwriters wrote after Dayton and El Paso is wholly inconsistent with everything else he has said and more importantly what he has done, and continues to do, and his administration. I mean, we just had them saying basically take down the Statue of

Liberty, right?

BURNETT: Well, I want to ask you about that in just a moment. I do want to just play for you something the president said moments ago, Governor, about gun laws. And, you know, he made it clear, he thinks it's the person that pulls the trigger, mental health is his main focus.

Here is what he said that he would do specifically.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And I think we have to start building institutions again, because if you look at the '60s and '70s, so many of the institutions were closed. And the people were just allowed to go onto the streets. And that was a terrible thing for our country. A lot of our conversation has to do with the fact that we have to open up institutions. We can't let the people be on the streets.

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BURNETT: What do you say, should you be building more mental health hospitals?

CUOMO: Yes, I don't think the president knows what he is talking about, with all due respect. What does building mental health institutions versus community-based residences which we do have, first the whole concept of restitutionalization is exactly opposite of everything we are trying to do, right? There was horrific condition in institutions. We now build community-based residences.

But put his knowledge on mental health aside. How does that stop a mentally ill person from getting a gun? That is the issue. And that if you want to do that, then you have to have a background check to make sure the person is not mentally ill.

And that's why you need universal background checks so you can see if the person is mentally ill.

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We have it in this state. Six years ago, we passed the best gun laws in the nation after the Sandy Hook massacre which was in Connecticut, the school shooting. And we set up a mental health database.

Erin, 139,000 people could have bought a gun in New York but cannot now not now buy is because they are in a mental health database. So, what the president should be saying is by his own theory I want background checks. I want mental health background checks. And if you are seriously mentally ill and you are on that mental health list, you should not be allowed to buy a gun.

But to do that we have to do background checks. That would be the logical extension of what he is saying.

BURNETT: I want to turn now to immigration. You mentioned the Statue of Liberty. The Statue of Liberty is right here in New York state when I asked the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Ken Cuccinelli, about the poem on it, which as you know he had said, should be rewritten to include only people who can stand on their own two feet. He had something to say to me about it.

Let me just remind people, again, what it reads and what I asked him about was, give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. I asked him if he thinks that is what America stands for or not. Here is he said.

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KEN CUCCINELLI, ACTING DIRECTOR, U.S. CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES: Well, of course that poem was referring back to people coming from Europe where they had class-based societies where people were considered wretched if they weren't in the right class.

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BURNETT: What's your response?

CUOMO: I think he must have a direct connection with Emma Lazarus who rewrote the poem just for him. That's not what the poem says. The poem says what the poem says.

I don't know if the Cuccinelli family came here rich. The Cuomo family didn't come here rich. Most families didn't come here rich because if you were rich, you stayed wherever you were, right. You didn't venture forth to a new land where you didn't speak the language and you didn't know anyone because you were doing very well where you were.

The immigrants by definition were looking for opportunity because they didn't have it where they were. There was no caveat that said Europeans only need apply. Poor -- the word poor is on the poem.

I think what it says is, they don't accept the founding premise of this nation. They don't.

BURNETT: All right. Governor Cuomo, thank you very much for your time tonight. I appreciate it, sir.

CUOMO: Thank you, Erin.

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