CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: "Interview with Rep. Madeleine Dean"
Interview
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BLITZER: We'll monitor what's going on where you are, Jim Acosta is in Manchester, New Hampshire, the president on his way there for a big political rally.
Joining us now Pennsylvania Democratic representative Madeleine Dean, a member of the Judiciary Committee.
Congresswoman, thank you so much for joining us.
REP. MADELEINE DEAN (D-PA), MEMBER, JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: Thank you for having me, Wolf.
BLITZER: Let me get your reaction from what we just heard. First of all, he bitterly went after these two Democratic congresswomen and he applauded this decision by the Israeli government, which he clearly encouraged.
What's your reaction?
DEAN: Imagine what the president said of these women, that they hate Israel and all Jewish people. That's an extraordinary lie. The president should be ashamed and should take it back.
I happen to have just come from eight days in Israel. It's a country and a people that could not be more welcoming. And I would hope that the president would be embarrassed and apologize for his urging of prime minister Netanyahu to bar the women from coming.
These are equal members of Congress. They are part of our congressional delegation and Israel is one of our most important allies in the world, a democracy, a partner, a friend.
[17:30:00]
It's an extraordinary bad move by our president and it's unmistakably bad move by prime minister Netanyahu. It's also such an undermining of the exact thing that Israel should want to do and what they wanted to do when they toured us, about 41 members of the Democratic caucus. And then another 30 Republican members came in about a day and a half as we were on our way out.
They want to show us the beauty and the richness of its place and its people. Why would you want to bar two duly-elected members of Congress? It's wrongheaded by our President in extraordinarily dangerous ways, and it's, I think, a mistake by Prime Minister Netanyahu.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: So what is your specific message to Prime Minister Netanyahu? I know you and your fellow members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, had a chance to meet with him when you were there.
DEAN: We were there. We did have a chance to meet with him and listen to his presentation to us, and he took about an hour and a half's worth of questions of us. But he knows very, very well -- he was educated in my district, as you know. He was graduated from Cheltenham High School, and I reminded him of our neighborhood. And so, I -- he knows very, very well that these are two duly-elected members of Congress.
And actually, he wants to sell his country and the beauty of his country. Let these women in, so they can learn more about the beauty of that country. Recognize also, one of these women, her grandmother, a Palestinian woman, lives there. It's just an extraordinary obstruction by the Prime Minister, and I think it's a real mistake.
BLITZER: Well, let me read you to what Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, a Palestinian-American, tweeted earlier today. And she tweeted a picture of her grandmother who lives in the West Bank. The decision by Israel to bar her granddaughter, a U.S. congresswoman, is a sign of weakness because the truth of what is happening to Palestinians is frightening. So what's your reaction to the statements made by Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar?
DEAN: Well -- and I'm just learning it from you. I had not read or heard those statements. I can understand they would be gravely disappointed. And shocked, frankly, at two world leaders, our own President and the Prime Minister, from trying to ban them from coming in.
As I said, have them come in. Let them learn of the richness of this country and its peoples -- it's multiple peoples. That's where I see an extraordinary mistake. There's nothing to hide here. Let's take a look. Let the congresswomen in.
BLITZER: Let's get to another sensitive issue right now. Your Judiciary Committee has just issued subpoenas for former Trump campaign chairman Corey Lewandowski and former senior White House aide Rick Dearborn. How important is their testimony on this whole issue of obstruction of justice?
DEAN: I think it's very important. You know that we have gone to court to compel Mr. McGahn to come forward. He is going to be critically important. He was counsel to the President.
But then, Lewandowski, if you remember the timeline -- we're talking June of 2017. About June 14th, the President learned that now the Special Counsel was going to be expanding his investigation because of evidence of obstruction of justice by the President. That's June the 14th, 2017.
Three days later, the President meets with Lewandowski -- who is not a staffer. He was campaign; he is not a White House staffer. Meets with him in the Oval Office and issues a message that he is to deliver to Jeff Sessions, to restrict the Special Counsel's investigation and it should only look to the future, not to the past.
And then two days later, on the 19th, he talks to Lewandowski again, and he wants to know what has happened. Have you -- have you committed that message to Mr. Sessions? So it's a constant attempt to interfere, trying to use an outside person in Lewandowski, to get a message to Sessions to either un-recuse or reduce and limit the investigation. Remember, Sessions had reduced himself.
We also subpoenaed Mr. Dearborn because then, Lewandowski, uncomfortable with the message delivery to Sessions, says to Dearborn, will you deliver the message to Mr. Sessions? So there's an awful lot of tampering and obstruction going on there that is evidenced in the Mueller report, so Mr. Lewandowski and Mr. Dearborn's testimony and facts will be important.
BLITZER: As you correctly point out, Corey Lewandowski never served in the government, never served in the Trump administration. He worked in the campaign before that. DEAN: Yes.
BLITZER: So what's your reaction when you hear that the White House is considering invoking executive privilege to prevent him from testifying before your Judiciary Committee?
DEAN: Well, it's very much like some of the legal claims that they had falsely made in other areas. It just simply does not apply. He cannot invoke executive privilege. He will attempt to. We have seen the obstructive behavior by this president of our duty of oversight. We've had to go to court.
[17:35:03] And I really have great confidence and faith in our courts that they will uphold our ability to compel people to come on in and testify. And so, I can imagine the President will try it again. He will have the help of Attorney General Barr, as we have seen, so it's -- it's very troubling times.
And I have to tell you, I'm back here in my district. And it's nice to be back in the district, but I have to tell what you my constituents say to me -- make sure you complete your duty of oversight. Make sure you get the facts to us. Continue your impeachment investigation through the Judiciary and bring the facts to the American people.
BLITZER: Let me, also, while I have you, Congresswoman, get your thoughts on yesterday's dramatic shootout in Philadelphia, your -- in your neighboring district. You were at the news conference earlier this afternoon in Philadelphia. The Mayor of Philadelphia gave a rather impassioned plea for gun control. Listen to what he said last night.
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MAYOR JIM KENNEY, PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA: Our officers need help. They need help. They need help with gun control. They need help with keeping these weapons out of these people's hands.
And if the state and federal government don't want to -- don't want to stand up to the NRA and some other folks, then let us -- let us police ourselves. But they preempt us on all kinds of gun control legislation. Our officers deserve to be protected, and they don't deserve to be shot at by a guy for hours with an unlimited supply of weapons and an unlimited supply of bullets.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: The shooter, as you know, had this A.R.-15 style rifle. You just heard the President say, I support strong, meaningful background checks. What needs to happen right now?
DEAN: And you heard the President not say universal background checks. He wants to have some Swiss cheese version of background checks, and I hope we don't allow that to happen.
I was at the press conference today. And I think your reporting showed it's a miracle that this man with an assault-style weapon sitting in a house where there were hostages held, and two police officers held up in that location, was able to shoot six police officers and fortunately, not one died. In fact, all were treated and released last night.
It's extraordinary what the police force did in bringing everybody to safety, including the hostages, including the two police officers who, for hours, were in that house, and also, of course, the shooter. They were determined to protect everyone's safety, even the shooter. So it could have ended so much worse, and it didn't.
What do we need to do? The Senate needs to come back now. They should have acted on the bills that we passed in February. We passed two background check bills, one universal background check and one to close the Charleston loophole. That's more than 160 days ago.
And so, I call the Senate to come back. They've been on recess since February, as far as I can tell. The American people have suffered gun violence day after day after day. What Mayor Kenny has pointed out today was, of course, commended the police officers and the Commissioner Ross, but he also said, guess what, the police then last night responded to yet another shooting, a 20-year-old male shot in the head, later declared dead.
This is a problem of too many guns, illegal guns, assault weapons on our streets, in our cities, in our suburbs, and in our rural areas. This is America's uniquely grievous problem. The Senate needs to come back and pass our two bills.
And I'm committed -- on the Judiciary Committee, we're committed -- we were on a phone call today -- to coming back and marking up more bills. I want to have, among them, an assault weapons ban. We need to put that back in place. There's no reason we should have assault weapons on the streets of this country.
Think of the children. There were children held up very close by yesterday for hours from a daycare center. Think of those children and the trauma that this daily gun violence puts our children through. The Senate needs to acts. It's very sad that they're not.
BLITZER: Representative Madeleine Dean, thanks so much for joining us.
DEAN: Thank you very much, Wolf.
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