NBC "Meet the Press" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Lamar Alexander
Interview
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
CHUCK TODD:
We're back at West End Salvage in Des Moines, one day before opening day of the campaign season in the Iowa caucuses. But if there's been any drama in President Trump's impeachment trial -- and there hasn't been much -- it came when Senator Lamar Alexander voted against hearing more witnesses. It dashed the Democrats' hopes of getting four Republicans to introduce more evidence and perhaps witnesses. In the end only two -- Mitt Romney and Susan Collins -- voted yes. I sat down yesterday morning with Senator Alexander for an exclusive interview, and I began by asking him why he voted the way he did.
SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER:
Well, I mean, if you have eight witnesses who say someone left the scene of an accident, why do you need nine? I mean, the question for me was: Do I need more evidence to conclude that the president did what he did? And I concluded no. So, I voted we don't --
CHUCK TODD:
What do you believe he did?
SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER:
What --
CHUCK TODD:
What do you believe he did?
SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER:
What I believe he did, one, was that he called the president of Ukraine and asked him to become involved in investigating Joe Biden, who was --
CHUCK TODD:
You believe his wrongdoing began there, not before --
SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER:
Yeah, but he --
CHUCK TODD:
Not before?
SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER:
I don't know about that. But he admitted that. The president admitted that. He released a transcript, he said on television. The second thing was, at least in part, he delayed the military and other assistance to Ukraine in order to encourage that investigation. Those are the two things he did. I think he shouldn't have done it. I think it was wrong. Inappropriate was the way I'd say -- improper, crossing the line. And then the only question left is who decides what to do about that.
CHUCK TODD:
Well, who decides what to do about that?
SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER:
The people. The people is my conclusion. You know, it struck me, really for the first time, early last week, that we're not just being asked to remove the president from office. We're saying, "Tell him he can't run in the 2020 election which begins Monday in Iowa."
CHUCK TODD:
If this weren't election year, would you have had a different -- would you have looked at this differently?
SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER:
I would have looked it differently, probably come to the same conclusion because I don't think what he did -- I think what he did is a long way from treason, bribery, high crimes, and misdemeanors. I don't think it's the kind of inappropriate action that the framers would expect the Senate to substitute its judgment for the people in picking a president.
CHUCK TODD:
Does it wear on you, though, that one of the -- I mean -- one of the foundational reasons, ways that the framers wrote the Constitution was almost fear of foreign interference?
SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER:
That's true.
CHUCK TODD:
So, and here it is.
SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER:
Well, if you hooked up with Ukraine to wage war on the United States, as the first senator from Tennessee did, you could be expelled. But this wasn't that. This was the kind -- what the president should have done was, if he was upset about Joe Biden and his son and what they were doing in Ukraine, he should have called the Attorney General and told him that and let the Attorney General handle it the way they always handle cases that involve public figures.
CHUCK TODD:
And why do you think he didn't do that?
SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER:
Maybe he didn't know to do it.
CHUCK TODD:
Okay, this has been a rationale that I've heard from a lot of Republicans. "Well, boy, he's still new to this."
SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER:
Well, a lot of people come to --
CHUCK TODD:
At what point, though, is he no longer new to this?
SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER:
Well, the bottom line, it's not an excuse. He shouldn't have done it. And I said he shouldn't have done it. And now I think it's up to the American people to say, "Okay, good economy, lower taxes, conservative judges, behavior that I might not like, call to Ukraine." Weigh that against Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders and pick a president.
CHUCK TODD:
Are you at all concerned, though, when you seek foreign interference, he does not believe he's done anything wrong, that what has happened here might encourage him that he can continue to do this?
SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER:
I don't think so. I hope not. I mean, enduring an impeachment is something that nobody should like. Even the president said he didn't want that on his resume. I don't blame him. So, if a call like that gets you an impeachment, I would think he would think twice before he did it again.
CHUCK TODD:
What example in the life of Donald Trump has he been chastened?
SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER:
I haven't studied his life that close. But, like most people who survive to make it to the presidency, he's sure of himself. But hopefully, he'll look at this and say, "Okay, that was a mistake. I shouldn't have done that, shouldn't have done it that way." And he'll focus on the strengths of his administration, which are considerable.
CHUCK TODD:
One of your other reasonings was the partisan nature of the impeachment vote itself in the House, except now we are answering a partisan impeachment vote in the House with a partisan -- I guess I don't know what we call this right now --
SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER:
Well, you'd call it acquittal. That's what happens.
CHUCK TODD:
An acquittal, but essentially also in how the trial was run, a partisan way to run the trial. So, if we make partisan -- bipartisanship a standard, if somebody has a stranglehold on a base of a political party, then what you're saying is you can overcome any impeachable offense --
SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER:
Well --
CHUCK TODD:
-- as long as you have, as long as you have the stranglehold on a group of people.
SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER:
Well, as far as, as far as what the Senate did, I thought our -- I thought we gave a good hearing to the case. I mean, I helped make sure that we didn't dismiss it. We heard it. There were some who wanted to dismiss it. I helped make sure that we had a right to ask for more evidence if we needed it, which we thought we didn't. We heard -- we saw videotapes of 192 times that witnesses testified. We sat that for 11- and 12-hour days for nine days. So, I think we heard the case pretty well. But the partisan point's the most important point to me. James Madison, others, thought there never, ever should be a wholly partisan impeachment. And if you look at Nixon, when the vote to authorize that inquiry was 410 to four, and you look at Trump, where not a single Republican voted for it, if you start out with a partisan impeachment, you're almost destined to have a partisan acquittal.
CHUCK TODD:
Bill Clinton offered regret for his behavior. This president has not. Does that bother you?
SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER:
Well, there hasn't been a vote yet, either. So we'll see what he says and does. I think, I think that's up to him. I think --
CHUCK TODD:
You're comfortable acquitting him before he says something of regret? Would that not, would that not help make your acquittal vote more comfortable?
SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER:
I wasn't asked to decide -- assess his level of regret. I was asked, "Did he, did he make a phone call? And did he, at least in part, hold up aid in order to influence an investigation of Joe Biden?" I concluded yes. So I don't need to assess his level of regret. What I hope he would do is when he makes his State of the Union address, that he puts this completely behind him, never mentions it, and talks about what he thinks he's done for the country and where we're headed. He's got a pretty good story to tell if he'll focus on it.
CHUCK TODD:
You know, in the phone call, there's one thing on the phone call that I'm surprised, frankly, hasn't been brought up more by others. This -- the mere mention of the word "CrowdStrike," is a Russian intelligence sort of piece of propaganda that they've been circulating.
SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER:
Uh-huh.
CHUCK TODD:
Does it bother you that the President of the United States is reiterating Russian propaganda?
SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER:
Yes. I think that's a mistake. I mean, if you see what's happening in the Baltic states, where Russians have a big warehouse in Saint Petersburg, in Russia, where they're devoted to destabilizing western democracies. I mean, for example, in one of the Baltic states, they accused a NATO officer of raping a local girl. Of course, didn't happen. But it threw the government into complete disarray for a week. So I think we need to be sensitive to the fact that the Russians are out to do no good, to destabilize western democracies, including us, and be very wary of theories that Russians come up with and peddle.
CHUCK TODD:
Well, I was just going to say, this -- is it not alarming the President of the United States, in this phone call, you clearly are judging him on the phone call, more so than --
SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER:
Well, the phone call --
CHUCK TODD:
-- much of his other behavior --
SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER:
-- and the evidence, there was plenty of evidence. I mean, the House managers came to us and said, "We have overwhelming evidence. We have a mountain of evidence."
CHUCK TODD:
And you agree?
SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER:
"And we approve it beyond a shadow of a doubt," which made me think, "Well, then, why do you need more evidence?"
CHUCK TODD:
Would you think it's more helpful for the public to hear from John Bolton?
SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER:
They'll read his book in two weeks.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source