CBS "Face the Nation" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Roy Blunt

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Good morning and welcome to FACE THE NATION. We begin today on that impasse between the House and the Senate. And there's also one between Republicans and Democrats. Missouri Republican Senator Roy Blunt is here, as is Maryland Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen. Good morning to both of you, gentlemen. Senator Blunt, first off to you. Do you agree with the President's declaration that he hasn't actually been impeached?

SENATOR ROY BLUNT (R-Missouri/@RoyBlunt/Intelligence Committee): Well, I-- I've actually heard some constitutional scholars suggest you're not impeached until the House sends the articles over. I don't know that it's a distinction worth arguing about. The House will send the articles over. We are going to hear this case both from the House managers and the President's counsel. I-- I would argue with the President's counsel for the first time, they get a chance to make their case. And I believe we'll be doing that in January.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So there's no question for you that Speaker Pelosi will transfer these articles?

SENATOR ROY BLUNT: You know I-- I actually think this is a mistake for the speaker to continue to dwell on this issue. I don't think it's worked out that well for them politically. I actually don't think the speaker, who has great power in a lot of cases, has the power to decide not to send over--

MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.

SENATOR ROY BLUNT: --determined will of the House of Representatives. They have voted. They have voted on two articles. They need to come and defend those two articles.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, you know, back during the Clinton impeachment trial, Republican and Democratic leaders sat together and planned out in a bipartisan way how the trial would take place. Why can't that happen this time?

SENATOR ROY BLUNT: Well, you know, I think we-- because of that, we have the-- the-- the plan out before us that worked before. It probably wasn't quite as easily achieved last time as it seems like it was but it seemed to work last time. And my guess is, eventually, that's the plan we pursue. That we start, that we let the-- the House managers have the time they need to present their case against the President. And the President has that-- his-- his counsel has the time they need to present the reason they don't think that case adds up and then we see what happens next.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So why can't you commit now, then to calling witnesses? What you're suggesting is that there would then be a vote--

SENATOR ROY BLUNT: Right.

MARGARET BRENNAN: --on whether to approve having witnesses.

SENATOR ROY BLUNT: Which is what happened last time.

MARGARET BRENNAN: This time Democrats are arguing the trial needs to be fair, and that includes the certainty of hearing from witnesses. How can you have a credible trial without that?

SENATOR ROY BLUNT: Well, every one of the Democrats that were in the Senate the last time that are here now voted against witnesses the last time. So this is-- you know, this is a political process, no matter how you describe it. You can call it a trial, but it's a trial where half of the jurors can decide that the chief justice is wrong--

MARGARET BRENNAN: Mm-Hm.

SENATOR ROY BLUNT: --and we're going to go in a different direction. It is-- it's a political process. It always has been. It always will be. One of my concerns, Margaret, is that in a hundred-- the first hundred and eighty years of the history of the country, we went to presidential impeachment exactly one time. And here in the last forty-six years we've gone to it three times and never with a result that removed a President--

MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.

SENATOR ROY BLUNT: --because of the impeachment itself. And I-- I think it's a mistake to take this lightly or to act like you can send a half-baked case over to the Senate. And then it's the Senate's job to try to figure out how to do what you didn't do.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But are you--

SENATOR ROY BLUNT: There is nobody the Senate could call--

MARGARET BRENNAN: Mm-Hm.

SENATOR ROY BLUNT: --that the House couldn't call. There is no privilege. That the Senate--

MARGARET BRENNAN: But there is a Republican majority in the Senate. And--

SENATOR ROY BLUNT: And?

MARGARET BRENNAN: --this is where the President has argued he wants to hear his case and get a fair shake. He complained about not getting in the House--

SENATOR ROY BLUNT: And we want to hear his case--

MARGARET BRENNAN: So-- but-- but-- he--

SENATOR ROY BLUNT: But I think what you don't want to do--

MARGARET BRENNAN: --wants witnesses.

SENATOR ROY BLUNT: What you don't want to do--

MARGARET BRENNAN: Have you persuaded the President not to push for that any longer?

SENATOR ROY BLUNT: I don't know that the President's persuaded not to push for that. And there may be a time when we decide that witnesses are essential but the witnesses that the House didn't call would have the same privilege in the Senate that they had in the House. I think the House sending over a very vague two charges to the Senate and then assuming it's the Senate's job to try to make something out of that, takes a process we're already taking too lightly, impeachment--three times in forty-six years--

MARGARET BRENNAN: Mm-Hm.

SENATOR ROY BLUNT: --and taking it even more lightly. The-- the world we live in now is more certain, more likely than not, that a President will always have a House, at some point in their presidency--

MARGARET BRENNAN: Mm-Hm.

SENATOR ROY BLUNT: --controlled by the other party, a majority of that-- of the other party can send articles of impeachment over. I think we need to be sure that we set a standard where they have to make sense before they are sent over, not leave it up to the Senate to try to make sense out of a case that the House says they clearly made.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah.

SENATOR ROY BLUNT: And now they say, well, we clearly made this case with absolute certainty, but now we need to have the Senate find more information.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Your former Republican colleague Jeff Flake put out an op-ed where he wrote this as an open letter to senators like yourself, saying, essentially, the entire body is on trial, not just the President. And you said, don't be complicit. Quote, "You might also determine that the President's actions do not rise to the constitutional standard required for removal. But what is indefensible is echoing House Republicans who say the President has not done anything wrong. He has." Does Roy Blunt, potential juror, believe that the President's phone call was perfect?

SENATOR ROY BLUNT: Well, I think the people that listened to it that should know and hear a lot of these calls have generally said there was nothing wrong with the call.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But what do you believe?

SENATOR ROY BLUNT: But I think that's not-- here-- here's what I believe from Jeff Flake's letter, or Jeff Flake's editorial. He also said, "Would you reach the same conclusion if Barack Obama had done exactly the same thing?" And the answer is, "Yes, I would reach the same conclusion." We were constantly asked for eight years--

MARGARET BRENNAN: If Barack Obama, on a phone call with another world leader, suggested an investigation into someone who also happened to be the frontrunner from the opposing party, you would be-- your party, you would be fine with that?

SENATOR ROY BLUNT: Well, I will tell you that for eight years we were constantly challenged on my side. The President should be impeached for this, the President should be impeached for withholding records with Fast and Furious; the President should have delivered--

MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.

SENATOR ROY BLUNT: --the-- the--

MARGARET BRENNAN: But on this particular parallel.

SENATOR ROY BLUNT: Yeah. Let me-- let me make my point here. And-- and I resisted that. And I understand what our Democrat friends have heard for three years now on this topic, because we heard it for eight years. One of the articles of impeachment is the President resisted giving information to the Congress, which is exactly what President Obama did. It's what President Clinton did. It's what President Bush did. Every President's done that. I-- I wouldn't have been for impeaching any of them, for asserting their privilege to make you go to court to prove that you really needed the information the President had. That's one-- that's one half of the cases of impeachment right there.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Senator Blunt, thank you very much for your time.

SENATOR ROY BLUNT: Great to be with you.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source