CNN "Erin Burnett Outfront" - Transcript: Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) Discusses About Senator Schumer's Warning To Republicans
Interview
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BOLDUAN: Great to see you, Lauren. Thank you so much. All right. Let's get more into this. OUTFRONT with me now Democratic Congressman from Tennessee, Steve Cohen. He sits on the House Judiciary Committee. Congressman, thanks for coming in.
REP. STEVE COHEN (D-TN): Merry Christmas to you.
BOLDUAN: Well, thank you so much. Do you think Senator Schumer's warning here could actually work about holding votes on every witness, holding votes on every set of documents? Do you think that gets him anywhere?
COHEN: Well, I think the issue needs to be brought to the public's attention that the leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell said that they wanted to get a quick trial, no witnesses, no documents, and acquit the President. That it would not be an impartial trial and he'll be taking an oath to say he will be an impartial juror.
There were others like Lindsey Graham that said the same type of thing and showing they wouldn't be impartial.
[19:05:04]
I think things will change. But if they don't, the Senate will lose. The United States will lose. Trump may get off. Trump will get off. But the reputation of the Senate and our system of government is at risk and I don't think Mitch McConnell will want to contribute to it, but he very well might.
BOLDUAN: Well, OK, so one of the things that you will want is witnesses to testify in the Senate. That's very clear. Senator McConnell today ...
COHEN: That's true.
BOLDUAN: ... seemed to leave the door open in talking about the Clinton model of impeachment that he would like to mirror this time around. Let me play for you what he said on Fox News. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MCCONNELL: You listen to the opening arguments, you have a written question, period. And at that point in the Clinton trial, we had a decision about which witnesses to call. We haven't ruled out witnesses. We've said let's handle this case just like we did with President Clinton, fair is fair.
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BOLDUAN: "We haven't ruled out witnesses." What do you say to that?
COHEN: Well, he hadn't ruled him out, but at the same time, he's very clever and when Jeff Flake stood up, it would have been the vote that would have stopped Kavanaugh from getting on the Supreme Court. McConnell got him to let the vote out of the Judiciary Committee and go to the floor where Flake didn't have the deciding vote and then Flake caved and Kavanaugh was confirmed.
McConnell engineered that and gave him the impression they would have some type of fairness, they didn't. So it's hard to take that idea to kind of like give me what I want and then I'll decide later what you want. That's not a very good deal for Speaker Pelosi. I have great confidence in Speaker Pelosi and how she's handling this and how she will handle it.
She is a master. I think she's the most phenomenal Speaker of the House probably in the history of the United States.
BOLDUAN: Well, on Speaker Pelosi, another thing that McConnell said today, Congressman, was that sooner or later Speaker Pelosi will have no choice but to send the articles of impeachment over. How is he wrong about that?
COHEN: Well, he's not wrong, I guess, politically, because the pressure will be there and Speaker Pelosi does not want this to go on for a long time and make people not remember how Democrats are protecting the protections that we have in the ACA for folks with pre existing conditions, how we're working to lower prescription drug prices and how we're trying to clean up the swamp in Washington and all of the other legislative agendas we've done, minimum wage and climate control, sensible gun laws.
We want to get to those bills that the American public cares about, 275 bipartisan passed bills are on McConnell's desk and he hadn't brought them to vote.
BOLDUAN: Right, but what does that have to do with it?
COHEN: So Speaker Pelosi wants that to come forward.
BOLDUAN: Speak to this. Yes. And Speaker Pelosi wants, obviously, the Senate trial to happen, so in the end, she's going to have to send it over. And in the end, McConnell says she's going to have to blink. And you're saying he's not wrong. COHEN: No, I think she'll eventually want to get around that. But at
the same time she's going to want to get some assurance that there will be a fair trial. Otherwise, it's going to be a sham and a sham trial doesn't really any way vindicate, acquit the President and it certainly does a disjustice to our system of government. Patrick Leahy wrote a great editorial today about the times, about the need for the Senate to act to protect the Senate's integrity.
BOLDUAN: Senator Lindsey Graham is speaking out tonight. He's actually kind of putting out there a different kind of threat, if you've got Schumer threatening votes, you've got Lindsey Graham tweeting that if Speaker Pelosi refuses to send over articles of impeachment and this is how he puts it, "Senate Republicans should take matters into our own hands. We are in charge of the Senate, not Pelosi or Schumer." What do you think that means?
COHEN: I have no clue because they can't do anything about impeachment until it's sent over. There are already holding 275 bills on the desk. I don't know what more they could do to kill legislation. Mitchell has said he's the Grim Reaper. They can't approve any more judges, they've already approved like 150 judges and some declared not qualified by the ABA. Just pathetic individuals who they voted for unanimously.
There's not much they can do. I can just say that I think John McCain and John Dingell are both looking down on Lindsey Graham and shaking their heads.
BOLDUAN: Well, so you say that you think that Speaker Pelosi will send over the articles in the end. Would you though support withholding the articles of impeachment indefinitely until you get what you, say, you're asking for in terms of procedure?
COHEN: I'll support Speaker Pelosi in whatever activity and action she takes.
[19:10:00]
I think that the longer it stays open, the more likely evidence will come forward that will have more grounds for impeachment possibly to come are more supportive information and it puts more pressure on the Republicans.
The public is not a fool. When the public sees like today that a document was released that said that Duffy, the OMB Deputy Director or whatever his position is, within an hour, an hour and a half of the phone call with Zelensky sent a message to say hold up on the military aid. And then he sent a note and he said, but keep this on the down low. He didn't use those terms. He said keep it on a need to know basis, because we don't want anybody to know.
Well, you really can't take what the actions of the President and the administration and see it in any other way than this was something they done that was wrong. Because if they were trying to do something right, if they're really trying to fight corruption, Trump would have tweeted it 20 times within an hour and he kept it on the down low.
BOLDUAN: Well, not on the down low anymore. Let's see what that
document means and how many more documents if they are brought to light, what they actually will reveal. Congressman, thank you for coming in. I appreciate your time.
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