CNN "State of the Union" - Transcript: Interview With Sen. James Lankford

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Joining me now, Republican Senator from Oklahoma James Lankford.

Senator, thanks so much for being with us this morning.

SEN. JAMES LANKFORD (R-OK): Glad to be with you.

TAPPER: So, I mean, that tweet from the president, he said Schiff has not paid the price yet.

I mean, Adam Schiff has been getting death threats, sources tell me. Do you condemn what President Trump tweeted?

LANKFORD: Well, I -- I don't think the president's trying to be able to do a death threat here or do some sort of intimidation.

TAPPER: He has not paid the price yet?

LANKFORD: It's no different than what Adam Schiff and what Speaker Pelosi were saying, that -- that folks will be paying a price at the ballot box, or that they will pay a price for this in the future, or that people will hold them accountable for that.

So, I -- you look at both of them, I think, the same way. Both of them are saying, hey, the American people will speak on this. TAPPER: Well, what's interesting is, you were very offended, as were

other senators, from earlier -- from Friday night when Schiff, on the floor of the Senate, argued that -- well, he was quoting a CBS News report that had a confidant of President Trump saying that Republicans would pay a price, that it would be your heads on a stick.

And he was quoting the CBS News' report quoting of a Trump confident, but you were offended by that.

LANKFORD: So, the -- the offensive part there is, he was saying the president had communicated to us that our heads will be on a pike if we oppose him.

And all of us looked at each other and said, we have heard no such comment from the president. We felt no such pressure from the president. That -- that was the offensive part. It's not that he's quoting some unnamed source and some confidential whatever from CBS News on it.

It's that the implication was, we have all been sent a message.

And we all spoke to him pretty clearly to say, that's not true.

TAPPER: But Schiff was quoting a CBS News report. Why would you be -- why would you be mad at Schiff, as opposed to this Trump -- Trump confidant who said that this message had been conveyed to you?

LANKFORD: No, Schiff's -- Schiff's message was that this message had been passed onto us.

TAPPER: That's what the CBS News report was.

LANKFORD: Correct.

But Schiff is also saying, here's this unnamed story.

This is a sideshow in the whole thing. We were just offended, in that he's ending his closing arguments by saying, you will have to vote the way you are because the president is saying to you, I will put your head on a pike if we don't.

[09:05:00]

And we all know that's not true.

TAPPER: All right, I want to button this up.

But just what do you say to somebody who says, President Trump is saying that Adam Schiff needs to pay a price? This is in the midst of Adam Schiff getting death threats.

You're not offended by that. You think it's just like...

LANKFORD: No, I just don't think it's a death threat. I don't think he's encouraging a death threat. TAPPER: But people who are supporters of the president have heard his

rhetoric and then actually tried to bomb and kill politicians and the media. I mean, that's happened.

LANKFORD: Right. We have -- we have also had individuals go to up a baseball game...

TAPPER: Yes, horrible.

LANKFORD: ... and -- and shoot Republicans and walk up and say...

TAPPER: Awful. Completely -- I can completely..

LANKFORD: ... is this where the Republicans are? I'm going to go to fire at them.

TAPPER: Yes.

LANKFORD: So -- so, to be able to say, the president's trying to be able to spur this on would be able to say Democrats were trying to spur on the killing of...

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: I guess I don't understand why you're offended at -- at what Adam Schiff said ...

LANKFORD: No, because I think it's political. I think what he's saying is political. What the president is saying is, he's going to be held to a price.

And I'm offended only because Adam Schiff believes that the only reason that we act the way that we do is because the president's going to put our head on a pike.

He's -- he's invalidating all of our motives. He's saying, you're going to ignore all the facts, and you're only doing this because we're afraid of the president, rather than, we will actually be fair in the process and actually look at the facts.

That was before we'd heard any of the facts from the White House team. The White House team has now, for the first time, had an opportunity to be able to cross-examine and bring out more detail on this...

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: OK, so let's talk about the case that they're presenting.

The deputy White House counsel said on the Senate floor just yesterday -- quote -- "There's simply no evidence anywhere that President Trump ever linked security assistance to any investigations" -- unquote.

But take a listen to acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney saying the president did exactly that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MICK MULVANEY, ACTING WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: He also mentioned to me in the past that -- that the corruption related to the DNC server, absolutely, no question about that.

But that's it. That's why we held up the money.

QUESTION: But, to be clear, what you just described is a quid pro quo. It is, funding will not flow unless the investigation into the Democratic server happened as well.

MULVANEY: We do -- we do that all the time with foreign policy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Does it bother at all that the Trump legal team told you and your colleagues in the Senate that there's no evidence that the aid was linked to any investigation, when the White House chief of staff has already admitted publicly that there was?

LANKFORD: Right.

So, the first thing you say is, it's not linked to security assistance. And they definitely said that yesterday. And they detailed out how the White House did not connect this to security assistance.

TAPPER: But he was talking about security assistance.

(CROSSTALK)

LANKFORD: No, he wasn't talking -- he was talking about the investigation into the 2016 -- into the CrowdStrike piece, is what Mick Mulvaney was talking about.

TAPPER: Right, and that the security assistance was tied to carrying out that investigation. There are two investigations Trump was calling for.

LANKFORD: Right.

TAPPER: Two.

LANKFORD: Right.

Well, one -- one of them, he was calling for, one, that President Zelensky asked him about, and that he actually brought up, but that's splitting hairs to the whole conversation here.

In -- in the process there, they also talked about the -- in the phone call itself, the security assistance conversation was about Javelins, which were unconnected to this. And then the question is now this whole issue about 2016.

TAPPER: Mm-hmm.

LANKFORD: Yes, they had a pause on that. And Mick Mulvaney clearly said that. And then I'm sure the White House team is going to walk through the next couple of days and be able to detail it.

TAPPER: But they already told you there's no evidence. And there is evidence. That's Mulvaney admitting that there was a link between the delay in the security assistance in exchange for the investigation into 2016.

LANKFORD: Right.

TAPPER: That's -- that's a link.

LANKFORD: But the -- but the 2016 is not about the 2020 election.

I know this -- this sounds bizarre on this for me. I have been confused the entire time with the House managers trying to say, if the president's asking Ukraine for additional information about the 2016 election, then that must be interfering in the 2020 elections.

Never made sense to me. They never tried to be able to connect the dots well on that. The 2016 election and all that debate had just ended literally the day before that call happened. On the 24th of July is when the Mueller report came out. It was final.

Robert Mueller had done his statement to all of America through Congress to be able to read through all the report. It was closed.

The next day, the president's on the phone with President Zelensky and says, do us a favor. Basically, my intelligence folks are saying one thing about Ukrainian interference in the election. Rudy Giuliani and some other folks are saying another thing about interference in it. Do us a favor. Is this true? Can you do just check into it?

Doesn't seem to be interfering in the 2016 election. That seems to be settling an issue that's still unsettled.

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: Well, I think -- I think the argument is that the cloud of Russia helping President Trump in 2016 would be cleared, theoretically, if what Tom Bossert, the president's former homeland security adviser, has called a debunked conspiracy theory is proven correct.

LANKFORD: Right.

TAPPER: So it would theoretically help him in 2020, because it would clear this cloud, if they could prove that Ukraine, not Russia, did it.

LANKFORD: Right.

That's a pretty big line to be able to go, especially when something had already been put to bed...

TAPPER: But isn't that evidence?

LANKFORD: ... that -- that most definitely Russia was the one that was the primary factor in 2016.

TAPPER: Right.

LANKFORD: The president still seems to have this question about whether it was a Ukrainian -- the server was taken to Ukraine. I don't have a question on that. I don't think it's true on that.

But he still does. And he's hearing information from two different sides. He wants to get it cleared up. That doesn't affect anything, though, in the 2020 election.

TAPPER: But it's evidence that there was a link between the delay in the security assistance and a demand for investigations...

LANKFORD: It is...

TAPPER: ... I'm saying, which the Trump legal team argued does not exist. And we all saw it with our own eyes.

[09:10:01]

LANKFORD: OK. I -- I -- I will give you that, but I don't think that's a significant issue.

Also, in that clip, what they're not playing are the other things that were said before that as well, that Mick Mulvaney were saying, here all the other reasons.

TAPPER: Sure.

LANKFORD: And, yes, the president had talked to me about this as well. Sure, that had been part of the conversation.

But that is not the sole reason...

TAPPER: Correct. Right.

(CROSSTALK)

LANKFORD: ... process on it.

And that's -- that was the biggest challenge that we had, is that, for three days, we heard one part of a sentence, but not the sentence before or the sentence after.

And the president's legal team said, OK, let's take this sentence they have said is strong evidence, and let's put it into context, what is before and after it, and you find out it's a whole different issue when you actually get it in context, like the whole issue about the White House visit.

In that phone call, President Zelensky says, hey, if we can't meet at the White House, why don't we meet September the 1st? And that -- actually, that meeting gets set up. The process starts immediately on it and gets set up.

But the House team was saying, if you get a -- if you don't get a White House visit, they don't want anything, that's all they want, except, in the same phone call, President Zelensky said, or we can meet over here, and they set that up.

TAPPER: I guess my only point is, that's one of many examples of the president's team saying things that are not true.

He also claimed -- Pat Cipollone said that House Republicans were not admitted into the SCIF for the depositions. I assume you have read at least some of the deposition transcripts.

LANKFORD: Sure. Sure. Yes.

TAPPER: And not only were Republicans in there. Some of the president's most ardent defenders, Jim Jordan, Devin Nunes, Stefanik, Zeldin, were there asking questions.

So, when he said that, that wasn't true also.

LANKFORD: No, he -- what he was really trying to say there is, there was no opportunity for the White House to cross-examine any of these individuals.

TAPPER: But that's not what he said.

LANKFORD: Both -- both -- both in the first two times, and then when it came to the third time, when they said the White House was actually invited, none of those actually -- those folks actually came to be cross-examined.

So the White House never had an opportunity to cross-examine any of these individuals.

TAPPER: All right.

An attorney for Lev Parnas, a Giuliani associate who was indicted under federal campaign finance crimes in October, released nearly 90 minutes of this secret recording from a 2018 dinner with President Trump.

Here's a quick clip.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: How long would they last in a fight with Russia?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not very...

(CROSSTALK)

LEV PARNAS, INDICTED GIULIANI ASSOCIATE: I don't think very long. Without us not, very long.

TRUMP: Without us?

PARNAS: Without us.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

TAPPER: They go on to talk about the ouster of Ambassador Yovanovitch.

When asked about Parnas, President Trump said, "I don't know anything about him."

This proves that -- that's not true.

LANKFORD: Yes, this is a fund-raising dinner back in the spring of 2018 a year-and-a-half ago, where you -- the president literally takes a bunch of pictures. He walks in, sits down at a dinner.

It's a dinner, 25 people or so that have dinner, and then he leaves. I -- I don't see that as a...

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: It's a 90-minute recording.

LANKFORD: I understand that, but it's a dinner. It's -- it's 90 minutes over a dinner that he walks in and actually participates in this.

It's hard to be able to say to the president, who meets 1,000 people a day, OK, do you know this person that was at a dinner with you a year- and-a-half ago and to say you have a relationship?

So, again, it goes -- it's the same argument. People said, you had your picture made with him. And so that means it's a problem.

TAPPER: Well, that's more than a picture. That's a 90-minute conversation...

LANKFORD: I -- I -- I...

TAPPER: ... in which they call for the ouster of Yovanovitch, when -- they talk about whether or not Ukraine could defend against Russia.

LANKFORD: Sure, they did. Sure, they did.

There's a lot of things. He -- he talks about -- in that same tape, he -- he's also talking about Germany not paying their fair share...

TAPPER: Sure.

LANKFORD: ... and taking care of...

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: My point is, the president didn't tell the truth. He lied. He said, he didn't know who this guy was. And here's a 90-minute conversation.

LANKFORD: So, what -- what I'm trying to say to you is the same thing you have.

If I went back and said, a year-and-a-half ago, I want to ask you about somebody that attended a dinner you were at, and was a part of a 20-person conversation, you could not name that person, because you wouldn't remember him.

Now, if they brought up a tape, you would go, OK, yes, I was there. I just don't remember that person because it was a year-and-a-half ago.

You meet a lot of people. I meet a lot of people. Certainly, the president meets a lot of people. And it's hard to be able to say, I know somebody that attended a fund-raising dinner, got a picture made, or attended a different time and got a picture, when you sure do meet a lot of -- a lot of people.

TAPPER: Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma, thanks so much for being here.

LANKFORD: Sure.

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