CNN "The Lead with Jake Tapper" - Interview with Seth Moulton

Interview

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Congressman, thanks so much for joining us.

You said today that the way President Trump has handled this entire controversy is, quote, treasonous. Obviously, treason is one of the worst crimes anyone can commit against their country. How is this treasonous?

REP. SETH MOULTON (D-MA): It's aiding and abetting our enemy. Russia is our enemy. The Taliban is an enemy of the United States.

And what the president has done with his complicit silence, with his undebatable dereliction of duty in refusing to take action to protect our troops is absolutely aiding our enemy.

TAPPER: So you also said that American kids are dead because of the president's inaction.

As I understand it, intelligence is still investigating whether or not these bounties can be pinpointed on any specific attack though there is an April 2019 attack that killed three marines that they are looking at.

Are you confident placing that level of blame on intelligence that is not yet verified?

[16:20:02]

MOULTON: I'm confident with everything we know. Jake, intelligence is never a hundred percent. OK?

We didn't have a hundred percent certainty that Osama Bin Laden was in that -- was in that compound in Pakistan when President Obama made the command decision to take him out.

If I as a platoon commander received a report that my platoon might get ambushed, that perhaps we would get blown up by a mine, and I failed to say, well, you know, we should take mine resistant vehicles. Perhaps I said, it's not a hundred percent, so we're just going to go out on foot, and my platoon got blown up, I wouldn't be on Twitter defending myself. I would be in prison because that is the basic level of command responsibility expected of the most junior officers in our military.

And so, for Trump to deny that as commander-in-chief is the ultimate dereliction of duty.

TAPPER: I have a lot of friends in the military, nothing like you of course who served but one of the first reactions I got was from a mom whose son has served in Afghanistan and she was just so distressed that President Trump's -- well, A, at the news although Russians meaning us ill is not exactly new, but at President Trump's reaction, which was most about passing the buck. I didn't get briefed. I don't know anything about it. We still have yet to hear anything. He is attacking the "New York Times" and not attacking at all Putin or the GRU which allegedly did this.

MOULTON: I mean, thank God Trump reads "The New York Times" because he doesn't seem to read his intelligence briefings. Thank God that "New York Times" made this story public so our troops would know because the commander-in-chief and his team refused to take action.

I mean, we also heard today Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, trying to say oh, this wasn't verified. He knows better than that. And we ought to be asking what did Mike Pompeo know? What did the Secretary of Defense Esper know? What did Vice President Pence know and yet refused to take action to protect our troops?

Because every mother or father with a son or daughter on the front lines today has to be concerned, has to be concerned that people at the highest level of our chain of command are not doing everything they can to protect our troops.

You know, it reminds me, when I was in Iraq, George W. Bush was my commander-in-chief. OK? I didn't vote for him twice. I disagreed with his war even though I was fighting in it.

But I never imagined that George W. Bush would refuse to take action on intelligence that he had in the Oval Office to keep me and my marines safe. This is truly a new low for the president.

TAPPER: I want to get reaction -- I want to get your reaction to a claim President Trump just made during comments he made at Fox Business. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: From what I hear, and I hear it pretty good, the intelligence people didn't even -- many of them didn't believe it happened at all. I think it's a hoax. I think it's a hoax by the newspapers and the Democrats.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Your response, sir?

MOULTON: It's just absurd. It doesn't matter how many people believe it or not. It doesn't matter if it is a hundred percent verified.

You're the commander-in-chief. You're responsible for the lives of young Americans. You do everything in your power to keep them safe and this president did nothing. Why? Because he is more concerned about his liability with Russia.

He is more concerned about his political future than the lives of our American troops, of our American heroes. Not draft dodgers like him but the people who are volunteering to say -- to put their lives on the line for our country, for our Constitution, and our values.

I think every American, including every Republican who's still out there trying to deflect or defend the president here needs to think about what that means on this 4th of July.

TAPPER: Democratic congressman and marine veteran, Seth Moulton, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it.

MOULTON: Thanks, Jake.

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