CNN "CNN Newsroom" - Transcript: Interview with Congressman Jamie Raskin

Interview

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GOLODRYGA: Well, look, Senator Romney was right. This is sad. This is embarrassing and the president clearly has abdicated his responsibilities here to the nation. Jeremy Diamond, thank you so much.

Well, joining me now is Democratic congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland. Congressman, thank you so much for joining us. We will get to that relief bill in just a second, but I do have to ask you first about this extraordinary reporting that we have about a heated Oval Office meeting Friday during which the president discussed declaring martial law, to force new elections in states that Biden had won issuing an executive order to seize voting machines and appointing conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell as a special counsel to investigate his baseless claims of election fraud. What is your reaction to all of that?

REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): Well, let's start with some objective reality. Joe Biden won by more than 7 million votes, 81 million to 74 million. He trounced the president in the Electoral College, 306 to 232, a margin that Trump himself declared a landslide when he won by the exact same amount over Hillary Clinton.

And so, none of this has any correspondence to reality. Joe Biden is going to be our new president. It does reflect the president's growing extreme isolation from events. He has nothing to say about the COVID- 19 pandemic, which has now cost more than 300,000 lives and we, of course, are the world's leader in pandemic deaths and cases and propaganda and disinformation, which the president has spread.

He has detached himself from the economic calamities of this pandemic that he has let run wild in the land. He has detached himself from the reality of the election and then he has actually pointed the finger at China when Russia has been found by our best intelligence estimates and by Secretary of State Pompeo to have been behind the solar wind attacks on our entire government.

I mean, this is the most massive cyber assault on the U.S. government in history and the president has this la-dee-da (inaudible) attitude and points the finger at China and all he cares about is trying to play out these completely paranoid conspiracy fantasies and magical thinking trips from Fox News and people like Sidney Powell.

So, it's a scary situation. It's why the 25th amendment has been talked about from the very beginning of his administration and, you know, who knows what happens over the next 30 days.

GOLODRYGA: Are you worried about the next 30 days?

RASKIN: I am worried because, you know, I've been worried about the last 1,200 days. I mean, this is a president who knows no concept of the rule of law, of the Constitution, of basic decency or civility.

[17:15:03] And the fact that they're seriously talking about declaring martial law and abdicating the presidential election is a dangerous new escalation of this derangement in the White House. And he does surround himself with people who reinforce his worst and most paranoid tendencies.

I am glad that finally there are people like Senator Romney speaking out within the Republican Party against this nonsense. And there were strong Republican state-elected officials, secretaries of state and election officials who said, no, they would not trash a legitimate presidential election in the United States just to benefit their political party.

So, those people are heroes within their sphere just for doing their jobs. It is scandalous that we still have more than 100 Republican members of the House of Representatives who are walking the plank with Donald Trump and, again, pandering to his most deranged fantasies.

And some of them come from the states that they would propose to disenfranchise like Pennsylvania and Georgia and Wisconsin. Those people, you know, before they're seated, they should be forced to say whether or not the election that gave rise to their return to Congress was, in fact, valid or invalid.

GOLODRYGA: Well, we'll see how history will judge them, but obviously they represent some of the millions of Americans who are desperate to get this stimulus going. And let's turn to the stimulus negotiations. Americans are set to lose their checks from the federal government the day after Christmas. And they want to know, is there going to be a deal today? What can you tell us?

RASKIN: Well, I believe there will be a deal today. Members have been waiting to make this happen since last week. Everybody, I think, is very eager to close a deal. Of course, you know, on the Democratic side, we have been leading and passing five different pieces of legislation to address the coronavirus.

You know, most recently the CARES Act in May, seven months ago now, which was -- or rather the HEROES Act. The CARES Act was in March, March 27th. May 15th was the HEROES Act. And the heroes act was a $3 trillion package. Now, what we're looking at is less than a $1 trillion now. We know that there's been a big ideological divide between the House and the Senate on this.

And, you know, we want to fund the states and the counties, we want to fund K through 12, we want to make sure the people get PPP for small businesses and unemployment benefits. You know, we had advanced the $600 a week. It looks like we might be settling again on $600 a week in this package.

But we just have a much more robust understanding of the desperate needs of the people out there. We heard from the beginning, Mitch McConnell saying, let the states go bankrupt, talking about this is a blue state disease. That was before the disease proceeded to ravage Florida and Alabama and Arkansas and Texas and so on --

GOLODRYGA: No, look, this is an American disease. This is a global disease, and hopefully you can get something done even tonight, but you know, millions of Americans say something is better than nothing but $600 is not enough for so many Americans. We're going to have to leave it there, congressman. I do want to note that you received your coronavirus vaccine, correct? How are you feeling?

RASKIN: On Friday. I feel fine. A little sore here, but I tell you, I felt born again when I got that virus. It's an act of great civic commitment and patriotism to do it. You're doing it for yourself and your family and everybody else and everybody should go and do it. I haven't felt this good since voting.

GOLODRYGA: Well, it's great to hear that. It's great to hear that you're feeling okay and thank you for advocating for that. Congressman, we appreciate it.

RASKIN: You're right.

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