CNN "The Lead with Jake Tapper" - Transcript: Interview with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand

Interview

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TAPPER: All right. Manu Raju on Capitol Hill for us, thank you so much.

Joining us now to discuss, Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York.

Senator, good to see you.

Let me ask you, if there is a deal struck, do you think that Majority Leader McConnell will allow a vote on that, and if so -- I'm giving a lot of hypotheticals -- are there enough Republicans to join with Democrats to pass it?

SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND (D-NY): I think if we had a vote on a common sense bipartisan bill that didn't have poison pills, yes, we could pass it. But Mitch McConnell has been unwilling to even allow the conversations to let that happen. He's had the House bill since May. He's not negotiated any package with Senator Schumer, and he's been absent from these ones with the White House.

[16:35:04]

So, he's not interested in the vote, but I do believe if we could bring it to the floor, we could get immediate relief to so many New Yorkers and so many Americans that are in desperate need right now.

TAPPER: Well, let's talk about that, because the reality is, as you know, millions of Americans are unemployed because of this pandemic. Businesses are struggling, bars can't open. Music venues can't open. People need relief, and they can't.

Now, most Americans probably don't follow the machinations of, well, Mitch McConnell has $500 billion and he has a poison bill. They don't know. They see Republicans and Democrats fighting. Do you think that Democrats share any of the blame for nothing passing

yet?

GILLIBRAND: I don't, and I'll tell you why. We've been clear from the beginning that we need money for food stamps and housing relief. We need money for states and city governments. We need money for unemployment and we need money for first responders and small businesses.

Unfortunately, Mitch McConnell, the one thing he wants in there is the one thing that is a poison pill, liability protection for large companies, and for companies that aren't making sure their employees are safe. We know what that looks like, Jake.

If you remember, we saw the meatpacking plants where people had to stand shoulder to shoulder with no masks, no PPE and COVID spread like wildfire in those places. If you don't have liability -- if you have liability protection then those employees can't sue and say, listen, we'll come to work, but you have to keep us safe. There's no incentive.

And so, that is the poison pill. And Mitch has no interest in doing anything unless he can actually deliver that for his donors.

TAPPER: There's a new study out today from Columbia University that says if the Trump administration had taken leadership and more assertive testing that somewhere between 130,000 and 210,000 lives would not have been lost. There was a previous one, a previous study by Columbia saying that if the U.S. had enacted social distancing measures one week sooner than it did in March, 36,000 lives would have been saved.

Now, Democrats have been very tough on President Trump for enacting those measures, but don't some -- don't some of these -- doesn't some of the blame also lie with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo who could have put in place some of these measures as well as mayors and city leaders? Are they not also responsible?

GILLIBRAND: I don't think so, and I'll tell you why. What President Trump first did is he did not disclose the seriousness of the COVID epidemic when it started. He had information that it was airborne, that's how it would be transmitted, and that it was deadly for everyone including children. And he did not tell the American people that.

In fact, he kept down-playing it saying, it's just like a flu. He refused to wear a mask for a very long time, and even most recently where the White House was the vector for the virus, where spread was all over. He wasn't wearing masks, the people around him weren't wearing masks -- again, flying in the face of what his scientists and experts have been telling him.

So, President Trump hadn't used his office in the way he could of. He could have used the Defense Production Act to start in January developing vaccines, developing the personal protective equipment, making sure he has all the testing manufacturers here in the United States, making sure we wouldn't run out of reagents and swabs like we have.

TAPPER: Yeah.

GILLIBRAND: And so, today, Jake, we still don't have universal testing. You have kids who can't go back to school because it's not easy to get a test, they're not taken very often, and they take too long to get results back and so you can't do proper contact tracing.

So, I really -- I leave the blame at President Trump's feet --

TAPPER: OK.

GILLIBRAND: -- because the things he could have done, he chose not to do.

TAPPER: Senator, I'm sorry to interrupt but I do want to ask you about the Senate Judiciary Committee advancing Judge Amy Coney Barrett's nomination to the support today. The vote was unanimous because Democrats on the committee boycotted the vote. They filled their seats with photographs of people who defend on the Affordable Care Act.

Republican Senator John Cornyn criticized the move. He said doing that made it look like a sporting event. What's your response to what Cornyn had to say?

GILLIBRAND: Well, Cornyn has not provided leadership at a time when our country desperately needs it, and I don't think he's served the people of Texas well at all. In fact, I think this whole process has been a sham.

It was Mitch McConnell who denied Barack Obama his final Supreme Court justice, and he said that it was too close to the election. That was in March. He denied even a hearing to Merrick Garland.

Now, his duplicitousness and hypocrisy is here for everyone to see, not only is he jamming through a justice weeks before an election, but he's refusing to put on the floor a COVID relief package that is bipartisan in the House and that could make a difference and help save peoples' lives.

TAPPER: All right. Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, thanks so much. Good to see you again.

GILLIBRAND: Thanks, Jake.

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