CNN "Cuomo Prime Time" - Transcript: Interview with Jeff Merkley

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Senator, thank you for joining us on the show.

SEN. JEFF MERKLEY (D-OR): Good to be with you, Chris.

CUOMO: What Senator Johnson says is not frightening to me, nor is his defense. He will get good buy-in on the Right, by blaming the race card, cancel culture, the Left, that's going to work.

No one came out from his Party, in the Senate or House, and said "Shut up, Johnson. We're not about that." That's your problem. How do you think you can work with people who will stand by and be quiet in the face of what he said?

MERKLEY: Well I'll tell you I -- the comments made me immediately think of Willie Horton ad from --

CUOMO: Massachusetts.

MERKLEY: --presidential campaign past. No, it just -- it's basically saying, "Hey, if somebody has dark skin, they're scary. Be afraid of them. They're not like us."

And I just I would like to think that Ron Johnson wasn't thinking clearly, when he says these kinds of things. But it seems to be a record that keeps being replayed. And I would hope my colleagues come out and say, "Any sort of race-baiting, deliberately cultivating divisions in America just is unacceptable."

CUOMO: But that's not what they need to say.

MERKLEY: "We're one America. We make this nation great together."

CUOMO: That's not what they need to say. Adam Kinzinger is getting a name for himself. I don't know how he's going to get reelected. But he's getting a name for himself, on the House side, as a

Republican, who will say not just, "We don't like any violence, you know, we should never talk about race." You got to say "What Ron Johnson said, is wrong. What Ron Johnson said is wrong."

In the Control Room, I don't understand what you're telling me. Did Adam Kinzinger use his name?

Yes. Good. Thank you.

So Adam Kinzinger did. But not on the Senate side. And here's my point. I've been making this point to all you guys, Senator. I think I've made it to you before. I don't know where your optimism is about working with them when they've showed the opposite inclination every chance you've given them.

But here's your bigger problem. Do you recognize H.R.1, as the only way to stop this wave of legislation that will absolutely limit the voting rights of minorities across this country?

MERKLEY: Absolutely, of course, in the Senate, we prefer to call it S.1. But it is essential that we use our constitutional power.

The Constitution says that for congressional elections, we have the ability to lay out the parameters, in which those elections are conducted, and it is our constitutional responsibility to defend the ballot box.

I mean, the journey of our nation has been a journey of knocking down the barriers of that ballot box that were posed by race that were posed by gender that were posed by Jim Crow. And we made it to the Voting Rights Act of '65.

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And here we are with this massive, massive campaign, essentially unleashed by the Supreme Court, by the way, with their decision to gut the Voting Rights Act, this massive effort to attack the ability of Black Americans, poor Americans, college students, and Native Americans, to cast a ballot.

And it's absolutely wrong. It's absolutely unpatriotic. It's absolutely just a corruption of our constitutional responsibility.

CUOMO: The only way you get rid -- S.1, the Senator's right, it's "S" on the Senate, "H.R., House Resolution" on the House side, the only way you'll get rid of it is by getting rid of the filibuster, which by the way, was born in the Jim Crow era, as well, and born of people in that part of the country, as elected representatives, who wanted a way to slow down progress.

I don't know if you guys will have the votes within your own party. And that will be some assessment of the Democrats. But we don't know now. So let's put that on hold. Let's talk about something we do know.

You have a problem at the border. We always have. The flow is increasing, because the Biden Administration rolled back a lot of the Trump restrictive, arguably, inhumane restrictive practices. But by removing them all at once, you increase the flow without having the capacity to handle it.

Does the Biden Administration have to own that they made it too easy for too many to come, and they're not equipped?

MERKLEY: Well, I think they were immediately moved by their human decency to say that the restrictive measures that have left thousands stranded, across the border, are so vulnerable to the gangs that could attack them is wrong, and we have to give them safe harbor. That's what our international responsibility on the Refugee Convention is all about.

They also probably didn't take into account that those who recruit those, to come to the border, were out there running advertisements saying "Now is the moment."

CUOMO: Right.

MERKLEY: "Biden Administration is so decent, they won't turn you back."

So, they do have a big challenge. And that challenge is created out of them doing basically the way we should treat refugees, which is to recognize that we provide a safe harbor, we have an expedient process for determining whether they qualify for asylum. And if they qualify, they're able to stay. If they don't qualify, it's difficult. They're sent home.

But you're right, the -- our facilities and our processes, were not in shape to handle this kind of flow.

CUOMO: Yes. We need to hear more out of the administration about how they're going to address that. Otherwise, the accountability is going to get greater because when you encourage people to come, you better be able to handle it. It's not a problem of their own making.

MERKLEY: They --

CUOMO: But many administrations have made these problems that we are living in real-time.

Senator Jeff Merkley, thank you for discussing the issues. Appreciate you.

MERKLEY: Thank you, Chris.

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