MSNBC "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell" - Transcript: Interview with Conor Lamb

Interview

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Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Conor Lamb of Pennsylvania. He is now a candidate for the United States Senate, running for the seat now occupied by Republican Senator Pat Toomey.

Thank you very much for joining us tonight, Congressman Lamb. I want to get your reaction to what the Pennsylvania Republicans are requesting in these subpoenas.

REP. CONOR LAMB (D-PA); I think you used the key word in your opening, Lawrence. And it`s nice what the newspaper did, but this isn`t just not an audit. It is an attack. This is an attack on our system and our democracy itself.

And in this particular instance, yes, I think people are really going to feel it once they realize that these Republicans in Harrisburg want all their personal information and it`s just one of many ways in which they hope to scare people out of voting.

And if they can`t scare them out, they`ll try to keep them out by getting rid of drop boxes and convenient voting hours and vote by mail. And if they can`t do that, they`ll get out the county election worker or the state election worker who is actually counting the ballots in some of these states. If they can`t do that, they`ll physically attack the Capitol like so many of their followers did on January 6th.

This particular commission in our state started with someone who was at the Capitol on January 6th. So these things are all intimately connected. There`s no mystery about what`s going on here. These people are desperate to maintain their power by any means possible.

[22:39:55]

LAMB: And it`s hard to understand why they`re doing it because of, you know, obviously 7 million people that voted are not going to like having their personal information spilled.

But people need to -- your viewers need to understand this is a financial scam. They do this so that they can send out emails to raise money off of it. That`s what they did in Arizona. And it was very profitable for them.

They`ve been doing it in this case already, and it will continue. So that`s what we`re up against. Those are the stakes.

O`DONNELL: Well, they`re doing it to Republican voters. I mean that point you just made, that they`re trying to make people afraid to vote, well, if you`re afraid of getting your identity stolen because all of your data has been handed over to some private individual, private so-called company that doesn`t know what they`re doing with it or might even have malicious intent. That will scare Republican voters from voting as well as Democratic voters.

The way to escape this as a Pennsylvania citizen is simply not to vote. That`s the message they`re giving across the board.

LAMB: Right. I didn`t say that these particular Republicans were smart.

O`DONNELL: Right.

LAMB: But they are very determined, and they have a short-term focus on two things to stay in power -- raising money and getting Donald Trump`s approval. That`s what you need to be in the game on their side. We see it time and again.

I know you guys covered tonight my colleague from Ohio, who said he wasn`t going to run again because his vote for impeachment against Trump, which was the right thing to do, makes it impossible to be on their side. We`ve seen it with Liz Cheney.

So they know what they need to do. And if it`s up to them, they`ll shrink the electorate down as far as they possibly can so that they can try to just get their narrow slice of it out, and it`s an increasingly narrow slice.

But I think what folks on our side have to realize is this is not a joke. This is not -- they`re not so stupid that we can make fun of them and think that they`re going to lead to their own demise.

These people are willing to do anything to try to take power in our state, which is one of the key states of the country. So we have to make our defense impregnable.

This is an attack. Our defense to it, yes, it will come in the form of laws and voting rights protections and all those things. But ultimately it`s written inside of us.

And if you know somebody who`s running for school board this year or town council or county commissioner in the counties where they`re going to be counting these votes, you got to get out there and help them for our statewide judicial candidates who are going to be the ones deciding these cases.

You have to donate to and support people who believe in democratic self- government. It`s that simple. And you know, the knock on us as Democrats is sometimes we only show up every four years, and that isn`t cutting it anymore.

There is way too much on the line for this now. And this is just the latest episode to convince us of that.

O`DONNELL: Congressman Conor Lamb, candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania, thank you very much for joining us tonight.

LAMB: Thanks, Lawrence.

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