CNN "The Lead With Jake Tapper" - Transcript "Interview with Rep. Elissa Slotkin"

Interview

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TAPPER: The school joins 127 projects all taken a hit to raise $3.6 billion to build 175 miles to deliver on the president's biggest campaign promise, the border wall. A promise he's not been able to solve by working with Congress.

Joining me is now Democratic Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin. She sits on the House Armed Services Committee. She held a senior position at the Pentagon in her previous life.

Congresswoman, thanks so much for joining us.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's spokesman says he's committed to protecting the funding for that middle school adding, quote, we would not be in this situation if Democrats were serious about protecting our homeland and worked with us to provide the funding needed to secure our borders.

McConnell blaming this on Democrats.

What's your response?

REP. ELISSA SLOTKIN (D-MI): Yes, I mean, first of all, I think there's sort of two issues going on right now. There's one, just the straight removal of the money from the Pentagon budget and all the families and the communities that are going to suffer because of that.

But then there's sort of the bigger strategic issue of the politicizing of the military. The Pentagon has been a place that has enjoyed bipartisan support. We want to believe that everything they're asking for, all the billions of dollars that they're asking for, are for the right reasons, and this just brings the Pentagon into the political conversation in a way that is not good for them and not good for us as a country.

Listen, I'm on the Armed Services Committee and the Homeland Security Committee. I am ready to have the conversation about border security. Frankly, as a CIA officer, I worked my entire life to preserve the homeland from attack.

So, there's plenty of us who want to have that conversation. I just think that this way of doing it just kills a couple of long-standing principles that we want for our military, bipartisanship.

TAPPER: So, not to defend this move, but haven't Democrat leaders in Congress basically said to President Trump we're not going to give you any money for your border wall no matter what? I mean, hasn't it been a nonstarter with Speaker Pelosi?

SLOTKIN: So I think, you know, I think the wall -- I don't know that there's anyone, including the president who still walks about a wall from sea to shining sea. I think that most people think we're talking about security at the border, fencing, barriers, and I personally don't have a problem with those things. I don't think the speaker has a problem with real border security, but it has to be focused on the actual threats.

And while I support doing more where we need it, most people right now are coming through the ports of entry. They're not sneaking over. They're coming right through our borders. We have organizations that are completely overwhelmed by that. Let's focus on what the real concerns are and address that and pay for that instead of just like over and over.

TAPPER: Colorado Republican Congressman Doug Lamborn's district will be directly impacted as well. He says, quote: It is unfortunate that it has come to this but the primary job of the commander-in-chief and purpose for our military is to guarantee our national sovereignty, unquote.

What do you make of that argument?

SLOTKIN: I mean, again, I don't have a problem with the conversation. It's just this idea that the president is redefining his relationship with Congress and with the military in a way that just breaks with tradition of how any president of any party has done it. The Congress allocates money. That's in the Constitution.

So, the president's continual sort of ignoring of those division of powers to me is the more dangerous piece of this. It's not one specific base, one specific community, it's the precedent it sets.

So I understand we all want to have a security conversation, but let's have it in the appropriate place, not take it from our military.

TAPPER: What's your response to the moms that you just heard in the introduction who are saying basically -- one of them said this is crap. The idea that our kids are going to suffer, that school -- our understanding is that sometimes in one classroom at one time there will be multiple classes because it's so overcrowded, and this is the result of this order.

SLOTKIN: I mean, listen, my husband was 30 years in the military. He spent many years of his life on Fort Campbell. My stepdaughter's in the military and just left Fort Campbell. So, this one is just very personal.

The schools are one thing, but there's a lot of facilities, including at places like Tyndall and Lejeune where we've had devastating weather-related problems, where the communities need these things, and it just -- I just don't believe in blaming and punishing those folks for the political conversation to continue for the president. And, you know, you heard it, I couldn't have said it any more clearly

than those moms.

TAPPER: So -- but you think that President Trump is specifically directly hurting military families for the sake of politics?

SLOTKIN: Well, I mean, he's taking his money for a political promise from --

Well, I mean, I think the -- he's taking his money for a political promise from people who have done the right thing, serve their country. Their projects have been in line. And the military specifically looked at those needs and asked the Congress for that money and we gave it, and we gave it. So I think they're right to be frustrated.

Why is it coming out of their school or their rehabilitation project or their cyber center and not from where it belongs which is an honest to God homeland security conversation.

TAPPER: Democratic Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it.

SLOTKIN: Thanks.

TAPPER: Coming up, frightening new information about where the Odessa, Texas shooter obtained his firearm and what that seller might have been doing against the law. Stay with us.

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