CNN "CNN Newsroom" - Transcript: Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) Talks About Growing Divide Among Democrats
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Well, today Congresswoman Tlaib appears to be having some regrets. She wrote this on Twitter regarding her booing, "I allowed my disappointment with Secretary Clinton's latest comments about Senator Sanders and his supporters get the best of me. You all, my sisters in service on stage and our movement deserve better."
Joining us now to discuss the state of the 2020 race, Democratic presidential candidate and Senator Michael Bennet. Senator Bennet, thank you for taking the time.
SEN. MICHAEL BENNET (D-CO), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thanks, Ana for having me.
CABRERA: Right now, there really does seem to be a sharp divide in your party between progressives and moderates. Does that worry you?
BENNET: We've got to get ourselves -- we've got to get it together if we're going to be Donald Trump. We lost him in 2016, something nobody thought was possible was that Donald Trump won the White House; even Donald Trump didn't think he did, and yet he won -- and we can't allow it to happen again.
And it's going to mean, not only that, progressives and moderates in the Democratic Party are going to have to come together, but we're going to have to find a way to inspire some of the nine million people who voted twice for Barack Obama and went to Donald Trump to vote for the Democratic nominee.
I know something about that, because I'm the only candidate in this race who represents a swing state, who represents a purple state. I was winning counties Trump was winning the same year that he won and that's what we're going to have to do.
CABRERA: You represent Colorado. You're coming to us from New Hampshire today, though. You've been in D.C. all week, and the Iowa caucuses are just two days away. Why aren't you in Iowa?
BENNET: I'm in New Hampshire, because we've got a great team in Iowa that's doing some hard work there. But to be honest with you, I'm behind there and I've been spending most of my time in New Hampshire. I've been in New Hampshire more than any other candidate. And I'm in the midst of doing another round of 50 Town Halls. So that's why I'm here.
CABRERA: But are you signaling to your supporters in Iowa that it's a lost cause?
[16:50:03]
BENNET: Not well, not at all. We've tried to stick with them, but they know that a caucus state is a hard place to compete in if you don't have the resources that some of the other candidates have or the same name recognition. It's a little easier to do it in New Hampshire and I think people understand that.
CABRERA: One more quick question now about Iowa, assuming you don't get the 15 percent support needed to sort of make it to the next round of the caucus. It's a little tricky how the caucus system works, but you know it well. Do you recommend your supporters throw their support behind another candidate of some sort?
BENNET: I recommend my supporters throw their support behind whichever candidate they believe is the one that is most likely to be able to beat Donald Trump. I think that's what's at stake.
And I think Iowa and New Hampshire is having a hard time making up their mind about that. People are not here as committed as they were even six weeks ago or six months ago because they're worried about whether the leading candidates can actually beat Donald Trump.
And I think that's what people should be asking. I've just spent the last -- I don't know how many days on the floor of the Senate contending with a President who doesn't even believe in our democracy.
The stakes in this election are so high that we've really got to pick the right person, and then we've got to fight, you know, with everything that we have to make sure we win in November.
CABRERA: Do you believe Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren could win in November? The progressive candidates in the race?
BENNET: I think that any candidate could win in November -- any Democratic candidate can win and I will do absolutely I can, anything I can to support our nominee, if it's not me, no matter who it is, because I think Trump is such a danger to our democracy and to our society. And that's what I believe.
CABRERA: I have to get your take on the new rules announced by the D.N.C., the debate rules, that there will be no donor threshold for its upcoming Nevada debate, just a polling threshold, which now opens the door for former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to qualify. What's your reaction to this news?
BENNET: You know, I never thought there should be a donor threshold. I thought it was really self-defeating for the party to be lopping people off just because they couldn't successfully money launder on Facebook, as well as some other people were able to do it.
So I'm glad they've gotten rid of the donor threshold. But I still think that it's important that we're not weeding people out prematurely in this race. This race still has a long way to go.
CABRERA: Let's talk about what has kept you in Washington for so much of the last couple of weeks, the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump. It will resume again on Monday.
You told CNN last night you will return to D.C. instead of staying on the trail. Do you think the impeachment trial has negatively impacted your 2020 campaign?
BENNET: It certainly hasn't helped but that's not important. I think we've got those of us that are running for President and also have a constitutional obligation in Washington and need to fulfill that constitutional obligation.
And I think we need -- we need it now more than ever. We've got a President who persuaded the Republicans in the Senate to help him cover up his misdeeds, and that is a travesty. And it is -- he has utter contempt, I think, for the Members of Congress, utter contempt for the American people who deserve to know the truth here.
Remember, whether you're for convicting Donald Trump or whether you're not, I mean, we ought to have facts and witnesses if we're going to call it a fair trial and in Donald Trump's America, as long as he's the defendant, the only fair trial is one where there aren't facts and witnesses, even when there are willing people that worked for him, were his appointees who want to come testify in the Senate about what he made them do.
CABRERA: More broadly, not just your candidacy, but how do you think Trump's impeachment and expected acquittal in the Senate will affect the 2020 election? Because that's part of the argument House Democrats made for the urgency of impeaching him when they did without having all the evidence, without having the subpoenaed witnesses, you know, go through the court system.
BENNET: Well, actually, the reason they weren't able to get those witnesses is the White House stonewalled the Congress in a way that no other President has ever done.
Richard Nixon never did what Donald Trump has done. Donald Trump has behaved in a in a dangerous and unconstitutional manner here, and we're going to have to make that case now going into the General Election and I believe strongly --
CABRERA: But do you worry about the integrity of the election being affected if you do believe that the President has been asking foreign powers to interfere in the upcoming election?
BENNET: Of course, of course. You know, I'm on the Intelligence Committee and I can't talk about what I've learned on the committee, you know, but I can tell you this, Russia interfered seriously in the 2016 election in ways that benefited Donald Trump mightily. [16:55:10]
BENNET: And they're trying to do it again in the 2020 election. Every single Western democracy is freaked out about what Russia might do in the upcoming elections, and we need to worry about it as well.
CABRERA: Yes.
BENNET: We need a president who will actually stand up for the country.
CABRERA: Senator Michael Bennet, thank you very much for talking with us.
BENNET: Thank you.
CABRERA: Good luck on the campaign trail.
BENNET: Thanks for having me. Thank you.
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