Beto O'Rourke: Let's Be Thoughtful About Impeachment

Ladies and gentlemen, my first guest this evening is a former three-term congressman from Texas who's currently running for president of the United States. Please welcome Beto O'Rourke. Welcome back to the show. Thank you for having me back. The last time you were here, you were running for Senate in Texas, the people don't remember, against Ted Cruz, and you did not win that one, did not win that one. What made you go, okay, didn't get Senate, let's go for the brass ring here, and go for president of the United States? Very exciting campaign, but you did not win that one. Does this one seem easier to you? Definitely not. You know, in Texas, we got to be something, or be part of something, just extraordinarily special. A state that had been 50th in voter turnout. So, it wasn't a red state, it was a non-voting state. Turned out at record levels. Young voter turnout in early voting was up 500%. We won more votes than any Democrat has in the history of the state of Texas. It was very close. 2.6%, which in Texas is a steeper. We didn't win our race, but we helped others win their races. Colin Allred, Lizzie Pannell Fletcher, both Democrats replacing Republicans, helping to flip the House of Representatives. 17 African-American women elected to judicial positions in Harris County, literally changing the face of criminal justice in that community. And what I think I took from that is that we got to be part of a movement. And a movement of people who were brought into our democracy, a democracy that has been badly broken, captured, corrupted by special interests and corporations. This grassroots, people-powered campaign didn't take a dime from a single PAC, represents the kind of movement that it will take to defeat Donald Trump in 2020 and then bring this country together again in 2021. That was what I took from it. Now, there have been some polls, which I'm sure you've seen, there have been some polls I'm sure you've seen, that 60% of Texas Democrats want you to run against Senator Cornyn, because he's not particularly popular in Texas right now, and you have a chance of beating him. Why not go for that? You already know how to run for Senate. Why gear up this other thing instead of taking the next chop at Cornyn? I just think given where we are in this country, this moment of truth on everything that you could care about, will we be up to the challenge of confronting climate change before it's too late? Will we be able to extend health care to every single American? Will we ensure that our democracy, under attack by powers from without the country, under attack by our very president, can we save it? I want to be in the most consequential position to make sure that I do everything I can to deliver for this country. So I want to run to serve as president of the United States, and I want to do so in a way that brings people in, that fixes our democracy, that ensures that we're not defined by our differences, but instead by our ambitions and the work that we're willing to do in order to achieve them. So that's what has moved me and Amy and our family to make this decision. And I'll say this for Texas. There are going to be some extraordinary candidates running to oppose John Cornyn. One, MJ Hagar, a combat veteran, an extraordinary candidate. If she's the nominee, she will defeat him. There are others who are running who may have just as good a chance. Texas is finally turning out. Our democracy works. We're going to have a Democrat representing that state in the United States Senate after 2020. And you see, Texas has been on the cusp of turning for so long. Right. If I'm not mistaken, correct me obviously if I'm wrong, you are one of the candidates who is in favor of starting impeachment investigations or impeachment proceedings against President Trump. Am I correct in doing that? Yes. But if that actually goes forward and he's impeached, you wouldn't have the pleasure of running against him. Aren't you robbing yourself of the joy of running against President Trump there? Why do you think? Because Pelosi is still dead set against it. She's saying it's not impossible, but she just does not see the sign that it's the right thing to do. Why do you feel differently? You know, impeachment is not about getting rid of the president. It's about finding the facts, getting to the truth, ensuring that there's accountability and justice for what happened to this democracy in 2016. A candidate for president who invited the participation of a foreign power who, once the investigation began, fired the principal investigator, James Comey, the head of the FBI, tweeted in broad daylight to his attorney general to stop the investigation. And there was something really powerful in what Bob Mueller said within the last few weeks in his public comments. He said that when a subject of an investigation lies to the investigators or obstructs justice, it gets to the very heart of this government and our ability to hold ourselves accountable. In other words, for this democracy to persist, there has to be justice. And if we set the precedent that some people are above the law or beyond the reach of the law by not impeaching this president, not getting to the facts or the truth, I think that begins the end of this democracy. So let's begin impeachment proceedings, get to the truth and hold people accountable. Just to get into today, this is news. Trump is using executive privilege over census information. So he will not reveal any communications between, I think it's Wilbur Ross? And is it the attorney general as well? About whether the citizenship question was put in there to suppress responses from non-whites, essentially. But he's exerting that executive privilege. What do you make of the present state of the presidency? If you were to be president, what power would you surrender? Because there seems to be this snowballing collection of power on the presidency. Not generation after generation, literally one president after another. What's the first power that you would signal that you are willing to give up as president? So first of all, let me just say on this census issue, the census is predicting a 6% undercount that will be targeted against non-whites in this country. So Hispanics, African Americans, communities of color. That means less representation and less resources. So we absolutely must get those documents. And then we also must understand that we already have a smoking gun from a Republican strategist who said that he did this to diminish the power of communities of color. That's how we know that this exertion of executive privilege is really to hide something. We need to see the other half of that communication. That's right. So look, I've always been about being as accountable and transparent as I possibly can. On the city council for six years, held a town hall meeting literally every single week. In Congress, every single month. All comers welcome, no holds barred. And it's that level of accountability that I think produced better representation. I had a healthy dose of fear for those folks that I was going to face to explain the votes that I had taken or our progress or lack thereof on bills that we've introduced. As president, I've committed that every single one of my cabinet secretaries will hold a real, live, not for show town hall meeting to listen to the people in this country whom they serve and to whom they are accountable. I will make sure that I respect the powers of Congress, honor the subpoenas if it comes to that, but work more collaboratively with them so that it does not. And then perhaps in the most awesome power that we have as a country, which is the power to send our fellow Americans to war, to put their lives on the line, I will make sure that we not only end the wars that we are in, but before we send another service member in harm's way, that we do this lawfully as prescribed in the Constitution, Article 1, through the people's representatives in Congress. It's the only way that we stop this country from going to war without end. And it's not just a function, as you said, of this administration or this president. This is happening almost throughout my entire life. It explains how we're at war today in our 18th year in Afghanistan and functionally in our 28th year in Iraq through six successive presidential administrations. Let's return power to people on these incredibly important issues. But stick around. We'll be right back with some hard questions from Beto O'Rourke.