CNN "Newsroom" - Transcript Interview with Gerald Connolly

Interview

[09:30:00]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Democratic or Republican support. It took money from elsewhere, in that case the Pentagon. Went ahead and put money into the wall. Now he's taking money from emergency funds to try to divert it to unemployment benefits.

Will Democrats sue to block that action?

REP. GERALD CONNOLLY (D-VA): I would hope so. I mean, as you, I think, indicated in the -- in the promo here, the Constitution is pretty clear in Article I who has taxing and spending authority. And it's the United States Congress. And there was a reason that the first article of the Constitution dealt with congressional powers, not executive powers. So if there's anything Congress absolutely has control over, it's those two things. And this is, obviously, in my view, unconstitutional and should be challenged.

SCIUTTO: Politically, though, I wonder, do you want to see Democrats suing the president and a lot of folks out there who aren't, you know, deep students of constitutional law would look and say, wait, why are Democrats trying to block me getting money? I mean, politically, do you think the president might have it right here?

CONNOLLY: No, I really don't. I think it's sort of almost a Hail Mary pass because if you really look at the substance behind what he did, there's very little substance. So on evictions, 12 million Americans facing eviction, all he does is direct federal agencies to look at it, see what you can do. Not one single person prevented from eviction with this executive order.

On the payroll withholding tax, he jeopardizes Medicare and Social Security and -- and it's a deferral. So you're going to have a lump sum payment at the end of the year.

And, by the way, it doesn't help the 31 million Americans collecting unemployment insurance because they don't pay that withholding.

And, finally, with respect to unemployment, he has this little fine print that states which are already hemorrhaging revenue and huge expenditures due to the pandemic, and unemployment burdens are expected to pay 25 percent of the $400 he would provide. And I think that's a non-starter. So there's no there there behind these executive orders.

SCIUTTO: OK.

Let's talk about the U.S. Postal Service. On Friday evening, typically when you try to hide things you don't want a lot of attention on, a hiring freeze, massive reorganization of top Postal Service leaders, of course led by the postmaster general, was a Trump supporter and a donor. He claims this is about efficiency in the Post Office. Do you believe that explanation?

CONNOLLY: I'd call that a Trojan horse. We're -- we're about seven weeks away from the first votes being cast, most of them initially probably by mail, and all of a sudden you want to have efficiency and organization, which just so happens to have the corollary effect of slowing down delivery of mail.

SCIUTTO: Yes. It's a remarkable argument.

CONNOLLY: It's -- it's really -- connect -- connect the dots.

SCIUTTO: Are you saying, say it directly, is this an attempt by the president, do you believe, to interfere in the election?

CONNOLLY: Absolutely. The president has not, to his credit, not been subtle about this. He has said that voting by mail is a threat to him and to Republicans and it, you know, has used phony -- you know, creates fraud and so forth and so on, even though we actually have lots of empirical data of states that gone -- have gone all mail voting who actually have almost no fraud and actually have smooth elections. But those facts notwithstanding, he's -- he -- he is afraid of people voting by mail in large numbers because of the pandemic and one way to suppress that vote, and they're experts in the vote suppression --

SCIUTTO: Yes.

CONNOLLY: Is to slow down the delivery of mail.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

CONNOLLY: And threaten (INAUDIBLE) --

SCIUTTO: Yes.

CONNOLLY: The -- the failure of your ballot to get there.

SCIUTTO: It's a remarkable charge.

There's another issue. Four years ago, Russia interfered in the election. It was at assessment of the U.S. intelligence community. They did so to help Donald Trump. Last week we heard Russia is attempting to interfere in the 2020 election to help Donald Trump. The president has yet to warn Russia away. And, in fact, has questioned that assessment repeatedly.

Is the president, in effect, inviting Russian interference again in your view?

CONNOLLY: Again, I think this is another example where -- where Donald Trump is not subtle about that. He's already done it. So four years ago on the campaign he publicly, at a rally, invited the Russians to hack into his opponent's e-mails and reveal whatever they could find, which they promptly did.

So -- so I don't think it's any secret that he has a special bromance with Vladimir Putin. We can all speculate why. But he is certainly not willing, even when American lives are involved, to hold Putin and Russia to account for anything.

SCIUTTO: It's amazing four years later.

Congressman Gerry Connolly, thanks so much for joining me.

CONNOLLY: Any time, Jim, thank you.

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