CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript Interview with Jay Inslee

Interview

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We're joined now by the Democratic governor -- a Democratic governor with lots of experience in mail-in voting, Jay Inslee of Washington state.

Governor Inslee, thanks so much for joining us.

The postmaster general testified that he hasn't made any changes to how election mail is handled, despite internal documents showing policy changes were in the works.

Your state of Washington votes, what, almost entirely, if not entirely, by mail, one of five states that I think votes entirely by mail. It's been done like that for years. How far did his testimony go today in reassuring you that the Postal Service will be reliable this coming election?

GOV. JAY INSLEE (D-WA): We still have enormous, legitimate concerns.

The combination of the confession by Donald Trump that he wants to use the Postal Service as a mechanism to suppress the vote -- this was a conscious and willful confession by him -- together with the facts on the ground, which is, in my state, the Postal Service, under this postmaster, broke and disabled about 40 percent of the processing equipment in the Puget Sound area.

Two of our cities have been ordered to shut down their processing, which is obviously going to have delays in delivery times, together with the fact that they warned us about the inability -- together with his statement today that I found incredible.

Not only did he say, yes, these have been broken, but I'm not going to fix them. That's grossly unacceptable. So I'm glad we have started a lawsuit, and our great attorney general, Bob Ferguson, along with about 40 other states.

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We need a judicial decision to order the Trump administration to fulfill its obligations to the American people.

BLITZER: And correct me if I'm wrong, Governor. In Washington state, it's 100 voting by mail, like Utah, Colorado, Oregon, Hawaii. You can only vote by mail, right?

INSLEE: Well, with one caveat.

You can get a ballot and drop it into a drop box. So, we have drop boxes around the state if -- and they are used considerably for folks that just the last minute are worried about getting their letter postmarked.

It has to be postmarked by 8:00 on the day of the election. So, the drop boxes have been a nice last-minute thing for people. But this mail-in system is like heaven on earth. Republicans and Democrats and independents love it here.

We have had no problems with it. It has increased access to the ballot. It's been a fantastic success, and this is yet another one of Donald Trump's conspiracy theories that somehow mail-in ballots are a conspiracy.

No, they're loved in the state of Washington by virtually everyone. That's why we're taking this threat to the Postal Service so seriously.

BLITZER: And it's especially critical now, during the time of the coronavirus pandemic, where elderly voters, people with underlying health conditions don't necessarily want to wait in long lines on Election Day to go vote.

INSLEE: Yes. You bet.

BLITZER: The president says -- he says that he's going to send in sheriffs, law enforcement, U.S. attorneys to polling places on Election Day.

Do you see that, Governor, as an empty threat, or is that something governors need to prepare for?

INSLEE: Well, it's like much of the bombast, gas coming out of the White House.

I doubt that will actually happen, but it is a threat that we should not accept, because this is one of the oldest voter suppression things, frankly, used in the Southern states during the Jim Crow era and right up to the recent period, where you make the polling places look like the jails to try to intimidate people that they shouldn't go there.

And this is used. It was part of the racial animus and strategy to suppress the black vote in many places, and this is just a continuation of it. And what is so galling is the president has essentially confessed that that is his motivation.

So we do need judicial relief on this. We need people to speak up. We need Republicans to speak up and confront this president.

BLITZER: The Democratic National Convention, as you know, wrapped up last night with Joe Biden accepting the presidential nomination. And Democrats made this all about character.

But President Trump won in 2016 with many voters prioritizing his policies over the character argument. So do you think this election will be different?

INSLEE: Well, listen, it's not just character.

And I'm excited about Joe Biden's character to bring integrity and stability, and I think people are longing for that right now. But the policies that we are fighting for are so broadly applicable, starting with health care.

Look, we're in the middle of a COVID pandemic. We have had a president who is totally AWOL. He's absent without leave. He has refused to adopt national leadership. As a result, we have over hundreds of thousands of people who have died of this.

And what is his principal action? He wants to dismantle Obamacare and take away health care from tens of thousands of people in my state, people who depend on this to get health care. We're going to win on the health care effort. We're going to win on the COVID pandemic.

We're going to win on the economy. So we are happy to have those policy debates, and I'm glad we have got Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to push them. I thought the convention was great, seeing Americans from all over the country. It warmed my heart.

BLITZER: Well, there will be three presidential debates, one vice presidential debate. We will see what happens over these next 70-plus days.

Governor Inslee, as usual, thanks so much for joining us. Good luck over there.

INSLEE: Thank you.

BLITZER: And stay safe.

INSLEE: You, too.

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