State of the Union: Interview With Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT)

Interview

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Yes, thanks for having me.

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Well, listen, the economy is booming right now.

You're talking about unemployment under 4 percent. You're seeing a reduction in inflation that's outpacing all of our other global competitors, GDP rising. One of the stunning statistics from the second quarter is that, A, GDP grew by 2.5 percent, but 25 percent of that growth was due to factory construction.

And so that means that this isn't just a short-term improvement in the economy. We are bringing back manufacturing jobs. We are going to be putting people back to work in jobs that have real wages, pensions, benefits. That's a transformation of the economy, not just a Band-Aid.

But I get it. People listened to Donald Trump say that he was going to reindustrialize the economy, that he was going to bring back manufacturing jobs, and he didn't. And so there is a skepticism from the American electorate that presidents who say that they're serious about bringing good jobs back are going to do it.

But I think, as you continue to see these repeated quarters, these repeated good news stories about the American economy being transformed and people getting back to work, that Joe Biden's going to get credit for that. He should, because we are seeing an absolute revolution of our economy right now, the kind of good-paying jobs that used to be the foundation of America coming back.

And that's Joe Biden's policies.

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I have not spoken to him directly about the incident, but he was on the floor. Thursday was a long day in the Senate completing the defense bill. He looked like the old Mitch McConnell. My sense is, he is very much still in control of that caucus.

And, though he certainly had a health scare, my sense is that he's back up on his feet and he is going to be able to lead the Republican Conference very ably going forward

No question I have a lot of disagreements with Mitch McConnell, but he has been one of the more effective leaders of the Republican Conference in my lifetime. And I expect that that will probably continue, at least until the end of this term.

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Well, ultimately, voters in this country care about effectiveness. They care about whether a president can do the job.

I guess age is relevant if it is an indicator that a candidate isn't up to do the most important job in the world. But Joe Biden is succeeding, and succeeding at an extraordinary and historic rate.

The amount of major legislation passed by this president, the first gun violence bill in 30 years, the first major investment in clean energy, the biggest infrastructure investment in the history of this country, all of that doesn't happen without Joe Biden. He is a master legislative tactician.

He was involved in a detailed way in the passage of all of those bills. I know, because I wrote the gun bill, and I was talking to Joe Biden on a regular basis. You pair that together with this dramatic expansion of the economy, America recovering at a faster pace than all of our other high-income competitors...

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... and there is really zero evidence that Joe Biden can't do this job.

And so I don't begrudge any of my friends in Congress from considering a presidential run. And that comes with the territory.

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Yes.

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Well, I mean, Congressman Phillips can do whatever he wants. I don't think he will get very far, because the Democratic Party is pretty enthusiastic about a president who has made historic progress on a number of priorities that we have been fighting and losing on for decades before Joe Biden became president.

So, I think most incumbent presidents get some kind of primary challenge, even if it's a pretty weak one. But Joe Biden's going to be the Democratic nominee, and I don't really think anybody's going to have much of a shot at challenging him. We're going to be behind him 100 percent.

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First of all, It's just stunningly wrong. And he should know that more than anyone else, because his seat on the Supreme Court exists only because of an act passed by Congress.

It is Congress that establishes the number of justices on the Supreme Court. It is Congress that has passed in the past requirements for justices to disclose certain information.

And so it is just wrong on the facts to say that Congress doesn't have anything to do with the rules guiding the Supreme Court. In fact, from the very beginning, Congress has set those rules.

But it is even more disturbing that Alito feels the need to insert himself into a congressional debate. And it is just more evidence that these justices on the Supreme Court, these conservative justices, just see themselves as politicians. They just see themselves as a second legislative body that has just as much power and right to impose their political will on the country as Congress does.

They are going to bend the law in order to impose their right-wing view of how the country should work on the rest of us. And it's why we need to pass this commonsense ethics legislation to at least make sure we know that these guys aren't in bed having their lifestyles paid for by conservative donors, as we have unfortunately seen in these latest revelations.

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I don't have any concerns. I think this is a witch-hunt.

If Hunter Biden has broken the law, held accountable for it. I don't think he's being treated any differently than anyone else who's been accused of the crimes that he's been accused of. He's had a lot of trouble in his life. And Joe Biden has been open about it and I think has shown, as any caring father would, a lot of concern to try to help Hunter Biden recover.

But there has never been any evidence that Joe Biden has compromised his office. In fact, to the very opposite. The evidence around the allegations Republicans have made about Hunter Biden's involvement in Ukraine suggests that Joe Biden was working to root out corruption in Ukraine, as he consistently did as vice president. And I think those facts will continue to come out.

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Thanks, Kasie.

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