Democratic Presidential Candidates Want Tougher Gun Laws; Rep. Eric Swalwell Is Interviewed About Gun Laws, Impeachment And Epstein's Death
CABRERA: Well, the majority of 2020 Democratic hopefuls are in Iowa this weekend demanding action on gun control in the wake of back-to- back deadly mass shootings. Take a listen.</s>JULIAN CASTRO (D-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I would maximize the executive authority because we know that we may face a Congress, a Senate that is still led by Mitch McConnell.</s>PETE BUTTIGIEG (D-IN), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If more guns on the street made everybody safer, we'd be the safest country in the world.</s>BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Assault weapons are not weapons used by the overwhelming majority of hunters. These are weapons designed to kill human beings in a rapid way.</s>JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Who in god's name needs a weapon that can handle 100 rounds? For god's sake.</s>CABRERA: 2020 candidate Beto O'Rourke did not attend the Iowa gun forum in person so he could be at the funerals of shooting victims in his hometown of El Paso. He told CNN's Jake Tapper this morning that President Trump's re-tweeting of a baseless conspiracy theory on accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein's death is intended to distract.</s>BETO O'ROURKE (D-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He's changing the conversation and if we allow him to do that, then we will never be able to focus on the true problems of which he is a part, and make sure we get to the solutions. And whether that means legislation that keeps guns out of the hands of those who shouldn't have it or focusing on domestic terrorism of white supremacists that his own FBI director warned us about. And then you reported this week that his Department of Homeland Security has been begging the president to focus on the kinds of threats that we saw in El Paso and he's ignored them or willfully suppressed action on those ideas and those programs and those policies that could have saved lives in El Paso and across the country.</s>CABRERA: I want to bring in a former member of the crowded 2020 Democratic field, California Congressman Eric Swalwell. Congressman, good to see you. Thanks for being here.</s>REP. ERIC SWALWELL (D-CA): You too. Good afternoon, Ana. Thanks for having me back.</s>CABRERA: You just heard what a lot of your former rivals are saying about gun control. Here's what you told me back in June when you were still running for president.</s>SWALWELL: And I stood today in front of gun violence survivors, trauma surgeons, community leaders, people from Chicago, Houston, Indiana and from all over our country who are saying enough is enough. Not only are we going to ban and buy back assault weapons under my plan. I'm the only candidate calling for that. We're also going to invest in the root causes of gun violence in many of our cities like just a lack of education and jobs or gang violence prevention programs. But also put in place a licensing requirement and an insurance requirement. Again, we believe we're the only campaign calling for an insurance requirement on all firearm purchases in America.</s>CABRERA: Congressman, I know how passionate you are about this issue. You built your campaign on the issue of gun violence and what to do about it. Do you feel like you may have dropped out of the 2020 race too early given this renewed focus now on this issue?</s>SWALWELL: No, I feel great being out of the race. I'm sorry that, you know, I did have to leave it, but when there was no longer a path and it was only about, you know, just making the debate stage and not about winning, it didn't seem right to stay in. But the issue persists and I want to tell you that clip you just showed was before the Democratic debate. And at the Democratic debate, I was able to get Vice President Biden and Senator Sanders to agree that we should have, not just a ban on assault weapons, but a buyback. But a moment occurred on the commercial break during the debate that I'll never forget and I think says everything about this. My guest was Fred Guttenberg whose daughter Jamie died at Parkland. And he sat there holding my wife's hand as she nervously watched. And on the last commercial break when guns have not been brought up yet, I saw Fred jump out of his seat and run over to Rachel Maddow and Chuck Todd and he was shouting something and security tackled him and took him back to his seat. And I walked to the end of the stage and said, Fred, what the hell is going on? What are you doing over there? And he said, Eric, they're not talking about guns. They need to ask you guys a question about guns. And fortunately, they did, but I think Fred represents all of us that this debate for the presidential campaign has to be about guns. It has to be a top tier issue. And, sadly, because of what continues to happen, it finally is.</s>CABRERA: Well, which of the 2020 candidates currently running has the best plan to address gun violence?</s>SWALWELL: I really admire, you know, Cory Booker for putting out a comprehensive plan. Elizabeth Warren just in the last 48 hours put out a plan. The vice president has called for a ban and also a buyback. I think it's important to have the buyback component. And then Kamala Harris who I've worked with in the same district attorney's office, Alameda County District Attorney's Office, she gets this issue and has a good plan. But the buyback is an important component because it recognizes that if we ban assault weapons, that only bans future sales, but a buyback would take the 15 million that are on our streets off our streets immediately and keep us all safe where we gather.</s>CABRERA: Are you ready to endorse anybody yet in the 2020 race?</s>SWALWELL: No, I'm still watching. I enjoy watching as a member of Congress who will work with the next president and also as a father who worries about his own children. I have a son in preschool and, you know, I think about things that my parents did not think about when I dress my son and send him off to school every day. And that's, you know, whether he's going to be safe, whether he's going to come home. You get that call from the school now and you no longer worry that, you know, he had like a small accident on the playground. You worry that a shooter may have come to the school. And that's every parent's real right now in America. And we don't have to live that way.</s>CABRERA: You sit on the House Judiciary Committee where the question of impeachment still looms. Here's what Chairman Jerry Nadler had to say just a few days ago.</s>REP. JERRY NADLER (D-NY), CHAIRMAN, HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: This is formal impeachment proceedings. We are investigating all the evidence. We're gathering the evidence. And we will, at the conclusion of this, hopefully by the end of the year, vote to -- vote Articles of Impeachment to the House floor, or we won't. That's a decision that we'll have to make. But that's exactly the process we're in right now.</s>CABRERA: And here's reaction from Gerry Connolly, a member of the House Oversight and Reform Committee. Listen to this.</s>REP. GERRY CONNOLLY (D-VA): I'm not quite sure what Chairman Nadler meant because we have not launched a formal impeachment inquiry in the United States Congress.</s>CABRERA: Congressman, are you aware of a formal impeachment inquiry or proceeding?</s>SWALWELL: Well, the House Judiciary Committee is undergoing an impeachment investigation. And, you know, what's clear here is that there are a number of remedies for the president's lawless conduct. The most extraordinary remedy of course is impeachment. There could be censure. There could be other remedies that we put forward. But the only way to recommend a remedy to the whole House would be for us to undergo what we're doing right now. You know, there's only been three other an impeachment inquiry or investigations in the history of our country. They all occurred in different ways, you know. And so this is, as far as I'm concerned and as far as the chairman is concerned, an investigation and impeachment is one of the remedies that we may recommend.</s>CABRERA: Well, why not make it official and call it a formal impeachment inquiry? I mean, Jerry Nadler seemed to go there, but it hasn't been announced in that way.</s>SWALWELL: Well, we're calling it an impeachment investigation. You know, the constitution doesn't provide any mechanism for undergoing the investigation that we're doing. There's no prescription that you have to follow or that is laid out. Each congress has done it in a different way. The most important thing here, though, is that this president's conduct is no longer going unchecked. And doing nothing as far as I'm concerned and others are concerned would only see more lawlessness, and it would set a low are standard for future presidents. And we don't want either of those to occur.</s>CABRERA: Finally, I know you're there in Las Vegas for DEF CON this weekend. I want to ask you about something you talked about earlier today when you weighed in about the conspiracy theory and those that are being spread about Jeffrey Epstein's death on social media. You said it reminds you of third world countries. Congressman, was your comment referring to President Trump?</s>SWALWELL: My comment was certainly referring to President Trump re- tweeting a conspiracy theory, but this president has really, I think, diminished the faith that people have in institutions and he's really peddling conspiracy theories. And I actually think your colleague, Jim Sciutto, characterized it best yesterday in a tweet that he put out that said, you know, this reminded him of the Middle East where there was a lack of trust in government, and every time an event happened, people always questioned whether the government was really telling them the truth. And I think that's where the president has really reduced the debate to in our country. And it also is -- Congressman O'Rourke has noted, he's trying to take our eyes off of what is really important, like gun violence. You see that he tweeted at Anthony Scaramucci yesterday. You know, he continues to tweet at Vice President Biden about, you know, just nonsense. And he's tweeting about conspiracy theories. It really leaves you with the question of, who is leading the country.</s>CABRERA: Congressman Eric Swalwell, we'll leave it there. Thank you very much.</s>SWALWELL: Thanks, Ana.</s>CABRERA: New details on how an unarmed 65-year-old man tackled a gunman who opened fire inside a mosque in Norway, next.