WILMINGTON, Del. – U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, today joined CNN's New Day to discuss the recent block of President Trump’s travel ban by federal judges in Hawaii and Maryland, as well as the President’s budget proposal.

“I think President Trump is struggling to make the transition from campaigning to governing. And he's beginning to learn that words matter. How he describes something is going to be taken into account by members of Congress when we look at his deep budget cuts, and by members of federal courts; now a federal court from Hawaii and one from Maryland as they review the intentions behind his actions,” said Senator Coons. “I think it's striking that last night at a campaign-style rally in Nashville, President Trump said that this decision makes us weaker. I actually think it makes us stronger when the world sees that the most powerful man in our country, the President, can have his executive orders restrained by federal judges.”

“President Trump's own Secretary of Defense, Secretary Mattis, when he was a general said that if you significantly cut funding for the State Department and foreign assistance, you'll have to give the military more bullets, because it will simply make the world a more dangerous place,” said Senator Coons. “And to dramatically increase spending on defense and significantly cut spending on the diplomats and development professionals who often work hand in glove with our Defense Department in difficult and dangerous parts of the world like Iraq and Afghanistan is unwise. I think it shows an over-reliance on the military and an under-appreciation of the power and effectiveness of diplomacy.”

Video and audio available here.

Excerpts from the interview:

Senator Coons on recent block of President Trump's travel ban by Maryland federal judge: “Well, I think President Trump is struggling to make the transition from campaigning to governing. And he's beginning to learn that words matter. How he describes something is going to be taken into account by members of Congress when we look at his deep budget cuts, and by members of federal courts; now a federal court from Hawaii and one from Maryland as they review the intentions behind his actions. I think it's striking that last night at a campaign-style rally in Nashville, President Trump said that this decision makes us weaker. I actually think it makes us stronger when the world sees that the most powerful man in our country, the President, can have his executive orders restrained by federal judges. None of us, I think, can predict exactly what higher courts will do with these judicial decisions by two district courts, but I think it's important to remember that President Trump challenging sitting federal judges as being politically motivated doesn't help his cause.”

Senator Coons on the intentions behind President Trump's travel ban: “Well, that's a good summary of the position of folks who support President Trump. I'll tell you that as a sitting member of the Senate who has participated in hearings where we reviewed the vetting procedures for refugees, very very few refugees are coming into the United States from countries where we perceive there is a threat as you mentioned in the previous section. The Department of Homeland Security recently released a report that these seven countries, now six countries, that are part of the new Muslim ban by the Trump administration, refugees from those countries pose very little threat. There are no documented cases of refugees from those countries engaging in terrorist acts against the United States. So, part of these judicial barriers to proceeding with the ban, a part of these decisions, rests on not just words said by President Trump and his senior aides, but also the assessment of risk from these countries and the process by which these countries were chosen. I'd say in counter to your main point there that we've already got thorough vetting in place for the countries from which refugees might come to the United States, and the extreme vetting and anti-Muslim ban proposals that President Trump made such a big deal of in his campaign is now carrying over into how he is governing.”

Senator Coons on President Trump's budget proposal: “Well, President Trump's own Secretary of Defense, Secretary Mattis, when he was a general said that if you significantly cut funding for the State Department and foreign assistance, you'll have to give the military more bullets, because it will simply make the world a more dangerous place. And to dramatically increase spending on defense and significantly cut spending on the diplomats and development professionals who often work hand in glove with our Defense Department in difficult and dangerous parts of the world like Iraq and Afghanistan is unwise. I think it shows an over-reliance on the military and an under-appreciation of the power and effectiveness of diplomacy. I'm also really concerned about deep cuts to the Department of Agriculture, the Department of EPA, programs that help make sure that our water is clean and our air is clear, things that protect the health of average American families all over the country.” 

Senator Coons on the lack of cuts to entitlements in the budget proposal: “Well, it is striking. That is a real departure from Republican orthodoxy, but you do see moving it's way through the House an ACA repeal and replace plan from Speaker Ryan that does include significant cuts to Medicaid. So, there may be entitlement cuts coming from the Republican leadership in the House to match up with these significant spending cuts on domestic priorities and programs.”

Senator Coons on President Trump's wiretapping accusations and what may come out in Comey's letter: “Of course there's a chance, but I just want to compliment Republican leaders on the Judiciary Committee, both Senator Lindsey Graham and Senator Chuck Grassley, President Trump made this unfounded dramatic charge against his predecessor, President Obama, that he was wiretapped during the campaign in a 6AM tweet a number of weeks ago right after Attorney General Sessions was revealed to have testified untruthfully to the Judiciary Committee and he'd been compelled to recuse himself from an ongoing investigation. I personally think that President Trump was trying to change the subject. And now several senior Republicans in the House and the Senate have said, there's nothing to these allegations. But, the President challenged the Congress to step up and investigate this, and so that's what we're doing on a bipartisan basis. And the insistence, the rigor and persistence with which both Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House Intelligence Committee have pursued this I think is important, because it means we're going to get to the bottom of it. It is possible that there's something neither President Trump nor the relevant agencies have produced so far, but I think we need to get to the bottom of this so we can move forward. Same thing with the allegations of Russian interference in the campaign through collusion with the Trump campaign. We need to get to the bottom of this. There's a lot of smoke, but there's no clear evidence yet of any fire and I think we need to resolve these issues so we can move forward. It's just one more example of President Trump learning that words matter, that you shouldn't throw out dramatic accusations in an early morning tweet without backing it up.”

###