Sen. Chris Murphy says "ending the war in Iran" will be his top priority in questions to Rubio

[0:00] And we're back now with Connecticut Democratic Senator Chris Murphy. He is the author of a new [0:05] book, Crisis of the Common Good, The Fight for Meaning and Connection in a Broken America. [0:11] He joins us from Hartford, Connecticut. Good morning to you, Senator. [0:16] Good morning. [0:17] I want to talk about your book in a moment, but just to pick up on where we left it with [0:20] President Zelensky. Do you believe that there is enough bipartisan support to press the Pentagon [0:28] to reallocate some of these patriots so he can take down all the incoming Russian missiles? [0:36] Yeah, I doubt it, unfortunately. I think the story here has been pretty simple from the start. [0:43] Donald Trump does not want to do what is necessary to support Ukraine, [0:47] and the Republican Party will always follow his lead. We've had a bipartisan sanctions bill sitting [0:53] on the Senate floor for a year and a half that would tighten the screws on the Russian economy, [0:58] make it harder for them to fund the war. Donald Trump has basically had a veto on that bill. [1:04] He won't allow Senate Republicans to bring it forward. He's been sitting on $400 million [1:10] that Congress allocated to help Ukraine. He hasn't spent a dime of it, despite protests [1:15] loudly, publicly and privately, from Senate Republicans. So I just think ultimately Donald Trump has decided [1:21] he does not want to help Ukraine. And there doesn't seem to be enough courage in the Republican [1:27] caucus to fight back. I mean, I hope I'm wrong about that. This is obviously a critical moment [1:32] where Ukraine actually looks like it is about to be able to take a real offensive position. And so [1:38] I'm rooting that they will finally stand up to the president on this. [1:43] To your point, on the $400 million, Hegseth, the Secretary of War, said that that was to be released, [1:48] but we haven't seen anything more. I know you sit on the Appropriations Committee, so you have a chance [1:52] to ask some of these questions, potentially, of Secretary Rubio when he sits before you on, [1:57] I believe, Wednesday, asking for a $33.6 billion budget. What's the top priority when you do get [2:04] to ask questions of the secretary? Well, the top priority is ending the war in Iran. This has been [2:12] an absolute disaster for the United States. Obviously, the primary impact is here at home. As [2:18] families and businesses are being ruined by gas prices, they're $6 a gallon in some places. [2:23] But it's just been a humiliation for the United States. And it's made Iran more powerful. Of [2:30] course, there's an impact in Russia as well. We've had to suspend sanctions on Russian oil in order [2:35] to get their oil on the market. So the consequence of the Iran war is not just that Americans are [2:41] dying, that prices are going up, but Russia is also getting more powerful. We're literally funding [2:47] their war efforts. So we need the Iran war to end. There's been this talk of a deal for months and [2:52] months. I think the terms of the deal are pretty humiliating in and of themselves. But we just [2:58] need this war done no matter the terms at this point. On the point about the sanctions, we talked [3:04] about President Zelensky, and you can see that full transcript online. But I know that the White [3:10] House pushes back and says the money isn't that significant in terms of what Russia is able to [3:16] pocket. You obviously disagree. Yeah, I mean, I just think from a moral perspective, [3:23] no matter whether the money is a difference maker, the idea that we are helping Russia fund this war [3:30] is ridiculous. It's not small potatoes. Russia is getting billions of additional dollars because of [3:38] our sanctions relief. That's allowing them to buy some of the missiles that are on the verge of raining [3:45] down on Kyiv. People are dying because of our help for Russia. So it's just bad enough that the [3:51] Strait of Hormuz is closed and it's hurting our economy. The fact that we are adding insult to [3:56] injury by the war in Iran helping Russia is just unacceptable. You have written this book that [4:02] we mentioned. And I know that you said about it in a recent interview that 2028 Democratic contenders [4:08] are texting you, talking to you about some of the ideas in it. Some of our recent CBS polling found [4:15] that 62 percent of registered voters view the Democratic Party in a negative light. So how do you [4:22] take these ideas and what's the main one Democrats need to hammer home to redirect the party? [4:30] This book is really about the spiritual crisis in the country that led to Donald Trump. This is a [4:35] country that is feeling more lonely, more adrift, more exhausted by an economy that abuses workers, [4:41] a culture in which we tell people that they can make themselves happy by just buying things instead [4:47] of, you know, being active citizens. And so it's a book about the underlying work that we have to do [4:52] to unrig the economy so that people feel purpose and value and unrig our democracy so that people [4:58] feel power. And that's what the book really is about, the emotional state of the country. [5:03] Here's what I think Democrats need to do. They need to understand that people are furious at the [5:08] fact that our politics have become captured and people are feeling out of control of their lives [5:13] because they think we're all corrupt. They don't think Donald Trump is just corrupt. They think [5:17] everybody in politics is corrupt. So Democrats need to be much louder about the ways that we're going to [5:23] get billionaire and corporate money out of our politics because people don't believe us when we [5:29] say we're going to fix the economy if we don't also tell them how we're going to fix [5:32] our democracy. Okay. Well, to that point about spirit and character, the campaign for Graham [5:38] Platner confirmed to CBS on Saturday that the main Senate candidate had sent sexually explicit text [5:45] to women other than his wife. This is in addition to other past controversies. Does he pass the [5:53] character test? Yeah. I mean, I have not followed this story as closely as others have. But I mean, [6:02] Graham Platner is somebody that served our country. He served his community. He's also made mistakes. [6:08] And he has admitted that character also involves standing up to people who are bankrupting and [6:18] corrupting this country. And this race is going to be a contrast between somebody that has put his life [6:23] on the line for this country against somebody that is literally empowering the moral hollowing out of [6:33] our nation from the White House. So he certainly admitted that he has made mistakes. But I think [6:39] this is going to be a pretty clear contrast in Maine between somebody who has spent his life protecting us [6:45] versus somebody who seems to be protecting Donald Trump's corruption. Well, you know, I want to ask you [6:52] as well about an interview that aired right before this program with my colleague Rita Braver on CBS Sunday [6:56] morning. She interviewed the former First Lady Jill Biden about the new book she wrote in which she talks [7:02] about the infamous 2024 debate where the then president really couldn't answer questions. She says a lot of [7:11] things, including that she thought her husband was having a stroke because she he was incomprehensible. [7:17] She admits that she said to him afterwards that he's really screwed up. But that's what she's revealing [7:23] now. Democrats stridently, including on this program, said time and again that his cognitive abilities [7:32] were fine. How do you convince the public that Democrats are telling the truth now? [7:38] Yeah, listen, I think Democrats do have to be honest about the mistakes that we made in 2024. [7:47] Obviously, in retrospect, Joe Biden should have stepped away from that race. We should have had an open contest. [7:54] And in this book, I frankly talk about, you know, how tribal our politics have become, [7:59] how Republicans are willing to excuse Donald Trump's corruption because their entire identity structure [8:04] is built around their party. [8:07] And I think that happens on the Democratic side as well, where we are willing to look the other way [8:12] too often at mistakes that our own party leaders are making. And this book says that that's, you know, [8:18] not just up to politics to fix, that we actually have to create more healthy identity structures for [8:23] people outside of politics so they see their purpose through their work or through their connection to [8:29] a local community. That makes our politics less tribal and maybe allows us on both sides to stand up to [8:35] our party when we think they've gone wrong. [8:36] All right. Senator Murphy, we have to leave it there. Thank you for your insights today.