Rep. Steve Cohen: Under Trump ‘America No Longer Has Values’

On Friday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Newsroom,” Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) said the country under the leadership of the Trump administration “no longer has values.”

Cohen said, “This man from the first day he went into office, he wanted to have an alternative foreign policy where Jared Kushner wanted a special back-channel communication to Russia that no one would know about. Now he’s got Giuliani running a backchannel, improper foreign policy to get dirt on his political officials. You throw in an obstruction of Congress. You throw in obstruction of justice for Mueller. This is just a lawless administration that knows no restraint.”

He continued, “I’ve seen the obstruction. Mick Mulvaney— subpoenas are under power of law — when people refuse to comply with subpoenas and the administration says we’re not going to comply with anything, they are flaunting their noses at the respective article one powers. And to me, that’s clear as the nose on one’s face. And there is no reason to dance around it. This is a lawless administration that doesn’t respect the Constitution.”

He added, “I want there to be an impeachment, which is a power Congress has, of a man who has violated the Constitution. I took an oath. He took an oath. I support my oath. He does not. The American public needs to understand we’re not dealing with a gray area here. This is a black and white violation of the Constitution and a lawless president who has done everything he can to keep the public’s mind away from his involvement with Russia, his involvement with trying to change foreign policy for his own political good and destroying our reputation around the world where the rule of law and democracy which is what people respect America for and now we’re not doing it. As Mr. Kent said, we condemn countries that use political prosecutions all over the world. This was America’s values. America no longer has values. We only have interests, and foreign policy is supposed to be a combination thereof.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN

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