Booker: Trump’s ‘Dangerous Rhetoric’ Is Causing a ‘Crisis in American Government’

Wednesday on MSNBC’s “The Beat,” Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) said President Donald Trump’s “dangerous rhetoric” and “dangerous decisions” were causing “a crisis” in U.S. government.

Partial transcript as follows:

MELBER:  On the Mueller probe, last question to you. When you see the president under scrutiny for potential obstruction, the way he’s treated the DOJ and the FBI, and then you see his former aides, like this witness Sam Nunberg, openly talking about defying Muller then now saying maybe he will cooperate, do you think the president bares any responsibility for that and should publicly tell everyone to cooperate?

BOOKER: The leadership really stems from the top and we have seen the way the president has been attacking the Justice Department, attacking high level officials, from firing an FBI director to attacking Jeff Sessions, who I am no apologist for, but you see how he’s treating the rule of law and important institutional norms. He’s setting the standards of his administration and a lot of the bad behavior we’re seeing is reflective of the person at the top. So we’re in a crisis in American government right now, where you see very important institutions that the Founders knew about, from the attacks on the media and the First Amendment rights to the attacks on the rule of law, and this is all stemming from the dangerous rhetoric and the dangerous decisions that are being made in the White House that really have me worried about the long term institutional strength of our country. Which ironically is exactly what the Russians have been attempting to do, undermining the strength of our intuitions, undermining the strength of our media, and undermining our very faith in truth, and that’s something we should all be working against.

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