If President Trump leaves office in January, what happens next?
In today’s Congressional Corner, Massachusetts Congressman Jim McGovern, a Democrat from the second district, wraps up his conversation with WAMC’s Alan Chartock.
This conversation was recorded October 15.
Alan Chartock: Jim McGovern, here we are in the Congressional Corner. I always love having you because you don't hold anything back. And that's what I think is just terrific. Let's just say Trump loses. I know there are a lot of Democrats who are calling into our programs and saying we have to let him off the hook in order to get some kind of unity in this country. But there are those of us who think he's responsible for 10s of thousands of deaths. Why shouldn’t he be held accountable for that? And anything else he may have done? Would you be opposed to criminal prosecution?
Representative Jim McGovern: No, no. I mean, I'm not here to say, I can't I'm not a lawyer, and I'm not a judge. Like, I can't tell you definitively that these are all the things that he is guilty of. I mean, that's obviously something that needs to be determined. But putting the COVID mismanagement aside, I mean, the corruption, the issues he has with his taxes, where he hasn't paid any taxes, and in all the money he owes, and, and how did he get bailed out of debt? I mean, you know, those are things that, quite frankly were fair game before he became president, and continue to be fair game. Just because he was president doesn't mean he gets to do whatever the hell he wants to do and he can avoid any responsibility. If you or I committed a crime, we would be held accountable. People wouldn't say, oh, just for the sake of unity, let's let these guys off. In our system, nobody is supposed to be above the law. He obviously thinks he is. And whether or not there’s criminality that can be brought forward in a court of law and prosecuted, that's something that others are going to have to decide. But the notion that he should just get a blank slate, and no matter what he's done in the past, we don't even know what he's done in the past. We do know, that right now, with all of his properties there has been story after story, you know, the world's leading dictators and foreigners have spent enormous amounts of money to enrich him. I think that's a violation of the Constitution and the Emoluments Clause, but what are they getting in return? And so there's lot of stuff here that needs to be unpacked. But I would be opposed to a blanket amnesty or a blanket pardon for anything that he has done. That is wrong. And by the way, even if you gave him a blanket pardon, that doesn't apply to state courts. And you know, New York has a case, right now that they're pursuing against him that may be criminals, so that wouldn't protect him from that.
What do you think about the Kennedy Markey result in that election? People thought it'd be close. It wasn't. Markey won big. But do you have any assessment about that?
Yeah, I mean, look, I mean, I think yeah, I mean, I endorsed Markey early on. I mean, he's my friend and we share a lot of the same views on the environment and on a lot of other issues. But Joe Kennedy is a dear friend of mine and I think he's got a great future. And I, in retrospect, I wish this race never happened. But it did and I think we have to look at the results. You know, there's some interesting things that we've learned. Joe Kennedy did well, in areas where there are large minority populations, and where there are people who are struggling in poverty. Those were his strong points. Markey did well, amongst Democrats who were, quite frankly, more affluent. We have to figure out a way to make sure that our party doesn't splinter like that. We got to figure out as we move forward, how we bring those factions together so that the results are more holistic for whoever wins. But I respect them both. And I'm a sponsor for the green New Deal, along with Ed Markey. And I think the people spoke pretty clearly that they want to have his leadership continue. And I think that's an important statement. But I also think that Joe Kennedy got a bum rap when people tried to portray him as some kind of right wing conservative. When Joe first got elected, I was assigned to be his mentor in Congress. And I've watched him over the years, but he's been out front and the champion LBGQ rights and transgender rights, that really, it's really quite admirable, given the fact that he took these issues on, especially with regards to transgender rights when it wasn't so popular. And so he's a good man, and I hope he has a future in politics or in public service, because he's a good man. And so I'm thrilled that Ed won but I also am a fan of Joe's and I think they're both good, good people.
Let's shift to the Biden campaign. How's he doing? You know, he's getting fairly quiet. There are those who think you should be more out there, more active, more in people's faces a la Donald Trump. On the other hand, he's leading by at least 10 points in all the national polls. What do you make of it?
So I suspect that that lead is much tighter than the polls indicate. You know, what we learned from Hillary Clinton's race is that the polls were pretty accurate on the natural race. I mean, maybe she lost a point or two, on the popular vote, based on what the poll says she's still won by close to 3 million votes. But those statewide polls were a little bit off. And, you know, Trump's strategy is to register more and more white voters without a college degree, who he thinks are more likely to vote for him. And so the one thing we know about Trump supporters, they may be a minority in terms of the population in this country, but they will vote for him, no matter what. They will show up in a blizzard, a tornado, a monsoon, they will just show up and vote. We have to make sure that our voters have the same attitude in this election. And as we've talked about this before, our system of government, our democratic institutions are at stake here. It's more than this is different from the usual Democrat versus Democrat versus Republican presidential race. I mean, this is about things like freedom of the press, whether we have a justice system that works for the people in this country, and not as a president’s, personal lawyer. This is about decency. This is about human rights and civil rights, and about really the goodness of this country. And so the stakes have never been higher. And so people who think they want change, they have to get out and vote, like they've never voted before.
You think Mr. Biden is doing what he should be doing, in terms of getting out there and motivating those people?
Well, I mean, if I were running for president, I would maybe do things a little bit differently. But I'm not I'm a McGovern who couldn’t even win Massachusetts. So I think that he is following the best advice of his campaign consultants and managers, he is showing up. What I do admire about what he's doing is he's setting an example during this pandemic, which I think is the responsible thing to do. And I think he's counting on people rewarding responsible behavior, and having competence as somebody who understands the severity of this pandemic, and who is leading by example. And so, he's doing well in the polls, I think they're closer than they probably show in terms of what's being published. But I think he's behaving in a way that I think people are responding positively to.
We are out of time. I want to thank you, Jim McGovern, as always, for coming on and speaking your mind. Great to have you here and I hope you'll continue to come back. You know, Donald Trump asked women he said, I'm begging you to vote for me, and I'm begging you to keep coming back.
I'll keep coming back. But thank you so much, and be safe.
