Cory Booker in CNN "State of the Union" interviews during 2019
On Energy & Oil:
Incentivize farmers that help them enrich environment
Q: What is your climate plan?BOOKER: Climate is not a separate issue. It is an everyday mission. That means every one of my departments, every one of my agencies, every one of my cabinet members has to be coming up with an aggressive climate plan.
Making sure that we're setting standards to put ourselves on a mission to have zero emission electricity by 2030 and a carbon neutral country by 2045. We can do these things.
Q: How will your plan support the domestic agriculture industr
BOOKER: My plan is going to have farmers be incentivized through hundreds of billions of dollars. Whether that's cover crops that are going to pull carbon out of the air or ranching practices that help to preserve the soil and minimize the
carbon footprint, we can do this and farmers don't get hurt by that. Family farmers will create new sources of revenue by doing practices that preserve our heritage, enrich our environment, and help deal with this larger crisis.
Source: Climate Crisis Town Hall (CNN 2019 Democratic primary)
Sep 4, 2019
On Environment:
Get politics out of Federal aid for natural disasters
Much of what I'm going to do is going to be about climate resiliency. Making investments making sure that communities are not as susceptible to flooding. Making sure that we're investing in emergency preparedness and not have the kind of backwards
reality where every time there's a natural disaster, you have to work through Washington politics just to get the resources a community needs. I will set up permanent funds to make sure that politicians aren't making this decision.
Source: Climate Crisis Town Hall (CNN 2019 Democratic primary)
Sep 4, 2019
On Gun Control:
Yes on red flag law, but nowhere near enough
Q: Would you support a red flag law as a stand-alone bill? Isn't something better than nothing? BOOKER: Red flag laws, yes, they're important, but they're nowhere near enough to stop these rising levels of mass shootings. We have to do more.
The American public should demand more. And, frankly, things like background checks are overwhelmingly supported by gun owners. The fact that we're not doing that is a failure of leadership.
Source: CNN State of the Union interview for 2019 Democratic primary
Aug 11, 2019
On Jobs:
Supports $15 minimum wage; pays campaign staff at least that
Q: You support a $15-an-hour minimum wage. Do you pay your campaign staff that? BOOKER: You know, we have said in our campaign that we're not only going to pay our campaign staff that, but we're going to pay interns as well. Not only do we pay our
campaign staff wages that reflect what my values are, but we actually make sure that we have inclusive campaigns, diverse campaigns.
Q: So it's $15 an hour minimum?
BOOKER: It's $15 an hour or more than that, yes.
Source: CNN "SOTU" 2019 on 2020 candidates
Jul 21, 2019
On Gun Control:
I'm bringing a fight against the corporate gun lobby
If you want someone who's going to take a fight to the corporate gun lobby, take a fight against apathy and indifference, take a fight against the NRA, then I'm your person. I'm an African American male.
We're 6 percent of the nation's population, but we make up over 50 percent of the gun violence victims. This is something that's going on all around our nation. Enough is enough. I'm bringing a fight to this. And we will win this fight.
Source: CNN "SOTU" 2019 interview series
Jun 2, 2019
On Gun Control:
Evidence-based laws can lower gun violence
I have a comprehensive plan that people say is bold. It's not bold. It's commonsense, evidence-based things that we can do to lower gun violence. You have taken a look at the 16, 17 things we have in my plan that would drop the levels of
violence overall, from one-handgun- a-month laws, all the way to investing in the kind of mental health and the kind of community empowerment strategies that would do something about it.
Source: CNN SOTU 2019 interview of presidential hopefuls
Jun 2, 2019
On Gun Control:
As with civil rights, we can build coalitions for gun laws
This echoes to me the civil rights movement, where people said it couldn't be done, that there were states that were standing firmly against it. But you know what happened is, we had the kind of coalitions necessary to tear down segregation.
We could muster that to do commonsense things that do not take away people's Second Amendment rights. The only people that should be afraid of the kind of legislation I'm pushing are gun runners, criminals, and the corporate gun lobby.
Source: CNN State of the Union 2019 interview
Jun 2, 2019
On Principles & Values:
Trump undermines constitutional intent: no one above the law
Q: After special counsel Robert Mueller spoke this week, you tweeted that Congress should begin impeachment proceedings immediately against President Trump. What made you change your thinking?
BOOKER: It was seeing a president who wants to undermine constitutional intent. He has not been complying with subpoenas. He has not been complying with legitimate congressional inquiries to continue the investigation that
Mueller very specifically said it's on Congress now to continue. This president is not above the law. He should not be able to stop the checks and balances on the executive.
And I feel like we have a moral obligation now to investigate this president.
Source: CNN "SOTU" 2019 interview on impeaching Trump
Jun 2, 2019
On Principles & Values:
Supports impeachment investigation necessary to get to truth
Q: What about impeachment?BOOKER: It was a few weeks of seeing a president who wants to undermine constitutional intent and say that he's above the law. He has not been complying with subpoenas.
He has not been complying with legitimate congressional inquiries to continue the investigation that Mueller very specifically said it's on Congress to continue after he clearly indicated that there is potential corruption and obstruction of justice.
This president is not above the law. He should not be able to stop the checks and balances on the executive. I feel like we have a moral obligation now to investigate this president.
Impeachment proceedings will give us more legal leverage to get the information Congress needs to get to the bottom of what his administration has done while they're in office.
Source: CNN State of the Union 2019 interview on impeaching Trump
Jun 2, 2019
On Foreign Policy:
Support our allies, not our enemies
Of course, I will meet with our enemies, but I will meet with them under the right conditions, using every bit of leverage I have to focus in on the goal, articulating a strategy for getting there.
Our allies are beginning to question our commitment to fundamental democratic values when you have a president that seems to buddy up with Chairman Kim or Duterte or Putin more than friends, people that are critical allies we need in our trade deals.
Source: CNN SOTU 2019 interview of presidential hopefuls
May 5, 2019
On Health Care:
Support Medicare for All but do what's possible now
We have a system that's designed more towards the back end of problems, when they're more expensive, the hospital emergency room, dealing with things when they become acute, not dealing with them in preventative care. I stand by supporting
Medicare for all, but I'm also a pragmatist, I'm going to find the immediate things that we can do, because we're not going to pull health insurance from 150 Americans who have private insurance who like their insurance.
Source: CNN SOTU 2019 interview of presidential hopefuls
May 5, 2019
Page last updated: Jan 12, 2020