Brian: Brian Lehrer, on WNYC and with us now, New Jersey, Senator Cory Booker. Senator Booker, always great to have you. Welcome back to WNYC.
Booker: It's so good to be back on Brian. Thank you.
Brian: Would you like first, so our children and grandchildren and people a hundred years from now can hear it, contribute to some oral history of the experience of being under siege on Wednesday afternoon, like where you were when the Capitol was breached, and how you kept yourself safe, and what you found in your office when you got back?
Booker: I was on the 10th floor. It already was a deeply emotional and I think painful moment for a lot of people as [unintelligible 00:00:51] had [unintelligible 00:00:52] making their case subjecting to [inaudible 00:00:58].
Brian: We're having a terrible connection with your phone line at the moment, Senator. I don't know if you can hear me say this, but if there's a way to stabilize, if there's a place where you stand, where the reception is the best, or anything like that, it would be helpful.
Booker: No, I appreciate that and I hope this is better.
Brian: Sounds better so far.
Booker: Is this better? Great. I just, we had just finished the joint session. There were objections made to the state of Arizona. We returned to the Senate floor, and what was a very, I think, emotional and painful moment as we heard, senators led by Ted Cruz, make a, appeal to a halt, this tradition in our country. For the first time in American history, at the behest of a president who was trying to preserve their power, it was a very difficult point after a speech by Mitch McConnell condemning the actions of these Republicans, they were persisting. Justice, Senator Lankford, was joining in the opposition. You began to see signs that something was afoot. I watched the president, vice-president signal to Chuck Grassley to replace him on the dais and that's when I began scanning the room and seeing the panicked looks of some of those who are in charge of our safety and security.
Then things started moving, Lankford continued and the vice president was shuttled out. Chuck Grassley replaced him, and by that time, I think Lankford realized he could not continue. At that point, I was made aware, I sit with my back right to the door, that there were protestors already at that point. People scrambled quickly to try to close and lock and secure the room. You heard lots of voices, being yelled and shouting and panic ensuing amongst some. I had staffers behind me, one starts crying, as they were scrambling around, not sure where to stand in the room to assure safety. Rooms were barricaded and blocked. I remained seated and tried to, with others, talk calmly to the staffers that seemed to be very panicked.
The situation grew more tense, and after a while, perhaps 10, 15, 20 minutes, maybe more, you could see people starting to try to work out how they were going to get us out of that room safely. Eventually, they made the decision to exit us out of a backroom, behind where the presiding-- the person who presides over the Senate was. They started exiting people out of the room. I knew that this, in itself, with some of my colleagues older in years, was going to be difficult. I remained in the back, continuing to watch doors that were-- There were not that many people there to secure our flank, should anybody break through, as I watched folks get out. Eventually, I joined the people in leaving. We went down a stairwell.
As I was getting ready to go down the stairwell, I saw a police officer or law enforcement in a pretty significant gear but was limping. I asked him what happened and he got, "I got hit in the leg." That was a moment I knew that the danger was heightened. As soon as I got down to steps into the tunnels, I saw another officer in serious pain with having been hit in the face by a projectile of some sort. I ran over to him to ask him how he was, and when people saw me tending to him, other officers came to that person's aid. I continued down very long tunnels, under the Capitol into the Senate office buildings where we were sheltered into a room and held there for a while. Eventually, I went up into my office and secured myself there and just stayed, having communicated that I thought, as soon as it was possible, we should continue. We could not let them stop us from doing what we were doing. Then hours later, we went back to the floor.
Brian: Finally, you went back to the floor. It's so clear that, for the most part, police treated these white rioters differently from the way Black Lives Matter protestors retreated last year. I saw professor Brittney Cooper from New Jersey's Great State University, Rutgers, say on MSNBC last night, "America has a history of treating Black protest as violence and white violence as protest." I assume you agree with that. But what would the single standard look like? I'm sure you want to hold every police officer accountable for shooting people. Do you think the shooting of Ashli Babbitt by a Capitol police officer was justified?
Booker: Brian, as you know, I was mayor of New Jersey's largest city and therefore its largest municipal police force. During the years, from that time to even now, I will always check back with police leadership because I'll see shootings of African-Americans, unarmed African-Americans that are rendered justified and I will call them up and ask them their opinions. Law enforcement officers will tell me time and time again, in cases of shootings of armed Black people, that, that may be legally justified, but it was absolutely unnecessary that a better-trained police officer could have de-escalated or not used force.
African-Americans are faced with daily implicit racial bias that perceives them as more dangerous, igniting more fear, and people use that fear to justify harsh actions that often result in bodily injury and death. This is not just a problem for what we saw on Wednesday. This is a national problem that results in serious injury and unnecessary deaths in our country on a regular basis. It's something that we as a society have to confront. This goes all the way to our classrooms with study after study that shows that young Black boys are perceived to be older, are often dealt with more harsh discipline at schools, and more. We have a real problem in our country with the persistence of implicit racial bias that results often in unequal justice and often death.
Brian: And this shooting?
Booker: I do not know the facts of this shooting. I am not in a place to render any judgment of it. I do know, having been in that situation and having seen firsthand two officers who were hit with projectiles, and that were seriously-- well, not seriously, but were hurt in that moment, I can understand people feeling under fear for their lives. But, again, I do not know the circumstances and we all, we all should-- When use of force is used, that is not a time to say the police-- to celebrate that moment. It is a sad, sad moment when violence happens of any sort in our country justified or not. It is a failure. We can analyze one moment, but there is a deeper failure that we should look at. This failure, in my opinion, lies the inability of our country to hold accountable, a president who is using violent imagery, symbols, and incitement, since before he was president of the United States.
We heard him, whether it was at rallies encouraging violence or even, in him being caught on tape, encouraging violence against women, as the Access Hollywood tape. He has been, consistently throughout his presidency, advocating from when the looting starts, the shooting should start, all the way to what he did in the moments before this terrible incident. This death and the murder that happened of a Capitol police officer rests with the president of United States and his enablers.
Brian: I know we only have you for about two, three more minutes. I want to congratulate you on a new experience. It looks like you're about to have your-- You've been in the Senate since 2013 and you've never been a member of the majority. After the Georgia runoffs, it looks like you will be. This is what I want to ask you. You're a progressive Democrat, but you're also an across-the-aisle guy, president Biden says he wants to tame the passions of this era and ease the culture wars. But some of those passions aren't QAnon. Some of them are for racial justice after 400 years of not, and making conservatives or even white liberals comfortable with that is not the first thing on a lot of people's minds. I know this is a big hard question, but can Biden, can you all, really advance
racial equity and ease the culture wars at the same time? What's at the top of your racial equity agenda for this new era?
Booker: Well, quick correction, I had a brief time before the 2014 election that I was in the majority, but yes, this will be the first full Congress I have in the majority. To your point, we tend to discuss our politics in these binary ways left, right, conservative, progressive. We don't live in that reality in our communities and our neighborhoods. Our politics belie the truth of the matter. Most of Americans want to see the minimum wage raised, most Americans want common sense background checks, so people that are on the terrorist, no-fly list can't buy weapons.
We have so much common ground. Whether you say that's progressive or conservative, the truth is, most Americans want common-sense change. That's what I'll fight for. When you start talking about racial equity, a business [unintelligible 00:10:58] in New York just published a great article about what it would mean to our economy if African Americans had equal access to capital, economic justice, and more. There are real issues that will benefit all of us if we become a more equal and just nation.
One of the things on my agenda is to create common-sense policing. Reforms that overwhelmingly, as I saw when I was pushing legislation in the last Congress or this Congress, we haven't shifted over to the new inauguration of our president at least, that there were things that are wildly popular on both sides of the aisle, banning carotic holds and chokeholds, banning the no-knock warrants that killed Breonna Taylor for nonviolent drug crimes. These are the kinds of things that we can get consensus for if they're not politicized in a hypertoxic way, but if we can get to common sense.
That's why, for my state, I said from the beginning that I would be creating real friendships on the other side of the aisle, seeing the dignity of others, and begin to try to live in Washington against the grain here where we should be extending grace to each other. We should be pursuing the best of each other, and finding ways to understand that we are still one nation under God and we have to put more indivisibility back into it. I think we can do that. I don't think it's just Joe Biden that has an obligation to heal this country. I think we all have that obligation.
Brian: Senator Booker, we always appreciate it. Come back soon.
Booker: I hope so. Thank you so much, Brian. You continue to be one of my most trusted voices in the media, and I'm grateful for you.
[00:12:38] [END OF AUDIO]
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