Fox News "Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace" - Transcript: North Korea

Interview

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ROBERTS: She is a rising star in the Democratic Party, known for her progressive ideas and fierce criticism of President Donald Trump. The senior senator from Massachusetts is touted as the potential candidate for president in 2020.

Elizabeth Warren joins us now from Boston.

Senator, welcome finally to "Fox News Sunday." Good to have you here.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN, D-MASSACHUSETTS: Thank you. It's good to be here. Thank you for having me. I appreciate the invitation.

ROBERTS: Let's start first of all about North Korea. You have been very critical of President Trump and his policies on North Korea.

The day after he stood up at the U.N. and declared that Kim Jong-un was, quote, little Rocket Man, you said, quote: trying to bait a unstable dictator who has nuclear weapons is not a strategy that makes America safer.

Would you now acknowledge though after the news that came out late Thursday night that the president's combination of tough talk and maximum pressure through international sanctions has, in fact, come close to bringing North Korea to the table?

WARREN: So, I am very glad to see the Trump administration turn in the direction of diplomacy and the principal reason for that is because there is no military-only solution to North Korea. And this not just what I say, this is what our own generals who are experts in the area and responsible for the area say. So, that means we really do need strong diplomacy here.

But these are very complex negotiations, so I'm very concerned about the fact that the State Department has so many vacancies that much of the staff at the State Department has been decimated. We have no ambassador right now to South Korea. The assistant secretary in charge of this area, that's another vacant post.

And this is important because these are the people who know the economy, who know the language, who know the history, who know our military needs.

So I am very concerned that the president may be taking advantage of here. I want to see the president succeed. It is important for the defense of the United States. It is important for the security of the entire world.

But I'm worried about going into these negotiations without a strategy and without a strong full State Department to back him up.

ROBERTS: Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina who has found himself on the opposite end of the table of what President Trump many times in terms of opinion, issued a warning to Kim Jong-un saying if you try to play President Trump, that's going to be the end of you and the end of your regime.

Senator Graham doesn't seem to have any concerns that the president is going to get played here, why do you?

WARREN: Well, you know, one of the things we have to remember is that the Kim family, dictator after dictator for generations now, has been holding for a face to face negotiation with an American president. This is the big prize for them, just being able to be in the same picture with him. And a reason for this is the Kims have seen this as an opportunity both to legitimize their dictatorship and to legitimize their nuclear weapons program.

So, my view on this is before you let them have that big prize, before you announce that you're committed by a time certain to go to that prize, what we need to do is make sure that the North Korean regime has made real steps toward freezing their nuclear program and steps toward winding down their nuclear program and not just promises, but actual verifiable steps that we in the United States can see.

ROBERTS: Which we're --

WARREN: They shouldn't be able to get the prize of meeting with the president unless they've taken those kinds of steps.

ROBERTS: Which raises the question, though. How would you Senators suggest that that be verified? How do you verify something in North Korea?

WARREN: Well, that's the point. The North Koreans have to be willing to open the door. And if they're not willing to verify, then let's go back to the history we have with North Korea, promise after promise after promise after promise that they have broken. If we let them have a prize just based on a bunch of promises, knowing that they've broken every promise in the past, then shame on this administration, shame on the United States.

We have to say, you all have to be willing to open up so that we can verify. If they're not willing to do that, then they're not willing to take steps.

ROBERTS: Let's move on to trade. The president, as you know, slapped tariffs on steel and aluminum or restarted the 15-day countdown clock. Ahead of the announcement, you said, quote: The proposed tariffs take the right approach but they target a narrow section of the economy and put our allies in the same boat as countries like China that cheat constantly on trade all the while the administration ignores the root of the problem.

Now, the president started off by exempting Canada and Mexico, at least for the time being. Also said he'd be open to other exemptions. Has he met you half way here?

WARREN: So I was very glad to see what the president had done. Look, I have been a critic for a long time about U.S. trade policy. My view is that we have negotiated one deal after another that has been great for big multinational corporations and been lousy for American workers, lousy for American small businesses, often, not even good for American consumers.

So, what I'd like to see us do is rethink our whole trade strategy. And I'm not afraid of using tariffs as part of that trade strategy.

And I was glad when, after I made that statement, that the president distinguished our allies from China, and said, wait a minute we have to do something different here. But you can't do this. It's just a little tiny piece of the economy or a small piece of the economy.

It's got to be part of an overall trade strategy that puts American workers, American small businesses first. That's what I really want to see.

ROBERTS: Is that not what the president is doing?

WARREN: Well, he's got two industries in front of him. He started out with an announcement that was going to apply to everyone -- our enemies and our friends alike.

I think what it takes is you got to think about trade in a much broader way. It's very much about tariffs but it's also the negotiations, for example, have been about things like intellectual property rights and copyrights and access to domestic markets.

ROBERTS: But, Senator, he is talking about all of that.

Let's turn to another subject, we have minimal time here, so let me --

WARREN: And I hope he does, OK.

ROBERTS: Let me move to a topic that I know is very much in your wheelhouse.

WARREN: Sure.

ROBERTS: The banking bill. Some nine years --

WARREN: Yes.

ROBERTS: -- after the stock market hit a low, after the economic collapse, the Senate is poised to roll back some Obama era banking rules with the help of 17 Democratic senators. Let's listen to what you said last week on the Senate floor about that.

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ROBERTS: One of those 17 Democrats supporting that is your colleague from Virginia, Mark Warner, who said: The bill is mostly focused on community banks and credit unions. My state's lost 30 percent of such institutions. That does not help grow the economy, particularly in smaller communities.

The implication here, by virtue of your opposition, is that you're OK with losing community banks and credit unions?

WARREN: Of course not. And we have been in agreement for a very long time, the Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee that we need relief for community banks. And if this bill had been about nothing but community banks, I think it would sail through with very little opposition.

But what this bill does, is it takes 25 of the 40 largest banks in America, banks that collectively received $50 billion in taxpayer bailout and nobody went to jail for any part of it and says let's just treat them like community banks. The banks that is a quarter of a trillion dollars is not a community bank.

And you don't have to believe me on this, the Congressional Budget Office has said if this bill goes through, the chances that the American taxpayer will be called on to bail out Wall Street again go up. That's not where we want to be. This is not good for American taxpayers and it's not good for American consumers.

Can we just pause for one minute to remember, it wasn't just the stock market that went down? Millions of people across this country lost their homes, millions lost their jobs, millions lost their retirement savings. We cannot put the American people at risk for this again, particularly when the banks, all of the banks, are making record-breaking profits.

Our job in Congress is not to stand up for quarter trillion dollar Wall Street banks. Our job in Congress is to stand up for the American people.

ROBERTS: Let's look ahead to the 2018 election in 2020, and, Senator Warren, this is your first appearance on "Fox News Sunday," I'd like to give you the opportunity right now to declare, if you so choose -- are you going to run for president in 2020?

WARREN: I am not running for president in 2020. I have an election right now in 2018, here in Massachusetts and I'm out there talking to folks all across the Bay State. I just did my 23rd, I think it is, town hall in Weymouth on Saturday, my 22nd on Friday in Springfield.

You know, it's a chance to be out and talk to people. We really have to be in this fight for our democracy as we go forward and it's, you know, it's been an incredible privilege to serve the people of Massachusetts, to go down to Washington and to say, I'm not here to serve the rich and the powerful. I'm not here to fight for an American that works better and better for a thinner and thinner slice at the top.

I'm here to fight for working families like the kind of family I grew up in.

ROBERTS: Well, I know that you're looking ahead to November as opposed to 2020, but indulge me a moment here if you would. There are many people who are saying should you choose to run in 2020, and one of these groups is the Berkshire Eagle, Massachusetts newspaper that endorsed you in 2012, that the issue of your ancestry will come up and they're suggesting that you put it to rest saying, quote: Elizabeth Warren should screw up her courage and take the spit test, a DNA test, a positive test would permanently resolve the issue while possibly shutting down President Trump.

Would you be willing to take a DNA test to put this issue to rest?

WARREN: Look, let's start again, where you started. I'm not running for president. But let me tell you a little bit about my family.

You know, my mom and dad were born and raised out in Oklahoma, and my daddy was in his teens when he fell in love with my mother. She was a beautiful girl who played the piano. And he was head over heels in love with her and wanted to marry her. And his family was bitterly opposed to that because she was part Native American.

And eventually my parents eloped and they survived the Great Depression, they survived the Dust Bowl. They went through a lot of hard times. They raised three boys, my older brothers all of whom went off to the military. They raised me.

They knocked around and it was tough but they hung together. They hung together for 63 years. I know who I am because of what my mother and my father told me, what my grandmother and my grandfather told me, what all my aunts and uncles told me and my brothers.

It's a part of who I am and no one's ever going to take that away.

ROBERTS: Senator Warren, we'll leave it there. Thanks so much for joining us today and on behalf of Chris Wallace, please come back.

WARREN: Thank you, I'd love to.

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