Fox News "Fox News Sunday" - Transcript: Sens. Graham and Reed on Space Force and sanctions

Interview

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MACCALLUM: So joining me now from Rhode Island, Senator Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee.

Senator, thank you very much for being with us.

SEN. JACK REED, D-RHODE ISLAND: Thanks, Martha.

MACCALLUM: As we look around the world, you know, what we see is sort of a very broad spectrum of tariffs, of sanctions that have been leveled against, as we were just discussing, against Turkey, against Iran, against Russia, also China. You said that you felt that the tariffs against China were the right move when President Trump put them in place. Now China is pushing back with punitive tariffs against the United States as well, which some people are concerned could, down the road, put a dent in the positive GDP growth that we've seen.

Here's the president talking about what's going on with China at Bedminster this week.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We are in a little bit of a fight with China right now. We want them to do well, but we want them to treat us fairly. They have not treated us fairly for many decades.

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MACCALLUM: Where do you think this is heading, senator?

REED: Well, I think the president's approach has been dis-coordinated. He has imposed sanctions on a range of countries. I don't think he has a strategic plan. I think he's essentially just lashing out. And when he doesn't get his way, he will invoke more sanctions.

He's got sanctions against some of our closest allies, like the Canadians. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

I think if he had a more focused approach to China, if he indicated what he wanted changed specifically rather than just generically, we're going to punish you until you stop doing everything you're doing, I think, again, he has to be much more focused.

MACCALLUM: But you -- you did say that it was a good idea for him to put those sanctions in place. And I think a lot of people who look at the trade imbalance have a similar reaction, you know, that he's not wrong about how the United States has been mistreated in these deals. So doesn't that require a bit of patience at the table?

REED: Well, it requires patience, but it also requires a consistent plan. And it also requires cooperation with our trading partners. Rather than going in with a concerted effort, unified effort, he has created issues among all our major trading partners. And, as a result, China is able to sort of, in a way, isolate us and diminish the effect of our sanctions, the effect of our policies.

And the tariffs, I think, are less critical in terms of Chinese tariffs and our tariffs. I think the real issue at stake here is the way that the Chinese do not allow our companies to participate fairly in China, to own companies, to protect their intellectual property. A more focused approach by President Trump on those efforts, I think, would be helpful.

MACCALLUM: But, I mean, that's clearly what the president is going for here. He's talked about it quite a bit in terms of intellectual property. So, again, you know, doesn't it require patience in the -- in the midst of the deal-making to sort of wait out the tough part of this because that's a negotiation? And do you think ultimately that it will draw them to the table?

REED: Well, I think it requires patience, obviously. But I think it will also require sort of a more systematic and calculated and calibrated approach. It's been sort of a wild ride with the president in terms of sanctions he's imposed.

And, again, it's not just with respect to China. Think he'd be in a much stronger position if he had a unified trading block, the western (ph) trading block, working with him against China. He doesn't have that.

And then, again, the question is, in terms of patience, who has the patience? I think the Chinese are -- seem to be indicating that they are not going to quickly succumb to these tariffs, or these protectionist measures that the United States is imposing. It could a long, long process and they might have the ability to wait us out. Again, this is going to show effects in our economy eventually and those effects, I think, will take away from the growth we're seeing.

MACCALLUM: So let me switch to Iran right now. Obviously the snapback sanctions are now in place. The deal is not something that the United States is participating in anymore and, as a result of that, we saw some fairly aggressive moving up of the timetable for Iran to carry out its military exercises that it does in the Strait of Hormuz over the course of this week. Your reaction to that and where you think that situation goes next.

REED: Well, first, you're right, exactly, they've moved up their annual exercises. They've conducted a ballistic missile exercise in conjunction with those exercises. The one thing they haven't done, which I think is appropriate and I think we cannot ever allow, is they have not been interfering with the passenger ships through the Strait of Hormuz. That has to be something that is absolutely nonnegotiable.

I think a problem we have is after withdrawing from the JCPOA, we've lost the support of our European allies, particularly. In fact, the Europeans are going to lengths to try to cushion the blow to the Iranians.

And then, again, you're into a situation where what's going to happen within Tehran. I think there is a strong feeling that the hardliners will take more and more power, that they will begin to marginalize those people. And I think using the term moderate in Iran is not particularly accurate.

MACCALLUM: Yes.

REED: But those who much more sensitive to world opinion will be marginalized and the hardliners will take over.

And the Iranians have the ability to, through proxies particularly, to interrupt, interfere and, in fact, indeed cause us harm in Iraq and Syria and throughout the region. So I, again, I think the biggest problem here is that we do not once again have a concerted (ph) world standing with us against the Iranians. And they will try to divide and conquer, separate the Europeans from us and continue to do that.

MACCALLUM: All right, before I let you go, I want to ask you about the Space Force, which got a lot of attention, even some ribbing this week. But it's a serious proposal on the part of the president, that he wants to start this sixth branch of the military.

Mark Kelly, the former astronaut, told me the other night that he thinks it's a bad idea, that it's a waste of money and that it's redundant. Buzz Aldrin also weighed in and said that he thought it was a huge, giant leap for mankind. He's very in favor of it. How about you, Senator Reed?

REED: I think we have to reorganize our space forces because our threats are now in multiple dimensions. But I think creating a separate service with all of the infrastructure and the bureaucracy is not the way to go.

We, in the National Defense Authorization Act, authorized a sub unified command for space that I think would begin to pull together these different strands. Every service has some sort of connection to space. If you're a -- and I was a paratrooper for several years. If you're on the ground, you need GPS to give you directions and guidance. That's a space asset. If you're at sea, you need space assets.

So, this is not a one service dimension and I think creating a separate service would just add bureaucracy without effect. What we have to do is unify our current efforts.

One of the good models for this is a joint special operations command, which is multiple services, SEALs, Rangers, Green Berets, Air Force, special operators, they operate very unified, but there's no new service with all the paraphernalia and bureaucracy of a new service. That's the direction we should head.

MACCALLUM: All right, Senator Jack Reed, thank you, sir. Good to see you today. Thanks for joining us.

REED: Thank you very much, Martha.

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