Fox News "Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Chris Coons

Interview

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WALLACE: These days, Donald Trump is facing the toughest set of challenges of his presidency -- the government shutdown, the new Democratic majority in the House and the special counsel's Russia probe that appears to be close to wrapping up.

Joining us now from Delaware, Democratic Senator Chris Coons.

Senator, welcome back to "FOX News Sunday".

SEN. CHRIS COONS (D), DELAWARE: Thanks, Chris. Good morning.

WALLACE: House Speaker Pelosi says that the border wall is immoral and that she won't give -- I guess she will give $1 to pay for it. Do you agree with her?

COONS: Well, I agree with the advice that Lindsey Graham just gave to President Trump, which is that he should reopen the government and we should spend several weeks negotiating over what we can all agree on.

I personally don't think that a border wall is in and of itself immoral. What I think the speaker may have been referring to is some of the immoral immigration policies of the Trump administration, forcibly separating children from parents at the border and detaining children in cage-like facilities. The humanitarian crisis I think may have been what she was referring to.

The larger point here, Chris, is that we don't have a fundamental disagreement between Democrats who refuse to invest in border security and want open borders and a president who is determined to protect our country. Far from it. All of us have voted for more investment in border security, several times. And the compromise that we worked out before the end of last year, which passed the Senate unanimously, it will give the president another $1.3 billion for border security on top of the $1.3 billion from last year that hasn't been fully spent yet.

I do think if we reopen the government, if the president ends this shutdown crisis, we have folks who can negotiate a responsible, modern investment in technology that will actually make us safer.

WALLACE: So, let's -- you're exactly right. I -- you have voted for a border barrier in the past and I've been looking at your records, so let's put it up on the screen. In 2013, as part of comprehensive immigration reform, you supported $46 billion for border security, including 350 miles of new fencing. In 2018, last year, you and most Senate Democrats approved $25 billion for border security, including physical barriers.

So here's the question: I understand the idea that you don't want a 2,000- mile wall, but you have supported, and a lot of Democrats, including Pelosi, including Schumer, have supported a border that includes hundreds of miles of fencing. So why not make a deal, a deal that right now without opening the government, why not make a deal that Lindsey Graham was talking about, some money for border barriers, fencing, wall, whatever you want to call it, in return for some concessions on Dreamers and on TPS immigrants?

COONS: Chris, it would be great. If we could reach a resolution to our country's broken immigration system and find a path forward, we all agree to invest in border security, in new technologies and approaches that would actually make us safer.

One of the challenges of negotiating with President Trump, as Lindsey Graham knows better than anyone else, is I feel like I've signed up for the Trump of the day club. I don't know what position we're going to get on a negotiation from day one to day two. It was Senator Graham who famously talked about Tuesday Trump and Thursday Trump when he and Senator Durbin brought a comprehensive resolution, a bill, to President Trump last year, he embraced on Tuesday and then walked away and announced it on Thursday.

I will remind you why we are in this situation in the first place. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell put a bill on the floor that was adopted unanimously by the Senate at the end of last year that would have kept the government open and supported 1.3 billion in border security. The president reversed position the next day and rejected something he told Mitch McConnell he would sign.

Why is Mitch McConnell completely absent from these negotiations? It's because he doesn't really know what the president will accept.

WALLACE: But --

COONS: I don't expect the president to capitulate. I do expect them to compromise.

We are clearly not going to build a border wall funded by Mexico but we should negotiate.

WALLACE: Forgive me -- but, Congressman (ph), the question is will Nancy Pelosi compromise? The Republican say, and you heard what Lindsey Graham just said, she's unwilling to give any money for the wall.

I understand the issue with President Trump and he certainly has reversed course a few times. What I'm asking you now, and this is -- we are in week four of the shutdown, so the situation has become dire.

COONS: Right.

WALLACE: Are you, are the Democrats willing to make a compromise that includes money for a border wall fencing -- a border barrier I will call it -- in return for some concessions from the president on people in this country illegally?

COONS: I think the president should test that by making it clear what concessions and what compromise he's willing to put forward. Look, Chris, you know me, I work with Republicans regularly. I've been on the phone with a half-dozen Democratic and Republican senators in recent weeks and several different efforts by Republican senators to negotiate a compromise, got cold water thrown in them the next day by the president publicly, even one effort that was being led by Vice President Mike Pence.

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WALLACE: I mean, because I want to move on --

COONS: So, compromise and while the government is shut down, I will remind you we got 41,000 federal law enforcement officers out there today being forced to work without pay. We've got farmers all over the country not getting the relief payments for the impact on the soybean industry due to tariff war.

WALLACE: Sir, I understand all that, I'm just asking you if he agrees to a compromise that includes other things that the Democrats want, will the Democrats give way and include money for the border barrier? Yes or no?

COONS: Democrats will invest in border security. I'm not going to sit here on your show and negotiate on behalf of Speaker Pelosi, but I'll tell you that what Lindsey Graham himself just told the president is a great place to start here.

WALLACE: OK.

COONS: Reopen the government, stop harming our country and our economy and let's make our best efforts because we all agree we need to invest more in border security.

The only crisis here is one that's been created by the president's abrupt change in position at the end of last year in the last days of a Republican-controlled Congress.

WALLACE: OK, I want to move on just because I've got so many other questions to ask you.

COONS: Sure.

WALLACE: What you think about the report in "The New York Times" that in 2017, the FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation into whether or not the president of the United States was a Russian agent?

COONS: Well, that was a concerning, even alarming report and it suggests to me that the Mueller investigation needs to continue to its logical conclusion. I'm grateful for the partnership of Senator Graham, now the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, in reintroducing our bipartisan bill with Senators Tillis and Booker to protect the Mueller investigation, and I think that report by "The New York Times" may well suggest what it was that helped start this investigation in the first place.

I will also say this, Chris -- I was very concerned by President Trump's steadfast and public refusal to embrace the conclusion of our own intelligence community that Vladimir Putin's Russia had interfered in our 2016 election. There's been a confusing and at times even alarming tendency on the part of President Trump to complement President Putin and to do things like his abrupt announcement of a withdrawal from Syria that led his own secretary of defense to resign, that has led many of us to question his closeness to and his affinity for President Putin.

But I do think what we can all agree on is that the Mueller investigation should reach its conclusion --

WALLACE: All right.

COONS: -- should deliver a report publicly, and that will be the topic of the Barr nomination hearings this coming Tuesday.

WALLACE: Let me -- I got these two more questions and I got two minutes. So, let's try and squeeze them in.

You're also a member --

COONS: Sure.

WALLACE: -- of the judiciary committee which is going to hold the confirmation hearings --

COONS: Yes.

WALLACE: -- on Bill Barr as the next attorney general. What does he need to say to persuade you, to assure you that he is going to let the Mueller investigation go to its conclusion and be reported to Congress? And is there anyway that that you can vote to confirm Bill Barr?

COONS: I'm keeping an open mind. We had a very constructive meeting this past week. I did ask him a number of questions right along those lines and will ask them again in the public confirmation hearing. I would need a firm commitment that he would not allow any interference in the Mueller investigation, he will allow it to reach its conclusion and he will release the report to the public.

I also asked him about seeking an ethics opinion from the Department of Justice about whether he should recuse himself given some of the opinions he's expressed both in a memo that he sent unsolicited, challenging the obstruction of justice basis for some of Robert Mueller's investigation. He didn't make that commitment. He said it would depend on the facts at the time.

I will re-ask that question this coming week. I have some other concerns about his views on criminal justice and civil rights. But the Mueller investigation, the rule of law, his willingness to defend the appropriate independence of the Department of Justice will be critical to my vote.

WALLACE: And briefly, sir, I want to pick up on the conversation I was having with Senator Graham, given Justice Ginsburg's recent illness, the fact that she is going to be turning 86 in March, it's only understandable that there would be some discussion about the possibility of replacing her at some point.

Have you given any thought given how -- and I know you were concerned about how ugly the Kavanaugh hearing is, how you avoid a repeat, particularly if it comes to the situation of Donald Trump replacing a woman who has become a liberal icon?

COONS: Well, frankly, I think the confirmation of Justice Gorsuch was conducted in a completely sort of measured and appropriate way in terms of its beginning, middle and end. What made the confirmation hearings of Justice Kavanaugh so difficult and ultimately so divisive was that there were credible allegations of sexual assault and we entered sort of a second phase of the hearing.

WALLACE: Right.

COONS: I have talked with Republican colleagues about finding a way that we have a clearer process for welcoming and vetting and making part of the confirmation process any such allegations so they don't arise at the last moment. I think there was a great deal of consternation over the timing of those allegations and then how seriously they were taken and investigated - - or not.

WALLACE: Senator Coons, thank you. Thanks for joining us today. Please come back, sir.

COONS: Thank you, Chris. Thank you.

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