Fox News "Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Ron Johnson
Interview
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WALLACE: President Trump's America first agenda will be on full display Tuesday night during his State of the Union Address. On Friday, he announced plans to pull out of the INF missile treaty, a treaty that was signed by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev during the Cold War. All this as Trump's foreign policy is being questioned by some surprising people.
Joining us now from Wisconsin, Republican Senator Ron Johnson, chair of the Homeland Security Committee.
Senator, let me start with the most recent news.
Both the U.S. and Russia have just announced that they are pulling out of compliance with the medium-range missile treaty. President Trump has been saying that the -- the Russians have been violating that treaty for some period of time. The question is, though, that with no new talks scheduled to try to update the treaty and with the long range ballistic missile treaty running out in two years, are we headed for a new arms race?
SEN. RON JOHNSON, R-WISS.: Well, good morning, Chris.
And, of course, the -- the most salient point here is that Russia has been violating this treaty for at least six years testing and now we believe deploying these intermediate range nuclear missiles. And what's so dangerous about these is, you know, they -- if something flies out of those batteries, it's only a couple of minutes before it hits the target, probably in the European theater, so we have very little warning and all kinds of miscalculations could occur.
So it's unfortunate that Vladimir Putin has taken this path and that he's been violating this treaty, but there's really no treaty in existence when one person is violating and not even admitting to violating it as well. So this is something that's just natural. Our NATO and European allies completely back the president's move here. Hopefully, in the six-month period before -- you know, between the announcement in the final ending of the treaty, Russia will come to her senses and -- and verifiably dismantled these batteries.
WALLACE: Let me turn to another subject.
This week, most Republican senators broke with President Trump on his announcement of a quick withdrawal of some or all U.S. troops from -- all U.S. troops from Syria, about half from Afghanistan.
Here's Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, who introduced the measure opposing a fast withdraw from those theaters.
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SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL, R-KY, SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: ISIS and al Qaeda have yet to be defeated, and American national security interests require continued commitment to our missions there.
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WALLACE: Senator, you're one of 43 Republicans in the Senate who voted for the McConnell amendment, opposing the president's announced policy. You say that we can't -- and using your phrase -- "bug out" of Syria and to do so would be, quote, very unwise policy.
JOHNSON: Well, Chris, I can't tell you how many times I came on shows like this after President Obama decided to bug out of a Iraq precipitously and so that ISIS was able to rise from the thoroughly (ph) defeated ashes of al Qaeda in Iraq. And I don't want to be making the same statement six months from now that we bug out of Syria, unwisely, and that ISIS has reemerged from the defeated ISIS -- or ashes of ISIS in Syria.
We met -- a bipartisan group of senators met with the co-chair of the Syrian Democratic Coalition, Ms. Ahmad, and, you know, she had a very compelling case to make. They've got about 60,000 fighters. They represent about 4 million Syrians, about 2.5 million Kurds and about a 1.5 million Christians. And they want democracy. They want peace. And she made a very strong case of just having American military people present, not even involved in the fighting, but as advisors does a -- it goes a great deal toward providing the peace and stability for that part of Syria. And I think it would just be tragic if we bugged out, left the Kurds, who, by and large, have done the fighting and have defeated the ISIS caliphate, the territorial caliphate in ISIS, if we just abandon them to the -- to the mercies and let's -- you know, I use that term loosely, of Russia and Iran and possibly Turkey.
WALLACE: So --
JOHNSON: It would just be unconscionable. So -- so, again, I think Republican senators are sending very strong signals to the president, we don't want to see that happen, and I hope he is listening.
WALLACE: So, if he -- he should be listening when there were 43 of the 53 Republican senators voted against his policy, which raises the question, how serious a split is there between Senate Republicans and the president on the Trump foreign policy?
JOHNSON: Well, as it relates to pulling out of Syria, there's -- there's a pretty serious split. Hopefully the president -- because when he -- he came to Senate lunch, he was talking about, you know, we're still going to defeat ISIS and their airbases from Iraq that we can still continue these missions. So, you know, I'm -- I'm not on the ground there. I don't know all the military assets. But it's a very bad sign when Secretary Mattis resigns, Brett McGurk, our envoy there for the defeat of ISIS, also resigns because they simply can't carry out this policy. These are people that are intimately knowledgeable of the conditions of the ground, of -- of are allies there and they simply couldn't in conscience -- in good conscience stay in office. That's a pretty bad sign. I hope the president is listening to those people as well.
WALLACE: Well, talking about people who are knowledgeable on the ground, we saw a remarkable split this week between the president and his own intel chiefs on a number of world hot spots. While the president, since the summit with Kim Jong-un has said that North Korea is no longer a nuclear threat, here was the testimony this week by the director of national intelligence, Dan Coats.
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DAN COATS, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: We currently assess that North Korea will seek to retain its WMD capabilities. It is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capabilities because its leaders ultimately view nuclear weapons as critical to regime survival.
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WALLACE: And here are the president and Director Coats on the threat from ISIS.
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PRESET: We've really stepped it up and we have won against ISIS. We've beaten them and we've beaten them badly.
DAN COATS, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: ISIS is intent on resurging and still commands thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria.
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WALLACE: They also disagreed, the president and, in this case, CIA Director Gina Haspel, over whether or not Iran is violating the Iran nuclear deal.
What do you make of the president and his own intelligence chiefs at such odds?
JOHNSON: Well, let me also say that Ms. Ahmad was -- was also pretty firm in her assurances that ISIS has sleeper cells existing. They are not thoroughly defeated yet.
Now, the caliphate, the territorial caliphate, is gone, but you still have those sleeper cells.
Listen, I come from the private sector. Spent 30 years in manufacturing. Enter public life. And I --I realized -- I have the modesty to understand that there's an awful lot -- there's an -- you know, so much tradition and history and complexity to some of these foreign policy issues, you have to rely on people who have been working these issues for -- for decades. And it's just imperative that you actually listen to, for example, the CIA chief, the director of national intelligence, these people have the real knowledge and you have to listen to them.
WALLACE: Well, that wasn't the president's first reaction. Actually, none of his reactions. His first reaction was to bash the intel chiefs. Let me put up a couple of his tweets. The intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and na (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) PRESET: They said that they were totally misquoted and they were totally -- it was taken out of context. So what I do is I'd suggest that you call them. They said it was fake news. (END VIDEO CLIP) WALLACE: Is that healthy? I mean as the head of the Homeland Security Committee, on the Foreign Relations Committee, is -- does that concern you when the president says there is agreement between him and his intel chiefs on all these key issues, when clearly, from listening to their testimony, there isn't agreement? JOHNSON: Well, you know, I just say one instance, the -- what the intelligence chiefs were talking about Iran, they were saying currently and technically Iran is in compliance. But I think the president's absolutely right of the -- the -- this type of danger that Iran represents, not only to the region but the world. I mean they're -- they're -- they're continuing to plot terrorist attacks into Europe. They, obviously, are fomenting the conflict in Yemen. And, you know, they are certainly not helpful in Syria. They are a real threat to Israel and to world peace and stability. So, technically, they may be in compliance with the agreement, currently they may not be pursuing nuclear weapons, but, you know, they're still fomenting terror, they're still the largest state sponsor of terror in the world. And so I -- you know, again, I think maybe that difference was blown way out of proportion. WALLACE: I've got about a minute left. I want to go to one other hotspot. There's a lot on the international plate right now and that's Venezuela. The president, this week, announced some dramatic escalations in our campaign against the Maduro regime. He's now backing, as a number of other countries are, the opposition president from the national assembly. And he's also imposed some tough, new economic sanctions on Venezuela. How far do you think this country should be prepared to go in trying to topple the Maduro regime, and would that extend, in your judgment, to the use of military force? JOHNSON: Well, I think the administration's really done an admirable job when it comes to their reaction to what's happening on the ground. It's the national assembly, probably the closest thing to an open democratic forum in Venezuela, that voted for -- you know, their assembly president, Juan Guaido, to basically run the country now. And when you see the protest in the street in support of Mr. Guaido, we are just reacting to the conditions on the ground and we are supporting the Venezuelan people in trying to shed the -- just the deprivations of -- of Maduro. When -- WALLACE: It -- I -- JOHNSON: When you listen to the hit squats going into -- WALLACE: Let me just ask you, though, because we're -- we're running out -- JOHNSON: It just is awful. So, again, I think the administration's done a good job. WALLACE: And where are you on the use of military force, briefly? JOHNSON: Well, we certainly have to protect American personnel there, and I think that's exactly what we've done, move -- you know, moving troops into Colombia. I really do think the people of Venezuela will take care of the situation and we'll just take -- you know, we'll use economic sanctions to support them. And I think it's appropriate that we do support the people of Venezuela. WALLACE: Have we moved new troops? Because there was this statement, 1,500 troops in Colombia. In fact, have we done so, sir? JOHNSON: Well, that's -- I'm just basing it off news reports. That would be a prudent action on my -- you know, from my standpoint. I hope we have done that. WALLACE: Senator Johnson, thank you. Thanks for your time. It's always good to talk with you, sir. JOHNSON: Have a good day. BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
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