Fox News "Sunday Morning Futures" - Transcript: Sen. Ron Johnson commits to reforming the National Emergencies Act

Interview

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MARIA BARTIROMO, HOST: Good Sunday morning, everyone. Thanks so much for joining us. I'm Maria Bartiromo.

And joining us straight ahead right here on "Sunday Morning Futures": President Trump issues his first ever veto, after the Senate revokes his national emergency.

Senate Homeland Security Chairman Ron Johnson is here on what happens now, plus his reaction to North Korea's threat to walk away from nuclear talks.

Congressman Doug Collins is the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee. He just released transcripts of closed-door testimony from Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. What else might he have in store to shed light on what was going on at the Justice Department and the FBI leading up and through the 2016 election? He is here, exclusive.

Democratic Congressman Harley Rouda weighs in on the Democratic oversight of the Trump administration, as well as Mitch McConnell's plan to hold a procedural vote on the Green New Deal.

All that and a lot more right here, right now on "Sunday Morning Futures."

And we begin this morning with President Trump issuing his first ever veto in response to a congressional resolution that would have blocked his national emergency on the southern border.

The move tees up an override vote in the House scheduled for March 26. That is not expected to pass.

Joining me right now, in an exclusive interview, Republican Senator from Wisconsin Ron Johnson. He's the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. He also sits on the Foreign Relations, Budget and Commerce committees.

Senator, it is good to have you on the program this morning. Welcome.

SEN. RON JOHNSON, R-WIS.: Good morning, Maria.

BARTIROMO: So, we knew that some Republicans were going to go against the president. We didn't know that it was going to be 12, vs. five.

What's happening in your party that so many Republicans didn't stand with the president for his national emergency?

JOHNSON: Well, there was a pretty robust inside our conference.

But, from my standpoint, as soon as the House voted with a total that was well below a veto-proof majority, this vote, from my standpoint, turned into a purely political vote, the whole issue of whether or not you support the border or whether you support the president in trying to secure it, secure our homeland.

And, so for me, it was a pretty simple vote. I understand why my other colleagues were concerned about the constitutional issue. I am as well. I have the benefit of being chairman of the committee of jurisdiction. And we will take up a fix to the National Emergency Act to return that authority to Congress that was taken away by the Supreme Court and later codified by Congress.

So, yes, we will bring that up. Hopefully, Democrats will support us. Hopefully, they will express the same concern about any executive having that kind of broad emergency powers, which this president had, and he exercised.

BARTIROMO: Right.

JOHNSON: So, in the end, I didn't believe that the president was operating outside his authority.

BARTIROMO: So, Senator, as the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee there on the Senate, I want to get your take on basically the situation today at the border.

But, before I do that, we know that the president, as soon as he got the bill, he vetoed it. And now they're trying to override it on March 26. Tell us what happens now.

JOHNSON: Well, they will not be able to override the veto.

And, so, again, what I will do is, using my committee's jurisdiction, will actually bring up that National Emergency Act and amend it to return the authority that, again, the Supreme Court took away and Congress codified.

So we will just flip this on the head. We will allow the president to declare an emergency for 30 days. And if a majority of both chambers agree to have that emergency extended, that should pass constitutional muster.

So we will return that constitutional authority, which I think is appropriate. Past Congresses have given way too much of their constitutional authority away to the executive branch. And we should claw it back.

BARTIROMO: So, characterize the emergency as you see it today. We have got a chart here of apprehensions at the southwest, the southern border, and we had a huge spike in the month of February.

So the yellow color is unaccompanied minors between ports of entry. The blue color is in family unites between ports of entry. Then we have got red, unaccompanied minors claiming asylum at ports of entry, and in family units claiming asylum at ports of entry. Tell us what this chart says.

JOHNSON: Sure.

Well, first of all, you have to understand that the record apprehensions back in 1986 and the year 2000 were really Mexican economic migrants coming back here, apprehended sometimes multiple times in the same day.

The problem has completely changed. Now we're dealing with unaccompanied children and people coming in this country illegally as family units, claiming asylum. And our laws are such that, once they get into America, they basically stay.

We only return probably less than 3 percent of unaccompanied children. And so it is a huge incentive for more people from Central America coming up here either as unaccompanied child or more now as family units, because it's really rewarded.

So what we saw in 2014 is, President Obama declared that a humanitarian crisis, when 120,000 children and people coming as family units across the border illegally and were apprehended. Last year, that number was 145,000. In the first five months of this year, 175,000 unaccompanied children, but now mainly people coming in as family units across the border illegally or presenting themselves at ports of entry claiming asylum.

All we can do, Maria, is, we can apprehend, we can process, and then we disperse. And these people, by and large, are staying in this country long term.

BARTIROMO: Yes, we're looking at a picture now of the wall within California, Nancy Pelosi's state, the wall that separates San Diego from Tijuana.

And, by all accounts, this wall has worked.

JOHNSON: No, where we have installed four sections of better barriers, we have cut illegal immigration by about 95 percent.

That is a huge benefit to barrier structures. But that's not the only thing that we have to do. We have to amend these laws that provide the incentives. We have to maintain our asylum standards. And we have to make sure that we can apprehend and detain individuals. And those who don't have valid asylum claims, we have to quickly remove them to their home country, because that's, right now, what we don't have the capability. And is what is the huge draw coming particularly from Central America.

BARTIROMO: Well, I don't understand. Why hasn't this been dealt with before? When we have your colleagues on the left on, they continue to say that they are for border security, and yet they don't -- they didn't vote for Kate's Law, they didn't vote for an end to sanctuary cities, they didn't vote for the wall.

So, obviously, their votes do not correspond with what they're saying. But I'm just under -- I'm just trying -- I'm having a hard time understanding why, if this is such an incredible emergency, as these numbers bear out, why nothing has been done about this before.

JOHNSON: Well, here is a news flash. Democrats are being hypocrites on this issue.

They pay lip service to try and secure the border, but then they will do nothing to help us change the laws that would help us do just that. And it really is an amendment under the human trafficking law in 2008 that created a disparity in terms of how we treat unaccompanied children from Central America vs. Canada or Mexico. That's increased the incentive, and then a court decision.

When President Obama began detaining families and their children, so they could do expedited removal, somebody challenged that in court. And the Flores agreement was reinterpreted to include children that were also accompanied. That began the full catch and release.

And that's what we're in right now, because President Obama -- or President Trump tried to enforce the law. But that required separation, because we can't keep children more than 72 hours in CBP custody or more than 20 days in general. And so we have to disperse them.

So we're back into full catch and release.

BARTIROMO: Right.

JOHNSON: And that really is the state of play Democrats want.

BARTIROMO: Right.

JOHNSON: I have no idea why they want open borders, why they won't outlaw sanctuary cities, but that's what Democrat policy is. It's very unfortunate.

BARTIROMO: Well, we know that they did vote for a wall in the past, but now that President Trump has said it, this is in step with their resist movement, resist everything the president tries to do.

Let me ask you about North Korea and get your take on this from a foreign affairs standpoint. North Korea threatened on Friday to walk away, suspend negotiations altogether with the Trump administration over its nuclear arms program. And they are saying that Kim Jong-un is going to decide soon whether to resume nuclear and missile tests.

What's happening here?

JOHNSON: A number of members of the Foreign Relations Committee met with Secretary Pompeo last week for an early morning breakfast, and very interesting to listen to him talk.

First and foremost, Chairman Kim simply hasn't made that decision to disarm and integrate his economy, improve his economy. That's the first thing he has to do, but it also sounded like he was given some pretty bad advice by his advisers that what he offered would be accepted by President Trump.

They offered that right up front. President Trump, Secretary Pompeo utterly rejected it. I don't know what Kim thought -- or Chairman Kim thought had changed in terms of the president accepting this, but President Trump was absolutely right in walking away from those negotiations.

But, apparently, it shocked Chairman Kim, because his advisers said that it would be accepted. It's unacceptable. So the bottom line is, President Trump continues to try and offer that deal, but it's got to be a big deal.

Chairman Kim has to accept the fact that he's going to give up his nuclear capability, his missile capabilities, in exchange for what would really be good for North Korea and his people and his regime, integration with the modern economies of the world.

BARTIROMO: Do you think him walking away from North Korea and saying, look, this meeting is over, was a moment that China was watching?

Was there anything that China has taken away from that, given the fact that we are still waiting on a meeting between the president of China and President Trump at Mar-a-Lago, which we thought was going to happen at the end of March, but now Secretary Mnuchin says probably not until April?

JOHNSON: Well, what China and, quite honestly, all of our trading partners need to realize about President Trump is, he won't be snookered into a bad deal. He's going to make sure that, for example, in trade, we're going to have fair and reciprocal treatment.

But, as it relates to North Korea, we're going to continue to impose sanctions. From my standpoint, I would say even ratchet up those sanctions, make sure that China maintains these U.N. resolutions that impose sanctions, that Russia does, start returning some of these guest workers that are providing an awful lot of hard foreign currency into North Korea and keeping that regime afloat.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

JOHNSON: What brought Chairman Kim to the negotiating table were these sanctions. We need to ratchet them up. Let's not make the same mistakes as we made in Iran, where sanctions brought to the table, but then we relieved those and we didn't actually force Iran into negotiating in good faith.

Right now, Chairman Kim is not negotiating in good faith. He has to come to different conclusions.

BARTIROMO: All right, I want to take a short back.

But, when we come back, we are awaiting word on whether the Trump administration will reach a trade agreement with China. Joint Chiefs Chairman General Dunford made some news, saying that Google's work in China is indirectly or directly benefiting Beijing's military. Meanwhile, they walked away from the Pentagon.

I want to get your take on that, Senator.

So, Senator Ron Johnson joins us once again when we come right back.

Follow me on Twitter @MariaBartiromo, @SundayFutures, on Instagram as well @SundayFutures and @MariaBartiromo.

We're taking a look ahead on "Sunday Morning Futures" this morning, and we will be back.

Let us know what you want to hear from Congressman Doug Collins as well.

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BARTIROMO: Welcome back.

We are back with Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson.

And, Senator, let me ask you what a deal with China should look like, because I know the Chinese are willing to buy more soybean from the U.S. and they're willing to open up their markets a little, at least to financial services companies, among other industries.

What about the big-ticket items, like the I.P. theft, the forced transfer of technology, the espionage that we now know exists, given Huawei's performance? Will we be able to put enforcement in place to ensure that the Chinese keep their promises when it comes to these things?

JOHNSON: Well, enforcement is going to be the key.

Now, part of the problem is, how do you enforce an agreement, things that the Chinese deny, for example, the cyber-theft, the espionage? So I'm afraid the cyber-theft and the espionage will probably have to be enforced through criminal justice, through potential cases with WTO.

But in terms of forced technology, the intellectual property transfers, that can be handled through an agreement. And it can be enforced through those agreements as well. But we need to absolutely demand reciprocal treatment. And that's what this administration is completely dedicated to achieving.

And it's unfortunate you have to take it to this level, you have to provide this kind of brinksmanship, but I think China and our other trading partners have taken advantage of the situation far too long. And they're having to be shocked to the reality that this administration is not going to stand for it.

Hopefully, they will come to that conclusion and we can conclude these trade deals, because the president has done a great job, as you were talking earlier on "FOX & Friends," about relieving the regulatory burden, or at least having a pause.

BARTIROMO: Right.

JOHNSON: That has created a great deal of certainty in our economy.

But the whole trade war and tariffs, that type of thing creates a lot of instability and uncertainty.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

JOHNSON: So, the sooner we can get our trading partners to come to the table in good faith, offer fair and reciprocal treatment, the better the entire world economy will be.

BARTIROMO: So, real quick, do you think we will get a deal with China?

JOHNSON: The administration officials are sounding pretty positive about it.

BARTIROMO: OK.

JOHNSON: They have got agreement across the board on so many of these snarly, hard issues.

BARTIROMO: You know, it's interesting.

JOHNSON: And they're trading paper on the other agenda items, so that they are really uniformly sounding quite positive about it.

BARTIROMO: You know, you -- yes.

JOHNSON: Listen, this trade war is hurting China a whole lot more than it is us. So it's in China's best interest to come to the table in good faith.

BARTIROMO: Yes, the economy has certainly slowed down quite a bit in China as a result of these tariffs.

Let me ask you about these technology companies, because, in China, you have got the Chinese government telling its companies, do it this way.

So, the defense companies are doing what the Chinese government wants them to do. The technology companies are doing what the Chinese government wants them to do.

In America, it's obviously a little different. You have got some of the leading technology companies in the world -- take a Google, for example -- saying, we're not going to work with the Pentagon. We don't want to work with this U.S. government. We're pulling out of this contract to work with the Pentagon. And then you look at China, and they actually are working in China.

I want you to listen to what the acting defense secretary, as well as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dunford and Shanahan, said this week about Google working in China. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOSH HAWLEY, R-MO: You're telling me that Google, an American company, supposedly, is refusing to work with the Department of Defense, but is doing work in China -- with China in China in a way that at least indirectly benefits the Chinese government; is that correct?

PATRICK SHANAHAN, ACTING DEFENSE SECRETARY: I haven't heard the word refuse, but there's a lack of willingness.

GEN. JOSEPH DUNFORD, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF CHAIRMAN: The work that Google is doing in China is indirect -- is indirectly benefiting the Chinese military. And I have been very public on this issue as well.

In fact, the way I described it to our industry partners is, look, we're the good guys, and the values that we represent, and the system that we represent, is the one that will allow and has allowed you to thrive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BARTIROMO: I mean, do Google employees understand what they're doing?

JOHNSON: Possibly not.

Obviously, through their chat room, they were outraged that Google was working with the Defense Department to actually help save lives, from my standpoint, in terms of drone technology, to more precisely target. They didn't -- they weren't willing to use Google resources to help the United States military.

And yet Google is working on Project Dragonfly -- now, apparently, suspended it. I know a number of Google employees were concerned about that as well, about the human rights abuses in China.

But I thought it was rather shocking. It certainly got my attention when General Dunford talked about directly helping China's military.

I will certainly be looking into that. I will be asking for a briefing from the Joint Chiefs. And we will also be asking Google to find out exactly what they are doing. They're an American company. They have to be loyal to America and to our values. I think the general was absolutely correct in the way he laid that out.

BARTIROMO: That's just incredible. So you're going to -- you're going to hope to do hearings on this, then?

JOHNSON: Well, I'm certainly going to be sending oversight letters and asking for briefings and find out exactly what is happening.

BARTIROMO: OK. Yes.

Senator, we have got to go. But, real quick, is USMCA going to get ratified? A lot of Dems come on, and they say they are not going to vote for it in its current form.

JOHNSON: I mean, I hope so. We need that trade deal. It's good for all three countries.

BARTIROMO: So, you're going to vote for it?

JOHNSON: We were trying to press the administration to ratify it when we had Republicans in the House. It's going to be a heavy lift, I fear.

BARTIROMO: Yes, all right, we will leave it there.

Senator, it's good to have you on the program this morning. Thanks so much.

JOHNSON: Have a great day.

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