Fox News "Sunday Morning Features" - Transcript Interview with Tom Cotton

Interview

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Senator, it's good to see you this morning. Thanks very much for joining us.

I want to talk about the legislation that you have introduced, but let's start with some of this new imagery that we have, which basically shows the Chinese Communist Party militarizing right at the Indian border.

China, you have said and others have said, is using this COVID pandemic as an opportunity to gain more ground. Can you tell me about it?

SEN. TOM COTTON (R-AR): Maria, the Chinese Communist Party is certainly using the pandemic to try to assert claims and take very aggressive action against almost all of its neighbors.

Just go around the horn. You started in India, where, high up in the Himalayas, China has essentially invaded India, an ally of ours. And they have killed 20 Indian soldiers.

And then, in Hong Kong, they have passed legislation that violates their international commitments, their commitments to the people of Hong Kong, that is essentially going to turn Hong Kong into the same kind of police state mainland China is.

And in the South China Sea, they have taken aggressive action against our partners, countries like the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam. They have repeatedly invaded the airspace in recent weeks of Taiwan. And just this past week, they have taken aggressive action against Japan in the East China Sea.

China is becoming more aggressive than ever. That's why it's so important that we support all of our allies and partners, that we make it clear to China we will not tolerate this kind of action, that we want competition to remain peaceable.

But the way that happens is to make it clear that we stand with those partners and allies.

BARTIROMO: Senator, the Pentagon this week revealed that there are more than 20 companies, communist Chinese military companies, operating inside the United States.

They're doing joint ventures. They're buying companies. They're getting money from our capital markets. How is this possible that we have so much - - companies in our own capital markets that are actually undermining national security?

COTTON: Well, unfortunately, it reflects longstanding bureaucratic and establishment indifference to the threat that China poses.

The Department of Defense, to its credit, finally produced a list of Chinese companies that are controlled by or closely affiliated with the People's Liberation Army. That's been a requirement in the law since 1999.

It was only when I and a few other legislators brought it to the Department of Defense's attention that they actually researched the question and published that list.

This is an example of what China calls civil-military fusion, where they use cutting-edge civilian companies as fronts to increase their military technology, even in competitive countries like the United States.

That needs to stop today.

BARTIROMO: You have introduced legislation, the American Foundries Act of 2020, supporting the production and development of microelectronics in America. This is $14 billion that you would like to have available to do that.

Walk us through this legislation, Senator.

COTTON: So, Maria, semiconductors are essential, foundational, even, to a modern economy, not just advanced stealth fighter jets, but all of the basic electronics in our lives.

Unfortunately, we don't make that many in the United States. The Trump administration has been very effective at stopping American technology going to semiconductors going into China. But what we really need to do is increase the productive capacity of our economy, which are providing good high-paying jobs as well, in the semiconductor sector.

That's why I and other senators are working on legislation we hope to pass maybe as early this week to provide direct support to companies that want to bring semiconductor manufacturing back to the United States.

BARTIROMO: Do you want the U.S. to take a stake in Ericsson or Nokia as a way to tell the world, look, there are Western telecom companies to be used away from Huawei?

COTTON: Well, that's one possibility, Maria.

The problem is that Huawei is not a private company as we imagine. It's an arm of the Chinese Communist Party. So, when Huawei goes into a country, that country knows that they have the full backing of the Chinese government.

They also go in with threats. So, for instance, they might tell Germany that, if you don't use Huawei technology, then you can't sell Mercedes or BMWs in China. What Nokia and Ericsson and Samsung in South Korea need is the support of the United States and other Western countries, so they compete on equal terms, whether that's a direct stake or export financing.

Or another alternative would be to provide an open radio access network that would provide small and medium-sized companies the opportunity to compete for this business as well, so it's not dominated by just a handful of tech companies around the world.

BARTIROMO: I see.

COTTON: But what's really essential is that we have viable, competitive alternatives to Huawei.

BARTIROMO: All right, let me switch gears.

I want to ask you about the 2020 election. I have got this Cowen and Company report here. And Cowen and Company tells its clients that, if Biden were to win, Elizabeth Warren will be the key voice on economic policy.

I want to get your take on that, and also the House just approving D.C. statehood, Senator. They want to make Washington, D.C., a state.

Answer those two issues, because our audience is very interested in hearing what Biden is doing. I heard it's already agreed upon. She's either going to be Treasury secretary. But, even if she's not, she's going to be the most important economic voice.

COTTON: Yes.

Well, Joe Biden doesn't really have much of an agenda. Joe Biden is hiding out in his basement. He has been a weather vane for the Democratic Party fads and fashions for the last 50 years. That's why he was always soft on communism in the Soviet Union. That's why he always voted to outsource our jobs to China, why he still to this day said that China is not one of our competitors.

But that means, when he gets in office, he is simply going to be a vessel for the radical left of the Democratic Party, whether it's Elizabeth Warren's economic policies, or the mobs that we see in the streets tearing down statues in an instance of mob violence, or passing a D.C. statehood bill.

Look, our founding fathers wanted Washington, D.C., to be a federal city. And that's what it is. It's a city. It's not a state. And it's a federal city because the federal government needs to have control of the seat of government.

Our founding fathers were experienced with the kind of mutinies that you could face in Philadelphia, where Congress sat at the time, or just mob violence in the street a few weeks ago. That's why Washington, D.C., needs to remain a federal city.

In the end, what the Democrats want is not voting rights for the residents of Washington. If they did that, they could just return it to Maryland, as we did with the Virginia side of Washington in the 1840s. They want two Democratic senators in perpetuity, because the American people have denied them control of the government for these last 10 years.

This is all just a naked power grab.

BARTIROMO: So, this is about just getting two Senate seats?

COTTON: But it's an example about what Joe Biden will do.

This is about getting two Senate seats.

BARTIROMO: This is about getting two Senate seats.

COTTON: Because you could give the -- you could give the -- you could give the residential parts of Washington back to Maryland.

It would get its own House seat, because it's about the size of a House district, and it would be represented by Maryland senators. What it wouldn't get is two new Democratic senators. That's what this is all about.

BARTIROMO: OK.

And real quick, on Elizabeth Warren, I know she has proposed a wealth tax. She wants to raise taxes. And she also wants to -- she wants to break up companies. She wants to break up technology companies, and she wants to break up banks.

Is there anything else we should understand if she is the key economic voice?

COTTON: Well, I think that Ronald Reagan's old line about Democratic economic policy would apply to Senator Warren and other Democrats that are going to be influencing Joe Biden.

If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. If it dies, subsidize it. That's their economic policy.

(LAUGHTER)

BARTIROMO: All right, Senator, it's good to have you this morning. Thank you so much for joining us, Senator Tom Cotton.

We will see you soon, sir. Thank you.

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