FOX "Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace" - Transcript: Obama's Foreign Policy

Interview

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BREAM: And hello again from Fox News in Washington.

President Obama prepares to deliver his seventh State of the Union Address this week, his first before a Republican led Congress. After hitting the campaign trail to push a reboot of his domestic agenda, unveiling proposals to fight cybercrime, help people go to college and give workers extended paid family leave. But last week's terror attacks in France and president's sharp censure of Congress over new sanctions against Iran have casted a shadow of the president's efforts to pivot to his domestic policy.

Joining us now to discuss Iran, the rising threat of Islamic terror and the president's handling of all these issues: from Wisconsin, Senator Ron Johnson, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, and from Maryland, Senator Ben Cardin, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee.

Gentlemen, welcome to you both.

SEN. BEN CARDIN (D-MD), FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE: Thank you.

SEN. RON JOHNSON (R-WI), CHAIRMAN, HOMELAND SECURITY COMMITTEE: Good morning, Shannon.

BREAM: All right. Mr. Chairman, I'll start with you. What is your take right now? Do you believe there are lone wolves or sleeper cells here in the U.S. motivated by radical ideology that are either capable of and/or planning attacks on the U.S. homeland?

JOHNSON: I'm not aware of any specific cells, any sleeper cells, but when you see what's happening in Europe and you see how widespread that is from France to Belgium to Germany. I think you have to assume that is certainly a risk that we do have to consider and we have to do everything we can to make sure our intelligence agencies are working cooperatively with other foreign intelligence agencies and our agencies here in America are also fully communicating so we don't have a stovepipes which really with 9/11 a dozen (ph) years ago.

BREAM: And, Senator Cardin, of course, one of the main concerns have been that there are those who travel on Western passports freely in and out of areas that have been known to host terror training camps and places where that ideology is growing, what can we do about that potential loophole?

CARDIN: Well, as we saw in France, I think we have to be very concerned about foreign fighters who hold Western passports, that have been to Syria, who have fought with ISIL and are now in Europe and could travel to the United States without a visa and in some cases these are Americans who we know have been associated with these extreme groups.

It's really important that our intelligence community concentrate on those who are at the highest risk to the United States. We have to share that information between our European partners in the United States and so we know exactly where these individuals are and we can be on the highest alert.

BREAM: All right. Senator Johnson, your colleague mentioned Syria. Of course, that's an issue of growing concern. I want to put up a map showing what appears to be almost a doubling of the territory controlled by ISIS and that essentially began, airstrikes with coalition forces in that area. We also have the complication of Bashar al Assad still operating in that area and there are many reports that his forces and those loyal to him are actually fighting against the forces that we're counting on to fight against ISIS.

What does this administration need to do with regard to Syria?

JOHNSON: Well, what we need to do is we need to accomplish the goal that President Obama stated -- degrade and ultimately defeat ISIS, and the sooner the better.

The problem is we're not seeing the kind of leadership out of President Obama to accomplish that goal. You know, we had a mini- debate on authorization of use of military force. The chief -- you know, the commander-in-chief wouldn't bring forward the language in terms of the authorization he needed.

We need to define what he means by defeat. He needs to define a strategy for actually accomplishing that goal. And he's got to come to Congress asking for the authority to accomplish that -- you know, to employ that strategy and accomplish that goal.

BREAM: Yes, and Senator Cardin, to that point, we know the Defense Department is reporting there could be 1,000 or more U.S. trainers that are going to head overseas to that region and going to be there to train Syrian opposition forces. We already have 2,000 personnel, U.S. personnel on the ground in Iraq. We're told that number could go as high as 3,400 later this year.

All along, though, the administration has said no boots on the ground -- a very specific, you know, language that they have been using there.

I want to play a little bit of what Secretary of State John Kerry said when he was testifying before you at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last December.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: The president has been crystal clear that his policy is that U.S. military forces will not be deployed to conduct ground combat against ISIS.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BREAM: OK. So, a strategy, troops in, troops out. Senator Cardin, at what point do you think the president has an obligation to come to you for that authorization for use of military force with regard to ISIS?

CARDIN: No, I think he should come to us for the use of force and I've been pretty vocal about the fact that Congress has a responsibility to clarify exactly what the president's authority is.

But I want to disagree with Senator Johnson on regards to the president's strategy. I think the president is right. This is a complicated situation. In Iraq, we think a stable government that includes moderate Sunnis is critically important to cut off the support for ISIL. So, we're working on that.

We do have greater ground capacity in Iraq to deal with the growth of ISIL than we do in Syria. In Syria, we're doing a training mission and we started that training mission. We're giving air support. But I agree with the president, I don't want to see us involved in a protracted ground campaign where we saw in Iraq that was ineffective as far as the ultimate security of that country. I think it's important that ground support to be done by those in the countries themselves.

BREAM: All right. So, Senator Johnson, I know you voted against in committee last year that discussion about authorization. What was wrong with it for you and what specifics do you need see for the administration, from them, so that you can move forward with this conversation?

JOHNSON: Well, the authorization that was voted on was very limited. And, you know, I'm not going to vote for an authorization for use of military force and put the finest among us at risk unless the commander-in-chief is fully committed to success of the goal. You just don't do that.

And, Shannon, here's the problems. As long as ISIS is not losing, they are perceived as winning and if they are perceived as winning, they are extremely good at recruiting off the Internet, using social media. They're going to continue to inspire the types of attacks we've seen carried out in Paris, in Ottawa, in Sydney, Fort Hood, Texas.

This is not a threat that's going away. It's not receding. It's growing. It's metastasizing. So, a key point of trying to protect America, to keep America safe and secure is we have to defeat ISIS. We can't let them continue threatening the rest of the world for years.

BREAM: And speaking of what inspires these groups, the administration said this week, again, that Guantanamo Bay has been an inspiration for terror groups. So, Senator Cardin, I want to pivot to that question.

Five more releases this week. These were men from Yemen who have all kinds of accusations against them. They are being released to areas like Oman, which, of course, shares a border with Yemen. We're told that the Kouachi brothers in Paris had traveled in that area, possibly gotten training, terror training in Yemen and then, of course, returned home.

So, is this the time right now to be releasing detainees like the ones we saw released just days ago?

CARDIN: It may not be the time to release these detainees, but it's certainly past time to close Guantanamo Bay. The cost to the American taxpayers, those funds can be put to much better use in protecting the security of our country.

It's millions of dollars per inmate that we're spending to maintain Guantanamo Bay, where we could, if Congress would permit, transfer some to the United States. We know how to keep them safe from the public. Or we could bring them to justice or we could transfer them to other countries where they could handle them. But to continue Guantanamo Bay is not only expensive but it's also an iconic symbol to the world of a past that we want to move away from.

One last point if I might on the use of force. The president's operating on the use of force against ISIL based upon 2000 and 2001 authorizations from Congress. Circumstances have changed dramatically since those days. It's critically important that Congress exercise its responsibility and pass an authorization for the use of military force for the president.

BREAM: And what I continue to hear from folks on both side of the aisle on the Hill is that they need to hear from the administration, those specifics. So, we'll watch to see if that is coming in the days and weeks ahead as both sides are asking for it now.

I want to play a bite from Josh Earnest this week talking about Guantanamo Bay and, Senator Johnson, then give you a chance to respond. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMAN: The prison at Guantanamo Bay continues to inspire violent acts around the globe. So, it's not as if we can avoid violence by just keeping the prison open and keeping them all locked up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BREAM: All right. So, Senator Johnson, Senator Cardin says we know how to handle these people here. You can transfer them to U.S. prisons.

So far, Congress in a bipartisan way has done a good job of blocking the administration from doing that. So, what do you do with these people?

JOHNSON: Well, the people at Guantanamo Bay are evil people and they will, many of them will return to battle. One of the first lines of defense, one of the most important things we have to do is we have to an effective intelligence gathering capability. And one of the ways you do that is you capture these unlawful combatants and you detain them and over a long period of time you interrogate them. That's how you really develop the intelligence to try to foil future plots.

And the fact that we're going to try to close Guantanamo, the fact that we don't have any place to put terrorists we capture is really degrading our ability to gather that type of intelligence to keep America safe and secure. So, this is no time to be transferring these individuals that are all high-risk now. That's what's left. We've released literally hundreds of prisoners from Guantanamo. The people there are the worst of the worst and they should not be released.

BREAM: OK, another area of contention between the Hill and the White House are the ongoing negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program. It's something that we've heard a lot.

Both of you signed, Senators Johnson and Cardin, have signed on at various points to legislation that would enact tougher sanctions if this deal doesn't work out. Well, the president this week is basically saying, stay in your lane, hold your fire for this particular issue and saying that you're going to be responsible if things go south with this deal, because of the provocation regarding sanctions.

Here's what he said on Friday. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, I've consistently said we leave all options on the table. But Congress should be aware if this diplomatic solution fails, then the risks and likelihood that this ends up being at some point a military confrontation is heightened. And Congress will have to own that as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BREAM: Senator Cardin, is that a fair assessment? Are you willing to take that risk?

CARDIN: Well, I think there's no disagreement between the overwhelming majority in Congress and the president that if Iran does not agree to give up its nuclear weapons, we are not only re-impose the relief that they have received, but there'd be much tougher sanctions imposed, and we certainly want to work with our coalition partners to make sure that these sanctions are enforced internationally.

So, I think the only issue now is the timing. We hope that negotiations will go satisfactorily and Iran will not become a nuclear weapons state. But if they move in that direction, we're going to pass tougher sanctions. The question is when do we do it and that's the issue and discussions taking place on Capitol Hill.

BREAM: Senator Johnson, quickly, a final word to you here. The president has said that he's going to veto it. So, can you overcome that?

JOHNSON: First of all, I have no faith this administration, this president has the negotiating capacity, the ability to do a good deal with Iran. I mean, I think these negotiations were lost right from the get go when we lessened sanctions and we basically allowed Iran to continue to enrich uranium, contrary to all the U.N. resolutions.

So, I do not see a good deal coming out of this administration and a bad deal is worse than no deal at all. I think imposing additional sanctions is the only way to bring Iran to the negotiating table in good faith.

BREAM: Senator Johnson, Senator Cardin, thank you both for joining us today.

CARDIN: Thank you.

JOHNSON: Have a good day.

BREAM: You as well.

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