Maloney: Our system of government was founded on checks and balances and holding everyone accountable
New York Democrat Rep. Carolyn Maloney weighs in on new investigations into Trump’s finances by House Democrats.
This is a rush transcript from "Sunday Morning Futures," March 3, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
MARIA BARTIROMO, HOST: Good Sunday morning, everyone.
Thanks so much for joining us. I'm Maria Bartiromo.
Straight ahead right here, "Sunday Morning Futures," reaction from two lawmakers whose committees questioned former Trump attorney Michael Cohen.
The ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, Republican Devin Nunes, is here, and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee member Democrat Carolyn Maloney, ahead of Michael Cohen's next testimony this upcoming week.
Plus, Republican Senator Rick Scott on the resistance from some in his own party to President Trump's emergency declaration over the border wall. Will the president be forced to veto any move to block it? Plus, the senator's reaction to the summit in Hanoi between President Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong.
Also with us this morning, Ken Starr on the pending release of the Mueller report. How much of it, if any, will Attorney General Bill Barr make available for all of us to see?
And Chinese telecom company Huawei is in full spin mode now, after criticism from U.S. officials about its practices.
All that and a lot more right here right now, "Sunday Morning Futures."
And we begin this morning with former Trump attorney Michael Cohen scheduled for another round of now closed-door testimony before the House Intelligence Committee this Wednesday, this as Democrats ramp up their own investigation into the proposed Trump Tower project in Moscow.
Joining me right now, in an exclusive interview, is the ranking member of that committee. He is Republican Congressman from California Devin Nunes. He also sits on the House Ways and Means Committee.
And, Congressman, it's always a pleasure to see you.
REP. DEVIN NUNES, R-CALIF.: Great to be with you.
BARTIROMO: Thanks so much for joining us.
First, reaction to Michael Cohen this past week, and give us a sense of why it's important to go from the public hearing last week. Now he's going to be in front of your committee behind closed doors this upcoming week.
NUNES: So, remember, he was in public with the Oversight Committee. Then he came behind closed doors with us for no reason at all. This is not a man who has any classified information whatsoever.
We interviewed him for some eight, nine hours. In fact, Republicans were pretty much done with interviewing after a couple of sessions. We didn't have any more questions to ask him. We're not sure why he's coming back, but he will be back this week once again in a classified setting, for someone who has no classified information.
So, from my perspective, it's all about building out a narrative. They want to keep it behind closed doors, so that they can conveniently say, well, we can't talk about what happened behind closed doors, when the reality is, we can talk about whatever we want to talk about, because the guy has no classified information. It's ridiculous.
BARTIROMO: He said a couple things this past week that some people are wondering if he perjured himself again by saying he never wanted a job in the White House.
And then I thought there was something really interesting in terms of the work you have done so well for the last year-and-a-half on the dossier. He said he was never in Prague.
NUNES: Right.
BARTIROMO: And isn't it true that, in the dossier, the dossier said that he went to Prague to go meet with Russian officials to meddle into the U.S. election?
NUNES: Yes. This is why they don't want him outside. They don't -- they want him behind closed doors, so that we can't talk about the testimony.
The bottom line is, is that Cohen was great for Republicans. It was great for Donald Trump, because we now know that the dossier was total bunk. There was no truth to it. And we know that because of -- that Cohen has testified now publicly that he wasn't in Prague, and there was no truth to anything in the dossier.
BARTIROMO: And he said there was no collusion, by the way.
NUNES: No collusion -- no collusion conspiracy, no obstruction.
You know, these are all issues that were essentially made in that dossier that was the Democrat -- remember, for the viewers out there -- and I think a lot of people forget -- this was the Democratic campaign committee working with the Clinton campaign that produced this dirt, fed it into the FBI to start this investigation in the first place.
It was totally debunked this week, and it will be debunked again next week.
BARTIROMO: And you have been investigating this now for upwards of two years.
You have told us a lot. You have informed the public a lot in terms of what took place in the 2016 election. I don't think, without you and your colleagues, we would even know what really took place by this cabal of people at the top of the FBI and the DOJ.
NUNES: Yes. There's still more to come. We're going to keep interviewing people. We're going to get this information out.
BARTIROMO: So, tell us about that, because you're wrapping up your investigation. You have got a couple of things to do.
One of them is, you have provided a list of the people that you would like to come down to speak to you and get testimony of them. So we have got this list. Go through some of these names and why they're important, Tashina Gauhar, Gregory Brower, John Carlin, Kevin Clinesmith.
Tashina Gauhar is important why?
NUNES: So, these are all names that we had sent to our Republican task force at the end of the last Congress.
These names are all important, because we need to know if these people were involved in the chain of custody of the dossier that we just referred to, because the dossier makes claims that this information came from Russians.
So all the names that are on this list that we didn't get to last year that still need to be interviewed, if we're really looking for Russian collusion, we need to know if any of those people were actually talking to Russians on behalf of the Clinton campaign or any operative, whether it's Fusion GPS, what Russians were they actually talking to, because, look, they could be the problem.
They could be -- these Clinton people could be the ones that were in bed with Russians, for all we know.
BARTIROMO: So, these are all...
NUNES: Or it could be total nonsense.
BARTIROMO: Many of these names are associated with Hillary Clinton.
NUNES: Right.
BARTIROMO: And, obviously, names like Jake Sullivan, who was a P.R. guy, I believe, for Hillary Clinton.
NUNES: Right.
BARTIROMO: Robby Mook, another P.R. guy for Hillary Clinton.
Sidney Blumenthal, tell me why he's on your list.
NUNES: Well, he was also involved in one of the dossiers. So there's several versions of the dossiers, OK?
So this was dirt he was feeding into through friends and acquaintances that got into the State Department, right? So, remember, the dossier came at very different angles all over the place into the FBI and DOJ.
Some of those people in the Clinton campaign -- I think a lot of people forget this -- why would people in the Clinton campaign be tweeting out messages about Trump's involvement with Russia? It's because they had the dossier. They were promoting this message, this dirt out there in 2016.
And we need to ask these Clinton campaign people where they got it from. Did they get it from Glenn Simpson and Fusion GPS, the dossier that they were paying for, or did they get it from some Russian friends of theirs that they know of?
The bottom line is, is that everything that was in that dossier, all the accusations that were made, whether it was tweets from the Hillary campaign, press releases from the Hillary campaign, it was all nonsense. It was stuff they were feeding into the press. The press was writing about it, they were tweeting it out and promoting it out. And they were all in on it.
BARTIROMO: It was a part of -- it was part of their strategy to get this narrative out that Donald Trump colluded with the Russians. Give it to the media, let the media drive the bus on all of it.
And it actually worked, because...
NUNES: At the end of the day -- at the end of the day, it worked.
BARTIROMO: ... a year-and-a-half later, we're still talking about the potential of this.
NUNES: That's right. That's right.
And that's why we're trying to get to the bottom of who was involved. That's why we have all these lists of people we need to interview. We need to know what their involvement was in all this.
BARTIROMO: All right, so this is a list of 32 people.
Do you think you're ever going to get these people to come down and give you testimony? You don't have subpoena power anymore. Your colleagues are trying to lift every rock and look for a crime around Donald Trump.
NUNES: So, the Democrats claim that they're going to be so much nicer than we were to them.
So, remember, we gave them every single witness they wanted over the last two years when we were in the majority. They claim they're going to give us witnesses. So far, they have given us zero witnesses.
So, if they continue not to give us any witnesses, we will ask all of these people to voluntarily come into Congress to talk to us. If they won't come in, we will either do it through the courts, or we will send it over to the Senate, and hope that Lindsey Graham and his team can get to the bottom of it.
BARTIROMO: And Senator Graham has been with us many times over the last several weeks.
NUNES: Yes.
BARTIROMO: And he said he's doing a deep dive. He's going to bring the necessary people to testify. In fact, he's going to interview definitely the people who signed the FISA warrant.
So as you wrap up your investigation, you have got these 32 names you want to interview. You have got, number two, declassification. Are we ever going to see declassification for some of the documents that you think are most important to educate the American people about this?
NUNES: Yes, I kind of sum it up this way.
There's really five areas, the interviews we just talked about. There's the criminal referrals that have to be made. There's the declassification, radical declassification. We need to have declassification across from everyone we interview to everyone that Mueller interviewed.
Then we're going to have to have a fundamental FISA reform. We can never again let the FISA process be used to target political campaigns, right? We can't let our intelligence capabilities be targeted and pointed at political campaigns.
BARTIROMO: Yes, they went to the FISA court. And they said, look, we have this dirty dossier, and that's the reason that we're going to spy on the Trump campaign, essentially.
NUNES: Yes, and not only that. Not only did they get a warrant to get into somebody's e-mails on the campaign and get -- to be able to suck all that up, e-mails and listen to phone calls and all of that.
They also opened a counterintelligence investigation into a political campaign. Now, these are tools that are supposed to be used to go after terrorists, you know, the people that destroyed the buildings here in New York.
And then the final thing that we have to deal with is, the media was involved in all of this, this disinformation campaign. They were given the dossier, and they spread it out. They spread numerous fake news stories about myself, the work that we were doing on the committee, many members on our committee, staff on our committee.
That's going to have to be dealt with too, this disinformation campaign. The slander and the libel will all have to be dealt with.
BARTIROMO: You're saying you're going to deal with the misinformation out there. How do you deal with that? You have referred to them in the past as tech oligarchs to me.
NUNES: Yes.
So, there's two ways that they're doing it. So, the fake news media, they're putting out fake news stories. Sometimes, it comes from the Democrats, right, and the dossier. They feed it to the media. The media runs a story
And then the numerous tech companies out there that are really controlling what all Americans see, right? So, what these tech companies have become is, they try to pretend they're not, but they're content developers. They're developing content, OK, through two ways, one, algorithms. So they're controlling what you and I see when we get on our device.
So for them to say that they're not developing content is nonsense. The other thing that they're doing is, they're monetizing this. So there are some people that will not get rewarded. Like, if you're a conservative out there putting conservative videos together, you're not going to get money for that, right? People are not going to advertise on that.
BARTIROMO: Right.
NUNES: So, all this has -- has got to be dealt with, I think, in the future.
BARTIROMO: All right, let me get back to that, because I want to find out how are you going to do that.
But speaking of interviews and your team looking at who you want to speak to, I want to talk about this letter that your colleagues Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan sent to the attorney general, William Barr.
And, basically, they are asking for a number of things from the A.G. And they mention in particular Andrew Weissmann and Zainab Ahmad. These are two individuals that worked at the Department of Justice and now work at the special counsel 's office.
Can you tell me about Andrew Weissmann and Zainab Ahmad?
NUNES: So, Weissmann is the number two. It's Mueller's deputy. He was involved in the custody of the dossier. So, in early 2016, he was given the dossier.
This is somebody, him and the other individual that's mentioned there, both DOJ people, both on the Mueller team. They shouldn't be involved in this investigation. I don't know -- well, and the questions that my colleagues are asking is...
BARTIROMO: Yes.
NUNES: ... is, you know, there's clear regulations that DOJ has that you can't be conflicted. And so they're asking questions.
Look, did they disclose to Mueller before Mueller picked them that they were involved in the chain of custody of this dossier? Because I will tell you, if I was -- I don't know that they're going to have any criminal indictments or not, but, if I was any attorney, I would be saying, look, these people that are bringing this forward, they shouldn't be involved in this because they are biased.
We already know the people that were kicked off were biased. But you also have the fact that these two individuals that Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows are asking about were involved in the chain of custody of important evidence, the dossier, the dirt from the Clinton campaign, that is the basis for this entire hoax.
BARTIROMO: This is important, because, for a long time, I have been asking the question, can the Robert Mueller special counsel report have credibility if it doesn't look at what we know to have been wrongdoing by this cabal of people at the top of the FBI?
So, Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows write to Bill Barr. And they say this. Number one, we'd like you to identify all actions taken by Weissmann and Ahmad, including disclosures to apprise the department or the special counsel's office of their role in the events Bruce Ohr testified to about supplying the FBI with information relating to the Trump campaign.
So, they also want to explain all the actions taken by Weissmann and Ahmad after learning that Steele, Simpson and Nellie Ohr were providing Bruce Ohr information for the purpose of relaying it to the FBI, provide all documents and communications referring or relating to disclosures made by Weissmann and Ahmad, and provide documents and communications related to the process the department used to evaluate prosecutors and investigators' independence.
So they're right now still working on the special counsel's investigation, Robert Mueller.
NUNES: Right. And they're not -- they're not independent investigators. These are people that were in on this from the beginning. They knew about the dossier. They were -- they brought this dossier forward.
I don't know if they told -- maybe they told Mueller, and Mueller decided to waive these requirements that are there. Also, let's not forget, we also have evidence that, at one time, that Weissmann was meeting with reporters.
And so you have this. And this is part of this whole disinformation campaign. I should have said this earlier. It's not just the media. It's not just that they were getting it from the Clinton campaign. You also had people within the Department of Justice and the FBI that were briefing reporters.
Now, what on earth are you doing briefing reporters? What was Weissmann doing talking to AP reporters, right? We have asked those questions and never got the answers.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
Well, it's a good point that you make. Jordan and Meadows want this information from the A.G. by March 15 at 5:00 p.m.
I want to take a short break, but we have got more to cover here.
Number one, do you think they are going to get this information by March 15? And, also, Mueller's report going to drop soon. Got to get your expectations.
Congressman Devin Nunes is with us this morning. He's staying with us.
Quick break, and then we will talk about the concerns about China technology giant Huawei as well and the red flags being raised by U.S. lawmakers on how Beijing may be infiltrating American universities to spread its propaganda.
Follow me on Twitter @MariaBartiromo, @SundayFutures. Let me know what you would like to know from Devin Nunes on Instagram @SundayFutures.
Stay with us, as we look ahead on "Sunday Morning Futures" right now.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: Welcome back.
And I am back with Congressman Devin Nunes, the ranking member on the House Intel Committee.
And, Congressman, you just said that you want to get these people a list of 32 people down, so that you can interview them.
What happens next? I mean, our audience wants to see accountability. What are you expecting in terms of accountability? How will Bill Barr response to this letter that Meadows and Jordan just sent him?
And do you think -- I mean, when you say criminal charges, what does that mean, criminal referrals?
NUNES: Let me start with this.
All of us want to see justice equal under the law, right? So we want to see everyone held accountable.
I believe that, if the new attorney general and the Department of Justice, if they don't take all of this on, and do a full scrub and have full accountability and transparency for the American people, you're going to see generations of conservatives who will not trust the Department of Justice, they will not trust the FBI, and they for sure will not trust the FISA process.
So I mentioned this in things that we have left to do earlier. And I don't want to gloss over it, because it's very important. The FISA laws were first written in the '70s. They need to be completely rewritten because of what the Clinton campaign and the former people at DOJ and FBI were able to do.
That's going to be a whole undertaking that Congress has to undertake. If that's not done -- so we need accountability by -- from the attorney general and the Department of Justice for all the people that were involved in this mess. And, at the same time, Congress is going to have to rewrite the laws that allow the intelligence agencies to go after American citizens.
BARTIROMO: You have brought all of this information forward. You have put it right there in front of Bill Barr.
Is he going to act on it, do you think? What are your indications...
(CROSSTALK)
NUNES: Well, we're going to -- yes, we will continue -- we will continue to work with the Justice Department. Barr just got in there, so let's give him some time here.
I think, once the new deputy attorney general gets in, and then we will slowly get to work, and start to work with them to try to bring accountability to everyone.
BARTIROMO: Last week, a federal judge in Florida ordered the release of the depositions given by former British spy Christopher Steele and an associate.
What are you expecting in terms of getting these depositions unsealed?
NUNES: So, this is great, because this is going to -- I think it's going to be on March 14 is going to be the day.
So, remember, Christopher Steele is the guy who was hired by the Democrats to go get information from the Russians. He wouldn't come and talk to us, right? He's already been criminally referred to the Justice Department. He was supposedly an asset for the FBI. We never got to interview him.
Luckily, someone sued him and a guy named, I think, David Kramer, who was also involved in the creation and -- creation and dissemination of the dossier.
BARTIROMO: Right.
NUNES: So, he pled the Fifth to us.
So between Christopher Steele and Kramer, we really want to know, what did they tell the court? So this is going to be fascinating information.
BARTIROMO: What about the Mueller report? Are you expecting it to drop soon? What's going on there?
NUNES: You know, you're going to interview Ken Starr a little later.
I don't understand. If Mueller doesn't have any crimes that he's -- that he's going to prosecute on, then I don't know what report we'd be looking for, because, as far as I can tell, the Mueller investigation was stood up for one reason, and one reason only, and that was based on the dossier.
And, remember, we have never seen the scope memo that started -- we have talked about it many times on your show.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
NUNES: I hope people understand this.
There's a classified scope memo of what Mueller is supposed to be doing. It's been hidden from Congress. It's been hidden from the American people. My guess is, all it is, is the information from the dossier.
BARTIROMO: Well, I mean, real quick, Adam Schiff is looking for a crime. And he's doubling down on investigations.
Let's take a short break, and then I have got to ask you about your colleague Adam Schiff.
Then, Senator Rick Scott and Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney are here.
Back in a minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: I'm back with Congressman Devin Nunes, the ranking member on the House Intel Committee.
Your colleague who is the chairman of the Intel Committee is Adam Schiff. He said a long time ago he had more than circumstantial evidence that there's collusion between the president. He's still out there looking for a crime, as you're trying to finish up your investigation to indicate wrongdoing that he continues to push back on.
NUNES: Yes, it's a lot like looking for, like, some mythical creature, right, this collusion creature?
So I often say -- I joke that it's like in search of Sasquatch, or Loch Ness Monster, or Chupacabra, which is like this mythical animal supposedly in the Southwest. They just don't exist.
And so he's just doing a lot of chasing the ghost around in the closet. He's made lots of promises, and now he's basically moving the goalposts to where they're no longer on collusion anymore. They're on to basically every single one of Donald Trump's business ventures that he was ever involved in.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
NUNES: So, it's gotten way out of control, in terms, this is no longer -- this has nothing to do with Russia anymore. This is just like going after Trump, which is not the job of the Intelligence Committee.
BARTIROMO: Well, they want him out. I mean, let's face it.
I want to move on to China, because you have done an investigation for multi years at the Intel Committee.
And this week, I had the opportunity to speak with the chief security officer of Huawei Telecom. You have said for many years that China has been stealing our intellectual property for years.
Listen to this exchange I have got to get your reaction to, Andy Purdy from Huawei.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: You just said there have been no major issues around Huawei.
But, in fact, over the last year, years, several years, I can cite a list of companies that have sued you and you have done settlements with, Motorola Solutions, T-Mobile, Cisco.
All of those companies sued Huawei for stealing trade secrets.
ANDY PURDY, HUAWEI CHIEF SECURITY OFFICER: There have been no major cybersecurity incidents in the world involving Huawei.
That industry and the fact that we have had some lawsuits in the past has characterized the industry for the last 20 years. We have resolved those issues, and we're moving forward. The remaining issues, we hope to resolve in the next year or so.
BARTIROMO: Andy, it's not accurate to say that there were no issues around Huawei, when you had lawsuits for stealing trade secrets. Huawei settled a lawsuit with Motorola Solutions for stealing trade secrets.
You settled a lawsuit with Cisco for stealing router trade secrets. So are you saying that, yes, these issues and lawsuits went on in the past, and we settled them, and now we're not going to steal anymore? Is that what you're saying?
PURDY: I'm saying two things.
I'm saying that, but I'm also saying there have been no major cybersecurity incidents in the world in the 170 countries in which we do business. Our customers trust us around the world. And we believe there are additional mechanisms that can be done, so we can provide assurance and transparency, so that we can help make the -- America benefit from us being allowed to compete.
BARTIROMO: Look, I understand that you are on this P.R. trip today, and you have this whole-page ad in The Journal. And I agree that Huawei needs to convince the world that we can actually trust the products of the company.
But to say there have been no issues with Huawei is just 100 percent inaccurate. I just listed the number of companies that have sued you for stealing trade secrets and the settlements that you have done.
PURDY: Maria, I didn't disagree with the facts of those cases.
BARTIROMO: OK.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: And there you go.
What do people need to understand about Huawei and China?
NUNES: Like all major companies in China, they're owned by the Chinese Communist Party. They're owned by the leadership.
Huawei especially is one of the largest. They are developing connections across the entire globe, the entire communications network around the globe, so that they can have -- they can suck up anyone's e-mails, phone calls, text messages.
BARTIROMO: Wow.
NUNES: That's what they're working on.
And any of the countries that allow Huawei to come in and put in the backbone of their architecture, they're absolutely crazy, because everything from their government is going to be headed straight to Chinese intelligence.
BARTIROMO: I have a report here by IPVM. And they call themselves the leading researcher on all video -- all things video cameras.
They report that Huawei Telecom components are currently in 60 percent of all video cameras across the world. That's -- I don't want to be an alarmist, but that tells me that China is not just listening to us. They're watching us.
NUNES: Well, and don't forget, the big tech companies are able to do that too.
And so -- but, as it relates to Huawei, the challenge is, this is not a private company, as much as it is a government-owned company from the Chinese communists.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
I want to ask you about the so-called Confucius centers, because you and I have spoken about this in the past. But there was a new Senate investigation. And they're warning that these Chinese state-run centers are at -- in more than 100 U.S. colleges.
You have got Confucius centers in and around Silicon Valley, like near Stanford. They're sharing research. What do you make of Confucius centers?
NUNES: Well, I would say first that Senate report that you referred to, great report done by Senator Portman and his team.
It's not just the 100 universities that they're involved in. It's what they do there, right? So they're bringing in what are likely either intelligence officers or people that are working with Chinese intelligence.
They're doing -- they're seeding people into companies. They're recruiting people. These are all things that are in this Senate Intelligence -- or the Senate report by Rob Portman that I would encourage all of your viewers to go and take a Sunday and read it.
BARTIROMO: Not only that, but China has an enormous amount of money. So they're buying up companies, like energy companies and banks, and getting American data that way too, another way to...
NUNES: And that's a whole 'nother -- yes. And they're doing that all over the globe, which that could be a whole show just on that.
BARTIROMO: Congressman, it's great to have you on the program.
NUNES: Thank you. Great to be here.
BARTIROMO: Thank you so much, Congressman Devin Nunes joining us.
We will take a break.
When we come back, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee member Democratic Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney is with us on Michael Cohen's testimony.
And then Republican Senator Rick Scott on the showdown over President Trump's emergency declaration.
A lot to come, as we look ahead on "Sunday Morning Futures" right here.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, R-S.C.: ... lose a few Republicans in the Senate. All you need is 51 to get it out of the Senate. So it will pass the House with a handful of Republican votes. It'll come to the Senate. It might get 51.
It'll get vetoed by the president. And Republicans will stand with the president to sustain his veto, and it will be deader than dead.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: All right, that was South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham last week with me right here on "Sunday Morning Futures" sharing his prediction on the fate of a Democratic House resolution intended to block President Trump's national emergency declaration to build a border wall.
The Senate will soon consider the measure after it passed the House last week. Some Republicans are signaling their support over concerns a future Democratic president could also choose to go the national emergency route to bypass Congress. That's why they're pushing back on this.
Joining me right now in an exclusive interview is Florida Republican Senator Rick Scott. He sits on the Senate Homeland and Governmental Affairs and Armed Services Committees.
And, Senator, it's good to have you this morning.
How are you going to vote in that measure?
SEN. RICK SCOTT, R-FLA.: Well, I'm going to vote for border security. I'm going to vote with the president.
The -- everybody that's going to vote on this ought to go down to the border, like I did, talk to Border Patrol. And here's what they're going to tell you. One, they need more people. Two, they need new technology. The technology that they've got is decades-old.
And, three, they have got to have barriers, just so they operational control. So, if you go talk to them, there's no way you could then say, oh, I'm going to vote against border security.
The Democrats don't want border security. American public wants border security. They want results. I know a lot of people don't like the process. None of us like this process. It's all caused because the Democrats don't believe in border security. I want results. I know the president wants results.
BARTIROMO: All right, so what about your colleagues who say the reason that I have to push back and not vote with the president is because a Democratic president in the future might take advantage of the same thing?
This has been used, what, 60 times, go -- calling a national emergency.
SCOTT: Right.
Well, look, you know, a lot -- people can come up with a rationale for voting against things. I think the American public, they want results. The president tried. Look, he -- I mean, he's tried to get the Democrats to fund the border.
He offered things. He said, let's talk about DACA. Let's talk about fixing the TPS program. And they said no way. They did everything they could to make sure there was no border security. So the president is doing what he has to do to take care of the American public, which believes in having a secure border.
And I'm going to vote with the president. And I hope every Republican and I hope the Democrats will take the time, go to the border. Once they do, they are either -- they have one choice, either vote for border security or go tell border security that you don't care about their safety, and you're telling Americans you don't care about their safety.
It's a simple choice, in my opinion.
BARTIROMO: Well, what about your colleagues on the Republican side that are going against the president? Why aren't your colleagues firmly behind this president, then?
SCOTT: I think -- I think people are -- you know, they want to say that, oh, this is not the right process.
And I agree.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
SCOTT: It's not the right process. I mean, nobody wants this to be the right -- the process we go through. Why are we here?
Because Washington is completely dysfunctional. That's it. Washington doesn't work. I have been there about two months. It doesn't work. But the Democrats will not fund what Americans want. Americans want border security. The president is doing his job. Secure the border.
BARTIROMO: When you say Washington doesn't work, is that because that too many people in the Congress have their own ideologies, and they're not doing what their constituents really want them to do?
SCOTT: I think there's a bunch of actors.
I think -- I mean, look at the Democrats. They will go give a talk about border security, and then will -- they will vote against it. There's just a lot of actors up there. We have got to get people that -- one, I believe in term limits. I think that should happen.
We have got to get new people up there that are just absolutely committed to getting something done.
BARTIROMO: Right.
SCOTT: We shouldn't pay people if you shut down government, if you don't pass a budget. That's your job. There's some basic things that -- I'm a business guy.
BARTIROMO: Right.
SCOTT: And so, in business, you try to get things accomplished.
BARTIROMO: Let me ask you this.
The bill is going to come to the Senate floor when? What's the timing on this? When do you expect to vote?
SCOTT: We don't -- we're not sure exactly when we're going to vote on it.
I think it's still another couple weeks at least that's going to come.
BARTIROMO: OK.
SCOTT: It's got to come -- I think it's got to come to Armed Services first.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
SCOTT: So -- and then we have a 15-day -- so I think it's at least two more weeks.
BARTIROMO: Meanwhile, the president just back from Hanoi with his meeting with Kim Jong-un. Your reaction to that?
The president talks a lot about his relationship with Kim Jong-un, so -- but we are yet to see any real movement in terms of denuclearization.
SCOTT: Well, first off, let's remember, he's a dictator. Kim Jong-un is a dictator. He's a thug. He's a murderer. That's what he is.
Now, I think the president is doing the right thing by trying to figure out how we make our country safer, by sitting down with him and saying, you need to denuclearize. And this is why your country, you and your citizens, will be in a better position.
Now, in business, you know that you have to walk away from deals a lot. That's the way it -- what happens. Often, before you get a deal, you have to walk away from it.
I think the president did the right thing. He walked away because he's not getting what he wanted out of the deal. And I'm proud of him for doing that.
BARTIROMO: Yes, but what can we expect on this issue?
SCOTT: Well, what you hope for is that North Korea comes to their senses and says, look, I want to have freedom and democracy, I want to have our citizens with plenty of food, I want to have them -- great jobs.
That's what you would hope.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
SCOTT: But we have to remember, this guy is a tyrant. He's a thug. He murders his own citizens, his own family. So you have to -- you have to have low expectations.
BARTIROMO: All right, we will leave it there.
Senator, it's good to see you this morning. Thanks so much.
SCOTT: Nice seeing you.
BARTIROMO: Senator Rick Scott joining us there.
Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney up next on her committee's questioning of Michael Cohen last week, as well as a number of issues.
Back in a minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT: So, they don't have anything with Russia. There's no collusion. So now they go and morph into, let's inspect every deal he's ever done.
We're going to go into his finances. We're going to check his deals. We're going to check -- these people are sick.
(LAUGHTER)
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: They're sick.
I saw little shifty Schiff yesterday.
(LAUGHTER)
TRUMP: No, it's the first time. He went into a meeting. And he said, "We're going to look into his finances."
I said, where did that come from? He always talked about Russia.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: That was President Trump at CPAC slamming House Democrats.
This comes as they ramp up their investigation into the president's finances, following Michael Cohen's public testimony this past week on payments made to women before the election.
Joining me right now is Democratic Congresswoman from New York Carolyn Maloney. She sits on the House Oversight Committee. And she's wearing a jacket which was given to her from the Fire Department of New York.
Good to see you.
REP. CAROLYN MALONEY, D-N.Y.: Good to see you, Maria.
BARTIROMO: I want to get to the compensation fund for the 9/11 victims in a second, because I know that's why you were in the jacket. And good for you that you're wearing that jacket.
MALONEY: Thank you.
BARTIROMO: I was there at the New York Stock Exchange. And it's a horrible day. And we will never forget. We know that.
But let me ask you first about Michael Cohen.
Congresswoman, some of those questions last week were so bizarre. Does President Trump have a love child? Does he beat his wife? I mean, all this stuff focusing on everything that the American people really do not want.
They would like to see these two sides work together. What's your reaction to Michael Cohen last week? And what are you trying to do?
MALONEY: Well, I thought that his testimony was alarming, because it did point to possible crimes and campaign finance violations, ethics violations, and possible tax and insurance crimes.
And he gave a list of people that he thought could lead to other possible crimes. And this really was the first hearing, oversight hearing, that the Democrats had on the White House and holding them accountable for alleged crimes in trying to influence and disrupt an election and other things.
BARTIROMO: But that's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying.
Look, we know that there was no collusion so far. We have no evidence of that. We're waiting on the Robert Mueller report.
But isn't it true that you're supposed to follow and see if there was wrongdoing done, and then follow the crime? But here, it's like, you have got your guy and you want to find a crime. You want to look under every rock to try to hope to find a crime. You have got your guy, Donald Trump. He's the guy you want to find a crime.
That's the path you and your colleagues are moving toward, no?
MALONEY: I would say that our whole system of government was founded on checks and balances and holding everyone accountable and holding everyone to the law. And...
BARTIROMO: Did Michael Cohen perjure himself again? Because a couple of times, he said things that some of your colleagues on the right are saying, look, that's a lie? Like, he said he didn't want a job in the White House. He said he's never been to Prague, by the way.
That was what the dossier said.
MALONEY: Well, I believe him, because he has no reason to lie. Right now, as you know, he's going to jail...
BARTIROMO: Right.
MALONEY: ... partially because he lied to Congress.
And I -- he would gain nothing by lying to Congress again, except increasing his term in jail.
BARTIROMO: So, how do you justify bringing a guy down who has already lied to Congress once, and that's why he was indicted and going to jail, but this is your first witness?
I mean, given all of this wrongdoing and upset over the FISA abuse, and what happened in the 2016 election, is this really the first person you want to bring down to question?
MALONEY: Well, he was one of the closest confidants of the president for 10 years, both while he was president and while he was running for office and even before that. He gave valuable information about how the president operates.
He answered one of my questions about meetings, because the president always says, "I knew nothing about this meeting."
He said nothing ever happened at Trump Tower or any time that the president -- that was an important meeting, that the president was briefed before the meeting, and the participants went back and told him what happened at the meeting.
Right now, we're trying to gather information. He also testified that he was cooperating with prosecutors in several other investigations.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
MALONEY: So there is a lot of investigations, including the important Mueller one, where the facts have to be looked at and studied to see if there was any obstruction of justice, if there was an attempt to influence the outcome of an American election with a foreign power.
BARTIROMO: Well, he said no collusion, right? I think Michael Cohen also said no...
MALONEY: That's what he said.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
(CROSSTALK)
BARTIROMO: So far, we have heard from the House, the Senate, the DOJ and the FBI that there's no collusion. I mean, so...
(CROSSTALK)
MALONEY: Well, he gave us a list of names.
And I know that the Democrats are sending out questions to roughly 60 other witnesses to gain information.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
MALONEY: What we need to do -- and I think you did hit something, that it should be more bipartisan.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
MALONEY: We should start agreeing on a set of facts that both sides agree on. And...
BARTIROMO: Well, exactly. And we should agree. Right. We should agree on at least the Constitution and process, things like that.
But there's a lot of division in your party.
(CROSSTALK)
MALONEY: But we have a responsibility. We have a responsibility to the American people.
BARTIROMO: You absolutely do.
MALONEY: And on honesty in government, on oversight in government.
BARTIROMO: That's what we all want, honesty.
MALONEY: And we want our democracy to be just as strong after we leave office as...
BARTIROMO: Well, I'm with you on that. That's for sure.
MALONEY: And we...
(CROSSTALK)
BARTIROMO: But there is a lot of division in your party right now.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez basically stopped Amazon from coming to your district, New York. What are you going to do to get Amazon back, and your reaction to all of that?
MALONEY: Well, to me, I find it tragic that they are not coming at this point.
And I have joined the governor and the mayor and many, many others, including the leaders of all the public housing projects, the leaders of our community, the people that I represent. They wanted Amazon to come. They wanted the jobs. They wanted the transit improvement.
BARTIROMO: But AOC didn't want it. Is she the face of your party at this point?
She's talking about this Green Deal that's going to cost $94 trillion. What are you going to do about it, if you're a moderate Democrat and you're faced with these radical ideas all the way to the left?
MALONEY: Well, we can always disagree. We don't always agree on everything. So you fight for what you believe in.
I believe in a diversified economy, and I believe in more jobs for New York. And I think this statement that we're working to reach out to Amazon is an important statement to other businesses that we want to welcome jobs, that we want to work with them to help our country and help people.
BARTIROMO: Well, first, you got to get the tax -- first, you got to get the tax structure better, and you have got to make sure you're not double- taxing, right? And you have got...
MALONEY: Absolutely. That's the biggest -- that is...
BARTIROMO: So, have you spoken to Cuomo about that?
MALONEY: Oh, absolutely. Everyone in New York is totally opposed to what we call SALT, removing the deduction of city and state taxes.
BARTIROMO: Yes. All right.
MALONEY: It is an arrow into our heart. We have to change that. I'm working on a report on how it impacts not only New York, but every other state.
BARTIROMO: Yes. We have got a hard break, so we have got to go.
MALONEY: That's a top priority of ours.
BARTIROMO: But this compensation fund is so important. Thank you so much for pushing for it. The victims need help.
MALONEY: Thank you for supporting the victims and survivors and first- responders of 9/11.
BARTIROMO: Of course.
MALONEY: They were there for us. We need to be there for them.
BARTIROMO: Congresswoman, thank you.
MALONEY: And we need to pass and make permanent the Victims Compensation Fund.
BARTIROMO: Congresswoman...
MALONEY: Thank you, Maria.
BARTIROMO: ... Carolyn Maloney.
We will be right back.
MALONEY: Thank you. Good to see you.
BARTIROMO: You too.
MALONEY: Great.
BARTIROMO: Thank you so much.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: Welcome back.
We are awaiting the final report from special counsel Robert Mueller into possible Russian collusion. The president says that it will be up to Attorney General Bill Barr to determine just how much from the report will be made public.
Joining me right now, in an exclusive interview, is former Whitewater independent counsel Ken Starr, also a former U.S. solicitor general.
Great to see you, sir. Thanks very much for joining us this morning.
KENNETH STARR, FORMER SPECIAL PROSECUTOR: Oh, my pleasure, Maria. Thank you.
BARTIROMO: First, on the Mueller report, what are you expecting? What should we be looking at once that report does drop?
STARR: I think we should go back to what Bill Barr said in his confirmation hearings, Maria.
And that is, he's going to receive a confidential report. Now, the word confidential has to have meaning. That is what the regulations say, and that he, Bill Barr, will make the determination of what goes up to Congress.
So we're behind the veil of ignorance. We don't know. But I think we're already see seeing indications, especially from the Michael Cohen testimony, the way that entire episode unfolded, is, there may be less to the Mueller report as it's publicly available than meets the eye.
He may also just say, there's no -- first of all, he presumably will say no collusion, because thus far, as you well know, there's been no evidence of collusion with the Russians.
BARTIROMO: Right.
Well, what about what we have been talking about all morning with Devin Nunes, Carolyn Maloney, the fact that there was wrongdoing, there have been criminal charges inferred or suggested by the inspector general for Andrew McCabe?
Will we see accountability? What does that mean, criminal charges refers?
STARR: Right. It's a process that simply has to unfold.
And I know it's frustrating on this side of the process, until those decisions have been made. But one of the things that we saw this week was just a remarkable set of questions -- and now that's what the conversation is about -- for Michael Cohen.
And one of the things that's not being -- you asked Congresswoman Maloney a bit about this.
BARTIROMO: Right.
STARR: Which is credibility.
The first thing you ask about a witness is, is the witness credible? And there are serious issues of credibility.
BARTIROMO: Well, we're going to talk more about this.
STARR: The next thing you ask is...
BARTIROMO: We have got an extensive segment with you coming up for FOX Insider. We will talk about Michael Cohen. So I will see you then.
Good to see you. Ken Starr, thank you.
Thanks for joining us, everybody.
FOX Business Network tomorrow morning, join me on "Mornings With Maria."
Have a great Sunday.
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