Can Carly Fiorina ride a 'defeat Clinton' strategy to the GOP nomination? Plus, Gen. Michael Hayden makes case for NSA terror tools

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Can Fiorina's 'defeat Clinton' strategy win GOP nomination?

Republican presidential candidate on 'Fox News Sunday'

This is a rush transcript from "Fox News Sunday," May 31, 2015. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

CHRIS WALLACE, ANCHOR: I’m Chris Wallace.

The other woman running for the White House draws a sharp contrast with Hillary Clinton.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CARLY FIORINA (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think we need a nominee who will ask her these questions about trustworthiness, about transparency and about track record.

WALLACE: Can Carly Fiorina’s defeat Clinton strategy take her to the Republican nomination?

Presidential candidate Carly Fiorina only on "Fox News Sunday."

Then, the Senate tries to work out a last minute deal key provisions before key provisions of the Patriot Act expire. Will letting the clock run out of the NSA’s bulk collection of our phone records put us in danger? We'll ask General Michael Hayden who used these post-9/11 tools when he led the NSA.

Plus, the Republican race turns to the battle over ISIS.

GOV. BOBBY JINDAL (R), LOUISIANA: We hear Senator Paul saying that ISIS exists because of Republican foreign policy hawks. That's ridiculous. I think the senator is unsuited to be our commander in chief.

WALLACE: Our Sunday panel weighs in on the foreign policy showdown heating up the Republican field.

All, right now, on "Fox News Sunday."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE: And hello again from Fox News in Washington.

We begin with breaking news. Vice President Biden's son Beau has died of brain cancer at age 46. The vice president's office says he was first diagnosed in 2013, treated and given a clean bill of health before the cancer returned this spring.

Beau Biden was Delaware's former attorney general but he announced he would run for governor in 2016.

When Biden was just 3, he and his brother Hunter were seriously injured in a car crash that killed his mother and infant sister. We'll have more on Beau Biden later with the panel.

Now to politics and a race for the White House that keeps getting more crowded, with another four presidential hopefuls that announcing their candidacy this week.

Among them, Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley, who are the first to challenge Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination.

But the biggest Clinton critic is almost certainly Republican candidate Carly Fiorina, former head of Hewlett-Packard, who joins us now.

And, Mrs. Fiorina, welcome back to "Fox News Sunday."

FIORINIA: Good morning, Chris. Thank you for having me.

WALLACE: You have taken special delight in going after Hillary Clinton. You have set up a Web site called ReadytoBeatHillary.com. You held up a news conference this week outside a South Carolina hotel where she was speaking.

You say that Hillary Clinton is playing the gender card, but aren't you also playing that card when you say that you can attack her more effectively than any male candidate can?

FIORINA: Well, actually, I haven't said that. Perhaps others have. What I have said is that I come from a world where titles are just titles and talk is just talk. And the questions that I’m raising about Hillary Clinton, I take no delight in them. I’m concerned.

You know, it is entirely legitimate when someone is running for the presidency of the United States to ask whether they are being transparent, whether they are trustworthy, whether they have a track record of leadership.

Hillary Clinton has demonstrated over and over again that she is not transparent. Her leadership as secretary of state has placed us in grave danger around the world. These are entirely legitimate questions and they are questions that I would ask of her on the general debate stage, questions that must be asked of her because the American people need to hear her answers.

WALLACE: Here was Hillary Clinton this week. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I’m aware, I may not be the youngest candidate in this race, but I have one big advantage. I’ve been coloring my hair for years.

(LAUGHTER & CHEERS)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Ms. Fiorina, what do you think of Hillary Clinton?

FIORINA: Well, first of all, setting the accent aside, I think that was kind of a cute line. I color my hair, too. I’m happy to have hair, since I didn't for a period after battling cancer.

But, look, I think Hillary Clinton has, indeed, devoted her life to public service. She's a hard working, intelligent woman. But I also think honestly, she and Bill Clinton are the personification of what 82 percent of Americans now consider the professional political class that is more concerned about preserving its power and its privilege than it is about doing the people's business.

It's why 82 percent of the American people now think we need people from outside of the professional political class to serve in public office. Ours was intended to be a citizen government, by, for and of the people.

And so, she will clearly be the nominee of the Democrat Party and our nominee must take the fight to her, because we need to defeat Hillary Clinton in 2016. And then we need someone in the Oval Office who can actually do the job.

WALLACE: We, in the news business, never like to be the story, but FOX News is going to be conducting the first presidential debate in Cleveland on August 6th. And our bosses have decided to limit the debate to the top ten Republican candidates in the national polls at that time.

A couple of questions: first of all, do you think it's fair? And, secondly, how important is it to your candidacy to be on that debate stage?

FIORINA: Well, as I’ve said before, I’m pleased that FOX News announced the goals. I think clarity is important. It's my job to work hard to achieve the goals as they've been laid out, and I’m confident I’ll be on that debate stage.

And, of course, it is important for my campaign. You know, in a recent FOX News poll, over 50 percent of the American people had never heard my name. That's because I haven't been in politics all my life. So of course, a debate is an opportunity for many more American people to get a look at me and understand who I am and what I believe in and what I would do as president of the United States.

WALLACE: You had been campaigning the traditional way, spending a lot of time in the states that vote early, such as Iowa. Now, given the fact that we're going to base this on national polls, is that going to change your strategy going forward?

FIORINA: No, not really. You know, I spent, yesterday, in Delaware, helping to raise money for the Delaware GOP. I’m today in New Mexico where I was last night with a big fundraiser for the GOP, as well as raising money.

So, we will continue to work very hard, make sure we have the fuel to run. But the early states, of course, are important. It's important to build momentum in Iowa. We are. It's important to build momentum in South Carolina. We are.

So, my job is to continue to work very hard, to make sure the American people understand who I am, what I believe in, what I’ll fight for. It's why I have been so accessible to the press. I have now answered probably close to 500 on the record questions in three weeks since I launched my campaign.

WALLACE: Well, let's talk about some of the issues. And I’m going to ask you the 501st question. You oppose Common Core education standards. And one of your reasons for that has gotten some blow-back. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FIORINA: The argument for Common Core is frequently, oh, we have to compete with the Chinese. I’ve been doing business in China for decades and I will tell you that, yes, the Chinese can take a test. And what they can't do is innovate. They're not terribly imaginative, they’re not entrepreneurial, they don’t innovate. That's why they're stealing our intellectual property.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: But the fact is, China is on track to lead the world in science and technology research by 2019, and more important, the U.S. now ranks 30th in math literacy in the world and 20th in reading literacy.

Question, aren't we falling behind not just China but the rest of the world when it comes to education?

FIORINA: Well, of course, our education system is a big problem. The point I was trying to make about the Chinese is the system they've put in place, standardizes behavior. It's part of the repression of that regime.

It's one of the reasons why China, for example, has a strategy of continuing to steal our intellectual property. It's one of the reasons why they have not adhered to the requirements of WTO.

Our education system is in trouble, but demonstrably, giving more money to the Department of Education, as we have been doing for almost 40 years, doesn’t improve the sate of education.

WALLACE: But --

FIORINA: Common Core has become, however it was intended originally, Common Core has become a nationally driven set of bureaucratic standards that teach teachers how to teach, that teach children how to learn, and what we need is to provide more parental choice so that our kids anywhere they live have a real chance, and Common Core doesn't help us do that.

WALLACE: But I want to pick up on that because you say Common Core is a bureaucratic program coming out of Washington, driven by Washington. You talked about the department of education.

Here are the facts, Ms. Fiorina: Common Core standards don't come from the Department of Education. They come from the state governors, and the school officers and local school districts design the curriculum to meet those standards. In fact, the federal government is barred by law from setting curriculum -- developing curriculum in local school districts.

FIORINA: Yes, I understand that's how it started.

But the think is, when a Washington bureaucracy gets involved in any program, it becomes heavy-handed and standardized. It's how Washington bureaucracies work.

And so, the reason you have so many parents and teachers pushing back against Common Core is because they believe, rightly so, that they are losing their choices and their flexibility.

Here's another fact about Common Core: national textbook companies and national testing companies are helping now to form and drive these standards. It's just how bureaucracies work.

We know that the most important thing about a child's education is to have a great teacher in front of the classroom and a lot of choice and accountability with parents, so that parents can school their children however they think their children will be best served, whether that's at home or with vouchers or charters or parochial schools.

And Common Core, unfortunately, limits parents' choices. It limits the creativity a teacher can apply in the classroom. So, it will over time limit our children's chances.

WALLACE: I want to -- you talked earlier about Hillary and Bill Clinton being part of the professional political class. I want to take you back to your announcement video.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FIORINA: Our founders never intended us to is have a professional political class. They believe that citizens and leaders need to step forward. We know the only way to re-imagine our government is to re-imagine who is leading it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: As I say, you talk a lot about the professional political class, but I was looking at your record in business. And you worked for way from decades from being a secretary to sales force to marketing to ending up as the CEO of Hewlett-Packard. You paid your dues.

And I guess the question is, isn't it as questionable to take someone with no political experience and make them president of the United States, as it is to take a politician without business experience and make them the head of a Fortune 100 company like Hewlett-Packard?

FIORINA: Well, of course, politics is different than business. Of course, business running a company takes a certain set of technical skills. Again, ours was intended to be a citizen government.

But it's not accurate to say that I don't know anything about politics. I have served as an adviser to many politicians. I run my own political campaign in California. And while I lost that campaign, California's a huge state. So, I gain more Republican votes, more Democratic votes, more independent votes than virtually anyone else running anywhere in the country.

It's also true I have been in and around government for a long time. Michael Hayden, your next guest, a friend, I chaired the advisory board at the CIA for him for several years. I’d advised two secretaries of defense, a secretary of state, a secretary of homeland security. I have been all around the world.

As a business person, I have seen the impact of government on business and on our economy. So, I’m not a neophyte, but I’m certainly not a professional politician. And when 82 percent of the American people think that the professional class is acting against their interest, I would say that's majority of the Americans.

WALLACE: We -- finally, we like to get off the issue at some point and try to get some insight on the person. And I’d like to try to do that with you. You talk in your book about the fact that in 2009, you lost your daughter Laurie to addiction. It was the same time that you were diagnosed with breast cancer.

And you say reconnecting with your faith is what got you through all of that. Can you please share that with us, Ms. Fiorina?

FIORINA: Yes. I grew up a faithful person. I never lost faith. I prayed every day all throughout my life. But at some point in life, my faith became fairly abstract. And I lost this belief that we have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

And over the course of the several years prior to 2009 through the help of a pastor friend of mine, I re-found that personal relationship. And that was incredibly helpful to me, to my husband, to our family.

One of the reasons I refound that personal connection is through thinking about science. You know, human beings have created a GPS system that can keep track of billions of moving objects and provide very precise instructions to all of them. And so, it occurred to me that if human beings can do that, certainly God understands what's going on in each of our lives and he answers those prayers that he should.

WALLACE: Ms. Fiorina, thank you. Thank you for sharing that with us. Thank you for joining us today. And we'll see you on the campaign trail.

FIORINA: Thank you, Chris. Thank you for having me.

WALLACE: Up next, our Sunday group joins the conversation about Clinton and the indictment of former Speaker Dennis Hastert.

Plus, what would you like to ask the panel about Clinton's strategy of not answering reporters' questions? Just go to Facebook or Twitter @FoxNewsSunday, and we may use your question on the air.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: I don't want to be there all by myself. I want Democrats elected from the local to the county to the state to the federal level.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Hillary Clinton talking with a bit of a Southern drawl in South Carolina this week about moving back to the White House.

And it's time for our Sunday group: Fox News senior political analyst, Brit Hume, Julie Pace who covers the White House for The Associated Press, syndicated columnist George Will, and Neera Tanden, president of the liberal think tank, the Center for American Progress.

Well, we asked all of you for questions for the panel, and we got a bunch of questions like these on Facebook. Pablo Pappano writes about Hillary Clinton, "How long can she go without doing an interview?" And Gail Berndt Beede sent this, "She's pulling a Muhammad Ali, rope-a-dope." Good credit for getting that sports analogy.

Neera, as someone who’s close to the Hillary campaign, how can she go more than a month and a half since she announced her candidacy without doing a real interview and answering people’s questions?

NEERA TANDEN, CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS: I mean, she has -- she has (INAUDIBLE) reporters over the last couple of weeks, but she will do more interviews, one-on-one interviews. I mean, we’re 500 days until election. This can be a long campaign and she's going to announce in a few weeks and then we’ll have a --

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: I thought she announced when she did her video in April.

TANDEN: There's formal announcements and there’s prelaunch. And she's spending this time talking to people and hearing their concerns and that will shape what she does on the campaign trail.

WALLACE: Brit, without serious competition from -- it seems, in the Democratic primaries, how long can she go without -- I mean, yes, she’s done these rope lines where she takes these questions, answers, and then walks away after quick, short, some would say, not very responsive answers. How long can she go without answering questions? And is this a smart strategy?

BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I think she can be indefinitely and it may be a smart strategy. I learned along time ago covering campaigns, the job of political campaign is not to answer journalists’ questions or to educate the public on the issues, or to reveal everything about your own views on things, when someone in the press or many people in the press want you to. The job of a campaign is to get the candidate elected.

And the Clinton team obviously decided at this stage of the campaign. She doesn't need to go out and do that. She's very well known. She doesn't need to answer a lot of reporters' questions.

Most candidates are hungry for reporters' questions and attention because that's how they get attention that they need.
Without competition and being as well as she is, she doesn't need either of those things. And so, my guess is that she can go indefinitely. It may start to hurt her, and when it does, one presumably will find her beginning to do it. But so far, it doesn't seem to have hurt her very much.

WALLACE: You can argue how much competition that they will provide at the Democratic race, but two Democrats have entered the race against Hillary Clinton this week. That's Senator Martin -- rather, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and former Governor Martin O'Malley of Maryland.

And here was O'Malley in his announcement yesterday, his only mention of Hillary Clinton.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARTIN O’MALLEY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The CEO of Goldman Sachs let his employees know he'd be just fine with either Bush or Clinton. Well, I’ve got news for the bullies of Wall Street -- the presidency is not a crown to be passed back and forth by you, between two royal families.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Again, that was the only comment about Hillary Clinton in his announcement yesterday.

Julie, what are your Democratic sources, both in and outside of the White House, think of the campaign Hillary Clinton is running so far? And what do they make of the kid’s glove treatment she's gotten so far both, as we say these campaigns go through a bunch of stages as Neera mentioned, but from Sanders and from O’Malley?

JULIE PACE, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS: Yes, it’s really interesting. I mean, when you talk to people who work for President Obama, most of them will say what Brit said, look, she operates in a different space than any other candidate. She's incredibly well known to the American people. She doesn't face a lot of series competition so we understand why she's not answering questions.

Both of them, though, do say that moving forward, what we really need to focus on, she can't continue with this strategy. There is a certain point where you have to engage with people who don't agree with you on every issue and you have to talk about issues that aren’t necessarily on your agenda that day -- things that are happening in the world, things that are in the news.

With O'Malley and Sanders, you've seen both of them gently nudge her. You saw O'Malley there. Sanders has been pushing her to take a position on trade.

I’m actually interested on what Hillary Clinton does in relation to Sanders and O'Malley. So far, she's generally ignored them. If they get more aggressive in going after her, does she respond? I think that puts her in a tricky position.

WALLACE: There was another troubling story in politics this week, and that was the indictment of former House Speaker Denny Hastert for allegedly paying hush money to a student that he had some involvement with back before his political career in the '70s and '80s, back in Illinois, and he allegedly was paying him hush money not to reveal the fact that Hastert had sexually abused this young man back in those days.

George, your thoughts about Hastert. Your thoughts about this case?

GEORGE WILL, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: What’s of interest here is not the behavior long ago that made him subject to blackmail, but the behavior more recently that made him wealthy enough to worth blackmailing. That is he was a high school wrestling coach, and teacher, and then a member of Congress, neither of which are highly remunerative jobs. And he became very wealthy.

First as speaker of the House, he presided over an avalanche of earmarks. By 2005, there were 15,000 earmarks attached to various pieces of legislation, one of which created a highway program, highway interchange near some land that he rather anonymously owned that suddenly became very valuable for a development that never developed, but in fact he made a killing from this.

Second, he then became a lobbyist. Big government becomes big by being deeply involved in the allocation of wealth and opportunity. Lobbyists are important. That's why we spend more time on lobbying than we do on campaigns. They become important precisely because they know how complicated the government is, where the levers and pulleys and widgets are, to make it work. And he made the most of that value.

It's an -- it's an unfortunate glimpse of how hard government is.

WALLACE: Hastert lost the speakership during the 2006 election when the Democrats took control. One of the big issues at the end of that campaign was that a congressman at the time, Mark Foley, had sent some sexually charged computer messages to a male page -- those are the interns who work in the house, young people usually in teens -- at that time before the election. Hastert condemned that behavior. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. DENNIS HASTERT (R), ILLINOIS: As a parent and speaker of the House, I am disgusted that Congressman Foley broke that trust. Anyone who had knowledge of these instant messages should have turned them over to authorities immediately, so that kids could be protected.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Neera, does this political indictment have any fallout for Republicans or is this basically Hastert’s problems?

TANDEN: You know, I think it's a tragic thing. I agree with George with what happened in the last couple of years may be scandalous as well. But really -- I mean, if there's abuse of a young person, that's a terrible tragedy itself and I hope he's held accountable for it.

I don’t -- I don't to want generalize on the parties. No one takes pleasure in this. I mean, I think some people are concerned about the demoralizing that takes place in politics that makes people seem hypocritical. But I think the challenge -- we should really -- it's a tragedy. We should get to the bottom of it.

HUME: This is a peculiar prosecution. The alleged offense here is under a law that was designed to capture racketeering, drug money and so forth. That's obviously not in play here.

There's, evidently, a blackmailer, extortionist. No indication yet, and all indications seem to be no charges will be brought against the person who was blackmailing the former speaker.

So, what we have here is some money transfers, which are supposed to be the crime, but it's -- it's the use of the law in the most unusual way. You have to ask this question, were they investigating the crime? Were they investigating the former speaker?

TANDEN: Well, obviously, there was a deep crime that's passed the statue of limitation. S, that’s why they’re probably looking at this --

HUME: Obviously -- nothing is obvious at this stage. It’s not even formally alleged.

TANDEN: Right, no.

HUME: Obviously.

TANDEN: But the issue of statute of limitations -- if it's the case, right, if it’s the case that there was abuse and it's passed the statute of limitations but he lied to cover it up, are you saying they shouldn't prosecute that? There shouldn't be any look at that all?

HUME: No, I’m not saying that. What I’m saying is the underlying crime that's alleged here is not -- does not seem to be about that. What about the extortion? Are you saying extortion should go unpunished as well?

TANDEN: No. I’m saying we should look at all of it. But you were saying they shouldn’t --

(CROSSTALK)

HUME: We're not -- what I’m saying is we're not looking at all of it.

TANDEN: Well, we don't know what they're looking at, at this point.

WALLACE: All right. I’m going to call an audible here because I want to take a little bit of time we have left and that is to talk about the tragic news overnight about the death of Beau Biden, 46-year-old son of Vice President Biden. Just looking at that picture, it kind of breaks your heart.

As I mentioned at the top of the program, I think to understand the family connection, you have to go back to the 1972 car crash. Joe Biden had just been elected, 29 years old. He was just going to become a senator. After the election, just turned 30, so he could meet the constitutional standard to become a senator and his wife was out Christmas shopping at the Christmas of '72, died in a terrible car crash. The baby girl died and the two boys, Hunter and Beau, were severely, severely injured in this car crash.

Joe Biden very seriously considered not taking the Senate seat, ended up doing it and ended up commuting between Delaware and Washington every single day so that to go back and see his kids.

Julie, I mean, anybody who spends time with the Bidens, can see this extraordinary connection. I remember one time being in the office and Beau was in there with his dad, they’re leaving -- just saying good-bye, and they both said, "I love you," they gave each other a big hug and a kiss. I mean, this is a family that had a really, really strong connection.

PACE: Absolutely. Joe Biden loves his family. That is an absolute truth about this man. And he's particularly close to his children. He talks about them when you see him in public, he talks about that when you see him in private.

And the things that he has gone through, as you mentioned, in the '70s, it's so tragic for a man who loves his family so much to have endured so much tragedy.

WALLACE: All right. We have to take a break here. We'll see you a little later.

Up next, major post-9/11 surveillance laws are set to expire just hours from now, barring a last-minute deal from Congress. We'll ask former NSA and CIA director, General Michael Hayden, what happens if the programs go dark.

And what do you think about government surveillance? Let me know on Facebook or Twitter @FoxNewsSunday and use the #FNS.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: The Senate is meeting in a rare Sunday session to consider key provisions of the Patriot Act, those provisions set to expire at midnight. Much of the debate is about the NSA's bulk collection of our phone records at a time when intelligence officials say the threat to the U.S. Homeland is only growing. General Michael Hayden is the former head of the NSA and then the CIA who set up the metadata program after 9/11. And general, welcome back to "Fox News Sunday."

GEN. MICHAEL HAYDEN, FORMER CIA AND NSA DIRECTOR: Thanks, Chris.

WALLACE: Now, Senator Rand Paul says that he will force the expiration of the bulk data collection at midnight tonight through various parliamentary maneuvers. In fact, he can only force the expiration until Wednesday at the latest. But here he was on the Senate floor the week before last in this filibuster explaining his objections to this program. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's sort of an end run that has gone around the Constitution, gone around the Fourth Amendment, to collect information that we've actually said should be illegal to be collected that way, but we're doing it because we've done it and run around.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: General, what do you think of what Senator Paul is doing, forcing the expiration of this program?

HAYDEN: I think it's really unfortunate. There's a bit of a political consensus right now that NSA needs access to metadata. But you have 338 people in the House of Representatives vote in favor of the U.S.A. Freedom Act? No, I've got some issues with the details of that act. But it's amazing, there was a consensus. NSA still needs to have access to this metadata. It's just a question of where it's kept. This maneuver means we will go without that access for, what, 72 or 96 hours? It probably won't make a difference, but then again, it might.

WALLACE: So you're troubled by it?

HAYDEN: Yeah.

WALLACE: On the other hand, does Senator Paul have a point, because three weeks ago a court of appeals ruled that the Patriot Act does not authorize this kind of bulk metadata collection and that the program, the specific program, is illegal.

HAYDEN: Right. So, Senator Paul claimed that it's unconstitutional. Now, the controlling legal authority there is a 1979 court decision that says, indeed, metadata is not, repeat, not constitutionally protected. We have no reasonable expectation of privacy there. The second argument ...

WALLACE: Wait, wait, wait. Quickly explain that. What the court ruled was that if I make a call to you, perhaps the conversation between us is protected.

HAYDEN: Absolutely.

WALLACE: But the fact that my number calls your number, since this would go on a phone record, which I think in that case was thrown out in the mail and somebody could pick up, the fact that this number called that number for how many minutes, that that is not constitutionally protected.

HAYDEN: Exactly right. And so, we're not talking about a constitutional matter. Now, we may be talking about a legal matter here. The Congress has the ability to resolve that. They could actually pass language that makes it quite clear that the current method of collecting metadata is indeed what Congress intends. The court held that the current language doesn't support the current activity. But Congress has it within its power and its authority to fix that.

WALLACE: So, basically, the court was saying, this law doesn't allow that, so pass another law if you want to.

HAYDEN: Exactly.

WALLACE: All right. Let's assume, and it seems likely, all these programs expire at midnight, if only for a few days. The NSA's collection of phone records goes dark, so does the roving wiretap authority to track a target as he switches phones, perhaps one phone to another to try to avoid detection, and also, the lone wolf provision, which allows investigating individuals who are not linked to a terror group. Again, you said it could, it might not. How seriously is the former head of the NSA, former head of the CIA, how seriously does this jeopardize our national security? Is the country potentially in greater danger of a terrorist attack because we will not have these capabilities?

HAYDEN: Absolutely. And why would a reasonable people take off the table tools that I believe are lawful, and around which there's already a political consensus? If the vote goes forward, Chris, most of these things go on. Why would we give up things the professionals say, keep us safer.

WALLACE: Why? Explain, if you will, why the country is potentially in greater danger.

HAYDEN: Sure. Look, these are all threads, , these are all parts of a fabric. None of these are silver bullets. And that's one of the problems people like me have in explaining this to the American people. Because, you know, intelligence is fundamentally boring. It's not what you see on evening television. It's just piece by piece, thread by thread. You're giving up threads. It may not make a difference for a while. But then again, it might. And over the longer term, I'm willing to wager, Chris, that it will, indeed, make a difference. As you pointed out in your setup, we're more at risk today from internal actors than we have been at any time since 9/11.

WALLACE: But there seems to be a debate about how effective and how useful these programs are. Let me put some things on the screen. A recent report by the Justice Department's inspector general said FBI agents could not identify any major case developments that came from bulk data collection. And the Privacy and Civil Liberties oversight board, an independent agency created by Congress, found no instances of abuse of the program, but also no instances where it stopped a terrorist attack. Now, you say, well, it's a thread. It's not the silver bullet. But that isn't exactly the good housekeeping seal of approval.

HAYDEN: No, and when you had me in here a few months ago, Chris, and we were talking about CIA's renditions, detentions, interrogations, I have the same issue. Show me where it was a silver bullet. And I'm saying it doesn't work that way. I mean we seem to get credit only if we get, because of one or another of these programs, we get to tackle with terrorists on the rooftop just as he's about to chamber a round. How about we have a complex intelligence picture created that allows us to take action on the financier, months if not years ahead of that late last-second attempt to kill us.

WALLACE: OK, so the House has passed the USA Freedom Act, which basically would change the program. So instead of the government holding all of these records, the telephone companies who the calls were made on, would hold the records, and then the government would have to go to the phone company with the warrant to get information about a specific series of contacts. Could you live with that?

HAYDEN: Well, clearly, Chris, that is the best political solution out there right now. It is not the best operational solution because if it were, this is how we would have organized the thing in the first place. So, we're going to take a bit of a leap of faith with the USA Freedom Act, that the telecoms will be able to keep the data, that they will keep it because they're not required by law to keep it, and they'll keep it long enough, and none of them keep it as long as NSA keeps it, and that we'll be able to query the database across multiple entities with an effectiveness and accuracy that matches what it is we can do now against a single database. So, if you're asking me in a perfect world, what would I do, I'd reauthorize the Patriot Act. Can we live with this? I understand the politics matter, probably.

WALLACE: Well, you know, it's interesting because I was talking to some Senate leaders yesterday. And they talked about the possibility. We know Mitch McConnell has been against this. He wants to just reauthorize the Patriot Act, but bowing, perhaps, to political reality, he's considering, yes, this, the Freedom Act, but with amendments. And some of the amendments that are being talked about, one would be that the president would have to certify that it will work, that, in fact, it isn't just a theoretical issue, but if the NSA or the CIA wants to query AT&T, that they'll be able to get the information. And then the other is, as you point out, the U.S. Freedom Act doesn't require a company to actually hold onto these records. And the concern is that a phone company might market it and say, hey, guess what, you sign up with us, we are not going to keep your records.

HAYDEN: Yeah, family, friends and nobody else.

WALLACE: So, I mean, do you think that those -- how important do you think those kinds of amendments are?

HAYDEN: I think they would be very useful. As I said before, the way it's currently constructed is a leap of faith, an act of faith, that the companies will do this, and technologically we will be able to do it as well as we do it now. I would like to have the administration Mike Rogers, the current director of NSA, come in in a fix period of time and candidly tell the Congress, here is how it worked as well, here is how it's not working as well. It's what we used to do. And then, Chris, I get it. We get to draw this line all the time between liberty and security. But let's do it based on the facts. How much security are we giving up for how much more liberty? In a program in which you've already mentioned, there have been no abuses.

WALLACE: OK, finally. And I've got a little over a minute left. I want to move briefly to ISIS, which is on the march, as you well know, both in Iraq and in Syria. You said recently that you think that the U.S. military is under-resourced and overregulated. Explain.

HAYDEN: Sure. We have got about 3,000 people there. I think most people think the right number to do what it is the president has laid out, degrade and defeat ISIS, is probably 5,000 to 10,000. But more important than the numbers are the rules of engagement. We don't go forward. We don't embed with the Iraqi military. We go below the brigade level, which is a very high echelon, we don't have tactical air control party's forward, and we've not made very frequent use of our Special Operations forces at all.

WALLACE: So, you'd put them more in the fight?

HAYDEN: Unfortunately, that's more at risk. I get that. But I would put them more in the fight. Chris, the president has declared that defeating ISIS is a strategic interest of the United States.

WALLACE: And based on what you've seen from this president so far, what do you think is the likely about that he'll, one, increase the number of U.S. troops in Iraq and, two, put them in a more dangerous, vulnerable, but also more effective fighting position?

HAYDEN: I think the chances of anything beyond marginal improvement are low.

WALLACE: General Hayden, thank you. Thanks for joining us today. Always good to talk with you.

HAYDEN: Thanks, Chris.

WALLACE: Up next, we bring back the panel to discuss the showdown over government surveillance.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Terrorists like al-Qaeda and ISIL aren't suddenly going to stop plotting against us at midnight tomorrow and we shouldn't surrender the tools that help keep us safe. It would be irresponsible. It would be reckless. We shouldn't allow it to happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: President Obama in his weekly address urging Congress to pass compromise legislation to keep the NSA's domestic surveillance program going. And we're back now with the panel. Well, Brit, not only has Rand Paul promised to force the expiration, his words, of the bulk data collection, at least for a few days through parliamentary maneuvers, this week he also blamed the creation of ISIS on Republicans. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: ISIS exists and grew stronger because of the hawks in our party who gave arms indiscriminately, and most of those arms were snatched up by ISIS. These hawks also wanted to bomb Assad, which would have made ISIS's job even easier. They created these people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: What do you make of Senator Paul's actions and words, both on the merits of the arguments that he makes and also as a strategy to win the Republican presidential nomination?

HUME: Taking the second part of your question first, he seems confused about which party he's running in. These stances, either on surveillance or on who's responsible for ISIS, they are not going to sit well with the majority of the Republican electorate. This isn't going to happen. There's a segment of the Republican electorate, which shares his somewhat paranoid views of things, and he'll have their support, but that's not a nominating set.

And as for the historical accuracy of his idea of who created ISIS, first of all, Assad and ISIS weren't really fighting each other. They basically split the country up and only recently as ISIS taken any territory from the Assad control, so that's nonsense. He doesn't -- he makes no mention of the fact that, you know, after -- that there was a stable Iraq in place, a relatively stable Iraq, which, you know, Obama walked away from, which gave ISIS the free reign in its had, or at least was larger responsive for doing so. So historically, he's off base (ph) there as well.

WALLACE: George, I have long felt that Senator Paul is one of the few original thinkers in this town. I have long felt you were one of the few original thinkers in this town, so I have a question. Could you explain to me what he's up to here?

WILL: He's up to two things. And the roles are intentioned. First, I credit him with conscientiousness as a libertarian, who really feels that the collection of metadata violates the Fourth Amendment prescription of unreasonable searches and seizures. So, let's credit him. But he's simultaneously a presidential candidate. Brit says he's a niche candidate of a shrinking niche, because events are not playing out the way he anticipated two years ago when he began running for president. The world looks much more dangerous than it did. And today, last night his campaign sends out an ad saying, watch for my NSA spying showdown with Barack Obama. And, again, get ready, America, for the biggest brawl for liberty of the century. The problem with literally cashing in, this is a fund-raising device, is that it muddies the water and it makes people doubt, which I'm prepared to credit him with, the complete sincerity of the man. All the talk about how Washington doesn't work, we have no bipartisanship anymore, the U.S.A Freedom Act passed the House 338-88. Now, that's just an overwhelming law to set up the protection of this metadata that has to be accessed through the FISA court. Now, granted the FISA court almost always grants requests for surveillance, but still there is a court there. So I do think that at this point he looks somewhat - exotic (ph).

WALLACE: Go ahead.

TANDEN: I mean, we are where we are in part because of the expiration of this. Because the Senate didn't pass the bill. Didn't really take up this issue in time. So, you know, I think the challenge here is we did get this bipartisan vote, but Mitch McConnell hasn't wanted to take up the USA Freedom Act. He's capitulating at the last minute because he faces this deadline. But ...

WALLACE: He was working on the president's rights (ph) authority.

TANDEN: Sure, but there - or he could have taken the Patriot -- the president raised the Patriot Act extension a year ago. He could have taken it up two months ago. We have a Republican Congress that is battling each other in passing the Patriot Act. It is - it is a big question of why we're facing that.

WALLACE: Well, I want to pick up on that, Julie, because we played the clip at the top of the segment of President Obama talking his weekly radio address about the dangers of letting this program go dark. He also talked about it briefly on Friday, but I have to say, what strikes me is how tepid he has been in his support of this. Is his heart really in pushing for extension of this program? Which he has long expressed doubts about.

PAGE: It especially looks tepid when you compare it to what he's been doing on trade, which is one of his top priorities right now. He's been making phone calls to the Hill, he's been out talking about it around the country publicly. This has been a much more cautious, as you say, tepid PR strategy by the White House.

They do want this renewed. They do think that the bill that the House passed is a compromise in having the telephone companies keep the data, as opposed to the government keeping it. But this is just an inherently uncomfortable issue for the president. When you look at things that he said when he was running as a candidate, and then the programs that he kept in place when he became president. It doesn't sit well. It's not something that he really feels comfortable with.

HUME: It's hard for this president to put on his big boy pants and deal with national security.

(CROSSTALK)

TANDEN: No, it's not. The issue here is -- is a fight between Republicans. Do you think the president's lobbying the Senate is going to make Rand Paul come to the table? We thought that was Mitch McConnell's job, I thought. He hasn't been able to get (inaudible) issue here, because that's why we're facing this deadline, isn't it?

HUME: There will be a vote on the House-passed bill. I don't think there's much doubt about that. McConnell is trying to give the president all the authority that he had before, not just some of it.

TANDEN: But he has a House problem, because 200 Republicans voted against McConnell.

HUME: I get that, but that does not mean here that the president has been on this issue and many others an effective advocate with Congress. He simply hasn't been (inaudible) when it comes to these issues, which as Julie points out, are a little out of phase with the way he campaigned. He's not very good at it.

TANDEN: It's funny to blame him for the fact that Mitch McConnell cannot (inaudible).

HUME: I'm not blaming him for that.

TANDEN: OK. I thought you were. Sorry.

WALLACE: OK. You two finished? I want to ask about something else today, and that is ISIS, and this split inside the Democratic Party. The Center for a New American Security, a liberal foreign policy think tank, came out with a series of essays, of points, this week, which were very critical of the way President Obama is conducting the war against ISIS. They called it failing. They said he needs to find a new course. How big a split is there inside the Democratic Party? What are the chances that Hillary Clinton is going to end up going -- criticizing Obama as being too soft on fighting ISIS?

TANDEN: Hillary actually talked about this last week and talked about the challenge we're facing with the Iraqi army. Conservatives often tell us, you can't help people who can't help themselves. We have a big challenge right now. It's a serious challenge, which is the Iraqi army does not seem to be fighting for itself. That was a big challenge we've had over the last few weeks. We have to deal with that.

(CROSSTALK0

WALLACE: So, does Hillary Clinton, and you are close to the campaign, feel that Obama is doing enough or that he should do more?

TANDEN: You know, in her own words, she has said this president has the right strategy. So, you know, we -- that doesn't mean things won't change in the future, but right now we do not need more boots on the ground. We do not need more American boots on the ground. She said that very clearly.

WALLACE: I don't know where she said anything very clearly.

(CROSSTALK)

PAGE: She did an event in New Hampshire. It was one of the times she did take questions, and she got asked about this.

WALLACE: (inaudible) a rope line and people are shouting questions and she gets a ten-second answer and then walks away?

TANDEN: No, no. She was asked by I think Robert Costa, the "Washington Post," this question, and she answered it. Well, make sure you get those (ph) ahead of time.

WALLACE: I appreciate that, because I would like her to hold a real news conference, sit down for an interview and discuss these -- can you tell me where she is on trade?

TANDEN: On trade, she's talked about -- she wants to see the specifics of the Trans Pacific Partnership.

WALLACE: Yes, but didn't she say as secretary of state this was the gold standard for trade deals?

TANDEN: Was the trade deal finished when she was secretary of state two and a half years ago?

WALLACE: So she needs more details? OK.

Thank you, panel, see you next Sunday. Up next, some sage advice for the class of 2015 from our power players of the week.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: A look at Boston's historic Faneuil Hall.

Well, it's become an annual tradition here to sample some of the words of wisdom college graduates are getting at their commencements. This year, the speakers include politicians, two Oscar winners, and one of our own. And they're all our power players of the week.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HUME: If you've made a mistake, if you've made a blunder, admit it to yourself, and then go to the people affected by it and admit it to them, and tell them you're sorry. Full-heartedly and openly. The fact of the matter is, that people who do that make an enormous impression. It's the right thing to do. It's the moral thing to do. But it's also the smart thing to do.

SAMANTHA POWER. U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N.: You often hear people say that past generations struggled so that you would not have to. But I say, past generations struggled so you would be free to fight on behalf of someone else.

NATALIE PORTMAN, ACTRESS: I know a famous violinist who told me he can't compose because he knows too many pieces. So, when he starts thinking of a note, an existing piece immediately comes to mind. Just starting out, one of your biggest strengths is not knowing how things are supposed to be. You can compose freely because your mind isn't cluttered with too many pieces.

OBAMA: Commence as you go forward, I challenge you to keep challenging and building the new future we need. And make your class motto your life's work, to go where few dare. There's a place where we need you.

GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE U.S.: Those of you who are graduating this afternoon with high honors, awards and distinctions, I say well done. And as I like to tell the C students, you too can be president.

ROBERT DE NIRO, ACTOR: Rejection might sting, but my feeling is often it has very little to do with you. When you're auditioning or pitching, the director or producer or investor may just have something or someone different in mind. That's just how it is. That happened to me recently when I auditioned for the role of Martin Luther King in "Selma." Which was too bad, because I could have played the hell out of that part.

JON BON JOVI, MUSICIAN (singing): Take pictures each step of the way. Make this the best of the rest of your days. I say, go start your own revolution, and I see you at the reunion. Well, I'll see you at the reunion.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE: Nobody sang at my commencement. And our best wishes as well to the students, and, yes, the parents of the class of 2015.

That's it for today. Have a great week. We'll see you next "Fox News Sunday."

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