Graham on Kavanaugh hearings, bid to declassify documents
Senator Lindsey Graham discusses contentious Kavanaugh Supreme Court hearings, reacts to Obama's comments about the DOJ on 'Sunday Morning Futures.
This is a rush transcript from "Sunday Morning Futures," September 9, 2018. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
MARIA BARTIROMO, HOST: Good Sunday morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us.
Democrats try to derail the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, but at what cost? Republicans forge ahead with tax form -- reform 2.0 before the midterms. And social media executives face some tough questioning from lawmakers.
Good morning. I'm Maria Bartiromo. This is "Sunday Morning Futures."
Judge Brett Kavanaugh appears on track to be our nation's next Supreme Court justice. But his fiery confirmation hearings this past week left a lot of Americans asking about civility and bipartisanship on Capitol Hill.
Senator Lindsey Graham shares his thoughts coming up this morning.
House GOP leaders are forging ahead with the second stage of tax reform, tax cuts 2.0, as President Trump dangles the threat of a government shutdown over border wall funding.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy weighs in on all of that.
Plus, former President Obama's return to the campaign trail.
Meanwhile, House conservatives renew calls for President Trump to declassify documents that they say prove bias in the Russia probe.
We will hear from House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte this morning.
Then: Top executives from Facebook and Twitter turned up on Capitol Hill to answer questions about how they operate. Google a no-show. Could these social media companies face sweeping government regulation in the future?
We talk to the House chairman who led some of that questioning, as we look ahead right now on "Sunday Morning Futures."
The nation is awaiting a decision on whether Judge Brett Kavanaugh will be confirmed to the Supreme Court. Senators on the Judiciary Committee are expected to vote on Kavanaugh's confirmation to the high court on September 20, that followed by a vote by the full Senate the following week.
This all comes after last week's contentious confirmation hearings were judge Kavanaugh was grilled on everything from abortion, guns, civil rights, and his ability to be independent of the president who nominated him.
But it all began with a rebellion from Democrats against restrictions on documents from Kavanaugh's years at the White House. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. KAMALA HARRIS, D-CALIFORNIA: Mr. Chairman, I would like to be recognized to ask a question before we proceed.
The committee received just last night, less than 15 hours ago, 42,000 pages of documents that we have not had an opportunity to review or read or analyze.
(CROSSTALK)
SEN. CHARLES GRASSLEY (R), IOWA: You're out of order. I will proceed.
HARRIS: We cannot possibly move forward, Mr. Chairman, in this hearing.
GRASSLEY: I extend a very warm welcome to Judge Kavanaugh, to his wife, Ashley.
HARRIS: We have not been given an opportunity to have a meaningful hearing on this nominee.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham it at all. He joins me right now to talk more about it. He sits on both the Senate Judiciary and Budget Committees.
And, Senator, it is good to see this morning. Thanks for joining us.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, R-SOUTH CAROLINA: Thank you. Glad to be out of the hearing.
(LAUGHTER)
BARTIROMO: Your reaction to last week's -- your reaction to last week's proceedings?
GRAHAM: Well, the Democrats are under a tremendous amount of pressure from the left to destroy everything Trump.
I was very disappointed in the tone of the hearing, trying to suggest that Judge Kavanaugh wasn't telling the truth about a conversation between him and some person in a 300-person law firm that bore no fruit.
In terms of documents, we gave Democrats more documents on Kavanaugh than the last five Supreme Court nominees combined. He's the most qualified judge of his generation, outstanding 12 years on the bench. You know exactly what you're getting with him, 300-plus decisions.
This was an effort by the Democrats to respond to a base that's just really gone crazy with all things Trump. He's going to get confirmed. I think there'll be a handful of Democrats vote for him on the floor, nobody in the committee.
Confirmation hearings now are about base politics. It's not about the qualifications of the nominee. And I really hate that.
BARTIROMO: Well, you know, it's extraordinary when you look at the resistance that's happening on all fronts against this president...
GRAHAM: Yes.
BARTIROMO: ... including his nomination to the Supreme Court of Brett Kavanaugh.
GRAHAM: Yes.
BARTIROMO: How do you think the impact plays out here? Do you think voters will remember the resist and obstruction coming on the left in terms of trying to get things done come November?
GRAHAM: I don't think voters remember process. They do -- they do remember results.
I think a lot of voters who have had a chance to look at Judge Kavanaugh -- the ABA gave him the highest rating possible, well-qualified. You had liberal lawyers who had interacted with the judge throughout his career said that he was nothing but a tremendous, well-qualified, call-it-as-you- see-it judge.
So I think, in 2020 particularly, those who are running on the Democratic side feel like they need to be loud and they need to be mean, they need to be rude to get the nomination.
Kavanaugh will matter in terms of how you vote in 2020. The process won't. The economy will matter. How safe we are will matter. Results will matter. And I think that's why President Trump is doing so well, because he has had good results.
They don't talk about results. They talk about personality and process, because they don't have an alternative agenda that makes any sense.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
And that is why the left is trucking out their, you know, big -- big prize here. And that is President Obama.
(LAUGHTER)
GRAHAM: Yes, Obama.
BARTIROMO: President Obama was out on the campaign trail this weekend a lot. And he had something to say about the way President Trump handles things.
Listen to this. I got to get your reaction.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We do not pressure the attorney general or the FBI to use the criminal justice system as a cudgel to punish our political opponents...
(APPLAUSE)
OBAMA: ... or to explicitly call on the attorney general to protect members of our own party from persecution -- prosecution because an election happens to be coming up.
I'm not making that up. That's not hypothetical.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: Wow. That's just one big wow, particularly after what we have witnessed...
GRAHAM: Wow.
(LAUGHTER)
BARTIROMO: ... took place in the 2016 election...
GRAHAM: Yes.
BARTIROMO: ... where a group of individuals at the top of the FBI and the DOJ pushed to stop Donald Trump and exonerate Hillary Clinton with not a lot of investigating.
Your thoughts on what you just heard, Senator?
GRAHAM: Right.
Well, it's not -- President Obama, it's not what you're making up. It's what you're leaving out. You're leaving out the fact that your attorney general, Loretta Lynch, told the FBI director, don't call the Clinton e- mail investigation an investigation. Call it a matter.
You're forgetting to tell the public that the number four at the Department of Justice, Mr. Ohrs -- Mr. Ohr, Bruce Ohr, wife worked for Fusion GPS, which was on the payroll by the Democratic Party to hire a foreign agent to go to get dirt on candidate Trump and Russia.
You're leaving out the fact that Mr. McCabe, the number two guy at the FBI, is under grand jury investigation for lying. You're leaving out the fact that the director of the FBI under your watch, Mr. Comey, actually leaked internal memos for the express purpose of getting a special counsel appointed.
You're not talking much about the Page-Strzok memos where they openly hated Trump, in the tank for Clinton. Other than those few details, President Obama, you got it right.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
Well, where does that investigation stand at this point in Senate Judiciary? I mean, we have watched a handful of interviews, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, et cetera.
GRAHAM: Right.
BARTIROMO: Where does this go from here from your standpoint, sir?
GRAHAM: We need a special counsel yesterday.
I'm so disappointed in the Department of Justice. You have got the number four person at the Department of Justice ,who basically is in narcotics, handling Christopher Steele, who's the chief author of the dossier used to get a FISA warrant. Ohr's wife worked with Christopher Steele at Fusion GPS. They were on the payroll of Democratic Party.
He met with Steele after Steele was found to be an unreliable informant. You got McCabe facing grand jury inquiries.
BARTIROMO: Right.
GRAHAM: You need a special counsel.
And the documents that the House is asking the president for release about how corrupt the Department of Justice was on President Obama's watch, they need to be released, because, on President Obama's watch, the Department of Justice was political and corrupt to its core, and the top levels of the FBI under President Obama, on President Obama's watch were also corrupt, fired and facing indictment.
BARTIROMO: Senator, why won't the president declassify the documents, so that the American people can understand and clearly see...
GRAHAM: I have no idea.
BARTIROMO: ... how this investigation was hatched?
If you were to release the documents before the investigation was launched in July of '16, we could clearly see the conversations that took place to better understand why Hillary Clinton wasn't investigated and why they were trying to stop Donald Trump. Will he declassify?
GRAHAM: Well, we're -- yes, they should.
We're not compromising any informant. We know all about Christopher Steele. We know that he was a former British intelligence agent who hated Donald Trump, who felt like he needed to personally stop Trump from winning, that went to Russia, got information from the Russian intelligence services to write a dossier, this bunch of political garbage.
It was used to get a warrant on Carter Page. We know that Bruce Ohr's wife worked for Mr. Steele. We need to get all this information out as part of oversight. Somebody needs to watch those who watch us.
So if I were the president, for transparency's sakes, for oversight sake, for reforming the Department of Justice and FBI to get a better product in the future, I would release this just to show what President Obama said about how good his FBI and Department of Justice actually were. It's a complete falsehood.
BARTIROMO: Well, there are calls for the president to do just that. We will be watching that.
Let me move on to this op-ed from The New York Times this past week, because, with all of this going on...
(LAUGHTER)
BARTIROMO: ... the detractors on the left are basically trying to paint a picture of massive chaos all the time in the White House.
The new book by Woodward comes out this upcoming week, "Fear," and then you have got this op-ed that The New York Times released from an anonymous source who says he's trying to stop the president from making all these bad decisions, but he is on the resist movement's side.
Your thoughts? Who wrote that op-ed?
GRAHAM: Right. I don't know.
But here's what I would do know, that the op-ed and the book won't matter in 2020. The president will be judged on his results. As to the author of the op-ed piece, they suggest that, if it weren't for him and a few others, the president wouldn't be doing good things for the country.
Isn't it kind of odd that everything the president's doing, he promised to do during the campaign? He promised to cut taxes. He did. He promised to destroy ISIS. We are. He promised to nominate people from the list of 25. He's done -- picked two out of that list.
Everything the president promised about deregulating America -- deregulating America, he's delivering on. He promised to rebuild the military. It's kind of odd that everything he's doing, he promised.
Here's what I think. Why this op-ed piece now? The New York Times is the choir director for the left. They set the agenda for the left and the mainstream media. They chose this op-ed piece to start a narrative that Trump is crazy, I think, because the Russia probe is falling apart.
The idea that Russia -- that Trump colluded with Russia in his campaign is falling apart before our eyes. So I think The New York Times is trying to start a new narrative by publishing an op-ed piece from an anonymous source to suggest the president is unhinged.
This is an effort on their part, in my view, to start a new storyline because the Russia probe storyline is falling apart.
BARTIROMO: Well, you made a lot of comments there about the promises this president has made. One of the big promises was a border wall.
I want to ask you about that, because the president said he wants the funding in place for that border wall...
GRAHAM: Yes.
BARTIROMO: ... before the deadline for funding coming up on September 30. Your colleagues in the Senate are poised to not give him that and not give him the vote.
So, stay with us, Senator. I want to ask you about that, along with North Korea and Syria.
More from Senator Lindsey Graham when we come back.
New signs that North Korea is committed to denuclearization, as the regime celebrates its 70th anniversary.
We will be right back.
Follow me on Twitter @MariaBartiromo, @SundayFutures. Let us know what you would like to hear from Senator Lindsey Graham, as well as Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, when we come back, as we look ahead on "Sunday Morning Futures."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: Welcome back.
I'm back now with Senator Lindsey Graham.
And, Senator, North Korea now celebrating its 70th anniversary with a parade.
(LAUGHTER)
BARTIROMO: I want to get your take on that, because what was noticeably different this time in terms of the celebrations going on in North Korea was no display of long-range missiles.
GRAHAM: Right.
BARTIROMO: Do you think they're trying to tell the world something in terms of their -- their desires for denuclearization? What's the status?
GRAHAM: Well, I hope they're trying to tell us something good.
The fact that the missiles are not in -- not in the parade is a signal they don't want to be provocative. But they still have the missiles, so you can't forget the fact they still have them.
Here's what I think has changed. I think we have got a chance here to end this in a peaceful way for the first time in 30 years because of President Trump. I think North Korea and China believe, if he had to, President Trump would use military force to protect the American homeland from a missile with a nuclear weapon on top of it coming from North Korea that he's going to end their nuclear program one way or the other.
And he's offered a better way. It's sort of like, condos and develop North Korea is one option. The other is death. So there's now a timeline. Everybody agrees it should be done in President Trump's first term. There's also a goal that everybody agrees on, that North Korea gives up their nuclear weapons program. In return, they get security, prosperity and a peace treaty to end the Korean War.
That's a darn good deal for Kim Jong-un. It's a good deal for the world. If I were North Korea and China, I would take this deal. I wouldn't play President Trump.
I am more excited and hopeful about North Korea than any time in the last 30 years. And the credit goes to President Trump for being strong, but also for being smart.
BARTIROMO: Wow. Big statement there.
And there is a letter that we know of from Kim Jong-un to President Trump about basically suggesting that he would like to see progress.
GRAHAM: Yes.
This is working. I think Kim Jong-un wants security above everything else. Unlike Iran, I don't think he would use a nuclear weapon for a religious purpose.
BARTIROMO: Right.
GRAHAM: But he would sell it if he had it. He's got way too many. And if you don't do something, and he will have a lot more down the road.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
GRAHAM: So I think Trump has convinced Kim Jong-un and China that the best way for North Korea to be safe and secure is to give up your nuclear weapons. You will get security guarantees, and you will get economic assistance you have never had before to create a better life for the -- for the regime and their people.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
GRAHAM: It is all about Kim Jong-un, his inner circle, and survivability.
BARTIROMO: And...
GRAHAM: I think Trump has convinced him that you're better off without nuclear weapons than you are with them...
BARTIROMO: Yes. And...
GRAHAM: ... which would be one of the greatest foreign policy achievements since the end of World War II.
BARTIROMO: You -- you have made the...
GRAHAM: We're not yet, but we're getting closer.
BARTIROMO: You have made the point that North Korea is watching Syria closely and Trump's response to Syria. I'm going to get to that in a moment.
GRAHAM: Yes.
BARTIROMO: But let me get your take real quick on something we talked about in the other block, the earlier block. And that is the border wall.
Will we see the border wall funding before the September 30 -- for the for the budget funding?
GRAHAM: The House has $5 billion. The Senate has $1.5 billion. We're 3.5 apart.
We need 60 votes to get appropriations approved in the Senate, not 50. I don't think it'd be smart to shut the government down between now and the end of September.
Under President Trump, we're going to fund about 70 to 80 percent of the government before September the 30th, the first time we have done that in 30 years. We will get wall money. We have got to do something with DACA. I thank you marry those two up.
But the worst thing we could do, in my view, is shut the government down and be blamed for it. The last time that happened under Schumer's watch, it didn't work out well for them. We will get wall money. It will most likely occur after September 30.
BARTIROMO: And you said the nine bills that you're going to put on the president's desk before the end of September deal with other substance, but 90 percent of the federal budget will have to be approved.
Do you think you will get to the wall after the midterms?
GRAHAM: Right.
BARTIROMO: I mean, do conservatives want the funding for the wall, Senator?
GRAHAM: Yes, I do. I do. I 100 percent want $25 billion, not $5 billion.
But we got -- we got to deal with DACA. We will, because I think Trump's going to win in court. I think he can overturn President Obama's DACA decision. It was illegal. But we got to deal with the people who are affected by it.
So when it comes to running the government, we're about to pass the defense bill and the Labor HHS bill, which is about 70 percent of funding for the federal government. If we can pull that off the next couple of weeks, it will be the first time we have done that in 30 years. And our military will get a pay raise and the equipment they need to keep us safe.
That would be a huge accomplishment on President Trump's watch. We will get wall money. But I don't think it's smart to shut the government down between now and September the 30th.
BARTIROMO: All right, we will leave it there.
Senator, it's good to see you this morning. Thanks so much. We appreciate you joining us right now. We heard about the border funding from you.
Next up is House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. He will weigh in on that, plus the economy, the midterms and the likelihood of taxes 2.0, as we look ahead this morning on "Sunday Morning Futures."
Stay with us. Back in one's minute time.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We are getting the wall done. But I have had so many people, good people, great people. They'd rather not do it before. They'd rather do it right after the election. They don't want to do anything to upset the apple cart.
And my inclination, if it was up to me, I would shut down government over border security.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: But, most likely, I will not do that. But we're going to do it immediately after the election.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: That was President Trump at a rally in Montana this past Thursday.
The question now is, will he or won't he partially shut down the government to get the funding for the wall on the southern border?
Federal funding runs out on September 30, with lawmakers looking to pass a majority of the 2019 spending bills before that deadline.
Joining me right now is the House majority leader, Kevin McCarthy.
Congressman, it's good to see this morning. Thanks so much for being here.
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY, R-CALI., HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER: Well, thanks for having me on your show again.
BARTIROMO: Will we get the funding for the border wall? Can you walk us through the priorities for this upcoming September 30 deadline?
MCCARTHY: Yes, so, September 30 is the funding of all of government. So you have the 12 appropriation bills.
I'm one of the conservatives that not only want the wall, but are fighting for the wall. And one thing that your viewers have to understand, we are building the wall right down in the southern portions, in California and in New Mexico.
But we have to finish the job. Just as you listened to Senator Graham, our-- one of our biggest challenges is not the House, but in the Senate. It takes 60 votes. Now, I disagree with having to have 60 votes to pass it. But that is why the president is out campaigning in these states like Montana, West Virginia, North Dakota.
We need a few more Republicans in, so we can finish the entire part of the wall. I was with the president in the Roosevelt Room this week talking about our strategy and our plan to make sure that wall gets built. It will get built. It's being built now, but we want to finish it sooner.
BARTIROMO: And you have been campaigning a lot as well. You have been crisscrossing the country. You're on to Pennsylvania tomorrow supporting Republican candidates.
What kind of a reception are you getting out there?
MCCARTHY: We're getting a very big reception, because it's really about results vs. Pelosi's resistance.
Think about the numbers you see time and again on your show. Wages are going up. Four million new jobs have been created since his election. What this tax bill has been able to do to individuals -- we just looked at the new factory reports coming in, the manufacturing. Made in America is back in America.
This is different, and it's one of the best economies we have had in more than 50 years. But it's not leaving anybody behind. If you just have a high school degree, it's one of the best unemployment. African-American, Hispanic, women, the very best.
I mean, only nine months in the last 49 years has unemployment been below 4 percent, and four of those months have been in this year. This is an unbelievable economy because of what this president has been able to achieve, not even counting what we have done with the VA or made you safer with our battles against opioids or the military being stronger.
And then you just heard the report from North Korea has changed. We are safer today not only in our economy and our jobs and in our schools, but around the world, because of this majority working with this president.
BARTIROMO: Well, it's interesting. You mentioned a lot of good things on the economy. Just Friday, we got very strong jobs numbers, 201,000 jobs added to the economy in the month of August, with wages up four-tenths of a percent.
And yet there's a new element on the campaign trail right now, and that is President Obama. President Obama is looking at those results and basically saying, that's attributable to him. Listen to this.
(LAUGHTER)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: When you hear how great the economy is doing right now, let's just remember when this recovery started.
(APPLAUSE)
OBAMA: I'm glad it's continued, but when you hear about this economic miracle that's been going on, when the job numbers come out, monthly job numbers, and, suddenly, Republicans are saying, it's a miracle, I have to kind of remind them, actually, those job numbers are the same as they were in 2015 and 2016 and...
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: Your reaction, Congressman?
MCCARTHY: Just not true.
Do you know he had eight years to try to solve this economy, and his highest growth year is still less than the worst year under Bill Clinton?
President Trump's economy has grown 40 percent faster. President Trump has had less than two years, and he brought us to the best economy we have seen.
I saw that joke on the Internet. He's like the guy trying to open the jar. He can't. He hands it to President Trump. President Trump opens the jar, and he said, I loosened it for you.
(LAUGHTER)
MCCARTHY: It's just unbelievable what he's coming back -- and the idea that he doesn't take the respect of past presidents -- you never saw George Bush going out talking in a campaign.
He let somebody be president. And for the idea to criticize an economy that's created four million new jobs and a president that has brought North Korea to the table, where no longer do they have the parade of missiles, the idea that we have changed the VA, where the G.I. Bill is not 15 years and you lose it, it's now for a lifetime.
And we gave the military a raise. And wages are now going up. That didn't happen under Obama. But we have proved that this president kept promises.
BARTIROMO: I seem to remember businesses sitting on cash because of the regulatory environment. And this president and this Congress has loosened up restrictions, certainly, and the regulations have come down, enabling businesses to put money to work again.
But, still, we're looking at probably the most consequential midterm elections that we have seen it in our lifetime. Even the president talked about the potential for impeachment on the campaign trail this weekend.
Here's what he said over the weekend. Listen to this, Congressman.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: It's so ridiculous, but we will worry about that if it ever happens.
But if it does happen, it's your fault, because you didn't go out to vote, huh? You didn't go out to vote.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: You didn't go out to vote. That's the only way it can happen.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: I will be the only president in history. They will say, what a job he's done. By the way, we're impeaching him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: How sure are you that you will be able to hold on to the majority, so that doesn't happen?
Obviously, the left wants this president impeached, Congressman.
MCCARTHY: Not only do they want him impeached. They forced a vote twice already in Congress in this session.
Listen, history is against us, but the last time an administration in an off-year had growth of six consecutive quarters and GDP over 4 percent, they didn't lose seats. They broke the trend and actually gained seats.
And we have a number of retirements. So we're in a fight. And the president's right. You have to get out and vote.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
MCCARTHY: Because there's three things that the Democrats want to do. They want to abolish ICE. They have already proposed it and voted on it. They want to impeach the president, which they voted on twice.
And then listen to what Barack Obama said he wants to have happen and what Democrats are co-sponsoring. They want government-run health care. And you talk about taxes today. If you doubled all the taxes people pay for right now, they couldn't pay for the cost of what this would be; 55 percent of Americans get their insurance from private -- from their companies.
You can no longer have that. The veterans in the VA would no longer have the VA. That is their agenda.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
MCCARTHY: It's very clear, results vs. resistance.
BARTIROMO: And yet they are pushing back aggressively.
Even The New York Times is on board. We're going to get to that op-ed from The New York Times and your response. You wrote a response op-ed.
More from House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy when we come right back, as I ask him about the letter that The New York Times came out with, the op-ed by anonymous.
We're looking ahead on "Sunday Morning Futures."
Kevin McCarthy continues next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: Welcome back.
We're looking at the headline of the letter to the editor written by Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, firing back at the anonymous op-ed in The New York Times.
I am back with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
And, Congressman, you wrote that op-ed in response to the anonymous op-ed. Why did you feel the need to do that? And who did write that op-ed in The New York Times, in your view?
MCCARTHY: Well, whoever wrote it is a coward.
If you ever wondered, is there a deep state, is there somebody high in government that will hide behind media to work against the voters of America and create a constitutional crisis, it's proven today that it is.
And this is unbelievable that this is allowed to go forward. I don't know who did it. I won't even speculate on the process. But what's most interesting to me is, the more success this president had -- you just had a new jobs report with more -- with more wages going up. He's about to have another Supreme Court justice confirmed.
And all they do is resist. They bring another book out week by week. And now The New York Times allows somebody anonymously to claim things that are not true? That to me is most concerning about where our country is going.
BARTIROMO: The president said that he suspects it's from national security. I mean, how long can we continue with all of these deep state actors and people against the president's agenda right there under his nose in the White House or in government?
MCCARTHY: You can't.
It -- and it's not just because it's President -- it's whoever in this office. We have a Constitution we have a responsibility to uphold. This individual thinks they are smarter than the voters of America, and they're going to change the course.
It is a national security issue, because this person openly works with media, openly says he works against this president and this administration, which is working against the voters. Who knows what he is -- he or she is leaking or moving through?
That's why this person is a coward. If this person really believed in their convictions, put their name on it, stand up and resign.
BARTIROMO: All right. We're going to leave it there.
Congressman, you got the technology CEOs on Capitol Hill in that hearing. We're going to talk about that next.
It is good to see you this morning, sir. Thank you very much.
MCCARTHY: Thank you.
BARTIROMO: We will talk with Greg Walden on the technology hearings coming up.
But first: The midterm is among the most consequential, so 12 House Republicans are calling on President Trump to declassify documents related to that FBI probe of Russian actions during the 2016 presidential election, specifically the surveillance renewal applications the FBI used to spy on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page and forms relating to the Justice Department's official Bruce Ohr contacts with Trump dossier author Christopher Steele.
Want to bring in the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee right now, Bob Goodlatte.
And, Mr. Chairman, it's good to see you this morning. Thanks very much.
We have been talking about the importance of this upcoming midterm election, because we know that, if the House flips, we're not going to hear another word about your investigation into what took place in the '16 election.
Where do we stand in that investigation, sir?
REP. BOB GOODLATTE, R-VIRGINIA: Well, we're digging them out one at a time. And we're making a lot of progress.
We didn't waste the August recess. We interviewed a number of key witnesses, including Bruce Ohr. And now we are proceeding to get additional documents from the FBI and line up, additional witnesses.
But I also agree with those members who have called upon the president to declassify the documents that are necessary for the American people to see what was going on in 2016 and early 2017 regarding the disparate way the FBI handled these two major investigations, one involving Hillary Clinton, the other involving the Trump campaign.
And it truly is stunning. We will persist to -- through this Congress. I agree with Leader McCarthy. We're going to hold on to the House and we will get to the truth of this matter. But it would also help greatly if the Justice Department would appoint a special counsel.
We have been calling for that for over a year now. And it's my hope that they will see the wisdom in doing that.
BARTIROMO: Well, where are you in terms of the interviews? Are you going to be able to interview people like Loretta Lynch, Jim Comey, Sally Yates before the midterm elections?
GOODLATTE: We are working right now to schedule them.
If they don't appear voluntarily, we will subpoena them. We're going to do that work right through the fall. And whether it falls before or after the election, we're going to persist. But we want them in as quickly as possible, as well as some other key people, Nellie Ohr, the wife of Bruce Ohr, Glenn Simpson, her employer at Fusion GPS, and others who have knowledge of what was going on where a major law firm and an opposition research firm were actually working -- that are related to the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign were actually working with the FBI to launch an investigation.
That's an amazing thing. And then to use that information to try to get and, in fact, succeed and getting warrants to investigate, to listen in on Carter Page, this is a serious abuse of power, and it should never happen again.
So, we will persist to get the truth out, no matter what.
BARTIROMO: Well, why wouldn't the president declassify these documents, so that the American people can understand how this whole investigation was hatched and what took place during the 2016 election?
Will he declassify?
GOODLATTE: I think he will. I certainly hope that he will. He should declassify them.
And he needs to do it, of course, to protect sources and methods, but he should do it, and he should do it quickly, so that the American people have the benefit of this information right now.
BARTIROMO: OK.
So in terms of this upcoming election, what do you want to see in terms of the focus going into the midterms for your party?
GOODLATTE: Well, first of all, I think it's vitally important that we focus on exactly what has been accomplished by this administration, and that is economic growth and job creation.
It was stunning results. The Congress did exactly the right thing in passing the tax reform legislation, putting more money back in the hands of the American people, so they could spend it and invest it in ways that have resulted in very, very substantial job growth. And not a single Democrat in either the House or Senate voted for that most important piece of legislation.
BARTIROMO: That's right.
GOODLATTE: It's also critical -- it's also critical that we point out how that effort and curtailing abusive government regulations is leading to major employment for women, for minorities.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
GOODLATTE: This is a growing economy that is helping everyone. And Republicans should campaign on it.
BARTIROMO: Let me ask you, Congressman, because, recently, we heard the news that federal prosecutors have impaneled a grand jury to investigate FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.
What's the significance of the grand jury now?
GOODLATTE: Well, I think it's very significant. It means that those prosecutors are considering whether or not to bring criminal charges against Mr. McCabe related to his giving false testimony.
And it is, again, a part of this overall problem with the leadership in the FBI and some in the Department of Justice in 2016 who were abusing their powers in ways that are very inappropriate.
A lot of this was brought out in Inspector General Horowitz's report. He is continuing with a further investigation into how the FISA applications were handled.
BARTIROMO: Right.
GOODLATTE: Mr. McCabe's testimony was important. And he apparently didn't tell the truth. That is something that certainly should be investigated.
BARTIROMO: Which is why you want the special counsel.
But Jeff Sessions hasn't appointed a special counsel. Will the president fire Jeff Sessions after the midterms and get in another A.G. to put in a special counsel to investigate all of this? Real quick.
GOODLATTE: Well, I hope that Jeff Sessions will step up and appoint a special counsel. And I also hope that we get to the bottom of this matter.
We can do that with Attorney General Sessions, but it's important that he act, and he act properly.
BARTIROMO: All right, Congressman, it's good to see you this morning. Thanks very much for joining us.
Coming up next, former Assistant Director of the FBI Jim Kallstrom on what he just heard from Chairman Goodlatte.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: Welcome back.
More now on the investigations into the Justice Department and the FBI's actions leading up to the 2016 presidential election.
Want to bring in James Kallstrom. He is former assistant director of the FBI.
Jim, it's always a pleasure to see you.
You worked with the FBI for 27 years. Your take on what you just heard from Chairman Goodlatte?
JAMES KALLSTROM, FORMER FBI ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: A good man. I'm glad that he's moving forward.
But, in the final analysis, we need to get a myriad of people before the grand jury. That's what's going to make the difference here.
But his work is well -- it's good that they are putting them under oath and getting some testimony.
BARTIROMO: We're talking about where the direction came from in terms of the FBI, DOJ, CIA trying to stop Donald Trump and not investigate Hillary Clinton.
KALLSTROM: Right.
BARTIROMO: I found this admission from James Clapper stunning on CNN recently. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAMES CLAPPER, FORMER U.S. NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE DIRECTOR: I'm alluding now to the president's criticism of President Obama for all that he did or didn't do before he left office with respect to the Russian meddling.
If it weren't for President Obama, we might not have done the intelligence community assessment that we did that set off a whole sequence of events which are unfolding today, notably special counsel Mueller's investigation.
President Obama is responsible for that. And it was he who tasked us to do that intelligence community assessment in the first place.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: Wow. There you go.
Your thoughts? How far up the ladder does this go?
KALLSTROM: It goes all the way to the top. And that's a -- that's a lie.
If they were going to actually do an assessment, they would have been into the Clinton Foundation. They would have been into the DNC. They would have been into the Democratic Party. That's where all the connections with Russia was.
So, I mean, it just another one of Clapper's lies.
BARTIROMO: Where does this go?
KALLSTROM: We have been talking about this for, what, two years, you and I.
BARTIROMO: Yes, we have.
KALLSTROM: And now it's crystal clear that there's a cabal, a far-reaching cabal, way beyond the bureau, into the intelligence community, into Brennan, into the National Security Council, into Samantha Power, I mean, into all these peripheral people, putting this thing together, this fraud against Trump and this fraud investigation, Mueller and the bullying tactics of Mueller and his cast of characters over there.
The whole thing is a tragedy. If there actually is a grand jury now, finally, and they are looking at McCabe, they can't stop at McCabe. It has to be another 50 people. I mean, I have a list in my pocket of all the people that -- that are involved here, the unmaskings. We haven't even touched that yet.
The frauds perpetrated on the FISA court by literally dozens, if not 30 or 40 different people that signed affidavits. I mean, this is serious stuff. Uranium One, they haven't done a thing on that. And this supposed U.S. attorney from Utah, he hasn't even interviewed the people. And that was one of the charges he supposedly had, this Uranium One thing.
So, I mean, where is it going? It's good that maybe there's a grand jury, but I'm a little cautious that -- we're not going to just deal with McCabe and end this thing. McCabe is just one small part of it.
BARTIROMO: Well, there is a group of people in Washington, it seems to me, that they don't want to go back. They don't want to reopen the books on Hillary Clinton.
Do you think we're ever going to see accountability for the fact of what you just said, there was no investigation of Clinton, and yet there was this phony investigation, as you put it, of Trump?
KALLSTROM: This is one of the biggest tragedies against the Constitution of the United States in my lifetime, what's gone on.
If the Democrats win the House of Representatives, we will never see another thing about this. This will end. And what a tragedy to have something this big, this nauseous, this bad, trying to disrupt the legitimately elected president of the United States, and not only that, but the constitutional rights of literally hundreds of Americans that were unmasked.
And we got contractors reviewing the NSA databases. I mean, the place is out of control.
BARTIROMO: It's pretty extraordinary.
Jim Kallstrom, it's a pleasure to have you. Thanks so much.
KALLSTROM: Yes, thank you.
BARTIROMO: Thank you for weighing, James Kallstrom.
Next up: social media on the hot seat. That's coming up. We will talk with the House chairman who just held the hearings to get to the bottom of that.
Back in a minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: Welcome back.
Social media giants in the hot seat last week, testifying before Congress about perceived bias on their platforms.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was specifically asked about how algorithms could be suppressing conservative views on his site.
The question came from Oregon Republican Congressman Greg Walden. And he is the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Congressman, it's good to see this morning. Thanks very much for joining us, Mr. Chairman.
REP. GREG WALDEN, R-OREGON: Good morning.
BARTIROMO: I spoke with you going into hearings, and you weren't sure. You said to me, I don't know how this goes. I don't know where regulation goes.
When did you learn last week?
WALDEN: Well, it was interesting.
Every time we gave them examples of what we believe is bias or shadow banning or something like that, they would kind of say, well, yes, the algorithms got it wrong. Yes, that was a mistake. Yes, that was a mistake. Yes, we fixed that. We need to be better. We need a reboot of the platform.
If you go back and analyze the testimony and the answers to the questions, it's pretty hard not to argue they have got a big problem at Twitter.
I didn't hear any examples from my Democrat friends of liberal major spokespeople that have somehow been shut down for periods of time. But we sure heard it on the right.
And in this world, Maria, 280 carriers -- characters go around the world at the speed of light. If you're left out of that discussion for five hours or 25 hours, you're not in it at all. And democracy requires every voice be heard.
BARTIROMO: Well, Congressman McCarthy mentioned that, at the hearing, Dorsey admitted that they did shadow ban. And he also admitted that verified accounts get treated differently.
What -- what's the result of all of this? Will there be regulation on technology?
WALDEN: Well, as you know, we have been marching through one at a time.
We had Mark Zuckerberg before the committee for five hours recently, found similar sort of bias on that platform. We certainly saw it here with Twitter. And there are others we want to hear from, including Google, because when you think about how we communicate...
BARTIROMO: Well, did Google blow it off? You invited Google, but they didn't show up.
WALDEN: Well, no, we didn't invite them to this hearing, per se.
But the open invitation remains. And they are a focus, because search is such an important part of how we communicate and how we do commerce in America. And they have an enormous advantage, huge market share on search.
And they have these protections -- all these companies do -- through the Section 230 that says basically they're just a platform here and not responsible for content, except now they are responsible for content. They are making these decisions. And it is having an impact.
And we're just trying to get behind the curtain and see who the wizard is, Wizard of Oz.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
WALDEN: Who is pulling the levers?
BARTIROMO: Yes.
WALDEN: And then, where does that lead? Can they clean up their own act?
BARTIROMO: We will be watching, sir.
(CROSSTALK)
WALDEN: And I was a broadcaster. I want to go back to the days of fairness.
BARTIROMO: Thank you so much, Congressman. Great.
END
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