Sen. Perdue: Ossoff ‘has not come clean’ about alleged China ties

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Sen. Perdue: Ossoff ‘has not come clean’ about alleged China ties

Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., discusses opponent Jon Ossoff’s alleged ties to China, says he and Sen. Kelly Loeffler ‘can win Georgia and save America.’

This is a rush transcript from "Sunday Morning Futures" January 3, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

MARIA BARTIROMO, FOX NEWS ANCHOR:  Good Sunday morning. Welcome to "Sunday
Morning Futures."

Happy new year, everyone. I'm Maria Bartiromo.

Today, the kickoff to the most consequential week in Washington for years
to come for America. The 117th Congress will be sworn in hours from now, as
a resistance is growing within the GOP House and Senate.

This morning, breaking news on the upcoming joint session of Congress,
where several GOP senators and congressmen will object to certifying the
2020 election for Joe Biden.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz is leading the way. He joins me momentarily on why
he's leading the group of senators who will reject the results unless an
emergency 10-day commission is named to investigate election fraud.

Then, leading the charge in the House of Representatives this morning, Ohio
Congressman Jim Jordan and Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks with what they say
is evidence and the burden of proof, why they will object to up to six
states when Vice President Mike Pence begins the historic roll call on
Wednesday.

Then, the Georgia Senate race is just two days away, with up to three
million Georgians registered to vote early. One of two sitting senators
defending the GOP majority this morning, Senator David Perdue, on the state
of play, along with Georgia state Representative Vernon Jones this morning.

Plus, incoming freshman Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene on why
she says she's ready for a civil war in rejecting Joe Biden this week.

All that right here, right now, as we look ahead on "Sunday Morning
Futures."

And Republican resistance is growing this morning ahead of the final
judgment day, this Wednesday, on the presidential election of 2020, and the
joint session of Congress.

Breaking news this morning, Senator Ted Cruz is leading a group of 11
senators who will object unless a commission is named to investigate
allegations of fraud.

Senator Ted Cruz joins me right now.

Senator, great to have you this morning. Happy new year to you.

Why are you doing this, and how will this play out?

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX):  Well, good morning, Maria. Happy new year as well.
Thanks for having me.

Look, we're at an extraordinary time in our country's history. We went into
this election with the country deeply divided, deeply polarized. And we
have seen in the last two months unprecedented allegations of voter fraud.

And that's produced a deep, deep distrust of our democratic process across
the country. I think we in Congress have an obligation to do something
about that. We have an obligation to protect the integrity of the
democratic system.

And so, this past week, I spent writing out a position and assembling a
group that -- ultimately of 11 senators that we put out yesterday, that we
will, together, object to certification in order to force the appointment
of an emergency electoral commission to perform an emergency audit of the
election results to assess these claims of fraud.

I think we can do that. We can do it promptly. We can do it in 10 days,
before the inauguration. But I think we have an obligation to the voters
and we have an obligation to the Constitution to ensure that this election
was lawful.

BARTIROMO:  You mentioned the allegations of fraud.

And in the press release announcing this commission that you would like to
see, you report on a Reuters/Ipsos poll that says 39 percent of Americans
believe the election was rigged, that belief held by Republicans 67
percent, Democrats 17 percent, and independents 31 percent.

But, Senator, we know that we heard from Bill Barr. And he said he didn't
see fraud. We know that we heard from the states. And we also know that we
heard from the Supreme Court, who did not hear the attacks and the cases
that said there was fraud.

How do you respond to that?

CRUZ:  Well, each of those different players has a different role in our
constitutional system.

Bill Barr was speaking as to the evidence the Department of Justice saw.
The Department of Justice wasn't administering any elections, did not have
access to particularly widespread evidence on either side of the issue.

As for the states, there are a lot of people in the states and state
legislatures who have expressed deep, deep concerns about the unlawful
practices that we saw on Election Day, that we saw particularly cities
controlled by Democratic politicians shutting down the vote, throwing out
observer, disregarding the law.

And, finally, you mentioned the Supreme Court. Listen, I wish the Supreme
Court had taken this case. There were two opportunities to take this case,
one out of Pennsylvania, one out of Texas. In both instances, the lawyers
asked me to argue those cases.

And so, with regard to the Texas case, President Trump called me and said:
"Ted, would you do the oral argument in this case if the court takes it?"

I told the president, absolutely, I'd be happy to do it.

I wish the court had taken one or both of those cases. I think the Supreme
Court would be a better forum for resolving those issues. That obviously
was the forum we resolved issues similarly in 2000 in Bush vs. Gore.
Unfortunately, the court declined to take those two cases, so we don't have
the court stepping into resolve it.

And that's why I think Congress has a responsibility. We have an
independent obligation to the Constitution. We have an independent
obligation to the rule of law.

And the question -- look, we have got a vote on January 6 on certification.
And every member of Congress faces a dilemma, frankly, two pretty lousy
choices. One, we can vote to certify, not consider any objections. If we do
that, that will be heard by a lot of Americans as saying we don't think
voter fraud is a real concern, we don't think these claims should be
investigated thoroughly.

I know that's not what most of us believe.

But, secondly -- and I think all of us rightly don't want to be in a
position where we're suggesting setting aside the results of an election
just because the candidate that we supported didn't happen to prevail.
That's not a principled constitutional position.

That's why, in assembling this group of 11 senators, I was looking for a
third option, an option that was really moored the law.

And so I will tell you what I did, Maria. I went back and looked at the
historical precedents. I think the strongest precedent is the presidential
election of 1876, Hayes vs. Tilden. In that election, there were serious
allegations of fraud in three different states, in Florida, in Louisiana,
and in South Carolina.

And what did Congress do in 1876? Now, they didn't throw up their hands and
say, well, gosh, we have got allegations of fraud, but we can't do anything
about it. We have just got to certify. No, they didn't do that.

BARTIROMO:  Yes.

CRUZ:  What they did instead is, they appointed a commission. It was called
an electoral commission, consisted of five House members, five senators,
five Supreme Court justices. They considered evidence. They examined the
ballots.

And they made a determination based upon what -- the disputed ballots --
and what the outcomes should be.

BARTIROMO:  Right.

CRUZ:  What I'm arguing for is, Congress ought to do the same thing. We
ought to have a fair inquiry, a fair audit into these results, and we ought
to resolve these claims, not just dismiss them out of hand.

BARTIROMO:  What kind of pressure are you facing right now?

We know that Mitch McConnell does not want any objection. We also know that
Liz Cheney is telling her colleagues:  Why are we doing this? This is a
waste of time. Don't do it. We shouldn't be putting ourselves out there.

We also heard from Senator Klobuchar. She said, get a grip. Lisa Murkowski
said, we should not be doing this.

And you know that you will require both the House and the Senate to reject
the electors from a number of states in order to be successful. That's
likely not happening, that you're going to win in both the House and the
Senate. And what if a commission does find fraud? What happens then?

CRUZ:  Well, listen, I think everyone needs to calm down. I think we need
to tone down the rhetoric. This is already a volatile situation. It's like
a tinderbox, and throwing lit matches into it.

And so I think the kind of hyperbole we're seeing, the kind of angry
language -- yesterday, when I released my statement with 10 other senators,
I had multiple, multiple Democrats urging that I should be arrested and
tried for the crimes of sedition and treason.

Now, look, that's not helpful. At a time when this country, when we're
pitted against each other, just relax and let's do our jobs. We have a
responsibility to follow the law.

And let me say, by the way, to those members who may not have a concern
about this election, whether you're a Democrat or even some Republicans,
the poll numbers you covered at the top of the show, I think, ought to be
deeply troubling to everyone. Thirty-nine percent of Americans think --
quote -- "The election was rigged."

And that includes 17 percent of Democrats, 31 percent of independents.
That's bad for our democracy. That's bad for the legitimacy of any
subsequent presidential elections.

And so dismissing these claims, I think, does real violence to our
democratic system. We ought to have a serious, fair process and tribunal to
consider these claims, consider them quickly, consider them expeditiously.
We can do it in 10 days before the inauguration.

I think that would take major steps towards reestablishing trust in our
democratic process. And I believe that should be a bipartisan objective. We
may be too divided today for that to happen, but Democrats should be
interested in Americans having confidence in our electoral system, just as
much as Republicans should be.

BARTIROMO:  Yes.

Senator, look, you are an expert on the Constitution. You're a
constitutionalist. You wrote an entire book about it.

What does the Constitution tell us about who decides who the president
should be? What if the commission that you are explaining does form, comes
back with actual evidence of fraud? Then what happens?

CRUZ:  Well, then the results have to be set aside.

If there's evidence of fraud, and it's substantial and significant enough
to affect the results in a particular state, then those election results
would have to be set aside, and the states would then have to determine,
all right, we have a valid claim here, the evidence supports it, we need to
conduct elections consistent with the law.

You know, the Constitution gives the responsibility of counting the ballots
to the vice president of the United States, Vice President Mike Pence, and
to both houses of Congress. And the framers of the Constitution, when they
assigned a task to the Congress, they knew what they were doing.

There are some folks who are saying, this is purely a ministerial act, they
just have to count them and walk out, and you have no judgment whatsoever.
Well, that, frankly, doesn't make any sense. Why would the framers give to
Congress something that could be given to a clerk?

The reason they gave it to Congress is, they understood there are difficult
determinations about what counts as a valid vote. You know, following the
1876 election, 10 years later, in 1887, Congress passed a statute, the
statute that we're operating under. It's called the Electoral Count Act.

And what it provides is the mechanism for raising an objection. And it says
you can raise an objection if the votes were not regularly made by lawfully
certified electors.

And so, in this instance, if you have states that are violating the law,
that are committing fraud, those votes are not being regularly made, and
those are not lawfully certified electors. And so that -- Congress'
responsibility is to address these claims.

I understand that, for some of my colleagues, that's a hard choice. It's
not a responsibility they welcome. Whether we welcome it or not, the
Constitution gives us that responsibility.

BARTIROMO:  Yes.

CRUZ:  And we need to step forward and defend the rule of law and protect
the integrity of our elections.

BARTIROMO:  Real quick, as we wrap up, Senator, we are two days away from
the Georgia Senate races.

Do you believe that, if the Democrats win those two Senate races, and the
Democrats take the majority in the Senate, that you will have an even
larger group of senators come Wednesday, the next day, to object the
results of the 2020 election?

A word on Tuesday's Georgia Senate races.

CRUZ:  Yes, so, I was in Georgia yesterday campaigning with Kelly Loeffler.
I'm actually, as soon as we finish, jumping on a plane, flying back to
Georgia to campaign today again.

I think these two Georgia Senate races on January 5 are, without
exaggeration, the most important Senate races of our entire lifetime. If we
see a Democratic majority, a Chuck Schumer majority, I think they will do
generational damage.

It will empower the extreme angry leftist voices in the Democratic Party.
And so I would say to folks at home, if you are in Georgia, please, please,
please come out and bring your friends and your family and your neighbors,
because we're seeing massive Democratic turnout.

BARTIROMO:  Yes.

CRUZ:  And the consequences -- I think the people of Georgia want to see a
reasonable check and balance.

BARTIROMO:  Yes.

CRUZ:  They don't want to see the extreme, the Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth
Warrens and AOCs...

BARTIROMO:  Sure.

CRUZ:  ... having no restraints on them whatsoever.

Georgia will decide that. And I will tell you -- and I will tell you what.
I think we're going to win both races in Georgia, but it's going to depend
on turnout on Election Day.

BARTIROMO:  All right, Senator, we will be watching, and, of course, the
very next day, the joint session of Congress as important.

We will be there.

Thank you so much, Senator. We will watch the developments. Thanks for
being here, Senator Ted Cruz in Texas.

Coming up, lawyers by trade and now sitting congressmen leading the debate
in the House of Representatives, Congressmen Jim Jordan and Mo Brooks with
evidence and the burden of proof, why they say the Constitution was
violated in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Wisconsin on Election Day 2020 --
right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BARTIROMO:  Welcome back.

History being made this week in Washington, when Republican lawmakers from
both chambers of Congress plan to reject the certification of Joe Biden's
victory.

While House Democrats may have already tried this in 2005 and 2017, no
senator has backed their objection since the election of 1876. Today, you
have got 12 senators backing them.

Congressmen Jim Jordan and Mo Brooks are here. They are spearheading the
challenge in the House, accompanied by the senators this time. They join us
right now.

Congressmen, it's great to see you both. Thank you so much for joining us.

REP. JIM JORDAN (R-OH):  Good to be with you.

BARTIROMO:  Jim Jordan, I'd like to kick it off with you.

JORDAN:  Yes. Sure.

BARTIROMO:  Will you walk us through what will take place on Wednesday
morning?

JORDAN:  Well, there will be...

BARTIROMO:  Vice President Mike Pence will do a roll call.

JORDAN:  Yes.

BARTIROMO:  Can you briefly tell us how this will play out Wednesday?

And then I would like to hear your arguments of the constitutional
principle.

JORDAN:  Well, sure. Sure.

Vice President Pence will oversee the proceedings. There will be an
objection raised by a House member. We have, I think, probably over 100
House members who want to object to the various states, the six states in
question. And then we have 11 senators.

So, if you have one from each, there will be the objection raised as he
calls each state in alphabetical order. If, let's say, we get to Georgia,
and there's an objection from a House member and a Senator, then each
chamber will -- each body will retire to their respective chamber.

They will have a two-hour debate. There will be a vote and they will come
back. If those -- if there's a vote to object and not accept those electors
from that respective state, then they won't be accepted. And then you move
to the next state.

And if neither candidate -- if you go through that process and neither
candidate has 270 electoral votes, then the Constitution is clear. There's
a vote in the House of Representatives done by delegation. So, it's -- that
process is very straightforward.

But there's a two-hour debate on each state if there's an objection raised
by both a House member and a senator.

BARTIROMO:  Tell me what you're planning to do, Congressman.

JORDAN:  Well, as Senator Cruz said, it's about the Constitution.

Article 1, Section 4 says is very clear. It says the time, manner and place
for holding elections is determined in each state by the legislature
thereof.

Take Pennsylvania, for example. Pennsylvania state law says Election Day
ends at 8:00 on Election Day. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania says, nope,
we're going to extend it three days until 5:00 on Friday. State law in
Pennsylvania says, for every absentee mail-in ballot, there has to be a
signature verification.

The secretary of state says, nope, we're not going to do that. We're not
going to have a signature. We're going to -- she just unilaterally went
around the law for 2.6 million mail-in ballots. The state law of
Pennsylvania is clear. It says that mail-in ballots cannot be processed
until Election Day.

But some counties in Pennsylvania allowed ballots to be fixed, cured before
Election Day.

Now, Maria, take a guess which counties allowed that. Democrat counties,
with Democrat county commissioners and clerks allowed that to happened.
Republican counties didn't. The Republican counties in Pennsylvania
followed the law.

So, when the time, place and manner is not adhered to and not -- that the
legislature set, that is a direct violation of the Constitution. And that
disenfranchises the votes in the district I get the privilege of
representing in the Fourth District of Ohio. That disenfranchises the votes
that Mo gets -- the people that Mo represents in Alabama, and countless
number of people around the country.

And understand this, finally. It wasn't us who said it. Ruth Bader
Ginsburg, the late justice, said this:  The ultimate date of significance
is January 6. This is how the process works. The ultimate arbiter here, the
ultimate check and balance is the United States Congress.

And when something is done in an unconstitutional fashion, which happened
in several of these states, we have a duty to step forward and have this
debate and have this vote on the 6th of January.

BARTIROMO:  And, Congressman Mo Brooks, you are a litigator by practice.
You know about the burden of proof. You say you have seen evidence that
there was fraud.

REP. MO BROOKS (R-AL):  Oh, no question. The evidence is overwhelming and
compelling.

In my judgment, if you were to get a non-biased jury that listened to the
evidence, they would find 99 percent of the time that there was massive
voter fraud and election theft in the November 3 election.

Now, having said that, let me emphasize that there are a lot of different
things to cover. And, of course, we have limited amount of time in which to
do so on this show. I'm not sure how much detail you want me to get into,
but I'm more than happy to address it within the time allotted.

BARTIROMO:  Yes, I want you to address the fraud that you see.

But before we take a break, and then we will go into that deeper, how many
states are you going to object to?

BROOKS:  Well I intend to object to six, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania,
Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada.

BARTIROMO:  And why is that? Why those six?

BROOKS:  Well, there are different reasons for each of them.

But, for example, as Congressman Jim Jordan just pointed out, some of them
quite clearly violated Article 1, Section 4 of the United States
Constitution, the election clause. That empowers the United States Congress
paramount authority and then legislatures secondary authority to set the
times, places and manner of elections.

Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, Wisconsin all clearly violated Article 1,
Section 4. So, we can either ratify that with our votes, that illegal
conduct, or we can oppose it.

I stand for opposing the violation of the United States Constitution,
federal statutes and state statutes.

BARTIROMO:  OK. OK.

Let's take a short break, and then get deeper into this evidence that you
will present and talk about on Wednesday, and what this looks like for the
joint session of Congress.

We're talking with Mo Brooks and Jim Jordan.

And we will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BARTIROMO:  Welcome back.

We are back with Congressmen Jim Jordan and Mo Brooks, who are leading the
Republican election challenge on the House on Wednesday.

Congressman Brooks, before we went to the break, you said that you wanted
to layout the evidence. I want to do that right now. I know you both are
facing real challenge and pressure from establishment players, from the
leadership in the Senate.

You say you have seen evidence of fraud. Lay it out for us, Congressman.

BROOKS:  Well, it's difficult to do in such a short period of time, but I
will give it a shot.

Let's talk about Nevada, just for example. Joe Biden purportedly prevailed
by 33,000, plus or minus, votes. Yet there have been over 130,000, 130,000
votes identified that were illegal. Non-citizens were voting, roughly
4,000. Individuals, roughly 40,000, voted twice, not once, but twice, in
this election. Of course, that's illegal.

You have got people who purported to live at an address that doesn't exist,
people who purported to live at an address that is a business address,
where, of course, nobody lives. You have got dead people voting; 130,000,
add it all up in the state of Nevada, and I'm quite confident that,
overwhelmingly, they voted for Joe Biden. You remove those from the
equation, and Donald Trump carried Nevada.

You can go to Georgia, where you have videotape of poll workers ordering,
ordering the media and poll watchers to leave. And they use that as an
excuse some kind of pipe leak, OK? And they announce that they're not going
to vote anymore -- they're not going to count any more votes, quite clearly
a lie.

There was no pipe leak of the kind expressed. There was a leak in a toilet
12 hours earlier. That was fixed 12 hours earlier, so that couldn't have
been the justification. Yet that was the excuse used.

So, why are these people lying? Well, right after they lie and tell people
they are going to stop counting votes, right after the poll watchers and
the media leave, they pull out four suitcases full of ballots and start
doing what they said they weren't going to do, and that's continued to
count votes.

We don't know where those ballots came from, but that sure is bad-looking
on the security cameras that they probably didn't know about when they pull
out suitcases...

BARTIROMO:  Yes.

BROOKS:  ... that are hidden under a table and start counting them.

Then you have got the massive violation of Article 1, Section 4, where
mail-in balloting is not allowed. Congress, pursuant to its powers in
Article 1, Section 4, established a day for the election. That's a 24-hour
window.

BARTIROMO:  Yes.

BROOKS:  We set exceptions for certain absentee ballot purposes. People are
overseas, people are disabled, what have you.

But this mail-out ballot scheme, that is in direct violation of Article 1,
Section 4.

BARTIROMO:  Yes.

BROOKS:  That is in direct violation of the statutes of the United States
Congress. Those are illegal votes.

And by way of example, in Georgia, if you exclude illegal votes, only count
lawful votes cast by eligible American citizens...

BARTIROMO:  Yes.

BROOKS:  ... David Perdue won on November 3. He should not be in a run-off.
And the Senate ought to act accordingly, under Article 1, Section 5 of the
Constitution.

BARTIROMO:  Well, Congressman Jordan, this is just what you said in terms
of the mail-in ballots and the Constitution violated.

Why wasn't any of this investigated, Congressman?

(LAUGHTER)

JORDAN:  Well...

BARTIROMO:  I mean, look, you should have had the FBI and the DOJ talking
about what Mo Brooks just talked about.

JORDAN:  Look, Maria, we put out a report back in September. And we called
this.

The Oversight Committee and Republicans on the Judiciary Committee put out
this report. And we said Democrats were going to do this. In fact, we
called this last summer. We said, on election night, President Trump is
going to be winning, but Democrats want the chaos and confusion created
around mail-in voting.

We had a staff member, Maria, who got four ballots sent to her residence
here in D.C., her ballot and four others of people who no longer live
there. So, they wanted this chaos and confusion because they were going to
win the election after the election..

And that's what they did with this crazy mail-in ballot scheme that they
undertook. And in several states, as we pointed out, as Senator Cruz has
pointed out, as Representative Brooks has pointed out, several of these
states did it in an unconstitutional fashion.

That is the heart of our argument. So, let's have the debate on Wednesday.
Let's show the American people what took place. They haven't had that.
There have been no hearings.

We have called for hearings and investigations in Congress. Jerry Nadler
and Chairwoman Maloney won't hold them here in the United States House of
Representatives. So, we have to have this debate on the 6th of January on
this Wednesday, so the American people can see what was done in an
unconstitutional fashion.

BARTIROMO:  Can they come back to you and say, look, COVID justified mail-
in ballots; that's why counties upon counties were littered with ballots?

JORDAN:  Maria, as this -- as the attorney general said, the Constitution
is not suspended during a crisis. You can still do it in a constitutional
fashion.

In fact, millions of Americans did. They voted in a constitutional way.
Millions of states didn't go around their election law, go around threat
elections. The state legislature sets the time, place, and manner for
elections in the respective states, not the Supreme Court, not the
secretary of state, not the governor, not some county clerk, not Facebook,
not Twitter, but the state legislature.

And when they violate that rule, that disenfranchises millions of voters
across this country. That is the heart of this issue. And three of these
states in particular, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, definitely had that
problem. And the others did to some degree as well, on top of the fraud
that Mr. Brooks has pointed out.

BARTIROMO:  Mo Brooks, your final word here.

I mean, what is this going to look like? If you're going to object to six
states, and then you have got a two-hour debate, we're not going to learn
the results here until -- well, we're not going to learn on January 6.
That's for sure. This goes into January 7.

Tell me how this plays out, because you have got to get the majority of the
House and Senate to go along where you are.

BROOKS:  Well, how it plays out, quite frankly, is dependent upon the
American people.

This is an organic movement that has risen up from angry American voters,
70-plus million, who have been disenfranchised by voter fraud and election
theft.

To the extent they contact their senators and their congressmen and demand
honest and accurate elections, then we're going to win this fight on
January 6. But if the American people do not rise up, if they don't contact
their senators, if they don't contact their congressmen, demanding that
their congressmen and senators do the right thing for our republic, well,
then we're not going to win on January 6.

So, I urge all Americans to participate in this fight on behalf of their
country, on behalf of their republic, and, of course, the election system
that is the underpinning of any republic.

BARTIROMO:  I know, so far, this has been a lonely place for you both.

Thanks very much for your courage. Thanks for joining us this morning,
Congressmen Jim Jordan and Mo Brooks.

BROOKS:  Thank you.

BARTIROMO:  We, of course, will be watching and covering it.

Coming up, the other only race that matters right now, and the GOP
incumbent at the center of Georgia's high-stakes run-off elections this
Tuesday.

Georgia Senator David Perdue is here on the state of the race.

Back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC):  If we pick up these two Republican seats in
Georgia, we have the ability to stop the most radical agenda in the history
of the United States.

Kevin McCarthy can slow it down. Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham and others
can stop it, only if we win Georgia. We have to win these two seats in
Georgia. I'm confident that we will.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BARTIROMO:  That was Senator Lindsey Graham on this program a few weeks ago
laying out the high stakes of this upcoming Tuesday's Senate run-off races
in Georgia, with incumbent Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler
campaigning as the last line of defense against the progressive liberal
socialist agenda.

President Trump and Joe Biden will both be in the Peach State tomorrow in
an effort to tip the scales of these razor-tight contests.

Joining me right now is Georgia Senator David Perdue.

Good morning, Senator. Thanks for being here.

First off, how are you feeling in terms of COVID? Have you had any
symptoms? Are you now negative?

SEN. DAVID PERDUE (R-GA):  My wife and I are great. Thanks for asking.

We have tested negative again. That's three negative tests in the last few
days. So, we continue to follow the protocol and doctor's advice and being
very careful here.

BARTIROMO:  Senator, we have been talking this morning about what will take
place on Wednesday in the joint session of Congress, where a number of your
colleagues will object to the results of the presidential election.

Will you object?

PERDUE:  You know, when I first saw the magnitude of the irregularities
back in December, early December, about our November race, I called for the
resignation of our secretary of state.

I repeatedly called for a special session of the General Assembly to
investigate. None of that happened. And so I started calling out for -- the
only thing left for the president is for us to object. And I agreed that I
would do that.

The technical problem is that I won't be certified until this election is
certified some week to 10 days after the election, when we win on Tuesday.
But I'm encouraging my colleagues to object.

This is something that the American people demand right now. You heard in
the last section that there are huge irregularities in Georgia. They need
to be investigated. And they need to be corrected, in my opinion.

BARTIROMO:  All right, so you are committing to object, despite the fact
that, technically, you will not be a sitting senator until we have a
clarification on the results of Tuesday.

I want to ask you about the potential for voter fraud in Georgia. Is
Georgia prepared? What have you done? What has the -- have the Republicans
done to ensure that you have a safe and secure election on Tuesday?

We know that Stacey Abrams has been bragging on Twitter that she has
registered three million Georgians to vote early.

PERDUE:  Well, there are three million people who have voted already.

That's short of where we were in November. But what we have done is, we
called the General Assembly to try to get this resolved. That hasn't
happened yet. So, we have done is, we have gone to court. We had a couple
cases thrown out because they said, you got to go back to the legislature.

But, in addition to that, we have hired -- we have doubled the number of
poll workers. We have got cameras and people watching all the drop boxes.
We're doing everything we can on the absentee ballots and on Election Day
counting to make sure what happened in November didn't happen.

But, Maria, the big issue here is, there are still Republicans that are
upset and mad about what happened in November, as I am. Look, I don't think
I should be in this run-off, if everything had happened the way it should
have in November.

But the only recourse we have is to get out and fight and rise up and vote
on January 5, next -- or this coming Tuesday. So, that's the only recourse
we have now.

BARTIROMO:  Your opponent, Jon Ossoff, has been out tweeting about
following the results.

And he put out this tweet. And I want to get your comment about it. Jon
Ossoff tweeted out that for people to follow Xinhua News. This is the
Chinese state media. "Especially during the 18th Party Congress, follow
Xinhua Chinese state media."

What is he saying here?

PERDUE:  Well, this evolving scandal with Jon Ossoff is becoming more and
more clear, that the Chinese Communist Party, as you called out, has
identified young ambitious young people in America to try to influence.

You see the Eric Swalwell crisis right now. You see the Hunter Biden
scandal. And now we see the evolving Jon Ossoff problem that he has with
China. He was paid by them for two years. He's been encouraging people to
follow the Chinese propaganda. That's what Xinhua does, and that's what
PCCW does.

And he participated in that for two years. He hid it from the people of
Georgia during his primary, got caught, lied about it, finally disclosed
it, and then lied about it again.

So, this is a young man that has not come clean about China. He was asked
this week on FOX News what he thought about it, and he accused the reporter
of being a serious journalist and shouldn't ask the question.

He's never answered the question about his relationship with the CCP,
Maria.

BARTIROMO:  Do you believe we will see a winner on Tuesday night? What if
it is contested once again? Here we are on January 3 still talking about
November 3. What do you expect Tuesday?

PERDUE:  I expect a big win.

We're going to get our vote out on Tuesday. We know this is the last line
of defense. We know that Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock will be nothing but
a rubber stamp for Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi and this radical
socialist agenda.

They have said as much. They have not addressed the issues. And the only
thing they really care about is giving Chuck Schumer two more votes in the
United States Senate. That'll give them total control, and it'll change the
face of America. That's the issue here.

We will fix the election problems, but we have got to hold the line in this
election Tuesday. And it's in our hands. It's in Republican conservative
hands, Maria. If we get out and vote and fight for America, we can win
Georgia and save America. That's what's at stake Tuesday.

BARTIROMO:  All right, Senator, we will be watching, of course.

Thanks very much for being here, Senator David Perdue. We will see you
soon.

Coming up, freshman Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene is here, and
Democratic state Representative Vernon Jones on why they're calling on
members of their respective parties to take a stand against election fraud
when Congress meets to count the electoral votes on Wednesday.

We continue the conversation when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BARTIROMO:  Well, welcome back.

It may come as a surprise that one of the most-talked about figures in the
Georgia Senate run-offs is not even on the ballot.

Failed gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams took credit for delivering
Georgia for Joe Biden. Now she's boasting that she has registered nearly
three million early voters for Tuesday's races, this as her sister, an
Obama-appointed judge, has refused to recuse herself this week in a Georgia
voter eligibility challenge just days before the big election.

Joining us right now are Vernon Jones -- he's a Democrat Georgia state
representative -- and freshman Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Great to have you both. Thank you so much for joining us.

And I want to kick it off with Georgia.

Vernon, can you walk us through what is taking place with Stacey Abrams and
her sister? This certainly looks like a conflict.

STATE REP. VERNON JONES (D-GA):  Well, you know Stacey Abrams was involved
with the previous administration, Obama and Biden, on getting her sister
that judgeship.

Now here it comes full circle, where there's a case that was pending before
her sister where Stacey had a vested interest in her organization, and her
sister ruled in their favor.

Now, there's something called discretion. That judge, her sister, is
probably a good judge, but she made a poor decision. She was a bad
politician. On the other hand, Stacey Abrams may be a good politician, but
she's a bad lawyer. She knows that that gives the impression of impropriety
for her sister to be making that type of ruling in her favor.

And Georgians see that, and they don't appreciate that. Her sister, the
judge, could have used any of the other judges in that district to make
that decision, but she took it upon herself. These are two siblings, one
who has a case before the other, and have a vested interest. And they help
each other.

When she helped get the judgeship, now she's returning the favor. At least
that's what the many see as happening.

BARTIROMO:  Well, this is just one of the issues, Congresswoman Greene,
that voters are saying looks bad, and raises an eyebrow, and one of the
reasons that you say you will contest the results of the 2020 presidential
election during the joint session of Congress on Wednesday.

Tell us what you're planning.

MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R), GEORGIA CONGRESSWOMAN-ELECT:  Absolutely.

I have said from the beginning I join Mo Brooks in our objection to the
stolen election. I believe it's our duty as members of Congress to uphold
the Constitution and defend the integrity of our elections.

And I intend to do that. The people of this country, Americans, by the
millions, 75 million people reelected Donald J. Trump on November 3, and
they are screaming from the rooftops that they know this election was
stolen. We have got so many people that have signed affidavits, at risk of
perjury, telling about election fraud.

We have all the situations in Georgia, such as Vernon just spoke about. And
I thank him for speaking up and telling the truth and serving Georgians,
like he always does. But we have a true crisis.

And this isn't about political parties. This isn't about Republican and
Democrat. This is not about President Trump vs. Joe Biden. This is about
the truth and defending the people's vote.

And it's appalling to me that our state leaders in Georgia are not
listening to the people and doing what they're asking, is a complete audit
of every single machine and all of the ballots. They need to be listening
to the people, because it's the taxpayers that pay for the ballots, pay for
the machines, and pay for the elections.

And that goes for every single state across the country. We know that this
has really been a stolen election. I have seen the evidence, and that's why
I intend to object on January 6.

BARTIROMO:  So, how does that play out? You will object. And then there is
a two-hour debate period, where you each will get, what, five minutes to
make the case?

Will you present new evidence? President Trump said there will be new
evidence to present. And the campaign says it will present that on
Wednesday. Is that part of the five-minute speeches?

TAYLOR GREENE:  Well, I don't want to reveal our full plan, because you
never want the enemy to know what you're up to. And we clearly have enemies
in this country that want to stop President Trump from being president for
four more years and serving the American people like he has.

You know, what we're going to do on January 6 is, we have over 100 members
of Congress. And that is growing. I hear from new members every single day,
as I have been on the phone working hard trying to get people to join in.

Our senators, we have a dozen, but guess what? There's going to be more
senators leading in this objection. We will be raising our objections. And
we will have sponsors and co-sponsors for each state.

Once we do that, the chambers will separate. The House will go its way. The
Senate will go its way. And then that's where we begin our debates, where
each member has five minutes on the floor. And I think it should be a full-
on debate, because we have to fight this out for the American people. And
that's what we have to be doing.

We have to make sure we get this right.

BARTIROMO:  Vernon Jones, I want to get your take on this.

Let's slip in a short break and then come back to discuss the ongoing
investigation into Stacey Abrams' voter group, accusations they
aggressively registered ineligible out-of-state and deceased voters for the
January 5 run-offs.

All that coming up right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BARTIROMO:  Welcome back.

We are back with Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and Georgia state
Representative Vernon Jones.

Representative Jones, I want to get back to you.

You consider yourself a conservative Democrat. You did endorse Perdue and
Loeffler. And the president has warned that Democrats are going to try to
cheat in Georgia. There are lingering questions about how the election
obviously was conducted.

How secure do you believe this Georgia run-off race will be on Tuesday?

JONES:  Well, let me be clear about something, Maria.

I put my country before my party. I'm trying to save our democratic
republic, not our Democratic Party.

And so many people feel in this state and across this country that there
was not a free, fair and transparent election. And this is a -- and it
should be a very bipartisan issue to make sure that every legal vote is
counted and counted properly. And so...

BARTIROMO:  That's right.

JONES:  ... election integrity is important.

It is very important that we give trust or we provide trust to the American
people that they feel like, when they go and vote, that they're voting, and
it's going to be free, and it's going to be fair, it's going to be
transparent, and it's going to be accurate, and their expression was made.

BARTIROMO:  Yes.

JONES:  But what you see has happened is, the Democratic Party, I'm just
appalled at the fact that they are not as upset about what has happened.

BARTIROMO:  Right.

JONES:  And let me tell you, it's voter suppression for African-Americans,
who feel like their vote was not counted.

So, that's not a Democratic thing.

BARTIROMO:  So...

JONES:  Republicans -- there are blacks who voted for this president who
feel like their votes have not been counted.

BARTIROMO:  Right.

JONES:  And so it's no -- it's partisan -- it's nonpartisan. We have to
fight for free and fair and...

(CROSSTALK)

BARTIROMO:  Which is why, Congresswoman, you are going to object.

You're talking about 24 hours of debate over 12 hours, because you have got
two hours per state per chamber.

Congresswoman, do you believe you can be successful in terms of overturning
the election results?

TAYLOR GREENE:  You know, Maria, I believe anything is possible.

And I believe we have to fight. The American people, people that vote for
Republicans are fed up with the Republican Party when they lay down and
just hand something over. And, right now, it is a critical time for every
single Republican in the House and in the Senate to stand up and fight
right now for this president and for the American people's vote.

It's not a political party issue. It's an issue of our integrity of our
elections.

(CROSSTALK)   

BARTIROMO:  OK. It is a monumental week.

We so appreciate you joining us, Congresswoman-elect Marjorie Taylor
Greene, Georgia state Representative Vernon Jones.

Have a great day.

 

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