This is a rush transcript from "Sunday Morning Futures," January 24, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

MARIA BARTIROMO, ANCHOR: Good Sunday morning, everyone. Thanks so much for joining us. I'm Maria Bartiromo.

Joining us right here on "Sunday Morning Futures": The Biden agenda begins, hours after the inauguration, U.S. immigration policy reversed with 17 executive orders to open borders and stop building the wall.

Coming up, former Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf is here on President Biden's radical and sweeping immigration memo. But the U.S.' biggest threat is still looming, the Chinese Communist Party, with new tests and taunting this week for President Biden.

Coming up, Senator Tom Cotton on why the new sanctions from Beijing are a message to the Biden administration, not the Trump associates, just as Beijing passes a new law allowing its coast guard to fire on foreign vessels.

Meanwhile, investigative journalists John Solomon and Lee Smith will weigh in on the China threat and the Russia hoax with new declassified breaking news coming up.

Plus, it's feeling more like communist China every day on social media. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald on why trust in the media is at an all-time low and why The New York Times is carrying Chinese state media's propaganda.

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

A big show coming up, but first this:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, R-S.C.: Foreign governments are going to try to influence our democracy for the rest of our lives.

We need to have tools to find out about that. And when you find out about a foreign government trying to influence a campaign, you need to protect the campaign, not spy on it. They did it right for Clinton. They used the counterintelligence investigation to spy on Trump.

That is a double standard. That is political bias. And I'm hoping Durham is looking at this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BARTIROMO: That was Senator Lindsey Graham on this program back in August breaking news about a document he said proved that the FBI applied a different standard of justice to Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump.

We learned more about this on Wednesday, when President Trump formally declassified a slew of Russiagate documents before leaving office.

Joining me right now are two journalists who were instrumental in exposing the Russia hoax. John Solomon is editor of Just the News. Lee Smith will be joining us in the next block.

John, it's good to see you this morning. Thanks very much for joining us.

JOHN SOLOMON, EDITOR IN CHIEF, JUST THE NEWS: Great to be with you.

BARTIROMO: Walk us through what was most important, from your standpoint, of that Russia document dump that we saw this last week, as the president, President Trump, declassified so many documents related to the made-up story of Russia collusion.

SOLOMON: Yes, I think, when we're done -- listen, there are thousands of pages of documents. So, it is going to take us weeks to get through the significance.

But these are to judicial integrity to -- what the Pentagon papers were to the Vietnam War. Why do I say that? It just shows an extraordinary effort by the FBI to participate in what they knew was a political dirty trick.

They knew Christopher Steele's intention was to help Hillary Clinton get rid of her e-mail scandal, distract the public from it in the last quarter of the election. They also knew that he wanted to help Great Britain, because he thought Donald Trump would be bad for the U.S.-Great Britain relationship.

They knew a foreigner was influencing our elections, and they allowed it to persist, not for weeks or months, but for two-and-a-half years. I think, at the core of it, that is the big headline that these documents make. Then you can go through all the things like Senator Graham just said.

A double standard is irrefutable. Hillary Clinton was being targeted by a foreign power. They were going to route money into her campaign. The FBI tried to get a FISA on the country to spy on it. James Comey's leadership said, no, no, we're not going to do that. And they gave her a defensive briefing, probably a good thing.

They did not do the same thing for President Trump. They go get the FISA. They spy on the campaign. They never give President Trump the same defensive briefing, two standards, one FBI. It's why people are so frustrated.

BARTIROMO: So, tell me about the real bombshells in this declassification, because I know that you are breaking news this morning on Andrew McCabe.

What can you tell us?

SOLOMON: Listen, Andrew McCabe is the most -- one of the most central figures in this case.

He was deputy director until James Comey was fired. Then he became the acting FBI director. And back in 2015 and '16, I wrote a series of stories with Sara Carter that looked at his wife running for Virginia Senate. He and his wife meet with Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, a close Clinton friend in the -- a Democrat, that they arranged some financing for McAuliffe to help McCabe's wife.

And yet he never steps aside in the e-mail investigation until the very end. And he never stepped aside in the Russia investigation, obviously, even though Hillary Clinton's evidence was what started the whole Russia case, the Steele dossier.

These declassified memos, including McCabe's own notes that he took for meetings, show there was grave concern that McCabe was staying around and participating in these cases. Rod Rosenstein in 2017 May, right after Comey is fired, tries to push McCabe to step aside, saying, it's just not good, it's bad optics, it's going to hurt the integrity of the FBI, if you stay in charge of the Russia case, given all we know about your wife's campaign.

And, at the end of the day, McCabe stood there and said, I'm going to stay in there.

Now, even special counsel Mueller, Robert Mueller, was aware of this. He said, I'm not going to get into the conflicts, but you should know, Andy McCabe, you're probably going to be a witness in my Russia investigation. McCabe still doesn't step aside.

So, that stuff, we did not see going on.

BARTIROMO: Wow.

SOLOMON: It was in the backroom dealing.

BARTIROMO: John Durham is continuing a criminal investigation. We are going to be talking this morning about the Biden agenda.

Do you expect Durham to come out with indictments, even in the face of a new administration and the Biden agenda unfolding?

SOLOMON: Everything that I see in the activity of the investigation and everything I hear from defense lawyers and others that are familiar with what's going on is that he is building a small number of indictments, trying to get the evidence to get there.

There have been some delays, and there's fights over evidence in the secret, behind closed doors, grand jury fights. But all the evidence is pointing toward him trying to bring criminal charges probably in the first quarter of this year. That's what I'm hearing.

Of course, there's a new sheriff in town. When Merrick Garland gets confirmed as attorney general, as we expect he will, he will have a say. And maybe he will take the -- and put the case and set it aside. But, right now, John Durham is -- looks to be building a small number of indictments focused on the top of the FBI.

That's very important. The very top of the leadership of the FBI, that's where he's looking.

BARTIROMO: Also, in these documents that were declassified, we learned about Christopher Steele and a confession a year after he was fired.

SOLOMON: Yes.

BARTIROMO: Tell me about that.

SOLOMON: So important.

Christopher Steele finally describes his motive in September 2017. Remember, he was fired in November for leaking to the media, November 16. They bring him back in September. He said, here are my two motives. My first motive was that James Comey reopened the Clinton e-mail case. I thought that was going to hurt Hillary Clinton's chances. I leaked to the news media to create a different storyline in the public.

And, secondly, I considered Donald Trump to be my main opponent, and I didn't want him to be president because he would help my -- hurt -- I think he would hurt the Great Britain-U.S. relationship.

Now, remember, he's a foreigner. He's a British former MI6 agent. This is the clearest evidence that a foreigner intervened in an election. We started the Russia collusion investigation thinking Donald Trump and Russia were colluding together. And we ended it knowing that Hillary Clinton's handpicked MI6 investigator intervened in our election because he didn't like Donald Trump and he wanted to help Hillary Clinton.

What a role reversal.

BARTIROMO: Unbelievable.

All right, John, look, we want to take a short break. I want to get into China, because while we were looking at this wild goose chase for three years over Russia, Russia, Russia, Congress completely missed the real threat to the United States. And that is China.

When we come back, we will add journalist Lee Smith to the conversation on these newly declassified documents, more bombshells, Russia and China, coming after this.

And then we will get into the Biden agenda with Chad Wolf and Tom Cotton.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BARTIROMO: Well, welcome back.

We are talking about the document dump this week of Russia information.

Two journalists this morning instrumental in exposing the Russia hoax, John Solomon, editor in chief of Just the News. And joining the conversation is Lee Smith, author of "The Permanent Coup."

Lee, thanks very much for joining the conversation.

LEE SMITH, AUTHOR, "THE PERMANENT COUP": Thank you.

BARTIROMO: Your reaction to what we saw this week, as we have been talking about these newly declassified documents?

SMITH: Yes, I mean, John's piece is very important, the one that just came out this morning.

I mean, it's actually fascinating, because we realized that, going back to 2016, the entire operation was covering for Hillary Clinton and Hillary Clinton's e-mail problems, right? The real issue wasn't that she was messing around or that she was mishandling classified intelligence. It appears that there was nasty stuff in those e-mails they didn't want getting out.

So, they needed to smear Donald Trump as a Russian asset. And, of course, this operation continued for a long time. And it's very funny then to see Rod Rosenstein and Robert Mueller both saying, as the British would put it, it's a little bit too much on the nose, Andy, to have you still running this investigation here at the FBI, given the amount of money that Clinton allies paid for -- paid for your wife's campaign. We need to make this look legit now.

It's no longer about Hillary. It's about tying up the president of the United States.

BARTIROMO: Unbelievable.

We have those texts between Lisa Page and Andrew -- and Andrew McCabe, as well as Peter Strzok.

Tell us how you see it. Do you agree with that, John, what you just heard from Lee?

SOLOMON: Oh, I do.

I mean, listen, Lee's book lays it out better than anyone has done it in the last five years.

BARTIROMO: It does.

SOLOMON: He has it just right. Yes, it's such a great book.

Listen, here's the thing. Andy McCabe is a political animal. And anyone who doesn't think so just needs to read his text messages. There's a moment -- there's one text message that caught my fancy last night. And I put it into this morning's story.

It's right after the Brexit vote passes in Great Britain. And someone, a colleague, sends Great Britain -- or sends up McCabe: Hey, this is a sad day for the U.K.

And he writes back: Yes, I didn't see it coming. I'm shocked by it. But you know what? I hope it's not a harbinger of what's going to happen here in America in November, meaning November 16, clearly indicating he didn't want a Donald Trump-like movement hearing in Washington like Brexit had done for Great Britain.

BARTIROMO: Right.

SOLOMON: You don't really want your deputy director of the FBI, who's supposed to be about politics, talking that way.

And I -- there's a lot of interesting things in these text messages that gets to the mind-set of Andy McCabe.

BARTIROMO: Yes, what really gets me, Lee. And I cover this in my book...

SMITH: Yes.

BARTIROMO: ... as they were running and yelling fire in a crowded theater about Russia, Russia, Russia, they completely missed the real threat, which is the Chinese Communist Party.

SMITH: Yes.

BARTIROMO: The CCP has told the world that it intends to become the number one superpower, replacing the United States.

SMITH: Right.

BARTIROMO: It is doing that through stealing, theft of intellectual property, human rights abuses, bullying the rest of the world.

You have written a lot about China as well, Lee.

SMITH: Yes.

Well, I don't think it takes a tremendous out of imagination to see the United States, in particular right now the FBI, the way the Chinese Communist Party does.

Like, let me get this straight. The FBI is responsible for doing counterintelligence on China. But, actually, they have been spending their time targeting the president of the United States, Donald Trump.

And now, under the new administration, we hear from think tank experts, journalists, current and former law enforcement officials that what the FBI now wants to do is, they want to use the same methods -- methods and techniques that they have been using to target Islamic extremists, they're going to redefine Donald Trump supporters as domestic terrorists.

I mean, if you're -- if you're an American adversary, you look at the United States, and you think we have gone nuts, because we have. That's exactly what's happened.

BARTIROMO: Yes, Glenn Greenwald is going to come up later on the program. He's calling this the terrorism -- domestic terrorism that we're seeing in terms of what you just mentioned.

Look, where is this going, guys? You have got John Durham working on a criminal case. You have got the Biden campaign -- I'm sorry -- the Biden administration, with Susan Rice, Jake Sullivan, Neera Tanden, Avril Haines will all be considered in terms of their appointments this week and in the coming weeks by the Senate.

What's your take on accountability, which is the question I constantly asked for?

John?

SOLOMON: Listen, I think the most important thing to watch for is that Hunter Biden spent his time and his business partners focusing on three countries to make money in ,China, Russia, and Ukraine.

And those are three of the places that the Obama/Biden team, when Joe Biden was the foreign policy chief, went soft. We had Russia invade Crimea. We had Russia reboot failed. We had China walk over all over the United States and gain enormous ground. And Hunter Biden was cashing in on all three of those.

We have to see whether Joe Biden changes his policies towards those three countries, and also whether Hunter Biden will get indicted for the tax issues related to all those business relationships.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

Lee, final word.

SMITH: Yes, I mean, I'd like to see -- during these nominations, I'd like to see Republican senators ask some hard questions about people.

They blew it last week with Avril Haines, right? She was read into Russiagate in August 2016. Where were Republican senators? If they have questions about who they -- what questions they want to -- they should be asking Jake Sullivan and other people who were involved in the Russiagate operation using political espionage, they can contact me, they can contact John Solomon, and, of course, they can contact you.

But these questions should be asked. They should be put on the record.

BARTIROMO: Yes. All right.

And this is one of the reasons that you have got a real division within the Republican Party as well. There's a big group that feels that you -- exactly the way you do, and others who just don't. Let's move forward, they're saying.

Lee Smith, John Solomon, great to see both gentlemen. Thank you so much.

We will get into the Biden agenda when we come back.

Former acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf is here on President Biden's swift action at the Southern border. Wait until you hear this.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BARTIROMO: Well, welcome back.

And with the stroke of a pen on Wednesday, President Joe Biden reversed part of the Trump administration's immigration legacy, placing a 100-day pause on deportations for some illegal immigrants and halting all construction of the border wall.

Chad Wolf is the former acting secretary of homeland security. He is credited with helping secure the U.S. border.

And, Mr. Secretary, it's always a pleasure to see you. Thanks very much for being here.

CHAD WOLF, FORMER ACTING U.S. SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY: Well, thank you for having me.

BARTIROMO: So, we have got a lot to talk about this morning, Chad.

I want to go through President Biden's day one. He came out swinging on immigration, strengthening legal protections for the dreamers, abolishing the Muslim ban, canceling the Trump administration's interior enforcement rule, halting construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall, and extending deportation protection for Liberians.

Your reaction to what we heard from President Biden on day one?

WOLF: Well, Maria, I think what concerns me the most is, as we continue to respond to a global pandemic on COVID-19 and an economic crisis, trying to get millions of Americans back to work, I'm afraid that some of the actions that President Biden and the administration has taken is actually going to cause an immigration and border security crisis on our southwest border.

And that's something that we don't need right now. And it's really what I'm watching through these executive actions and through legislation that he's also pushing as well. So, a number of these things concern me.

The department has done a good job over the last several months of keeping increased number of folks coming to the border illegally under control. And we have done that through a variety of different authorities. And now we see a rollback of some of those authorities. So, it really is concerning.

BARTIROMO: You have firsthand experience in terms of understanding the threat, understanding what the risk is from all of these things.

Assess the situation for us. Why do we need the border secure? What happens when you have this -- these illegals in the country?

WOLF: So, it's a couple of different things.

One, illegal migration is not only very dangerous from a cartel perspective. So, we have a number of transnational criminal organizations that operate in Mexico. And they basically control all of the pathways that come into the U.S.

So, it's not only illegal individuals coming here. It's also that contraband, the drugs, the weapons, and everything along those. So, as I look at the measures that were taken by the Biden administration, I ask three things. One, is it lawful? Do these orders comport with law? Two, is it going to make our law enforcement officers at DHS, is it going to make their job more difficult?

And, three, are the policies going to entice more individuals to come? And I think when you answer all three of those questions, particularly when you look at the 100-day moratorium on deportations, there's cause on each of those and there's concern for each of those questions.

Absolutely, it goes against the law. The law -- they're now saying, we're not going to deport individuals with final orders of removal, criminals, in most cases, we're not going to deport them for 100 days. That is concerning.

They have gone through their due process. They have gone to an immigration judge in some cases, and they have that final order of removal. And what the Biden administration is saying is, we are not going to deport them because we're going to focus on other things, and, again, very, very concerning.

They're moving resources to the border to process immigration, to process asylum claims. I think, in a COVID-like environment, that's very dangerous. Again, the department was on a path to return individuals within about two hours of them coming over the border. I hope that continues. I hope that the Biden administration understands not only the border security, the real concerns and threats there, but also how that works within a COVID environment.

So, a number of these things are concerning.

BARTIROMO: Secretary, is this just a matter of, look, we want to come in and reverse everything Donald Trump did, or are they missing something very significant and very dangerous?

I mean, here is the new press secretary for President Biden, Jen Psaki. Listen to this, this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: the last four years, the immigration policy has been based around funding for a wall. That has not worked even to keep the country safer, even to keep bad actors out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BARTIROMO: Your reaction?

WOLF: So, that's just not true.

The action of the border wall system absolutely works. The men and women of the Border Patrol, if you go down and visit them -- I'm not sure if she's ever been to the border or not -- they will say, first and foremost, they need an effective border wall system. They need that impedance and denial for them to do their job.

They need the access roads, they need the cameras, they need the lighting, they need the fiberoptic cables, they need that entire package for them to do their jobs. And we have said -- or I would say, the last administration, when I was at DHS, said over and over again, we do not need a border wall system on every mall -- every mile of that border. We need it in strategic locations. And that's what CBP has done.

But to say that we don't need an effective border wall system in very high- traffic areas, in areas that we know cartels use over and over and over again, I think is very naive. I think it's the wrong approach. I think you can do an effective border wall system with effective technology.

I know the Biden administration is pushing more technology at ports of entry. I welcome that. But to just scrap the entire border wall system as ineffective just ignores the reality and the facts on the ground.

BARTIROMO: Well, you know that I did, in fact, go to the wall. And our viewers were pleased that we actually took this program to the El Paso wall and the border to show our viewers what was going on.

And, literally, right in front of me, while I was at the wall, I saw people crossing the border coming in. And, in many cases, it was children. They were in dangerous situations. And that was around the time, Chad, that we had all those caravans headed to America. We have another one right now, a second migrant caravan expected to leave Honduras this week, this upcoming week, at a time that the CDC is forecasting 100,000 COVID deaths in the next few weeks.

So, when you add this all together, to see this new caravan coming this way is obviously frightening. And is this administration ready for it?

WOLF: Yes, well, you're absolutely right, Maria.

What we saw in 2018 and then again, in 2019, when the crisis really reached its height, when we had over 100,000 individuals coming into the country illegally per month for several months in a row, I think what the Trump administration did and what we did at DHS is, we put a number of policies and procedures in place to address that crisis and to bring those numbers down.

And I think it's a very effective network of policies that we have done. And, again, the Biden administration, look, elections matter, and they get to do what they -- the policies that they set out. But we -- this is about homeland security. So it's not just good policy for politics. They need to make sure that border is secure, that we don't go back to catch release, that we're not releasing individuals that may have COVID into American border communities to put additional strain on our health care system.

All of that factors in. Hopefully, they're looking at all of that. They're understanding that. They understand how that intersects and interplays with one another. It's very dangerous and it's very complex.

BARTIROMO: Well, all of this at a time that you're looking at real bullying going on.

President Biden says that he wants a thorough investigation into Trump officials for border policy. Are you being investigated in that regard? What is your reaction to this? And, as they settle in to their new power, we're seeing blacklisting. We're seeing targets on people's backs, in terms of associates of President Trump and supporters.

WOLF: Well, it's very unfortunate.

I know what we did at the department every day for the last four years was to make not only that border secure, but every policy that we put in place was for the security of the American people. And we did that within the law.

So, I'm happy to have anyone take a look at that. Again, the policies that we put in place, the measures we put in place, the actions that we took, along with the president and others, were to protect the homeland, so, whether we look at an effective border wall system, whether we look at interior enforcement or the travel restrictions, again, a policy that the Biden administration has now rescinded, travel restrictions, making sure that we know more about individuals as they come into this country than we ever have before.

And so we put a policy and a procedure in place that governments are sharing more information with us now than they ever have before. Again, that has been rescinded in the last several days. And I think that's very concerning.

BARTIROMO: Wow. It certainly sounds it.

Secretary, it's good to see you this morning. We will keep spotlighting it and have you back soon. We so appreciate your time. Thank you.

WOLF: All right, thank you.

BARTIROMO: Secretary Chad Wolf joining us there.

Coming up: the China challenge. And is the Biden administration up to the task?

Senator Tom Cotton, who first told the world the truth about China's bad behavior, he will join me next with a new warning about the Chinese Communist Party.

Don't miss it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN RATCLIFFE, FORMER U.S. DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: The People's Republic of China has two million strong in its military, and it's trying to make them stronger through gene editing.

And that's just one of the ways that China is trying to essentially dominate the planet and set the rules in the world order. And why it's so important and people need to understand is, this is an authoritarian regime. It doesn't care about people's individual rights. We have seen what they have done to the Uyghurs. We have seen what they have done in Hong Kong.

It's about putting the state first. And that is the exact opposite of what has always made America great, individual liberties, freedoms, free enterprise. Those things are all at stake if China dominates.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BARTIROMO: That was former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe warning about China's global ambitions on this program last month.

The threat has only gotten worse in the last month. China this week passed a new law that allows its coast guard should fire on any foreign vessels in the South China Sea, as if they own the entire South China Sea.

How can the United States compete against a country that does not play by the rules of the global road?

Senator Tom Cotton was among the first lawmakers to raise the red flag on China's burgeoning military on this program. He joins us now.

Senator, it's good to see you this morning. Thanks very much for joining me.

SEN. TOM COTTON, R-ARK.: Thank you, Maria. Good to be on with you.

BARTIROMO: Let's start with these sanctions. What was your takeaway of what we saw this past week, as China is now targeting additional individuals in America?

COTTON: Maria, these sanctions against former Trump administration officials are a dangerous and insidious escalation of China's effort to influence American policy.

On Wednesday, just moments after Joe Biden took office, a couple dozen Trump administration officials were sanctioned by China. Now, at first, one might just laugh them off. I was sanctioned last summer, and I kind of laughed it off.

But these sanctions apply not just to these individuals. They apply to any company or institution that associates with them. Now, this is not designed so much to punish Trump administration officials for taking a tough line on China, but to send a shot across the bow to Biden administration officials.

Just let me give you a couple of examples of how these could influence a U.S. government official's thinking. So, for instance, many former officials like to write memoirs, and those memoirs can contribute to our understanding of public events.

China specifically threatened publishing houses that give book contracts to administration officials they have sanctioned with cutting off all access for all their books in the Chinese market.

Or, to take another example, a lot of government officials are lawyers. They leave big firms, they go back to big firms. Even if they have no clients with any business in China, that law firm probably does. And what if China goes to one of those big corporations and threatens to cut off their access if they don't cut off that law firm?

This is the kind of unspoken, insidious effect these sanctions can have on senior government officials. We cannot tolerate it. The Biden administration needs to denounce it forcefully. They need to impose reciprocal sanctions on Chinese officials.

They need to find out if the China -- Chinese ambassador was involved in it. And, if so, they need to kick him out of the country. We cannot tolerate China trying to influence government officials at the highest levels of American government.

BARTIROMO: Well, it's interesting.

You have got people like Peter Navarro being sanctioned. Take note, no sanctions on Jared Kushner, Wilbur Ross, or Steven Mnuchin, correct?

COTTON: That's correct, Maria.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

Let me ask you about where this goes from here. I mean, you say that the Biden administration has to come out strong and make sure that China gets the message that we will not roll over with their bullying -- the way they're bullying the rest of the world in the South China Sea and in Hong Kong.

But we -- have we heard from President Biden yet in terms of China's role, for example, in the coronavirus?

COTTON: No, Maria. In fact, I haven't heard almost anything directly from President Biden.

Now, some of his officials have made some comments about China. For instance, Antony Blinken, the incoming secretary of state, said he agreed with Secretary Pompeo's designation of China as a genocidal regime for what they're doing to religious minorities in their northwestern province of Xinjiang.

But what we really need to hear is from the top. President Biden needs to condemn these sanctions. He needs to condemn the actions that China is taking against Hong Kong in the South China Sea, just recently threatening Taiwan again. It's important that the president say that, not just the president's spokesman, not just his Cabinet officials, but the president himself.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

We have not heard Joe Biden acknowledge where COVID came from, for example. I will be interested in hearing what he has to say in terms of COVID.

And you made this point on this program many times, that the CCP knew -- when they knew, when they learned that this disease was as deadly as it was, they allowed it to escape their borders, correct? We haven't heard anything like that from Joe Biden.

COTTON: Yes, that's right, Maria.

It was a year ago this month when I was trying to ring the alarm about this virus that was creating an unknown kind of pneumonia in Wuhan. The rest of Washington was obsessed with the impeachment trial. Obviously, we're now still in the midst of a deadly global pandemic.

I think all the evidence -- it's circumstantial, but all evidence continues to point to the Institute of Virology in Wuhan as the source of this virus, not some food market in Wuhan, that China's covering it up, just like they covered up for weeks how deadly this virus was, and let what could have been a local health challenge in Wuhan in the middle of China turn into the deadliest global pandemic in a century.

BARTIROMO: Yes. And former DNI John Ratcliffe has a letter accusing career analysts and Congress of under -- underplaying the Chinese influence in the 2020 election as well.

I want to get your take, domestic issues, as well.

Senator, this week is a big week. You will get sworn in. But you also have some things to vote on. Tell me about what you're expecting this upcoming week, as Nancy Pelosi is asking to keep National Guard troops in place at the Capitol all the way until mid-March. Is that -- is that what's happening?

COTTON: Yes, that's right, Maria.

And I don't think that's necessary. Look, I'm on the Senate Intelligence Committee. I have consulted with Senate leadership. I don't -- I'm not aware of threat reporting that suggests we need 7,000 troops and razor wire around the Capitol.

What happened on January 6 was in part the failure of the senior security leaders on Capitol Hill to anticipate the kind of violence we saw from the mob that broke into the Capitol on the 6th. There was chatter about that on social media, yet they didn't request enough backup from the FBI or the Park Police and the National Guard.

Muriel Bowser, the left-wing mayor of Washington, D.C., declined to let the National Guard that was present be armed and prepared for riot equipment. Then we had a major reaction, one might say an overreaction, of bring 26,000 National Guard troops in for January 20's inauguration.

But the inauguration is behind us. These troops did a great job. I respect their service. They deployed on short notice. But it's time to send home the troops. If there is threats...

BARTIROMO: Yes.

COTTON: ... if the threat reporting warrants it, we can always bring troops back. But we don't need to turn the people's house, the center of our republic, into an armed camp.

BARTIROMO: Senator, how will you vote going into this week? You will be voting for -- on Janet Yellen as Treasury secretary. You will also get an article of impeachment. Lay out the week for us.

And, by the way, we should mention that, on day one, Joe Biden got the United States back into the World Health Organization as well. Your reaction there?

COTTON: Yes, and I think it was a misguided decision to go back into the World Health Organization. They have largely been carrying water for China for the last year. Reporting since the early days of this pandemic has made that clear.

On the impeachment trial, I made it absolutely clear the day the House passed its article of impeachment that a trial after the president has left office is beyond the Senate's constitutional authority. I think a lot of Americans are going to think it's strange that the Senate is spending its time trying to convict and remove from office a man who left office a week ago.

That's not the role of impeachment. Impeachment is designed to remove a current officeholder from office. I suspect that the president's attorneys at some point, if they don't go to court, will come to the Senate with a motion to dismiss, as beyond -- this trial is beyond our constitutional authority.

The more I talk to other Republican senators, the more they're beginning to line up behind the position I announced a couple weeks ago.

BARTIROMO: And you said the biggest issue of the week was on immigration. We just spoke with Chad Wolf about that.

Your thoughts on what you saw in terms of the border actions this past week?

COTTON: Well, Joe Biden basically announced to the entire world that it's olly olly oxen free at our border. He stopped construction of the border wall. And he said that we're going to -- now we're going to resume allowing people showing up at our border, making bogus claims of asylum to come into the country, to be released, to come back, perhaps, probably not, for a hearing months or years later.

Look, we had a very strong agreement with Mexico, which was keeping these migrants in Mexico while their asylum claims could be adjudicated. For no reason, Joe Biden tore up that agreement. And now we're going to see yet another surge at the border.

You already see some caravans coming through Central America.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

COTTON: I suspect that they're going to get much larger very soon.

BARTIROMO: Well, I mean, look, it's up to you and your colleagues to stop some of this policy, if you think it's bad. Are you going to be able to, or will they get this entire progressive agenda through?

COTTON: No, the bill that Joe Biden sent last week I think will be dead on arrival.

It's far to the left of any immigration bill that Congress has considered. It would flood the labor markets with millions of unskilled migrants, whether they're here presently as illegal aliens or they're rushing to the border now. That would be terrible for working-class Americans, taking their jobs away or driving their wages down.

BARTIROMO: OK.

Senator, it's good to see you this morning. We will keep following the story. Thank you, sir.

Senator Tom Cotton joining us there.

We just heard from Tom Cotton about the severity of the China threat. So, why is The New York Times praising Beijing as -- quote -- "one of the safest places in the world"?

Journalist Glenn Greenwald is here. And he will investigate with us.

And join me all week, this upcoming week, on FOX News at 7:00 p.m. live. I will be hosting "FOX News Primetime." We will have breaking news and newsmakers and informed opinion.

Monday, my exclusive interviews with Congressman Jim Jordan and former acting DNI Ric Grenell later on in the week. Secretary Ric -- we will talk about it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BARTIROMO: Welcome back.

Well, we talk a lot on this program about having faith in our government, but how about the news media?

A new Edelman poll examined just found that only 46 percent of Americans trust their traditional media, and that 56 percent agree that the media purposely tries to mislead the public.

Wow. That is a major problem, as big tech continues to snuff out free speech on its platforms.

Glenn Greenwald is an independent journalist who, in 2014, won a Pulitzer for breaking the Edward Snowden story about the NSA surveillance and the surveilling of private citizens under the Obama administration.

Glenn, it is good to see you. Thanks very much for joining us.

Your reaction to the media trust, trust in the traditional media, mainstream media, at an all-time low?

GLENN GREENWALD, JOURNALIST: I think it's incredibly important story that's receiving almost no attention because the people who should give it attention are the ones that this poll found are losing faith and trust.

And this is not a new, sudden development. This has been taking place for years. If you look at the bar graph of how many people trust the corporate media, the establishment media in the United States, it has been dropping precipitously over the course of many years.

And when they do talk about it, they do one of three things. Either they complain about it and say that it's unjust that they have lost trust, as though they are divinely entitled to have it, or, number two, they blame others who criticize their reporting, their bad reporting, as though they're being unfairly vilified. '

And when that doesn't work, what they're doing now is a third response, which is trying to censor their critics and those who are actually inspiring trust by saying, kick these people off the Internet, their audience is too big, censor these people, throw their platform off the Internet.

They know that they're losing faith and trust. The one thing they never do, Maria, is ask what it is that they have done that is causing the public to lose faith and trust.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

GREENWALD: And rather than do that, they're now at the point where they're advocating censorship to force the audience to listen to them.

BARTIROMO: Unbelievable.

And let's -- look, let's not forget, The Washington Post and The New York Times, they won Pulitzer Prizes over their coverage of the Russia hoax right? So, they don't want to give the mea culpa that, oh, wait, we were had, we were -- we were taken for granted and taken advantage of by the FBI, who fed us stories that were just lies.

So, no mea culpas from either of them.

But I want to zero in specifically on The New York Times, because I don't know if the Chinese state media is writing their scripts or what the story is in terms of this, but look at this New York Times January 4 article that says: "While many countries are still reeling from COVID-19, China, where the pandemic originated, has become one of the safest places in the world. The country reported fewer than 100,000 infections for all of 2020. The United States has been reporting more than that every day since November."

The article goes on: "China resembles what normal was like in the pre- pandemic world. Restaurants are packed. Hotels are full. The country will be the only major economy to have grown this year."

What -- does The New York Times not recognize that the media is controlled by the communist government? Or did the Chinese write that?

GREENWALD: So, I think what -- this points to a broader media pattern that has been going on for many years in the United States, and it's reflective of the United States government policy as well.

The United States government is partners and allies with some of the most brutal and repressive dictatorships on the planet. And that's long been true. And whenever those governments that are perceived to be allies of the United States or in some way favorable to the United States engage in brutal human rights oppression, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the Gulf states, for example, the media tends to ignore it or downplay it, whitewash it.

And, instead, we get a lot of focus on the human rights violations in countries that are perceived to be enemies of the United States, like Venezuela or Russia.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

GREENWALD: In the case of China, they're in bed with Wall Street. A lot of people perceive China in a positive way.

And that's what's going on

BARTIROMO: Yes. Hold that thought. Hold that thought, Glenn.

Quick break. I want to get back to that when we come right back.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BARTIROMO: Welcome back.

We are back with journalist Glenn Greenwald, who writes for Substack.

And, Glenn, we were talking about The New York Times shilling for Beijing and the communists.

I just find it really shocking that the media does not care about what we're seeing in terms of censorship, does not care that, for example, Jack Ma disappeared after he criticized the CCP. He disappeared for two months. We just saw him recently in a video. But that should be a real message for all those American companies gearing up to go set up shop in Beijing.

You're also worried, though, about what you're seeing domestically. And it was called earlier in this program domestic terrorism. Tell us about it.

GREENWALD: There's clearly a new war on terror that several key parts of both parties want to unite in order to launch domestically, led by people like Adam Schiff and Liz Cheney, that will be incredibly, incredibly repressive.

Fortunately, there's now opposition on the left. And I hope that House Republicans and Senate Republicans concerned about civil liberties will work with them to stop what will be an incredibly dangerous effort to replicate the war on terror, but this time aimed at U.S. citizens.

BARTIROMO: A real police state, as Senator Cotton reminds us, that we have all of those troops right now around the Capitol.

Glenn, we will keep talking about it. And we will see you soon.

We so appreciate your time this morning. Thank you, sir.

GREENWALD: Thank you, Maria.

BARTIROMO: Glenn Greenwald joining us.

That will do it for us on "Sunday Morning Futures." I'm Maria Bartiromo. Thanks for joining us.

The news continues this upcoming week.

Join me this week on "FOX News Primetime." I will be live 7:00 p.m. Eastern on FOX News Monday through Friday hosting breaking news, exclusive interviews.

Tuesday, I have got former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo exclusive in his first interview.

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