Stepping out of Warren Buffett's shadow

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Stepping out of Warren Buffett's shadow

Power Player of the Week: Howard Buffett is the son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett.

This is a rush transcript from "Fox News Sunday," May 12, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

CHRIS WALLACE, ANCHOR: I'm Chris Wallace.

The U.S. and China walk away with no deal. What's next for the world's two largest economies?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT: I happen to think the tariffs for the country are very powerful. Where the piggy bank that everybody steals from, including China.

WALLACE: President Trump raising tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese goods and threatening more as China vows to retaliate. We will discuss how the moves will affect much of what we buy with Larry Kudlow, the chief White House economic advisor.

Then, the showdown between the president and Congress escalates. House Democrats demand to see the full Mueller report and the president's taxes and talk to some key Trump advisors.

REP. NANCY PELOSI, D-CALIF.: There may be some other contempt of Congress that we might want to deal with at the same time.

WALLACE: We'll sit with congressman and 2020 presidential candidate Seth Moulton.

Plus, Joe Biden widens his lead over the Democratic field. We'll ask our Sunday panel if he has the staying power to win the nomination.

And our "Power Player of the Week," the son of a famed investor on being a farmer, a sheriff and crusader at the border.

HOWARD WARREN BUFFETT, FARMER : I just like doing things that are different and of interest.

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

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE: Hello again and happy Mother's Day from Fox News in Washington.

President Trump shows no signs of backing off his trade war with China after negotiators failed to strike a deal. On Friday, he more than doubled tariffs on some 5,000 categories of Chinese products including furniture, electronics, and other consumer goods. The president is threatening to impose tariffs on essentially all remaining imports from China, that's another $300 billion of products.

Joining us now for an exclusive interview to discuss what happens next, President Trump's top White House economic advisor, Larry Kudlow.

Larry, welcome back to "Fox News Sunday."

LARRY KUDLOW, WHITE HOUSE ECONOMIC ADVISER: Thank you, Chris. Appreciate it. Happy Mother's Day.

WALLACE: Thank you. Well, I'm not sure we should be saying happy Mother's Day to each other but I will take it.

I want to start with something that you set a couple of weeks ago when you were pretty optimistic about a trade deal with China. Here you are.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KUDLOW: I think we are on about the 7-yard line, OK? Maybe even the 5- yard line looking into the end zone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: What yard line are we on now and what set us back?

KUDLOW: Well, we may still be on the five or the seven, but as I said in that clip, that's the -- those are the toughest yards to get. So, look, the situation for us, from our standpoint, we were moving well, constructive talks and I still think that's the case, we are going to continue the talks as the president suggested in his tweet on Friday.

But the problem is two weeks ago in China, there was backtracking by the Chinese, and we covered the same ground with Liu He this past week, Ambassador Lighthizer and Secretary Steven Mnuchin. We can't forget this, this is a huge deal, broadest scope and scale of anything the two countries have ever had before, but we have to get through a lot of issues.

For many years, China trade, it was unfair, nonreciprocal, unbalanced, in many cases, unlawful. And so, we have to correct those and one of the sticking points right now as we would like to see these corrections in an agreement which is codified by law in China, not just the state council announcement. We need to see something much clearer. And until we do, we have to keep our tariffs on, that's part of the enforcement process as far as we are concerned.

And as the president said, things seem to be taking too long and we can't accept any backtracking. We are representing the United States, the economy, farmers, autoworkers, manufacturers, these are crucial parts of this discussion. So we want to be as sure as we can be.

We don't think the Chinese have come far enough. We will wait and see. The talks will continue. And I will say this, the G20 meeting in Japan toward the end of June next month, the chances that President Trump and President Xi will get together at that meeting are probably pretty good.

WALLACE: So, you pointed out the president's tweet on Friday where he seemed pretty conciliatory. In fact, the stock market, which I dropped dramatically on Friday with news that the talks, the negotiations had ended without any deal, rose on the kind of conciliatory, optimistic tone from the president and from Treasury Secretary Mnuchin.

The president was much more combative in a tweet yesterday, late yesterday. I want to put this up on the screen. I think that China felt that they were being beaten so badly in the recent negotiations that they may as well wait around for the next election, 2020, to see if they could get lucky and have a Democrat win. The deal will become far worse for them if it has to be negotiated in my second term.

That's a lot tougher than the president was talking on Friday. How come?

KUDLOW: Well, look, that's his view. We think sometimes China may be misinterpreting the U.S. politics. I don't want to go deep into that, but I think there's always an issue there.

He's -- the fundamental things and we've said this many times, intellectual property theft has to be fixed. Forced technology transfer and ownership of American companies has to be fixed. Cyber interventions have to be fixed. Tariff and nontariff barriers have to be fixed, cyber interventions have to be fixed. And there have to be very, very strong enforcement provisions.

Some of the Chinese officials have said both in Beijing and here with Mr. Liu He that this is -- the agreement was too unbalanced, OK? Had to be -- no, the relationship has been to unbalanced and because of these problems of unfair and sometimes unlawful trading practice, we have to have a very strong agreement to correct, to right these wrongs before we would be satisfied.

WALLACE: All right. I want to go through a quick checklist and I want you quick answers here, like a lightning round on where we stand right now. Do you expect China to retaliate for our increase in tariffs, and how soon?

KUDLOW: I think I do, but it's interesting, the expected countermeasures have not yet materialized. We may know more today or even this evening or tomorrow. Yes, I reckon they will. We will see what they come up with. So far, we haven't heard on that basis.

WALLACE: Are no talks -- at this point, you say, well, talks will continue, are new talks scheduled with China?

KUDLOW: Not yet, but the Chinese have invited the Ambassador Lighthizer to come over to Beijing, Secretary Mnuchin also. No concrete definite plans yet. I do expect that -- and by the by, let me repeat, the strong possibility that the two presidents will meet in Japan at the G20 meeting.

WALLACE: How long before President Trump makes good on his threat to impose 25 percent tariffs on all the rest of Chinese imports into this country, basically the final $300 billion in Chinese goods?

KUDLOW: We've already launched that process up on the USTR Website. What happens in this if I get this right, we will have announcements, we will have hearings, we will have public comments.

How long does it take? I don't know, it could be a couple of months, thereabouts.

WALLACE: A couple of months, because there have been talk three or four weeks. You're saying it could take longer.

KUDLOW: Yes. Among other things, there has to be -- as I understand it, a 60 day public commentary or something like that. So, you know, call it a couple months, call it three months, I don't know. Ambassador Lighthizer can detail that. But that will take some time and then of course the president is going to have to make the final decision on that.

WALLACE: Let's talk about who pays, who pays for the higher tariffs on Chinese imports. Here's what President Trump had to say this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT: Our country can take and $120 billion a year in tariffs, paid for mostly by China, by the way, not by us. A lot of people try to steer it in a different direction. It's really paid -- ultimately, it's paid for by -- largely by China.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: But, Larry, that isn't true. It's not China that pays tariffs. It's the American importers, the American companies that pay what in effect is a tax increase and oftentimes passes it on to U.S. consumers.

KUDLOW: Fair enough. In fact, both sides will pay. Both sides will pay in these things. And, of course --

WALLACE: But the tariff on goods coming into the country, the Chinese aren't paying.

KUDLOW: No, but the Chinese will suffer GDP losses and so forth with respect to a diminishing export market and goods that they may need for their own --

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: I understand that, but the president says that doesn't -- that China, it pays the tariffs, they may suffer consequences but it's U.S. businesses and U.S. consumers who pay, correct?

KUDLOW: Yes, to some extent. Yes, I don't disagree with that. Again, both sides will suffer on this. Look --

WALLACE: I want to pick up on both sides because let's look at one study that projects with the costs are of all U.S. tariffs. Look at the screen. This study found that current tariffs, all current tariffs cost an average family of $767 a year and cut U.S. employment by more than 900,000 jobs.

And the study found if the president were to impose that 25 percent tariffs extended on all Chinese imports, including the 300 billion, plus the cost of Chinese retaliation, it will cost an American family of $42,200 a year, cut the American employment by over 2 million jobs and cut GDP growth by more than 1 percent.

KUDLOW: Our work on CEA and NEC think those are pretty wildly exaggerated numbers. I would suggest that if you go the whole boat, 200 billion increase from 10 to 25, plus the other 300 billion, we reckon it would be about two tenths of 1 percent of GDP, so it's a very modest number. We have a $20 trillion GDP.

In terms of possible job losses, we are way, way below that number.

And I want to note here: the United States economy is in a boom. The numbers are coming in terrific, better than anybody expected on growth, on jobs, on unemployment, on wages, on productivity, we are in terrific shape.

In order to correct 20 years plus of unfair trading practices with China, as I said, unlawful trading practices, I think this is a risk we should and can take without damaging our economy in any appreciable way.

I will note as others have, maybe this is part of your lightning round bullets, maybe the toughest burdens on farmers. The agriculture sector, we get there. We help to them before on loss exports. I think we had an authorization of $12 billion. We will do it again if we have to and if the numbers show that out.

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: Question: Are you reading upside down?

(LAUGHTER)

KUDLOW: No, I'm very good. I've had some experience.

But, yes, we will do that. But again, in a rising economy, we are in a terrific prosperity cycle. Because of our policies of lower taxes and deregulation and I might add trade reforms, we will be in very good shape. And by the way, something else the president has said -- let me add this on -- the tariffs themselves are producing a big increase in customs duties, big increase, perhaps something of a magnitude this past 12 months of maybe $25 billion. That will help finance farmers, that will help the transition.

You've got to do what you got to do. We have had unfair trading practices all these years, and so in my judgment, the economic consequences are so small that the possible improvement in trade and exports and open markets for the United States, this is worthwhile doing.

WALLACE: OK. I want to -- the last thing I'm going to talk about -- I'm in no way questioning the wisdom of deciding to take on -- there's no question that this has been an unequal, unfair relationship in trade between U.S. and China. The last thing I want to get to is the question of how determined President Trump is to see this through because he clearly had an expectation. If you got tough with China on tariffs, that basically they were going to cave and there was going to be a deal and everything was going to be great and he, as opposed to every other president, was going to reset the relationship.

That is no longer so clear and I guess my question is: how long has President Trump prepared to wage this trade war with China, which clearly has costs to the American economy and consumers and businesses?

KUDLOW: Well, I don't know. I mean, can I substitute trade negotiation for trade war? I mean, after all, we are talking, we will talk some more.

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: I understand but we have tariffs on them. They have tariffs on us. We're threatening to vastly increase. It's not a negotiation. We're taking action.

KUDLOW: It is a negotiation and part of the negotiation is taking action. I mean --

WALLACE: OK. But here, but answer my question, which is, how far --

(CROSSTALK)

KUDLOW: One of the things I've learned. In fairness, one of the things I've learned on the President Trump is that tariffs are part of negotiations. And they show that we do mean business and we will take action.

Chris, again -- we have been on the wrong side --

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: Are you -- or how long is he prepared to continue this effort and keep these tariffs on?

KUDLOW: I wouldn't want to put a timetable on it. I would just say as he has tweeted and has said to us and said to the Chinese, we are continuing our discussions. That's a very good thing. Negotiations you know over time stop, go, stop, go. The speed may be passed to my fast with the speed may be slow. This is not at all unusual.

WALLACE: Are you suggesting, though, that there might be a certain point where he goes this just isn't worth the economic cost and political cost and pulls back?

KUDLOW: I don't want to second-guess that -- I don't want to put timetables, that's completely up to the president.

WALLACE: But you're not ruling it out?

KUDLOW: I think the economic costs are de minimis. The potential economic gains of a good deal that opens up China, and makes them legal trade partners, those gains are huge. So that's a cost-benefit analysis that I really like.

Politically, I think the country is completely behind the president and his tough approach on China and, in fact, as you know, leading Democrats such as Senator Schumer and others have supported the president in this battle. So, I don't -- I think -- sometimes you can do the right thing and in a sense, this is a bipartisan policy and it's long overdue. So let me repeat my point --

WALLACE: We don't have time for you to repeat.

KUDLOW: It's worth doing. We have to change the trading relationship between two countries for the benefit of the United States and its workforce and its ranchers and farmers and so forth, we have to do this. The president is spot on.

WALLACE: Larry, thank you. Thanks for your time.

KUDLOW: Thank you.

WALLACE: I must say I hope you enjoy our conversations as much as I do. I find it a delight.

KUDLOW: That's why I'm here. Thank you. Appreciate it.

WALLACE: And we will be tracking the next steps in negotiation. Thank you for coming in.

KUDLOW: I appreciate it.

WALLACE: Coming up, we'll bring in our Sunday group to discuss what this all means for American business investors and consumers.

Plus, what would you like to ask the panel about the escalating trade war with China? Just go to Facebook -- (INAUDIBLE) trade negotiations with China, he doesn't like that -- just go to Facebook or Twitter at "Fox News Sunday", and we may use your question on the air.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I'm different than a lot of people. I happen to think that tariffs for our country are very powerful. You know, we are the piggybank that everybody steals from, including China.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: President Trump standing firm defending his decision to escalate the trade war with China by increasing tariffs on many imports to 25 percent.

And it's time now for our Sunday group: Josh Holmes, Senator Mitch McConnell's former chief of staff. Columnist for "The Hill", Juan Williams. Jonathan Swan, who covers the White House for "Axios", and Kristen Soltis Anderson of the "Washington Examiner".

Well, Josh, what's the reaction Congress the president's trade policies and what seems to be an escalation in the trade war with China? How worried are Republicans about the fact that this could have a real impact, maybe not an exaggerated impact, but, you know, a real impact on the American economy and American consumers and businesses, especially, as Larry pointed out, American farmers?

JOSH HOLMES, FOUNDER, CAVALRY: Well, look, I think this is quickly becoming the top issue of concern amongst Republicans. There's an awful lot to talk about Mueller report and everything else. But really where the focus has mostly been is here on this trade talks and what this extended debate might look like.

There's been a ton of patients on the Republican side to give the president time and resources in everything he needs to try to negotiate. What they do see is a critical, critical problem. The question is where is the off- ramp? And I think if we get deeper and deeper into this, you're going to see more and more concerned because remember the high card that this president is holding and all Republicans are holding is the economy. The economy is doing great.

But I think if you speak to most analysts and you got an awful lot of employers in a lot of these states around the country were beginning to be concerned about the impact that this debate may have on that, and if that grows and that concern grows without identifying an off ramp here I think you're going to see some problems.

WALLACE: Jonathan, what's your sense of the president's mood? He clearly thought that if he got tough on tariffs, that at some point the Chinese were going to back down and make a deal. And now, one, they haven't made a deal, and there really is no sense -- one of the things that Larry Kudlow talked about was the U.S. wants many of these changes in trade practices to be enshrined in Chinese law. The Chinese say that's humiliating. They wanted to be decrease from the state council.

I mean, this could go on for a while. What's -- do you think the president is frustrated that this thing hasn't gone as smoothly as he thought it was?

JONATHAN SWAN, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, AXIOS: I do think that and you have to put it in the context of what he was being told. So late last year the president was being told, and it was accurate, the Chinese economy was in real trouble, that his tariffs had -- not only actual effect but also a psychological effect on Chinese consumer confidence. The Chinese stock market was going down, the economy was going down. The president felt like he had an enormous amount of leverage.

And then he gets old pretty recently by some of his top advisors that we are on the 5-yard line, and that we are, you know, inches away, in the end zone. And it turns out we are actually not in the end zone, because, you know, I spoke to Secretary Steven Mnuchin earlier this week. I also spoke to Robert Lighthizer, the USTR, both of them made very clear that these are not minor disagreements. What the Chinese are trying to renegotiate are massive, major parts of this deal and this could go on for a very long time, perhaps beyond the 2020 election.

WALLACE: Which could have a real impact on the 2020 election.

SWAN: Of course, of course.

WALLACE: That's what I want to talk to you about, Kristen. We asked you for questions for the panel. And on this issue of trade relations in negotiations with the Chinese, we got this on Facebook from Karen Margrave. Tariffs come back to us in higher prices, which means the end price to buyers of homes, cars, et cetera, are all higher. How is that a win?

Kristen, how do you answer Karen? Especially in terms of the possible risk of all of this of President Trump and other Republicans on the ballot in 2020?

KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, ECHELON INSIGHTS: Well, Josh was right when he said the president has this Trump card, which is the strong economy. You saw the weak markets not responding very well to the idea that this could become a more protracted, more significant trade war.

But more importantly than what the markets may say, what are individual households feeling when it comes to this? If the president comes out and says this won't actually hurt individual households but people are feeling it in their pocketbooks. The president's advantage on do you think you're better off now than you were four years ago? Do you think that the president has done a good job on the economy?

That's his biggest political strength right now. And if that's threatened, that could be a big problem for him in 2020.

WALLACE: I want to turn to another big foreign policy issue this week, and that was North Korea, which had two separate tests of short-range missiles, I think a total of five short-range missiles fired within five days. Here was the reaction from the president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We're looking at it very seriously right now. They were smaller missiles, short range missiles. Nobody's happy about it, but we are taking a good look and we'll see.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Juan, what you think this says about the state of President Trump's diplomatic efforts to get Kim Jong-un to denuclearize?

JUAN WILLIAMS, POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, keeping with the conversation we're having this morning, think about the China trade talks. But let's also consider Iran, Venezuela.

I think the president's foreign policy strategy is always, I inherited a difficult situation, but I'm a great disrupter. I'm going to come in here, I'm going to undercut the pillars of existing policies, blow it up, create some drama and then make demands. And I'm going to get a deal. I'm a great dealmaker.

Well, when we come to North Korea, we had "fire and fury", little rocket man, we fell in love at the June summit, all the drama of the June summit and I think North Korea is closer to having a nuclear weapon is a threat to Japan and South Korea today than we were two and half years ago when the president came to office.

So, in all these situations it looks like ignoring precedent and saying I'm coming in here I'm going to establish a new American -- sort of an America First policy has not played out to the president's advantage, and certainly not to the advantage of American national interests.

WALLACE: I want to pick up on that with you, Jonathan, because there's no question Donald Trump spent a lot of political capital on Kim Jong-un. He traveled -- this is the president of the United States traveled halfway around the world twice to negotiate with Kim. That was a big concession on his part and a big boost to the prestige of Kim.

What is the feeling in the White House right now you think about continuing to do business with Kim?

SWAN: Well, there was always a lot of skepticism and it wasn't just inside the White House, it was inside the State Department, inside the Pentagon, there was always a lot of skepticism that this would work. I spoke to someone who has spent a lot of time with the president and has discussed this issue with the president and they said to me, and they are not even in the administration anymore, had no dog in this fight to speak and not spinning for it. They said to me, they would be -- if they were North Korea, they'd be very concerned, the president does not like to be humiliated and if Kim Jong-un does escalate to break his promise with the president, ICBMs, you could go from love letters to conflict in a very short space of time.

This is not a normal president who does things in small increments. He goes as Juan said, from fire and fury to literally saying that we fell in love. I think we could go right back to where we were in the summer of 2017 and people should be prepared for that.

WILLIAMS: And China, remember as we talk about the China trade deal. They have the most leverage over North Korea and at the moment, they are not exactly open to helping us.

WALLACE: You know, it is so interesting, this possibility of miscalculations. I mean, one of the things that we are -- I don't know how true it is, but there's a lot of reporting that when the Chinese saw the president constantly hectoring the Fed Reserve Chairman Powell to lower interest rates, that the Chinese viewed that as an indication of weakness on the part of the president, that he was worried about the strength of the U.S. economy and therefore that they had a stronger negotiating position.

SWAN: Yes, and they also -- every tweet he does, you know, they sort of blur through our new cycle. We don't pay an America that much attention. They are reading every tweet sort of Gnostic wisdom and I think actually they are reading too much into a lot of his comments.

(CROSSTALK)

HOLMES: Larry Kudlow actually addressed this. He said he believes that they are misinterpreting an awful lot of American politics right now and I think this is the perfect example of it. I'll just add on North Korea, I think what we're seeing out of North Korea is the frustration that they have a worthy negotiating partner here in Mike Pompeo and I think they thought they were going to get anything for free and they don't get it, all of a sudden, here comes some frustration.

WALLACE: All right. Panel, we have to take a break here. We'll see you a little later in the program.

When we come back, the president's showdown with House Democrats is testing the nations system of checks and balances? Is it a constitutional crisis? We'll ask Democratic Congressman Seth Moulton about that and his run for president in 2020. All that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: Coming up, Democrats accuse the president of stonewalling Congress.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI, D-CALIF.: He is every day demonstrating more obstruction of justice and disrespect for Congress' legitimate role.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: We'll ask a top Democrat what they can do about it, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: When Democrats took control of the House in the 2018 midterms, they gained subpoena power. And they're trying to use that power to look into the president's conduct and business dealings, moves the president's lawyers have called an all-out political war.

Joining me now, Massachusetts congressman and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Seth Moulton.

Congressman, welcome to “Fox News Sunday.”

REP. SETH MOULTON, D-MASS., PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's great to be here, Chris.

And I'm not going to start but wishing you a happy Mother's Day, but I am going to wish my mother a happy Mother's Day and my wife, Liz. It's her first Mother's Day ever. So, to my mom, to Liz, and to my daughter Emmy, I love you.

WALLACE: Do you want to do a SethMoulton.com to fundraising for -- no, I'm teasing. That's very lovely.

MOULTON: It's Mother's Day. This is important.

WALLACE: No, I agree. I agree.

And, Lorraine, I wish you a very happy Mother's Day because -- thanks for showing me up, congressman.

All right, before we get to all the questions about the House on the White House. After President Trump raised tariffs on Chinese goods on Friday morning, you tweeted this, I want to put it on the screen. Whether it's farmers or federal workers, Americans and their paycheck should never be used as pawns in a negotiation.

But, congressman, don't we need to get tough with China? They've been taking advantage of us with unfair trading practices for decades.

MOULTON: We absolutely need to get tough with China. And it's not just on trade. It's the rising threat that China is to our national security. I mean they are steeling American ideas and American military secrets through the Internet every single day.

But we need a strategy. And, I mean, I listened to Mr. Kudlow's interview. I don't think this administration has a strategy. They don't have any sense of urgency and they clearly don't know what this means to American families. Two thousand seven hundred -- you put the number on the board -- dollars a year. That matters to American families. I mean ask how much that matters to American soybean farmers when they can't sell their soybeans.

WALLACE: So how do you -- how do you get tough with them if you're not going to use tariffs?

MOULTON: You have to have a comprehensive strategy. And I'm not saying that tariffs shouldn't be an option on the table. But that means that we actually build our alliances in the Pacific. I'm calling for using the NATO model in the Pacific to help contain China and North Korea.

The president's been doing the exact opposite. He's been undermining our allies across the globe. It means using institutions like the World Trade Organization. Now, that's not perfect, it's not going to solve every problem, but every case that the Obama administration has brought before the WTO against China, every single one that's been decided has been in our favor. So the president's simply lying when he says that WTO doesn't work.

We need to have a comprehensive strategy for China because they are a massive threat. But just wielding tariffs like a cajole because it makes the president look tough, that only hurts American families.

WALLACE: All right, let's turn to the -- to the battle now, the escalating battle, between the House and the White House over the Russian investigation and where it goes from -- from here. The president is fighting all subpoenas for documents and current and former advisors to testify before Congress. And the House Democrats are fighting back either in one case voting in a community for contempt of Congress, and others threatening to vote. Here was the president's reaction to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: With all of this transparency, we finish, no collusion, no obstruction, right? Then I get out, the first day, they're saying, let's do it again. And I said, that's enough. We've got to -- we have to run a country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Does President Trump have a point? I mean the Mueller investigation went on for 22 months. It cast a cloud over his presidency and this country for almost two years.

It's -- you know -- look, nobody on the -- on your side is ever going to be satisfied with the Mueller investigation, but why not go on and deal with pocketbook issues that really affect people's lives? Voters are going to decide in a little over a year, in the 2020 election, whether they want to keep President Trump or not.

MOULTON: Well, first of all, don't think that we can't do both. I mean the House -- the Democratic House has been passing a lot of legislation that's important to American families. But it's also our constitutional responsibility to hold the administrations accountable. That's written into the Constitution.

And the fact of the matter is that this investigation is exactly what you termed it first, Chris, it's an investigation about Russia. And whether you're a Democrat in the House or you're the biggest Trump supporter in America, every American should want to know why Vladimir Putin wanted Trump elected president.

WALLACE: But you're not investigating --

MOULTON: That's the most important conclusion.

WALLACE: But -- but -- but the -- the House Democratic investigations are not about Russia, they're about Trump. You're subpoenaing him -- not him, but, you know, some of his top people, Barr, McGahn. This is not about -- about Russia, it's about Trump.

MOULTON: Well, we need to hold the Trump administration accountable because that's our constitutional duty.

But you're right in criticizing us for not focusing enough on Russia. I mean that's why I'm in this race, to talk about national security, because Democrats should be leading on national security when we have a president who is literally cozying up to some of the worst dictators in the world, some of our biggest enemies.

I do think, Chris, that, you're right, that that should be the focus, because that is the unmistakable conclusion of this report. Obstruction and everything else aside, those are really important.

But Russia meddled in this election. And don't get me wrong, they're going to meddle in 2020 as well because this administration has done nothing to stop them or deter them.

WALLACE: I just want to ask you one more question on this and then we're going to move on to something I think you probably want to talk about, which is your campaign for president.

We saw two very different approaches this week to the Russia investigation from the two top leaders of the House and the Senate. Let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PELOSI: Every single day the president is making a case - - he's make -- he's becoming self-impeachable.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL, R-KY: The special counsel's finding is clear, case closed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Now, there is an argument that Democrats would be in a stronger legal position to get access to documents, to get access to current and former advisors of the president, if you were to open a formal impeachment proceeding -- not say you necessarily are even going to impeach the president, but open it and seek all of that under the impeachment -- which, as you talked about in the Constitution, it's in the Constitution, impeachment.

MOULTON: Right.

WALLACE: Do you support that?

MOULTON: I do. In fact, I supported it last year. I think we made a mistake as a part by waiting until the Mueller report came out.

The fact of the matter is that this is our constitutional duty. And a lot of people make the argument that it's not a politically opportune time for us to proceed with this, to have this debate. Don't forget, Congress does two things, we debate things and then we vote on them. I'm not saying we should vote on impeachment yet. We don't even have the full Mueller report. But let's have that debate. I called that -- for -- for that a year ago and we should be discussing it because it's our constitutional duty.

So, politics aside, Chris, how about just doing the right thing by the Constitution?

WALLACE: OK.

You got into this Democratic presidential race pretty late, April 22nd. You're a third term congressman -- forgive me sir -- with almost no national profile. What makes you think -- although it will obviously explode after your appearance here today -- what makes you think that you have a realistic chance of winning the Democratic presidential nomination?

MOULTON: Because the most important thing to Democrats is beating Donald Trump and bringing this country together. And the hardest job I've ever had in my life is leading American troops in combat. It's bringing together a remarkably diverse group of Americans with different religious backgrounds, different political backgrounds, different political beliefs and getting them united behind a common mission to serve our country.

And that, I think, is exactly the kind of leadership that we need from the next president of the United States. (INAUDIBLE) terribly divisive time.

WALLACE: I understand. I'm going to get into your foreign policy, but what makes you think you have a -- I mean, politics is practical. Politics is tough. What makes you think -- you're one of, what, 22 in the field now. What makes you think you have a chance? There are a lot of people who are a lot better known than you are.

MOULTON: Because I'm the only one with that experience. I'm the only one with that expense of uniting Americans in the most difficult circumstances imaginable. And I'm also the only one in this race that is taking on Donald Trump on issues of security, on strength, on what we need to do to make America stronger, on what it truly means to be a patriot.

I don't believe that we can win this race if we don't challenge Donald Trump, not just on his job as president, but in his job as commander in chief. And we have to challenge them there if we're going to win.

WALLACE: And -- and, briefly, because we're running out of time here, what is -- because, you say, you keep talking about, it's national security, defense, foreign policy, what is the Moulton foreign policy?

MOULTON: We need a totally new generation of arms. We need to be challenging China on developing artificial intelligence, on building a cyber wall to protect America, not building, you know, a fifth century border wall. China had that debate 2,000 years ago about building a wall. We need that new generation of alliances because we have to make NATO relevant for today, because Russia is attacking us through the Internet, not by sending tanks into western Europe. And we need to make sure that we have a new generation of leaders to lead this charge.

I think it's time for the generation that went to Iraq and Afghanistan to take over for the generation that sent us there.

WALLACE: I have about a minute left. The DNC has set a June 12th deadline, which is a month from today, for deciding who is going to be in that first set of two debates at the end of June, Democratic presidential debates. Here are the criteria. Candidates must either raise money from at least 65,000 donors, or have at least 1 percent support in three poles.

If you don't qualify and you don't end up getting on that debate stage for the first debates in June, doesn't that kill your candidacy before it's even really begun?

MOULTON: No, it doesn't, but we're on track to meet those goals.

You asked earlier, you said earlier that I got into this late. And I did. And the reason I got in this race late is simple, I have a seven-month-old daughter at home. And leaving her at home to hit the campaign trail was not an easy decision. I had never even been a father before. But if there's a personal reason why I'm doing this, aside from Trump and the policies and everything else, it's that I want my daughter, Emmy, to grow up and know that I did everything I could to serve this country.

WALLACE: Congressman, thank you. Thanks for coming in. We'll be watching how the campaign goes. Safe travels on the campaign trail, sir.

MOULTON: Thank you, Chris.

WALLACE: President Trump says Joe Biden's early surge in the polls reminds him of his own campaign back in 2016. We'll ask our Sunday panel about the Democratic front runner's first weeks on the trail, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JERROLD NADLER, D-N.Y.: We've talked for a long time about approaching a constitutional crisis. We are now in it. We are now in a constitutional crisis.

TRUMP: He was a Manhattan congressman. At beat them all the time. And I come to Washington, and now I have to beat them again, over nothing. Over nothing. Over a hoax.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Well, President Trump and House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler, two longtime adversaries, now battling over House Democrats demands for more information from Robert Mueller's Russia investigation.

And we're back now with the panel.

Josh, your former boss, Senator McConnell., made pretty clear what the Republican strategy is now on this whole investigation, which is, case closed. One, can he make that stick? And, two, how angry are he and some of his Republican -- other fellow Republican senators at the fact that their colleague, Richard Burr, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has called -- subpoenaed Don Junior to come back and testify?

JOSH HOLMES, FORMER MCCONNELL CHIEF OF STAFF: Well, on substance here, there's just no question that it is case closed. I mean the idea that Chairman Nadler in 15 House staffers that are sort of shuffling around the cannon building can come up with a more substantive case than Bob Mueller could over two years and $35 million is ridiculous. I think where we find ourselves now, and you hear Chairman Nadler talking about a constitutional crisis, I mean what melodramatic nonsense.

That -- where we're at right now is that the chairman literally last week said that he hadn't taken time himself to go down and read an un-redacted report that is totally available to him because he couldn't share it amongst his colleagues. He couldn't share it amongst his colleagues.

Well, it's a good thing that he's not running the Intelligence Committee. I mean this is absolutely about the politics. It's not about fact finding.

WALLACE: All right, really quick on Don Junior.

HOLMES: Yes, so, look, the Senate Intelligence Committee, as best I understand it, has a very different charter here. What they're looking at is how and why the Russians decided to infiltrate our election in order to determine how we can never, ever, ever, experience that again. So, look, in terms of the president's family, I think we can all agree that they have been harassed far beyond where they needed to be harassed here over the last two years. My hope is that they can figure out a way to take care of this very quickly and stop calling people up to The Hill -- Don Junior and everybody else.

WALLACE: Real quickly.

JONATHAN SWAN, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, "AXIOS": With respect to Donald Trump Junior, what I'm hearing is that short of some sort of compromise, the most likely scenario is that he will not exercise his Fifth Amendment rights, that he will force Congress, the Republican-led Senate, to hold him in contempt. And the idea being to inflict as much political pain as possible on the Republicans who put him through this.

WALLACE: And -- but -- and do you think that the Republicans would do that? I mean Burr seems to be out by himself. You think that the Republican majority would vote Don Junior in contempt of Congress?

HOLMES: I don't. And I think that we're -- what we're looking for his information to sew this whole thing up. I think you saw Senator McConnell this week on Fox talk about how this is at the end stage of the game and they basically want to issue this report.

WALLACE: Juan, how do you think -- you heard the case for the prosecution here -- how do you think House Democrats are doing in keeping this whole issue alive?

JUAN WILLIAMS, POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, Nancy Pelosi, actually, I think, was trying to restrain the leftist base instinct, which is impeach. I mean the number say Democrats still would impeach the president. Pelosi was holding that back. Now I think we're in a situation, over the last week or so, Chris, where I think it's the president who seems to -- with his blanket refusal to cooperate with Congress, saying it's just a political operation, not a legitimate inquiry, not a matter of congressional oversight, he is creating a crisis and I think he's forcing it towards the courts. I think he sees political advantage in saying this is grievance, this is harassment of my family, as you just heard.

Don Junior never testified to Bob Mueller. When he went up to The Hill, apparently, he said things that were clearly not true about knowing about the construction of a Trump Tower in Moscow. So there's every reason to invite him back from Richard Burr, and Burr's no member of the House, not a Democrat, a legitimate request. But you hear case closed.

Well, if case is closed, according to Mitch McConnell, why then not just give these Democrats what they want? Give them the report. Let Don Junior testify.

WALLACE: Because they don't want to give them (INAUDIBLE).

WILLIAMS: Let Don McGahn testify.

WALLACE: All right, let me -- let me -- let me move --

WILLIAMS: Why put pressure on Don McGahn and tell him, make a statement, say, we never obstructed justice.

WALLACE: OK, we've got three minutes. I want to talk about one more subject, and that is Joe Biden, who clearly has opened up a sizable lead in the Democratic presidential race. Take a look at these polls. In the latest RealClearPolitics average of polls, Biden leads by almost 3 to 1 over Bernie Sanders in national polls, almost 2 to 1 in New Hampshire. And, as you can see, narrowly in Iowa.

Kristen, how real is Biden's lead at this point? And how do you explain it?

KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, "WASHINGTON EXAMINER": So, he's a formidable front runner. There's no question. There's a long way to go until this primary is over. But being out front by this kind of a margin is -- is very valuable. And it's notable who he took vote share from, which was Bernie Sanders. In many polls early in this process, you would see Joe Biden voters saying that Bernie Sanders was their second choice, and Bernie Sanders voters saying Joe Biden was their second choice. And some folks would say, well, that kind of seems strange, right? Joe Biden's a more establishment guy. Bernie Sanders is way out on the left. But really both of them have appeal to that kind of Scranton Joe union type worker, someone who -- the type of voter you find a lot of in those blue wall states. And so it makes sense that Joe Biden would sort of be able to draw some of that share from Bernie Sanders.

The question headed into 2020 is, can he actually rebuild the blue wall for the Democrats and do so while maintaining excitement and enthusiasm among the Democrats?

WALLACE: Considered the blue (ph) wall (ph) of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, the upper -- upper rustbelt.

ANDERSON: That's right, the states that were critical that President Trump was able to flip.

WALLACE: All right. President Trump is clearly taking Joe Biden seriously. He continues to hammer him. And the former vice president fires back. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: One of the Democrats today said that he -- it's a he -- a sleepy person -- said that he heard from a lot of foreign leaders and they want him to be president. Of course they do, so they can continue to rip off the United States.

JOE BIDEN, D-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Folks, above all else, we must defeat Donald Trump.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Jonathan, how preoccupied is the president with Joe Biden at this point? How seriously does he and his political advisor -- how seriously do they take him?

SWAN: They take him very seriously. And I -- the sense I have from some of the them -- some of these advisers is they're actually surprised at how much of a lead he's opened up. They were always worried about Biden in a general election, but the consensus a few months ago is he can never -- has no prayer of getting through this far left Democratic primary. So there's a little bit of uneasiness that, wow, maybe he could get through this Democratic primary.

HOLMES: Let me just say, I think an awful lot of this is, at this stage, is a function of name ID and the two candidates with the highest name ID are Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden.

WALLACE: But -- but -- and I agree with that, and that -- that explained it before he got in. But now that he's gotten in, his lead has -- has seems to have (INAUDIBLE), particularly because he's casting the race as him against Trump.

HOLMES: Sure. I -- I think he's at a high watermark right now and the whole goal of the Biden campaign is to try to hold on for dear life. The -- you saw this week with the climate change discussion --

WALLACE: Biden came -- hold on for dear (ph) life?

HOLMES: Yes.

WALLACE: OK. That's -- that's a talking point.

HOLMES: I'm very bearish on this.

WALLACE: All right, we've got to -- thanks, panel, see you next Sunday.

Up next, our "Power Player of the Week," the son of billionaire Warren Buffett on what he's been given and what he's giving away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: A beer company used to run ads featuring what they called the most interesting man in the world. Well, we have a surprising candidate for that title in real life, and he's our "Power Player of the Week."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HOWARD BUFFETT, PHILANTHROPIST AND BUSINESSMAN: I do things that maybe a lot of people don't want to do. I mean I'd be the first one to parachute out of the airplane, or I'd be the first one to go into rebel territory. And I just like doing things that are different and adventurous, I guess, is the best word I can think of.

WALLACE (voice over): Howard Buffett has led a varied life. He's done construction and worked for a candy company. He's been in agribusiness executive and is now a farmer. For two years he was the sheriff of Macon County, Illinois.

BUFFETT: Macon MC1, I have a 1038 eastbound on I-72.

WALLACE: There's something else we should mention. He's one of billionaire Warren Buffett's three children, which means he gets a lot of money for his own foundation.

BUFFETT: We get stock every year from my dad. So we get in somewhere around $180 million, $185 million, you know, today. And -- and we try to give away what we bring in.

WALLACE (on camera): Do you have any idea total how much you've given away over the years?

BUFFETT: About $1.4 billion.

WALLACE (voice over): Howard Buffett focuses on improving food and water quality in poor countries, and helping resolve international conflicts, which takes him to interesting places.

BUFFETT: Two years ago I -- when a helicopter in Congo got hit by a PKM around. And I mean I just love that stuff, you know. And I -- and I keep coming home. So, I mean, you know, I get -- it's -- it's a false security.

Well, there's that little knoll we drove out to there, sheriff.

WALLACE: It's also taking him to survey farms his foundation owns on our southern border, and get briefings from local sheriffs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're going to get the other criminal element to come over at section b.

WALLACE: Buffett has written a book called "Our 50-State Border Crisis," focusing on the flood of drugs from Mexico.

BUFFETT: We are in a fight. I mean if you had 70,000 U.S. citizens dying any other way, any other place, people would be, you know, up in arms over it.

WALLACE: Buffett has definite ideas how to win the fight. He says our border patrol needs to act more like the military and less like a bureaucracy. And he says we need to do more to fight drug addiction.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All three of these buildings will be done in 2019.

WALLACE: He's giving more than $60 million for drug treatment in his new hometown of Decatur, Illinois.

WALLACE (on camera): What you think of President Trump's boarder policy?

BUFFETT: You can put a wall out in the middle of nowhere, where people aren't crossing, and it's not going to do any good. You can put a wall so far away from areas where -- where border patrol agents are stationed that you can't apprehend anyone. So it's -- it's -- it's not a simple solution.

WALLACE (voice over): Back in 2006, Warren Buffett said he would give away 85 percent of his fortune. Howard agrees with his dad.

BUFFETT: You give people things, they don't appreciate them. And -- and they don't work hard for things. They don't earn things. You know, they -- there's such a thing as unearned entitlement.

WALLACE (on camera): There was a quote from your dad that I loved. He said, I want to give my kids enough so they can do anything. I don't want to give them so much that they can do nothing.

BUFFETT: You know, if I wanted to have my own airplane or my own yacht, I might not be able to afford to keep it up. But, I mean, you know, I -- I don't want those things. So, I mean, you know, I am pretty happy with what I get to do in my life.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE: when Warren Buffett leaves Berkshire Hathaway, Howard will take over as non-executive chairman. That means he won't run the place, but he'll make sure the Buffett culture continues.

Now this program note, we'll see you next week in New Hampshire for our regular program, and then Sunday at 7:00 p.m. Eastern we'll hold a town hall with the big surprise so far in the Democratic race, Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Again, that's 7:00 p.m. on Fox News Channel.

And that's it for today. For all you moms, have a wonderful Mother's Day and a great week and we'll see you next “Fox News Sunday.”

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