Rep. Turner argues Biden admin investigating COVID-19 origin due to 'public outcry'
Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, argues during an exclusive interview with 'Sunday Morning Futures' that COVID-19 'certainly could have been' a bioweapon.
This is a rush transcript of "Sunday Morning Futures," May 30, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
MARIA BARTIROMO, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Good Sunday morning, everyone. Welcome to "Sunday Morning Futures." I'm Maria Bartiromo.
Coming up: the walls closing in on the origins of the coronavirus, as Dr.
Anthony Fauci feels the heat. China's role and Joe Biden's response -- coming up.
We will talk with Ohio Congressman Mike Turner on what the intelligence says about the intent behind COVID-19 and the impact of Joe Biden's agenda.
Then, four-Star General and former Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army General Jack Keane the strength and courage of the U.S. military defending America during dangerous days, why the Chinese Communist Party has been ramping up its military.
Plus: madness at the border, unknowns running into the country, disappearing into the interior of the U.S., hundreds of thousands of got- aways at the halfway mark of 2021, and a peak surge expected in the months to come, Memorial Day weekend the unofficial kickoff to summer, when 200,000-plus apprehensions a month are expected at the Southern border, reaching record highs.
Former acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf on the Biden administration's plans to house and accommodate thousands of new migrants coming in.
Then, highlights from the air, water and land from our exclusive coverage of the Southern border, where more fentanyl has been seized so far this year than all of 2020, the consequences for America today right here, right now on "Sunday Morning Futures."
And first this morning, China's coronavirus cover-up may finally be unraveling, with President Biden ordering the intelligence community to investigate the origins of the pandemic.
This comes just days after Dr. Anthony Fauci finally admitted that COVID-19 may not have originated naturally, after all, and that the NIH did, in fact, fund coronavirus research at the Wuhan Lab of Virology.
Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, CHIEF MEDICAL ADVISER TO PRESIDENT BIDEN: It would have been almost a dereliction of our duty if we didn't study this.
And the only way you can study these things is, you have got to go with the action is. So, we had a modest collaboration with very respectable Chinese scientists who are world experts on coronavirus. And we did that through a subgrant from a larger grant to EcoHealth.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: Aha.
Viewers of this program already knew all about the Wuhan Lab of Virology.
We have been reporting on it since February 2020, when Senator Tom Cotton became the first U.S. lawmaker to go on the record on this program and question whether the pandemic originated there at that lab.
He joined me last Sunday right here to share what he has learned since then.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. TOM COTTON (R-AR): Every bit of circumstantial evidence, to include evidence that came out in the final days of the Trump administration that some employees and staff at these labs may have had coronavirus-like symptoms as early as October or September of 2019, continues to point to these labs as the origin of this virus, not that food market that the Chinese Communist Party used as a cover story from the very beginning.
That's why it's so imperative that the Biden administration hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable and demand answers for all of these questions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: And, in fact, in the final days of the Trump administration, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo launched an inquiry into the connection between the origins of the coronavirus and the Wuhan lab.
But the Biden administration shut that inquiry down when it took over in January. Pompeo told us about his findings just a few weeks ago on this program.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIKE POMPEO, FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: We worked to get every bit of evidence that we could. We tried to deliver this. The CDC tried to work with the Chinese. They covered it up terribly.
But every piece of evidence that we saw throughout the entire time I was there suggested that this originated in that laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. I haven't seen a shred of evidence that suggests anything to the contrary.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: Since then, many questions have been raised about not just the origins of the coronavirus, but the intent.
One Australian journalist reported that Chinese military scientists discussed the weaponization of SARS coronavirus five years before the
COVID-19 pandemic arrived.
Then, two weeks ago on this program, Congressman Devin Nunes raised a similar concern.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. DEVIN NUNES (R-CA): And, look, why is this important? This is about bioweapons. This is about a biowarfare. This is very concerning.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: Ohio Congressman Mike Turner serves on the House Intelligence Committee. He contributed to the new report, which Devin Nunes broke here a few weeks ago.
Congressman, thanks for being here.
REP. MIKE TURNER (R-OH): Thanks for having me.
BARTIROMO: Was this a bioweapon?
TURNER: Well, it certainly could have been.
And, Maria, even if you just look at this intuitively, where the Wuhan lab is undertaking this type of research, it's in Wuhan, the virus comes from Wuhan, it's not like the lab is in Wuhan, the virus comes from Shanghai or even Paris.
And then you overlay the reports, as you were indicating, that even include perhaps collaboration between the Wuhan lab and the Chinese military, which are referenced in the House Republican Intelligence report, which you can see online, dating back to 2012, where there are concerns about the lab's operations and its coordination with the Chinese military.
BARTIROMO: Let's go through that report. Tell me what strikes you most.
I thought it was very interesting that you and your colleagues raised the fact of the activity around the Wuhan lab back in October 2019. And this is something that Tom Cotton raised with us a long time ago, the fact that there was no cell phone activity, no cars, nothing around the Wuhan Virology Lab in October 2019. They pretty much shut it down.
Let's just recognize where we are. We're not talking about bat caves in the suburbs.
TURNER: Right.
BARTIROMO: Wuhan is a major city in China larger than New York City. No activity in -- for several weeks in October 2019 around the lab.
TURNER: Right.
So, if you go to page 12 of the report, it lays out the concerns about the activities that are happening at Wuhan and then the occurrences at the lab right before the virus breaks out and goes worldwide, both lack of activity and reports of individuals becoming sick.
This really shows, I think, a grave concern of both the activities that were there and raises the concern about U.S. involvement. And then, of course, it goes to the Biden administration being completely unwilling to continue to pursue the original origins of the virus.
This is something that the Biden administration is now taking up because of the public outcry because of the report that's coming from the Republicans in the House Intelligence Committee. But even so, the Biden administration has limited the review to a 90-day time period, indicating that either the Intelligence Committee already has the information and is not providing it or they want to limit the scope of the review, which is still of grave concern.
BARTIROMO: Yes, I mean, look, Secretary Pompeo's team was full of experts, very serious scientists. He had China experts, arms control experts, people who knew weapons, diplomats as well.
And yet that investigation was shut down by the Biden administration.
President Biden, I believe, has spoken with Xi Jinping a couple of times.
He told our Peter Doocy the subject of the origins of coronavirus never came up. It also never came up in the Alaska meeting where U.S. officials were getting schooled by the Chinese Communist Party.
Your thoughts on what this is? Now, all of a sudden, Biden's feeling the walls are closing in, he wants an investigation, which you and your colleagues have already done. Is he just trying to blow this off and once again knock it back to the World Health Organization?
TURNER: Well, he's already blown it off in a number of ways and indicated that it's not important.
I mean, remember, he was uninterested in the origins of the virus, but wanted to give the vaccine of Pfizer and Moderna to China. This is clearly an administration that has no interest in pursuing China.
But think about this also. If there had been even an accidental leak from a U.S. lab that had resulted in any sickness whatsoever, you would have protests around the world in all capitals. It shows really the fear of coming to the conclusion of what China has been doing.
But our intelligence community all the way back to 2010 had been identifying concerns that China had been working on manipulating viruses for biological weapons that could have grave impact worldwide. And we certainly are seeing the effects of this, where unbelievable deaths have occurred and incredible impacts to the economy.
The Chinese government needs to be held accountable. Certainly, everything points to the Wuhan lab. We need to get to the bottom of it. And, certainly, the intelligence community needs to be held accountable for bringing forward the information, so that we can have a very public debate on holding China accountable.
BARTIROMO: Well, look, I'm glad you mentioned the vaccine intellectual property, because we have reported on this program for many years the efforts that the CCP has gone through to steal intellectual property from American companies.
It costs American companies $600 billion a year. And there's a stack of settlement cases that I know of. So, what's your take on what's behind sharing the vaccine secrets with the rest of the world, including China?
Tom Cotton told us they have been trying to steal the vaccine secret to success for a year now. Now we're just going to give it away?
TURNER: Oh, it's crazy.
When you think that China and Russia tried to develop vaccines that have turned out to be completely ineffective, and then our capitalistic system, the ingenuity that we have, has been able to arrive at a solution that we're seeing its effects across our country, and then have the administration ignore where did the virus come from and its effects on the unbelievable number of lives that we have lost and to the economy, and thinking about giving this investment away, especially giving it to China, which should be blamed for what has occurred, is just really unconscionable.
And it shows really an attack on our whole pharmaceutical system that has resulted in the only workable solution that has brought this virus under control.
BARTIROMO: Yes, I mean, it broadens out to the other questions about why this administration seems to protect China at all costs.
There were several companies that were taken off the Donald Trump blacklist, like Xiaomi. That was on a blacklist. Joe Biden took it off because China wanted it off. They were getting pressured from the CCP. They postponed the ban on trading Chinese stocks of companies that are tied to the military.
So, my question is, why is Joe Biden protecting the Chinese Communist Party, and why is China hiding the origins of coronavirus? I asked this same question to Jamie Metzl last weekend on this program. He has a background of Asian history.
Here's what he said to the question of why China continues to hide the origins of coronavirus. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAMIE METZL, ADVISER, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: The reason is, if it turns out -- and then nobody who -- at least who I know knows -- if it turns out that the origin of the pandemic stems from an accidental leveling, followed by a criminal cover-up, the implications for China nationally and globally would be massive.
We could even imagine Xi Jinping possibly being overthrown, people all around the world demanding reparations from China and many other things.
And that's why the Chinese government will really stop at nothing in its ongoing effort to cover this up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: Your reaction, Congressman?
TURNER: Yes, and those are excellent points.
And it goes back to just not only the cover-up, but the fact that we're being complicit in aiding China from keeping this a secret. And you can go the next step of even just -- there's the accidental leak possibility, but then there's also the nefarious intent.
This research has been reportedly tied to the Chinese military and the Wuhan lab for nefarious intent. So, you go to the next step even, and you get to take the curtain back to see that the Communist Party and the Chinese government have real threats to the world.
In addition to just negligence and an accidental leak, they're clearly doing irresponsible research. They're clearly doing things that put lives at risk. And, clearly, this is worldwide. And there should be public worldwide outrage. And, certainly, the governments and our government should be stepping up to hold China accountable.
BARTIROMO: Yes, Congressman, I want to talk about that, because China is a major threat, an adversary for America, and they are boosting their military.
Let's take a break and come back and talk about Joe Biden's budget. In his defense budget, it only provides enough funding for eight new ships, China's navy already bigger than ours, and its army quickly catching up. Xi Jinping has to be salivating over this.
We will talk about the budget here in the U.S. and Biden's priorities when we come right back. We're talking with Congressman Mike Turner.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: Welcome back.
We're back with Congressman Mike Turner. He sits on the House Intel and Armed Services committees.
Congressman, I want to ask you about Joe Biden's budget. He dropped his fiscal year 2022 budget on Friday. It includes record spending for nearly every corner of government, except defense spending.
Can you explain this to us, that China already has a larger navy than we do, and we're not increasing defense spending substantially? You have got Russia eying Ukraine. You have got China eying Taiwan. Iran is a whole 'nother cornerstone issue, where he wants to put the U.S. back into the Iran deal.
Your thoughts on the budget?
TURNER: You know, if you ask the American public their concerns about security right now, they're going to say national security threats from China and Russia, as you just said, Iran, North Korea.
And they're also going to identify that the border crisis created by the Biden administration. Oddly, those are the two areas where the Biden administration is actually wanting to cut the budget after inflation. So, you have got, reductions in defense spending, reduction in homeland security, when those are the two crises that we're facing right now.
When you look at the out-of-control spending in other areas, it shows that, clearly, we're robbing from our future security. But China and Russia are fielding new weapons. They're fielding new weapons that are directed at the United States and our capabilities. They're expanding their overall footprint and trying to have world presence and certainly threatening their neighbors.
I know our allies and the American public have to be very concerned that this is an administration that believes that our military needs to be scaled down, at a time where the threats are scaling up.
BARTIROMO: Putin says 88 percent of Russia's nuclear weapons will be modernized by 2022, nuclear weapons modernized by next year.
Are we prepared to stand toe to toe against these adversaries?
TURNER: Absolutely not with the budget that they proposed.
I can tell you that, in the Armed Services Committee in the House, we certainly are moving forward with modernizing the United States nuclear weapons stockpile. It has been aging for decades now. We're looking at Russia and what they have done. They're fielding whole new weapons, whole new capabilities, hypersonics.
They're developing weapons that are even nuclear-powered that can orbit the Earth and then attack the United States all the while our president is currently cutting the funds necessary to be able to modernize our military, but even fund advances in our military.
We're not going to be able to catch up. And both China and Russia are seeing this as an opportunity to threaten their neighbors, expand their worldwide influence, and, of course, weaken the United States and our allies.
BARTIROMO: All right, great to see you. Thank you so much.
Congressman Mike Turner, thank you.
Coming up, we took a boat ride with the A.G. of Texas, and not long after our boat ride on the Rio Grande, mass grave sites were uncovered at the park that we sailed right by, as criminal cartels are getting paid just to get into that park.
The money and death at the hands of criminal cartels -- next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: Welcome back.
And now to the Southern border, where neither President Biden nor Vice President Harris have been this year, despite the sharp spike in illegal migrants flooding into the country since Inauguration Day.
Last month, we went to see the crisis for ourselves as the number of apprehensions was reaching record highs, at 178,000 migrants apprehended in April and 100,000 others who got away, their whereabouts and intentions unknown.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BARTIROMO (voice-over): We viewed the crisis from the land, the air and the water.
We took a boat ride with the attorney general of Texas, Ken Paxton. We took a Black Hawk helicopter above Texas with the governor, Greg Abbott.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're rolling up right now.
BARTIROMO: And we did ride-alongs in the car with the Border Patrol, as well as the Border Patrol Union.
I also spoke with several local sheriffs and a ranch owner, who said migrants are on his property all the time.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People, of course, come across, and they cross the fences. And they start pulling them down. So, now we're just -- we have resolved it by we're just using barbed-wire fence.
We did have a lot of problems with people showing up at our headquarters, people asking for water and help.
BARTIROMO: The head of the Rio Grande Border Patrol, Chief Brian Hastings, told me his team has uncovered 70 pounds and fentanyl, 100 pounds of heroin, 1,000 pounds of meth, and 40,000 pounds of marijuana just in the last few months.
He said these hard narcotics make their way into the interior of the United States.
Later, on the Black Hawk chopper with the governor of Texas and the heads of the Department of Public Safety and the National Guard, Chief McCraw confirmed what Chief Hastings had said about narcotics. He told me what shows up in Texas does not stay in Texas and that the Mexican cartels are one of the biggest threats right now to New York.
STEVEN MCCRAW, DIRECTOR, TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY: Just this week alone, over 1,800 pounds of methamphetamine received along the Texas-Mexico border. That's 1500 pounds in the RGV, Rio Grande Valley.
And when you talk about the impacts of elsewhere, as the governor said, they're not keeping in here. It's not remaining in Texas. A lot of that is headed to New York and other cities throughout the nation.
So, we know, working with the New York City Police Department, that their major threat of organized crime is really no longer than the Cosa Nostra, the Bonanno family or Genovese. It's really the Mexican cartels.
BARTIROMO: The criminal organizations are benefiting on the U.S.'
incompetence at the border. Sources told us cartels are making $400 million a month for charging between $40,000 and $50,000 ahead to transport people from 51 different countries across the narrow Rio Grande River.
Sources told me the cartels are moving 2,000 people a day. We took a boat ride with the A.G., who said the numbers are spiking because they know there are no consequences to breaching America's borders.
They will get processed and many sent to holding areas, which are much bigger now than they were earlier. HHS has built out the complex, putting many more tents to hold many more people. The biggest worry are the ones who get away. The numbers are rising of the so-called got-aways, those people wanting to intentionally evade apprehension.
They are seen on surveillance video cameras getting into the country, and they are believed to travel to the interior of the country, going to big cities like New York and Chicago. Sources told me Tucson, Arizona, has become a hotbed for got-aways.
We took a night shoot after 10:00 and heard what sounded like a well-oiled machine just across the river in Texas, cartels likely rounding up people and placing them in rafts to cross the very narrow Rio Grande, which takes
30 seconds to reach Texas.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BARTIROMO: Coming up, the former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf reacts to the Southern border crisis and the Biden administration's unwillingness to act.
We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHEN MILLER, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: It should outrage every single person.
I don't care if you're a Democrat. I don't care if you're a Republican. The only thing that Joe Biden is doing on the border is not trying to stop illegal immigration. He's trying to accelerate it. They're building more facilities for the sole purpose of expediting the release of illegal migrants into the interior.
He is the first president in our lifetimes, indeed, in the history of the country, who has ever attempted such a program.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: And that was former senior White House adviser Stephen Miller on this program earlier this month revealing the Biden administration's plan to push people through the facilities quickly, alleviate overcrowding at the border, and house them in new facilities.
Now he wants to pay for it. They're doing it. Last month, Border Patrol reported over 178,000 apprehensions. That's a 20-year high. Yet, as of last week, only 455 minors were in their custody.
So, where are all of these people going?
Joining me right now is former DHS acting Secretary Chad Wolf. He's currently a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
Secretary, it's great to see you this morning. Thanks very much for being here.
Well, it looks like we are pushing the migrants into the interior of our country as much as possible. The administration has built a lot more housing to house these people, but they're also trying to help them connect with so-called sponsors or family that they say they have in cities across the country.
Your reaction to where we are halfway through the year now?
CHAD WOLF, FORMER ACTING U.S. SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY: Well, thanks for having me on, Maria.
I think what we currently are and what we see going on at the border is, we are -- continue to be in the middle of a historic crisis on our Southwest border. You talked about DHS and the progress they have made, that the department and the administration are trying to take a victory lap at the moment, talking about how they're moving migrants, mainly minors, from one government facility to another government facility and saying, we have solved the problem and the crisis.
And that's anything -- they have done anything but that. Solving the crisis is actually trying to stop the illegal behavior. They're not interested in doing that. They have torn down a number of programs that we put in place back in 2019 and 2020.
And they have not replaced it with any programs and policies to address the illegal behavior. Again, they're just simply facilitating more and more of these migrants coming across the border.
BARTIROMO: OK, what is needed at this point? I mean, look, this is a dangerous trek. This is not just an economic issue for this country. But this is a humanitarian crisis, where young girls are getting sexually assaulted as they make this trek.
WOLF: Well, absolutely.
What's needed is to make sure that you're not only putting the right policies in place, but you're putting the right messaging in place. And so they need to bring back either the migrant protection protocols or asylum cooperative agreements. They need to show the migrants and the cartels and the smugglers that it's not OK to continue to smuggle minors and families across that border.
But, more importantly, it's to make sure that there's a consequence to that behavior. So, as long as those populations stay in the U.S. once they come across that border, these numbers and this flow is going to continue.
It's not until these folks are removed promptly back to their home countries, back to Mexico and elsewhere, that you're going to see some of this start to decrease. It's what we did in 2019 and 2020. And guess what?
It worked. The numbers went down. The crime went down. The apprehensions went down. And we got the border under control.
So we know what works. There is a playbook. This administration simply chooses not to institute some of those policies.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
We have been talking about the budget this morning, which President Biden unveiled on Friday. The Department of Homeland Security secretary, Mayorkas, told lawmakers that the administration is seeking $52.2 billion in funding for the coming fiscal year, leaving the agency's budget unchanged.
So, despite this massive surge, the budget is unchanged. But now President Biden is asking for more money to pay for all of this housing. I mean, it just gets me that there's absolutely no effort whatsoever to stop people from coming here illegal, jumping the line in front of people who are actually trying to do it legally, get their green cards.
And, instead, he's asking for money through Congress. He wants money to pay for technology and these additional housing facilities that they just built.
WOLF: Well, it's unfathomable that DHS and all the homeland security threats that the department tries to assess and to address on a daily basis, is, there's not an increased funding for the department.
So, it's not only the Southwest border and the migrant and the humanitarian and the security crisis that we're dealing with, but it's also cybersecurity. And it's a variety of these other threats, threats from China that we're dealing with here in the homeland, that the department needs to continue to push forward.
At the end of the day, we need to make sure that Americans are safe and secure. And it's going to take resources to do that. And so the fact that the administration is not focusing on that and is focusing on building these facilities and giving more money to HHS to build more of these facilities, again, shows me that they're not serious about trying to stop the problem.
Instead of managing the crisis, they need to solve the crisis. And, again, they're not -- they're not currently doing that. We heard the secretary just yesterday talk about possibly reprogramming money within the department to address the humanitarian and security crisis on the Southwest border.
So, clearly, there's a resource need there. Clearly, they're spending more money than they have at the moment. And so, as you look towards the next fiscal year, that's going to continue, as these numbers in the second half of the year, these numbers continue to increase.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
And, also, we're all wondering where all of these people are going. We spoke with Senator Marsha Blackburn recently. She joined me on FOX Business on my morning program there to talk to us about the fact that we have seen or she has seen planes touching down in Chattanooga filled with migrants.
They sent them to Tennessee. Ken Paxton in Texas is also questioning whether or not they're actually sending migrants to red states because, at the end of the day, the costs will fall to the state.
Here's Marsha Blackburn joining me recently on this very issue. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MARSHA BLACKBURN (R-TN): What we know is that the Biden administration is absolutely living in fantasyland if they're telling people that that border is secure.
They have apprehended 500,000 illegal entrants since Joe Biden took office.
And what they began to do is to move them out and about around the country, so that they are off-loading the costs for housing, child services, health care, education to the states and the counties.
And what we have found out is that they had these planes coming into Chattanooga, putting these children on buses, and then taking them to communities around the area.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: That's actually extraordinary, Secretary.
What do you make of that? And, by the way, Andy Biggs, the Arizona congressman, is calling on Alejandro Mayorkas to be removed in the face of all of this. Andy Biggs writes a new op-ed for FOXNews.com.
And in it, he writes: "The rationale and results of Biden's inhumane border crisis can be set at the feet of Biden's handpicked homeland security secretary. Mayorkas' prevarications and utter failure to protect Americans from the invasion across our Southern border demonstrate that he is unfit to serve. If Mayorkas refuses to step down, Congress should initiate impeachment proceedings."
Your reaction?
WOLF: Well, a couple of comments.
Senator Marsha Blackburn is exactly right. What they're doing at the border right now is, they are breaking the system. There are too many minors in custody for the amount of facilities that they have. So, what do they have to do?
They then have to move those individuals to other parts of the country. And so what we say now is that every city, every state in the country is now a border state and a border community, because they are pushing these populations all across the country because they have broken the system.
The system has never been designed or accounted for to hold these number of individuals and to process these numbers of individuals. These are historic highs, 21-year high in the amount of folks that are coming across that border and into facilities. So she's exactly right.
They are moving these minors, these family units and others to all sorts of communities across the country. So, she's 100 percent correct on that.
Look, I have significant concerns with the DHS secretary and the types of policies that he is pursuing. I think they're making the country less safe.
They're making our men and women of Border Patrol, the law enforcement officers, less safe.
And at the end of the day, they're doing a disservice to the migrants, when they encourage these migrants to make this dangerous trek up. And then, at the same time, he continues to say the border is closed and the border is secure.
And that is a lie. That's a lie to the American people. He's misleading the American people on purpose, because he's done it -- he's done it multiple, multiple times. And so you have to account for that. And you have to wonder why he is doing that.
And I think he needs to be held accountable for that.
BARTIROMO: Yes. And...
WOLF: But, at the end of the day, this is about protecting the homeland and making sure that we have the right policies in place.
BARTIROMO: Great to see you, Chad Wolf. Thanks very much for laying it all out. We, of course, will continue to spotlight it.
WOLF: Great.
BARTIROMO: Former Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf, thank you, sir.
Quick break, and then General Jack Keane is here on how Joe Biden's foreign policy is inviting violence in the Middle East, another crisis under way.
The administration is pledging even more American taxpayer money to the Palestinian Authority, even though they have committed to wiping Israel off the map.
We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN RATCLIFFE, FORMER U.S. DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: Let's be real clear about this. Those 4,000 rockets that went into Israel were not Hamas rockets. They were Iranian rockets.
They were paid for or built by or put together by Hamas militants trained by Iran in aerodynamics and propulsion necessary to attack Israel. And you don't have to take my word for it. Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini two days ago took credit for the victory, what he claimed was the victory over Israel by Iran.
And Hamas' leader thanked Iran for its help in that victory. So, to watch what the Biden administration and how they have emboldened Iran, when, as you said, we warned them specifically, look, if you reverse these policies and embolden Iran, you're going to jeopardize this hard-earned Middle East peace.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: That was former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe on this program last weekend sharing the advice that he gave the Biden administration on his way out, which they clearly ignored.
Four months later, Gaza lies in ruins, the U.S. has pledged nearly $400 million to the Palestinians, and our own secretary of state did not even utter the word Iran once during his recent trip to Israel.
Joining me right now is FOX News senior strategic analyst General Jack Keane. He is also a retired four-star Army general and a Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, the highest civilian honor.
The Memorial Day weekend, sir, we thank you for your service. General, it's good to see you.
GEN. JACK KEANE (RET.), FOX NEWS SENIOR STRATEGIC ANALYST: Yes, it's great seeing you, Maria.
BARTIROMO: So, what is your take on all of this, the cease-fire in place?
Does it last? What are your thoughts about all of the money sent to the Palestinian Authority? Have we changed course entirely in the Middle East?
KEANE: Well, we're beginning to.
And I said that when the Biden administration came in, while it looked like they were going to move in the right direction on China, wasn't sure about Russia, but I was convinced that they had a potential for a strategic blunder in the Middle East. And that is unfolding right before our eyes, because they're failing to recognize something that Director -- former Director Ratcliffe mentioned.
Iran is the chief sponsor of the proxy wars that are taking place in the Middle East and of terrorism in the Middle East. So the three major organizations that were firing on Israel just recently for those 11 days, the Hezbollah, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hamas, who did most of it, all of them are -- work for the ayatollah in Iran. He sponsors them.
And, believe me, the attack by Hamas would not have happened if Iran did not OK it, Maria. And that is the link that has to be established. The other problem we have there is the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank under Mahmoud Abbas for 16 years has rejected all the concessions that Israel has wanted to make.
That is why the Arab nations walked away from the Palestinians. And it's not that they don't care about the suffering there. It's not that they don't want the situation resolved with Israel. But it's a recognition that they have much more in common with Israel and confronting Iran, who's the major stabilizer in the region, than they have with the Palestinians in trying to resolve what appears to be an intractable situation, with terrorists running Hamas and Gaza, and corrupt leadership, Mahmoud Abbas, taking the donor money in the Palestinian Authority and making no progress.
So, the fact that we're not dealing with Iran is a major flaw by this administration. They should have been called out immediately. We should have got up from our chairs in Vienna, where the deal is being negotiated, the nuclear deal, where we're attempting to revisit the original 2015 nuclear deal that so many of us feel is fundamentally flawed.
We should have stopped those negotiations immediately, because Iran was behind the attack on Israel.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
KEANE: And until that attack was ended by Hamas, there's going to be no discussions.
But there's -- and you just made an unbelievable point, that they haven't even brought the word Iran up in any of the discussions with the American people about what has taken place for those 11 days and also for what is taking place right now with Secretary Blinken in the Middle East.
I can tell you this, that Prime Minister Netanyahu and his people around him gave Secretary Blinken an earful about Iran's complicit behavior here.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
KEANE: And we have got to stop accommodating them and appeasing them, because it has got us nowhere.
BARTIROMO: Well, they're not holding Iran accountable. They're not holding China accountable.
I want to take a short break.
When we come back. I want to ask you about Xi Jinping's next power grab, with the CCP-backed Global Times urging Beijing's CCP to bomb Australia, then your expectations for President Biden's first in-person meeting with Vladimir Putin in Geneva next month.
We will talk Russia and China when we come right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: Welcome back.
And I am back with General Jack Keane talking about foreign policy out of the Biden administration.
General, I'm sure you saw the Global Times report recently. The Global Times is a newspaper backed by the Chinese Communist Party. And the Global Times is recommending the CCP bomb Australia. They actually go through areas of Australia where it would be a positive to strike Australia, says the Global Times.
And this is all because, of course, as you know, Australia was one of the countries to push back on the CCP, demanding answers to the COVID-19 origins. Australia raised its hand, said, we want to know how this pandemic started, killing 3.5 million people across the world.
Immediately, the CCP cut off Australia, stopped sending imports into Australia, tried to publicly denounce Australia. And now we get this from the Global Times, with recommendations for the CCP to strike Australia.
Your reaction?
KEANE: Well, it's typical bombastic, explosive language that you're going to get out of the state-owned newspapers and television broadcasts that exist in China.
Lookit, if anything like that happened, there would be a major war with the United States and our allies against China. President Xi is not that foolish to do something like that.
But, listen, the pattern that he has established since he's been in power going back to 2012 and 2013 is, he's a predator economically and also militarily. And he uses intimidation and coercion to break people's will, to wear them down, to break their resolve.
That's what he did in Hong Kong. And that is what he's done in -- with our allies in the region.
BARTIROMO: Real quick on Putin and this upcoming meeting. Any expectations here, Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin?
KEANE: I think it would be better suited if we didn't have this meeting so early with Putin, because we have so many issues on the table with Putin's bullyism, et cetera.
I think later in the year or next year would have been far better, and certainly have one with President Xi at some point. But, nonetheless, it's going to take place.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
KEANE: I think people have low expectations about the outcome. We're having a summit for the sake of having a summit, I think, more than more than anything else.
But it is an opportunity certainly to go face to face with Putin and put our concerns on the table.
Listen, Maria, the backdrop here for Putin, he has enormous confidence about his ability to read people. And he has huge intuition about weakness.
BARTIROMO: Yes, I bet.
KEANE: He has taken advantage of all of our presidents, Democratic and Republicans, I think, right up until the present.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
KEANE: And that's just the reality, if we're honest about -- Putin's masterful at doing this, a former KGB agent himself.
And he's very intuitive and very instinctive when he's dealing with somebody.
BARTIROMO: Right. He just...
KEANE: So, he knows Biden before...
BARTIROMO: He walks into this meeting a victor already, because Joe Biden waived the sanctions on the company operating the Nord Stream II pipeline.
So, he will be able to double that gasoline going into Europe, while the U.S., unfortunately, faces a shutdown of the XL Pipeline.
General, it's good to see you. Thank you so much for weighing in on all of these very important issues, General Jack Keane. We will see you soon, sir.
Thank you.
And that will do it for us on "Sunday Morning Futures." I'm Maria Bartiromo. Thanks so much for being here.
From all of us, thank you to our wonderful men and women in the military this Memorial Day weekend.
The news continues, "Mornings With Maria" on FOX Business this week 6:00 to
9:00 a.m. Eastern. I hope you will join me all week, every day.
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