'Sunday Morning Futures' on Texas voting bill

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This is a rush transcript from "Sunday Morning Futures," July 25, 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 arrests have begun in Texas. Governor Greg Abbott on arresting illegal migrants trespassing and vandalizing private property, as President Biden keeps America's borders dangerously wide open.

Plus: corruption and abuse of power at the highest levels, FOX News host Tucker Carlson illegally spied on and unmasked.

And a Trump aide faces the largest bond ever served after four nights in jail, while Tony Podesta takes on a new gig lobbying for the Chinese Communist Party's most important company, Huawei Technologies.

Hunter Biden, meanwhile, gearing up to sell millions of dollars in artwork on his family name. All the while, the media is mum on the double standards and the laws broken against political rivals.

California Congressman Devin Nunes is here on the continued weaponizing of U.S. intelligence agencies against political enemies.

Plus: next week's test on China policy. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman headed to Beijing, as the Biden administration drops charges on Chinese spies abusing the U.S. visa process, even as they admit being tasked with taking U.S. secrets back to China.

Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson the U.S.-China policy with no teeth, as new revelations emerge on Hunter Biden's sweetheart deals in China, laptop e- mails revealing he was paying Joe's bills while milking deals in China and Ukraine.

Then: 2022 midterm elections on the horizon. The head of Peter Thiel's Thiel Capital makes a play for a Senate seat in Arizona. Blake Masters is here on big tech's dominance and his pledge to clean up illegal immigration.

All that right here, right now on "Sunday Morning Futures."

And first this morning: The battle over Texas' new election laws continues, with more than 50 state Democrats still holed up in Washington, D.C.

While their absence creates major problems back home, Senator Ted Cruz weighed in on the controversy today, when he joined us last Sunday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): This political stunt is going to fail. It is clear - - there is clear legal authority under the Texas Constitution to arrest legislators who flee the state trying to defeat a quorum.

The governor has rightly said he will call special session after special session.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

CRUZ: These guys are going to come back to Texas. They will get arrested. They will get physically put on the floor of the legislature.

And I believe the legislature will do its job and pass commonsense election integrity laws.

BARTIROMO: Unbelievable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BARTIROMO: Joining me right now is the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott.

Governor, good to see you.

Two House Democrats have returned to Texas at this point. They are back at work. When do you expect the rest to return home? And will you apprehend them if they don't cooperate and do their jobs?

GOV. GREG ABBOTT (R-TX): Well, first, as you talk about, I think there's a fraying of the Democrats in Washington, D.C., because they're realizing they're accomplishing absolutely nothing up there in Washington.

They were hoping to coax the Democrats in Washington, D.C., to change their position and to vote out H.R.1 or some other election integrity bill in Washington, D.C. And they have met with a stone wall with regard to that. And so they will have gone up there for their mission and done nothing, while all the same -- at the same time spending Texas taxpayer money to pay for the special session, to pay for their salaries, to pay for the salaries of their staff, et cetera.

But also, at the same time, the Democrats who did remain in the state of Texas, they were able to work on a bill in the Texas Senate that did accommodate some of the requests by the Democrats. And so, as opposed to trying to negotiate with people in Washington, D.C., these members of the Texas House of Representatives, who were elected to hammer out details of bills in the state of Texas, they need to get back to the Texas Capitol to do their job.

With regard to arresting them, listen, this is a protocol that is established by the Texas Constitution that empowers the House of Representatives to put a call on the House that will send out Texas Department of Public Safety troopers to escort them to the Texas House chamber, where they will be kept in the Texas House chamber, subject only to a permission slip by the speaker of the House, to make sure that they stay there and get the job done.

BARTIROMO: Governor, this is partly because of misinformation about the voting bill in Texas and the 14 or 16 states that have come up with their new voting laws and approach to voting after trying to clean up what they saw to be irregularities in 2020.

So, let's go through the Texas voting bill, if you would, please, so that people can understand the facts here. You are looking to increase hours to vote during early voting, give people time off from work to vote during early voting, create uniform voting laws for the entire state, preventing rogue counties from creating their own rules, which certainly happened in 2020.

You want to ban drive-through and 24 voting and prevent voter fraud in mail-in ballots and applications.

There is some speculation now that the Democrats are going to create more of a lockdown going into the 2022 Senate and congressional races, so that the mail-in ballot situation can be the standard once again. Tell me about that and the ability to use your I.D. to vote.

ABBOTT: So the word you chose to say that what they were saying about it was a misrepresentation is pretty much the nicest thing that you can say.

The fact of the matter, Maria, is they're just flat-out lying about what's going on, and that lie has been perpetuated by the mainstream media. The fact of the matter is, as you kind of pointed out, what Texas is doing, we're actually adding hours to vote, not subtracting hours to vote.

And if you look at all -- for two weeks, or for 12 days, there are early voting with early voting hours. Compare that to Biden's home state that has exactly zero early voting hours. If there's any state engaged in voter suppression, it would be the state of Delaware, not the state of Texas.

So, in Texas, we truly have made it easier to vote and harder to cheat. The one thing that you pointed out that we are cracking down on is mail-in ballots. But a judge appointed by Barack Obama in the state of Texas said that, as it concerns mail-in ballots, now, there is an abundance of voter fraud with mail-in ballots.

Some of the Democrats who are in Washington, D.C., as we speak right now have said from the floor of the Texas House of Representatives that mail-in ballot is one of the easiest way to engage in fraud.

So Republicans and Democrats have both been clear on the record that mail- in ballots is a way that cheating does take place. We all have to agree that, if there's cheating in the election process, we need to stop that cheating. And the best way to stop that cheating is to tighten up restrictions concerning mail-in ballots.

BARTIROMO: But, Governor, this misrepresentation, this lying, bold-faced lying, is starting at the top.

It is President Biden who keeps coming out calling all of these laws Jim Crow laws. Should the president come out and show some honesty on all of these voting bills, rather than trying to push the Democrat party H.R.1 bill through, which, of course, tries to do the opposite, no I.D. and making mail-in ballots the standard?

ABBOTT: So, this is the same president who called me a Neanderthal. Now he's invoking Jim Crow two.

And I got to tell you what. That's diminishing to the people in the United States of America who did have to suffer through Jim Crow. Anybody who says this is a Jim Crow law, they don't either know Jim Crow laws or they don't know what's going on in the state of Texas, because there is no segregation. There is no attempt to make it harder on people of color.

And, in fact, Texas passed a voter I.D. law a few years ago, and ever since -- and they said the same thing: Oh, this is voter suppression. It will deny people of color the ability to vote.

Ever since we passed that law, there's been more people vote than ever before, including people of color. It is easier today than it's ever been for people of color and for all Texans to be able to cast a vote.

And so these aspersions that are being cast by the president of the United States are completely reprehensible. And it shows the American people that the president of the United States is willing to lie about what's going on to try to get his way. And that's one reason why you're seeing President Biden's polling numbers continue to plummet.

BARTIROMO: Yes, what an extraordinary state of affairs. You hit it right on the nose.

Meanwhile, these Democrats who are avoiding doing their job are testing positive for COVID. We see that COVID numbers are up at the border, illegals bring in not just human trafficking and narcotics, illicit narcotics killing Americans, but also COVID.

We have got a report here that says COVID cases are up 900 percent in the month of June year over year. Give me an assessment of where we are with these dangerously wide open borders. You say you're going to be arresting illegal trespassers. Have you done so?

ABBOTT: I have.

First of all, I will tell you that, listen, this is the -- one of the most rare reprehensible actions by the Biden administration. First, if you recall, under the Trump administration, they pretty much had cross-border illegal immigration shut down.

All that Biden had to do was to continue the Trump policies, and we would have no problem on the border whatsoever. But now it's getting worse because Biden is opening the floodgates for people who are coming from countries where there's an extremely low vaccination rate, and there's an extremely high number of people coming across the border who do have COVID.

But, second, so what Texas is doing, we're not playing games anymore. I have deployed the National Guard, as well as the Texas Department of Public Safety. And we have a new program in place, because the Biden administration plan is to catch and release.

The Texas plan is to catch and to jail. So we are arresting and jailing. The program has already begun. It took a few weeks to set up, because we actually had to set up an entire new booking system. And we had to get judges involved in the process, magistrates to -- who would magistrate these people.

We had to open up a former prison that has now 1,000 jail beds that we're starting to fill up. We are arresting people every single day, and we're arresting for trespass. When you come across the river, you're typically coming into private property or county property or state property. You are trespassing.

And because I declared it an emergency, the punishment for the crime has been doubled. So it's either a Class B or Class A misdemeanor that can put them in jail for a half-a-year or a year. And our goal is to continue to arrest people coming across the border, but, at the same time, surge more National Guard, more Texas Department of Public Safety officers to make sure that we're doing everything that we can as a state to secure the border.

BARTIROMO: Well, it's an incredible situation, and incredible to me that this administration refuses to see this realistically.

It's not just illegals coming into our country, more than a million so far. We're looking at potentially two million people apprehended in 2021, if, in fact, these numbers keep up at this pace. And you have got the fentanyl, 93,000 overdoses in America in the last year. We know that fentanyl comes over the border. And it is made in Mexico.

You have got the criminal cartels of Mexico and the criminal cartels of China working together to get these illicit narcotics into our country. What is the impact?

I haven't even spoken about the got-aways, Governor. What can you tell us about the number of people that your -- that your enforcement sees on surveillance video? They come into the country. They don't want to get apprehended. And they go where? To Tucson? Where?

ABBOTT: So, let me...

BARTIROMO: I know that Tucson is one of the havens.

ABBOTT: So you mentioned two topics. I will address them both.

One is what's going on with fentanyl. Understand this. And that is, fentanyl is one of the most deadly drugs that exists. It's almost 100 times more potent than morphine, almost 50 times more potent than heroin. And it's laced onto other drugs like ecstasy, Valium, Xanax, and other things that people are taking. And people are losing their lives.

There was a tragic story in Austin, Texas, about a young man who lost his life because he bought a pill off the street that was laced with fentanyl, and he died. This is happening over and over again.

But here's the important mathematical fact, Maria. And that is, when you put all law enforcement agencies together, they have seized more fentanyl to kill, to kill every man, woman and child in the United States of America. All it takes is two milligrams for it to be a lethal dose.

BARTIROMO: Wow.

ABBOTT: And, once again, the Biden administration is doing nothing to stop this.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

ABBOTT: And so Texas once again is stepping up. And we are going after the cartels, seizing this.

There was a video that was on FOX News just yesterday about how Texas DPS officers are tracking down these people coming across the border. And it was showing they were dealing with the drug cartels themselves. And so there's -- these aren't unaccompanied minors coming across the border. This has been an escalation of the drug cartels coming across the border.

So, Texas is engaged in a massive law enforcement effort to crack down on some of the most dangerous criminals in the United States.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

Governor, thanks very much for your leadership on this. You stand tall in the face of really this breaking of laws and ignorance as it relates to the impact here.

Thanks very much for being here this morning, Governor Greg Abbott in Texas. Thank you, sir.

ABBOTT: Thank you, Maria.

BARTIROMO: Quick break, and then coming up, exclusive reporting from Peter Schweizer on Hunter Biden's laptop. Why was he telling the Secret Service not to follow him to and around China?

Senator Ron Johnson joins us, as Tony Podesta takes on a lobbying gig for none other than the CCP jewel Huawei -- right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): It is important for us to, again, have them pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill. As I said earlier, we don't know when. It's the Senate schedule. But it seems to be imminent, and I hope that it will succeed.

While we are eager for it to pass, we will not be taking it up until the Senate passes the reconciliation bill.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BARTIROMO: Well, there you go.

That was Speaker Pelosi threatening to kill any infrastructure agreement unless her pie-in-the-sky tax-and-spending plan moves through budget reconciliation, a bit of a shakedown under way, even as she and colleagues peg the cost of that plan at $3.5 trillion, when, in fact, the package will cost in excess of $5.5 trillion, according to the Committee For a Responsible Budget.

Joining me right now to take us behind all of these negotiations is Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson. He sits on the Senate Budget, Homeland Relations and Foreign -- Foreign Affairs committees.

Senator, good to see you this morning. Thanks very much for being here.

You have said you will vote no on both of these plans. Tell us why.

SEN. RON JOHNSON (R-WI): Good morning, Maria.

Well, I -- it was interesting. When you started that clip from Nancy Pelosi, I thought it was going to be the one where she said you had to pass Obamacare to figure out what's in it. And, of course, Chuck Schumer tried to do the same thing last week. He actually tried to proceed to a bill that wasn't negotiated.

There was no -- there's no legislation whatsoever. And, still, they wanted us to vote to proceed to that particular bill. The fact of matter is, Maria, we're over 20.5 -- $28.5 trillion in debt.

The Democrats, on a completely partisan basis, just passed about a $1.9 trillion supposedly COVID relief package; $700 billion of that isn't even spent until 2022 through 2028. And so we're mortgaging our kids' future. We can't continue to deficit-spend, the way Democrats want to do so.

So, one of the things I have been talking about is the fact that you have that $700 billion of -- it's not COVID relief. It's -- it's new entitlement programs, further mortgaging our kids' future. Why don't we repurpose that amount of money and spend that on infrastructure?

Because we do need to upgrade our infrastructure. Everybody agrees on that. But we shouldn't be doing it with more borrowing, more deficit spending.

BARTIROMO: Yes. They have got real gimmicks here to make it look like it's $3.5 trillion, but Maya MacGuineas tells me it's actually $5.5 trillion.

The Committee For a Responsible Budget writes: "In order to fit these proposals within a $3.5 trillion budget target, lawmakers intend to have some policies expire before the end of the 10-year budget window, using this criticized budget gimmick to hide -- gimmick to high the actual cost."

How much does this plan actually cost, $3.5 trillion or $3.5 trillion?

JOHNSON: My guess is at least $5.5 trillion. And that's just a 10-year budget window. If you actually do the net present value, in terms of what's the long-term costs, it's far higher.

And, of course, what they're doing is, they're creating new entitlement programs. They did that with the COVID relief bill. They're going to be doing it with this reconciliation package, this reckless tax-and-spend spending spree.

So what they will do is, they will put in -- create a new entitlement program. They're going to say it's going to run out in two years or three years, whatever it takes to get a score within that $3.5 trillion mind- numbing figure. I mean, that's how out of control this is, is, I guess they have determined that the American public simply won't tolerate more than $3.5 trillion.

But they will they will fit the scoring of this thing to that $3.5 trillion, recognizing the fact that these programs, once implemented, they will never go away. So, that's why Maya MacGuineas comes up with about $5 trillion to 5.5 trillion. But I would argue that even understates it.

So, my final point is, I don't know why any Republican would cooperate with them in passing this reckless spend-and-tax spree, because what they're doing by pulling out the infrastructure, the thing that everybody agrees on, that's going to create a $500 billion, $600 billion, $700 billion hole that Democrats will fill...

BARTIROMO: Yes.

JOHNSON: ... with more entitlement spending. I don't know why any Republican would cooperate with that.

BARTIROMO: So, real quick, people want to know, are they going to be able to push through the sky-high spending levels, as well as much higher taxes? They want to take capital gains all the way up to 43.4 percent.

Will they be able to get it through?

JOHNSON: If 50 Democrats vote for it, they will be able to do that, yes. That's -- that's budget reconciliation.

BARTIROMO: All right.

We're waiting on Joe Manchin for more commentary on this. Will he hold the line?

We're going to take a break. Then I want to get your reaction to President Biden saying once again China thinks it's going to surpass America this century.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I talked to Xi, Xi Jinping in China, who I know well. We don't agree on a lot of things. He's a bright and really tough guy.

He truly believes that the 21st century will be determined by oligarchs, by -- not a joke -- democracies cannot function in the 21st century, the argument is, because things are moving so rapidly, so, so rapidly, that you can't pull together a nation that is divided to get a consensus on acting quickly.

So, autocrats, autocracies.

I had a long meeting with Putin, and I continued -- I know him well. These guys actually are betting -- betting -- I'm not joking -- on autocracies.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BARTIROMO: Oh, they're making bets all right.

We're back with Senator Ron Johnson.

That was President Biden at a CNN town hall on Wednesday, kowtowing to China and Russia once again, saying that his buddies Xi Jinping and Putin believe that oligarchs and autocrats will dominate the 21st century.

Senator, my question is, what is he doing about it? How would you assess the U.S.-China policy?

JOHNSON: Well, my first thought when he said -- talked about a divided nation, he should stop dividing this nation. And he's done nothing to unify and heal this nation, as he said in his inaugural address.

The other thing we need to do is, we need a strong America. And you don't strengthen America by weakening it with this massive debt and addition of the newest entitlements, more deficit spending. We actually have to concentrate on having a powerful military. And the Biden administration is doing anything they can to weaken the military.

No, we have massive, double-digit increases in every other aspect of the budget, but the increases in both defense and Department of Homeland Security, they're de minimis. They won't even keep up with inflation. So, in fact, we will actually be reducing the size of the military and DHS, from a stand -- from a budgetary standpoint, according to Biden.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

JOHNSON: And then you look at this weakness around the globe, crawling back the deal with Iran, what he's doing in Afghanistan, I mean, the travesty that that's going to create.

He's just showing weakness globally. And our adversaries notice that and they will act on that.

BARTIROMO: There was a lot of news pertaining to China on Friday and over the weekend.

First of all, last week, the U.S. dropped visa fraud cases against five Chinese researchers. I was just outraged by this. One of the researchers actually said: Oh, yeah, I lied on my visa -- my visa application, and I was tasked by my supervisor to bring information back. They still dropped the charges.

China is also banning school curriculum, tutoring companies from going public. They're banning foreign investment. They're cracking down on Chinese companies and stocks.

Meanwhile, you have got a lot of deals under way still with Hunter Biden. You have done an investigation.

Here's Peter Schweizer on "Mornings With Maria" on FOX Business with me this past week. Listen to what he said about Hunter Biden's dealmaking as it relates to the Secret Service following him around. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETER SCHWEIZER, AUTHOR, "SECRET EMPIRES": In the middle of 2014, he does something very unusual. He tells the Secret Service: I don't want protection. I do not want Secret Service agents traveling with me.

And the Secret Service has confirmed that's the case. What's interesting, though, Maria is, when you look through the e-mails, there is still plenty of correspondents with the Secret Service as it relates to travel in Europe and domestically in the United States.

The one place that we know that he traveled multiple times, but does not communicate with the Secret Service is on trips to China.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BARTIROMO: So it's very curious, Senator. He wants Secret Service following him around throughout Europe and the U.S., but not in China. He does want those meetings revealed.

JOHNSON: Well, again, that's the $64,000 question. What does China know about Hunter Biden and Joe Biden's business dealings and that vast web of foreign financial entanglements within China?

It was Senator Grassley and I that requested those Secret Service records to find out when they did offer protection for about 5.5 years from 2009 to 2014. The day after a TIME magazine article was published talking about his involvement on Burisma, he supposedly ended the Secret Service protection.

But then Peter is right. Subsequent e-mails off of his computer showed that he was talking about Secret Service protection not only in 2015, but now we also know that the Secret Service intervened when his sister-in-law, who he was having an affair with, dumped his gun off in that dumpster, and the Secret Service went to try and get the background check information from the gun owner or the gun shop owner.

BARTIROMO: Unbelievable.

JOHNSON: So, the Secret Service is not being -- and so we have asked for - - requested for information on that, because they have no records of it.

So, once again, we subpoenaed FBI Director Wray. He slow-walked our request. We basically didn't get squat. Now Secret Service, they gave us the initial records. Past that point, they haven't given us squat. What workers they have given are highly redacted.

So these agencies are covering for the Bidens. They have always been covering for them. Even though he supposedly ended Secret Service protection, they still apparently provided it as well, but off the books.

Who knows what's happening? These agencies are not being forthright. They're not being transparent. And, quite honestly, Congress is losing its oversight capability.

I have sent two letters with five members of the Homeland Security Committee on it. There's a law that says, when five members of the Homeland Security Committee request information, the agencies shall turn it over. CDC is not turning us over the records as it relates to the teachers union involvement with some of the CDC's pronouncement.

Or they are also not turning over Anthony Fauci's unredacted e-mails. So I'm calling on Senator Peters to use the committee to subpoena those records, because they're not responding to our lawful requests, saying that they shall turn those records over to us.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

JOHNSON: This is a huge problem, Maria.

BARTIROMO: Yes, meanwhile -- of course.

JOHNSON: The administration is just blowing off Congress.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

Meanwhile, Tom Barrack, a former aide to President Trump, sat in jail for four nights last week, and then was served with the most expensive bond ever. They say he's representing the UAE.

Last week, Xi Jinping said that Hong Kong is going to likely replace New York as the CCP's fund-raising venue of choice. President Biden puts a memo out and says it's dangerous to do business in Hong Kong. That's it, after they marched in there and threw freedom fighters in jail, like Jimmy Lai, who's still in jail.

Senator, it's good to see you. We certainly will keep a spotlight on this.

We're going to come back after a short break and look at FOX News host Tucker Carlson and what went on. Why was he unmasked and spied on by the National Security Agency?

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BARTIROMO: Welcome back.

Well, the Biden agenda has -- reaches his six month in office.

There is record inflation. Crime is skyrocketing from coast to coast. And we are witnessing perhaps the worst border crisis in U.S. history, all while our enemies in China, Russia and Iran are gaining greatly, oil prices doubling, sanctions down.

The 46th president took on these issues and more last Wednesday night during a CNN town hall with Don Lemon. Here's a sampling.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: Think of the people.

If your kid wanted to find out whether or not there were -- there's a man on the moon or whatever -- something, or whether those aliens are here or not.

I don't care if you think I'm Satan reincarnated.

(LAUGHTER)

BIDEN: The fact is, you can't look at that television and say nothing happened on the 6th.

The question is whether or not we should be in a position where you are -- why can't the experts say we know that this virus is, in fact -- it's going to be -- or -- excuse me -- we know why all the drugs approved are not temporarily approved, but permanently approved.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BARTIROMO: That was President Biden this week.

Joining me right now is Congressman Devin Nunes. He's the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee.

Congressman, thanks for being here.

REP. DEVIN NUNES (R-CA): Thank you.

BARTIROMO: How is President Biden doing at the six-month mark? Assess the performance.

NUNES: Well, you know it's getting bad when the propaganda machine that the Democratic socialists control in this country -- they control 95 percent of the media so.

And then you take the big tech oligarchs that control and censor what we receive via social media. When that poison gets to -- gets to the average independent American, that propaganda, you know it's bad when they can't even find a 15- or 30-second sound bite out of a full hour town hall that they can plug into their own propaganda machine.

I mean, it's getting really bad. It's not just the president. They can't get any sound bites from the vice president either. They're almost to the point, Maria, where they're going to have to start using computer-generated graphics in order to give to the propaganda machine, because they can't get good clips to sell what they're trying to sell here in Washington, which is -- which are policies that are running the country into the ground.

BARTIROMO: Wow.

Well, the foreign policy certainly has empowered some of our adversaries, oil prices having doubled, enriching Vladimir Putin and the Iranians, China as well.

I mentioned earlier that, earlier in July, Biden's DHS threw out Trump's crackdown on several researchers from China. They overturned the foreign visa investigation, no charges there.

Your thoughts on what's taking place in China and how the U.S. is reacting, big story in terms of the crackdown coming from the CCP?

NUNES: Well, I defined, I think, on your show a few months ago to describe -- you asked, I think, to describe the Biden foreign policy, and I described it as speak really, really loud, but carry a twig.

So, remember, earlier in this week, we had an example where the United States with our allies went out and said very loudly that the Chinese Communist Party was engaged in cyber intrusions and cyberattacks. And they said, oh, bad guys.

Well, meanwhile, then, a few days later, out of nowhere, these Chinese spies somehow that were supposed to be prosecuted are released and they drop the charges. So, how is that working? What's happening here?

And then, look, I think an issue that people are not paying attention to, the left in this country, they run around with their propaganda saying, oh, we really care about democracy and human rights.

Well, just last week, you had Xi Jinping, the Chinese dictator, on the border with India, in Tibet, claiming victory. This was the first time in 30 years, I believe, that a Chinese dictator had been to Tibet, and also threatening India, over a billion people, also a nuclear power...

BARTIROMO: Yes.

NUNES: ... threatening in India that he's going to build a big water project to possibly cut off water to India.

So, no matter what you plug into the propaganda machine, you can build all the narratives you want here in Washington, D.C., but then there's reality. And the reality is, is that the Chinese are on the march, and the Biden administration is letting them do whatever they want.

They make a big deal about it, they put it in the propaganda, they speak really loud, and then they do absolutely nothing.

BARTIROMO: Meanwhile, you have got Tony Podesta now taking on a new gig, going to be representing Huawei.

The Trump administration told us that Huawei is a national security risk. What is going to come out of this? Tony Podesta gets to represent one of our adversarial companies, Huawei, who's been stealing intellectual property for decades from American companies. But Hunter Biden is OK to sell art.

(LAUGHTER)

NUNES: Yes.

Well, maybe the Chinese will come in and buy the art. Maybe that's why they don't want someone to know who's actually -- who's actually buying the art.

And don't forget, in that same region, we have -- I look at it this way. I was taught that the U.S. military, they're supposed to do three basic things, right, win wars, provide deterrence, and not get involved in politics.

Well, what's happening here? we have Al Qaeda growing in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, I think it's going to be very difficult for us to even control our embassy in Kabul. So -- and I'm not saying that we need to stay in Afghanistan forever, but the military ought to be focusing on, what happened?

BARTIROMO: Yes.

NUNES: Why are we not winning that war? Why is Al Qaeda on the march?

Secondly, deterrence. You have got the Chinese doing cyber intrusions, claiming victory in Tibet, et cetera, et cetera.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

NUNES: And then, meanwhile, not getting involved in politics. You have got the chairman of the Joint Chiefs get involved in critical race theory. And then you have the General Nakasone, in charge of the NSA, who's -- who purged Republicans from the top ranks of the nation's signal intelligence agency.

BARTIROMO: Well, that's right. And that happened on January 20 on Inauguration Day.

So we understand that, while all of these things are going on, what is the NSA doing? They're unmasking and spying on Tucker Carlson, a FOX News host.

Here's Tucker from "Mornings With Maria" a week ago. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Yesterday, I learned that -- and this is going to come out soon -- that the NSA leaked the contents of my e-mail to journalists in an effort to discredit me.

I know because I got a call from one of them, saying, oh, this is what your e-mail was about.

So it is not in any way a figment of my imagination. It's confirmed. It's true. They're not allowed to spy on American citizens. They are. I think, more ominously, they're using the information they gather to put leverage and to threaten opposition journalists, people who criticize the Biden administration.

It's happening to me right now. And I think it's shocking, and I don't think we should put up with it in a free country.

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BARTIROMO: Congressman, FOX News put out a statement about this, saying: "For the NSA to unmask Tucker Carlson or any journalist attempting to secure a newsworthy interview is entirely unacceptable, and raises serious questions about their activities, as well as their original denial, which was widely misleading."

I know that you have been tasked with investigating this. I know you can't tell us much on that investigation at this point. What can you say about what we are learning at the NSA?

NUNES: Well, if you go back, the Obama administration, which essentially the Biden administration is an extension of the Obama administration -- I have said for a long time that Biden and Harris are just an avatar for Obama.

And, in fact, these aren't my words, Maria. Obama himself admitted that 90 percent of his people are there in the White House to carry out and be Obama's third term.

So, you go back. During that time frame, there was unmasking that was occurring. They were being leaked to the mainstream media back during the Iran nuclear deal. We know all the maskings that occurred of Trump transition officials. We made that well known at the time.

Changes were supposed to be made in our intelligence agencies on unmaskings. So, look, we don't know what's happening over at the NSA. We clearly do not trust General Nakasone, who's under investigation by our committee on multiple fronts, I mean, most importantly, that he politicized the agency by firing Republicans or putting them under phony investigations, and then basically forcing them to resign.

And now you have the situation with unmasking of American journalists. We're investigating that. I don't have really anything at this point that I can say.

BARTIROMO: OK.

NUNES: But I can just tell you we're -- the House Republicans are running a real investigation.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

Well, we have got politicization at the NSA and politicization at the FBI, politicization at the IRS. Congressman, we're counting it all.

It's good to get your insights, as always, Congressman Devin Nunes.

Stay with us.

The Silicon Valley executive who wants to help the GOP take the Senate back in 2022, he's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): The reconciliation package is not infrastructure. It's big government, a liberal wish list, paid family leave, all kinds of new social programs unrelated to infrastructure. So, we will see if they can get Democratic support.

But before Republicans beat up on the Democrats in Texas for leaving Texas too much, if, for some reason, they pass reconciliation, budget resolution, to bring that bill to the floor of the United States Senate, the $3.5 trillion bill, you got to have a quorum to pass a bill in the Senate.

I would leave before I would let that happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BARTIROMO: He would leave.

That was Senator Lindsey Graham on this program last weekend threatening to skip to ensure Democrats' $5.5 trillion budget resolution doesn't get through the reconciliation, which includes the pie-in-the-sky special interest spending that we cannot afford, with a 50/50 split in the Senate, with Vice President Kamala Harris as the tiebreaking vote.

My next guest hopes to break the logjam. He is joining us right now.

Joining me right now is Blake Masters. He is running for the Senate seat in Arizona. And he is the CEO of Thiel Capital. He recently launched that Senate campaign in Arizona.

And it is good to see you. Thanks very much for being here.

Blake, what's at stake?

BLAKE MASTERS (R), ARIZONA SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: Well, thank you, Maria.

Everything is it stake here in this 2022 and 2024 election. I really think, if Republicans don't win these elections, we lose the country forever, because if you look around, the left and the Democrats, they have taken control of almost every major institution in our country.

And they're very close to controlling it all. And so, if they win, they tell us what they're going to do. They're going to pass H.R.1, S.1. They're going to federalize elections, so no Republican can ever win again. They want to add new states to our union, just so they can add more senators and control everything.

So I really think the future of this country hangs in the balance. That's what's at stake in 2022.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

Speaking of elections, I'm going to ask you about the audit going on in Arizona, as well as your plan to rein in big tech monopolies.

Let's take a break and come back with that.

We are talking with Blake Masters. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BARTIROMO: We're back with Blake Masters. He's the chief operating officer of Thiel Capital. He is running for the U.S. Senate seat in Arizona.

And, Blake, thanks very much for walking us through your platform.

Before you tell us about your platform, tell me about the audit going on in Arizona right now. Do you have any info? When will we find out what's taking place there?

MASTERS: Well, I'm not sure when we will actually hear the results.

I will just say I'm glad we're auditing. I come from the business world. We audit businesses every year, all the time, as a routine good practice. And that's when we don't even suspect anything is amiss.

And so this idea that so many people from the journalist class, from the Democratic establishment, even from the Republican establishment in Arizona, they're reflexively anti-audit. They were anti-audit before it even got started, which makes no sense, because, like tens of millions of Americans, probably even 100 million Americans and some Joe Biden voters, if we're being honest, I look at what happened in the 2020 election, and I see a lot of problems.

They want to say it was a perfect election with the perfect result. Maybe. But it didn't look perfect, with the mass mailings of ballots. My campaign manager received four ballots in different states. Like, things were obviously pretty messed up.

And so maybe the result was right, maybe not. But I think we ought to run a good process and figure out just what happened, so that we can make sure elections are secure in the future.

BARTIROMO: That's unbelievable that your campaign manager received four ballots. I mean, this is the whole issue around mail-in ballots. You don't know if, in fact, it opens the door to fraud. You had ballots coming from empty parking lots, et cetera.

Your main platform, though, is immigration. Tell me about that. How are you going to clean up these wide open borders?

MASTERS: Well, we have to remember, illegal immigration is illegal.

All you have to do is enforce the law. It starts there. And in the last 180 days in the Biden/Harris administration, we have seen just how bad things can get when you stop doing that.

I don't want to pretend everything was perfect at the border in December of 2020, but President Trump had it under control. It was operationally stable. And so you get Biden in office, and he invites people to come here. He says, come -- come on in. You can stay. We will put you up in a hotel room.

And so, of course, people flood the zone. And everybody being trafficked, the hundreds of thousands of people, they're all trafficked. They're all trafficked by cartels. The women are raped. The children are abused. This is a huge disaster.

And so we have to get serious. We have to put Trump's policies back in place. We have to finish the wall, that people come through these little narrow gaps in the wall that the administration currently in power refuses to finish. It's commonsensical stuff. We just need the will to enforce the law.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

I mean, look, you come from a technology background. When you come back, we have got to talk about big tech dominance, President Trump suing big tech. That is for another day.

Blake, it's great to have you this morning. Thanks very much. We will be watching your campaign.

Blake Masters, thank you.

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

Watch us again today at 3:00 p.m. Eastern right here on FOX News.

Have a good rest of the weekend.

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