Can Dr. Ben Carson emerge from crowded GOP field?
Republican presidential candidate on 'Fox News Sunday'
This is a rush transcript from "Fox News Sunday," May 10, 2015. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
CHRIS WALLACE, ANCHOR: I'm Chris Wallace.
The Republican presidential field gets even more crowded as three new candidates join the race.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MIKE HUCKABEE (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: From hope to higher ground.
CARLY FIORINA (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Restore possibility for everyone.
DR. BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Change the government into something that looks more like a well-run business.
WALLACE: We'll talk with one of the new members of the GOP field, rising conservative star and Washington outsider, Dr. Ben Carson.
Then, Bill Clinton weighs into the 2016 race to defend speaking fees and foreign donations, but is he helping or hurting Hillary? Our panel tackles "Clinton Cash."
Plus, the threat of homegrown terror reemerges after ISIS claims responsibility for the shooting in Texas.
REP. MIKE MCCAUL (R), TEXAS: This is the kind of attack, quite frankly, we're most concerned about.
WALLACE: We'll discuss the recruitment of domestic terrorist with the chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, Michael McCaul.
And our power player of the week -- as the nation remembers VE Day 70 years later, we go up in a B24 bomber.
All, right now, on "Fox News Sunday."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WALLACE: Hello again and happy Mother's Day from Fox News in Washington.
Three new candidates entered the Republican presidential race this week with a field that's likely to grow to more than dozen. The challenge will be finding a way to stand out.
Retired neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson has made it clear he has no desire to fit into the mold of a Washington politician.
Dr. Carson joins us now. Welcome back to "Fox News Sunday."
CARSON: Thank you. Good to be here.
WALLACE: First of all, especially on this Mother's Day, how is your mom, who I know is ill? Briefly, looking back, what was the greatest impact that she's had on your life?
CARSON: Well, thanks for asking. And thank you for the millions of people who have started praying for her, because she's starting to eat again. We thought she was gone and she's starting to eat again.
So -- she had the biggest impact of any human being on my life because she refused to be a victim and she refused to let me and my brother be victims. And that was really the key.
And she made us do things we didn't wanted to do. She reminds me of that Baltimore mother who went out and got her son off the streets. That would have been her. And it made a huge difference.
WALLACE: And when you say she refused to be a victim, I mean, you grew up in dire poverty in inner city of Detroit.
CARSON: Absolutely. Never had money for anything. But I tell you what did really work -- books. Between the covers of those books I could go anyplace, I could be anybody, I could do anything.
And particularly as I read about people of great accomplishment, I began to realize that the person who has the most to do what happens to you in life is you. Not somebody else and not the environment.
WALLACE: OK. Your greatest strength in the race, I would argue, and -- some would argue is also your greatest label, and that is you've never run for or held political office. How do you answer the experience question?
CARSON: I simply say experience can come from a variety of different places. There have been many people who have been groomed to believe that experience can only come in the political arena, but I've had a lot of experience, world experience, putting together teams to accomplish things never done before, incredible complex surgical procedures.
Putting together a national scholarship program. Nine out of ten nonprofits fail. Ours not only has not failed, has thrived. Working in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. We're putting in reading rooms all over the country affecting people's lives. I've had lot of corporate board experience, 18 years on Kellogg's, 16 years on Costco, as well as other boards.
So, you know, there's real-life experience and there's politics. Politics, you know, there are some good politics in the political arena but I'm not sure they actually, in many cases, understand real life.
WALLACE: All right. Let's talk about real policies and drill down into some of them.
Here's what you say on your Web site about Russia, "All options should remain on the table when dealing with international bullies such as President Putin."
Dr. Carson, when you say all options, does that include the use of military force?
CARSON: All options includes all options. That doesn't mean that would be my first option. When we look at Russia and we look at Putin, we can realize that he has great ambitions. His ambitions have been thwarted of late because of falling oil prices. And we should take note of that and realize that the economic weapon is a tremendous one in his case.
We have incredible natural resources in this country in terms of oil, in terms of natural gas, but we have energy exportation rules from the '70s when we had an energy crisis that need to be gotten rid of, so we can use that to make Europe and other portions of the world more dependent on us. And that decreases his influence and his ability to expand.
WALLACE: But let me follow up. You say all options, all options. Under what circumstances would President Carson be willing to go to war with Russia? What are your red lines?
CARSON: Well, I would, obviously, do that in consultation with very competent generals and people who are more knowledgeable in that area than I would be. But, clearly, if the interest and the existence and the safety of the people of the United States was at stake -- and that was the only way to protect them -- of course, I would do whatever was necessary.
WALLACE: Would you go to war over Ukraine?
CARSON: No, I wouldn't go to war over Ukraine, but I would handle Ukraine a very different way. You know, Ukraine was a nuclear arms state. They gave up their weapons. You know, it was agreed they would be protected if something happened with aggression.
Have we -- have we lived up to that? Of course, we have not. And what does that say to our other allies around the world? It's not a good sign.
WALLACE: One of the pillars of your economic program is a flat tax. How would that work?
CARSON: Well, I like the idea of a proportional tax. That way you pay according to your ability. And I got that idea, quite frankly, from the Bible, tithing. You make $10 billion a year, you pay $1 billion. You make $10 a year, you pay $1. You get the same rights. That's pretty darn fair, if you ask me.
Now, some people say it's not fair because, you know, the poor people can't afford to pay that dollar. That's very condescending. You know, I grew up very poor. I experienced every economic level. And I can tell you poor people have pride, too. And they don't want to be just taken care of.
And also, if everybody is paying, it makes it very difficult for these politicians to come along and raise taxes. It's easy to raise it on 1 percent or 2 percent or 5 percent. It's very difficult to raise it on 100 percent.
WALLACE: But, Doctor, here is a problem with flat tax in the real world -- according to the Tax Policy Center, to raise the same amount of revenue we do now, the tax rate would have to be in the low to mid 20 percent range.
CARSON: Wrong.
WALLACE: Low and middle income families would get a big tax hike, while wealthy families would actually get a tax cut.
CARSON: That's actually not -- I don't agree with that assessment, let me put it that way, because I've been in contact with many economists. And, in fact, if you eliminate loopholes and deductions, then you're really talking about a rate somewhere between 10 percent and 15 percent.
WALLACE: I got to tell you, the outside experts we talk to say you're talking -- in the 20s.
CARSON: Let's have a battle of the experts.
WALLACE: Well, we'll have a battle of the experts -- I mean, that's right. But, for instance, you talk about low income families. Not only don't they pay, they actually get an earned income tax credit. Now, you're going to have them pay 10 percent to 15 percent of income they have, or 20 percent if my experts are right.
CARSON: Well, Chris --
WALLACE: I mean, is there danger -- I got to tell you, a lot of independent study say the people that make out like bandits in this are the wealthy.
CARSON: Bear in mind, Chris, this is part of an overall complex program, because it also involves reorienting the way we do things in government, making the government run more like a business in this great, inefficient behemoth that we have now. It involves, you know, utilizing our energy resources. We can get an enormous amount of revenue from that. It involves a balance budget.
You know, by the time you put all those things, and it involves getting rid of all of these things that are fettering, the economic engine and revamping corporate taxes and bringing in money that's overseas, by giving a tax holiday, that's $2 trillion right there. I mean, there are a number of things involved in doing this.
WALLACE: Fair enough. We're beginning to run out of time, so I'm going to -- we'll do something of a lightning round here. One of things you say you're learning is not to be on so inflammatory in the language that you use.
But I want to ask you about some remarks you've made that you say that you stand by.
You have compared our government today to Nazi Germany. Do you really believe that?
CARSON: Well, a lot of people like to say that. But what I said is that in Nazi Germany, most of those people didn't believe in what Hitler was doing, but did they say anything? They did not. That's what allowed people to progress to that point.
We need to be willing to stand up and speak up for what we believe.
WALLACE: But people oppose Barack Obama all the time.
CARSON: There are a lot of people in our society who are afraid to say what they really mean because they may get an IRS audit, people will call them names, their jobs may be interfered with. This is not what America was supposed to be.
WALLACE: OK. Here's what you said about ObamaCare.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CARSON: ObamaCare is, really, I think, the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery. And it is in a way, it is slavery.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: The worst thing since slavery?
CARSON: Well, you have to understand what I'm talking about. You know, ObamaCare fundamentally changes the relationship between the people and the government. The government is supposed to respond to the will of the people. Not dictate to the people what they are doing. And with this program, we're allowing that whole paradigm to be switched around.
WALLACE: Finally in the area of these remarks, just this week, you said that the president must carry out a law passed by Congress, but you said he doesn't necessarily have to pass what you called a judicial law -- which raises the question: Do you believe that the president must observe a decision by the Supreme Court?
CARSON: Well, what I said is the president doesn't have to agree with it.
WALLACE: No, of course not. But does he have to -- but does he have to enforce it?
CARSON: Well, Dred Scott, a perfect example. You know, the Supreme Court came up with this and Abraham Lincoln did not agree with it. Now, admittedly, it caused a lot of conflict and eventually led to a civil war, but we're in a better place because of it.
WALLACE: But does the president have to carry out a Supreme Court ruling?
CARSON: The way our Constitution is set up, the president or the executive branch is obligated to carry out the laws of the land. The laws of the land, according to our Constitution, are provided by the legislative branch.
WALLACE: But, sir --
CARSON: The laws of the land are not provided by the judiciary branch. So --
WALLACE: But, sir, since Marbury v. Madison in 1803, we have lived under the principle of judicial review which says, if the Supreme Court says this is the law, this is constitutional, the rest -- the executive has to observe that.
CARSON: And I have said, this is an area we need to discuss. We need to get into a discussion of this because it has changed from the original intent. And --
WALLACE: So, you're saying this is an open question as far as you're concerned?
CARSON: It is an open question. It needs to be discussed.
WALLACE: Finally, when people heard I was interviewing you this week, there was one question I got more than any other. And that was -- does he really think he has a chance of being elected president? How do you answer that?
CARSON: Well, I would answer it by saying, my life has been so full of people telling me what I couldn't do that I would be more concerned if they told me I could do it. That's how I would answer it.
You know, there's been a gazillion things people say, no one's done that before, you can't do that. You know, in my surgical career, you know, when I joined ROTC, I joined late, and I wanted to get to the top rank, they said you can't do that -- did it. You know, they said, you can't start a scholarship program. There's a gazillion of them. It has excelled.
You know, it's not just me. You know, there are -- there's the ability to work with a lot of people to achieve what you need to achieve.
WALLACE: Dr. Carson, thank you. Thanks for coming in today. Always a pleasure to talk to you. We'll see you down the campaign trail.
CARSON: Thank you, Chris.
WALLACE: Up next, Bill Clinton breaks his silence on the controversy over huge speaking fees and foreign donations to his family foundation. Our Sunday group discusses how it's playing for Hillary.
Plus, NFL poster boy Tom Brady is back in the spotlight. Has all of the air gone out of his deflategate defense?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAM J. CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT: There has been a very deliberate attempt to take the foundation down. And there is almost no new fact that's known now that wasn't known when she ran for president the first time.
REPORTER: She is now running for president. Will you continue to give speeches?
CLINTON: Oh, yes. I've got to pay our bills.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Former President Bill Clinton this week defending his wife and their foundation, but making it clear he intends to keep making big money on the lecture circuit.
And it's time now for our Sunday group. FOX News senior political analyst Brit Hume; Lisa Lerer, national politics reporter for "The Associated Press"; Michael Needham, head of Heritage Action for America; and Charles Lane from "The Washington Post."
Well, while Hillary Clinton has not answered questions about the speaking fees and the big foreign donations as you saw Bill Clinton did -- did he help or hurt Hillary, Brit?
BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Oh, I think his answer is entirely plausible. I mean, these poor people -- I mean, they're only worth about $140 million. Of course, somebody has got to go out and hustle to pay the bills while she runs for president.
Now, obviously, I don't think he helped. He didn't answer questions. He raised questions. And, you know, when she's out there trying to run as a populist, he's whining about paying the bills with the kind of money they have. Obviously, this isn't going to work.
I don't know whether it hurts her in the primary season phase of this to get the nomination, but I think there's certainly a considerable stuff (ph) that's being built up to be used against her, and through him or her in a general election campaign.
WALLACE: One thing Hillary Clinton talked about this week was immigration reform. She said she would go even further in deferring deportations than President Obama and that led the National Republican Committee to very quickly put out an ad. Take a look at both.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: As president, I would do everything possible under the law to go even further.
We've got to do several things and I am -- you know, adamantly against illegal immigrants. I made this exception basically on humanitarian grounds because of the individual stories. But certainly, we've got to do more to our borders, and people have to stop employing illegal immigrants.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Now, that latter statement, Lisa, was from back in 2003 when she was a senator.
Is Clinton going to have problems with her flips on a number of issues from what she used to believe, or at least say, to what she's saying now? And are -- is this move to the left, because everything seems to be moving from the center to the left, is that going to be enough to satisfy the left wing of her base?
LISA LERER, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS: Well, so far it has been, right? There aren't many other options for the left wing of the Democratic Party to flock to. And they want to, like everybody who plays in politics, they want to win, so they're going to go with a candidate more viable.
A lot of what I think Hillary Clinton is trying to do here is keep the Obama coalition together, right? Obama built this broad coalition. So, you see her trying to do that on immigration, to keep those -- that degree of turnout with Latinos. With the Baltimore speech which aimed at African-Americans, keep the turnout there. She made a speech in Silicon Valley several weeks ago that was really aimed at women, women in tech.
So, I think that's what she's doing here. She's trying to reassure critics on the left and the left party overall -- the Democratic Party overall that she will keep that coalition together and it's a winning coalition.
WALLACE: Clinton has taken a lot of heat these last couple of weeks on e-mails, on the big money, the "Clinton Cash," as it's being called, a short phrase.
But take a look at this poll that came out this week from "The New York Times." In March, her favorability rating was minus 11. She had 26 percent, people saying they had a favorable opinion of her. Now it's minus 1 with 35 percent sup.
Michael, has she weathered the storm?
MICHAEL NEEDHAM, CEO, HERITAGE ACTION FOR AMERICA: Well, we'll see. And it depends. I think that one of the things that will come into play are the American people are extremely cynical about Washington, D.C. and the kind of cesspool of corruption and favoritism that it's become, you actually see it in Hillary's launch video, where she says in the very first sentence she speaks, the deck is stacked against those in favor of those at the top.
The problem is there's been nobody who has done more to trade on their public service to benefit themselves and their friends than the Clintons. And so, I think the question over the course of the campaign is: can the Republican Party prosecute that case?
It will be uncomfortable for the Republican Party. There's plenty of favoritism and cronyism that goes on amongst politicians on the Republican side, which is why things like the Export/Import Bank become incredibly important this cycle. If the Republican Party with the House and the Senate can shut down a bank that has 31 corruption cases against it, that uses the dollars of hard-working middle Americans to subsidize the wealth connected at Boeing, that shows the difference between the favoritism and cronyism of the Clintons and the Republican Party that fights for opportunity for everybody, but favoritism for nobody.
WALLACE: Chuck, you're read, has Hillary Clinton been damaged by the private e-mail, the "Clinton Cash," or not?
CHARLES LANE, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: You know, there's -- the poll numbers you just showed which suggesting that no, she hasn't been damaged arguably even enhanced.
But I think it has damaged her and the polling says it (ph). I think it has undermined a little bit the morale of her own supporters who are looking at this situation saying, oh, my God, are we going to have to spend the next year and a half doing nothing but playing defense and all this stuff? Why couldn't they control themselves? Why couldn't they just not make $100 million? Why wasn't $50 million enough? You hear a lot of that undercurrent.
And even though we were snickering at the Bernie Sanders challenge, it's not serious, et cetera, et cetera, you know, it gave him a talking point when he came out of the box. It's something he's going around Iowa talking about.
And, you know, I think that any candidate would tell you they'd rather have no negatives of this side out there against them than this one. And I think it -- I think it's going to be a bit of a bleeding ulcer on her campaign.
WALLACE: Then, there is the really big story this week, and that was the deflategate investigation commissioned by the NFL. And here's what they ended up concluding, "It is -- talk about legalistic -- it is more probable than not that Tom Brady was at least generally aware team employees took the air out of his footballs."
Here's how Brady reacted this week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIM GRAY, SPORTSCASTER: Has this, however, detracted from your joy of winning the Super Bowl?
TOM BRADY, NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS QB: Absolutely not.
(CHEERS)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: We should point out that was in a Massachusetts crowd, so there were a lot of New England Pats fans there.
Brit, you're a football fan. Are you persuaded by the report? And if so, should --
BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, the problem with the report was --
WALLACE: -- should Brady be punished?
HUME: The problem with the report was -- you know, it was basically kind of inconclusive. I mean, if the best they can do after all of this is sort of a preponderance of the evidence suggested he was generally aware, that's a pretty -- that's a pretty limited charge.
But the Patriots have a kind of reputation, based on past incidents, of being cheaters. I think this feeds into that because they've been so successful, a lot of football fans around the country hate them, and this feeds into that as well. It makes them even easier to hate, and leaves a taint on that football franchise -- successful though it's been.
WALLACE: So, Commissioner Hume would or would not suspend Tom Brady?
HUME: Well, I don't know how you can suspend somebody for being generally aware more probable than not. It just seems weak to me, but maybe they -- maybe they will.
LANE: I think you suspend him for not fully cooperating with the investigation, right?
HUME: That's another matter.
LANE: Remember, he didn't turn over his cell phone.
NEEDHAM: Sports is about more than just winning. It's about certain values -- honor, courage, sacrifice that we value.
And Pee Wee Reese was a great American for putting his arm around Jackie Robinson. Roberto Clemente was a great American for sacrificing and using his own celebrity to try to get help to others. There's absolutely nothing admirable about what Tom Brady does or Tiger Woods do.
And so, regardless of what Goodell does, and obviously, if the man cheated, he should be suspended. This is the type of thing that makes people sick of, you know, the kind of current culture that we're in and there's nothing admirable about what Tom Brady did.
LERER: And it's also coming in the context of these larger issues that the league is facing -- criticism of how they handled the domestic violence accusation, criticism of the science about head injuries and the long term impact from that. So, it's coming out in this environment that's pretty tricky for the NFL to manage.
HUME: The broader question really is whether pro-football or football in this country as we've known it is under kind of a death sentence because of the concussion problem. It looks as if time goes on, fewer and fewer young people will be playing the game and that will eventually kill the game.
WALLACE: Having said that, the ratings are bigger than ever, more people are watching than ever. I can't wait for the football season to start.
(LAUGHTER)
WALLACE: Panel, we have to take a little break here. We'll see you a little later in the program.
Up next, the attack on a Muhammad cartoon contest in Garland, Texas, raises new concerns about homegrown terrorism. We'll talk with Congressman Michael McCaul, chair of the House Homeland Security Committee.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WALLACE: A look outside the beltway at Paris, France, on this VE Day weekend marking the end of World War II in Europe. The threat of homegrown terror is as much a reality there as it is in this country.
ISIS claimed responsibility this week after two men open fire at a "draw Muhammad" cartoon contest in Garland, Texas. Now the terror group claims it has recruits across this country who are ready to attack. Joining us now from Paris is the chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, Texas Congressman Michael McCaul. Chairman, the Pentagon raised the threat level at all U.S. military bases this week, although they said that there is no specific credible threat that they have. Do you think that that action is warranted?
REP. MICHAEL MCCAUL (R-TX) "Fox News Sunday" EXCLUSIVE: Yeah, Chris, actually, I do. I think there's been an uptick in the threat streams out there. The level of chatter, Internet calls to arms, if you will, to light up potential ISIS followers potentially in the United States. And attack military installations. We're seeing these directives almost like on a daily basis. It's very concerning. I'm over here with the French counterterrorism experts talking about the "Charlie Hebdo" case, how we can stop foreign fighters from coming out of Iraq and Syria to Europe, but then we have this phenomenon in the United States where they can be activated by the Internet and really terrorism has gone viral.
WALLACE: Well, let's talk about the case in the U.S., because, of course, all of this and raising the terror threat at the U.S. military bases comes after that attack in Garland, Texas, two men going after this Muhammad cartoon contest. And it also comes after a very disturbing briefing this week from FBI Director James Comey. Here's what Comey said. He said that there are hundreds, maybe thousands of people in this country being recruited to carry out terror attacks and many of them are being directed to encrypted websites the FBI can't penetrate. Chairman, is the situation as bad as that sounds?
MCCAUL: I think these numbers are very low. I think the real numbers are higher. Remember, we have two threats. One is from foreign fighters coming out of the war region in Iraq and Syria, where I just visited, getting into the United States. And the other threat or the thousands of people in the United States who will take up this call to arms when ISIS sends out an Internet -- a tweet wanting to launch a terror attack like what we saw in Garland, Texas. They said attack these cartoonists in Garland, and we had two individuals who were ISIS-motivated show up to kill people. And this is -- I think the director is absolutely right. This threat is like finding a needle in a haystack sometimes and it's going to get worse, not better.
WALLACE: Well, when you say worse, not better. As chairman of House Homeland Security, how would you compare the threat to the U.S. homeland right now to what it's been since 9/11?
MCCAUL: I think the threat environment today is one of the highest I've ever seen it. And primarily because there are so many failed states out there, many of which we visited. We've had to pull out of so many countries in Northern Africa. We have a failed state in Syria. Baghdad is very dangerous situation right now. We just visited with the prime minister there. And so with that comes the breeding grounds of terrorism and the ability of terrorists to spread globally in their global jihad effort. Both from a foreign fighter standpoint to travel, but also to radicalize people, you know, over the Internet. And that's -- seriously, our main mission, Chris, was to look at what are the security gaps over here and how can we close those gaps so these terrorists can't get into the United States.
WALLACE: Well, I want to talk particularly, though, about the homegrown threat. How, after what you've just described and after what FBI Director Comey just described, how do we find and stop this increasingly sophisticated recruitment of homegrown terrorists?
MCCAUL: Well, I think the case in Garland was a textbook case for law enforcement where it was actually stopped because the Internet traffic was monitored, picked up, and I applaud homeland security, FBI and the local Garland police in stopping that. But remember, this is very difficult to stop when you have so many of these missives, these calls to arms going out over the Internet to potential followers in the United States. Remember, we have thousands of these followers currently in the United States.
WALLACE: Meanwhile, on Thursday, a federal appeals court ruled that the NSA's collection of metadata on billions of phone calls among Americans is illegal. Before we get into possible reforms, let me just ask you about the program. How effective is it? How important is it in terms of stopping terror threats?
MCCAUL: Well, I have some personal background. I was a federal prosecutor, when we exercised powers under the Patriot Act or under the FISA court. We did go through the private phone carriers. I think you're going to see a Patriot Act reauthorization in the Congress that will allow this data not to be stored under the government, under NSA, but rather to go back to the telecom carriers in the private sector where we can -- if there's probable cause, that we can get that information through that avenue rather than having all this metadata under the federal government. I think that's where you're going to see the Congress headed towards and the courts have certainly gone in that direction.
WALLACE: But Senate Majority Leader McConnell has been pretty tough on this. He says he wants to continue the program as it is with the government holding those billions of records, not private companies because he says he's not sure the private companies are up to.
MCCAUL: Well, I think you're going to have a debate in the Congress House and Senate on this. I know that judiciary is in the process of marking up their FISA Reform and Patriot Act Authorization, and, you know, we'll see what happens through the amendment process. I'll tell you, when I was doing this in my own practice, we had no problem getting information from the private phone carriers when we needed that information.
WALLACE: I want to go back, though, to the question because there are a lot of critics who say that this hasn't been that effective anyway and it hasn't broken up plots. From your experience as a prosecutor, and also as a chairman of House Homeland Security, how important, how effective is the program to have this metadata to be able to connect the dots, not the content of the phone calls, but the fact that this number called that number and spoke for "X" number of minutes?
MCCAUL: Well, I -- look, I think we've stopped a lot of terrorist plots. And people always ask me the question, why haven't we been hit again? And the answer is, we've been able to stop a lot. We've been lucky, but we've also done a very good job stopping these threats from coming into the United States or stopping them when they are in the United States. Certainly, the program has helped, but I think as long as we can get that information in real time through the private sector, I think that debate between privacy and security, I think we can forge, I think the right balance between the two.
I will say -- in fact, I just say, Chris, come back to the homegrown violent extremism, this administration, really, I don't believe, has done enough. I think Director Comey is spot on when he talks about the threat inside the United States. And yet this administration, its budget allocates zero dollars towards combating homegrown violent extremism. In fact, within the Department of Homeland Security, more money, in fact, millions of dollars, are dedicated to climate change rather than combating what I consider to be one of the biggest threats to the homeland, and that's the violent extremists radicalizing Islamist terrorists radicalizing over the Internet in the United States of America.
WALLACE: Finally you said and we can see from the beautiful picture behind you you're in France, where in the wake of that savage attack on the satirical magazine "Charlie Hebdo," the lower House of the French parliament this week passed legislation that would allow intelligence agencies to tap phones and read e-mails without even going to a judge, far more expansive than anything we have here in the United States. And it seems interesting that at a time when there are a lot of people in this country talking about less government surveillance, they who are more on the firing line than we are, literally, seem to be going in the direction of more government surveillance.
MCCAUL: Well, I think, you know, Paris experienced their own 9/11 with the "Charlie Hebdo" case. And so you're seeing, as in Belgium, the Jewish Museum, in Paris, the "Charlie Hebdo" case, you're seeing a shift towards -- more towards security.
The big security gap we've discovered in our delegation over here in traveling to the Middle East and now here are the 40 million people going through Istanbul and Turkey, the lack of screening of individuals leaving Turkey to Europe. And then, Chris, the lack of ability to screen European citizens past a watch list similar to what we have or a no-fly list. This really opens Europe wide open to foreign fighters who can travel from the Middle East, and particularly through Turkey, which is the jihadist super highway, into Western Europe.
And so, what we're trying to do is meet with these officials to see, how can we close these security gaps so we can keep these foreign fighters both out of Europe and also the United States?
WALLACE: Chairman McCaul, thank you. Thanks for joining us today. It's always good to talk with you, sir.
MCCAUL: Thank you, Chris. Thanks for having me.
WALLACE: We wanted to ask Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson about the terror threat while the White House put him on another Sunday show. They declined to make him available to Fox viewers. The White House has made a number of guests available to other networks this year while excluding us and you. We did get to interview Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and DHS Secretary Johnson once this year, but only when they appeared on all five networks.
When we come back, what would you like to ask the panel about the terror threat and the new court ruling on government surveillance? Just go to Facebook or twitter @foxnewssunday and we may use your question on the air.
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SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY), 2016 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I would as president immediately stop the bulk collection of records. I think it's unconstitutional.
SEN MARCO RUBIO (R-FL), 2016 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: One day I hope that I'm wrong, but one day there will be an attack that's successful. And the first question out of everyone's mouth is going to be, why didn't we know about it? And the answer better not be because this Congress failed to authorize a program that might have helped us know about it.
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WALLACE: Two Republican senators and presidential candidates, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio, sharply disagreeing over this week's court ruling that the NSA's bulk data collection program is illegal. And we are back now with the panel. We got a lot of briefings here in Washington. But Brit, as I mentioned with Chairman McCaul, I thought the briefing this week from Jim Comey the FBI director, was about as alarming as anything I've heard recently. Hundreds, maybe thousands of these homegrown terrorists all around the country being sent to encrypted websites that the FBI can't penetrate.
HUME: In response to ISIS.
WALLACE: Yeah. Right. Pretty scary.
HUME: Well, think about this for a minute, Chris. One of the premises of the administration's approach to ISIS has been that they don't really pose a threat to the U.S. Homeland. And remember back in the early days of the Bush administration's efforts post-9/11, the idea was we would send forces and do whatever else it took so we could fight them over there instead of having to fight them here. Well, now, this changes that. This changes that equation to back to where it once was. If we have a spate of terrorists, successful terrorist attacks by homegrown terrorists inspired by ISIS, I think the administration's strategy on this goes out the window. Rand Paul's comments, I think, will damage him and we're back to a whole different way of looking at this terrorist threat. That's what this, it seems to me ...
WALLACE: We have to fight them here as well as over there.
HUME: Well, maybe we have to take them out over there so they're not over there to inspire them here by remote-control through social media. That's what's so frightening about it.
WALLACE: And Lisa, you could see in the very different reactions there from Rand Paul and Marco Rubio, this is going to be a big issue in the presidential campaign, isn't it?
LERER: Oh, it's certainly something that's going to be aired out in the series of debates we are going to watch over, you know, within the Republican primary over the next couple of months.
But I think the party has swung. There was a period where it felt like the energy in the Republican Party might have been more on the anti-interventionist side. Now it definitely feels like it's a competition for who can be tougher on issues of national security and foreign policy. That's something we saw this weekend in South Carolina. So, I wouldn't be surprised if we see Republican candidates being linked to the sense of economic anxiety concerned about, you know, when people don't feel confident in their financial situation with this growing unrest and uncomfortableness with national security and this idea that these homegrown terrorists and all this lone wolf kind of staff. I think it's freaking people out.
WALLACE: We asked you for questions for the panel and we got this debate, sharply different reactions on Facebook. John Ferguson writes, I say let the NSA do their jobs. "And if that means listening to my phone conversations, so be it. If you have done nothing wrong, then you have nothing to worry about."
But Jack Abbatiello sent this, there should be no bulk data collection. The law should be passed that requires the NSA to go to a judge to get permission to target specific individuals. Michael, how do you answer Jack and John on that?
NEEDHAM: Well, the truth is right in between those two and the Congress will debate that in the next couple of weeks and months and figure it out. But it's one question in a much broader context and Brit hit the nail right on the head. The Heritage Foundation has been tracking terrorist attacks, terrorist plots against the United States since 9/11. There have been 68 of them in those 14 years, which comes out to just under five per year. In the first 4.5 months of this year alone, there had been six.
The world is getting more dangerous, it's the failed foreign policy of President Obama, it's the weakness that we are projecting abroad. And that's the context, which this one question goes on. And Brit is exactly right, we need to destroy al Qaeda, destroy ISIS abroad, so that they're not attractive to people who are here. And that's the foreign policy that really has been reversed in the last couple of years.
WALLACE: But on the question of bulk data collections, the NSA program, do you favor that? Or not favor it? Do you think it needs to be handled by the government? Do you think there need to be restrictions so that the records are kept by -- because this is going to be a big debate in Congress over the next few weeks because section 215 of the Patriot Act is up for renewal, should they be held, the records be held by telephone companies?
NEEDHAM: Well, and it's a tough question to answer, frankly, because of the over-classification of data in our federal government. Those of us who don't have security clearances don't know the answer to the question, I know for a fact that I want the FBI to have the information to go call the police department in Texas and say, there's something that might happen at an event you're holding, keep a lookout for this guy. I don't have the information. It's somebody without a top secret clearance to be ought to figure out exactly how important some of these different programs are. And so, I think we have to look at, how do we as citizens of a republic have the debate about security and privacy in these areas where it's very difficult to get access to information.
WALLACE: Chuck, you're a court watcher. Were you surprised by the appeals court ruling that the NSA program is illegal? And where do you see this issue headed in the courts and in Congress?
LANE: Well, I wasn't particularly surprised by the ruling at all because I think it's long been thought by -- including some of the authors, Jim Sensenbrenner on the House side, being outstanding example of the Patriot Act that the NSA, authorized by the secret FISA court, was exceeding the intended statutory authority that the Congress gave them under the Patriot Act by collecting this bulk data. So, in that sense, all the court was doing was ratifying the view of some of the bill's own authors. What its effect was, and the answer to second part of your question, is to isolate Mitch McConnell because ...
WALLACE: Explain why -- how that is.
LANE: Well, that's what I was going to say. That McConnell has thought by reauthorizing the thing clean, it would, in effect, incorporate the FISA court's more permissive decision.
WALLACE: Keep the program as it is.
LANE: As it is. This ruling now means that if you re-enacted it clean, it creates a conflict between a court decision and the FISA courts, if you have the statute, and it would, in effect, undermine any effort to do a clean reauthorization. So, now he's in a bit of a dilemma. And people I talk to on the hill think it's likely there might be because they are running out of time, some sort of short-term reauthorization. And this thing is now fully teed up. It has got to come to a head. And somebody -- they are going to have to make a decision. There is this Freedom Act Bill that I think, in my judgment, cuts a good compromise, which is the prior authorization to check the bulk data that's collected by the telecommunication companies and is not held by the NSA itself. And I think that's where the consensus is moving, which I think what Mike McCaul was telling you before on the show.
HUME: McCaul suggests -- seemed to suggest that as a practical matter you could get at this data and do these analyses just as well with the data being held by the telecom companies. I'm not sure that's true. And I think if it turns out not to be true, that this would be -- would make the whole process more awkward and less effective. Note the content of the viewer's question. "They can listen to my phone calls all they want," he said. But there's no evidence that that's what's happening. This is all about these giant reams of phone numbers reflecting phone calls. And they are searching them with computers to see if they find a match that suggests some terrorist connection.
WALLACE: Let me hold on for a second. What they're finding out is my number called your number and we spoke for ten minutes, but that's nothing about what the content of the phone call. Right?
HUME: Well, and all I'm saying is that's probably been a useful tool for the NSA. And I don't want anybody listening in on my phone calls, but if they want to search my phone records to see, you know, if I've been talking to terrorists that's perfectly all right with me. When everything is surveilled in that way, really nothing is surveilled in it, really represents no particular threat.
LANE: Here is what's changed, though. We were talking about it before. We have this sort of amorphous movement of ISIS, which is sort of generally inspired by message that are out there on the Internet that's a completely different model of international terrorism from al Qaeda, which was the controlled agent model where a plot was developed in the center and they directed agents out here in our country. So the tactic or the intelligence method you're talking about are actually less effective when you don't have an actual connected ...
HUME: Obviously, some other methods would have to be developed for fighting this kind of problem where social media is the means of communication, but that doesn't mean that these other methods are useless.
WALLACE: And, Michael, you know what, what is so interesting, and that's what I was talking about with Chairman McCaul, you see France, which obviously has had this terrible attacks this year, especially the "Charlie Hebdo" magazine where I don't know how many people were killed, and there the French parliament, the lower house just passed a much more sweeping, much more sweeping than anything we do where the intelligence agencies would be able to tap phones, listen to the content, read e-mails, read the content, without even having to go to a judge.
NEEDHAM: No, that's exactly right. And look, terrorist attacks focus -- we saw that right after 9/11. And that's why it's important for any of us who care about privacy and want that to be part of the equation, we have to figure this out now, not waiting for the attacks. And the biggest piece of that puzzle is making sure that ISIS is not attractive to people here at home, people in France, because we've taken the fight to them in the Middle East. We've embarrassed them by destroying them in the Middle East where they are.
WALLACE: All right. Thank you, panel. See you next week.
Up next, our power player of the week honoring the greatest generation with an historic flyover down the National Mall. And my ride in a vintage World War II B-24 bomber.
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WALLACE: But it will be tough to find anything that tops what we saw on Friday in the special preview we got. Here's our "Power Player of the Week."
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WALLACE: It was a stirring celebration of a great moment. A flyover over down the National Mall marking the 70 anniversary of VE day.
When the allies saved Europe from the Nazis.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Victory was a collaborative effort, a triumph that the entire country could be proud of.
WALLACE: Earlier this week we went to Manassas Airport to see some of the 56 iconic planes and talked with Pete Bunce, who spent the last year making it happen.
PETE BUNCE, ARSENAL OF DEMOCRACY FLYOVER: We're not able to drive tanks down in -- avenue or put ships in the title basin, but we can fly aircraft over the World War II memorial.
WALLACE: Bunce and his team had planned a formation that would follow the course of the war.
BUNCE: We started with Perl Harbor, and then we go to the Doolittle raid and Midway, Guadalcanal. We'll end up with a victory over Japan in the iconic B-29 bomber, the only one flying today.
WALLACE: Do you fully expect this to be goose bump material?
BUNCE: Absolutely. I want to be at the memorial because I want to see the faces of the World War II vets.
WALLACE: Bunce gave us a tour of a B-24 liberator from 1941. The long-range bomber Louis Zamperini flew in, as seen in the movie "Unbroken."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot of ocean.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot of ocean.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Three o'clock!
WALLACE: From the cockpit ...
BUNCE: They didn't have any hydraulic assistance so it took a lot of muscle and it was very difficult for airplane to fly in formation particularly at high altitude.
WALLACE: To the tail gunner.
BUNCE: Can you imagine what it was like to be able to see enemy fighters coming at you from behind?
WALLACE: Then it was time to fly. The B-24, known as the flying boxcar, lumbered into the air. And pretty quickly you felt as if you were traveling in a time machine. Squeezing through its narrow passageways, standing at the waist gunner's window. You could only marvel at the crews that went on 12-hour missions to fight off the enemy and drop their bombs.
BUNCE: The allies won control of the skies and the air assaults were devastating.
WALLACE: And that's the way it played out Friday. The historic planes flew down the National Mall, telling their story of how the war was fought and won. At the World War II memorial, veterans, most now in their 90s, looked skyward and remembered, and everyone understood why that generation is called the greatest.
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WALLACE: Bunce says he hopes to organize more flyovers in the future to honor the troops who fought in Korea and Vietnam. And that's it for today. For all you moms, especially mine, have a wonderful Mother's Day and we'll see you next "Fox News Sunday."
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