'Tidal wave' of drug trafficking happening at border: Former acting DEA admin
Former acting DEA administrator Timothy Shea details the drug trafficking activity happening at the southern border
This is a rush transcript from "Sunday Morning Futures," May 9, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
MARIA BARTIROMO, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Good Sunday morning, everyone. Happy
Mother's Day to all.
Welcome to "Sunday Morning Futures." I'm Maria Bartiromo.
Today, connecting the dots between Joe Biden's radical immigration policy
and the massive amounts of illicit drugs flooding into our country, killing
American citizens.
Coming up this morning, more of our exclusive reporting on the border
crisis with the former acting administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration, Timothy Shea, on what agents have seized on the ground this
year and how long those drugs show up -- how long it takes for them to show
up in your neighborhood.
Also ahead, the administration's efforts to spin the border crisis with new
housing units, which you saw here first last weekend, with our exclusive
reporting on the buildup of new tents, rather than stopping the flow of
illegal migrants and illicit narcotics from coming into our country.
Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson on the border, the vaccine and the radical
Biden agenda.
Plus, the drama within the Republican ranks. Former Speaker of the House
Newt Gingrich on what Liz Cheney is really up to.
Then, the man at the center of the story, GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, on the
vote to oust Cheney this week and his commitment to America first policies.
All that and more, as we look ahead right now on "Sunday Morning Futures."
And first this morning, this "Sunday Morning Futures" exclusive.
Illicit narcotics that enter the United States through Biden's open border
with Mexico do not stay at the Texas border. They get to big cities like
New York and Chicago within two days, with 5,800 pounds of fentanyl seized
so far this year. That's more than all of 2020. Fentanyl is deadly, and it
is causing the vast majority of overdoses in America today.
While on the ground on the border, we also learned that Mexican cartels are
working with Chinese cartels to produce it, transport it and sell it into
America. Sources told me the cartels are taking commonly used prescription
drugs, such as Xanax and OxyContin, and lacing it with fentanyl. And it is
proving deadly.
I spoke with the chief Border Patrol agent for the Rio Grande Valley last
week. Chief Brian Hastings told me what his team has uncovered between the
ports of entry just at the border and just since October at the Texas
border. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRIAN HASTINGS, CHIEF OF OPERATIONS, U.S. BORDER PATROL: Those stats are
very concerning for us. We have seen 70 pounds of fentanyl so far just
since October, 100 pounds of heroin so far, 1,000 pounds of
methamphetamine, 40,000 pounds of marijuana.
Those are all in between the ports of entry. We're seeing large increases
in these hard narcotics, which are going to make their way into the
interior of the United States. And, obviously, we know the scary thing
about those hard narcotics and what they do to our population here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: And then, later on, while on a Black Hawk chopper tour of the
border with Texas Governor Greg Abbott and the head of the Department of
Public Safety in Texas, Steven McCraw, McCraw told me that the agents on
the ground at the Rio Grande are working closely with the NYPD to combat
this massive flow of drugs over the open borders.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVEN MCCRAW, DIRECTOR, TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY: Just this week
alone, over 1,800 pounds of methamphetamine were seized along the Texas-
Mexico border. So, that's 1,500 pounds in the RGV, Rio Grande Valley.
And when you talk about the impacts of elsewhere, as the governor said,
they're not keeping it here. They're -- 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, organized crime, is really no longer the La Cosa Nostra, the
Bonanno, or Genovese. It's really the Mexican cartels.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: Incredible.
Joining me right now on this exclusive, the former acting administrator of
the Drug Enforcement Administration, Timothy Shea.
Timothy, it's great to have you this morning. Thanks very much for joining
us.
Assess the situation as you know it.
TIMOTHY SHEA, FORMER ACTING ADMINISTRATOR, DRUG ENFORCEMENT
ADMINISTRATION:
Well, Maria, I think what we see -- what we're seeing now at the border is
a tidal wave of drugs coming into this country. And it's very concerning.
Fentanyl and meth are leading -- leading the way on those. And those are
the two most dangerous drugs. Fentanyl has seen an increase -- a 90 percent
increase in the amount seized on the border coming into this country. And
that's a tremendous amount.
As you mentioned, pills, counterfeit pills that are being laced with
fentanyl and meth have seen a 180 percent increase. That's 4.3 million
pills seized at the border. I think a lot more is getting into this
country.
With respect to meth, you're seeing, over time, this go from a regional
drug in the United States, where it was primarily in the West and the
Midwest and Appalachia, to a nationalized drug, where meth is showing up in
areas it never showed up before.
From 2012 to 2020, there's been a 3000 percent increase in meth seized in
the United States. And we did an Operation Crystal Shield at DEA when I was
there to attack the transportation hubs, and we made a difference. But we
have seen a huge increase in the last several months.
In New York, for example, they have seized three times as much meth in the
first four months of this year than they had in the entire year of 2020.
And that's just a tremendous increase. In New England, where it was ravaged
by opioids, is now seeing meth in large numbers.
In fact, DEA officials in New England have called it meth country, which
was never the case before. So, you're seeing a huge shift and a huge
increase in the amount of drugs coming into -- this into this country.
BARTIROMO: Well, it's unbelievable that these cartels are taking advantage
of America's wide open borders, which is what we saw last weekend when we
were on the ground there.
I know that, in the past, like in the '90s, it was the Colombian cartels
that were moving these drugs, Timothy. But it's changed now. You have got
the Mexican cartels transporting it. And they're working in tandem, I'm
told, with Chinese cartels. Tell me about that connection and what you see
as what has become an enormous business for these criminal cartels.
SHEA: Right.
You know, 90-plus percent of the hard drugs, particularly fentanyl and
meth, come through the Southwest border from Mexico. They're produced in
Mexico. And there's a Chinese-Mexican connection here in two ways.
One is, they are responsible for helping produce these chemicals. So, the
precursor chemicals come from China and are imported into Mexico, where, in
clandestine labs, the cartels produce industrial quantities of fentanyl and
methamphetamines. And then those are imported into the United States.
In addition, Chinese national facilitates the drug trafficking
organizations by laundering the money. So, you have Chinese nationals
throughout the United States doing money pickups for the cartels and
laundering that money back to them in Mexico.
And this happens not just in the big cities that you would expect, New York
and Chicago, but in Mid America. You're seeing money pickups occur in
Wichita, Kansas, and Cheyenne, Wyoming and other places around the country,
where Chinese nationals are operating as money launderers for the Mexican
cartels.
BARTIROMO: Unbelievable.
We had a DEA announcement just recently on the biggest meth bust in U.S.
history. That was in Southern California. And you see what's happening in
terms of people in America taking these drugs, perhaps in some ways
inadvertently, because aren't they now lacing commonly used pills with
fentanyl?
Tell me what they're doing in terms of the drug presses. They're turning it
into pills, right?
SHEA: Yes.
So, I think you know what we're seeing in some cases and many cases where
the cartels are importing pills into the United States, counterfeit pills.
So, they're pressing these pills to look like prescription drugs like
OxyContin or Xanax or something like that. But, in fact, they're laced with
fentanyl.
And the danger there is that only two milligrams of fentanyl is a lethal
dose. So, it's a tremendous problem when you have these pills that are
unregulated that children or teenagers think they're taking a prescription
drug, when, in fact, it's a counterfeit pill made in Mexico laced with
fentanyl.
And we have found in DEA analysis of pills that we have seized that as much
as 25 percent of the pills that are seized in this country, these
counterfeit pills, have lethal doses in them.
BARTIROMO: Wow.
SHEA: And that's a -- that's an incredible amount of lethal doses.
BARTIROMO: That's unbelievable, because I know high school kids and
college kids are buying this stuff online.
They think it's one thing, but, in fact, they think they're taking Xanax or
Oxy or even Adderall. But, in fact, it's laced with fentanyl. Is that
right?
SHEA: Yes. And that's exactly right.
And I -- one of the toughest things -- it is Mother's Day today. And I want
to give my best to all the mothers out there, including my mother, Jeanne
(ph) Shea.
But I think what really was tough for me to listen to when I was
administrator was the parents of these kids who took pills like you
mentioned, that -- thinking they were Oxy 30s or some type of prescription
drug. And they had a lethal dose of fentanyl in them. And the next morning,
they're dead in their bed, and their parents find them. That's just
heartbreaking.
And if you think about what the volume of what is happening here -- you
mentioned the amount seized this year -- one kilogram, when it's about 2.2
pounds of fentanyl, contains 500,000 lethal doses.
BARTIROMO: Wow.
SHEA: So, this is a very powerful drug. It's nothing like we have ever
seen before. It's 50 times more powerful than heroin and 100 times more
powerful than morphine.
BARTIROMO: Oh, my God.
SHEA: So, we are being flooded by this.
And it's really -- and DEA has mentioned this twice in the last week. It's
a threat to the national security of the United States. We have plus-90,000
Americans died in the last 12 months reporting period, according to the
CDC, from overdoses, 60 percent in synthetic...
BARTIROMO: Unbelievable.
SHEA: ... synthetic opioids, which is fentanyl.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
SHEA: And that's as much -- that's as many Americans as died in Korea and
Vietnam wars combined.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
SHEA: And it's -- they're dying from a threat that comes from out of the
country.
BARTIROMO: That's right.
And that's why it's a national security threat. I'm glad you made that
point.
But, Timothy, the Biden administration does not want the mothers out there
to understand the severity here. We actually invited an official from the
Drug Enforcement Administration to come on with you. And we thought we
would have a conversation, the three of us. But Biden's DOJ squashed it.
They did not want the DEA official to be on to discuss this. So, there is
also a media ban on this.
Isn't this information that the public needs to understand, that these wide
open borders, it's not just about illegals coming into this country and
sucking up resources and taking -- getting in front of the line for those
who are trying to do it legally? It's also not about those got-aways.
There were 108,000 got-aways just in the last three months. We don't know
who they are, what they're up to. They got away. But it's also about these
drugs, because these drugs are getting into America. I don't understand why
this administration is not putting some rulemaking around these open
borders. They overturned all of President Trump's tough stance on the
border.
SHEA: Well, I think you see, when you have the Border Patrol and Customs
stretched thin down on the Southern border dealing with the immigration and
human trafficking crisis, that they're necessarily not devoting resources
as much as they did to -- to stopping the drugs coming in.
On top of that, we need to be more engaged with Mexico. I think the
government of Mexico in the transition passed a law that really hampered
the ability of the DEA and the United States to work with them to attack
the cartels. And why they did this, I don't know, but it was a boon to the
cartels.
And it's basically what DEA has described as unraveled our ability to
interdict these shipments coming into the United States, because we're not
working effectively with Mexican law enforcement like we did before. That
has to be addressed at the highest levels.
And I think, if we do that, we're going to be able to more effectively deal
with these cartels, which are operating with impunity inside Mexico,
indeed, into the United States.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
SHEA: They're in all parts of the country. And their reach is very wide.
BARTIROMO: Well, it's a really good point that you make.
We used to have a much closer relationship with the authorities in Mexico,
so you saw it coming. You knew when a big shipment was on the way, so you
could get in front of it. But this administration overturned that as well,
so we don't have that kind of information flow.
Timothy Shea, we will certainly keep a spotlight on this story. We so
appreciate your time this morning, so that we can educate the American
people about this very important story.
Thank you, sir.
SHEA: Thank you, Maria.
BARTIROMO: All right. We will see you soon.
Timothy Shea joining us.
Coming up, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is here on the progressive
fearmongering. His plea for Republicans to get tough and push back -- after
this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I mean, my lord, if I get
elected president of the United States, with my position on health care, my
position on global warming, my position on foreign policy, my position on
the middle class, this will go down as one of the most progressive
administrations in American history.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: Yes. That was then candidate Joe Biden in February of 2020
revealing his intention to become the most progressive president in U.S.
history.
He is well on his way, with 42 executive orders in the can, majorities in
both chambers enabling his unilateral rule by one-party vote on most of his
agenda.
In a Friday op-ed titled "President Joe Sanders," The Wall Street Journal's
Kim Strassel writes his latest move to strip drug companies of their
vaccine patents is an encapsulation of the Biden presidency, "a case study
in fictional narratives, executive overreach, recklessness, and kowtowing
to the left," writes Kim Strassel.
Joining me right now is the former speaker of the House. He is a FOX News
contributor, Newt Gingrich.
Newt, it is always a pleasure to speak with you.
Your reaction to what you heard from Biden and how the agenda is playing
out.
NEWT GINGRICH, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, look, I think, from his
perspective, he decided he had a chance to be probably the most powerful
Democrat since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And he's going for broke. That's
his prerogative.
The last two Democratic presidents lost their majority in the House in two
years. I suspect that he will lose his majority next year. But, in the
meantime, I think what's really shocked most of us is, the really left wing
of the Democratic Party now is so much more radical than it was even under
Obama, that this thing has been metastasizing almost like a cancer, and
that they will -- what they think is normal, 85 percent of the American
people think is crazy.
And I think that's going to lead to some very interesting fights. And you
see the erosion already in both the House and the Senate, as Democrats get
more and more worried that there's an enormous gap between the Biden team
and the American people. And the gap seems to be widening, not narrowing.
BARTIROMO: And, this week, we learned that Joe Biden wants to blow off all
protection for intellectual property.
Moderna spent 10 years researching vaccine. It finally made a profit this
week. The -- this is pretty much a gift to the Chinese Communist Party.
They have been stealing into electoral property for decades. And now we're
just going to give it away, even though they're not going to be able to
manufacture it.
Why can't the American companies or the vaccine companies just give the
drugs, the vaccine, to these other countries like India? Why give away the
store?
GINGRICH: Well, first of all, I mean, there are rules under the World
Trade Organization where very, very poor countries can negotiate to get the
drugs and to get the intellectual property at a reduced rate, recognizing
their poverty.
But that's not what this is about. This is about an anti-drug company mind-
set. It's about a willingness to help the Chinese virtually every way they
can. You watch the next few weeks. Biden will do several things that are so
pro-Chinese, you will be scratching your head, wondering, why would he do
them?
But there's a deep pro-Chinese faction in the Biden administration and in
the Democratic Party. In addition, remember that socialism is theft. As
Margaret Thatcher once said, the problem with socialism is, you run out of
other people's money to spend.
BARTIROMO: Right.
GINGRICH: So, stealing intellectual property rights, just like killing the
XL Pipeline, just like all the different things they're doing, this is
normal for them.
BARTIROMO: Yes. I want to...
GINGRICH: They are the enemies of free enterprise.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
GINGRICH: Go ahead.
BARTIROMO: I want to talk about that when we get to the higher taxes. You
wrote an op-ed about what people are going to be paying for.
We will come back, get your take on that, as well as the new voting rules
in three states, and why shootings in New York are up 200 percent. We will
talk about it when we come right back.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: Well, welcome back.
And we're back with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
And, Newt, I want to get your take on the push for free and fair elections.
We have got Texas lawmakers advancing a new voting reform bill on Friday.
It prohibits the sending of unsolicited mail-in ballot applications by
elected officials. It bans paid vote harvesting activity, protects poll
watchers and expands oversight for election violations.
Newt, Texas Governor Greg Paxton (sic) is expected to sign this bill into
law this upcoming week. And, of course, it comes a day after Florida
Governor Ron DeSantis green-lit legislation that requires ballot drop boxes
to be monitored.
Your reaction to now three states coming up with new rules around voting?
GINGRICH: Well, I think we learned in 2020 earlier that we have elections
that are too -- too easy to steal.
And they're too -- for example, you can actually buy an official Georgia
presidential ballot on eBay. And you can also buy a number of other states.
So, when they tell you they were controlling the ballots, it's just not
true. This was a very open system. It was a system where people could cheat
and did.
And without getting into an argument about how big the cheating was, it was
large enough that every American should expect that they have the right to
vote, they have the right to have their vote counted, they have the right
for their vote to be held legally and accurately. And they shouldn't have
their vote canceled by somebody who's cheating.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
GINGRICH: And that's exactly what's been going on.
BARTIROMO: Yes. In fact -- in fact...
GINGRICH: And so I think it's very necessary -- they're necessary reforms.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
Last week, the attorney general of Texas, Ken Paxton, told me mail-in
ballots were the key piece in the elections of 2020 and in Georgia at the
beginning of this year. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KEN PAXTON (R), TEXAS ATTORNEY GENERAL: So, if you look at election
results from four years ago, Georgia and Texas were very similar.
We fought off 12 lawsuits. We were sued 12 times over mail-in ballots, by -
- it was Harris County, it was Travis County, these big urban counties that
wanted to mail out all these mail-in ballots, in violation of state law,
clearly what was not allowed by the state legislature.
And so we fought these off. And they didn't want signature verification. We
were told by a federal judge that was -- that was unconstitutional. So, we
had state lawsuits, different counties, federal lawsuits. We had 12 of
them. We won every single one of them.
Had we not won every single one of those lawsuits, I'm convinced that those
ballots would have gone out, and we would have been just like Georgia, who
decided to capitulate and sign consent decrees and say it's OK, we're going
to let these mail-in ballots go out, we're not going to -- we're going to
allow no signature verification, we're going to allow drop boxes.
All those things had an impact. And instead of Georgia and Texas having
similar results this time because we defended those lawsuits, Trump won. We
were able to have a Republican legislature here. And, in Georgia, it was
completely turned.
BARTIROMO: So, are you saying that because of what we saw in mail-in
ballots in Georgia, you're questioning the results?
PAXTON: I absolutely am questioning.
I know what would have happened here. They would have stopped counting,
just like they did in those states. And they would have been counting mail-
in ballots until they get the right number of votes, and, suddenly, Trump
loses and we lose the state House here, we lose some of our Supreme Court
justices.
And it wouldn't have been a legitimate count, because they wouldn't have
followed state law.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: Newt, we point this out because H.R.1 has already passed the
House. And, today, Stacey Abrams says she wants to run for president.
GINGRICH: Well, why not?
I mean, she's -- she's already changed Georgia without ever being governor.
She's intimidated Governor Kemp. She's intimidated the secretary of state.
So, she's dominated Georgia, despite losing. And maybe she figures she will
do the same thing. Of course, she will have to face off against Kamala
Harris, who I think has her own ideas about who the first woman president
should be.
But what Ken just said is really important for people to understand. In a
number of states, the Republicans were just plain outlawyered. The other
side did a better job. They set the rules of the game. The rules of the
game were designed to do exactly what he said, figure out how many votes
the Republicans have, and then hold the ballots open until you can get
enough votes to beat him.
And that's in -- every one of the states was really close that Trump lost,
you had those kinds of shenanigans, and you had state law violated in every
single one of those states.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
GINGRICH: Now, in my mind, there's no question that those states were, in
effect, stolen. That doesn't make the national media happy. But I think, as
a historian, people are going to find that it's absolutely true.
BARTIROMO: Newt, I want to ask you about the economic part of the Biden
agenda.
You wrote a great op-ed on FOXNews.com the other day: "Beware Biden's
hidden tax increases."
We continue to hear the spin that it's $400,000, and nobody's getting taxed
on top of -- if you make any less than that. But it's $400,000 a family,
which means it's $200,000 per person in a couple.
You also point out the inflation component of this. Tell me about these
increases in taxes that we are watching on the horizon.
GINGRICH: This is a basic rule of economic history. And it goes all the
way back certainly to the Romans and other ancient civilizations.
If you can raise taxes because of resistance, and you have to keep raising
spending in order to pay off your allies, the only way you can make up the
difference is through inflation, through cheapening money by printing more
dollars in our case, by literally cheapening gold and silver coins in the
past.
And the result is, everybody pays a hidden tax. Now, what makes it tragic
is, the people hit the hardest are the poor. So, every person who hears us
today, when you go out to fill your gas tank, and you notice that you're
getting less gasoline per dollar, that's a Biden hidden tax. You're going
to find it happens on electricity.
It's going to happen with food, across the board.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
GINGRICH: We're on the edge of a massive inflation.
And the Democrats' answer is, print even more money.
BARTIROMO: That's right.
GINGRICH: So, they get a bad jobs number on Friday, and they're saying
immediately, oh, we need to spend another couple trillion, which is exactly
the wrong solution if you want the economy to be healthy.
BARTIROMO: Newt, before you go, got to ask you about Liz Cheney.
There is a vote next week. We're going to talk with Kevin McCarthy in a few
minutes. He's going to talk about this and the vote next week to oust Liz
Cheney.
You know the Cheneys a long time. What's the real story here, Newt?
GINGRICH: Well, look, I think she honestly believes what she says. I think
she's made a calculated decision that she would rather be a martyr than try
to accommodate her own conference.
She has every right, as an individual member, to say and do what she wants
to. But she has no right, as the chair of the conference, to take the power
and the prestige that the conference has given her and use it to undermine
the conference. I mean, the conference was, I think, 200-10 opposite her.
She was one of 10 out of 210 votes.
At that point, you either have to tack your sails and say, OK, I will
represent the conference or, morally, you ought to resign...
BARTIROMO: Right.
GINGRICH: ... because you're abusing the power that they have loaned you.
Now, I don't know what her game plan is that...
BARTIROMO: Does she have bigger plans?
GINGRICH: Well, my -- I mean, who knows? This could be purely an act of
conscience, and she could fade away into the sunset.
But the Cheneys are very smart. They have been around a long time. I
wouldn't be at all surprised to see her show up as an independent candidate
for president if Trump is renominated. I mean, the things she's said, she'd
almost be morally bound either to support the Democrat or to run as a
third-party candidate.
And I have no idea what she will do.
BARTIROMO: OK.
GINGRICH: But she's not -- she's not a person who just takes one step at a
time. They have thought this through, and they have a game plan.
BARTIROMO: Wow.
Newt Gingrich, it is great to catch up with you this morning. Thank you so
much, sir. We will be watching all of that.
Coming up: the CCP further exposed, with new bombshell documents obtained
by the U.S. State Department that reveal Chinese military scientists
discussed weaponizing coronavirus five years ago.
We will talk with Senator Ron Johnson on the other side of this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): There's a huge ethical question about the origins
of the virus. The ethical question is, should we be doing gain of function?
Should we be upgrading animal viruses in the lab to make them more
susceptible to humans?
I can't tell you for certain that this escaped the lab. I think it's a
reasonable question to ask. But what you have to ask Dr. Fauci is, why did
he, in overseeing these labs ,allow gain of function? Why is he allowing
labs to get government money to upgrade animal viruses, so they can infect
humans?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: Wow.
That was Senator Rand Paul on this program last month raising the questions
he wants answered about the origins of the coronavirus. President Biden,
meanwhile, has yet to acknowledge that this pandemic started in Wuhan,
China, let alone raising it with Xi Jinping. The subject has never come up.
Joining me right now is Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson. He sits on the
Senate Homeland Security and Foreign Relations Committee.
Senator, it's great to see you this morning. Thanks very much for being
here.
I have got this story this morning which was broken by Sharri Markson based
out of Australia. And she says that Chinese military scientists discussed
the weaponization of SARS coronavirus five years before COVID-19 pandemic,
outlining their ideas in a document that predicted a third world war would
be fought with biological weapons, Senator.
Your reaction?
SEN. RON JOHNSON (R-WI): Good morning, Maria.
First, let me say, does that shock anybody? It certainly doesn't shock me.
BARTIROMO: No, it doesn't.
JOHNSON: When you see what China's doing with its militarization of the
South China Sea islands, their malign actions around the globe, we should
have been concerned.
And it does boggle your mind that Anthony Fauci continued to apparently
fund gain of function research and cooperate with the Wuhan lab, knowing --
he had to know full well that the Wuhan lab -- just about any organization
in China is connected to the Communist Party of China, as well as the
People's Liberation Army.
So, what were we doing cooperating with China? I agree with Senator Paul.
These are some serious questions, and we need some answers. But, again, I
have been trying to get answers out of federal agencies for years, and I'm
not holding my breath.
BARTIROMO: Well, we continue to see news around Hunter Biden and his ties
to China in terms of investing. He still has a 10 percent stake in a
Chinese company there.
What are your thoughts in terms of this administration and their ability to
be tough on China? We just heard from Newt Gingrich. And he said much of
the administration is soft on China. I mean, the CCP wants to overtake
America as the number one superpower. They're communists breaking promises.
Look at Hong Kong, no accountability whatsoever. We are watching the
Chinese police with the goose-step walking around Hong Kong now. Is it
because there are conflicts in this administration?
JOHNSON: Well, I'm highly concerned.
You know, that is the issue. It's one of the reasons Senator Grassley and I
issued our report before the election, so the American people could
understand these foreign financial entanglements of Hunter Biden and the
Biden family and how that just might affect U.S. foreign policy.
I mean, the counterintelligence threats, the extortion threats, we have no
idea, none whatsoever. And, again, we have written oversight letters. We're
trying to get information out these government agencies. But the media
completely dismissed our report, said there was nothing in there. There was
all kinds of information in there.
But, Maria, that's part of our problem. We do not have an unbiased media.
We don't have journalists anymore. For the most part, we have advocates.
And they're advocating for the Democrat, the extreme left wing of the
American political spectrum. And it's really hurting this country. It's
very dangerous.
BARTIROMO: Senator, let me move on to the vaccine situation.
I know you're working on an op-ed about these vaccines. We should point out
that the COVID-19 vaccine right now is under emergency use authorization.
Is that what your op-ed coming out in the next couple of weeks will be
about?
JOHNSON: Well, actually, I'm probably writing a press release, saying that
I have now been tested for antibodies against COVID-19. I was tested
positive twice within three days to confirm the fact that I had COVID,
otherwise completely asymptomatic.
And there is growing concern that people that get vaccinated, if they have
been previously and particularly recently infected, there may be some
dangers there. We have close to 3,000 deaths reported on the VAERS system
within 30 days of -- approximately 40 percent of those deaths are occurring
on day zero, one, and two.
We have over 10,000 hospitalizations being reported that same time period
on the same VAERS system. And, unfortunately, our health agencies are just
pretty well blowing off that information.
And that should concern people.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
JOHNSON: Again, I was a huge supporter of Operation Warp Speed. I'm up to
date with all my vaccinations.
But I think we need to make sure that we are fully investigating what is
happening here, recognizing that this is not a fully approved vaccine.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
JOHNSON: It's gone through phase one, the initial safety phase. Right now,
we're undergoing phase two and three, using the American population as
pretty much part of the investigatory process here.
So, we need to be very transparent. Americans need to be informed before
they make a decision whether or not they want to get vaccinated or not.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
JOHNSON: And nobody should be forced or coerced or pressured into taking a
vaccine if they don't want to. This is a right-to-choose issue.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
Senator, you just mentioned Warp Speed. I want to show this op-ed from Kim
Strassel in the Journal again. She's titling it "President Joe Sanders,"
because this administration refuses to give President Trump any credit for
Warp Speed.
She writes: "The rewriting of reality is becoming routine. The
administration declares there is no crisis at the border as illegal
crossings surge."
She goes on to write: "It says Georgia's election law update is Jim Crow,
although the state provides more voting opportunity than others. It
redefines entitlement spending as infrastructure."
She goes on to write: "The press only encourages these fictions, making it
easier for the administration to ignore biotech's lead role in beating the
pandemic and hand over its work to the world."
Your thoughts on why this administration is having such a hard time
admitting the truth, that President Trump galvanized the pharmaceutical
industry to come out with a miracle, a vaccine within 10 months, and now
Joe Biden wants to blow off all intellectual property rights?
JOHNSON: Well, first of all, the -- President Biden used the COVID crisis
to really gain the presidency.
And, again, the press was part and parcel of his entire campaign effort.
And I guess he just simply can't admit that the reason we have all these
vaccines is because of what President Trump and Secretary Azar did in terms
of squeezing all the economic inefficiencies out of that vaccination
process.
Remember, a year ago, everybody was saying it was impossible to develop a
vaccine in less than a few years. And the Trump administration did this in
less than a year.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
JOHNSON: And so, again, I celebrate that triumph.
But, at the same time, I urge caution, from a standpoint of indiscriminate
vaccine -- vaccination of everybody and pressuring people to take a vaccine
if they don't want to do so.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
JOHNSON: I'm -- I was a champion of right to try, but I'm also a champion
of right to choose.
BARTIROMO: Senator, real quick before you go, I know you're having
Secretary Mayorkas speak in front of the Homeland -- Senate Homeland
Security Committee this upcoming week.
I want to get your take on what you want to get from him, because we viewed
all of the housing. They built additional tents, in addition to the Donna
facility that you went and you saw. I was able to view the Delphi facility,
becoming the first national media to do so.
And here are the pictures that we shot when I went to the Delphi facility.
Here's -- Governor Abbott says the white tents from the Donna facility,
there are almost two different sections. They built new tents. So,
basically, what they're doing is, they're building new housing for people,
rather than stopping the flow of people coming in.
JOHNSON: Well, they're also issuing no-bid contracts to, the tune of over
$600 million, to a company connected with the Biden transition as well. So,
who knows what corruption is there.
But the bottom line is, over the last couple of weeks, we have exceeded
over 6,000 people apprehended per day on the Southern border. And this is a
crisis created by President Biden himself, by his policies.
President Trump pretty well had this problem solved. And President Biden
dismantled the entire thing. And the way they're going to try and get away
with it is disperse people as quickly as possible, so you can't take
pictures, so the media can continue to ignore it.
BARTIROMO: OK.
JOHNSON: But President Biden and Vice President Harris fully understood
the human depredations of the human traffickers that their -- that their
policies are facilitating and that multibillion business model.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
Senator -- Senator, thank you so much, Ron Johnson.
We will be right back with Kevin McCarthy.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: Well, welcome back.
Republicans are planning a vote this upcoming Wednesday, May 12, to
formally oust Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney from GOP leadership as the
conference chair over what some say is her never-Trump stance hindering her
ability to execute the GOP's message.
Joining me right now with more on that is the leader of the GOP House,
Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
Congressman, it's great to see you this morning. Thanks very much for being
here.
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): Good morning, Maria. Thank you for having me
on.
BARTIROMO: What can you tell us about next week? Do you have the votes to
formally oust Liz Cheney?
MCCARTHY: Well, Maria, everyone in the leadership serves at the pleasure
of the conference.
And, as you know, there's a lot at stake. Democrats are destroying this
nation. We have watched the greatest expansion of government and this
socialist liberal agenda. We watched them destroy our borders, where
hundreds of thousands are coming across, not being tested for COVID. We're
catching people on the terrorist watch list.
You have got the destruction of our energy. You have got the largest missed
jobs report in more than two decades.
To defeat Nancy Pelosi and the socialist agenda, we need to be united. And
that starts with leadership.
That's why we will have a vote next week. And we want to be united in
looking, moving forward. And I think that's what will take place.
BARTIROMO: Is this just her ideology, is -- that she is unable to get over
being never-Trump and hindering her ability to discuss that very message
that you just laid out?
MCCARTHY: No, any member can take whatever position they believe in.
That's what -- that's what the voters vote on the individuals, and they
make that decision.
What we're talking about, it's a position in leadership. We are in one of
our biggest battles ever for this nation and the direction, whether this
next century will be ours.
As conference chair, you have one of the most critical jobs as the
messenger of going forward. Are we talking about what the Democrats are
doing on the border? Are we talking about all the missed jobs report that
we just had? Are we building an economy?
We're watching Joe Biden create inflation that we have never seen before, a
takeover of government, the rising of taxes, the damage of what will be
done that we cannot come back for.
BARTIROMO: Right.
MCCARTHY: That's why we need a conference that's united. That's why we
need a conference chair that is delivering that message day in and day out
and uniting the nation to make sure that we are on the right footing going
forward.
BARTIROMO: Do you support Elise Stefanik for that job?
MCCARTHY: Yes, I do.
BARTIROMO: We're going to take a short break and come back with more with
Congressman Kevin McCarthy.
I want to ask you about the controversy swirling around the 2020 census.
We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: Well, welcome back.
We're back with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
Congressman, you have been going through some of the policies that are
happening right now under the Biden administration. And I know that there
is an effort for the Republicans to take back the House in 2022. Are you
worried about what we just saw in the census? It looks like red states lost
seats and blue states gained seats in the census.
Greg Abbott said he thinks the census was fishy, his word, not mine. What
do you say?
MCCARTHY: No, actually, red states gained. They should have probably
gained more. And blue states lost.
Look at California, for the first time in a history of a state, is going to
lose a seat. They actually lost population. And the answer Gavin Newsom
gave was because President Trump had secured the border, so fewer people
could illegally enter our state.
It wasn't because his taxes are too high. It wasn't because homeless is
running rampant. It wasn't because they want to defund the police, and now
we're watching crime continue to rise. It's their mispolicies.
Why does California, Illinois, and New York all lose seats, but Texas gains
two and Florida gains one? Because people crave freedom. People want
freedom, freedom to open their businesses, freedom to take a risk, freedom
for their children to go to school, freedom for the foundation to believe
in what they want to believe as an American.
And this is really one of the greatest contrasts of what you have found.
Oregon's going to gain a seat, but that's going to be a Republican seat.
BARTIROMO: OK.
MCCARTHY: The Cook Report recently did a study about redistricting.
And they believe Republicans can gain anywhere from zero to maybe even five
to seven seats. And we only need five seats to gain the majority.
BARTIROMO: OK.
MCCARTHY: But people are moving based upon the policies of those states.
And it proves that Republican policy of greater freedom is winning out.
BARTIROMO: And one of those policies showed the jobs numbers on Friday a
lot lower than people expected. You think that's because of this policy out
of this administration, free money?
MCCARTHY: I just don't think it. I know it.
BARTIROMO: OK.
MCCARTHY: This is the biggest miss in the jobs numbers in more than two
decades.
If Joe Biden had done nothing, the jobs report would be greater and more
people would be in work today.
BARTIROMO: All right.
Kevin McCarthy, it's great to see you this morning.
Thank you so much.
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