Washington D.C. – Today, House Foreign Affairs Committee Lead Republican Michael McCaul (R-TX) appeared live in studio from New York, NY on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” with Charles Payne to talk Iran, China, the immigration crisis, Russian interference, and more foreign policy news of the day. Key highlights below:

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On Iran…

“I think what’s happening, Charles, is the sanctions are working. We are crippling Iran’s economy, the waivers were not granted for oil exports and they’re getting desperate. And so they want to attack oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz and I think it’s important that we defend that commerce and work with our allies. I think the end goal here, when I talk to the administration is to negotiate and get a better deal with Iran.”

On China…

“This president is the first president in decades to take China head-on and I commend him for it, and it’s not easy. The trade discussions, as you know, it impacts the economy and the stock market. I think at the end of the day, we’re going to get a better trade deal, but also when you look at China’s intellectual property theft, espionage, we talk a lot about Huawei 5G. When they plant 5G, they’re basically covering half of the globe now in 5G. When their 5G goes in, that’s through telecommunications, they own and control that data and they steal the data from those countries. So i think from an espionage, IP theft standpoint, it’s a good thing.”

“… I think the G20 raises a good point, the president has a good opportunity to meet with President Xi and work out a deal. I think that’s very much on the table. Both sides want to get something done, and I hope that we do accomplish that. I think at the end of the day you’ll see a better result with this deal, but I look at it from a national security standpoint, Charles. When you’ve got this cybersecurity operations where intellectual property means nothing to them, culturally they steal, they stole my security clearance and 20 million others. Again going back to the 5G Huawei it’s a big issue, because wherever they plant down their telecommunications, they own that country’s data. A lot of these countries we try to educate them that if the Chinese come in, it’s not in your best interest.”

On Russian interference…

“I think we are stepping up our attacks on Russia and we should. This disinformation campaign in the 2016 election, I got briefed in the Gang of Eight in October of 2016. I think it’s a little irresponsible, I don’t know who leaked this story, it’s more in the classified space, I think its a little irresponsible to leak that… but I think overall the American people should know that we’re ramping up our cyber operations.”

“… I think it is a positive thing, I’ve been briefed on this, that we are responding in a very powerful way against Putin. Putin’s not our friend, he is our enemy and we are hitting him back.”

On the immigration crisis…

“It’s always a divisive issue, but we do have a crisis at the border. I live in Texas; it’s a humanitarian crisis. We’re trying to get funding right now in the Congress, just to take care of these kids down there in a humanitarian way. Health and Human Services will run out of money this month. Even the New York Times agreed with Republicans that we need to do something and yet Nancy Pelosi, the Democrats continue to block this measure. I think we need to address these family units down there or we’re going to run out of money to house them.”

“I think it was pretty significant. I’ve been following this since I was Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee and a federal prosecutor… it’s interesting to watch this president work, right, and a lot of people disagreed with these tariffs on Mexico. At the end of the day, it got us better security. They are going to put 6,000 national guard down at the southern border which is with Guatemala is 200 miles versus 2,000 miles U.S.-Mexico and it gets more to the root cause of the problem. I think that’s positive. The other thing that’s positive is they will be processing asylum claims, not in the United States but rather in Mexico, so in other words, the crosses will be expedited to Mexico and the claims will be adjudicated in the United States. This should help push some of this flow back into mexico and not in the United States.”

Lead Republican McCaul gives a special father’s day message…

“I’m a father of five children, I want to say ‘Happy Father’s Day’ to all of the dad’s out there. And of course, I think about my own father, as i went to Normandy last weekend to celebrate the 75th anniversary. My dad was a WWII veteran, D-Day veteran, and just wanted to say ‘Happy Fathers’ Day’ to everyone.”

 

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