Fox News "Sunday Morning Futures" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Al D'Amato

Interview

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BURMAN: Welcome back.

As you know by now, the confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh are set to start tomorrow.

The White House moved Friday night to withhold 100,000 pages worth of documents from his records in the Bush 43 White House. They cite executive privilege. Some Democrats are saying, uh-uh, not so.

Time now for our panel, Ed Rollins, former White House adviser to President Reagan, a FOX News contributor and affiliated with a conservative PAC that supports Kavanaugh's confirmation, we should add. And Al D'Amato is a former Republican senator from this state and a FOX News contributor as well.

Thanks for joining us this morning.

ED ROLLINS, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Thank you.

BURMAN: Want to start, first, though, I'm sure it's been a tough last few days for the both of you with the proceedings, the services and the passing of Senator John McCain.

Just a word from you both?

ROLLINS: Yesterday was spectacular day.

I mean, we had have two funerals, on Friday for Aretha Franklin, which was a spectacular joining together of the black leadership of this country.
Yesterday was a -- was a memorial to a very decent man who has basically been on the stage for 60 years.

And I think he staged it very well. It was his -- and it was a great song that Aretha sang which was called "Respect."

BURMAN: Right.

ROLLINS: John McCain got his respect yesterday from the establishment.

Now, at the same time, the attack and the theme -- underlying theme was, this is the establishment and they were attacking Trump.

BURMAN: Right.

ROLLINS: Trump is not the establishment. Tomorrow, he goes back to -his control of -- and the world of John McCain didn't turn out to be quite what he wanted, in the sense that he wanted bipartisanship.

You won't see it again this week. You're going to see the hand grenades back thrown with Kavanaugh.

BURMAN: With Kavanaugh.

Al.

AL D'AMATO, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: You can't help but admire a great hero.

And why was he a great hero? In my mind, anyone who suffered the way he did, and yet refused to leave early -- he could have left I don't know how many years earlier. But he said, I'm not leaving prison and torture until the men who are in here with me and before me are released.

That's incredible. That's heroic. And, in my mind, he was always a very special person because of that. Did we always agree? Just like all of the people who spoke said, we had conflicts.

But he was a man of principle. He believed in what he did. He stood up, and he had the highest values for this country. And it was a great testimony that people recognized this.

BURMAN: Senator McCain to be buried today in Annapolis, Maryland.

You talked about what is coming up this week.

Senator, you have been through many of these Supreme Court hearings. You would say to Brett Kavanaugh -- what would be the advice that you would give him?

D'AMATO: Keep doing what you have been doing. He's been a fine jurist in the second highest court in the nation, the appellate court.

His work is outstanding. He is a scholar. Everyone admits that. He is a gentleman. He is a family person. And his record speaks for itself. So those who raise questions now about, oh, 100,000 documents, et cetera, that they'd like to see when he worked for the White House years ago, that's just an attempt to slow down the proceedings, to embarrass him.

But his record is going to carry him through. He will get all of the Republican votes. That's my opinion. And he will get several Democrats who will vote for him.

BURMAN: You -- on this show, I had asked you in the days before the president made the announcement, who do you want? You said Amy Coney Barrett. Now you're trying to get Kavanaugh confirmed.

Has it been a full embrace for you, now that he's the pick?

ROLLINS: Oh, totally. Totally. No, totally.

I thought a woman on the court, a conservative woman, would have been very important. And she may end up in the court before all is said here .

He's a superb choice. The document thing is ridiculous. These are President Bush's documents. These aren't his documents. Having worked on the White House staff, a couple White Houses, those aren't your documents.
Those are the president's documents. And he was the staff secretary, so he touched everything, but he didn't write them.

And the idea that the Congress wants them, no president would give those up. So my sense is, he will get confirmed. It'll be a knock-down, drag- out. And all of the good wishes of yesterday's funeral are all by the wayside, and we're back -- we're back to warfare again come next Tuesday.

BURMAN: Real quick, Senator, Democrats hit him how, Kavanaugh?

D'AMATO: He will get several Democrats to vote for him.

BURMAN: Think so?

D'AMATO: Yes.

BURMAN: Manchin, Donnelly, Heitkamp, the folks that went for Gorsuch?

D'AMATO: Yes.

I think he will get two, if not three Democrats, and all of the Republicans, including Senator Collins and Senator Murkowski.

BURMAN: Fifty-two, fifty-three, fifty-four votes?

ROLLINS: And the new senator from Arizona.

BURMAN: And the new senator from Arizona. Exactly.

Doug Ducey has a selection and probably will unveil it soon.

Stay right with us, Ed Rollins, Senator D'Amato.

ROLLINS: Sure.

BURMAN: We will be right back with our panel after this, as we look ahead on "Sunday Morning Futures."

Stay with.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BURMAN: President Trump now having second thoughts about plans to cancel pay raises for federal employees.

We are back with our panel, Ed Rollins, Senator Al D'Amato.

Thanks for sticking around one again.

ROLLINS: Thank you. Thank you.

BURMAN: This came from the president earlier this week, Wednesday, Thursday, basically saying, federal employees if you are not in the military, you're not going to get a pay raise, potentially look at the issue of merit-based pay.

If nothing else, for these employees, it's something you don't want to see.
And on the political front, it's a -- it's not a good headline for this...

(CROSSTALK)

ROLLINS: Well, you don't want to go -- you don't want to go to war with your employees. And the bottom line is that a 2 percent pay increase is not dramatic.

And my sense is, the savings, which is about $25 billion, in a $4 trillion budget, with a trillion-dollar deficit, it's not that significant. And I think it would be a very terrible thing for the morale of the employees.

BURMAN: How do you keep -- how do you keep qualified employees? Because, when you look back -- we were just talking about this. When you look back, President Obama froze it for three consecutive years. The economy was in a much different place in 2011 than it is in 2018 now.

But if you're a federal employee, over the last several years, you have barely seen a pay increase. Why stay if you can get a good private sector job?

D'AMATO: Well, you're absolutely right.

And you might want to save money, but there are better ways to do it. Look at the real problems of how the deficit is growing. Where is the spending?
What do you do to resolve it?

You have Social Security, which if it continues on this pattern, runs out of money not too down -- far down the road. Same thing with Medicare.

So what do you do? Put together a bipartisan panel. It was done.
President Reagan did it. And guess what? We saved Social Security. We strengthened it. You can do the same thing again.

Now, if we're going to talk about bringing the country together and bringing partisan politics, keeping it out, there are two areas where we could save trillions of dollars over the next decade if we came together.

And, by the way, it's not tough. You have people who are living longer.
You should adjust the time that they can retire.

ROLLINS: I would argue you don't want to do it before a campaign season.

BURMAN: Before November.

ROLLINS: I would argue definitely that those are constituents.

And I think I think the bottom line is you -- it's one of these things it's going to take a year to do it, Al.

D'AMATO: Yes.

ROLLINS: It's not simple.

And I think, to a certain extent, the moment you mentioned Social Security, if you're Republican, you get banged over the head by every Democrat in the world.

BURMAN: Got about a minute left.

So, real quick, we're about 64, 65 days whatever it is...

ROLLINS: Right.

BURMAN: ... until November 7.

(LAUGHTER)

BURMAN: Some interesting races this past week.

Where do you think things stand? What's the lay of the land, as we are here?

(CROSSTALK)

ROLLINS: The lay of the land, quickly, is, there's three -- three Republican seats in the Senate that are in trouble, or at least potentially in trouble.

One is the Nevada seat of Heller, the Arizona seat, and the Tennessee seat, which are both open seats. They are competitive.

There are four or five Democrat seats that are -- that are competitive.
And the House is very competitive. And it could go either way.

My sense is, they're our seats, so our guys have to lose it. And they have to fight hard.

BURMAN: Biggest worry as a Republican is what?

D'AMATO: I think the Republicans pick up two to three seats, the Democrats pick up two seats. So we will hold the Senate.

I think we have trouble in the House. Reapportionment, court decisions come down. Pennsylvania, we will lose a couple of seats. We may lose one in New York.

The chances are, at this point, we lose the House.

BURMAN: Really? You think so? Chances are?

D'AMATO: Yes, chances are.

BURMAN: Great chances or just coin flip-type stuff?

D'AMATO: Well, right now, I would say it's 60/40. It can turn, but, right now, we're in trouble in the House.

BURMAN: Ed, do you agree, real quick?

ROLLINS: I would argue it's truly, who's going to vote is the critical thing, and can we get our vote out? If we get our vote out, we're going to be OK. If we don't get our vote out, then, obviously, we could lose.

BURMAN: And you got 65 days, I believe, to do that.

(CROSSTALK)

(LAUGHTER)

BURMAN: So we will see what happens between now and November 7.

Thank you both for joining us. Appreciate it.

ROLLINS: Great. Thank you.

D'AMATO: Good being with you.

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