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Interview

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Joining us now is one Republican, who's indicated, she won't, Congresswoman Victoria Spartz, from Indiana.

Congresswoman Spartz, appreciate you being with us.

When Speaker McCarthy says he's blocking Congressman Schiff and Swalwell, from the Intelligence Committee, for reasons of national security, and not out of political retaliation, do you think that's true?

REP. VICTORIA SPARTZ (R-IN): Well, I think you know, regardless what he does, and what is the reasons, and I understand there is a lot of frustration, what Speaker Pelosi done was unprecedented, last Congress. But I think we have to respect the rule of law and proper due process.

I think Speaker McCarthy need to go, to the Ethics Committee, make his case. And the other side should have an ability to defend themselves. We always have presumption of innocence and the rule of law.

We're not going to be tit-for-tat and the mob rule. If that's what the other side is doing, we will then be also hypocrites, saying that we're defending our constitutions, and we're defending our values of due process and rule of law. And I think that's -- it's sad for me to see that we're doing it, and makes us look like hypocrites.

COOPER: The Speaker, as you know, was able to unilaterally block those appointments, to the Intelligence Committee. He is going to need a full House vote, to block Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, from serving on the Foreign Affairs committee, which he's vowed to do because of past anti-Semitic comments, which she's apologized for.

You've said you won't support the Speaker on that. Is that still the case, tonight? And do you think he has the votes to keep her off that committee?

SPARTZ: Well, I'll tell you this, Anderson that he needs to decide how he wants to govern. And we need to send examples. Are we really a circus? Are we a sere (ph)? Are we a really serious institution? And I'm not here like to defend what people said. They have to defend their statement.

I am very polar opposite, on a lot of views with Representative Omar, in Israel, as I am with Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, on Russia and Ukraine. But I still stood up, last Congress, and defended the lack of due process, and what was doing with Marjorie. So, I cannot be a hypocrite and stand right now that Marjorie Taylor Greene and President Trump didn't have proper due process, but it's OK, for Democrats, not to have that.

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You are to have values. If you believe in this constitutional republic, if you believe the law governs, and we don't have kings and queens that we don't have top-down approaches, then you have to stick with that. Otherwise, people will lose credibility, and we'll have a lot of important investigations, and people will not trust us.

COOPER: I want to also ask you about Ukraine. You're Ukrainian-born. And tonight, President Zelenskyy said the decision by the United States, and Germany, to send battle tanks, to his country prove that quote, "Freedom is only getting stronger."

How do you think the decision to send Abrams tanks will boost the morale of the Ukrainian military and citizens?

SPARTZ: Well, I think it's important decision. But it's another situation, and where we have to decide, what is our strategy, really, is, because a death by thousand cuts is really going to cost a lot of lives, and cost a lot of money.

And generally dictatorships, like Russia, are much, easier for them to have playing chess, and have a longer games than having for democracy. Democracy is probably much better. And my job (ph) would be to do more preventive things, and plays checkers than chess. So, I think, this strategy can cost us life, and cost a lot of money, and we need to be much smarter.

I mean, it took us a while. We've had this discussion. I met with Germans, many months ago, and there was a lot of politics in that. But I think we need to go beyond politics, because it's a serious situation. And we need to deter Russia, from further aggression, and a lot of things could be done much faster, and in much more proactive way.

COOPER: How do you mean done faster, more proactively? I mean, what would playing checkers actually look like?

SPARTZ: Well, we've been talking about these tanks, in the spring. Then, we were talking about this, in the summer. We were talking about everything gets a lot of time to get anything approved. So, we're talking almost a year, since this war started. And we're still talking about just approval of the tanks, time to train people, to actually, for these people to be able to maintain, and even deliver them.

So, it's going to be a while. And there are a lot of things that are going to be happened this winter. It's the same like we have a long discussions, what we're going to do with artillery, and what kind of things we can do, to deter further aggressions, and make sure that Russia understand that we're serious, and get to the table, so we can de-escalate.

COOPER: Congresswoman Victoria Spartz, I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

SPARTZ: Thank you.

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