"Face the Nation," July 9, 2023
Interview
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Good morning. Great to be on set with you, Margaret.
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We do have one.
Margaret, that's what the CHIPS and Science bill that President Biden signed into law last year, that the Congress moved forward on a bipartisan basis has delivered, tens of billions of dollars of new investments in onshoring semiconductor chip manufacturing, a record number of new advanced manufacturing sites in the United States.
There is more work for us to do on this in this Congress. And Senator Schumer and Republicans in the Senate are leading work on that. So we have turned a corner on having an industrial policy in the United States that brings back manufacturing. That's the core of Bidenomics, of rebuilding our economy from the middle out.
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That's right.
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So, China is in a commanding position on the processing of strategic critical minerals. The administration has a plan, has a program under way with a dozen countries around the world that are our allies and partners who have untapped resources.
I was just on a bipartisan trip to Europe. We visited Norway, which has critical minerals in abundance, several of them, that we need, that China currently has. There is a plan and a path forward. And as long as we sustain our bipartisan support for it, I think there is a clear path to transition away from what is currently a dangerous dependency on China for these strategic minerals.
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We will have to see.
President Biden is directly, personally engaged in this diplomacy. The Greeks need and deserve security reassurances that the lessening of tensions with Turkey will continue. We are continuing to provide cutting- edge equipment like the F-35 to our critical NATO partner Greece, as long as Greece is reassured.
Sweden has taken the steps they should to address Turkey's legitimate concerns. I remain hopeful that there will be a resolution of this before the Vilnius summit. We have 31 members of NATO today. There should be 32. Adding Finland and Sweden to NATO is a strategic defeat for Putin. It means that, no matter the outcome on the ground in Ukraine, he has failed in his objective to divide and weaken NATO.
Because of President Biden's leadership, NATO is the strongest it's ever been.
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Yes.
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Well, first, we can't admit Ukraine to NATO right now. There's a war going on that has to be resolved, that has to end with Ukrainian victory.
I was just on a bipartisan trip, as I mentioned, with Senator Murray, chair of Appropriations, to meet with E.U. leaders and NATO leaders. It's important to keep in mind that what the Ukrainians are fighting for is full membership in Europe. And they are on track to join the E.U.
Joining the E.U. also means improving their transparency, their rule of law, their civil society, which lays the foundation for NATO membership in the future.
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Right.
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Well, there has to be a security guarantee for Ukraine going forward. For them...
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For them to be conceivably admissible to NATO, their equipment, their training, their military has to be up to NATO standards.
And we are moving them in that direction. But I will remind you, back in 1994, in Budapest, the U.S., U.K. and Russia persuaded Ukraine to give up their nuclear weapons...
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... in exchange for a commitment to a territorial security guarantee.
Some sort of security guarantee for Ukraine has to be on the far side of this war, where so many Ukrainians are fighting and dying bravely to push back out the Russian aggressors, who are occupying 20 percent of Ukraine today.
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Well, that's a decision for 31 NATO members to make.
My hunch is, they will make real progress on Sweden accession, they will make real progress on sustaining our critical support in the middle of this counteroffensive. But I don't think they will leave Vilnius with a specific timeline.
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Yes.
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I do.
This was a very hard decision. The president really -- he listened to all sides.
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I did not speak directly to him about this decision. I weighed in indirectly through folks in his core team.
But, bluntly, he looked at several different core factors. First, we are running out of .115 artillery munitions.
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And they are burning through them at a remarkable rate, 6,000 to 8,000 a day. That's a million a year.
We have a plan to bring back online the manufacturing of .155 shells at scale, but that won't happen for months. They are at risk of losing this counteroffensive if they run out of those shells. We have a large stockpile of .155 shells that are cluster munitions.
It's the Ukrainians who are asking to be able to use...
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... these on their own soil. They have committed to monitoring their use, to remediating them after the war.
And, frankly, they will be tactically helpful against dug-in Russian troops that are behind large minefields. So, weighing all of those factors, the president made a tough call that I will support.
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Yes.
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I have not.
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On his security situation, I have not.
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Yes.
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Look, I can't share anything about the FBI and what they are or are not doing with regards to the special envoy.
But there is a lot of concern and interest in Congress on that committee and others about the status of any potential negotiation with Iran. The Iranians are providing the Russians critical drones and munitions for their aggression in Ukraine. I think that puts even greater tension on any possible conversations between the United States...
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... our regional allies and Iran.
And I do think we need a briefing to update the members of Congress.
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Yes.
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Look, you know I'm an advocate for the hostages, broadly speaking.
Jason Rezaian, who was held in an Iranian prison for more than 500 days, came home and received an IRS bill in the mail as a result for unpaid taxes.
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I just introduced a bipartisan bill to get rid of those undue, unexpected, unreasonable harms.
Yes, I think the president should meet with hostage families. He has a lot on his plate. He has been a strong advocate for recovering Americans from overseas. As you know, his administration led the return of Brittney Griner. I am hoping that there will also be some movement in the case of a "Wall Street Journal" reporter who is unjustly imprisoned in Russia as well.
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Evan Gershkovich.
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I have reason to believe the administration is working tirelessly on trying to return all Americans who are unjustly detained.
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Thank you.
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