Face the Nation: Garcia, Tillis

So the big reason I wanted to speak with you this morning is, of course, you're now trying to conduct a pretty aggressive review of the Epstein documents, as they've now been released by the Justice Department. There have been about 3.5 million documents released. And based on a CBS News review, so far, there doesn't appear to be enough evidence to criminally charge anyone else. Saturday night, the Department of Justice released this legally required list of all government officials and politically exposed persons in the Epstein files. More than 300 names on the list, which they acknowledge, are people who are here listed in a wide variety of contexts. DOJ says they're doing as asked because it was part of the law. It lists everyone from Beyoncé to Joe Biden, George W. Bush, Princess Diana, Michael Jackson, Barack Obama, Mike Pence, the Trumps, Mark Zuckerberg, among others, because they came up in one way or another in the documents. A few questions-- why was this asked for? And are you aware yet of any names being not on this list that should be on the list? We're reviewing that list, of course. But let's be really clear. This is a massive cover-up being led by the White House and the DOJ. The fact that 50%, half, of the Epstein files have not been released to the public and to the Congress, and of those that have been released, the actual files that have been out in the public or that we've seen, they're overly redacted. Many of the survivors and victims, their names are actually appearing. So there's no protection for the survivors. Yet the names of billionaires, the names of folks that could be co-conspirators, that helped fund Jeffrey Epstein, that could have actually been involved in the terror and rape, as we know, abuse of women and children, some of those names continue to be redacted and protected? Why won't the DOJ actually follow the law, not just of what was passed by Congress, but the subpoena that was put in place by the Oversight Committee during the summer? And so this continues to be a cover-up. And the American public understand that they continue to hide and protect and deflect. Why does Donald Trump, the president, continue, in our opinion, to protect these powerful men? We're not going to stop until we get justice for the survivors. Well, the Justice Department says they've released everything they can, and the rest are protected by attorney privilege, contained victim information, or contained child sexual assault material. I know there's been a back and forth in recent days about a handful of names that were redacted, should have been unredacted. Turns out they didn't have anything to do with it. They just happened to be in an event or in a photo with Jeffrey Epstein, basically. But I want to ask you about your investigation, a congressional investigation. You told the attorney general on Friday it would take more than seven years for members to check the redactions on those 3 million pages, which sounds unrealistic. But is it your intent to review all of those documents to see what other information is there, what other names are either mentioned or missing? Absolutely. Look, we have a great team on the Committee that's reviewing right now every single document, going through all the files that are available to the public, looking at redactions, trying to understand and piecing together an investigation. And it's not just the documents. We're interviewing survivors. We're talking to key witnesses. We're going to be holding hearings in the future as well. So all of that is part of this. But at the end of the day, they have not given us all the documents. So until we actually get the full set of files, this is not going to be a complete investigation. And the cover-up that's being led by the White House and Pam Bondi is continuing. And the American public see this. And so they need to release all of the files. All right, well, working with what you've got so far, what are you looking for specifically? Are there names? Are there events? Are there situations to clarify that they've been released or that they're out there? What is it you're looking for? Look, there's a variety of things. Number one is we want to ensure that all the names of the men that either were co-conspirators, those that themselves terrorized and brutalized women and children, those people need to be exposed. That work has begun. An additional piece of this is who was financing Jeffrey Epstein. So for example, this upcoming week, we'll be interviewing Les Wexner, who is likely have been the single largest benefactor and providing financial support to Jeffrey Epstein. Where did he get all of his money, and for what? And where was that money going? That is another critical part of this investigation. We've subpoenaed also the bank records. So we're going through all those. And that information is critical to our investigation. And then, of course, is who was involved in the trafficking of girls and women. It wasn't just Ghislaine Maxwell. Why were there so many women being attacked in places across the country, whether it was New York, but also Palm Beach? You look at Mar-a-Lago. Why was Mar-a-Lago a location where women continue to be trafficked from? So these are questions that we need to ask. We have questions for President Trump. And I think the broader issue here is why wasn't this investigated when these accusations and these stories actually were heard by the FBI years ago? Where was the investigation? Where was the DOJ? And this, by the way, is an issue not just in Republican administrations, but also ones led by Democrats. We have to get answers. You mentioned Wexner, who you're interviewing this coming week. Have you heard back yet from the man formerly known as Prince Andrew? We have not. But we absolutely have sent letters. We want to actually talk to Prince Andrew. And it's not just former Prince Andrew. I mean, what's happening right now over in the UK is pretty stunning. And it's actually a show of what happens when the government listens to the public. There are actually things happening to those that have been involved. That example that's happening over there and other parts of the world needs to happen in our country. And the fact that the White House continues to cover up for these files and for these men I think is shameful. Release all the files today. And the last thing, they keep claiming that, oh, well, there's some attorney-client privilege, there's interagency communication we can't put out to the public. That might be true in the Epstein Transparency Act, but it is not true in the subpoena that asks for the exact same documents that was passed last July and August. And so there is no reason why Congress shouldn't have all of the documents in front of us right now. Let me ask you about a few more specific names. I've heard about the cover-up that you're alleging by the White House. Let's work through some of these names. Peter Mandelson, the former British ambassador to the US. You heard back from him yet? We have not, but we absolutely want to talk to him.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, he had said in an interview last year he hadn't seen Howard Lutnick in years. Turns out he went to see his island off the US Virgin Islands with his family back in 2012, and he had business interests with him in 2014. Are you working with Republican Chairman Jim Comer to bring Howard Lutnick in for questioning? We have asked Chairman Comer to bring in Howard Lutnick, and we have yet had no response. Not only did he visit the island, he had tons of communication with Jeffrey Epstein, after it was already known that Jeffrey Epstein was essentially convicted for preying on children. So it is shameful that he's actually in our government. He should not be the Commerce secretary. He should come talk to the Oversight Committee.

The Oversight Committee also voted last month to hold bill and Hillary Clinton in contempt of Congress for failing to show up for similar testimony. They're now scheduled to appear later this month for closed-door testimony. What's the point of having them come in? Look, we've said from day one that we're willing to talk to anybody, whether they're Republicans or Democrats, whoever they are, and how powerful they are. If you have information about Jeffrey Epstein, we want to talk to you. We've been saying that about Bill-- about President Clinton for a while. I'm glad that he's coming in. Look, the one thing I'll say is I think both President Clinton and Secretary Clinton have also added that they would like those hearings to be public. That's something that we absolutely support. We have questions for President Clinton. We'll be asking those in New York in the weeks ahead, as you know. But there's a lot of people that we need to speak with. And the more that we can have these conversations in public, I think it's better for the American people. It's what they want to see. And they want to understand what was the truth about Epstein, who he knew, where he got his money from, and why has there been a constant focus on covering up his crimes by so many in government? Congressman Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, thank you for spending part of Sunday with us. We appreciate it. And we'll be right back. Secretary of State Marco Rubio left the annual Munich Security Conference after offering some reassurance to European allies wary of the Trump administration's posture on NATO but remained firm on the administration's ambitions to reshape the transatlantic alliance. North Carolina Republican Senator Thom Tillis was among the group of American lawmakers attending the conference. We spoke with him Friday and began by asking whether the US is still a reliable partner for Europe. Well, in some ways, I hope that we're going to enter an era where our reliance on Europe is improved. Look, I've got a challenge with some of the things coming out of the White House, but a lot of that frustration comes from a $2 trillion shortfall in investing in our mutual defense by far too many NATO allies. Now, they're making right now. But you have to give the administration and the president some latitude to point to the fact that a $2 trillion shortfall over two decades, what has that done to our readiness? What has that done to our innovation? What's that done to our military industrial base and manufacturing capacity? We could be scaling up latent capabilities that would have been serving that $2 trillion to better serve Ukraine and better modernize their own weapons. So let's make sure that people look at this with balance and understand that a part of the reason why we are where we are is because we have that deficit in the 20 years, in the first 20 years, of this century. Now, the NATO alliance is the most important alliance in the history of mankind. And the Article I branch, Congress, believes that, and they believe it in large numbers. So we're going to commit. I'm here in Munich to basically remind everybody that we have three co-equal branches of government. The president is trying to get our NATO allies to perform more strongly and have some level of independence, but the Congress has their back. Yeah, so when the Defense secretary sends the Pentagon's number 3 to a NATO defense meeting this week and tells the rest of the alliance the US's support for NATO will continue but, quote, "in a more limited and focused fashion," is that the message that Europe should be receiving right now? Is that the way the administration should approach it? I would not have used those words. I think what we want to do is be stronger and represent the deterrent capabilities of our alliance. The United States could possibly go it alone. But the reality is, our alliance is what makes us the world's superpower and what keeps this world safer. We're going to have malign actors for-- we've had them throughout history. We will continue to. Putin is a liar and a murderer. He should be expelled from Ukraine. I'll accept the peace agreement if Volodymyr Zelenskyy wants one. But we need to make sure that our adversaries, unless they change profoundly, are viewed as adversaries that we have to coexist with but not appease. At the same time, Europe needs to step up, not let this be episodic, that they're now starting to contribute to their mutual defense-- their own capabilities, incidentally. It's not like they're writing a check and send it to the US. This is building up their capabilities, their interoperability, their ability to work with NATO allies if a conflict occurs. So it's an emotional time. I've got a philosophy that nothing is ever as good-- as bad as it seems. I think people coming to Munich thinking that this is the end of NATO are being a bit alarmist and that we just need to get things right and learn from the past mistakes of our allies, or learn from the past mistakes of people who have come up short. But the rhetoric about NATO somehow being a second-tier sort of alliance going forward is clearly being spoken by somebody who doesn't really understand the brilliance and the power of the NATO alliance. On NATO, one of the things the alliance announced in recent days is this plan for a new Arctic Sentry mission to strengthen security across the Arctic region. That decision, of course, comes in the wake of the president, in the last few weeks, urging NATO to do more for Arctic security, dropping is threats of military invasion of Greenland. Is this new operation exactly what you're talking about, what you want to see the alliance doing? And is it also the answer to the president's concerns about Greenland? Well, we talked in Davos. The reality is, to me, it was irresponsible to go anywhere other than figuring out how we modernize the 1951 agreement where Greenland and Denmark agreed to more or less give us unfettered access in Greenland to project power in the Arctic. So now that the temperatures have cooled, show a little bit of respect to Denmark and to Greenland. Figure out what part of Greenland. We need to upfit our space base, the only instance of US presence in Greenland now to the north. Take a look at a base that they offered to us for $1 and come up with a fiscally sound, sustainable way to project power in the East by working with Canada and their icebreakers, which are necessary for us to navigate there, working with Denmark and our Scandinavian and Arctic allies to really project the kind of power we need to deter China and Russia. The German chancellor, at the start of this conference, suggested that the world order as we know it is over. I know you were talking about hyperbole there at the start of this. Would you agree, though, with the chancellor, that things are changing that rapidly? Only if the chancellor allows it to. Look, if the NATO countries who came up short for decades would just admit that was a mistake and then redouble their efforts, I think that this goes just like the hyperbolic language around Greenland. It's now almost-- it's unbelievable that it was only three weeks ago, but it's almost in the distant past. I think we have to look ahead and recognize that the American people, the American Congress, and I believe, the administration is behind it. But they're not wrong to point out the deficiencies of the past. Look, I've been in meetings where people talk about some of our social programs and how we should really step up with the European world. And then at the same time, they're funding some of those programs at the expense of their own defense. So let's just have an honest discussion with family members and get the family right. Let's work through a few other issues here. European leaders this week also suggested that they're not taking retaliatory tariffs off the table. Back here at home, the House voted to essentially reject the president's tariffs on Canada after a bunch of Republicans joined with Democrats to make that happen in the House. If that ever comes up in the Senate, are you someone who would agree with that, that the tariffs against Canada should be stripped away? Well, I've looked at-- what I think we need to do is get the USMCA modernization, the agreement on the table and address that in the context of strengthening our relationship with Canada and Mexico. Look, we're a very important trading bloc, and we should build on our successes. As I'm sure you know, a lot of the tariffs, there's a lot of exemptions because of the existence of USMCA. I think we ought to get in a room and sort them out. I've expressed publicly concerns with a lot of the tariffs that were imposed. I still, to this day, can't figure out why we have a 50% tariff on Brazil when we have a trade surplus with Brazil. Those sorts of things are irrational to me. In other cases, I can justify it based on past behaviors of countries that we have a deficit with. But we need to be surgical and not use a blunt force object to negotiate trade relationships, particularly with China and Mexico-- or I'm sorry, with Canada and Mexico. Should your party be distancing itself more from the president, though, on tariffs, especially the closer it gets to November, when the American public is not necessarily a fan of these moves? See, I don't think it's a matter of distancing ourself. That's what's wrong with Washington. We've gotten into this mode now to where we have some sort of a loyalty or fealty test because we either disagree-- oftentimes, it's not even the what. It's the how. I do think what of holding countries that we have had chronic trade deficits with accountable is necessary. And if tariffs are required to get their attention, fine. But the how is a very surgical approach, not a blanket approach, not one that actually creates froth and uncertainty, because that's not good for business. And the US, if anything else, is really good when we're at our best on certainty. You reiterated this week you're going to block any confirmation hearings for a new Federal Reserve chairman or board member until the Justice Department's investigation of Jerome Powell is, as you put it, resolved. But will there be confirmation hearings for Kevin Warsh even if this DOJ investigation into Powell's continuing? Well, let's make the distinction between a confirmation hearing and then a confirmation markup. Mr. Walsh is going to have to decide whether or not he wants to go through with this because as I'm sure you know, once the nominee is put forward, there are certain restrictions on what he can do in his business life. But I've tried to make it very clear that I have no intention of supporting any confirmation of any Fed Board member, chair or otherwise-- to fill the Kugler seat, for example-- until this is resolved. I think we had a young US attorney with a dream trying to get the president's attention, not even consulting with the administration and big DOJ on something that maybe they thought they'd get brownie points for. It's not cute. And if this is only about two minutes of discussion that came before Chair Powell, that prosecutor should listen to the seven members, Republican members, who said they didn't see any criminal intent or activity. And more importantly, the prosecutor should understand that the protocol normally would be a referral from the chair or a member of the committee to say we think a crime was committed here. We've got a crime scene where seven Republican members say no crime was committed. How hard is that to understand? But when the Treasury Secretary said Friday, there's a deal to at least hold confirmation hearings for Kevin Warsh to serve as the next chairman of the Federal Reserve, is he misguided on that? Well, that's not a deal. That's a decision that the chair makes unilaterally in his capacity as chair. The decision I get to make is whether or not I allow a markup and, if I do allow a markup, how I vote. And I'm saying that, until the matter is solved, I'm a no. Understood. And when you say, "resolved," when you want this investigation resolved, does that mean everything dropped by the Justice Department and other entities? Well, keep in mind everything is an investigation about two minutes of commentary. Even for this guy, that's not hard to figure out. You have been quite critical of the administration on a suite of issues, whether it's tariffs, how it's engaging Europe, as you mentioned earlier, concerns about Homeland Security and whatnot. And you've said that it runs the risk of hurting your party going into November. So I'm curious. If the elections were held today, would Republicans hold on to the House and the Senate? I think that we hold on to the Senate. I have questions about the House, and some of that comes from what I believe may have been a little bit of overreach with respect to redistricting. Plus, you have the historic challenge of a midterm election after presidential election, a lot of complexities in it. But we've got work to do. And again, my beef almost always relates to what I consider to be how things are being done. And I think the president has some advisors around him-- you've heard me talk about Stephen Miller. You know my opinion about Kristi Noem. These are people that don't look around corners and are not taking care of this president's legacy, and I intend to. And if I have to speak bluntly, that's what I'm going to do in my remaining time in the Senate. Well, we appreciate you speaking bluntly with us this morning from the Munich Security Conference. Senator Tillis, thank you for your time. Thank you. And we'll be right back. That's it for us today. Thank you for watching. Margaret will be back next week. Until then, for Face the Nation,I'm Ed O'Keefe. [THEME MUSIC]