Transcript: House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Turner on

The following is a transcript of an interview with House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Mike Turner, Republican of Ohio, on “Face the Nation” that aired on July 21, 2024.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Good morning and welcome to Face The Nation. As we start a new week here in Washington, the country is still making sense of the tumultuous moment that we are in. On Monday, just two days after Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania rally, a federal judge in Florida dismissed the charges brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith for Trump’s mishandling of classified documents. Those counts had been widely viewed as the most serious charges out of all the felony counts he faces in federal and state courts. Smith plans to appeal. That same day, the Republican National Convention kicked off in Milwaukee, and Mr. Trump selected Ohio’s junior Senator JD Vance as his running mate. And it was a rough week for Mr. Biden following both his COVID diagnosis and the ongoing debate within the Democratic Party about whether he remains at the top of the ticket. We have a lot to get to. And we begin this morning with the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Ohio Congressman Mike Turner, good to have you here. 

REPRESENTATIVE MIKE TURNER: Thank you for having me. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: So despite this epic security lapse, Donald Trump has praised the Secret Service detail and their actions last Saturday. I know you’ve said the director of the Secret Service should resign if she’s not fired first.

REP. TURNER: Correct.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You get to ask her questions tomorrow. What do you want to know?

REP. TURNER: Well, the failures are just absolutely outrageous and incredible. You know, first you start asking the question, is this a failure of resources, is this a failure of protocols or a failure of management and it appears that now we know that it’s all three, that people on the ground at Trump’s campaign who were involved with security had asked for additional resources, they identified that there were gaps. And what’s interesting is when we had our briefing, and this Secret Service gave us their own timeline, their own timeline admits that nine minutes before Donald Trump took the stage, that they were aware of a particular threat, and still let Donald Trump take the stage. And then as we also know, from their own timeline, they didn’t take a shot to take out the shooter until Donald Trump himself was shot. And what you see from this is that, you know, obviously, thank God, Donald Trump is alive, and as he’s alive, we look at this as incompetence. But if he had been killed, they would be culpable. Every aspect of their failure leads right to giving an opportunity to shoot Donald Trump. And that is going to be the major issue. How did this happen, and of course, she needs to be fired, President Biden should fire her, she’s clearly not going to resign. But her failures are incredibly well known throughout the organization. And even as we look at that day, they were very, very basic failures.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But she’s at the very top, are you saying this isn’t just an operational problem on the ground? 

REP. TURNER: Well she’s the leadership and what we’re hearing from the reports from requests for additional resources, if they went to the top of the organization. Clearly, she was the one responsible for ensuring the safety of Donald Trump and Joe Biden. And what we see here, these failures are so extreme, that that you know that they need new leadership. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: The Secret Service, which had initially denied that they had turned down requests, now says that there were some specific units or resources that were not provided. And then they relied on local police. Bigger picture, I mean- Pennsylvania’s a concealed carry state, this firearm was legally purchased by the shooter, we have mass shootings in this country, unfortunately, all the time, large gatherings are prime targets. It’s hard to stop a lone actor is the plain fact here is that this could easily happen again, no matter who the Secret Service Director is.

REP. TURNER: Not in this way, this was so obvious, a superior position, their footprint was insufficient, their communication structure was insufficient. There was no way for anybody to communicate forward, what was occurring. And the- you know, on that day, everything that occurred resulted in President Donald Trump not being protected from from this this site and resulted in almost, him losing his life.

MARGARET BRENNAN:  We looked at our polling this week, and 62% of voters say they expect to see an increase in political violence in this country over the next two years. This was one instance of it. Do you expect more violence?

REP. TURNER: Well, I think we’re certainly in a temperament where it is very difficult right now. But so far, that is part of the FBI investigation, they’re letting this be known early, that it doesn’t appear that he was, you know, politically- wasn’t politically driven, or motivated. That in fact, perhaps he was tied to an interest in mass shootings and in and in his loner status and and, obviously, his fixation on guns, then- brought himself to do this. We’ll have to find out the whole picture. We also have to find out if is- is he- is he a lone actor, really we say he was a lone shooter, was he a lone actor. What really motivated this shooter is going to be very important.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So- so in other words, he may not have been motivated by politics, like would you consider him a domestic violent extremist or is this this could have been any mass shooter at any mall in America and he just happened to pick a rally.

REP. TURNER: Well, that’s- the early reports from the FBI indicate that, that he was just looking for places to go and that he picked this rally. Now we don’t know that the investigation will have to be completed, but what’s clear is regardless of what kind of threat he was, the failures by the Secret Service are extreme. He walked in with a ladder, he had a rangefinder, he had a weapon he got onto a roof that was within short distance. All of these failures are obvious failures. And that’s clearly why the secret service needs- needs scrutiny and the director needs to be fired.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You are one of the strongest and most influential advocates in Congress for additional aid to Ukraine. You just went there. 

REP. TURNER: Yes. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: JD Vance, now the vice-presidential candidate, is one of the most vocal opponents. Are you worried that he is going to be the last person in President Trump’s ear if he wins?

REP. TURNER: No, and I -vice presidents don’t have significant impact on on foreign policy. But the other aspect is, is that he certainly won’t impact or change Donald Trump’s foreign policy. Donald Trump was the first to provide lethal weapons to Ukraine, reversing the policy of the prior Obama administration that would not provide them lethal aid, those were actually weapons that were used when Russia first began to attack Kiev. He’s- just yesterday, I think it was had a phone call with Zelensky. And it was reported by both sides that it was very positive. In his heart, Donald Trump is a negotiator. And he sees this as an opportunity to end this war and this war does need ended. We can’t continue–

MARGARET BRENNAN: On Ukraine’s terms and not Russia’s? 

REP. TURNER: I believe absolutely that Ukraine needs to be the determiner of their future and their boundaries in negotiations. But at the same time, they can’t be in the situation they’re in with the Biden administration placing unbelievable restrictions on their use of weapons, their ability to fight Russia, take the fight to Russia, this is a stasis, this is going to be an ongoing forever bout- border war. Under the Biden administration’s current restrictions on Ukraine. I think that Donald Trump will walk in and let everybody know that Ukraine is gonna get everything it needs, they’re gonna get the authorities they need. And Russia is going to have at that point, a motivation to come to the table.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Russia, their foreign minister, praised the selection of JD Vance, and you know, that senior intelligence officials have briefed that Moscow’s preferred candidate remains Donald Trump. Does any of that concern you?

REP. TURNER: Well, again, I think everybody around the world wants a strong leader for the United States. And what we currently have is a leader that is incapable of really making decisions, we need a leader who’s going to step up, represent the United States. And as Donald Trump has said, ending these conflicts, it’s going to take a leader, it’s going to take a strong leader, and Donald Trump certainly has shown that.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, he said just the other day to Bloomberg, ‘I think Taiwan should pay us for defense, you know, we’re no different than an insurance company. Taiwan doesn’t give us anything.’ That doesn’t sound like stalwart dedication to defending America’s allies.

REP. TURNER: Well, I think what’s important there again,- I think what’s important here again, back to the negotiations of the- Donald Trump’s focus on a negotiator. One thing that’s clear, we cannot have the United States just be a guarantor of territorial integrity of countries around the world. We need military alliances. That means they need to be strong, and they need to to participate. That’s certainly what his criticism of NATO has been. We’re not a guarantor. We want a strong NATO, we want a strong United States. All of those positions are consistent, really, with the last four and five administrations have looked at our allies and said, you’re not doing enough. And I think he’ll continue to say that.

MARGARET BRENNAN: On Taiwan? Strategic ambiguity shouldn’t be the position anymore?

REP. TURNER: Strategic ambiguity doesn’t have anything to do with whether or not Taiwan is is strong militarily. They’re making their own- their decisions that they’re making, as to the strength of their military, should be in line with how they’re going to fight and defend their country. Not just that the United States is going to come in and back them up.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Chair Turner always good to have you here. 

REP. TURNER: Thank you.

MARGARET BRENNAN: In person.