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democracies underway on china's doorstep. president biden and other g7 leaders in japan this weekend hammering out ways to counter china's economic coercion. the minister of the chinese embassy in japan, meanwhile, saying, quote: stop interfering in china's internal affairs. stop suppressing china's economy and trade. stop hyping the china threat and stop making these summit and relate bilateral and multilateral activities a political performance of anti-china and containment. all of this as china is simultaneously holding its own summit with heads of five countries to its west. before he left for japan, biden was peppered with questions about when he will meet with xi jinping. [inaudible conversations] >> reporter: -- with president xi soon, sir? >> [inaudible] >> reporter: why haven't we had that phone call since the balloon incidentsome. >> he wants to keep the lines of communication open.

he talked about this just before we left d.c. there will be a discussion with president xi at at the appropriate time. maria: unfortunately, every meeting includes a lack of questions about what's important to the american people like why the ccp covered up covid-19. it's been nearly four months since the chinese spy balloon flew across our country. joining me right now is former trump deputy national security adviser, american conservative union foundation board member and the author of "revolution: trump, washington and we, the people," kt mcfarland back with us. welcome back. >> well, it's always a pleasure. and i'm so glad that you're focused on these issues that the american administration is not focused on in asia, and that is how you really combat china. because they're all talking, they're all saying things, but what they're thinking is quite different. maria: and not only that, but every time joe biden speaks to xi jinping, we don't have any evidence that a the he mentioned covid-19 is escaping the wuhan lab and why the ccp covered it

up i, we have no evidence that he's actually pushing back on surveillance of america like that spy balloon, and we have no evidence of him bringing up the issue of intellectual trade theft as well. why not? >> well, why do you think, maria? i mean, we've now got, you know, evidence, black and white evidence, bank account evidence that joe biden and his family got paid off by the chinese. we now know that the biden-penn center, which is where the people from the obama administration went, the think tank they went to to before they then joined the biden administration, that was bought and paid for by the chinese government. so it's not just joe biden, it's the all the people who work for him now, tony blinken and others, who were paid for by the i chinese government. your not going to call china into question. and to think that they're going to the this meeting and they'll all talk about all the important things, they're not doing anything about it. i mean, the french president went to the talk to the chinese president not too long ago and he said, look, with regard to

taiwan, we're not going to follow america's lead. the german government, they're negotiating with the chinese for a port in hamburg. so whatever anybody is saying is not really what they're doing. certainly not what they ought to be doing. maria: it's the very disturbing. kt, assess the china threat for us. what's most concerning to you? >> well, the chinese have a plan, and they've followed the plan that within the decade, probably within the next five years, they plan to be the global empire. economically, technologically, militarily, diplomatically. and in the last couple of months, out of their own mouths the chinese president says china's going to command the global height. we'll protect the world. but we're going to have a new way of doing things. we're going to have this global civilization initiative. every other country, you can keep what you want to do internally, but china's going to set the rules globally. that's a direct threat to the rules-based international order we've had since the end of world war ii. china doesn't want allies. china wants to be the global superpower. everybody else is going to be

the vassal, and they're picking off these countries one at a time, one after another. and they're playing to the greed and the economic interest. that's a very scary world five years from now if china's totally in charge. maria: this is really disturbing especially since we just learned recently that china decided to put police stations throughout america. i mean, what gall and arrogance, to be able to thinking that would be okay. we've got a spotlight on it, you know that, kt. but i also want to to shine the spotlight on the news we learned this week from the durham report. of course it confirmed what we already knew, what we have been reporting here for many years, that the trump-russia collusion story was made up by trump's opponents including hillary clinton's campaign and top democrats. the report also revealing that the fbi shut down four separate criminal investigations into the clinton the foundation. kt, you served as president trump's deputy national security adviser. what's your to the all of thisesome. >> well, i knew because i was a

victim of it. when the mueller investigation and the fbi came after me the early days of the trump administration, they knew i hadn't committed any crime. but that didn't matter. they just wanted to to go after anybody associated with president trump in hopes they could break them or get them to the lie or at a minimum bankrupt them. but i think as i take a step back and it's not just about me, it's not just about president trump, what is it about? we now have black and white evidence that the fbi interfered in the 2016 election. and then when they failed to get their candidate elected, hillary clinton, then they set out to destroy the trump administration. so then go back, go up to 2020. it was the cia this time that got involved in the 2020 the election with those 51 former intel agents who talked about the hunter biden laptop as total russian disinformation. so they've gotten away with it for two elections. they're for sure going to get away with it, try to get away with it in '24, right? because there's no consequence. the difference is in 2024 the evidence is there.

we now have the durham investigation, we have all the congressional investigations. there is now hard evidence that there was election interference by the u.s. intelligence agencies and the department of justice. they've got to be terrified, those individuals have to be terrified that a republican president comes in in the 2024 election with a republican attorney general, investigates them and charges them all with the crimes they've committed over the last eight years. maria: well, we'll see about that. you're right, there are questions around these elections because of this interference. do you think there will be election interference then in '24some. >> take it to the bank. they will absolutely interfere in 2024. i'm not sure how, but they will absolutely interfere not only because they're not going to like whoever the republican candidate is, but because they're going to protect their own hides. that's why they were talking to their own people and the whistleblowers have brought this up, that they were talking -- don't put anything on paper, just tell us orally. they knew they were doing tug stuff wrong, that they were going tock liable for

prosecution. maria: yeah. it's too bad, i wish the media were more daughter yous about all of this. -- curious about all of this. unfortunately, the media takes the narrative the of the democrat party and then runs with it and tries to can cancel anybody who's not onboard. >> they're in the same position. they can't possibly admit they were wrong because that sort of cuts under, it just undercuts their whole reason for being. so they're going to continue to have the fake narrative, and they're going to continue to cover up and pretend that nothing bad went on. they're all in it together. this is what the terrible thing -- these people are selling the country, this is selling us out. not only to foreign leaders, but they're interfering in our elections, they're tear tearing up the constitution. why? because they want to protect their jobs, protect their ratings. it just -- maria: terrible. >> i never thought i would be this upset about how anybody in government was performing, but this is just a gut punch to the american people. maria: it really is. and because you're a patriot, you don't want to see this kind of injustice the, i agree with you.

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ceo bob nardelli. bob, great to see you, as always. >> thank you, maria it's always great to be with you. thank you. maria: we've seen a real slowdown the in the economy as the federal reserve has now raised interest rates ten times. what are you seeing mt. way of inflation right now, bob? >> well, inflation continues and is persistent across all of retail. i think we see a tsunami of issues coming at retail and companies. a couple of things, maria. let's talk about georgia, first of allful we just -- of all. we just were notified we're going to get a 12% increase in our electric bill effective june due to supply, due to increasing costs in the supply of fluid, of natural gas, if you will, or oil. and so that's just the start of it, maria. we're going to see between 16-148 increase in our bill and, oh, by the way, we're going to get another -- we will get one more increase of 4.5% in '4 and

'25. now, this is all the result of a decision this administration made on inauguration day. you and i've talked about it countless times, when he attacked the petroleum industry which is pervasive in our lives, in everything we touch, do, fertilizer, transportation, etc. so again, inflation is continuing, so the feds are going to have to continue to look seriously, unfortunately, at rate increases, maria. maria: yeah. i mean, this is partly because of this reckless spending that that we're talking about. i mean, the federal reserve has been the one and the only one rowing the boat here because with as the federal reserve raises interest rates to take down inflation, the fiscal side of the equation is continuing to spew out more dollars chasing too few goods, and that is inflationary. right now the president is pushing back on negotiating with kevin mccarthy about putting some spending limits in place

and spending cuts. you've seen it, you are onboard, you've got investments throughout business, and you've seen your own company face higher expenses because of higher interest rates, isn't that right? >> it is correct, maria. so a couple of points, whether it's the on public boards or a lot of the private boards i participate on, i have seen some of my companies go from 2 to $4 million of interest rate to now up to 14, 16, $18 million. so a lot of the middle market and lower middle market companies are getting crushed. and you talked about it during the past week where we saw a number of companies file for bankruptcy within a 24-hour period. we're seeing impacts not only on inflation, but again, you saw target talked about, brian talked about a $500 million increase many in shrink which is a to polite way for saying theft. if you look at the national federation of retail, they said

in 2021 it was almost $96 billion, and they've identified about a 26% increase in organized crime. we're seeing starbucks close stores. we're seeing walmart close stores. walmart made the top line, missed profitability. amazon, warning about the back half of the year. we talked about home depot, missed the top line but managed to make earnings per share. so, again, this is confluence of impact on businesses, particularly retail businesses. and as you say, walmart talked about smaller quantities, house brands like costco, kirkland. we're seeing this impact everything we touch and do as consumers today. and you talked about the increase, credit cards, $986 billion just on credit cards. maria: yeah. >> it's really having tremendous impact on the individual consumer in this economy today, maria, unfortunately. maria: yeah. and i couldn't believe that number that target said, half a

billion dollars just due to theft. they call it shrink, shrinkage of inventory. bob, it's a great honor to audiocassette with you as always. thanks very much -- to talk with you as always, thanks very much. >> thank you, maria. maria: bob nardelli joining us. whistleblowers are accusing the fbi of unfair treatment and a partisan agenda in the latest hearing on capitol hill. we'll get into it with arizona congressman andy biggs, he's calling for big changes at the mara, are you sure you don't want -to go bowling with us tonight? -yeah. no. there's my little marzipan! [ laughs ] oh, my daughter gives the best hugs! we're just passing through on our way to the jazz jamboree. [ imitates trumpet playing ] and we wanted to thank america's number-one motorcycle insurer -for saving us money. -thank you. [ laughs ] mara, your parents are -- exactly like me? i know, right?

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reporting for years, that the bureau used pony intelligence to launch the trump-russia probe back in 2016. congressman andy biggs tweeted: defund if dismantle the fbi. here's how the democrat ranking member on the house panel responded to that. >> my colleagues on the far right are on a mission to to attack, discredit and ultimately dismantle the fbi. this is defund the police on steroids. maria: congressman biggs joins me right now. congressman, great to see you. thanks very much for being here. well, that was certainly a revealing couple of days with those whistleblowers, but it doesn't appear that your colleagues on the left, we just heard from one of them, agree that the fbi needs to change. >> yeah, that's right, maria. what we saw out of the hearings this week is that, first of all, they wanted to sigmatize and

demonize these whistleblowers by saying they were not whistleblowers. and then the ranking member, who you just quoted, she brought this down to racism, that that somehow these whistleblowers are racist. and i just thought that they were mismissing the boat on this. -- missing the boat on in this. they don't want to get at the truth, and it's just a crying shame because this impacts everybody. it doesn't matter what your partisanship is, what you believe in idealogically. if the fbi has gone rogue, then we have a major problem in protecting the freedoms of this country. maria: yeah. and one thing that really struck me was something that kim strassel wrote about in the "wall street journal." she wrote about this woman from the fbi, dina corsi, the deputy assistant the director of counterintelligence. she ordered the findings on the trump probe to be reported only orally. she did not want anything in writing. one fbi lawyer told durham that it was the most inappropriate operational professional statement he'd ever heard at the

fbi, that he was appalled. so whoever was investigating trump needed to tell leadership orally, not write anything down. >> yeah, that's right. and so that's, that's just one of the many things that we saw there. that is really incredibly problematic because it indicates guilty knowledge, doesn't it? because they know that there was no predicate, they knew that there was no evidence, and so they didn't want a paper chain so that anybody like an inspector general could go through and find out this information. it smacks of a cover up. and that's one of the reasons it's so pernicious when you tell people who are reporting to you let's not do this in the rig -- writing, let's just keep it oral and let's just communicate by voice. because what you saying is you -- you're saying is we know we're guilty, we know we're wrong, we know we shouldn't be doing this, and we just don't want to get in trouble should this ever hit the fan. maria: congressman, we knew this was going on, we've reported this for so many years and yet

the people who abuse power are now many in positions of power. in the biden administration, like jake sullivan. what can you do about it? what are you going to do about this? >> well, for me, i think we have to keep doing what we're doing, shine the light on this, and we have to do the narrative so people understand what's happening. the second thing though you have to do is we have control of the pursestrings. and when i say defund or, you know, reorganize -- maria: dismantle? yeah. >> yeah. that's what you have to do. you have to use the leverage that we have, the constitutional tools that we have which is financial. and we also are the holden rule so we can specifically reorganize and remove certain officers in the executive the branch. and we need to be doing that. there's just not enough of that going on right now. but i think we are moving that direction, and we'll be ready to get there pretty soon because of the, you know, the durham

report, what it revealed. inspector horowitz, because we have the i.g.'s in just a few weeks back, and with what these whistleblowers are saying and the evidence that's come coming out because we continue to get more whistleblowers all the time. that gives us the predicate. we want to make sure we're doing it lawfully and constitutionally, but these people have to be held accountable. maria: next week is going to be a real important one in terms of the debt ceiling negotiations. president biden overseas at the g7 summit, but the debt ceiling deadline is looming. the president is cutting his trip short, he's expected to hold a press conference about the ongoing debt negotiations on sunday when he returns. what are you expecting in terms of common if ground on putting some spending limits in place? >> well, i -- right now so far we've heard that the administration does not want to have any spending cuts or -- and when you talk about limits, that's what we're talking about, spending cuts. in other words, they don't want to bend the trajectory down on deficit spending. that's a real problem because

that means that you're going to keep adding to the national debt. and so what i'm -- what we've suggested, many of us in the house, is the house did its job, the republicans did its job. there's a bill sitting over in the senate. that is where, where the senate needs to get to, and hay don't want to get there. they don't want to go anywhere near it, and schumer keeps saying, no, the house has got to do something. it's in his court right now. maria: yeah, that's right. all right. we're going to be watching that. congressman, it's always a pleasure. thanks very much for being here. >> my pleasure. thank you, maria. maria: andy biggs joining us. i've got one important thing you need t and i remember kind of thinking like, "oh my gosh, i think we could be sisters." because i think we looked... yes. right. yeah. and i don't think at that time- i think you're the one to tell me that we had the same birthday. yes. it's really unbelievable when you think about it, because it's been, like, really over 20 years that you were my mother and father's banker, you became my banker and now fran is in her third year of college and you're her banker. it's so unbelievable because i'm just 20 years old.

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will he announce then? real clear politics polling shows desantis, though, is trailing president trump by over 35 points. we'll be covering all of this from the moment he announces on "mornings with maria" weekdays 6-9 a.m. eastern. and i'll see you on the fox news channel this sunday, 10 a.m. ian sunday morning for "sunday morning futures." i've got interviews with house speaker kevin mccarthy, judiciary chairman jim jordan, senator josh hawley and trump and media ceo kevin nuñes all coming up sunday, live. that'll do it for us right here now on fox business. thanks so much for joining me. have a great rest of the week next time. ♪ ♪ ♪ gerry: hello and welcome to the "wall street journal at large." this week deal or no deal? joe biden's cutting short his trip to asia and getting