CBS "Face the Nation" - Transcript: Cuba Trade

Interview

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SCHIEFFER: And now on this very busy morning, we go to Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. He is in Clemson, South Carolina.

Let me just start at the top here and talk a little bit about this situation in New York, Senator Graham. As a Republican, what do you think about this tweet that George Pataki has put out where he basically called out Democrats Eric Holder and the New York mayor for -- and said some of the blood is on their hands? Do you agree with that?

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: I blame the shooter, and nobody else.

SCHIEFFER: All right. Any more to add to that?

GRAHAM: No.

SCHIEFFER: Do you think that's connected to what has happened in these other cases?

GRAHAM: I think that the mayor of New York has probably undercut his cops and the attorney general is trying to walk a fine line.

What happened in Missouri, I understood why the cop had to defend himself. When you see the video in New York, did that man really have to die? But the tone they're setting around the rhetoric regarding the cops incites crazy people. But I blame the shooter.

SCHIEFFER: Now let's talk a little about this Cuban surprise that we got from President Obama to resume relations with Cuba. You were very much against that.

Some people would argue, Senator Graham, that this is a good place for Americans to be selling American products. We sell a lot of grain down there already. We sell medical products under the heading of humanitarian aid.

GRAHAM: Yes.

SCHIEFFER: Why do you think it's such a bad idea to do that?

GRAHAM: Well, North Korea would be great place to sell products. They don't have anything.

When America engages a country, we do so with our moral voice, just not cigars and rum. So, for the last 50 years, Cuba's gone from being an interventionist communist power in Angola to Grenada, to a backwater, poor dictatorship. And without any reason, we have changed our policy.

Look in your vault of CBS News stories in 2013 and 2014 and show me one where Cuba is becoming more democratic. As to what the Congress will do, Bob, if you are being offered the ambassadorship to Cuba, turn it down because you don't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting confirmed.

The Congress is not going to reinforce this policy. There will be no confirmation of an ambassador to Cuba because the Castro brothers are terrible dictators who deserve no new engagement. They deserve to be condemned and isolated.

And when it comes to funding any proposed embassy in Cuba, I'm in charge of all foreign aid, all State Department funding. I will be the chairman of the Foreign Operations Subcommittee. I will do everything I can to limit to size and scope of this embassy, because you are rewarding people who kidnap Americans and who really are still communists in every way.

SCHIEFFER: Senator, do you think that Cuba at this point in time represents a security threat to America?

GRAHAM: Last year, the Cubans were shipping arms to North Korea in violation of the embargo.

Yes. Cuba to me represents everything that threatens us. And who are we? We believe in freedom and democracy. Are we safe when somebody right off our shores practices totalitarian communism in our backyard? They were actively trying to send weapons to North Korea a year ago. Should we be worried about North Korea? Yes. Should we be worried about Cuba? Yes.

But Iran is watching. I can only imagine what the ayatollahs in Iran must be saying to themselves when our president called the North Korean attack on our way of life, not just a movie, vandalism, and when he reaches out to a communist dictatorship that has done nothing to change.

They must be feeling pretty good about their chance to negotiate a deal with America.

SCHIEFFER: What about North Korea? What should the president do now?

GRAHAM: Make it so hard on the North Koreans, they don't want to do this in the future. Reimpose sanctions lifted by President Bush. Put them back on the state sponsor of terrorism list. Put China on notice that it's just not a movie. It's our way of life.

America is not a building with a symbol, but is a way of life, to do commerce, to make a product and receive a profit, to go and see what you would like, to produce something that is edgy. That's what we're about. And they attacked who we are. And when the president calls this an act of vandalism, that just really bothers me greatly. It is an act of terrorism. And I hope he will respond forcefully, because the Iranians are watching everything this man does. When he draws the line in Syria against Assad and nothing happens to Assad -- he's now saying he's contained Putin.

Putin owns the Crimea, has dismembered the Ukraine. And the only reason Putin is suffering is because gas prices have gone down because of OPEC. Nothing we have done has put Putin in a box. And the Iranians are sizing up Obama. And I don't like the way they view him, because I think he has been weakened, indecisive from one end of the planet to the other.

SCHIEFFER: You're not talking about taking military action against North Korea, are you?

GRAHAM: I'm talking about -- well, you can't attack their First Amendment because they don't have one. I doubt if they have many movie theaters.

I'm talking about putting them in a spot in the world where they are diminished beyond where they are today. I'm talking about consulting with China and holding them accountable. Without China, there is no North Korea. Reimposing sanctions. But what's the next attack coming.

Could it be on our power plants? Could it be on our financial services? This is the first act of cyber-warfare that's really gotten a lot of attention. How the president handles this is very important.

SCHIEFFER: You said recently that if the president, if I remember your words, released anybody else from Guantanamo Bay that you thought maybe impeachment was in order.

GRAHAM: I didn't say impeachment. I said there would be a constitutional crisis. And it is coming.

Senator Kelly Ayotte will introduce legislation in 2015 to put a moratorium on all releases from Guantanamo Bay because of a 30 percent recidivism rate. There are all kind of restrictions on transferring prisoners that the president is ignoring.

Rather than closing Guantanamo Bay, he should be filling up the place because terrorism on the march. I, along with Senator McCain, want to outlaw water-boarding. But this president takes every terrorist, reads them the Miranda rights, gives them a lawyer, and holds them for a few days and puts them in a federal court. We can't gather intelligence.

There will be one hell of a fight between the president and Republicans and Democrats in 2015 over Guantanamo Bay.

SCHIEFFER: All right, we have to leave it there, Senator. Thank you so much.

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