Ohio representative on the firing of inspector generals, COVID origin, TikTok and more

WASHINGTON (CBS, KYMA/KECY) - Representative Mike Turner (R-Ohio) spoke with Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation Sunday about the CIA report on the origins of COVID.

"The Biden administration really has been an impediment to getting to the answer here...but Congress passed and the Biden administration signed an order declassifying the information concerning the lab leak theory and the issues with respect to COVID origins. And the administration still refused to release it. I think this is a great start, and really it's been unfortunate that the administration has been slow. This is a good turning point, because clearly this was not of natural origins."

Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio)

During the interview, Brennan and Turner talked about President Donald Trump's firing of inspectors generals (IG).

The president didn't give Congress a 30-day heads up or a detailed explanation about the removals, as he's required to do by law.

When asked if this concerns him that "these agencies can't police themselves," Turner said:

"This is very common that there's turnover when a new president comes in to do a review of what's happening within these agencies and in the IGs. I think there'll be a review as they put these individuals back, and some of the individuals will be replaced, obviously. But you know, clearly they need to bring in their own team now. They need to look at what the performance is for these individuals. And it's very common as new administrations come in that specifically these positions be replaced."

Brennan and Turner then talked about TikTok.

ByteDance voluntarily shut down TikTok in the U.S. on January 19, hours before a deadline requiring the China-based parent company to sell the app to a U.S.-based entity, or have it banned over national security concerns.

TikTok went dark for its 170 million U.S.-based users, until President Trump, on January 20, paused the ban from going into effect until early April.

When Brennan asked what he thought of the law being delayed "for at least a period of time," Turner said:

"TikTok is absolutely a national security threat. The law passed by Congress that came out of the House China Select Committee, that was chaired by Mike Gallagher, that drafted this law, found that TikTok was a national security risk because of two things, its access to data and its ability to use itself as a propaganda tool by China itself and the laws in China that allowed China to compel Tiktok to manipulate itself, both its data and its access to China and its use of propaganda. The Supreme Court upheld this, it remains a national security threat, and because of that, the United States Congress, the law that is the law of the land, says that ByteDance needs to divest itself. Now, the only thing that would protect the United States and protect our citizens is divestiture."

Later in the interview, Brennan and Turner talked about the latter being ousted from his position as chair of the House Intelligence Committee by House Speaker Mike Johnson.

When asked what he can share about his conversation with Johnson, Turner said:

"After I had the conversation with the speaker, the speaker related an element included concerns from Mar-a-Lago. He's since walked that back...President Trump's staff has been in touch with me and said that that was not the case. The one thing that he has said is that he wanted to take the committee in a different direction. I'm a little concerned, because his different direction indicates pursuing the elusive Deep State. And my concern is the focus should be on the committee of national security, which is what my focus has been on state actors, non-state actors, those individuals who want to do our country harm. There certainly are bad actors and people that we need to pursue, and we certainly have done so where we find that there are laws that need to be changed to pursue people, to criminalize bad actions, and we certainly have done that. But there are people every day who get up in the intelligence community who work hard to make certain that China, Russia, North Korea and Iran are prevented from doing Americans harm, and we need to focus on how we can work together to make certain we protect our country."

Turner then adds that he has a "good relationship" with Speaker Johnson and that Johnson appointed Turner to lead the NATO Parliamentary Assembly on behalf of the House.

"I remain on the Armed Services Committee. I'm going to remain in...with a strong role in national security, and I'm going to continue to focus on national security and on protecting the country," Turner stated.

To watch more of Brennan's interview with Turner, click here.