Transcript: Reps. Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," June 22, 2025

CBS News

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The following is the transcript of an interview with GOP Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on June 22, 2025.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Welcome back to "Face the Nation." Democrat Ro Khanna joins us from San Francisco, and here, in studio, is Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie. Good morning to both of you, gentlemen. I'll start with you, Congressman Massie, you know, I know this is an unlikely pairing. You are on completely different ends of the political spectrum, but you both worked on this war powers resolution to prohibit US forces from engaging in hostilities against Iran without authorization from Congress. President just blew right past that.
CONGRESSMAN THOMAS MASSIE: Well, you know, I think I represent part of the coalition that elected President Trump. We were tired of endless wars in the Middle East, and tired of wars in East- Eastern Europe. And we were promised that we would put our veterans, our immigration policies, and our infrastructure first. And so what Ro and I did, we did this last week, when, you know, they were rattling the sabers. Because we saw this coming, we put forward this War Powers Resolution. I've teamed up with Ro Khanna before on this, to his credit, when Joe Biden was President; we tried to rein in the executive and reassert Congress's authority, sole authority, to declare war and to- and to engage or authorize the engagement of acts of war.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Something we talked to other lawmakers about, as well, in the Senate, I know there's efforts to support you. But, the Speaker of the House, who is from your own party, has, really, rejected this. He says the Article I power of Congress, really, allows for the President to do this. It was a limited, necessary, targeted strike, he says.
REP. MASSIE: Well, he's probably referring to the War Powers Act of 1973, but that's been misinterpreted. There were no imminent threat to the United States, which was what would authorize that. And I think that's peculiar to hear that from the Speaker of the House. Look, Congress was on vacation last week when all this was happening,
MARGARET BRENNAN: You haven't been briefed.
REP. MASSIE: We haven't been briefed. They should have called us all back. And, frankly, we should have debated this war powers resolution that Ro Khanna and I offered, instead of staying on vacation and doing fundraisers, and saying, oh, well, the President's got this under control, we're going to cede our constitutional authority.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Ro Khanna- Congressman Khanna, and we didn't hear from the Secretary the explanation as to why now. We haven't heard that from anyone, other than a reference to the President had a, roughly, 60-day timeline on diplomatic talks, but we also know we had more talks scheduled when Israel launched this attack. So, it's just it's not exactly clear the emergency. You will be briefed along with other members of Congress Tuesday. What are the questions you have?
CONGRESSMAN RO KHANNA: First of all, the tragedy in this country is that we keep entering these overseas wars. We triumphantly declare the mission is accomplished the day after, and then we're left with Americans bearing the consequences for decades. Now, Thomas is absolutely right, and showing courage. I mean, the headlines all across this country says the United States enters war with Iran. He is, actually, representing a lot of the people in the MAGA base. People like Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Theo Von, who has had them on, who's saying, we don't want this war. And I heard your interview with Secretary Rubio, he's saying, well, we want a peace deal. We want to make sure that Iran can enrich uranium through civil purposes. Well, we had that. We had that at the JCPOA, and there was not a single violation that the IEAE found during that time. So, my question, I guess, is, now you're going to force Iran to go covertly in developing this nuclear material. Now you put American troops at risk. Now you're wasting billions of our dollars because we're sending more troops to the Middle East. What did you accomplish? And why are you oblivious to the American people who are sick of these wars?
MARGARET BRENNAN: But, Congressman, are you open to the idea that there could be intelligence that is disclosed to you in this classified setting on Tuesday that could justify this? Or, is any military action, in your view, you know, war?
REP. RO KHANNA: Well, I'm always open to new intelligence. But, the procedure should have been that Congress was briefed before we decided to enter war, and that we actually had a vote on it. You had Tulsi Gabbard, who, just months ago, the Director of Intelligence, saying that was not the case. The reality is, and we should just speak openly, there are people who want regime change in Iran. And they are egging this president on to bomb. I hope cooler heads will prevail. We need to pass Thomas Massie and my War Powers Resolution to make it clear that we're not going to get further entrenched into the Middle East.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And Congressman Massie, it's interesting because you were. Talking about a part of the party you represent. The Secretary of State comes from a different part of that same party, as you know. And I did hone in on the question about intelligence, and what it showed. He called it an ambition to weaponize. Weaponization ambition. That's different than they're making a nuclear weapon.
REP. MASSIE: Yeah.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But are you open to intelligence and persuasion here?
REP. MASSIE: I'm open as well. But look, in the first Iraq war, the second Iraq war and the war in Afghanistan, Congress first got the briefings. Congress met and debated. It should have been declarations of war, but at least they did an authorization of use of military force. We haven't had that. This has been turned upside down- this process.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, you heard from Mitch McConnell, the former Republican leader, the senator, say it was a bad week for the isolationists. He was talking about Tucker Carlson and he was talking about Steve Bannon. Do you think that the President is making a choice here, or is he trying to have it both ways, both saying I'm going to please the Hawks of the party by bombing, but then I'm going to say I want a peace deal and make the isolationists happy by saying, you know, I'm not committing to anything more than one and done?
REP. MASSIE: Well, I'll concede this. It was a good week for the neocons and the military-industrial complex, who want war all the time. I wouldn't call my side of the MAGA base, isolationists. We are- we are exhausted. We are tired from all of these wars, and we're non-interventionists. I mean, this is what- this was one of the promises. I mean, are you going to call President Trump's campaign an isolationist campaign? What he promised us was we would put America first. And I think there are still voices in this administration. You've still got JD Vance, you've still got Tulsi Gabbard, you still- RFK Jr, you still got calmer heads that could prevail.
MARGARET BRENNAN: They were not persuasive in this case, clearly.
REP. MASSIE: Well, somebody was persuasive. AIPAC is very persuasive, for instance. The Israeli lobby in Congress. If you- if you look at my colleagues feeds now this- they all look the same. They're all tweeting the same message that we've got to support Israel and we've got to do this. My question is, does- you know, three bombings and we're done with- with Iran's nuclear ambitions, is that the two weeks to slow the spread of 2025? Is this- you know, we were told two weeks to slow the spread then, now we're told it's just going to take three bombings. But what happens when Israel gets bombed again? Is Trump going to sit by and say, no, we're not going to further engage in this war?
MARGARET BRENNAN: I tried to get answers from the Secretary on that question. But when you say the pro-Israel lobby, AIPAC, do you see a difference between Israel's interests and American interests?
REP. MASSIE: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, look- the- Iran, the reality is, they don't have a missile that can reach the United States. They're not near to getting a missile that can reach the United States. I think this- what has happened, what has transpired this week has been planned for months. That- that you know this administration, and maybe even the administration prior to that, said, you go in and soften them up, take out their air defense capabilities, and then we'll send in the big bombers.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So, Congressman Khanna, I know you have raised objections on this program in the past about Israel's operations in Gaza, for how it has conducted that war against Hamas. That was a different context, but now you very well may be asked to provide more weaponry to Israel to defend itself. Do you oppose that as well?
REP. RO KHANNA: Well, first, let me just say that it's a totally unfair smear to call people isolationists, the vast majority of Americans who don't want more war and want diplomacy. Diplomacy and engagement is not isolationism. But look on Israel, I have supported aid and support defensively. And even the War Powers resolution says that if Iran is striking Israel, they- you- we can provide defense so that Israel isn't hit. What I opposed was giving Israel offensive weapons to go kill more people in Gaza. I think that war needs to end. But I think the bottom line, Margaret, is, what have we achieved here? We have- we're going to push Iran to now be like Pakistan or North Korea going and try to develop a nuclear bomb covertly. We have put more American troops at risk. We're going to spend more resources put- going and getting more entrenched in the Middle East, and we've created a generation of hate. It's like, can this country learn? We keep voting for people for president who say we're not going to get into war, and then they keep getting pushed by the Washington beltway to get us into this mess.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Congressman Khanna, Congressman Massie, thank you. In a rare bipartisan meeting of the minds, at least on this issue, we'll be right back.