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Transcript: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on 'Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,' June 1, 2025
The following is the transcript of an interview with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that aired on 'Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan' on June 1, 2025. MARGARET BRENNAN: Good morning and welcome to 'Face the Nation.' We begin today with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Good morning and thank you for being here. SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: Morning, Margaret. MARGARET BRENNAN: There's so much to get to. I want to start with China, because the Defense Secretary just said there's an imminent military threat from China to Taiwan. Days earlier, Secretary Rubio said he'd aggressively revoked Chinese student visas. On top of that, you have curbing exports to China. Trade talks you said with Beijing are stalled, and President Trump just accused China of violating an agreement, and now says no more, 'Mr. Nice Guy.' Are you intentionally escalating this standoff with Beijing? SEC. BESSENT: Well, I don't think it's intentional. I- I think that what Secretary Hegseth did was remind everyone that during COVID, China was an unreliable partner, and what we are trying to do is to de-risk. We do not want to decouple Margaret, but we do need to de-risk, as we saw during COVID, whether it was with semiconductors, medicines, the other products we are in the process of de-risking. MARGARET BRENNAN: Making the United States less reliant on China, but at the same– SEC. BESSENT: –Well, and the whole world. The whole world, because what China is doing is they are holding back products that are essential for the industrial supply chains of India, of Europe, and that is not what a reliable partner does. MARGARET BRENNAN: So is that like- what specifically is President Trump saying when he says they are violating an agreement? Because it was the one you negotiated in Geneva earlier this month. And what's the consequence for that? SEC. BESSENT: Well, we will see what the consequences are. I am confident that when President Trump and party Chairman Xi have a call, that this will be ironed out. So- but the fact that they are withholding some of the products that they agreed to release during our agreement- maybe it's a glitch in the Chinese system, maybe it's intentional. We'll see after the President speaks with party chairman. MARGARET BRENNAN: That's critical minerals, rare earths. Is that what you're talking about? SEC. BESSENT: Yes. MARGARET BRENNAN: So, the President has said a few times that he was going to speak to President Xi, but he hasn't since before the inauguration. Beijing keeps denying that there was any contact. Do you have anything scheduled? SEC. BESSENT: I believe we'll see something very soon, Margaret. MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you have a conversation with your counterpart or Lutnick with his counterpart at the commerce level? SEC. BESSENT: Well, I think we're going to let the two principles have a conversation, and then everything will stem from that. MARGARET BRENNAN: JP Morgan CEO, Jamie Dimon, spoke this week at an economic forum, and he gave this read on Beijing. (SOT) JAMIE DIMON: I just got back from China last week. They're not scared, folks. This notion they're gonna come bow to America. I wouldn't count on that. And when they have a problem, they put 100,000 engineers on it, and they've been preparing for this for years. (END SOT) MARGARET BRENNAN: Have you underestimated the Chinese state's backbone here? SEC. BESSENT: Again, Margaret, I hope it doesn't come to that. And Jamie is a great banker. I know him well, but I would vociferously disagree with that assessment, that the laws of economics and gravity apply to the Chinese economy and the Chinese system, just like everyone else. MARGARET BRENNAN: But when you were last here in March, we were trying to gauge what the impact of the standoff with China and with the tariffs on the rest of the world would do for American consumers here at home. At that time, you told us you were going to appoint an affordability czar and council to figure out five, you said, or eight areas where there will be some pain for working class Americans. Where are you anticipating price increases? SEC. BESSENT: Well, thus far- we wanted to make sure that there aren't price increases, Margaret. And thus far there have been no price increases. Everything has been alarmist, that the inflation numbers are actually dropping. We saw the first drop of inflation in four years. The inflation numbers last week, they were very- the- pro-consumer. We've– MARGARET BRENNAN: Right, but you listen to earnings calls just like we do. You know what Walmart's saying, what Best Buy's saying and what Target are saying of what's coming– SEC. BESSENT: But Margaret, I also know what Home Depot and Amazon are saying. I know what the South China Morning Post wrote within the past 24 hours that 65%- 65%- the- of the tariffs will likely be eaten by the Chinese producers. MARGARET BRENNAN: So are there five or eight areas that you have identified, as you said back in March, where American consumers will be able to have lower prices, or should be warned of higher prices? SEC. BESSENT: Well, a lot of it's already working its way through the system. So we've seen a substantial decrease in gasoline and energy prices. So that's down 20% year over year. We've seen the food prices go down, these notorious egg prices. Through the good work of President Trump and Secretary Rollins, egg prices have collapsed. So we're seeing more and more. And what we want to do- the- is even that out across the all sections of the economy. So inflation has been very tame. Consumer earnings were up 0.8% last month, which is a gigantic increase for one month. So real earnings minus low inflation is great for the American people, and that's what we're seeing. MARGARET BRENNAN: But you know, because when you met with the Chinese earlier this month and you went down from the 145% tariff down to about- it's like 30%. 30%'s not nothing, that tax on goods coming in here. Retailers are warning of price hikes– SEC. BESSENT: Well, so– MARGARET BRENNAN: When you go back to school shopping, things are going to cost more. SEC. BESSENT: But Margaret, some are and some aren't. Home Depot and Amazon said they're not. MARGARET BRENNAN: Home Depot and Amazon aren't where you go for your back school shopping, when you buy your jeans, when you buy your crayons, and you buy all those things that parents– SEC. BESSENT: I don't know about you, but I do it online at Amazon. This isn't an advertisement for Amazon. And guess where most of the Halloween costumes in America get bought? At Home Depot. So that's just not right. There's a wide aperture here. Different companies are doing different things. They are making decisions based on their customers, what they think they're able to pass along to their customers, what they want to do to keep their customers. And I was in the investment business for 35 years, Margaret, and I will tell you earnings calls- they have to give the worst case scenario, because if it- if they haven't and something bad happens, then they'll be sued. MARGARET BRENNAN: It's not always the worst case. It's the most probable case– SEC. BESSENT: –No, no, no– MARGARET BRENNAN: as well– SEC. BESSENT: –No, no, no. No, they have to give the worst case. MARGARET BRENNAN: So Walmart- there was just a piece published with the conservative strategist Karl Rove. I'm not asking about politics, because he is a political strategist, but he went in on the math here. And he points out that Walmart has a profit margin of less than 3%. He says, 'If it does what Mr. Trump says, eat the tariffs, it can't break even. It can't absorb the cost of an imported pair of kids jeans with a 46% tariff on Vietnam, a 37% tariff for Bangladesh, or 32% tariff on sneakers from Indonesia. Other companies are in the same pickle.' So should companies cut back on the amount of goods they have on their shelves or just on their profitability? SEC. BESSENT: That- that's a decision company by- by company, Margaret. And I had a long discussion with Doug McMillon, the CEO of Walmart, and they're going to do what's right for them. MARGARET BRENNAN: But for consumers, the reality is there will either be less inventory or things at higher prices, or both. SEC. BESSENT: Margaret, when we were here in March, you said there was going to be big inflation. There hasn't been any inflation. Actually, the inflation numbers are the best in four years. So why don't we stop trying to say this could happen, and wait and see what does happen. MARGARET BRENNAN: Just trying to gauge for people planning ahead here, one of the things the President said on Friday is that he's going to double the tariffs on steel and aluminum up to 50%, effective June 4. How much will that impact the construction industry? SEC. BESSENT: Well, I think- I was with the president at the U.S. Steel Plant in Pittsburgh on Friday, and I will tell you that the President has the- reignited the steel industry here in America. And back to the earlier statements on national security. There are national security priorities here for having a strong steel industry. MARGARET BRENNAN: But do you have a prediction on how much it's going to impact the construction industry, for example? SEC. BESSENT: Well, I have a prediction on how much it's going to impact the steel industry, and you know, again, we- we'll see there are a lot of elasticities that- you know this is a very complicated ecosystem. So is it going to impact the construction industry, maybe. But it's going to impact the steel industry, the- in a great way. The steel workers, again, were left on the side of the road after the China shock, and now they're back that the- they are Trump supporters. And when I tell you that it was magic in the arena, or it was actually at the steel plant that night, that these hard working Americans know their jobs are secure, there's going to be capital investment, and the number of jobs is going to be grown around the country, whether it's in Pittsburgh, whether it's in Arkansas, whether it's in Alabama. MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you about this big tax bill that worked through the House, is going to the Senate next. In it is increase or suspension to the debt limit that you need delivered on by mid-July. How close of a brush with default could this be, given how massive some of the Senate changes are expected to be to the other parts of the bill? SEC. BESSENT: Well, first of all, Margaret, I will say the United States of America is never going to default. That is never going to happen. That- we are on the warning track and we will never hit the wall. MARGARET BRENNAN: You have more wiggle room if they don't deliver this by mid-July? I mean, how hard of a date is this? SEC. BESSENT: That- we don't give out the X date because we use that to move the bill forward. MARGARET BRENNAN: Sometimes deadlines help force action, as you know, particularly in this town, sir, that's why I'm asking. The President did say he- he expects pretty significant changes to this bill, though, so that affects the timing of it moving. What would you like Republican lawmakers to keep? What would you like them to alter? SEC. BESSENT: Again, that's going to be the Senate's decision. Leader Thune, who I've worked closely with during this process, has been doing a fantastic job. And Margaret, I'll point out, everyone said that Speaker Johnson would not be able to get this bill out of the house with his slim majority. He got it out Leader Thune has a bigger majority, and this is with President Trump's leadership. So– MARGARET BRENNAN: –There's no red lines for you in there of just don't touch this you can, you know, tinker with that. SEC. BESSENT: Well, I- I think that they're not necessarily my red lines. The President has the- his campaign promises that he wants to fulfill for working Americans. So no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security, deductibility of auto loans for American made automobiles. MARGARET BRENNAN: So those have to stay in. SEC. BESSENT: Those have to stay in. MARGARET BRENNAN: JP Morgan's Dimon also predicted a debt market crisis. 'Cracks in the bond market' was what he said. You are considering easing some regulations, you've said, for the big banks. How do you avoid that bond market crisis he's predicting, spreading and really causing concern, particularly with all of the worries about American debt right now? SEC. BESSENT: So again, I've known Jamie a long time and for his entire career he's made predictions like this. Fortunately, none of them have come true. That's why he's a banker- a great banker. He tries to look around the corner. One of the reasons I'm sitting here talking to you today and not at home watching your show is that I was concerned about the level of debt. So the deficit this year is going to be lower than the deficit last year, and in two years it will be lower again. We are going to bring the deficit down slowly. We didn't get here in one year. We didn't get here in one year, and this has been a long process. So the goal is to bring it down over the next four years, leave the country in great shape in 2028. MARGARET BRENNAN: You know that the Speaker of the House estimates this is going to add four to five trillion dollars over the next 10 years, and there's that debt limit increase. SEC. BESSENT: Well again, Margaret, that's CBO scoring. MARGARET BRENNAN: That's the Speaker of the House. SEC. BESSENT: No, no, no. MARGARET BRENNAN: He said it last Sunday on this program. SEC. BESSENT: The- he said that's the CBO scoring. Let me– MARGARET BRENNAN: –No, he said that sounds right. SEC. BESSENT: Let me tell you what's not included in there, what can't be scored. So we're taking in substantial tariff income right now, so that there are estimates that that could be another 2 trillion that we are the- pushing through savings. So you know my estimate is that could be up to another 100 billion a year. So over the 10 year window, that could be a trillion. President has a prescription drug plan with the pharmaceutical companies that could substantially push down costs for prescription drugs, and that could be another trillion. So there's the four. MARGARET BRENNAN: Treasury Secretary Bessent, we'll be watching closely what happens next. 'Face the Nation' will be back in a minute, so stay with us.
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Full transcript of 'Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,' June 1, 2025
On this 'Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan' broadcast, moderated by Ed O'Keefe: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Sen. Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, Democrat of Illinois Michael Roth, Wesleyan University president FDA commissioner Dr. Marty Makary Click here to browse full transcripts from 2025 of 'Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.' MARGARET BRENNAN: I'm Margaret Brennan in Washington. And this week on Face the Nation: As the turmoil over tariffs continues, we will speak exclusively with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. The economic whiplash from the on-again/off-again Trump tariffs persists here at home, as does the confusion around the world. As for President Trump, he's doubling down on his insistence that they will help the U.S. economy. (Begin VT) DONALD TRUMP (President of the United States): And it'll only get better. The tariffs are so important. Without the tariffs, our nation would be in peril. (End VT) MARGARET BRENNAN: We will talk with Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul about what he doesn't like in the president's big, beautiful bill. Plus: How will the administration's new restrictions on foreign student visas impact America's colleges and universities? House Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi and Wesleyan University President Michael Roth will be here. Finally, we will get some clarity on whether or not healthy children and pregnant women should get the COVID vaccine after a week of mixed messaging from Trump administration health officials. FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary will join us to clear things up. It's all just ahead on Face the Nation. Good morning, and welcome to Face the Nation. We begin today with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Good morning, and thank you for being here morning. SCOTT BESSENT (U.S. Treasury Secretary): Good morning, Margaret. MARGARET BRENNAN: There's so much to get to. I want to start with China, because the defense secretary just said there's an imminent military threat from China to Taiwan. Days earlier, Secretary Rubio said he'd aggressively revoked Chinese student visas. On top of that, you have curbing exports to China. Trade talks, you said, with Beijing are stalled, and President Trump just accused China of violating an agreement, and now says no more Mr. Nice Guy. Are you intentionally escalating this standoff with Beijing? SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: Well, I don't think it's intentional. I – I think that what Secretary Hegseth did was remind everyone that, during COVID, China was an unreliable partner. And what we are trying to do is to de-risk. We do not want to decouple, Margaret, but we do need to de- risk, as we saw during COVID, whether it was with semiconductors, medicines, the other products. We are in the process of de-risking. MARGARET BRENNAN: Making the United States less reliant on China, but at the same… SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: Well, and the whole world, the whole world, because what China is doing is, they are holding back products that are essential for the industrial supply chains of India, of Europe, and that is not what a reliable partner does. MARGARET BRENNAN: So, is that – like, what specifically is President Trump saying when he says they are violating an agreement? Because it was the one you negotiated in Geneva earlier this month. SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: Right. MARGARET BRENNAN: And what's the consequence for that? SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: Well, we will see what the consequences are. I am confident that, when President Trump and Party Chairman Xi have a call, that this will be ironed out. So – but the fact that they are withholding some of the products that they agreed to release during our agreement, maybe it's a glitch in the Chinese system. Maybe it's intentional. We'll see after the president speaks with the party chairman. MARGARET BRENNAN: That's critical minerals, rare earths? Is that what you're talking about? SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: Yes. MARGARET BRENNAN: So, the president has said a few times that he was going to speak to President Xi, but he hasn't since before the inauguration. Beijing keeps denying that there was any contact. Do you have anything scheduled? SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: I believe we'll see something very soon, Margaret. MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you have a conversation with your counterpart or Lutnick with his counterpart at the commerce level? SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: Well, I think we're going to let the two principles have a conversation, and then everything will stem from that. MARGARET BRENNAN: J.P. Morgan Jamie Dimon spoke this week at an economic forum, and he gave this read on Beijing: (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JAMIE DIMON (Chairman, J.P. Morgan Chase): I just got back from China last week. They're not scared, folks. This notion they're going to come bow to America, no, I wouldn't count on that. You know, and when they have a problem, they put 100,000 engineers on it, and, no, they've been preparing for this for years. (END VIDEO CLIP) MARGARET BRENNAN: Have you underestimated the Chinese state's backbone here? SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: Again, Margaret, I hope it doesn't come to that. And Jamie is a great banker. I know him well, but I would vociferously disagree with that assessment, that the laws of economics and gravity apply to the Chinese economy and the Chinese system, just like everyone else. MARGARET BRENNAN: But when you were last here in March, we were trying to gauge what the impact of the standoff with China and with the tariffs on the rest of the world would do for American consumers here at home. At that time, you told us you were going to appoint an affordability czar and council to figure out five – you said, or eight areas where there will be some pain for working-class Americans. Where are you anticipating price increases? SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: Well, thus far – we wanted to make sure that there aren't price increases, Margaret. And, thus far, there have been no price increases. Everything has been alarmist, that the inflation numbers are actually dropping. We saw the first drop of inflation in four years. The inflation numbers last week, they were very – the – pro-consumer. We've seen… MARGARET BRENNAN: Right. But you listen to earnings calls just like we do. You know what Walmart's saying, what Best Buy's saying and what Target are saying of what's coming. SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: But, Margaret, I also know what Home Depot and Amazon are saying. I know what the 'South China Morning Post' wrote within the past 24 hours, that 65 percent, 65 percent – the – of the tariffs will likely be eaten by the Chinese producers. MARGARET BRENNAN: So, are there five or eight areas that you have identified, as you said back in March, where American consumers will be able to have lower prices, or should be warned of higher prices? SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: Well, a lot of it's already working its way through the system. So we've seen a substantial decrease in gasoline and energy prices. So that's down 20 percent year over year. We've seen the food prices go down, these notorious egg prices. Through the good work of President Trump and Secretary Rollins, egg prices have collapsed. So we're seeing more and more. And what we want to do, the – is even that out across the – all sections of the economy. So, inflation has been very tame. Consumer earnings were up 0.8 percent last month, which is a gigantic increase for one month. So, real earnings minus low inflation is great for the American people, and that's what we're seeing. MARGARET BRENNAN: But you know, because when you met with the Chinese earlier this month, and you went down from the 145 percent tariff down to about – it's like 30 percent; 30 percent's not nothing, that tax on goods coming in here. Retailers are warning of price hikes. SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: Well, but – but – but – but… MARGARET BRENNAN: When you go back-to-school shopping, things are going to cost more. SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: But, Margaret, some are and some aren't. Home Depot and Amazon said they're not. And I… MARGARET BRENNAN: Home Depot and Amazon aren't where you go for your back- to-school shopping, when you buy your jeans, when you buy your crayons, and you buy all those things that parents… (CROSSTALK) SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: I don't know about you, but I do it online at Amazon. This isn't an advertisement for Amazon. And guess where most of the Halloween costumes in America get bought? At Home Depot. So that's just not right. There's a wide aperture here. Different companies are doing different things. They are making decisions based on their customers, what they think they're able to pass along to their customers, what they want to do to keep their customers. And I was in the investment business for 35 years, Margaret, and I will tell you earnings calls, they have to give the worst-case scenario, because if it – if they haven't and something bad happens, then they'll be sued. MARGARET BRENNAN: It's not always the worst case. It's the most probable case as well. SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, they have to give the worst case. MARGARET BRENNAN: So, Walmart – there was just a piece published with the conservative strategist Karl Rove. I'm not asking about politics, because he is a political strategist, but he went in on the math here. And he points out that Walmart has a profit margin of less than 3 percent. He says: 'If it does what Mr. Trump says, eat the tariffs, it can't break even. It can't absorb the cost of an imported pair of kids jeans with a 46 percent tariff on Vietnam, a 37 percent tariff for Bangladesh, or 32 percent tariff on sneakers from Indonesia. Other companies are in the same pickle.' So should companies cut back on the amount of goods they have on their shelves or just on their profitability? SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: That – that's a decision company by – by company, Margaret. And I had a long discussion with Doug McMillon, the CEO of Walmart, and they're going to do what's right for them. MARGARET BRENNAN: But, for consumers, the reality is, there will either be less inventory or things at higher prices, or both. SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: Margaret, when we were here in March, you said there was going to be big inflation. There hasn't been any inflation. Actually, the inflation numbers are the best in four years. So why don't we stop trying to say this could happen and wait and see what does happen? MARGARET BRENNAN: Just trying to gauge for people planning ahead here. One of the things the president said on Friday is that he's going to double the tariffs on steel and aluminum up to 50 percent effective June the 4th. How much will that impact the construction industry? SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: Well, I think – I was with the president at the U.S. Steel plant in Pittsburgh on Friday, and I will tell you that the president has the – reignited the steel industry here in America. And back to the earlier statements on national security, there are national security priorities here for having a strong steel industry. MARGARET BRENNAN: But do you have a prediction on how much it's going to impact the construction industry, for example? SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: Well, I – I have a prediction on how much it's going to impact the steel industry. And, you know, we – again, we'll see. There are a lot of elasticities that – you know, this is a very complicated ecosystem. So is it going to impact the construction industry? Maybe. But it's going to impact the steel industry the – in a great way. The steelworkers, again, were left on the side of the road after the China shock, and now they're back, that the – they are Trump supporters. And when I tell you that it was magic in the arena, or it was actually at the steel plant that night, that these hardworking Americans know their jobs are secure… MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes. SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: … there's going to be capital investment, and the number of jobs is going to be grown around the country, whether it's in Pittsburgh, whether it's in Arkansas, whether it's in Alabama. MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you about this big tax bill that worked through the House, is going to the Senate next. In it is an increase or suspension to the debt limit that you need delivered on by mid-July. How close of a brush with default could this be, given how massive some of the Senate changes are expected to be to the other parts of the bill? SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: Well, first of all, Margaret, I will say the United States of America is never going to default. That is never going to happen, that we are on the warning track and we will never hit the wall. MARGARET BRENNAN: You have more wiggle room if they don't deliver this by mid-July? I mean, how hard of a date is this? SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: The – we don't give out the X-date, because we use that to move the bill forward. MARGARET BRENNAN: Sometimes, deadlines help force action, as you know, particularly in this town, sir. That's why I'm asking. The president did say he – he expects pretty significant changes to this bill, though, so that affects the timing of it moving. What would you like Republican lawmakers to keep? What would you like them to alter? SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: Again, that's going to be the Senate's decision. Leader Thune, who I have worked closely with during this process, has been doing a fantastic job. And, Margaret, I will point out, everyone said that Speaker Johnson would not be able to get this bill out of the House with his slim majority. He got it out. Leader Thune has a bigger majority, and this is with President Trump's leadership. So, I… MARGARET BRENNAN: There's no red lines for you in there of just don't touch this, you can, you know, tinker with that? SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: Well, I – I think that they're not necessarily my red lines. The president has the – his campaign promises that he wants to fulfill for working Americans, so no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security, deductibility of auto loans for American-made automobiles. MARGARET BRENNAN: So those have to stay in, is what you're saying. SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: Those have to stay in. MARGARET BRENNAN: J.P. Morgan's Dimon also predicted a debt market crisis. Cracks in the bond market' was what he said. You are considering easing some regulations, you've said, for the big banks. How do you avoid that bond market crisis he's predicting spreading and really causing concern, particularly with all of the worries about American debt right now? SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: So, again, I have known Jamie a long time. And for his entire career, he's made predictions like this. Fortunately, none of them have come true. That's why he's a banker, a great banker. He tries to look around the corner. One of the reasons I'm sitting here talking to you today and not at home watching your show is that I was concerned about the level of debt. So the deficit this year is going to be lower than the deficit last year, and in two years it will be lower again. We are going to bring the deficit down slowly. We didn't get here in one year. We didn't get here in one year, and this has been a long process. So the goal is to bring it down over the next four years, leave the country in great shape in 2028. MARGARET BRENNAN: You know that the speaker of the House estimates this is going to add $4 trillion to $5 trillion over the next 10 years, and there's that debt limit increase. SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: Well again, Margaret, that's CBO scoring. MARGARET BRENNAN: That's the speaker of the House. SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: No, no, no. MARGARET BRENNAN: He said it last Sunday on this program. SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: The – he said that's the CBO scoring. Let me… MARGARET BRENNAN: No, he said that sounds right. SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: Let me tell you what's not included in there, what can't be scored. So we're taking in substantial tariff income right now, so there are estimates that that could be another $2 trillion that we are the – pushing through savings. So you know my estimate is, that could be up to another $100 billion a year. So, over the 10-year window, that could be a trillion. The president has a prescription drug plan with the pharmaceutical companies that could substantially push down costs for prescription drugs, and that could be another trillion. So there's the four. MARGARET BRENNAN: Treasury Secretary Bessent, we'll be watching closely what happens next. Face the Nation will be back in a minute, so stay with us. (ANNOUNCEMENTS) MARGARET BRENNAN: And we go now to Republican Senator Rand Paul, who joins us from Lexington, Kentucky, this morning. Good morning to you. SENATOR RAND PAUL (R-Kentucky): Good morning, Margaret. MARGARET BRENNAN: You just heard the treasury secretary say a number of things, dismissed the potential price increases that could come from the tariffs when it comes to retailers. He also played down the cost of this tax and border bill that just passed through the House. Do you agree with his math? SENATOR RAND PAUL: Well, the math doesn't really add up. One of the things this big and beautiful bill is, is, it's a vehicle for increasing spending for the military and for the border. It's about $320 billion in new spending. To put that in perspective, that's more than all the DOGE cuts that we have found so far. So, the increase in spending put into this bill exceeds the DOGE cuts. When you look just at the border wall, they have $46.5 billion for the border wall. Well, the current estimate from the CBP is $6.5 million per mile. So if you did 1,000 miles, that's $6.5 billion, but they have $46 billion. So they have inflated the cost of the wall eightfold. So there's a lot of new spending that has to be counteracted. But, essentially, this is a bill by the military industrial complex advocates who are padding the military budget. There's going to be a lot of extra money. Look, the president has essentially stopped the border flow without new money and without any new legislation. So I think they're asking for too much money. And, in the end, the way you add it up to see if it actually is going to save money or add money is, how much debt are they going to borrow? MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes. SENATOR RAND PAUL: Five trillion over two years, enormous amount. MARGARET BRENNAN: Right. That was the number that the secretary was quibbling over. The president has taken note of some of your skepticism, and he did tweet yesterday, saying that if you, Rand Paul, vote against his massive border and tax bill, the people of Kentucky will never forgive you. (LAUGHTER) MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you consider that a threat? And do you know if you have three other Republicans who will join you to block it from passage? SENATOR RAND PAUL: I had a very good conversation with the president this week about tariffs. He did most of the talking, and we don't agree exactly on the outcome. But when I come home to Kentucky, I talk to the Farm Bureau, which is opposed to the tariffs. I talk to the bourbon industry, which is opposed to the tariffs. I talk to the cargo companies, UPS, DHL. All of their pilots are opposed to it. I talk to the hardwood floor people. I talk to the people selling houses, building houses. I have no organized business – business interest in Kentucky for the tariffs. So I think it's worth the discussion, and it's worth people remembering that the Republicans used to be for lower taxes. Tariffs are a tax. MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes. SENATOR RAND PAUL: So, if you raise taxes on the private sector, that's not good for the private sector. MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, we hear from other senators who also get complaints from their – people in their districts, but they're falling in line. Do you have three other Republicans who will stand with you to block this bill? SENATOR RAND PAUL: I think there are four of us at this point, and I would be very surprised if the bill at least is not modified in a good direction. Look, I want to vote for it. I'm for the tax cuts. I voted for the tax cuts before. I want the tax cuts to be permanent. But, at the same time, I don't want to raise the debt ceiling $5 trillion. MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes. SENATOR RAND PAUL: So I have told them, if you take the debt ceiling off the bill, in all likelihood, I can vote for what the agreement is on the rest of the bill, and it doesn't have to be perfect to my liking. MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes. SENATOR RAND PAUL: But I can't be – if I vote for the $5 trillion debt, who's left in Washington that cares about the debt? We will have lost. MARGARET BRENNAN: But… SENATOR RAND PAUL: The GOP will own the debt once they vote for this. MARGARET BRENNAN: But the leader, as you know, is sort of in a tight spot here. He needs a vehicle to raise that debt ceiling. Otherwise, you had to turn to Democrats to get that done. What was the White House response when you asked that to the president? SENATOR RAND PAUL: Well, historically, the debt ceiling has always gone up and will always go up, and I'm not proposing that it doesn't. But the people who should vote for it are the people who vote for the spending. Historically, all the Democrats vote for raising the debt ceiling, and about 15 big government Republicans vote for it. This will be the first time it's voted on just by Republicans. This will be the first time that Republicans own the debt. They already own the spending. In March, we continued, not me, but most Republicans voted to continue the Biden spending levels. So, you will remember the campaign. Everybody was talking about Bidenomics and Biden inflation and Biden spending levels. Well, the Republicans all voted to keep the Biden spending levels, and that's why the deficit this year is going to be $2.2 trillion this year. MARGARET BRENNAN: So, you think is this bad politics for Republicans? Some of your Republican colleagues like Josh Hawley are saying that the changes to Medicaid are bad politics for America's working people and for your party. SENATOR RAND PAUL: I think it was a bad strategy. I think the tax cuts are good for the economy. When we passed the tax cuts in 2017, the economy grew like gangbusters. We had lowest unemployment historically. It was the great achievement of Trump's first administration. They should have been satisfied by just doing the tax part of this… MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes. SENATOR RAND PAUL: … and not getting involved into the debt part of it. MARGARET BRENNAN: The last time you were with us in March, you talked about conversations you had with Elon Musk. As you know, he's just left his work with the administration. You had proposed a rescission request, a clawback of about $500 billion from money Congress had already signed off on. We know now that the White House is going to ask Congress this week for some rescissions. Sounds like it's just $9.4 billion. And it's PBS, it's NPR and it's foreign aid. Is this really the best strategy? And do you think 51 Republican senators are on board with it? SENATOR RAND PAUL: First of all, I will vote for spending cuts, the more, the better. This is very, very small. To put it in perspective, if the deficit this year is $2.2 trillion, if you cut $9 billion, the deficit is going to be $2.191 trillion. It really doesn't materially change the course of the country. We should do it, by all means, and it is the low-hanging fruit. This is the money that was pointed out that was being spent for sex change operations in Guatemala, trans opera in Columbia, all this crazy spending. Yes, it should be cut. MARGARET BRENNAN: Sesame Street. MARGARET BRENNAN: It's Sesame Street. It's PBS and NPR. SENATOR RAND PAUL: Yes. Yes. And I think – yes, you're right. We will see if there's the votes to cut it. I don't think we necessarily need government programming anymore. We have so many choices on the Internet and so many choices on television. But my preference has always been in the past to cut a little bit of everything, rather than cut a lot of something. So what I have done in the past is propose a penny plan budget where we cut a certain percentage of everything, but it includes entitlements or it doesn't really work. Once you exclude the entitlements, there isn't enough money to cut. MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes. SENATOR RAND PAUL: So you can never achieve balance by not looking at the entitlements. MARGARET BRENNAN: The budget director on another program this morning said they may not need to use this rescission, this clawback, because the White House has other tools. Do you think they need to go through Congress? Is this overstepping? SENATOR RAND PAUL: Well, they absolutely have to use a recession – the rescission. And it is done by simple majority, by Republicans only. There is no filibuster of it. So it's a great tool to cut spending. If they don't use it, it will be a huge wasted opportunity. But I will tell you, they tried in the first Trump administration. And it wasn't their fault. They sent a tiny one, $16 billion, and it failed because two Republicans went the other way. So we will see what happens on this, but if we can't even cut welfare that we're giving to other countries, if we can't cut foreign aid welfare, I feel bad for the country. Interest rates are rising. We're having trouble selling our debt. We have got a lot of problems. MARGARET BRENNAN: Senator Rand Paul. We will be right back. (ANNOUNCEMENTS) MARGARET BRENNAN: Be sure to tune into CBS News 24/7 weekdays at 5:00 p.m. Eastern for our new streaming show The Takeout hosted by chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett for your daily dose of politics, policy, pop culture and more. (ANNOUNCEMENTS) MARGARET BRENNAN: We will be right back with a lot more Face the Nation, including the new FDA commissioner, Dr. Marty – Marty Makary. Stay with us. (ANNOUNCEMENTS) MARGARET BRENNAN: Welcome back to FACE THE NATION. We're joined now by FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary. Good morning. MARTY MAKARY (FDA Commissioner): Good morning. MARGARET BRENNAN: Good to have you here in person. MARTY MAKARY: Good to be here. MARGARET BRENNAN: So, I want to get through a lot here. But one of the things we've noticed is this new Covid variant that seems to be circulating in Asia. I believe it's NB1.8.1. It's a variant under monitoring (ph). What do we need to know? MARTY MAKARY: Yes, so this appears to be a subvariant of JN1, which has been the dominant strain. So, it's believed that there is cross immunity protection. The Covid virus is going to continue to mutate and it's behaving like a common cold virus. It's now going to become the fifth coronavirus that's seasonal that causes about 25 percent of the cases of the common cold. MARGARET BRENNAN: So, you're thinking of it as like a – a – a flu-type variant? Just normal fluctuations. MARTY MAKARY: The flu mutates about 34 times more frequently than Covid. The Covid variant mutation rate appears to be a little more stable. But the international bodies that have provided some guidance on which strain to target have suggested that either JN1 or any of these subvariants would be reasonable strains to target. MARGARET BRENNAN: So, you don't seem overly concerned about that. I want to get now into some of the recommendations that have been very specific this week from the CDC. and you, with the HHS secretary, in this video announcement on Tuesday, where Secretary Kennedy said the CDC was removing the Covid vaccine for healthy children and healthy pregnant women from its recommended immunization schedule. He then had a memo to the CDC rescinding recommendations for kids' vaccines, saying the known risks do not outweigh the benefits. Then, late Thursday, the CDC said, quote, 'shared clinical decision-making,' which I think is just talking to your doctor – MARTY MAKARY: Yes. MARGARET BRENNAN: Should determine whether kids get vaccinated. Can you clearly state what the policy is, because this is confusing? MARTY MAKARY: Yes, we believe the recommendation should be with the patient and their doctor. So, we're going to get away from these blanket recommendations in healthy, young Americans because we don't want to see – MARGARET BRENNAN: For all vaccines? MARTY MAKARY: We don't – well, on the Covid vaccine schedule, we don't want to see kids kicked out of school because a 12-year-old girl is not getting her fifth Covid booster shot. We don't see the data there to support a young, healthy child getting a repeat infinite annual Covid vaccine. There's a theory that we should sort of blindly approve the new Covid boosters in young, healthy kids every year in perpetuity and a – a young girl born today should get 80 Covid mRNA shots or other Covid shots in her average lifespan. We're saying that's a theory and we'd like to check in and get some randomized controlled data. It's been about four years since the original randomized trials. So, we'd like an evidence-based approach. Dr. Persad (ph) and I published this in 'The New England Journal of Medicine' last week. And we're basically saying, we'd like to bring some confidence back to the public around this repeat booster strategy theory because – MARGARET BRENNAN: Your statement was not about repeat boosters. It says, the vaccine is not recommended for pregnant women. The vaccine is not recommended for healthy children. That's different than annual boosters. MARTY MAKARY: At – at – yes, at this point we're dealing – you know, it is a booster strategy – people would be getting the updated shot. So, whether or not a young, healthy – MARGARET BRENNAN: But what about kids who haven't gotten the shot? MARTY MAKARY: So, we'd like to see the data. MARGARET BRENNAN: Well – MARTY MAKARY: We'd love to see that – that – that data. It doesn't exist. MARGARET BRENNAN: No, no, no, but on a practical level. For a parent at home hearing you and trying to make sense of you. MARTY MAKARY: Yes. We're saying, take it back to your doctor. MARGARET BRENNAN: If their child has not been vaccinated, are you recommending that their first encounter with Covid be an actual infection? MARTY MAKARY: We're not going to push the Covid shot in young, healthy kids without any clinical trial data supporting it. That is a decision between a parent and their doctor. And just so you – I don't know if you know these statistics, but 80 – for 88 percent of American kids, their parents have said no to the Covid shot last season. MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes. MARTY MAKARY: So, America – the vast majority of Americans are saying, no. Maybe they want to see some clinical data as well. Maybe they have concerns about the safety. MARGARET BRENNAN: I don't want to crowd source my health guidance. I want a clear thing, right? MARTY MAKARY: The worst thing – the worst thing – MARGARET BRENNAN: You don't go with popularity, go with, as you're saying, data. And when we look at that data – MARTY MAKARY: Yes, so let's see the data. MARGARET BRENNAN: OK. So, the CDC data said 41 percent of children age six months to 17 years hospitalized with Covid between 2022 and 2024 did not have a known underlying condition. In other words, they looked healthy. MARTY MAKARY: So – MARGARET BRENNAN: And Covid was serious for them. MARTY MAKARY: So, we – first of all, we know the CDC data is contaminated with a lot of false positives from incidental positive Covid tests with routine testing of every kid that walks in the hospital. When I go to the ICU – MARGARET BRENNAN: (INAUDIBLE) CDC. MARTY MAKARY: When I walk to the – we know – we know that data historically, under the Biden administration, did not distinguish being sick from Covid or an incidental positive Covid test. When you go to an ICU in America and you ask, how many people are in the ICU that are healthy, that are sick with Covid, I – the answer I get again and again is, we haven't seen that in a year or years. And so, with the worst thing you can do in public health is to put out an absolute universal recommendation in young healthy kids. And the vast majority of Americans are saying, no, we want to see some data. And you say, forget about the data, just get it anyway. MARGARET BRENNAN: OK. So, on data and transparency, for decades, since 1964, it was the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, ACIP, that went through this panel recommendation. I mean people watched these things during Covid. The report was then handed up. It offered debate, it offered transparency and it offered data points that people could refer back to. Why did you bypass all of this and just come down with a decision before the panel could meet and make that data? MARTY MAKARY: That – that panel has been a kangaroo court where they just rubber stamp every single vaccine put in front of them. If you look at the minutes of the report from – MARGARET BRENNAN: Weren't they in the (INAUDIBLE)? MARTY MAKARY: They – they even say, we were – generally want to move towards a risk stratified approach. But go – MARGARET BRENNAN: So, why not let them do that in June? MARTY MAKARY: So, in the meantime, we don't want an absolute recommendation for healthy kids to get it. They can do it. And that committee – committee will meet and make recommendations. But you look at the minutes of the last couple years, they say, we want a simple message for everybody just so they can understand it. It was not a data-based conversation. It was a conversation based on marketing and ease. And – and I've written an article titled 'why people don't trust the CDC,' and it's in part from that blanket strategy. MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, you're kind of telling them not to right now. You just said, don't trust the CDC. MARTY MAKARY: We're saying it's going to be between a doctor and a patient until that committee meets or more experts weigh in or we get some clinical data. If there's zero clinical data, you're opining. I mean you're just – it's a theory. And so, we don't want to put out an absolute recommendation for kids with no clinical data to support it. MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes. So, you made this pronouncement as well on pregnant women. There is data, researchers in the U.K. analyzed a series of 67 studies which included 1.8 million women. And the journal BMJ Global Health published it. People can Google it at home. And it says the Covid vaccine 'in pregnant women is highly effective in reducing the odds of maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection, and hospital admission, and improves pregnancy outcomes, with no safety concerns.' This is data that shows that it is recommended or could be advised for pregnant women to take the vaccine. Why do you find otherwise? MARTY MAKARY: There's no randomized controlled trial. That's the gold standard. Those 67 studies are mixed. The data in pregnant women is different for healthy versus women with a – a co-morbid condition. So, it's a very mixed bag. So, we're saying, your obstetrician, your primary care doctor and the pregnant woman should together decide whether or not to get it. Twelve percent of pregnant women last year got the Covid shot. So, people have serious concerns and it's probably because they want to see a – a randomized trial data. The randomized trial in pregnant women – MARGARET BRENNAN: But in the meantime, the world moves on. And you published in 'The New England Journal of Medicine' on May 20th, in that report you referenced, you listed pregnancy as an underlying medical condition that increases a person's risk for severe Covid. You said that. So, then, seven days later, you joined in this video announcement saying you should drop the recommendation for the Covid vaccine in healthy, pregnant women. So, what changed in the seven days? MARTY MAKARY: In 'The New England Journal of Medicine' we simply list what the – what the CDC has traditionally defined as high risk. And we're – we're just saying, decide with your doctor. We're not saying one way or the other. And the randomized trial – MARGARET BRENNAN: But doctors want data and information as well from you and you're – MARTY MAKARY: So, here's the data on – on pregnant women. A randomized controlled trial was set up and it was closed without any explanation. We wanted to see that trial complete so women can have information that in a randomized control trial, which is the gold standard, this is what the data shows. We don't have those data. MARGARET BRENNAN: All right. It is still unclear what pregnant women now should do until they get the data that you say – MARTY MAKARY: I'd say, talk to their doctor. MARGARET BRENNAN: When do they get the data you're promising, all these controlled studies? MARTY MAKARY: In the absence of data they should talk to their doctor and their doctor will use their best wisdom and judgement. MARGARET BRENNAN: So, no data. FDA commissioner, thank you for trying to help clear this up. Up next, the potential impact of those new policies regarding foreign student visas. We'll be right back. (ANNOUNCEMENTS) MARGARET BRENNAN: We turn now to the top Democrat on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, that's Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi. He's in Illinois. Good morning to you. I want to get – CONGRESSMAN RAJA KRISHNAMOORTHI (D-IL): Good morning. MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to get straight to it. You heard from the secretary of state this week that the State Department is going to work with Homeland Security to aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party for studying in critical fields. There are like 300,000 Chinese students with visas in this country. The U.S. government already has a heightened level of vetting. What's going to change? CONGRESSMAN RAJA KRISHNAMOORTHI: I don't know. There's not enough details. But what it looks like that they're targeting all people of Chinese origin who are on international student visas because he's not limiting it to just people who might have ties to the Chinese Communist Party. And if they do have those ties, they don't belong here, especially if they're committing nefarious acts. However, this appears to be much broader and it's terribly misguided and it appears prejudicial and discriminatory. My own father was – came here on an international student visa and I believe that these people are vital for our economy and for entrepreneurship in this country. And I think this is going to harm America more than help. MARGARET BRENNAN: But you said if someone has ties to the Chinese Communist Party they shouldn't be here. Does that mean all the students – the students who were children of leaders, for example, Xi Jinping's own daughter, shouldn't have been allowed here? CONGRESSMAN RAJA KRISHNAMOORTHI: Well, if they were engaged in nefarious activities and if they are somehow deeply connected to the CCP, I think that we should be very careful. But in this particular case, they're not only going after people who might fall in that category, but it's anybody who is from China, including Hong Kong, by the way, where people are actually persecuted for various freedoms they're trying to exercise and who come here seeking to exercise those freedoms. So, this is a terrible – terribly misguided policy. MARGARET BRENNAN: The Biden administration did conduct heightened vetting, as you know, of Chinese students. Do you think that there's a legitimate argument for expanding this, that certain areas should just be off-limits? CONGRESSMAN RAJA KRISHNAMOORTHI: I think that you should definitely have heightened vetting, especially in certain critical areas, because we know that the CCP tries to steal, for instance, intellectual property, or worse. But the way that this is currently structured looks very, very suspicious. And you have to remember that the people that are cheering for this policy, what Marco Rubio had called for, is the Chinese Communist Party. Why? Because they want these people back. They want the scientists and the entrepreneurs and the engineers who can come and help their economy. And so, we are probably helping them, as well as other countries, more than helping ourselves with this policy. MARGARET BRENNAN: The defense secretary is traveling in Asia right now. And he said in a defense forum speech that Beijing is, quote, 'concretely and credibly preparing to use military force.' He said their military is rehearsing. Take a listen. (BEGIN VC) PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Any attempt by communist China to conquer Taiwan by force would result in devastating consequences for the Indo- Pacific and the world. There's no reason to sugar coat it. The threat China poses is real, and it could be imminent. (END VC) MARGARET BRENNAN: He did not say what the consequences would be. Are you encouraged by what appears to be a statement of support for allies? CONGRESSMAN RAJA KRISHNAMOORTHI: I am. I think what he's saying is largely correct. But I think the problem is, at the same time he says that, either Donald Trump or even him or others say other things that push away our friends, partners, and allies in the region and cause confusion. And so, we need to be consistent and thoughtful with regard to our statements and we need to be also very methodical about our actions in trying to curb military aggression by the Chinese Communist Party in the South China Sea and with regard to Taiwan. MARGARET BRENNAN: Since you track U.S. intelligence, I wanted to ask you if you have any insight into what appears to be the swarm of Ukrainian drones that has destroyed 40 Russian military aircraft deep inside Russian territory overnight. Sources are telling our Jennifer Jacobs that the White House wasn't aware that this attack was planned. What can you tell us about the level of U.S. intelligence sharing with Ukraine right now and helping them with their targets? CONGRESSMAN RAJA KRISHNAMOORTHI: I – I don't want to get into classified information. But what I can say is that it's a little bit more strained in light of what Donald Trump has said recently. The one thing that I can also say is that Trump was right the other day to say that Putin is crazy in the way that he's going after civilian areas in Ukraine, repeatedly. And so, the Ukrainians are striking back. At the end of the day, the only way that we can bring these hostilities to an end is by strengthening the hand of the Ukrainians. Trump should, at this point, realize that Putin is playing him and aid the Ukrainians in their battlefield efforts. That's the best way to get to some type of armistice or truce at the negotiating table, sooner than rather later. MARGARET BRENNAN: All right. Congressman Krishnamoorthi, thank you for your insights today. And we're turning now to the president of Wesleyan University, Michael Roth, who joins us from Monterey, Massachusetts. Good morning to you. MICHAEL ROTH (President, Wesleyan University): Good morning. Good to be with you. MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to pick up on something we were just discussing with the congressman, and that is this instruction to have new scrutiny of Chinese students. But also more broadly, Secretary Rubio said all U.S. embassies should not schedule any new student visa application appointments at this time. About 14 percent of your students are international. Are you concerned they won't be able to come back to school in September? MICHAEL ROTH: I'm very concerned. Not only about Wesleyan, but about higher education in the United States. One of the great things about our system of education is that it attracts people from all over the world who want to come to America to learn. And while they're here learning, they learn about our country, our values, our freedoms. And this is really an act of intimidation to scare schools into towing the line of the current administration. It really has nothing to do with national security or with anti-Semitism. This is – this heightened scrutiny is – is meant to instill fear on college campuses, and I'm afraid it is working. MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, it is noticeable, sir, that, you know, at a time when so many higher education institutions, Harvard, Columbia, Brown, have had federal funding revoked because of their policies, we find heads of universities are fearful of speaking out. Why are you not afraid of speaking critically? MICHAEL ROTH: Well, I am. I'm afraid too. But I just find it extraordinary that Americans are afraid to speak out. Especially people who, you know, run colleges and universities. Why – which – this is a free country. I've been saying it my whole life. I used to tell my parents that when I didn't want to do something. I would say, it's a free country. And this idea that we're supposed to actually conform to the ideologies in the White House, it's not just bad for Harvard or for Wesleyan, it's – it's bad for the whole country because journalists are being intimidated, law firms are being intimidated, churches, synagogues and mosques will be next. We have to defend our freedoms. And when we bring international students here, what they experience is what it's like to live in a free country. And we can't let the president change the atmosphere so that people come here and are afraid to speak out. MARGARET BRENNAN: But there are also some specific criticisms being lodged by members of the administration. Do you think that higher education has become too dependent on federal funding, for example, or money from foreign donors? Are there legitimate criticisms? MICHAEL ROTH: There are lots of legitimate criticisms of higher education. I don't think overdependence on federal funding is the issue. Most of the federal funding you hear the press talk about are contracts to do specific kinds of research that are really great investments for the country. However, the criticisms of colleges and universities that we have, a mono culture that we don't have enough diversity, that's a criticism I've been making of my own school and the rest of higher education for years. I think we can make improvements. But the way we make improvements is not by just lining up behind a president, whoever that happens to be. We make improvements by convincing our faculty and students to broaden our perspectives, to – to welcome more political and cultural views. Not to line up and conform to the ideology of those in power. But, yes, we have work to do to clean up our own houses and we ought to get to it. But to do it under the – under this – the gun of a – of an aggressive authoritarian administration, that – that will lead to a bad outcome. MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you define some of the protests that even Wesleyan had on its campus that were, you know, critical of the state of Israel, for example, and – regarding the war against Hamas and Gaza, do you consider them to be xenophobic by definition, anti-Semitic or anti-Jewish? MICHAEL ROTH: Oh, no, not – certainly not by definition. There are lots of examples of anti-Semitism around the country. Some of them are on college campuses. They're reprehensible. When Jewish students are intimidated or afraid to practice their religion on campus or are – or are yelled at or – – it's just horrible. But at – at Wesleyan, and in many schools, the percentage of Jews protesting for Palestinians was roughly the same as the percentage of Jews on the campus generally. The – the idea that you are attacking anti- Semitism by attacking universities I think is a complete charade. It's just an excuse for getting universities to conform. We need to stamp out anti-Semitism. Those two young people just murdered because they were Jewish in Washington, that's a great example of how violence breeds violence. But the – the attack on universities is not an – – is not an attempt to defend Jews. On the contrary, I think more Jews will be hurt by these attacks than helped. MARGARET BRENNAN: President Roth, thank you for your time this morning. We'll be back in a moment. (ANNOUNCEMENTS) MARGARET BRENNAN: Negotiations for a Gaza ceasefire deal continue as the desperation for humanitarian aid grows. Our Imtiaz Tyab has the latest. (BEGIN VT) IMTIAZ TYAB (voice over): Gaza's Nasser Hospital, overrun with casualties after Israeli forces opened fire on Palestinians on their way to aid distribution point in the southern city of Rafah. Health officials say at least 49 people were killed and over 200 wounded, many suffering from gunshot injuries. This man's brother was killed as he waited to collect a food parcel. 'This is wrong,' he says. 'Let the whole world see this. See what the Israelis and the Americans are doing to us. They're lying to us. They say humanitarian aid, but then they kill us. Why?' Palestinians say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire at aid distribution points run by the U.S. and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. An allegation Israel denies. Jeojef (ph), which didn't exist a few months ago, is staffed with heavily armed American contractors. The U.N. and other aid agencies have refused to work with the group saying it has, quote, 'militarized aid,' which goes against all humanitarian principles as innocent Palestinians continue to pay the ultimate price. This video is of five-year-old Ward Elsheik Khalil (ph) from a week ago as she escaped the flames that engulfed the U.N. school her family was sheltering in. She survived, but her mother, brothers and sisters were all killed in the Israeli strike. Asked what happened, Ward (ph) broke down. A rocket fell on them, she said, and they died. (END VT) TYAB: And earlier we spoke with Ward's uncle, Iad (ph), to see how she was doing. And he told us she keeps asking for her mother and that she's in serious need of psychological support. Something not available to her or most children in Gaza. MARGARET BRENNAN: Imtiaz Tyab, in Tel Aviv. We'll be right back. (ANNOUNCEMENTS) MARGARET BRENNAN: That's it for us today. Thank you for watching. Until next week. For FACE THE NATION, I'm Margaret Brennan.
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26-05-2025
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- Wakala News
Transcript: House Speaker Mike Johnson on 'Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,' May 25, 2025
MARGARET BRENNAN: We begin with the passage of what President Trump is calling his 'Big Beautiful Bill,' and the man who got it through the House, Speaker Mike Johnson, who joins us from Benton, Louisiana. Good morning to you, Mr. Speaker. SPEAKER JOHNSON: Hey, good morning, and I wish a blessed Memorial Day weekend to everybody. MARGARET BRENNAN: Indeed. Well, you got this massive tax and border bill through, just barely, one vote margin. You pulled an all-nighter. Among other things, it will eliminate taxes on tips and overtime. Put about $50 billion towards the border wall and hiring Border Patrol agents, keep in place existing individual tax rates, create savings accounts for kids with a one-time deposit of $1,000, increase the child tax credit by about 500 bucks. The- the bill on this is estimated to be between four and $5 trillion over the next decade. How much do you think this is all going to cost? SPEAKER JOHNSON: Well, that's about the right estimate. But at the same time, we have historic savings for the American people. Cuts to government to make it more efficient and effective and- and work better for the people. That was a big campaign promise of President Trump and a big promise of ours, and we're going to achieve that. So in the calculation here, there's more than $1.5 trillion in savings, Margaret, for the people. And that's- that's the largest amount- biggest cut in government, really, in at least 30 years and if you adjust for inflation, probably the largest in the history of government. So we're proud of what we produced here. We've checked all the boxes, where all the things that you mentioned in existence- in addition to American energy dominance, investing in our military industrial base, which is appropriate for us to talk about this weekend and so many other priorities and that's why we call it the 'One Big Beautiful Bill. I think arguably, it's the most consequential legislation that Congress will pass in many generations, and it's a long time coming. MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, just this morning, we did hear from some of your Republican colleagues over in the Senate, where this heads next, that they can't support the bill as it is written. I think you know this. Senator Rand Paul said the cuts are 'wimpy and anemic,' 'the math doesn't add up,' it will 'explode the debt.' In addition to that political criticism, you've already seen– SPEAKER JOHNSON: –Yeah, Senator Paul and I are– MARGARET BRENNAN: –Moody's credit rating agency downgrade American credit and Goldman Sachs says that this bill will not offset the damage from the President's tariffs. Isn't this an economic gamble? SPEAKER JOHNSON: No, it's not an economic gamble. It's a big investment. And look, this- what this bill is going to do is be jet fuel to the U.S. economy. It is going to foster a pro growth economy. What do we mean by that? Because we're reducing taxes, we're reducing regulations, we're going to increase and incentivize American manufacturing again. And what will- the effect this will have in the economy is that entrepreneurs and risk takers and job creators will have an easier time in doing that. They will allow for more jobs and more opportunity for more people, and wages will increase. Now, Margaret, this is not a theoretical exercise. We did this already in the first Trump administration. After just the first two years, we brought about the greatest economy in the history of the world, not just the U.S. because we did it- followed a very simple formula, we cut taxes and we cut regulations. This time– MARGARET BRENNAN: You didn't do it in the middle of a tariff war. SPEAKER JOHNSON: –we're doing that on steroids. MARGARET BRENNAN: In the first administration, there was sequencing– SPEAKER JOHNSON: Well, no. MARGARET BRENNAN: You got tax reform- the Republicans got tax reform through and held off the tariff war. Goldman Sachs says, 'the hit to growth from tariffs will more than offset the boost to growth from the fiscal package.' That's Goldman Sachs. SPEAKER JOHNSON: Well- well, I know. I respect Goldman Sachs, but I think what they're discounting here is the growth that will be spurred on by this legislation, and the fact that the so-called tariff war is beginning to subside already. You've got over 75 countries that are negotiating new, more fair trade agreements for the U.S. right now because of the President's insistence that that be done and it was decades overdue. That is going to benefit every American, it's going to benefit the consumers. You know, they howled when the first tariffs- reciprocal tariffs policy was announced, and they said that prices would skyrocket. That simply hasn't happened. Many of those early estimates were far off, and that's being proven now. So what I think will happen is the tariffs, you know, contest will subside. This legislation will pass and get the economy going again and people will feel that. They'll see it in their own pocketbooks, in their own opportunity and every American household is going to benefit by these policies. MARGARET BRENNAN: You know Walmart has already said that it will have to raise prices. It's not theoretical. And the President on Friday was talking about even more tariffs, this time on Apple and others. But back- back to your end of the- of the deal here, for this tax relief, you talked about the cuts to pay for it all. You are eliminating subsidized federal student loans so the government will no longer cover the interest on debt while borrowers' in school. You're eliminating 500 billion in clean energy subsidies and you're terminating early tax breaks for electric vehicles. Alongside that, you're carrying out about a trillion in reductions to Medicaid and food stamps. We looked at your home state, and the projection is that nearly 200,000 Louisianans will lose their Medicaid coverage because of this. How do you defend that to your constituents? SPEAKER JOHNSON: We have not cut Medicaid, and we have not cut SNAP. What we're doing, Margaret, is working on fraud, waste and abuse, and everyone in Louisiana and around the country understands that that's a responsibility of Congress. Just in- in Medicaid, for example, you've got 1.4 million illegal aliens receiving those benefits. That is not what Medicaid is intended for. It's intended for vulnerable populations, for young, single, pregnant women and the elderly and the disabled and people who desperately need those resources. Right now, they're being drained by fraud, waste and abuse. You've got about 4.8 million people on Medicaid right now nationwide who are able-bodied workers, young men, for example, who are not working, who are taking advantage of the system. If you are able to work and you refuse to do so, you are defrauding the system. You're cheating the system. And no one in the country believes that that's right. So there's a- there's a moral component to what we're doing. And when you make young men work, it's good for them, it's good for their dignity, it's good for their self worth, and it's good for the community that they live in. MARGARET BRENNAN: Sure, but in- first of all, just undocumented immigrants, you know, are not eligible for food stamps or Medicaid. Some– SPEAKER JOHNSON: And yet they're receiving them that's the problem– MARGARET BRENNAN: –lawfully present immigrants are. So the 190,000 Louisianans that are projected by KFF as losing their Medicaid. Your position is they were just lazy, not working? That they were undocumented? What about them? How do you defend that they will be losing their benefits? SPEAKER JOHNSON: No. What we're talking about again, is able-bodied workers, many of whom are refusing to work because they're gaming the system. And when we make them work, it'll be better for everybody, a win-win-win for all. By the way, the work requirements, Margaret, is not some onerous, burdensome thing. It's a minimum of 20 hours a week. You could either be working or be in a job program, a job training program, or volunteering in your community. This is not some, some onerous thing ,this is common sense. And when the American people understand what we are doing here, they applaud it. This is a wildly popular thing, because we have to preserve the programs. What we're doing is strengthening Medicaid and SNAP so that they can exist, so that they'll be there for the people that desperately need it the most, and it's not being taken advantage of. And this is something that everybody in Congress, Republicans and Democrats should agree to. MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, one of your Republican colleagues over in the Senate has been very vocal about his concern in regard to what you're doing to Medicaid. Josh Hawley has been arguing it is 'morally wrong and politically suicidal' to slash health insurance for the working poor. He said the cost sharing language will force people at or just over the federal poverty level to pay as much as $35 for a medical visit, which means working people will pay more. How do you defend that? Because you know, in the Senate, they are going to make changes to this. SPEAKER JOHNSON: My friend Josh Hawley is a fiscal conservative as I am. We don't want to slash benefits. And again, I make this very clear. We are not cutting Medicaid. We are not cutting SNAP. We're working in the elements of fraud, waste and abuse. SNAP, for example, listen to the statistics, in 2024 over $11 billion in SNAP payments were- were erroneous. I mean, that's- that's a number that everyone acknowledges is real. It may be much higher than that– (CROSSTALK) MARGARET BRENNAN: Louisiana is like– SPEAKER JOHNSON: But here's the problem, the states– MARGARET BRENNAN: — the second largest recipient of food stamps in the country, sir. SPEAKER JOHNSON: Let me explain it, Margaret. Let me explain it. The states- the states are not properly administering this because they don't have enough skin in the game. So what we've done in the bill is add some- just a modest state sharing component, so that they'll pay attention to that, so that we can reduce fraud. Why? Again, so that it is preserved for the people that need it the most. This is common sense, Margaret. It's good government, and everybody on both sides of the aisle should agree to that. MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, Senator Hawley objects to that cost sharing language. He is the one leveraging that criticism. This is going to change, you know that, when it goes to the Senate. How do you- how do you put Republicans up to have to defend these things when they are facing an election in 17 months? SPEAKER JOHNSON: We got almost every vote in the House because we worked on it for more than a year in finding the exact balance of reforms to the program so that we can save them and secure them. I think- I think Senator Hawley will see that when he looks into the details of what we passed on Thursday. This is a big thing, it's an historic thing, once in a generation legislation. We call it the 'One Big Beautiful Bill' because it's going to do so much and the America first agenda will be delivered for the people just as we promised. And look, I had lunch with my Senate Republican colleagues on Tuesday, their weekly luncheon, and I encouraged them to remember that we are one team. It's the Senate and the House Republicans together that will deliver this- this ball over the goal line, so to speak. And I encouraged them to make as few modifications as possible, remembering that I have a very delicate balance on our very diverse Republican caucus over in the House. MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah, well, you- you have five to six Republicans from high tax states who are not going to want to see that change in the state and local tax deductions and there's not a commitment to that in the Senate. Can you still get this through the house without SALT? SPEAKER JOHNSON: Look, we- there's got to be a modification to SALT, and as I've explained to my Senate colleagues many times, you know, they don't have SALT caucus in the Senate because they're all from red states, but in the House, we do have a number of members who are elected in places like New York and California and New Jersey, and they have to provide some relief to their constituents. Those are what we call our majority makers. Those are the people who are elected in the toughest districts and help us have the numbers to keep the majority in the House, and so, this is political reality. We'd love to cut more costs. We'd love to do even more, but we have to deal within the realm of possibility. And I think this is a huge leap forward for fiscal responsibility, for a government that's effective and accountable to the people and real relief for hard working Americans, and they well deserve it. MARGARET BRENNAN: Well before I let you go, I want to ask you about another provision that was tucked into this bill. Democrats say it is weakening separation of powers and punishing the courts. It's a specific provision that would restrict a federal court's power to enforce injunctions with contempt, unless there was a bond attached to it. Sounds really weedy, but it's causing a lot of outcry. If this might get stripped out in the Senate anyway, why did you bother to stick it in? SPEAKER JOHNSON: Well, we bothered to stick it in because that's our responsibility in Congress. It is about separation of powers, and right now you have activist judges, a handful of them around the country, who are abusing that power. They're issuing these nationwide injunctions. They're- they're engaging in political acts from the bench, and that is not what our system is intended for. And people have lost their- their- their faith in our system of justice. We have to restore it and bringing about a simple reform like that is something that I think everybody should applaud.
Wakala News
25-05-2025
- Politics
- Wakala News
Full transcript of 'Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,' May 25, 2025
On this 'Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan' broadcast, moderated by Ed O'Keefe: House Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana Rep. Jim Himes, Democrat of Connecticut Cindy McCain, World Food Programme executive director Navy veteran Jack McCain For Country Caucus members Reps. Seth Moulton, Democrat of Massachusetts, Zach Nunn, Republican of Iowa, and Don Davis, Democrat of North Carolina Click here to browse full transcripts from 2025 of 'Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.' MARGARET BRENNAN: I'm Margaret Brennan in Washington. And this week on Face the Nation: Memorial Day marks the unofficial start to summer. We will kick it off with a hat tip to the nation's military. (Begin VT) (CHEERING) (End VT) MARGARET BRENNAN: President Trump rallied West Point graduates on Saturday. (Begin VT) DONALD TRUMP (President of the United States): The military's job is to dominate any foe and annihilate any threat to America anywhere, any time and any place. MAN: Hip, hip. (End VT) MARGARET BRENNAN: But as these new members of the world's most powerful military go forward, are we doing enough to support them? We will talk with some veterans serving in Congress about the value of public service and we will honor those who protected us. On Capitol Hill, the president's big, beautiful bill squeaks through the House. What kind of impact will some of those tax-and-spend provisions have on Americans? And can they survive the Senate? We will ask House Speaker Mike Johnson and talk with the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Jim Himes. Some humanitarian aid is returning to Gaza after a monthslong Israeli blockade, but will it be in time and enough to help those in desperate need of food? Plus, a new plan for American assistance in the region. We will talk to Cindy McCain, head of the U.N.'s World Food Program. All that and more is just ahead on Face the Nation. Good morning, and welcome to Face the Nation. We have a lot to get to in honor of our military today, but we begin with the passage of what President Trump is calling his big, beautiful bill, and the man who got it through the House, Speaker Mike Johnson, who joins us from Benton, Louisiana. Good morning to you, Mr. Speaker. REPRESENTATIVE MIKE JOHNSON (R-Louisiana): Hey. Good morning. And I wish a blessed Memorial Day weekend to everybody. MARGARET BRENNAN: Indeed. Well, you got this massive tax and border bill through, just barely, one vote margin. You pulled an all-nighter. Among other things, it will eliminate taxes on tips and overtime, put about $50 billion towards the border wall and hiring Border Patrol agents, keep in place existing individual tax rates, create savings accounts for kids with a one-time deposit of $1,000, increase the child tax credit by about 500 bucks. The – the bill on this is estimated to be between $4 trillion and $5 trillion over the next decade. How much do you think this is all going to cost? REPRESENTATIVE MIKE JOHNSON: Well, that's about the right estimate. But, at the same time, we have historic savings for the American people, cuts to government to make it more efficient and effective and – and work better for the people. That was a big campaign promise of President Trump and a big promise of ours, and we're going to achieve that. So, in the calculation here, there's more than $1.5 trillion in savings, Margaret, for the people. And that's – that's the largest amount – biggest cut in government really in at least 30 years and, if you adjust for inflation, probably the largest in the history of government. So we're proud of what we produced here. We've checked all the boxes, where all the things that you mentioned in existence – in addition to American energy dominance, investing in our military industrial base, which is appropriate for us to talk about this weekend, and so many other priorities. And that's why we call it the one, big beautiful bill. I think, arguably, it's the most consequential legislation that Congress will pass in many generations, and it's a long time coming. MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, just this morning, we did hear from some of your Republican colleagues over in the Senate, where this heads next, that they can't support the bill as it is written. I think you know this. Senator Rand Paul said the cuts are 'wimpy and anemic. The math doesn't add up. It will explode the debt.' In addition to that political criticism, you've already seen… REPRESENTATIVE MIKE JOHNSON: Yes, look, Senator Paul and I are… MARGARET BRENNAN: … Moody's credit rating agency downgrade American credit. And Goldman Sachs says that this bill will not offset the damage from the president's tariffs. Isn't this an economic gamble? REPRESENTATIVE MIKE JOHNSON: No, it's not an economic gamble. It's a big investment. And, look, this – what this bill is going to do is be jet fuel to the U.S. economy. It is going to foster a pro-growth economy. What do we mean by that? Because we're reducing taxes. We're reducing regulations. We're going to increase and incentivize American manufacturing again. And what will – the effect this will have in the economy is that entrepreneurs and risk-takers and job creators will have an easier time in doing that. They will allow for more jobs and more opportunity for more people, and wages will increase. Now, Margaret, this is not a theoretical exercise. We did this already in the first Trump administration. After just the first two years, we brought about the greatest economy in the history of the world, not just the U.S., because we did it, followed a very simple formula. We cut taxes and we cut regulations. MARGARET BRENNAN: You didn't do it in the middle of a tariff war. REPRESENTATIVE MIKE JOHNSON: This time, we're doing that on steroids. MARGARET BRENNAN: In the first administration, there was sequencing. MARGARET BRENNAN: You got tax reform. The Republicans got tax reform through and held off the tariff war. Goldman Sachs says, the hit to growth from tariffs will more than offset the boost to growth from the fiscal package. That's Goldman Sachs. REPRESENTATIVE MIKE JOHNSON: Well – well, I know. I respect Goldman Sachs, but I think what they're discounting here is the growth that will be spurred on by this legislation and the fact that the so-called tariff war is beginning to subside already. You've got over 75 countries that are negotiating new, more fair trade agreements for the U.S. right now because of the president's insistence that that be done. And it was decades overdue. That is going to benefit every American. It's going to benefit the consumers. You know, they howled when the first tariffs – reciprocal tariffs policy was announced. And they said that prices would skyrocket. That simply hasn't happened. Many of those early estimates were far off, and that's being proven now. So what I think will happen is the tariffs, you know, contest will subside. This legislation will pass and get the economy going again. And people will feel that. They'll see it in their own pocketbooks, in their own opportunity. And every American household is going to benefit by these policies. MARGARET BRENNAN: You know Walmart has already said that it will have to raise prices. It's not theoretical. And the president on Friday was talking about even more tariffs, this time on Apple and others. But back – back to your end of the – of the deal here, for this tax relief, you talked about the cuts to pay for it all. You are eliminating subsidized federal student loans, so the government will no longer cover the interest on debt while borrowers are in school. You're eliminating $500 billion in clean energy subsidies and you're terminating early tax breaks for electric vehicles. Alongside that, you're carrying out about a trillion in reductions to Medicaid and food stamps. We looked at your home state, and the projection is that nearly 200,000 Louisianians will lose their Medicaid coverage because of this. How do you defend that to your constituents? REPRESENTATIVE MIKE JOHNSON: We have not cut Medicaid, and we have not cut SNAP. What we're doing, Margaret, is working on fraud, waste and abuse. And everyone in Louisiana and around the country understands that that's a responsibility of Congress. Just in – in Medicaid, for example, you've got 1.4 million illegal aliens receiving those benefits. That is not what Medicaid is intended for. It's intended for vulnerable populations, for young, single, pregnant women and the elderly and the disabled and people who desperately need those resources. Right now, they're being drained by fraud, waste and abuse. You've got about 4.8 million people on Medicaid right now nationwide who are able-bodied workers, young men, for example, who are not working, who are taking advantage of the system. If you are able to work and you refuse to do so, you are defrauding the system. You're cheating the system. And no one in the country believes that that's right. MARGARET BRENNAN: So… REPRESENTATIVE MIKE JOHNSON: So there's a – there's a moral component to what we're doing. And when you make young men work, it's good for them, it's good for their dignity. MARGARET BRENNAN: Sure. REPRESENTATIVE MIKE JOHNSON: It's good for their self-worth, and it's good for the community that they live in. MARGARET BRENNAN: Sure, but in – first of all, just undocumented immigrants, you know, are not eligible for food stamps or Medicaid. Some… REPRESENTATIVE MIKE JOHNSON: And yet they're receiving them. That's the problem. MARGARET BRENNAN: … lawfully present immigrants are. So the 190,000 Louisianians that are projected by KFF as losing their Medicaid, your position is, they were just lazy, not working, that they were undocumented? What – what about them? How do you defend that they will be losing their benefits? REPRESENTATIVE MIKE JOHNSON: No, what we're talking about, again, is able- bodied workers, many of whom are refusing to work because they're gaming the system. And when we make them work, it'll be better for everybody, a win-win-win for all. By the way, the work requirements, Margaret, is not some onerous, burdensome thing. It's a minimum of 20 hours a week. You could either be working or be in a job program, a job training program… MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes. REPRESENTATIVE MIKE JOHNSON: … or – or volunteering in your community. This is not some – some onerous thing. This is common sense. And when the American people understand what we are doing here, they applaud it. This is a wildly popular thing, because we have to preserve the programs. What we're doing is strengthening Medicaid and SNAP so that they can exist, so that they'll be there for the people that desperately need it the most, and it's not being taken advantage of. MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes. REPRESENTATIVE MIKE JOHNSON: And this is something that everybody in Congress, Republicans and Democrats, should agree to. MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, one of your Republican colleagues over in the Senate has been very vocal about his concern in regard to what you're doing to Medicaid. Josh Hawley has been arguing: 'It is morally wrong and politically suicidal to slash health insurance for the working poor.' He said the cost-sharing language will force people at or just over the federal poverty level to pay as much as $35 for a medical visit, which means working people will pay more. How do you defend that? Because you know, in the Senate, they are going to make changes to this. REPRESENTATIVE MIKE JOHNSON: My friend Josh Hawley is a fiscal conservative, as I am. We don't want to slash benefits. And, again, I make this very clear. We are not cutting Medicaid. We are not cutting SNAP. We're working in the elements of fraud, waste and abuse. SNAP, for example, listen to the statistics. In 2024, over $11 billion in SNAP payments were – were erroneous. I mean, that's – that's a number that everyone acknowledges is real. It may be much higher than that. But here's the problem. The states… MARGARET BRENNAN: Louisiana is like the second largest recipient of food stamps in the country, sir. So… (CROSSTALK) REPRESENTATIVE MIKE JOHNSON: Let me explain it, Margaret. Let me explain it. The states – the states are not properly administering this, because they don't have enough skin in the game. So what we've done in the bill is add some – just a modest state sharing component, so that they'll pay attention to that, so that we can reduce fraud. Why? Again, so that it is preserved for the people that need it the most. This is common sense, Margaret. It's good government, and everybody on both sides of the aisle should agree to that. MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, Senator Hawley objects to that cost-sharing language. He is the one leveraging that criticism. This is going to change, you know that, when it goes to the Senate. REPRESENTATIVE MIKE JOHNSON: Listen, right. So, I… MARGARET BRENNAN: How do you – how do you put Republicans up to have to defend these things, when they are facing an election in 17 months? REPRESENTATIVE MIKE JOHNSON: We got almost every vote in the House because we worked on it for more than a year in finding the exact balance of reforms to the programs, so that we can save them and secure them. I think – I think Senator Hawley will see that when he looks into the details of what we passed on Thursday. This is a big thing. It's an historic thing, once-in-a-generation legislation. We call it the one big, beautiful bill because it's going to do so much and the America first agenda will be delivered for the people just as we promised. And, look, I had lunch with my Senate Republican colleagues on Tuesday, their weekly luncheon, and I encouraged them to remember that we are one team. It's the Senate and the House Republicans together that will deliver this – this ball over the goal line, so to speak. And I encouraged them to make as few modifications as possible, remembering that I have a very delicate balance on our very diverse Republican caucus over in the House. MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes. Yes, well, you have – you have five to six Republicans from high tax states who are not going to want to see that change in the state and local tax deductions. And there's not a commitment to that in the Senate. Can you still get this through the House without SALT? REPRESENTATIVE MIKE JOHNSON: Look, we – there's got to be a modification to SALT. And, as I have explained to my Senate colleagues many times, you know, they don't have SALT Caucus in the Senate because they're all from red states, but in the House, we do have a number of members who are elected in places like New York and California and New Jersey, and they have to provide some relief to their constituents. Those are what we call our majority makers. Those are the people who are elected in the toughest districts and help us have the numbers to keep the majority in the House. And so this is political reality. We'd love to cut more costs. We'd love to do even more, but we have to deal within the realm of possibility. And I think this is a huge leap forward for fiscal responsibility, for a government that's effective and accountable to the people and real relief for hardworking Americans, and they well deserve it. MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes. Well, before I let you go, I want to ask you about another provision that was tucked into this bill. Democrats say it is weakening separation of powers and punishing the courts. It's a specific provision that would restrict a federal court's power to enforce injunctions with contempt, unless there was a bond attached to it. Sounds really weedy, but it's causing a lot of outcry. If this might get stripped out in the Senate anyway, why did you bother to stick it in? REPRESENTATIVE MIKE JOHNSON: Well, we bothered to stick it in because that's our responsibility in Congress. It is about separation of powers. And, right now, you have activist judges, a handful of them around the country, who are abusing that power. They're issuing these nationwide injunctions. They're – they're engaging in political acts from the bench. And that is not what our system is intended for. And people have lost their – their – their faith in our system of justice. We have to restore it. And bringing about a simple reform like that is something that I think everybody should applaud. MARGARET BRENNAN: Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, thank you for your time this morning. Face the Nation will be back in a minute. Stay with us. (ANNOUNCEMENTS) MARGARET BRENNAN: We're joined now by Congressman Jim Himes. He is the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, and he joins us today from Greenwich, Connecticut. Good morning to you. REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES (D-Connecticut): Good morning, Margaret. Thanks for having me. MARGARET BRENNAN: You just heard the speaker. I know you did not vote for this bill. But, you know, Connecticut has one of the highest state and local tax burdens in the country. Do you at least like that one little portion of this bill? (LAUGHTER) REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: That one little portion is going to be good for my constituents. But, Margaret, I – I got to tell you, it was like listening to '1984' or something listening to the speaker. You know, anybody can look this up. The American people want basically three things out of their federal budget. Number one, at this point in time, when Americans – the wealthiest Americans, are doing better than ever before, Americans want the wealthiest of the – of Americans to pay more taxes and to give tax relief to the middle class and below. Number two, they want us to address the deficit, which is now spiraling out of control, to the point where we got a downgrade in one of the U.S. credit ratings. And, third, they want a simpler tax code. This bill fails spectacularly on all three counts. They're cutting Medicaid and nutritional assistance, food stamps, to tens of millions of Americans in order to preserve tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans. They're adding $3 trillion to the deficit with this bill. And, lastly, they're gumming up the tax code with, you don't have to pay taxes on tips. Now, what about the folks who don't earn tips, you know, auto lending? I mean, again, on the three things that Americans care most about, that they want the Congress to do, this bill fails spectacularly. Look, and that's going to show up in the polling pretty soon, as Americans come to realize what it is that the House of Representatives just did. MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, I want to ask you about your other role on the House Intelligence Committee. When it comes to what the president has vowed to do to Russia, he floated this idea two weeks ago of possible sanctions if Russia doesn't stop its war in Ukraine. But then he spoke to Vladimir Putin on Monday, and we heard nothing about sanctions. We did hear from the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency that this war is trending in favor of Russia. What changes need to be made, if anything, to how the U.S. provides support? REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: Well, Margaret, look, we're at a fork in the road with respect to the Russia-Ukraine war. And, you know, Donald Trump and his acolytes in the Congress will go along with one of these two choices. Either we will continue the trajectory that started when the president and the vice president humiliated Vladimir – humiliated President Zelenskyy in the Oval Office and paused aid, and Vladimir Putin will learn from that experience that he can count on the U.S. to support his murderous incursions into neighboring countries. Or we can take another path, which I hope the president will take, which is to say, what we need to do right now is generate maximum leverage against Vladimir Putin, and I see the president getting a little frustrated by him. But that maximum leverage comes because we really uptick the sanctions, we stop the export of oil, we pressure India to stop buying Russian oil, and, of course, we keep arming the Ukrainians. Again, for this guy who considers himself the master of the deal, maximize the leverage of the West so that we can bring this war not just to a conclusion, but to a fair and just conclusion that will keep the Russians from invading countries in the future. MARGARET BRENNAN: In your role on the Intelligence Committee, you get to see things the public does not. With that in mind, the president has designated this Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, TDA, as a foreign terrorist organization. He says they're invading the country. He's using the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged members without a day in court. Part of the legal justification of all of this rests on the claim that the Venezuelan government is controlling what TDA is doing. The National Intelligence Council assessed the Maduro government does not control the gang. But, on this program last Sunday, the secretary of state rejected that. He says he favors the FBI's finding, which is that some members of the Venezuelan government do influence the gang. Why does all of this matter? REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: Well, it matters, Margaret, because I will remind you that, in the George W. Bush administration, exactly what is happening right now happened. It was a different topic. Right now, despite the conclusions of the intelligence community, the president, the director of national intelligence and the secretary of state are saying that Venezuela directs Tren de Aragua. Now, they're saying that because they need this no due process mechanism of deporting people, the Alien Enemies Act, which, by the way, the courts are now laughing at. But the reason it matters, Margaret, is because the last time the White House did this, when they were determined that the intelligence community be forced to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which there turned out not to be, 4,400 American servicemen perished in a war that was fought on false pretenses, not to mention, by the way, the many hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who perished in that war, which was a catastrophic strategic mistake driven by the politicization, the – the notion that George W. Bush had that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. That's why intelligence matters. There's 4,400 families in this country who lost people because the White House decided they would override the conclusion of their $90 billion-a-year intelligence community. That's what Marco Rubio is doing, that's what the president is doing, and that's what Director Gabbard are doing when they contradict what their own organization is telling them. MARGARET BRENNAN: So, on that point, this is also becoming an issue for Joe Kent, who is the president's nominee to run the National Counterterrorism Center. He's under scrutiny because e-mails show that, while acting as chief of staff to DNI Gabbard, he pressed analysts to amend an assessment of links between the government and TDA. According to redacted e-mails that my network has obtained, he wrote: 'We need to do some rewriting, a little more analysis so this document is not used against the DNI or POTUS,' the president of the United States. He says: 'We need to incorporate the FBI's assessment.' You have now read these declassified e-mails as well. Do you believe that Joe Kent was just asking for more context? REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: No, he absolutely was not. And I have seen the redacted e-mails. He was pressuring the National Intelligence Council to alter their conclusions. And, look, he gave away the game. You just read the line. He told us why he did that, so that this report would not be used against the president or the director of national intelligence. Think about that. The chief of staff of the – of the Office of the Director National Intelligence wasn't saying, we need the very best intelligence here. We need you to go back and make sure you're 100 percent true. He was saying, we need to make sure that your product is not used to embarrass the president and the director of national intelligence. That is the very definition, the very definition of politicizing intelligence. This is not about embarrassing or not embarrassing anybody. MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes. MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes. REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: So, no, Joe Kent must never be confirmed for any Senate-confirmed… MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes. REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: Look, it's all out there for the Senate to see. So, no, he may – he must never be confirmed for any Senate-confirmed position because of what he did. MARGARET BRENNAN: OK. OK. And those e-mails are available for the public to read as well. Congressman Himes, thank you for your time today. We'll be right back with a lot more Face the Nation. (ANNOUNCEMENTS) MARGARET BRENNAN: In our next half-hour, we will be talking to not one, but two members of the McCain family, Cindy McCain and her son Jack. Stay with us. (ANNOUNCEMENTS) MARGARET BRENNAN: One congressional tradition that brings out both Republicans and Democrats is the Memorial Day weekend cleaning of the Vietnam Wall. We ran into former Trump National Security Adviser Mike Waltz on Thursday when we visited. He's no longer in Congress, but he explained why he started encouraging his fellow veterans in the House to pitch in. Stay with us. (ANNOUNCEMENTS) MARGARET BRENNAN: We turn now to the executive director of the United Nations World Food Programme, Cindy McCain. She joins us this morning from Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Good morning to you. CINDY MCCAIN (Executive Director, United Nations World Food Programme): Good morning. MARGARET BRENNAN: In Gaza we have this manmade catastrophe with Israeli authorities blocking the entry of all aid from March until about May 18th. The Trump administration said Israel needs to let in food. So, are your deliveries consistently now getting through? CINDY MCCAIN: Well, let's start with the fact that this is a catastrophe. And you're absolutely correct, and I'm very grateful that you are covering this issue. They have let a few trucks in. This is a drop in the bucket as to what's needed. Right now we have 500,000 people inside of Gaza that are – that are extremely food insecure and could be on the verge of famine if we don't help bring them back from that. We need to get in and we need to get in at scale, not just a few dribble of the trucks. Right now it's, as I said, it's a drop in the bucket. MARGARET BRENNAN: So, how many trucks need to be getting in daily to address the scale of the need you see? And – and can they get into northern Gaza? CINDY MCCAIN: Well, prior to the – you know, during the ceasefire, I should say, we were getting in 600 trucks a day. Right now we're getting in maybe 100. Something like that. So, it – it's not nearly enough. And it needs to be going to the correct places. So, the various gates. It's inconsistent as to how the gates are open. It's inconsistent as to the roads we can use. The roads that are the better roads. The ones that can get us further along aren't open at all much. It's complicated right now. And – and again, I will tell anybody who will listen, we need to get in and get in at scale and be allowed to feed these people before further catastrophe occurs. MARGARET BRENNAN: Your organization announced at least 15 of your trucks were looted when they entered southern Gaza on route to – to bakeries. Israel has consistently said that the looting is being carried out by Hamas. Have you seen evidence that it is Hamas stealing the food? CINDY MCCAIN: No, not at all. Not – not in this round. Listen, these people are desperate. And they see a World Food Programme truck coming in and they run for it. This – this doesn't have anything to do with Hamas or any kind of organized crime or anything. It has simply to do with the fact these people are starving to death. And so, we will continue to go in. We will continue to go in with food and the kinds of supplies that we need to help the bakeries operate and make sure that we can continue to do that and – and hopefully be able to do more of it. But, again, we can't do this unless the world community puts pressure on this. We can't be allowed to sit back and watch these people starve to death with no outside diplomatic influence to help us. These – these – these poor souls are really, really, really desperate. And, you know, having been in – in a food riot myself some years ago, I understand the desperation very well. MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, five days ago, Prime Minister Netanyahu vowed to take control of all of Gaza, which seems to be a shift from going in, carrying out raids and then withdrawing. We've seen the pope speak out. We've seen the leaders of France, of Canada, of the U.K. calling the cutting of aid egregious. Netanyahu said criticism like that is feeding Hamas and really feeding anti-Semitism. What do you make of that pushback from him, that criticisms of the state are feeding hate? CINDY MCCAIN: What I do know is they're not feeding people. And the most important part of this is that's what we're supposed to be doing. I'm very grateful for anyone, the pope, any of the folks that did – did shout out and say, listen, we need to get more in. But I can't tell you as to what – exactly what Netanyahu's thinking or anything else. What I do know for a fact is that we need food to get into Gaza to avoid an utter catastrophe. MARGARET BRENNAN: The Israeli army had announced aid will be distributed under what they described as an American plan. Prime Minister Netanyahu said it will be American companies giving food directly to Palestinian families in safe zones secured by the Israeli military. There's reporting in 'The Washington Post' that these are armed private contractors doing logistics. Palestinians will have to submit to identity checks to be fed. And that would replace the U.N. coordinated networks, presumably also the World Food Programme. Do you know how much longer you will be allowed to operate in Gaza? CINDY MCCAIN: I have not seen a plan from anybody. We continue to operate doing what we do best. And we are the largest and the best at what we do, I might add. I – we've never been – a plan has never been proposed to us. MARGARET BRENNAN: We haven't heard in – in the press at least from the administration any of the details either. But we do know that the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, announced back on May 9th that this is going to be a U.S. initiative involving only Israeli security. The Israelis are not distributing food. Secretary Rubio was just in Rome. He said he did meet with you. Did you share with him any of your concerns? CINDY MCCAIN: Well, we had a very frank discussion about exactly what was going on and what we could do to help alleviate a lot of this. Some of it, I'm not sure that they were completely clear on how we operate and the size that we are and the logistics ability that we have to be able to do this. So – so, we had a – a very nice discussion. As you know, the Rubio family and – and the McCain family have been friends for a very long time. And so I was grateful that he would take the time to listen to what – what we had to say and let us discuss exactly how we feel we should be able to operate. MARGARET BRENNAN: Did he assure you that the U.S. supports the U.N. and the World Food Programme continuing to supply food in Gaza? CINDY MCCAIN: We didn't really discuss the U.S. participation in any of this. He was really – really concerned with and really trying to understand how we operate and – and the need for what exactly what we do. We will work with anybody as long as it feeds people, and feeds people safely, I might add, on the ground and keeps our people and people from other agencies safe as well. MARGARET BRENNAN: Executive director of the World Food Programme, Cindy McCain. Thank you for your time this morning. CINDY MCCAIN: Thank you very much for having me. MARGARET BRENNAN: And we'll be right back. (ANNOUNCEMENTS) MARGARET BRENNAN: And we're back with another McCain. Jack McCain is the son of Cindy and the late Senator John McCain. He's a Navy veteran who served in the Afghanistan War. And he joins us now from Kyoto, Japan. Good to have you here. JACK MCCAIN (Afghanistan War Combat Veteran): Thank you. I'm incredibly glad to be here. MARGARET BRENNAN: So, we know, when you were in Afghanistan, you flew alongside and helped to train some of the Afghan Black Hawk pilots. Why is it important to you now to speak out on their behalf? Are any of your personal contacts there at risk? JACK MCCAIN: Yes. Basically everyone that we were unable to get out is at risk. These pilots and crew members fought the Taliban toe to toe. And because of that, the Taliban is trying to seek them out for reprisal. Something that they distinctly promised that they would not do. So, not only are they – are they in danger, but we owe them a debt. I believe that I'm vertical and still on this earth because of the efforts of my Afghan pilots and crews. And not only do I owe them personally, but the nation owes them a debt of honor. One that we have yet to repay. Everyone, interpreters, ground troops, pilots, that worked and fought alongside the United States at our behest should be able to be evacuated here to the United States and should be taken care of. MARGARET BRENNAN: So, you were active duty at the time of the very chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. I know you helped to get Afghans out during that period of time. There were a lot of Afghans airlifted out. Who was left behind and – and what promises were made? JACK MCCAIN: Yes, the problem is everyone was left behind. Whether it was family members, including family members of U.S. servicemen, whether it was pilots, crews, the people that I worked with, special forces, we did everything we could to get as many as we could out. But due to the chaos of the withdrawal and, frankly, the lack of planning on the part of the United States government, it was up to individuals and sometimes smaller military units to help either, in my case I had to triage who we were going to take out. I had to prioritize operational pilots over pilots in training versus crew members in the back simply because everyone was trying to do everything they could. So, we have tens of thousands that fought alongside us left behind. Each one of them in danger in their own way. Not to mention family members that can be used as tools of leverage against those that are even here in the United States now. MARGARET BRENNAN: And to that point, under the Taliban right now, the daughters, the wives, the female family members of a lot of these people who worked with Americans are facing some pretty tough conditions. However, this administration just recently said through Homeland Security that it is safe for Afghans to return. So those here could be sent back. Some Afghans who had arrived here and been given temporary protection. Does what the U.S. government said match in any way what you are hearing is happening on the ground? JACK MCCAIN: I would disagree with the entire notion that it is safe for anyone, especially if they've been in the United States, to return to rule under the Taliban. Whether they are male, female, young, old, that regime has proven itself to be – to not only have gone back on every promise they made to us, but to be – to have no problem using human lives as pawns to imprison, torture, rape, kill, even sell into slavery. MARGARET BRENNAN: So, there are a number of veterans of the war in Afghanistan who serve currently as lawmakers in the United States Congress. And it is Congress that sets the number of visas for these – these special immigrant visas, SIVs. We checked. There are more than 144,000 applicants in the pipeline, but there are only 11,000 visas left. That's not even counting family members here. Have you gotten any indication from the lawmakers you know that they are going to raise that cap? JACK MCCAIN: No, I have not. And it is an utter travesty that that is the case. People on both sides of the aisle had – have served in Afghanistan or have fought alongside Afghans, much like me. And the political theater that has taken place of simply ignoring the problem can only be summarized by the word despicable. This is an issue of humanity. This is an issue of national honor. And this is a debt that we owe. So, I would urge lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to solve this problem because it is not going to go away. It is your job to legislate, so, please do so. MARGARET BRENNAN: So, that's in the hand of lawmakers. That was a problem even during the last administration. Now, though, we have this extra complication where the Trump administration has put in orders to restrict refugee admissions and said the U.S. should prioritize people who can, quote, 'fully and appropriately assimilate and who do not pose a threat to the security or welfare of the United States.' That's made it hard for Afghan refugees, family members to enter here. How do you reassure the public that these refugees are not a risk? Even the vice president of the United States has said he does not trust the vetting of refugees. JACK MCCAIN: Well, I mean, I think I passed the ultimate test in that I literally put my lives in – my life in these people's hands. So, not only are they worthy of trust, but they are worthy of our care. The vetting process has taken place. It continues to take place. And if vetting is the issue, fantastic. Let's pass legislation to solve that problem. Let's make sure everyone up to this point has been vetted. MARGARET BRENNAN: Before I let you go, your father famously said, 'it matters less that you can fight, but what you fight for is the real test.' I know you feel passionately about this particular issue. Can you ever see yourself entering politics to fight for other issues? JACK MCCAIN: That's a – a very interesting question. One that I happen to get asked fairly regularly. And I would say trying to follow his example that the best life is one lived adventurously and in service of a cause greater than one's self interest. I'm doing that. And if someday that does take me to office in service of the nation, then by all means. But to live a life simply focused on the single goal of attaining public office is not in my mind a life purposefully lived, in – in service in office, it is a purposefully lived one, but that should not be the overriding goal of your life. MARGARET BRENNAN: We will continue watching. Jack McCain, thank you for weighing in on this important issue. JACK MCCAIN: Thank you so much. MARGARET BRENNAN: We'll be back in a moment. MARGARET BRENNAN: This year, the bipartisan group, led in the past by then Congressman Mike Waltz, went from the House floor, where they had just passed the president's spending bill in an early morning vote, down to the Washington Mall. Cleaning the Vietnam War Memorial may have been delayed, but the mission was not deterred by either lack of sleep or rain. (BEGIN VT) MARGARET BRENNAN: You were up all night. Why did you show up in the rain in your suit to still do this? REPRESENTATIVE SETH MOULTON (D-MA): Because this is way more important. You know, sometimes people ask me, God, Seth, Washington is a mess today. Is it as bad as Iraq? And every single day the answer is, this is easier than the war. And it's important to keep that perspective. MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you think that the divisions in our country now are in the same place, different from what this country went through around the time of Vietnam, when it was a very divided country? REPRESENTATIVE SETH MOULTON: You know, I think there are actually a lot of – a lot of parallels. And one of the lessons that we should learn is to – to do right by our veterans, if for no other reason we've got to work on coming together. And, you know, it's – it's difficult when it feels like we've got the divider in chief to quote one of his former officials, at the head of our government right now. But that doesn't mean that those of us in Congress, especially veterans, can't work together. MARGARET BRENNAN (voice over): Iowa Republican Zach Nunn spent 20 years as an Air Force intelligence officer as still served in the Air Force Reserve. North Carolina Democrat Don Davis also served in the Air Force and told us that his work as a mortuary officer at nearby Andrews Air Force Base makes Memorial Day especially important to him. After the wall was cleaned, we talked about their work together on Capitol Hill. MARGARET BRENNAN: Congress did give that boost of pay last year to the troops. Is it enough in this economy though? Is the country doing enough? REPRESENTATIVE DON DAVIS (D-NC): We know that families are still struggling to make ends meet. Taking care of the day to day, kids, putting gas in the tank. So, it's definitely, I'm sure, not enough. But we are moving, I believe, there with that (INAUDIBLE) in particular in the right direction, not only with pay, but looking at broader quality of life issues, housing, childcare that's available on our installations. MARGARET BRENNAN: America spends more than any other country on its defense. How is it possible we have this happening to our troops? REPRESENTATIVE ZACH NUNN, (R-IA): We've tried to work together on things that not only help veterans, leading a veteran's suicide bill, assistance to families in the military. I'm proud the bill that we just passed is going to be able to extent a 22 percent tax cut to military families. I'm proud that we got a child tax credit in there. I'm thrilled that we were able to get our bill in there that worked towards giving a family a tax credit for adoption. We've got two adopted kids. This goes a long ways to helping a middle American family, whether you're military or not, be successful going forward. REPRESENTATIVE DON DAVIS: But I want to also say, it's important to do all of this for recruitment, retention, addressing quality of life. We recruit families. But also, when I think about being right here, at the Vietnam Memorial, and I think about our service, my service, you don't do it for the money, you do it because you love the country. REPRESENTATIVE ZACH NUNN: That's right. REPRESENTATIVE DON DAVIS: So, because of that love for the country, realizing that families are fighting for our country, the service members and their families, we have to continue to just look and – at prioritizing our military families. MARGARET BRENNAN: How do you tell people now, encourage them to enter public service, at a time when they're being told, even by the federal government – REPRESENTATIVE ZACH NUNN: Right. MARGARET BRENNAN: The private sector is going to be more rewarding for you? REPRESENTATIVE ZACH NUNN: Look, Margaret, I think you highlight a really important part here. There's a number of ways that people can be called to serve. It's one of the things that I think has actually made us most combat effective in Congress is finding people who are mission oriented, who are working together. I tell my kids, the things that they could potentially learn in the military will echo throughout their entire life. But it's up for every American to make that decision, that pathway. You're right, less than 1 percent of Americans are serving. That 1 percent distinguishes itself time and time again. And there's lots of great ways to public service. Don and I have worked together to get more teachers, more nurses, more doctors. There's all great calls to public service. The federal government has a role to play in this, but ultimately it's up to Americans to decide how do they best give back to the communities that they represent? We certainly felt that military service was a way to do it, but I think we came to it in our own pathway. REPRESENTATIVE DON DAVIS: Yes, and I would love to say to any young person listening right now that's remotely interested, I had an amazing career serving in the United States Air Force. I love serving our country. And it was definitely a great career for me. And now as a member of the Armed Services Committee, we're doing everything to continue to make sure all of our branches are vibrant and we're doing things to make sure we support them. Give it a shot. MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes. Well, we talk about the Vietnam War and the memorial behind you. There are it looks like students coming to reflect this morning. Three million people died in that war, 58,000 Americans among them. I wonder this Memorial Day, who are you thinking of? REPRESENTATIVE ZACH NUNN: Look, this isn't ancient history. This is living history. I think of my uncle who flew spotter planes over Vietnam. I think of my dad, who had the choice between enlisting or joining the ROTC program. I also think about my mother, who got – back home taking care of, you know, at that point, her career as a nurse. Ay aunt, who had two little girls. These are the stories that I think it's so important that young people do have the opportunity to learn about. One, so we never enter this kind of a situation again where we send men and women off to fight and they come back home, not to a hero's welcome, but as a despised class. Peace through strength is a real deterrent. But also knowing that we've got a military that when we commit to fight, we have to go in there knowing that we have a strategy, a plan, and that we're not going to be bringing people home injured, broken or shattered to a country not ready to receive them. REPRESENTATIVE DON DAVIS: It's so warming to see young people, kids walking through and looking at the Vietnam Memorial. I think of those throughout my community back home in eastern North Carolina, who I know served our country during Vietnam. And I go beyond Vietnam. I think of Corporal Ryan Russell, who's from east North Carolina, who was killed in Iraq. And I have a special relationship with his mom, Kathy. And we're doing everything to commemorate those who were killed, not just Vietnam, but in all wars and conflicts so that they know the – that the families, that we're standing with them. There's a way to get through this, this healing process that so many families are going through, those tears, that they're not alone. But not only that, but to embrace nationally when we see this, to think about all those who ultimately gave their lives in service of our country. (END VT) MARGARET BRENNAN: And we will be right back. (ANNOUNCEMENTS) MARGARET BRENNAN: That's it for us today. But on behalf of all of us here at FACE THE NATION, to our military, our veterans, and especially their families, thank you for your service. We are all in your debt. Until next week, for FACE THE NATION, I'm Margaret Brennan.
Wakala News
19-05-2025
- Politics
- Wakala News
Transcript: Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates on 'Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,' May 18, 2025
The following is the full transcript of an interview with former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a portion of which aired on 'Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan' on May 18, 2025. MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, if you're ready, we'll dig in. FORMER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE ROBERT GATES: Okay. MARGARET BRENNAN: And there's a lot to ask you about, sir. So President Trump just concluded this week-long trip through the Middle East. He's lifted sanctions on Syria and its interim new government. He is trying to get some kind of diplomatic deal with Iran. He's courting a lot of Gulf money. So far, no success in getting Israel to stop its war in Gaza. But how would you judge his foreign policy focus to date? SEC. GATES: What's interesting to me is that we're back in the Middle East, after all the talk about the pivot to Asia and- and China and so on. We have two aircraft carriers, strike groups, in the Middle East. We had the president in the Middle East. I don't have to say this though, Margaret, I think, ironically, the Middle East may be one place where there are some real opportunities and- and- and possibilities. I think that Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, are all so focused on diversifying their economies, reforming, modernizing, bringing their populations into the 21st century. It's a- it's a place to do business, for China, for the United States, for everybody else. The actions of Israel, post the October 7 massacre by Hamas, has really changed the strategic equation in the Middle East, because Iran has been dramatically weakened, mainly by Israel's attacks on Hamas, on the attack- our attacks on the Houthis, but also, and especially, Hezbollah, and the weakening of Hezbollah. And with the fall of Assad, Syria is no longer a conduit for Iranian weapons to get to Hezbollah. So- and then you add to that, the Iranian- the Israeli air attack on the Iranian nuclear facility that basically wiped out their air defenses. Iran's in a very weak place now. And if there is an opportunity to do a deal on nuclear, this is it. MARGARET BRENNAN: So, when it comes to that nuclear program, you didn't really like the Obama era nuclear deal with Iran. President Trump is trying something that may be somewhat similar. What do you think has to be in it for it to really be a success? SEC. GATES: Well, I think- I- I would agree with those in the Senate and- and elsewhere that Iran really has to stop their nuclear program. They have to stop their enrichment entirely. And they have to give up– (BEGIN CROSSTALK) MARGARET BRENNAN: Entirely, not just– SEC. GATES: Entirely. MARGARET BRENNAN: –highly enriched, all enrichment? SEC. GATES: Entirely. And- and if they want to have a civil nuclear program, they need to import the uranium, the enriched uranium, to do that. But they need to get rid of the stockpile. They were- they were supposed to get rid of a big part of the stockpile earlier. But I think- I think just given the nature of their program and the secretiveness of the whole thing, I think in terms of monitoring compliance, you really have to get rid of- of- of their program in a way that it can be monitored by international experts from the IAEA or- or whoever. But I- you know, one of my concerns, and- and- that's not going- with the earlier agreement, that's apparently not going to be addressed and won't be in this, was the need for them to get rid of their ballistic missile programs. And I think that's not going to be in- if there is an agreement, it doesn't look to me like that's going to be a part of it. MARGARET BRENNAN: So, you said, no enrichment. It's not clear what the president's policy is, because he has different advisors who say different things about what the end state is. And some of that, according to our reporting, is because the president has to make some of those very central policy decisions still. That's a different approach, I'm sure, from White Houses you worked in, where you went in with a goal, a strategy, and you worked back from there. Not, let's talk, and then figure out the strategy. SEC. GATES: Well, I have the impression, and- and I- I don't talk to anybody in the administration, but- so it's just what I hear and what I read. But, I think that his approach is, let's pursue these different avenues and see how far we can get, and if we can get a deal that includes getting rid of the entire- entirely of the enrichment, then that's what we ought to strive for. But if we can't, maybe we settle for something short of that. And- and I think it's basically just playing it tactically, if you will, in terms of seeing what's possible, but with the overall objective of getting some kind of an agreement, and I would hope one that can be monitored by the U.S. or by others to make sure the Iranians aren't cheating. MARGARET BRENNAN: Would you oppose an Israeli strike with U.S. support on Iran's nuclear program? SEC. GATES: The problem that I've had with a strike on the Iranian nuclear program, from the time I was secretary, is that it buys you a year or two. You're not going to be able to destroy, short of- as long as you're using conventional weapons, you cannot get at the very deeply buried parts of the Iranian nuclear program. That's why on site inspection is so important, because you really can't- there's no- there's no kind of ordnance. Even our massive ordnance penetrator won't get that far down. So my argument is, if you attack their nuclear program in a way designed to try and destroy it, you will simply make the Iranians more determined to have a nuclear weapon and to bury the whole program even deeper. It buys you a little time, but it doesn't solve the problem. MARGARET BRENNAN: The president seems to be saying, the threat of military force exists, but he really wants a diplomatic deal. SEC. GATES: That's certainly my impression. MARGARET BRENNAN: So you have a history with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. You're smiling. His government, you've said, acts like an ungrateful ally. We're starting to see some points of friction with the Trump administration and the Netanyahu government in particular. Are- are we at the point now where President Trump needs to publicly be clear that the war in Gaza has to end, and withhold U.S. support if it doesn't? SEC. GATES: I think it would be a very heavy political lift for the President to say he's going to cut off military supplies to Israel, unless they stop in Gaza. I think he can say a lot of things in terms of putting pressure on Netanyahu to stop the war. He can put forward proposals on how humanitarian assistance and other things might might go forward. But I would- I- it would be very difficult for any U.S. president, I think, to say we're just going to cut Israel off from military supplies– MARGARET BRENNAN: But you did support- I remember President Biden's decision to withhold very specific- actually, just delay delivery of very specific weapons. SEC. GATES: Well, over time, and including when I was Secretary, I opposed providing Israel with certain kinds of ordinance, mainly because what they wanted was the kind of ordinance that would allow them to attack Israel- attack the Iranian nuclear program. MARGARET BRENNAN: Is there a cost to this ongoing support of such a bloody war, given the projections from U.S. intelligence about the long term recruitment of- among terror groups around the world because of the devastation? SEC. GATES: I think there is a cost. I think it does provide a basis for radicalization in the region. But it is interesting to me that you're not hearing much out of the Gulf Arabs and- and others in terms of decrying the ongoing operations and so on. I think- I mean, what has been the case to- to date is that the Saudis have really insisted that there be something for the Palestinian people before they would do- before they would establish diplomatic relations with Israel. I don't know as a result of this week's talks whether that may have shifted in some way, but- but clearly they are worried about the feelings of their own people toward the- in their countries, about the- about what has happened to the Palestinians, and what is continuing to happen to the Palestinians. And I think they are worried that- that there could be some protests and- and strong feelings on the part of their populations. And the governments, I think, are all for establishing relationships with with Israel, as- as the UAE and others have done. But I think- I think that it's still a problem for the Saudis. MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to move to another part of the world, and that is Ukraine. Secretary of State Rubio said he believes that there won't be a clear read on Vladimir Putin's intentions until he sits down with President Donald Trump. You've met Putin before. Would you- what would you advise for that one-on-one? And does it really take a face-to-face to judge Putin's intentions? SEC. GATES: I'm not sure even in a face to face that you can judge Putin's intentions. My own view, having dealt with him and having spent most of my life working on Russia and the Soviet Union, is Putin feels that he has a destiny to recreate the Russian Empire. And as my old mentor, Zbigniew Brzezinski once said, without Ukraine, there can be no Russian Empire. So I think the President is- based on what I read, is getting the sense that, as he put it, that Putin is tapping him along and- and that, you know, Putin hasn't given up on any of his original goals in Ukraine. He's going to insist on occupying all four of the eastern provinces of the Donbas. Perpetual recognition of Russian ownership of Crimea. A pro Russian government in Kyiv and a Ukrainian military that looks a lot like an enhanced police force. And, no membership in NATO and probably no membership in the EU he wants- he wants Ukraine, basically, to be a client state of Russia. And I don't- I don't see what it would take to get him to walk away from any of those goals in the foreseeable future. I mean, when you look at 900,000 or so Russian soldiers that have been killed or wounded. He's paid a huge price- the Russian economy and so on. It hasn't deterred him in the slightest. MARGARET BRENNAN: Has he paid a price, though? Because there are analysts who look at the way he's reoriented that economy around his military, the fact that he gets that lifeline from China, and say sanctions haven't made him buckle one bit in his desire to continue this war. SEC. GATES: No, that's absolutely correct. And he has militarized the economy, and absolutely there has been a cost- a long term cost for the Russian people. You know, you've had upwards of a million young Russian- mainly men, flee the country. Young tech guys, entrepreneurs and others who thought they had a future in Russia and- and when the war started, decided they didn't. And- and the complete reorientation of the- of the economy for the military industrial complex, as you will, it is very much what the Soviets did in many respects and- and I think he's got 21% interest rates. I mean, the economy is chugging along, it's got positive growth, but it's artificial. The only source of income of revenue for the Russian government is oil and gas. The problem that Putin has is over time, those are old oil and gas fields, and what was enabling the Russians to extract from those fields was Western technology, the Exxons, the Chevrons, the other big oil companies from the West that had the technology. That's all gone. So over time, the revenue stream from oil and gas from Russia is going to diminish, and probably fairly dramatically, but it'll take time. So long term, he has- he has, I think, cost Russia enormously. But that doesn't mean that in the short to near term, it's going to force him to change any of his policies. MARGARET BRENNAN: Would you advise President Trump not to take that face-to-face, even if Vladimir Putin was willing to do it? SEC. GATES: I would like to see what if- I were ever asked, I would say you need to figure out some leverage that you have going into that meeting with Putin. What- what can- what can you do that puts more pressure to bear on Putin to make him believe his- his interests are served by not just a ceasefire, but a- basically, at least freezing things in place. MARGARET BRENNAN: We've seen a very different approach to this diplomacy, too. The President has been relying on his close friend Steve Witkoff, this former real estate developer, to really be the face with some of the most thorny issues we have in the national security portfolio, including meeting with the Iranian negotiator over a nuclear program, including getting face-to- face with Vladimir Putin. There is a value in having a fresh set of eyes. But is it advisable to put aside the experts, including American translators, and not include them in those meetings? SEC. GATES: Well, I've always believed that it's a mistake not to have an American interpreter in meetings. The President and Mr. Witkoff are not the first Americans to believe- and he's not the first president to believe, he doesn't need an American interpreter in the room. I think it's always a mistake, because you never know that what you're saying is, in fact, being interpreted to Putin or whoever, exactly as you said it. And so I think that's a mistake. On the other hand, you know, bringing fresh eyes and fresh blood to some of these problems. You know, I know people who've been involved in the Middle East negotiations for peace for 30 years, you know, and have not much to show for it, and then all of a sudden, you bring in somebody else, and things happen like the Abraham Accords. So I- I'm not- I'm not willing to say that you shouldn't bring in some people that have not got a lot of experience. In fact, one of the reasons in 2016 I recommended Rex Tillerson to the- to President Trump for his first Secretary of State, was precisely because, as a businessman, not a diplomat, but as a businessman, Tillerson had negotiated with tough guys all over the world for most of his career. So I think bringing somebody with business background in who's done this kind of thing, it may make a lot of sense. MARGARET BRENNAN: Even when they're sitting across some- from someone who has spent decades facing off with Americans? Or in the case of the Iranian nuclear negotiations, someone who negotiated the last nuclear accord? That's a lot of experience– SEC. GATES: –I think- I think just because the guy on the other side of the table has been doing it for a long time doesn't mean you- you can't bring in somebody- somebody fresh, somebody new. MARGARET BRENNAN: How sustainable do you think it is for the Secretary of State to also be the national security adviser, the acting archivist and the acting director of USAID? SEC. GATES: It's interesting a lot of people point to the precedent of when Henry Kissinger was Secretary of State and National Security Advisor from 1973 to 1975. I was at the NSC during most of that period, and all I can tell you is Henry Kissinger was an absentee landlord. I mean, what made it work in that time was that Henry had a very experienced and wise deputy in General Brent Scowcroft. And Scowcroft essentially ran the NSC day to day, and Henry would appear now and then, but- but mainly did his Secretary of State job. He still had the title and a lot of papers going to the presidents from the NSC still went through him, but- but day to day, the NSC and the whole interagency process was really managed by Scowcroft. So whether or not this will work, I think, depends on whether the Secretary of State has a deputy at the NSC who is very experienced, knows the interagency and- and- and is respected and trusted by the President. MARGARET BRENNAN: There is a unique challenge with the NSC, with this president I've heard from officials which is he does not trust the National Security Council because of the history with the first impeachment. So he is suspect of a lot of people who sit there. What's the danger of that, when you don't trust the people who are briefing you on some of the most sensitive national security issues, or advising you? SEC. GATES: I think it's important for people to remember, and I tried to observe this myself- since I worked on the NSC under four presidents, the NSC is the President's personal foreign policy staff. So I think if- if people on the NSC, and I don't care whether they come from the State Department or CIA or the military or anyplace else or from the outside. If you can't- in- on that staff, if you can't be loyal to the president, then you should leave. MARGARET BRENNAN: What do you mean loyal? SEC. GATES: I mean be willing- embrace his policies and do what you can to implement those policies and to ensure that the other agencies are implementing the President's policies. And when the time comes, if the time comes, that you disagree with those policies, then it seems to me it's incumbent on you to return to your agency or to leave the government. I can't- this is really an important point. This is his personal staff. This is the staff that drafts his letters going back to other leaders. This is the staff that does his talking points for meetings with foreign leaders and provides background information for him. So I think- I think he has a right to- to expect loyalty. What I- my line- my line, when I was at the NSC, was be loyal or be gone. MARGARET BRENNAN: Including when it means having a different view of the last election or having family members who work in the Justice Department? I mean, there are some different definitions of loyalty. SEC. GATES: Absolutely. And again, if, if you- if you- if your views are- if you hold views that are unacceptable to the President on things like that, like the election and so on, then you probably don't belong in his NSC staff. Maybe you belong at the State Department or at CIA or someplace, but you don't belong inside the White House complex. I mean, I know that's a hard thing to say, but, but I've watched this and and, and I've seen- you know, if you go back to the Nixon days, a number of- a number of NSC staffers resigned from the NSC over Vietnam because of the bombing campaigns and so on. So that's- those are the kinds of issues, it seems to me, where- where you need to be loyal. I think you need to give the president your honest views on things, on the subjects that you're in charge of. And it may be unwelcome to him, but he needs to hear different perspectives and different points of view. So being loyal doesn't mean not- it doesn't mean pulling your punches in terms of the policy debate, but once the president's made a decision, then you have to salute. MARGARET BRENNAN: On the point of honestly briefing and giving sometimes hard to deliver information that's necessary. You were not just a director at the CIA, you were a long-time CIA person yourself. The president gets that daily briefing. A lot of that intel comes from the agency. The current Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, CBS is reporting she's really trying to exert more control over that daily brief, pull it away from the agency. Does that concern you? SEC. GATES: She's not the first to try and do that. There were moves in that direction, actually, during the Reagan administration. And we started including in the President's daily brief contributions from, say, the Defense Intelligence Agency that had not been done before. But I think- I think that, you know, having that, you know, the Director of National Intelligence, I think, was not expected to sort of take a daily supervisory role over the content of the information flowing to the president. I think, you know, we would get information from NSA, from DIA, from all these different agencies. CIA did put together the president's brief, but my understanding is in recent years, there's been more and more of a move to have other members of the intelligence community collaborate on putting together the president's daily brief. So I'm I'm not really aware of the details right now, but, but it seems to me that- I remember when, I when I was head of the analytical side of CIA, probably the Director of Central Intelligence who took the greatest day-to-day interest in the PDB was Jimmy Carter's Director of Central Intelligence, Admiral Stanfield Turner, who would literally edit the PDB before it was put to bed. Most D.C. eyes have not touched the PDB. They have, they have let- let the professionals put in there what they needed to put in there, and then, and then they got the fury of the president when he disagreed with something that was in the PDB. MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you have any concerns when you look at some of the reshaping, some of the firings within intelligence that- the two heads, for example, of the National Intelligence Council, were just dismissed by Gabbard. SEC. GATES: Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I don't know enough about the details to be able to comment. The one thing that I would say concerns me, both at CIA and at the Defense Department, are the firings of probationary employees– MARGARET BRENNAN: The new blood. SEC. GATES: These are the- this is the future of these organizations. These are the young people dedicated to public service who bring in skills such as data analytics and so on, that- that are their older peer- people don't have, and they're the future of the agency. And there are ways to reduce the manpower and reduce the number of people at these agencies, and most agencies should be reformed and should be made more lean and more efficient, but there's a way to do it that doesn't shortcut the future and also doesn't end up firing people that actually are really needed. MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you think that's what Elon Musk and the DOGE effort did? SEC. GATES: I think so. MARGARET BRENNAN: That America lost new talent– SEC. GATES: I think there– MARGARET BRENNAN: –that was important. SEC. GATES: I think there has been a cost in talent with the categorization of the people. And I think the reason that probationaries were put at the top was because they're easier to fire and- but that doesn't mean that was the right thing to do. MARGARET BRENNAN: When we look around the world right now, there are a lot of hot spots, not just this land war in Ukraine, in the middle of Europe, you have missile attacks between two nuclear powers, India and Pakistan, you have China's increased aggression in Asia, the ongoing Israeli war, as we talked about. Two years ago, I re-read this essay that you wrote two years ago, and you said the U.S. confronts graver threats to its security than it ever has. Two years later, what does the playing field look like to you? SEC. GATES: I think that if anything, the peril has gotten greater, simply because both Russia and especially China have significantly increased their arsenals and their military power. And particularly, as I say in the case of China, China has been much more aggressive in the Taiwan Strait and in the South China Sea than they were two years ago. I think they put themselves in a position, if they chose to do so, to put essentially a stranglehold around Taiwan in terms of shipping and so on. And you know, what we've never faced before is large, aggressive nuclear powers, both in Europe and in Asia, collaborating. And what we are facing today we've never faced as a country, is a country that's almost as rich as we are, that is technologically advanced, competing with us in many areas of technology, technology advances and- and one that has unanswered ambitions, unfulfilled ambitions– MARGARET BRENNAN: You're talking about China. SEC. GATES: –in the neighborhood, all China. And so, you know, China is the bigger threat by far, but doesn't negate the 1,500 nuclear weapons that the Russians have either. MARGARET BRENNAN: Yet. SEC GATES: I'm sorry? MARGARET BRENNAN: Yet, they're expanding, right? SEC GATES: Yes. MARGARET BRENNAN: So you've said, though, of China, I mean, you look at what's happening with their expansion. There was this trade war that on Monday was paused in some way in terms of the tariffs. There are some that are still in place, but some delayed for at least 90 days. Was there a point? Was there a win that came out of this confrontation? SEC. GATES: My view is that if China is your primary competitor, your primary rival, your primary adversary, and we can avoid a military confrontation with China, then the outcome is going to be- is going to be settled by non-military instruments of power, above all, economics. And you would think that if we were going to put significant additional economic pressure on China, we would want all the other countries around the world to be on our side of the table and willing to collaborate with us in putting those pressures on China and saying you can't- you can't behave the way you have been. You can't dump, you can't steal intellectual property, you can't do these things. And to have most of the developed countries in the world, in essence, echoing each other and on the same page. Declaring trade wars on all of them did not, shall we say, enhance their willingness to collaborate with us against China. So who's the main enemy? And I think that's always the key question. I understand the imbalance in trade and- and that other countries, the Europeans, have never done as much since the end of the Cold War on defense as they should. I bellowed about it, like a lot of other American officials. But the question is, what's the main strategic threat, and what's the best strategy for dealing with that threat? MARGARET BRENNAN: So having a tariff war with Europe, Japan, South Korea, all the allies at once, you're saying is self defeating. SEC. GATES: I think- I think it doesn't make strategic sense. Now, others look at it from a more purely economic standpoint, and I understand that. But- but I think we have to, we have to decide, you know, is more revenue and reshoring- how does more revenue and reshoring of manufacturing balance off against what many in this administration consider, and both Republicans and Democrats on the Hill, consider to be the main, the main threat. And are there ways that you apply those tariffs in ways that maybe accomplish both goals. MARGARET BRENNAN: You wrote in Foreign Affairs, President Trump's 'disdain for U.S. allies, his fondness for authoritarian leaders, his willingness to sow doubt about the United States' commitment to NATO allies, and his generally erratic behavior undermined us credibility and respect across the globe.' That was about his first term. He's back. Are you seeing a repeat of those behaviors now? SEC. GATES: I think that- I think that he has been more cautious about the language that he has used. He has not talked about not fighting for other countries. He hasn't said, well, I'm not going to participate in Article V, we're not going to go to war for Europe. I mean, there's been some tough language toward the Europeans, the Vice President in Munich and so on, but– MARGARET BRENNAN: He said things again about, oh if they don't pay up– SEC. GATES: It's clear– MARGARET BRENNAN: We don't take it seriously. SEC. GATES: It's clear he does not see the allies- see our allies as- as an important asset for America's national interests, as a lot of us do. I think, and- and the Europeans have given him ammunition by not being willing to provide for their own defense in even the most modest way. But I think he has avoids- avoided some of the more inflammatory language toward NATO that he used in the first term. MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask about the Pentagon, which you ran for a while. You hear a lot these days about identity politics, including when the Secretary of Defense addresses troops. Warrior and war fighting ethos is the mantra. You used to go out and speak to troops, including those serving overseas. What do you think that kind of message is doing? Is that the right tone? SEC. GATES: Well, I think that- I mean it- as I understand it, it derives from a belief that in the Biden administration, that the leadership of the Pentagon was distracted by the need to pursue diversity in- initiatives and so on. MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you think they were? SEC. GATES: You know, I live a long way from the Pentagon. I don't know. I think that, you know, if you look at what some of the military leaders have said, the amount of time that soldiers and leaders actually spent on those issues was pretty small, but it may have been more the focus of public remarks and things like that. I don't know whether it distracted people or not, but I know- I mean, my view is that a big part of the warrior ethos is taking care of your people. Every Second Lieutenant learns that, first thing. And- and so I think- think having a focus on being combat ready, on fitness, on those kinds of things absolutely makes sense and- and I think making sure- and when we talked about various changes, such as the decision made that I made in terms of women serving on submarines, and women going into the Special Forces and so on, the line always was, you can't compromise the standards. The expectations for women need to be exactly the same as they are for men and- and so a focus on that kind of meritocracy, I think, also makes sense. But I think you also have to remember the military needs to look like the American people, and it does. And you can call it whatever you want, but- but we are better served, in my view, by a military that reflects the American people and- and I think it does at this point. MARGARET BRENNAN: The last two national defense strategies said the U.S. military is not postured or equipped to fight wars against two major rivals at the same time. You've talked about the need to fund defense more. Right now, even the Republican Chair of the Armed Services Committee says the White House isn't doing enough. If the focus is on war, fighting and a warrior ethos, isn't that contradictory? SEC. GATES: I think there is a general understanding about two things. One is the Pentagon needs to get much more efficient and needs to be reformed, especially when it comes to acquisitions and the integration of new technologies. The second is that it needs more money to do those things and- and to fund new capabilities. The Department of Defense has not had a budget going into the fiscal year for 15 years. If there isn't- if that isn't a dereliction of duty by the Congress, I don't know what is. Because when you have a continuing resolution, you can't start anything new, you can't add to anything. People talk about- about expanding the ship building capabilities, about expanding our defense industrial capability and so on. And for all the speeches they make, nothing's happening because they haven't voted a single dollar to do any of those things. So there is this- and I don't understand, under the circumstances, why the administration's budget puts forward a budget for the Pentagon that, as I understand it, is basically flat, which, given some inflation means a cut. MARGARET BRENNAN: That's exactly what the Republican Chair of the Armed Services Committee – he said 'it's going to shred to the bone our military capabilities and support to service members.' He said it amounts to a cut and that it contradicts what the President had promised. SEC. GATES: There has to be an agreement between the president and the Congress on actually what has to be done to recapture our industrial- military industrial capabilities, and- and then for Congress to vote the money in a timely way. Let me give you one example of- of how big the gap is with China. Between 2017 and 2024, the number of warships in our Navy stayed essentially flat. During that same period, China launched 150 warships. They have 250 times the ship cap- building capability we do. This was us in World War II, and now the tables have been turned. We represent kind of 1/10 of 1% of global shipping- ship building capability. They've got over half. So if we're going to fix that, somebody's got to get off the dime. MARGARET BRENNAN: So then in that context, is it worth to spend as much as $45 million on a military parade on June the 14th, which happens to be the President's birthday? SEC. GATES: Well, I'll leave that up to- up to the gurus in Washington. In my career, we had one military parade in Washington, and that was after the Gulf War, and I don't- and I think we had to do some repair work on the streets in D.C. after that. MARGARET BRENNAN: You served in public service for nearly 50 years. What is your advice to graduates who are looking at the administration's message that the private sector is more productive than the public one, and when they look at all the cuts that are happening to federal agencies? Is it worth it to go into public service? SEC. GATES: Well, I totally believe it's worth it to go into public service. There are few things you can do that are more gratifying and more satisfying, and when you look back, being able to say that maybe you made a difference in keeping the nation safer or the nation better off. The reality is government- government- the American government has generally been an enabler of the American people, in terms of education, in terms of opportunities and so on, and protecting opportunities. People make government work, and you want the best people you can get in those jobs. For all the rhetoric, the American civil service is the most honest and efficient anywhere in the world, and has been for a very long time. Does that mean it can't be improved? Absolutely not. Every organization needs to be reformed and improved, but these young people and their dedication and their- their possession of skills that older people don't have, data analytics and so on, they're crucial to the future of these agencies. And- and- and they shouldn't be daunted. We've been through bad times before. I was- I joined CIA at the height of Vietnam. Those were pretty rough days. 1968 was as bad a year as the United States maybe has had since the Civil War, internally, and with deep divisions and- and distrust of government. And believe me, distrust of government didn't begin recently, it began with Watergate and Vietnam. And so young people need to understand there are great opportunities to serve, and- and I would argue, if you're unhappy about things at the federal level, go into local government or state government. There are lots of different places where you can serve. It doesn't have to be at CIA or the State Department. It could be- it can be in a local NGO of some kind, or a charity. There are lots of ways to do public service, and- and young people who feel motivated to do that, this university has a lot of them. Texas A&M, where I was president, has the George H.W. Bush School of Government and Public Service. Lots of universities have these schools, and they've got a lot of kids who are eager to be helpful and help make the country better. My- my view is they ought to go for it. MARGARET BRENNAN: You talked about loss of confidence. Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan recently wrote about the broken windows theory in law enforcement, where you go after the small crimes to dissuade bigger ones. But she was arguing, basically, we need to apply that in politics right now. Are you concerned that even the appearance of corruption, foreign influence peddling, wears away at that, and that perhaps, as she calls for in this piece, that our parties, the Republican and Democratic Parties, need to be a little bit more honest and explicit in policing themselves? SEC. GATES: Well, I think so, absolutely. I mean, you can't even get legislation on the hill about insider trading. And so I think appearances do matter. And you know, I mean, I remember how strict the rules were when I was in government. If I- if I got a gift when I was traveling from a foreign government, if it was valued at over $300 and I wanted it, I had to pay for it. MARGARET BRENNAN: Including a Boeing plane from a Gulf country? Over $300. All right, we are out of time. We've covered a lot. There's more to talk about, but I will leave it there, Mr. Secretary. SEC. GATES: Okay. Thank you Margaret. MARGARET BRENNAN: Thank you.
