On this “Face the Nation” broadcast, moderated by Margaret Brennan:
- Reps. Mike Turner, Republican of Ohio, and Jim Himes, Democrat of Connecticut
- House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California
- Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Republican of South Dakota
- Tom Homan, President-elect Donald Trump’s border czar
Click here to browse full transcripts of “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
MARGARET BRENNAN: I’m Margaret Brennan in Washington.
And this week on Face the Nation: The nation’s capital braces for the unprecedented in the new year amid growing threats to our nation’s security.
As Washington prepares to certify the 2024 presidential election, to bid a former farewell to the 39th president, and make way for the return of the 45th, who becomes the 47th, to the Oval Office, extraordinary security arrangements are under way, all this as the struggle to make sense of the horrifying New Year’s attack in New Orleans and incident in Las Vegas continues.
We will sit down for a bipartisan conversation with the heads of the House Intelligence Committee, Ohio’s Mike Turner and Connecticut’s Jim Himes.
On Capitol Hill, Speaker Mike Johnson’s job is safe for now. And, in the Senate, Republicans take control with a new leader, South Dakota’s John Thune. He’s responsible for getting president-elect Trump’s ambitious agenda through the Senate.
(Begin VT)
MARGARET BRENNAN: Will you tell him when you think he’s wrong?
SENATOR JOHN THUNE (R-South Dakota): I will.
(End VT)
MARGARET BRENNAN: At the top of Mr. Trump’s to-do list, what he promises will be the largest mass deportation in U.S. history. We will ask his border czar, Tom Homan, how he plans to execute that.
And, as we mark four years since the January 6 attack on the Capitol…
(Begin VT)
RIOTERS: Nancy! Nancy! Nancy!
(End VT)
MARGARET BRENNAN: … former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will be here to talk about the growing threats of political violence.
It’s all just ahead on Face the Nation.
Good morning, and welcome to Face the Nation.
As we begin the new year, the first few days of January are already proving and providing enormous challenges, both here in Washington and around the country, especially in terms of security.
We begin today with House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner and Ranking Member Jim Himes, who joins us in a bipartisan fashion.
Thank you for doing so and for joining us today.
REPRESENTATIVE MIKE TURNER (R-Ohio): Thanks for having us.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So, we have, Chairman, heightened security at U.S. airports, on trains, military bases, this bulletin that went out recently warning of perhaps retaliatory attacks, copycat attacks from that New Orleans car-ramming incident.
How should Americans understand the threat environment we’re in?
REPRESENTATIVE MIKE TURNER: Right, right.
Well, it’s certainly very difficult. And our heart breaks as we think of what occurred just after New Year’s Eve and on New Year’s Day. The – what we know that the FBI director has said is that we – we are in a heightened threatened environment.
We see from, of course, what occurred in New Orleans, we have the threat of those who can be lone wolves, those individuals who might be, as the self- declared terrorist has indicated, inspired by ISIS, by terrorist threats. We also have those who – who are here who have come across the border that the director has said are affiliated with terrorist groups or organizations outside of the country who want to do Americans harm.
Those individuals still pose a threat to Americans and to the United States. The director, the FBI, local law enforcement are continuing to work to try to find them and try to lessen the risk, but, certainly, at this time, as we go into the inauguration for Donald Trump, where we even have state actors like Iran who – where we have in custody individuals who have come here with the stated purpose to – to assassinate as a part of a plot…
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
REPRESENTATIVE MIKE TURNER: … to have been alleged to perpetrate a plot to assassinate Donald Trump, we have a number of actors that pose a risk and a threat to Americans.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Congressman Himes, ISIS has not claimed responsibility for this New Orleans attacker. He did pledge allegiance in these social media videos.
But Homeland Security, as far as we have heard from them, said there’s no linkage to the U.S. border. There is no linkage established to a foreign actor at this point. Is this just an example of someone with mental health issues choosing violence?
REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES (D-Connecticut): Well – and I’m glad you said that, because there was so much misinformation right out of the box, because these attacks happened at the same time. You know, there was all sorts of stuff on social media about how they were coordinated and together…
MARGARET BRENNAN: Las Vegas.
REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: … and that the – Las Vegas with New Orleans.
You know, the New Orleans – Jabbar, the attacker there, clearly had himself affiliated with ISIS.
Now, what we need to know and what – to date, there is no evidence that this is the case, but we need to know whether that individual was deliberately tasked. Again, no evidence that he was. And, of course, we constantly see these lone wolf attackers who get radicalized, maybe on social media, maybe in some other location.
And – and, you know, I would certainly agree with Mike’s characterization of the danger out there, but just add that, as Americans think about the people who are protecting them – and I think the chairman would agree with me on this – the people and assets that we put up against this threat are the best in the world.
It is also true that lone wolf attackers, that is, an individual who’s not communicating with somebody abroad, who’s not sending texts or sending e- mails, are extraordinarily difficult to detect. And, you know, though our people are the best in the world, that is hard to find.
And, by the way, there’s a role for people. You know, in New York City, if you go on the subway, it says, if you see something, say something. And so there’s a role for everybody out there, you know, to help try to solve, to help try to stop these kinds of lone wolf attacks.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But, as one official said to me, this isn’t a problem you solve with another aircraft carrier to the Middle East. Some of these things run deeper in terms of the lone wolf element. That’s the term you’ve used.
How do you diagnose and deal with that, Chair Turner, if people are able to be radicalized online, and whether it’s political violence or just another form of domestic violent extremism?
REPRESENTATIVE MIKE TURNER: Well, on the issue of New Orleans, we – we don’t know yet whether or not he – he will evolve as – as the actual lone wolf, where he operated completely alone.
As Jim is saying, as the investigation unfolds, he himself indicated that he joined, as he claimed it, ISIS in the summer. We don’t know what that involved. We don’t know if it’s going to turn out that he was tasked. Excuse me. He – he went to New Orleans also in October.
There may have been opportunities or times at which he could have been found and could have been prevented. We’ll learn what those are and ways in which he might have been – been found, and maybe we could have intervened.
But those will give U.S. greater opportunities at which we’ll look to how we might be able to in the future find others.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Now, we’ve spoken to both of you on this program, in particular, about the heightened threat environment many times. And back in June, when there was that arrest of those eight men from Tajikistan who were ISIS-linked. We spoke in depth about that.
Chair Turner, shortly after that, you said on this program: “We have terrorists that are actively working inside the United States that are a threat to Americans.”
Do you know if there are active terror cells in the United States right now?
REPRESENTATIVE MIKE TURNER: Well, I think the – the issue of cells – and you and I were talking about that at the beginning of the show.
Are there individuals that are affiliated with ISIS and terrorist groups and organizations that have crossed the border that are inside the United States? Director Wray, FBI director, has said so. We certainly have intelligence that says so. I agree with his assessment. I – Jim has also seen it.
He’s testified before our committee publicly of that fact. Those individuals are working in conjunction with – with ISIS, with the intention of harming Americans. The director has said it directly.
MARGARET BRENNAN: They are known to U.S. intelligence and law enforcement, is what you’re…
(CROSSTALK)
REPRESENTATIVE MIKE TURNER: And we are working diligently to try to take them down, to prevent them from doing so.
And that’s why the director is publicly saying such. And that’s what the new administration is going to be handed, the fact that these individuals are here, that we need to locate them, we need to remove them, we need to bring them to justice, and prevent them from doing harm to Americans.
MARGARET BRENNAN: When we have spoken about this issue in the past, you characterized particularly the arrest of the eight as a success story, because there was no plot carried out. They were disrupted.
Are the individuals that are of concern, do we know where they are? In terms of those eight, they are – we know they were detained, and five of them were actually sent back to Tajikistan.
(CROSSTALK)
REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: You never know what you don’t know. And so none of us certainly in positions of responsibility would ever say that there’s not terrorists in the United States.
Now, I will say what I said before, which is that we have the very best people and the very best technology looking to root these people out and find them. But let’s – if the question is, what should Americans be afraid of, what has killed Americans since 9/11? It hasn’t been people sneaking across the border.
And that’s not to say that the border shouldn’t be secure.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.
REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: The border must be secure. But what has been killing Americans? Whether it was Fort Hood in 2009, I think, whether it was the New York attacks that killed eight people in 2017, what we just sad – sadly, saw in New Orleans, it’s actually Americans who are in this country, actually, in a bizarre number of cases, servicepeople.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: That was the Fort Hood attacks. That was what we saw in New Orleans. That was – though I don’t – it doesn’t seem to be shaping up as a terrorist attack, what we saw in Las Vegas.
So, again, that’s hard, right? Why is that hard? Because if you’re in this country, you have constitutional rights, meaning the FBI can’t say, without a warrant, I want your Facebook posts, I want your e-mails. That’s what makes this very hard.
And, again, let’s look at what has actually killed Americans in the 20 years. And, sadly, it has been radicalized other Americans. So this gets to the question of, what are the mechanisms by which they are radicalized, and how can we as a community push back on that radicalism?
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right, which is why I asked you. That’s a harder problem to solve for.
REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: Much harder, because you have constitutional rights and because – you know, let me give you an example.
If somebody is standing out on the street corner right now saying ISIS is the greatest thing in the world, and the president is a traitor, that – people would say, boy, we should interview that person. That is constitutionally protected speech.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.
REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: And I wonder how some of my colleagues would respond to the idea, because this individual in New Orleans did post some Facebook posts saying, I pledge allegiance to ISIS.
You know, what if we had that debate? Should – should Facebook have instantly submitted that to the FBI? And, if so, where’s the line?
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.
REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: If I say I’m not a big fan of the next president, and I don’t believe that he was, you know, whatever, should that go to the FBI? It’s a tough conversation.
REPRESENTATIVE MIKE TURNER: Margaret, there’s no question that – that that is what we’re seeing from New Orleans.
But the answer to your question is, no, we don’t know where they are. We don’t know where the people are that Director Wray has indicated…
MARGARET BRENNAN: The people who have exploited vulnerabilities at the southwest border.
REPRESENTATIVE MIKE TURNER: … that has come across the border, that are terrorists affiliated with ISIS, that intend to do American harm – Americans harm that are here in our country, we do not know where they are.
And part of the work and part of the reason why he’s raising the alarm is, we need to find them to protect Americans. Now, what Jim’s saying is absolutely correct. And that – that obviously, is the part that also breaks our heart and makes what happened in New Orleans so hard is, is that we had an American who was killing Americans.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right, American-born Army vet.
I want to ask you both about China as well. In terms of traditional adversaries, they are looming large here. We learned just in the past few days that China hacked the U.S. Treasury Department. This is on top of the major cyber espionage against nine telecom companies, against hacking of U.S. infrastructure that incoming National Security Adviser Mike Waltz said was planting cyber time bombs in U.S. infrastructure.
How much of a trump card is this? I mean, can the U.S. expel China from these systems and get control?
REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: Well, so, I mean, let’s start with what we know.
China has been absolutely predatory in just about every dimension. They’ve stolen our I.P. – our I.P., our intellectual property. You know, they’ve manipulated the trading system to hollow out our industrial base, absolutely predatory.
And, by the way, I happen to believe – and it’ll be interesting the chair – if the chairman agrees with me on this.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: They believe they can operate inside our networks without consequence, and that needs to change immediately.
They need to understand that we’re as good at this stuff as they are. And if they get into our networks and start planting beacons or start planting landmines or whatever, we’re going to do the same to them, so that we establish deterrence.
Now, you also have to acknowledge that China does and the U.S. do about $800 billion in trade back and forth, right? And if you snap your fingers and make that go away, you think COVID inflation was bad? Wait until you see that. By the way, they own a trillion dollars of our Treasuries.
So, the point I’m making here is that I think we need to be a lot tougher on them on the areas in which they are predatory against us, even as we recognize that there are areas where we need to tread very carefully, including that economic interconnection.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I know that we’re going to have you both back to talk about exactly this problem.
I’m out of time today, but thank you both.
REPRESENTATIVE MIKE TURNER: There have to be consequences.
MARGARET BRENNAN: There – we will stay…
REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: What he said.
(LAUGHTER)
MARGARET BRENNAN: We will stay tuned.
Face the Nation will be back in one minute. Stay with us.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
MARGARET BRENNAN: Tomorrow marks four years since the attack on the U.S. Capitol, and we spoke to then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi just a short while ago this morning. She’s recovering from a fall last month.
And we began by asking her why she thinks so many Americans decided that Donald Trump’s support for the rioters in 2020 should not disqualify him from a second term as president.
(Begin VT)
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI (D-California): I wouldn’t say that the American people disregarded this. They just had a different view as to what was in their interest, economically and the rest.
So I don’t – I don’t call this a disregard of January 6. I just call it something that they saw in their interest economically.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Even just last night at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump was screening a documentary about the 2020 election, claiming his win and trying to talk about the legal challenges he had. There seems to be a continued effort to claim that he won in 2020.
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: It’s really sad. It really is sad.
And I don’t know about the film that he had and the rest, but it’s – it’s almost sick that he would be thinking that in 2020. He’s won the election now. That will be clear. That will be clear, and, tomorrow, he will be clearly – we will be accepting the results of the Electoral College.
So he should be triumphant about that. But to be still trying to fight a fight that he – he knows he lost is – is really sad.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You know, the president-elect has said that, in the first nine minutes of his new term, he will pardon many of those who participated in January 6. He said he’ll look at it on a case-by-case basis.
But in looking back at what happened four years ago, there are recordings, there’s video evidence of what happened. This is personal for you, some of these rioters in your office, chanting your name.
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: Yes. Yes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: One of them, one of the defendants: “We were looking for Nancy to shoot her in the frigging brain, but we didn’t find her.”
For you, this is personal. So, when you hear about pardons, do you think the nonviolent attackers deserve to be pardoned?
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: The nonviolent – I think that’s a violent attacker, with the intention…
MARGARET BRENNAN: The violence itself.
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: Yes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: The violent language, you think…
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: The violent language, yes, the intention, and, of course, the intention to attack the vice president of the United States.
Now, it didn’t end that day. As you know, he called out to these people to continue their violence, my husband being a victim of all of that. And it still – he still has injuries from that attack. So it just goes on and on. It isn’t something that happens and then it’s over.
No, once you are attacked, you have consequences that continue. So I don’t – it’s really a strange person who’s going to be president of the United States who thinks that it’s OK to pardon people who were engaged in an attack.
But let’s – you know, let’s do this. Let’s just say OK to the American people. This is what this is about. Do not be conned by the denial of the election of 2020. And why would he be saying that? But he – but he is, and then, on top of that, the denial of what happened on January 6.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But some of the 1,600 defendants here were really only charged with trespassing. And when you look at the profiles, University of Chicago did a study. About half of those who broke into the Capitol were white-collar workers. They were small business owners, didn’t necessarily have a criminal record.
When you look at that profile, you said intention. It – it was the intention itself, you think, that needs to be considered more so than the crime, you know that – that it casts the crime itself of trespassing in a different light for you?
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: Well, the president said he would go on a case-by-case basis.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: So I assume that – that some of those people may not have engaged in the violent activities that some of the others did.
Look, at this beautiful Capitol, the dome built by Lincoln, under Lincoln’s leadership during the Civil War, they said, don’t build the dome. It takes too much steel and person power, manpower, they said, from the war effort. And he said, no, I have to show the resilience of America.
And then under that dome, you saw – you saw flags, the flags that – you know, just horrible flags under the dome of Lincoln. And so it was a tragedy, and we cannot be in denial about what it was.
If the president is going to go on a case-by-case basis, I hope he does, and then maybe…
MARGARET BRENNAN: Trespassers, you would be comfortable with pardoning?
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: Well, just depends on how they define what that is.
But the – but I know that some of that encouragement and then the follow- up that – that so many people were threatened, including me and – and to my home, looking for me, and finding my husband, and, as I say, who still suffers from head injuries from – on that day.
So, these things don’t just happen and go away when you have a head injury.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: But, anyway, to – to – to see the threat to so many people in elective office, now, going beyond me, but so many people in elective office, it shouldn’t be a threat to your family that you have chosen to do public service.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You wrote in your book about that 2022 attack on your husband, and you said your daughter told you, if she had known what you were signing up for, she would never have given you her blessing to run for office in the first place.
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: Yes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you think that this threat of domestic violent extremism is having a chilling effect on new talent and – and anyone running for office?
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: Well, I certainly hope not.
But, over the years, when I was encouraging people to run for office, especially women, they would say, we could never take the abuse that you take. And that was really just abuse. It wasn’t physical, it was criticism and the rest of that, and that we don’t want our children subjected to that.
And, yes, I do think it will have a negative impact on people running for public office. Just – you know, in other words, if you’re – if you’re a mom, and they go after you as a – as a mom, and your child comes home crying from school because somebody said a negative thing because they saw it on TV, that the other side said something bad about you, you might not run for office.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So you think it will discourage particularly women…
NANCY PELOSI: Particularly women.
MARGARET BRENNAN: … from running?
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: Yes, I do.
I mean, I know that it has. But I hope that it will not, that we will have – shine a bright light on this and just say, this is unacceptable. This is unacceptable. See, for women, they always – they always – women are known to be more, shall we say, ethical than men. And so, when they go after women candidates, they go after their ethics.
And they’ll say this, that and the other thing. And then the child comes home from school crying because somebody said a bad thing about mom on TV. And nobody – nobody wants that. So, hopefully, the bright light shining on that will reduce – reduce that.
But I think that women have a – proven that they are – are more ethical, and that they – they are – well, maybe they’re not more ethical, they’re all ethical, but that they can then withstand that criticism.
(End VT)
MARGARET BRENNAN: And you can see more of our conversation with Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi on our Web site and our YouTube page.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
MARGARET BRENNAN: If you miss an episode of Face the Nation, you can watch it and our extended interviews on YouTube or listen to them on our podcast.
We will be right back.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
MARGARET BRENNAN: We will be right back with a lot more Face the Nation, including an interview with the new majority leader in the Senate, John Thune.
Stay with us.
ANNOUNCEMENTS)
MARGARET BRENNAN: Welcome back to FACE THE NATION.
Republicans have full control of Congress, although their majority is small in both chambers. We sat down Friday with the new Senate leader, John Thune, and asked if those narrow margins would hamstring the party when it came to making major policy changes.
(BEGIN VT)
SENATOR JOHN THUNE (R-SD): It’s always challenging, and especially in the – in this current political environment. We don’t always agree on (ph) Republicans within the family. But I think –
MARGARET BRENNAN: Particularly among Republicans.
SENATOR JOHN THUNE: But why – but I think when it comes to the big issues, securing the border, rebuilding the military, strengthening the economy, you know, generating energy dominance for this country, those are all things on which we agree.
With respect to even narrow margins, I think we’re going to have a – hopefully a very unified effort when it comes to those core issues. We’ll disagree on the margins, and the process and all that sort of thing. But when it comes to the things we need to get done, those are all things I think we agree on.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You’ve had disagreements with Donald Trump in the past. As part of this advise and consent role –
SENATOR JOHN THUNE: Right.
MARGARET BRENNAN: The role of the Senate, will you tell him when you think he’s wrong?
SENATOR JOHN THUNE: I will. And I think my job is to do everything I can to help him achieve success, be a successful president, which, in my view, means it will be a successful country. We have the same set of objectives. We want to get to the same destination. But I think at times there will be differences in how we get there. And understanding the unique aspects of how the Senate operates is something that I’m going to have to be able to share and convey to the president and – and help him understand, I think, what the – you know, what the contours are, what we can accomplish here in the Senate and what’s realistic.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You have a 53-seat majority over here, which means you can only lose three votes. If Democrats remain unified in their opposition to some of Mr. Trump’s picks for his cabinet, do you expect them all to make it through?
SENATOR JOHN THUNE: What I promised is a fair process for all of them. When it comes to his picks, and I would say this of any president, they deserve a lot of latitude. His picks are going to come through a process where if they get reported out of the committee, come across the floor of the Senate, we’ll make sure that they get the – the vote. And I think that – I suspect a lot of them will get through. And – and we’ll see about all of them remains to be seen. But I think that’s why we have the process, adhere to that process, and give all of these nominees an opportunity to make their cay.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You’ve said you have to see if Democrats play ball or not. But you don’t need Democrats to get these through. So, does that mean you already know some of your Republican senators won’t vote to confirm Kash Patel at the FBI or Pete Hegseth at the pentagon?
SENATOR JOHN THUNE: We don’t have, at this point, I don’t think, clarity on that. I think these are nominees who are new enough, they’ve been going around and conducting their meetings, which I think, frankly, have gone very well. But they still have to make their case in front of – of the committee.
And, you know, we don’t know all the information about some of these nominees. I think we know a lot about them. But they deserve a fair process.
We have a three-vote margin in the Senate, as you point out, but I do think that in most cases at least, most of our Republican senators are inclined to give the president the people that he wants in these positions, given, you know, the process that they go through and whether or not they can manage the committee process and ensure that they get to the floor for a vote.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Does that include FBI background checks? I know often the ranking members get them on Armed Services, for example, but some of your colleagues, they want to see Pete Hegseth’s FBI background check before they vote.
SENATOR JOHN THUNE: Right. And I think that’s going to be determined largely by the committee chairs. I think there will be an interest, obviously –
MARGARET BRENNAN: Would you encourage that?
SENATOR JOHN THUNE: Well, sure. I mean I think that you want to have as much background as possible and that is available to the committees as they make their decisions. I have a high level of confidence in our chairs that they will ensure that as members of the committee and of the full Senate have an opportunity to consider these nominees, that they’ve got all of the information available to them that they should have.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you what you need to get done policy wise as well in terms of providing the president with the funding to execute on some of his big goals.
SENATOR JOHN THUNE: Right.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You’ve said you’re going to go out of the gate with a generational investment in border security and immigration enforcement. You’re going to pass it on 51 party line votes. If you want to govern through regular order, why go through this in a party line direction?
SENATOR JOHN THUNE: Well, it’s one of those issues that has become incredibly divisive for the country. And there aren’t very many people left in the middle. Reconciliation enables us – it doesn’t come along very often where you have unified control of the government. In a lot of cases it doesn’t last very long. It’s a couple of years.
The Democrats provided a template in the last couple of years for how to expand the scope of what’s available to get done through the reconciliation process. It’s the only process in the Senate that enables you to enact legislation with a 51-vote threshold as opposed to 60.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right. Right.
SENATOR JOHN THUNE: And so, immigration, the border –
MARGARET BRENNAN: But it’s out of the gate saying, we’re not going to work with Democrats.
SENATOR JOHN THUNE: Well, I’m not saying what – they came out of the gate. They had their first reconciliation bill done in four weeks coming out – when they got the majority.
MARGARET BRENNAN: $2 trillion.
SENATOR JOHN THUNE: Well, and they spent –
MARGARET BRENNAN: With the Covid bill. And you didn’t like it.
SENATOR JOHN THUNE: $2 trillion and then – then another – another trillion with the IRA.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You faulted them for using reconciliation. Exactly.
SENATOR JOHN THUNE: It would be ideal if we could figure out a way to do things at the 60-vote threshold. And there are a number of things we will. We think that a generational investment in the border is necessary given where we are after the last four years of a – what I think is a very failed Biden/Harris border policy.
MARGARET BRENNAN: There are 1.4 million people here with deportation orders.
SENATOR JOHN THUNE: Right.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Orders of removal against them. I’ve seen numbers that put the cost of expelling them at between $80 to $100 billion annually. Can you get that kind of money in the first hundred days?
SENATOR JOHN THUNE: What we’re trying to do is get an assessment from the people who are going to be in place. They’re going to be implementing a lot of the president’s policies when it comes to the border to determine what that – that resource allocation is going to need – need to be.
MARGARET BRENNAN: They don’t know yet.
SENATOR JOHN THUNE: Well, I think that what we do know is we need physical barriers, we need technological barriers, we need more ICE agents, we need more Border Patrol agents and – and, yes, we’re going to need ways of deporting people that are on that – on that list that you mentioned. And so, it’s going to take some resources to do that, which is why I would argue that when the president takes office, and he’s going to do a lot of things on the border by executive order, by executive action, that we’re going to need to be able to provide the resources in order for him to do that. And that’s why I’ve suggested that we take that border issue on right away and enable him to do the things that he needs to do.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Is it true you’re going to put some defense spending in that as well?
SENATOR JOHN THUNE: Well, I think one of the things that we always argue about around here is the amount of money that we need to spend on defense. If you look at every Biden administration budget, there wasn’t a single one of them when it came to military spending that came up – kept up even with inflation. So, we have a military readiness in this country. You know, we have the defense commission strategy group that comes out with a report all the time and tells us we are dramatically underfunded relative to countries like China and that we don’t have the capacity –
MARGARET BRENNAN: Those should be bipartisan issues, right? So –
SENATOR JOHN THUNE: Well, and we don’t have the capacity and capability to do what needs to be done to protect the country. There’s a big difference in delta in the two parties and how they approach the issue of defense and, you know, and military readiness. And I think we are dramatically underfunding our military today. I think the president believes that, President Trump. And I think a lot of our Republican colleagues in the House and the Senate share that view.
So, can we do this through reconciliation? We’re obviously looking at our options.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to make sure I ask you about the other big promise you made in terms of delivering on tax reform and reconciliation.
SENATOR JOHN THUNE: Right.
MARGARET BRENNAN: The estimates are it could add $4 trillion over the next decade. Is that really something you think is going to pass on a party-line vote and without any revenue or spending cuts?
SENATOR JOHN THUNE: Well, they’re –
MARGARET BRENNAN: You can’t be comfortable.
SENATOR JOHN THUNE: These are tax laws that will expire at the end of this year if Congress doesn’t take action to extend them. And it would represent a $4 trillion tax increase on the American people if we don’t extend that policy.
We’re going to have a very robust conversation about tax reform. There’s a lot riding on it economically. I think regulatory policy, tax policy, energy policy are going to be really essential to the strength of our economy, how fast we can grow and expand and creator better paying jobs in this country.
So, I’m a big believer in pro-growth tax policy. I believe you get a lot of that back through growth in additional revenue. Every 1 percent –
MARGARET BRENNAN: Not tariffs, as Mr. Trump has promised?
SENATOR JOHN THUNE: Well – well, that’s – that’s a different subject. But I would say every 1 percent increase in – in GDP, in economic growth, we’re told, generates about $3 trillion in additional tax revenue. So, you’re going to get some back in terms of a growth dividend. And there will be spending cuts. There’s no question about it.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But going out of the gate with two big issues on party- line votes, aren’t you concerned that will blow up your chances at working with Democrats on some of those bigger immigration issues, or bigger policies?
SENATOR JOHN THUNE: We need to continue to work on those big policy issues. But I also think that we have some immediate concerns, matters that need to be addressed. One of which is national security, given the increasingly dangerous world in which we live. And, of course, I would argue, that starts with the border. So, border, national security. I think energy policy, energy dominance, is a huge objective and goal. And I would hope that a reconciliation bill could also address that issue. If we do something on taxes, that traditionally has been in the past. The Democrats did it twice while they had the majority in the last session of the Congress.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Trump did that in 2017, too, with taxes.
SENATOR JOHN THUNE: And that’s – and both sides have done it. And that’s the unique aspect of having unified control of the government. But I think those are all important and they are things that, as a country, if we don’t get right, I fear what the results and the outcome will be.
And, yes, it would be ideal if you could do it bipartisan. I hope that there are some Democrats who would vote for some of the tax policies that we have, but I’m not – I’m not expecting that at the moment.
(END VT)
MARGARET BRENNAN: You can see the full interview on our website and YouTube channel.
We’ll be right back.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
MARGARET BRENNAN: President-elect Trump has promised to seal the southern border, where illegal crossings are now at a four-year low. CBS News immigrations and politics reporter Camilo Montoya-Galvez has more from both sides of the U.S./Mexico border.
(BEGIN VT)
MAN: This has been a proven deterrent.
CAMILO MONTOYA-GALVEZ (voice over): Along the U.S./Mexico border, our drone captured a group of migrant, including young children, trying to enter the country illegally. But they were unable to get past a razor wire set up by the state of Texas.
CAMILO MONTOYA-GALVEZ: Some people may look at this and say, this looks like a war zone.
MAN: The tactic behind all this optic is doing what it just did right now. It prevents them from coming over illegally.
CAMILO MONTOYA-GALVEZ (voice over): Texas credits its aggressive efforts for the current four-year low in illegal border crossings. The Biden administration attributes that drop to asylum restrictions, Mexico’s efforts to stop migrants, and a phone app known as CBP-1 that allows up to 1,500 people per day to schedule legal crossings.
But on thee Mexican side of the border, we found a bottleneck of people desperate to enter the U.S., awaiting the appointments under the app. President-elect Trump has vowed to shut down the app, expand borderer restrictions, and conduct mass deportations..
CAMILO MONTOYA-GALVEZ: Here in this food pantry in Tatijana, Mexico, migrants from across Latin American can get food, water, basic necessities, clothing, and legal services. But now the concern is that the incoming Trump administration could derail their plans to make it into the U.S.
CAMILO MONTOYA-GALVEZ (voice over): Food pantry director Christina Coranato (ph) worries Trump’s plan to shut down the app could backfire, prompting more migrants to cross into the U.S. illegally.
WOMAN: (Speaking in foreign language).
CAMILO MONTOYA-GALVEZ: There’s a lot of uncertainty.
WOMAN: (speaking in foreign language).
CAMILO MONTOYA-GALVEZ: Anxiety too.
CAMILO MONTOYA-GALVEZ (voice over): Haitian migrant Migueleli Nelson (ph) uses CBP-1 every morning hoping to get her daughter a golden ticket into the U.S.
CAMILO MONTOYA-GALVEZ: Everything you’re doing now is for your daughter to have a better future.
WOMAN: (Speaking in foreign language).
CAMILO MONTOYA-GALVEZ: Yes.
That’s all you want.
CAMILO MONTOYA-GALVEZ (voice over): Whether that future will be in the U.S. is still to be determined.
(END VT)
MARGARET BRENNAN: That’s our Camilo Montoya-Galvez reporting.
We go now to Tom Homan. He will serve as Mr. Trump’s border czar. And he joins us this morning from Naples, Florida.
Good morning to you, sir.
TOM HOMAN (Incoming Trump Administration Border Czar): Good morning.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Deportations are now at a decade high. They were at the end of 2024. Nearly 300,000 people deported by the Biden administration.
The incoming administration has promised the largest deportation operation in history. What’s the number? What’s the measure of success?
TOM HOMAN: Well, let’s talk about this administration, what they claim is a huge deportation number this year. Actually, if you drill into the numbers, about 80 percent of those numbers are actually Border Patrol arrests that the enforcement (INAUDIBLE) operation of ICE processed and moved back across the border. They weren’t (INAUDIBLE) enforcement arrest.
If you look at the historic number of illegal entries the last four years, ICE, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, has the lowest number of deportations in the history of the agency. So, they’re playing a numbers game, just like they played a numbers game with a number of people coming across to border.
MARGARET BRENNAN: OK.
TOM HOMAN: So, even though they claim they’ve got the highest number of deportations, look at those deportations, who actually made those arrests, who actually removed those people, it’s not ICE.
MARGARET BRENNAN: OK. It’s still a higher number than the Trump administration. But I want to ask you, for the income Trump administration, what’s – what’s the measure? It is not deportations at the border. You’re saying you are going to measure success by people who are already internal in the country to deport. That’s how you’re going to measure it. And what’s that figure?
TOM HOMAN: Well, again, let’s get the numbers straight. You say they were higher than the Trump administration. This isn’t about how many got deported because Trump had illegal border crossings at a 45-year low. So, of course removal is going to be lower. The numbers, how many were released into the United States that – that are not in the country legally? Under the Biden administration we have millions of people released in the United States who have lost their hearings and we’ve got millions of people that are, you know, released in the United States despite a statute saying that you cannot be released in the United States without proper documentation and you shall be detained. So, you can compare the numbers of deportations under Trump versus Biden, but when you consider a 45-year low in crossings, of course the number of deportations is going to be lower because we don’t have that population to process and deport.
MARGARET BRENNAN: OK. Well, I’m just right to measure success going forward.
For day one, can you help us understand what the plan is?
You know, a number of industries in this country hire undocumented workers because they are cheap labor. On day one, are you going to re-start raids on work sites, on construction sites?
TOM HOMAN: The – President Trump’s been clear, as I’ve been clear from day one, that the president is going to concentrate on public safety threats and national security threats. And as you heard from your previous segments, we have a huge national security issue in this country. The southwest border has become the biggest national security vulnerability we’ve seen in this nation. FBI Director Wray agrees with me. We know there’s people in this country pose a national security threat. They’ve arrested a record number of people on the terrorist watch list. A 3,500 percent increase in people on the terrorist watch list being arrested at the border.
We’ve got over 2 million known got-aways. We know 2 million people crossed the border, weren’t arrested, weren’t vetted, weren’t fingerprints.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
TOM HOMAN: So, you’ve got to ask yourself, why did 2 million people pay more to get away. Why didn’t they pay less, turn themselves into Border Patrol, get a free airline ticket to the city of their choice –
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
TOM HOMAN: Get a free hotel room, get three meals a day, get free medical care. Why did 2 million people pay more to get away.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes. I’m not disputing that it is a hemisphere-wide crisis. We’re talking about how you’re going to deal with it. That’s why I’m asking you, when you say “criminals,” does that mean you are going to go into already-existing prisons, at local level, and deport people who are in those prisons? Are you going to go to workforces? I mean, how do you know where the criminals are I guess is the question? And if they’re working at a work site, are you going to show up to surprise them?
TOM HOMAN: Well, look, we know where a lot of the criminals are. ICE does – they’re great at this work. We know where some are, but they simply haven’t been able to go arrest them because of Secretary Mayorkas’ priorities, it handcuffed ICE. So, we know where a lot of criminals are. They’ve been prevented from arresting them. We’re going to arrest starting day one.
As far as being in jails and prisons, we would love to work in local jails, but sanctuary cities won’t allow us into those jails. It’s much easier to arrest a public safety threat and the safety and security of public jail than out in the street because the officer is after that way, the alien is safer that way, the community is safer that way. But sanctuary cities who continue to release public safety threats back into the community –
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
TOM HOMAN: To the immigrant community, that puts that community at greater risk of crime.
And here’s what’s going to happen. When we go to the community and find that person, find that criminal alien –
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
TOM HOMAN: He’s probably going to be with others, others who we’ll have to arrest. So, it’s not safe for the community, not safe for the officers, not safe for anybody.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
TOM HOMAN: Let us arrest the bad guy in the jail cell where you chose to arrest somebody and put him in a jail cell because obviously, he’s a public safety threat.
MARGARET BRENNAN: OK. When you just said in there, it sounds like you were talking about collateral arrests. So, you’re going to target people you know are criminals. But if they happen to be living in a house where there are other undocumented people, you’re going to sweep them up, too. That’s what I think you were just saying there.
I wonder how you’re going to parse out some of those collateral arrests. For example, will dreamers be protected? Donald Trump has said he wants to work with Democrats to protect them and give them status. That takes a long time in Congress. What do you do in the meantime? How do you make sure they’re not caught up in drag net?
TOM HOMAN: Look, every person ICE arrests, they do what they call a fugitive operation spreadsheet. They know exactly who they’re going to arrest, they know exactly where they’re probably likely to find him, and they have a lot of information on that arrest. Other people that are there that may be illegal, they’ll handle them by a case-by-case basis.
MARGARET BRENNAN: OK.
TOM HOMAN: The concentration – I want to be clear on some public safety threats, if we – more agents in the jails means less agents in the neighborhood. That’s why I’m pleading with sanctuary cities, let us into the jail to arrest the bad guy, that way you’re not forcing into the community. So, you know, if you go to an immigrant community and ask them, would you rather have ICE operating in your local jails or would you want them in the community, what do you think they’re going to say? They don’t – they don’t want bad – bad criminal aliens in their neighborhoods, either.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.
TOM HOMAN: So, let us work with the jails. Let us work with law enforcement. Sanctuary cities are not safe for the immigrant community, they’re not safe for our officers.
MARGARET BRENNAN: OK. So, that’s like Secure Communities Act kind of – kind of action. But then where do you send people? Because some of these countries, like Venezuela, don’t accept deportations right now. Mexico’s president indicated her country might be willing to receive non-Mexican migrants who are deported. How does that work? Does the U.S. pay Mexico to then ship those people off somewhere else?
TOM HOMAN: Well, first of all, we’ve got President Trump coming into the Oval Office and he’s proven, during his first administration, his leadership on illegal immigration was a game changer because, for instance, El Salvador wouldn’t take back MS-13 members when I was the ICE director. It took President Trump 48 hours to get El Salvador to take back their criminal aliens into their prisons. And Mexico didn’t want to do the remain in Mexico program, but President Trump was able to get remain in Mexico established in Mexico. He was able to get Mexico to put military on their southern and northern border. President Trump’s a strong president.
This administration has not forced these countries to take them back. And we have what we call a third save (ph) countries. We already have countries talking about taking back people from other countries if – if, for instance, Venezuela don’t want to take their people back, there’s others ways we can do it. There’s other countries that will be willing to accept them. We’re hoping that President Trump will work with Venezuela, like he did with Mexico and El Salvador and get these countries to take them back. If they don’t, they’re still going to be deported, they’re just going to be deported to a different country.
We’ve not going to be held up by removing public safety threats in this country. We’ve got to put – we’ve got to put the safety of the American people first.
MARGARET BRENNAN: OK.
TOM HOMAN: We’ve got too many young women murdered and raped and burn alive by members of Venezuelan gangs.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
TOM HOMAN: They need to be a priority under this administration. And they’re going to be a priority starting day one. And they will be deported.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We will stay tuned for the details.
Border czar Tom Homan, thank you for your time.
We’ll be back in a moment.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yesterday marked the beginning of a series of public remembrances for former President Jimmy Carter, who died last Sunday at the age of 100.
Mark Strassman reports.
(BEGIN VT)
MARK STRASSMAN (voice over): A moment long in the making for those who served for so long. Jimmy Carter’s Secret Service detail, present and past, escorting his casket to the presidential hearse.
WOMAN: Plains is a tourist town, and President Carter is our favorite son. He has molded this town.
MARK STRASSMAN: This is the end of an era here in Plains. Jimmy Carter was their friend, their neighbor, this small community’s identity.
MAN: He was everything that America should have been. And he really meant a lot to the people around here.
MARK STRASSMAN (voice over): Outside his boyhood farm, a bell tolled 39 times, saluting America’s 39th president.
At the Carter Presidential Center in Atlanta, Marines carried in the casket. Jimmy Carter will lie in repose through Tuesday morning. Five more days of remembrances will honor a former president and globe-trotting humanitarian.
MAN: He was held up and propped up and soothed by an amazing woman. And the two of them together changed the world.
MARK STRASSMAN (voice over): Starting Tuesday morning, America’s final salute will shift to Washington, D.C., for two days of remembrance.
(END VT)
MARGARET BRENNAN: That was our Mark Strassman reporting.
Be sure to tune into CBS News for our coverage of America’s farewell to Jimmy Carter. On Tuesday, the former president will lie in state at the U.S. Capitol, and on Thursday, the state funeral at the National Cathedral.
We’ll be right back.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
MARGARET BRENNAN: That’s it for us today. Thank you all for watching. Until next week. For FACE THE NATION, I’m Margaret Brennan.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
