Full transcript of “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” Nov. 17, 2024

On this “Face the Nation” broadcast, moderated by Margaret Brennan: 

Rep. French Hill, Republican of Arkansas
Rep. Jim Himes, Democrat of Connecticut
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat 
Sue Gordon, principal deputy director of National Intelligence in first Trump administration
Dr. Deborah Birx, White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator in first Trump administration

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 stress-testing of our federal government begins, as the Trump administration 2.0 prepares for its return to the White House.

Change is coming to Washington, along with chaos and the controversy typical of the former president’s management style. Seats in Mr. Trump’s Cabinet are filling up fast, and, this time, the president-elect is using his political capital to do things his way.

(Begin VT)

DONALD TRUMP (Former President of the United States (R) and Current U.S. President-Elect): Forty-nine out of 50 states shifted toward the GOP, won the White House, recaptured the Senate, and now, as of today, recaptured the House.

(End VT)

MARGARET BRENNAN: Will he use that mandate to circumvent what’s called regular order in the Senate to get some of the more contentious candidates through?

We will talk with House Republican French Hill and Democrat Jim Himes, and we will check in with two officials who served in the first Trump administration, former Deputy Director of National Intelligence Sue Gordon and former coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx.

Plus, Kentucky’s Democratic Governor Andy Beshear offers his party some advice about how to succeed in a red state.

It’s all just ahead on Face the Nation.

Good morning, and welcome to Face the Nation.

There are just over two months before Donald Trump takes the oath of office again, but he is not wasting any time when it comes to naming candidates, mostly close allies and loyalists, for key administration roles.

Republicans will be back in control of the White House, the House and the Senate, and there’s a conservative majority on the Supreme Court. There are new Republican leaders on Capitol Hill. And the question of whether those leaders will bow to Mr. Trump’s wishes to do things his way or whether they will stand by the office that they hold is already being asked, even before the new Congress and returning president are sworn in.

We begin this morning with an update on the Trump transition and our Caitlin Huey-Burns.

(Begin VT)

CAITLIN HUEY BURNS (voice-over): President-elect Donald Trump took some members of his transition team out to New York for a Saturday night at the UFC fights.

AUDIENCE: USA! USA! USA!

CAITLIN HUEY-BURNS: But here in Washington, he’s gearing up for a fight of his own over several controversial choices he’s made for his Cabinet, at the center, Florida Republican Matt Gaetz for attorney general.

FORMER REPRESENTATIVE MATT GAETZ (R-Florida): We either get this government back on our side or we defund and get rid of, abolish the FBI, CDC, ATF, DOJ, every last one of them, if they do not come to heel.

(CHEERING)

CAITLIN HUEY-BURNS: Gaetz is a fierce Trump ally who led the charge in ousting Kevin McCarthy from the speakership last year.

FORMER REPRESENTATIVE KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-California): I will give you the truth why I’m not speaker. It’s because one person, a member of Congress, wanted me to stop an ethics complaint because he slept with a 17-year-old.

CAITLIN HUEY-BURNS: Gaetz resigned his seat in Congress this week just before that House Ethics report over alleged sexual misconduct and illicit drug use was set to be released.

House Speaker Mike Johnson had said he would not interfere, but, following an overnight trip to Mar-a-Lago, he changed course.

REPRESENTATIVE MIKE JOHNSON (R-Louisiana): I think we should stick to the tradition and not release a report on a former member of the House, because it would open a dangerous Pandora’s box.

CAITLIN HUEY-BURNS: Gaetz was also under investigation by the very Justice Department he was tapped to lead over whether he had violated sex trafficking laws, but no federal charges were filed. Gaetz has denied all of the allegations.

The selection shocked the Republican senators he will need to get confirmed.

SENATOR SUSAN COLLINS (R-Maine): There are many serious allegations pending against him.

SENATOR KEVIN CRAMER (R-North Dakota): He’s got a really steep hill to climb to get lots of votes, including mine.

CAITLIN HUEY-BURNS: But Trump is undeterred and says he’s motivated by a mandate.

DONALD TRUMP (Former President of the United States (R) and Current U.S. President-Elect): The American people have just delivered really something very, very amazing, the biggest political victory in 129 years.

CAITLIN HUEY-BURNS: And some top allies on Capitol Hill say he’s entitled to his choices.

SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-South Carolina): Election have consequences. He chose Matt Gaetz. Matt will come before the committee, and he will be asked hard questions, and we will see how he does.

(End VT)

CAITLIN HUEY-BURNS: Trump also picked three of his defense attorneys to serve in top positions at the DOJ.

And he’s considering a shakeup of FBI leadership. Last night, Trump announced oil executive and climate change skeptic Chris Wright to serve as energy secretary. And we’re keeping an eye on other top positions that he could pick this week, especially who he will choose to run the Treasury Department, Margaret.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Caitlin, busy week, and we’re starting a new one. Thank you for your reporting this morning.

And we are joined now by Republican Congressman French Hill. He joins us from his district in Little Rock.

Good morning to you, Congressman.

REPRESENTATIVE FRENCH HILL (R-Arkansas): Good morning, Margaret. Thanks for having me.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Glad to have you here.

You served with Congressman Gaetz. You heard the speaker, who has said, while he doesn’t want to specifically wade into the Ethics matter, he also thinks it would set a bad precedent to release a report on a former member.

Do you think the Ethics Committee should make that decision for itself?

REPRESENTATIVE FRENCH HILL: Well, I think the Ethics Committee does make that decision for itself. But I think Speaker Johnson makes an important point, which is, Mr. Gaetz has resigned from Congress. There are many investigations that the House Ethics Committee has done, and we don’t want to set a precedent where we, under any circumstances, will release documents from that committee.

But that decision is theirs. Speaker Johnson has made his views known, and now it will be up to the Senate to conduct their advise-and-consent confirmation process.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, CBS News reported back in June that four women informed that committee they were paid to go to sex and drug-fueled parties with Mr. Gaetz.

Also, the Ethics Committee has Venmo transactions showing Gaetz’s payments for the women. Since taxpayers paid money for this report to be conducted, and it was done, do you think, if you were a Senate, you would consider this material information to confirming the top lawmaker for the United States of America – law enforcement officer, I should say?

REPRESENTATIVE FRENCH HILL: No.

(CROSSTALK)

REPRESENTATIVE FRENCH HILL: Like I say, I don’t – I don’t have – I don’t personally know any details about the Ethics investigation or the allegations because I haven’t – don’t serve on that committee.

But your point is, would the Senate Judiciary Committee ask to see that report? And that may well be a decision that they take. And the Ethics Committee has a decision that they have to make. And Mike Johnson’s expressed his view on that as well.

So, as I say, this is an important process that the Senate has to do advise and consent for all the nominations. And President Trump has the prerogative to nominate the people that he thinks can best lead the change that he believes the American people are seeking in each of the agencies of the federal government.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You have spoken to us before here on Face the Nation about your work around Syria and Bashar al-Assad’s oppressive regime there. You actually visited Northern Syrian, an area that he wasn’t in control of, back in 2017, the first lawmaker since John McCain to do so.

Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, when she was in office, went to Syria and met with Mr. Assad himself. Then, publicly, she came out and questioned U.S. intelligence assessments of his chemical weapons attacks that were carried out on civilian areas, not just once, multiple times.

These were high-confidence assessments by the intelligence community. Would you feel comfortable with her at the helm of all 18 of them?

REPRESENTATIVE FRENCH HILL: Well, I serve on the House Intelligence Committee during this past Congress, and I know the important job that the DNI performs in coordinating, collecting and reporting on our intelligence.

And I think, should Tulsi Gabbard be confirmed, she would know with high confidence as to precisely how we collect intelligence, how we coordinate and collaborate on it, and how we then report it to the president of the United States and to the two Intelligence Committees.

So, again, this is an important assessment for the Senate to make. But I remind you, Margaret, Donald Trump won the election. He wants people that he has a good relationship with, that he trusts, that he believes can do a good job in the agencies to send the message that we want change in Washington.

And the Senate too has their important job. And we’re going to have to wait and see how the Senate handles each of these confirmations.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So, it was John McCain who went in 2017. You went in 2023. I may have misspoken there on the year.

REPRESENTATIVE FRENCH HILL: Right. Right.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But – so you believe the U.S. intelligence community conclusions, though? You don’t mean to question those?

REPRESENTATIVE FRENCH HILL: No, I don’t.

MARGARET BRENNAN: OK.

REPRESENTATIVE FRENCH HILL: I’m simply saying, as a member of the committee, I don’t question that public assessment that’s been made in the public domain over many, many years.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

REPRESENTATIVE FRENCH HILL: And I have led the charge against the Assad regime.

I do not support that the Arab League put him back into diplomatic standing by admitting him to the Arab League. And I think America has a lot to do to limit Assad’s influence in the region, which is a partner with the Russians and the Iranians. And that’s not in the interest of the United States, Iraq, Israel, or peace in the region.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You have also been a supporter of Ukraine. And you have been trying to find some creative ways to help allow them to gain access to continued U.S. support.

There was a tremendous attack just overnight there by Russia. The Biden administration wants to provide a $20 billion loan backed up by frozen Russian assets. Will the Congress give them permission to use that money for military assistance?

REPRESENTATIVE FRENCH HILL: Well, the REPO Act that was included in the national security package I worked on very closely with Chairman Mike McCaul of the Foreign Affairs Committee gives the United States the authority to not only take frozen assets, but confiscate them and use them for the benefit of Ukraine.

The loan you’re referring to has been negotiated between the Europeans and the Americans to back the Ukrainian government.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

REPRESENTATIVE FRENCH HILL: I believe that will go through, in my judgment.

But I would urge President Trump, as he takes office, to actually follow the law and confiscate those Russian assets, as I believe that gives both Ukraine, the United States, and Europe a much stronger negotiating position with Russia. And I don’t believe Biden, nor the G7 countries have been tough enough on Russian on sanctions, on the delivery of weapons that were needed to have ended this war long ago.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You’re gesturing to what we know, which is that this is a pretty dangerous world right now.

One of the selections that the president-elect has made to run the Pentagon at this time is Pete Hegseth. He would be the defense secretary, 44 years old, decorated Army vet, TV commentator. Do you think experience is necessary, or is on-the-job training OK at the Pentagon?

REPRESENTATIVE FRENCH HILL: Well, again, I think this will be assessed by the Senate in their confirmation process.

He has a distinguished background in the military. And that counts for a lot. And I think his plans, his thoughts, his leadership will be exposed when he goes through that Senate confirmation process.

But, once again, I have to say, President Trump, when he came into office in 2017, had Cabinet members that he really had no personal relationship with, had no working background with. He wants to correct that this time by finding people that he has a good working relationship with, he knows how they think, they know how he thinks, because he thinks it will lead to better decision-making in his administration.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

REPRESENTATIVE FRENCH HILL: He’s got that prerogative to nominate those men and women, and the Senate will have their advice-and-consent function well underway.

And Majority-Leader-to-be John Thune has said, look, he will be effective…

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

REPRESENTATIVE FRENCH HILL: … he will be speedy, he will take it done – get it done in the right course of action.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Congressman, thank you for your time today.

REPRESENTATIVE FRENCH HILL: You bet. Thank you, Margaret.

MARGARET BRENNAN: And we turn now to Democratic Congressman Jim Himes. He is the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, and he joins us this morning from Stamford, Connecticut.

Good morning to you.

REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES (D-Connecticut): Good morning.

MARGARET BRENNAN: I feel like there is so much news, and I’m getting through a fraction of it, frankly, here.

I want to pick up on Tulsi Gabbard, which we just – who we just discussed in the previous segment,. She was a Democratic colleague of yours for many, many years. You’re the ranking member on the Intelligence Committee. She never served on that kind of committee. Do you think experience is necessary? Is she fit for the job?

(LAUGHTER)

REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: Margaret, how far we have come that, on a major news show, the question we’re examining is, is experience necessary for one of the most powerful positions in the land?

Of course it’s necessary. It’s a little bit like our obsession right now with the Ethics Committee report on Matt Gaetz.

(LAUGHTER)

REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: How is it that this is what we’re focusing on?

Matt Gaetz is, by any standard, completely unqualified to be the attorney general, and yet we’re sort of focused on this cherry on the cupcake of the Ethics report.

It sort of reminds me of Al Capone. In 1931, Al Capone is convicted of a couple of counts of tax evasion. Now, he was a killer and a rum runner and a mafioso, and yet he was convicted of tax evasion. This is what the conversation we’re having about Matt Gaetz.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: You know, well, what about this Ethics report?

(CROSSTALK)

REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: And so, no, these people are manifestly unqualified, and they’re not prepared to run the very complicated organizations they have been asked to run.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you have any suggestion from your Republican colleagues in the Senate that either of those two individuals will not be confirmed for those positions?

REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: Look, all I would observe is that history is a harsh judge.

And I understand what happens to Republicans who stand up to Donald Trump. Talk to Adam Kinzinger or Liz Cheney or many of the Republicans who voted for his impeachment who are now gone. I understand that.

But history is a harsh – a hard judge. And a Republican senator who takes a vote to consent to the appointment of Matt Gaetz, a chaos agent, a performative social media, no respect for the rule of law, individual, the Republican senator who votes to confirm Matt Gaetz or Robert Kennedy or Tulsi Gabbard…

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: … will be remembered by history as somebody who completely gave up their responsibility to Donald Trump.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

Well, the speaker of the House called him one of the greatest minds in the United States or anywhere on another program this morning.

On intelligence, though, because of your committee oversight, John Ratcliffe, another former House member who went on to serve in an acting role at intelligence previously, he is the selection to run the CIA. Do you trust him to appropriately handle sensitive intelligence information?

REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: I do, Margaret.

And just to be balanced here, since I was pretty strong in my opinions about the attorney general and the DNI nomination, I actually had a really good day when Marco Rubio was nominated for secretary of state, when John Ratcliffe was nominated for CIA, and when Mike Waltz was nominated to be national security adviser.

I would even add the nominee for the Southern District of New York, Jay Clayton. Those were good nominations, not necessarily the nominations I would have made if I were president, but these are serious people with real experience. They’re not social media personalities. They haven’t built their careers on lies and conspiracy.

So, look, some of these nominations, I think, are quite solid, and John Ratcliffe falls in that category for me.

MARGARET BRENNAN: OK.

Last night, president-elect Trump was at a UFC rally, and alongside him was someone who has had a lot of scrutiny, Elon Musk. He is a billionaire with extensive U.S. government contracts, as I understand it, holds a security clearance himself. He has extensive business ties with China.

He also had with him the Saudi Arabia private investment fund governor. They invest with his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and they have held golf tournaments through the – one of their entities at Trump golf courses.

Do you think that, in this new Congress, there will be scrutiny of potential financial conflicts of interest around Mr. Trump?

REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: Well, of course there will be, right? This is sort of not subject to debate.

We saw Trump’s first term and the fact that that group of people weren’t particularly concerned with financial conflicts of interest. And, look, all – I don’t know Elon Musk, odd character. You sort of have to respect what he’s done to disrupt space launch, to disrupt the auto industry and whatnot, but early reviews are not good.

I read his 12-point government waste manifesto, and he said, look at all this money we’re paying on interest on the debt. That’s part of the wasteful spending.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: Guess what? You have got to pay interest on the debt. And so I’m skeptical that he has any clue.

Look, I live in Fairfield County, Connecticut. I know lots of wealthy people here, and there is a syndrome where very wealthy people who got wealthy in finance or as a tech entrepreneur decide that they’re heart surgeons and capable of running the United States.

I think that’s what’s going on with Elon Musk. But, again, early returns are not good with respect to his ability to understand the federal bureaucracy and make it more efficient, which is a laudable goal. But I’m going to reserve judgment.

MARGARET BRENNAN: And no offense to the Fairfield County residents who voted for you, I’m sure.

(LAUGHTER)

MARGARET BRENNAN: On Saturday, President Biden was meeting with Xi Jinping. And they met for a little less than two hours.

The White House says they did discuss that pervasive hacking of U.S. telecom companies that allowed them to steal customer call record data, compromise private communications of those involved in government, and copy information related to law enforcement actions.

Do you know and can you say if the hackers have actually been kicked out of U.S. infrastructure, or is China still embedded?

REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: Yes, Margaret, that’s not a question I can answer with an awful lot of specificity, but the fact that we obviously know about these hacks means that those particular hacks probably have been addressed in one way or another.

But one thing I can say with great confidence, having worked in the intelligence world for some time now, is that I promise you they are out there in ways that we don’t know about. So, my hope is that the president made it very clear that this kind of behavior is not tolerable and that he backs that up and, quite frankly, that Donald Trump, the next president, backs that up with action, as Teddy Roosevelt said, the big stick, right?

We’re pretty good at hacking networks too. And I think it’s really important for the Chinese to understand that we’re not just going to name and shame the hackers and complain about it, but we – but that we are going to go into their networks and give as good as we got. I suspect that, in this realm, they need to see that we are capable of inflicting a lot of damage if they continue their present behavior.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Noted.

There will be some selections, as we understand it, in the coming days in the financial space. You also sit on the Financial Services Committee. Trump backer Elon Musk yesterday blasted one of the hedge fund CEOs, Scott Bessent, a cryptocurrency skeptic who’s being considered for that role.

Howard Lutnick, the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, apparently also being considered for that role, he is a cryptocurrency fan. Does either candidate stand out to you for a better pick? And what does it really project out to you about what’s going to happen in this space for Mr. Trump?

REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: Well, it’s obviously up to the president to decide who he’d like as Treasury secretary.

I would note that his first Treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin, I certainly had disagree with – disagreements with him on any number of topics, including de-sanctioning the Russian aluminum company. But in the cast of characters in version 1.0 of the Trump administration, Steve Mnuchin was far from the creepiest and crawliest of them.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: So we will see what he does on Treasury.

What I will say is that, look, crypto…

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: … it’s a little bit like the Gaetz Ethics report.

Crypto has yet to make an impact on most Americans’ lives.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: And so I would just argue – and, by the way, I’m open to crypto. I helped work on the legislation to regulate it.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: But this is not the determinative factor in our financial lives right now.

MARGARET BRENNAN: I know. It’s a technical issue I asked you to get to fairly quickly there, Congressman. I appreciate you weighing in. And thank you for your time.

Face the Nation will be back in a minute.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

MARGARET BRENNAN: We’re joined now by Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, who joins us from Lexington.

Good morning to you, Governor.

You’re a blue governor in a very red state. How do you even begin to try uniting a country as united – as divided as this? Are there lessons we can learn from Kentucky?

GOVERNOR ANDY BESHEAR (D-Kentucky): I think there’s absolute lessons that we can learn from Kentucky,a state where last year I won as a Democrat by five points and Donald Trump just won by 30.

And I think it basically boils down to both running and governing where people wake up in the morning and what they worry about when they go to bed at night. And that’s not the next election. It’s their job and whether they make enough to support their family.

It’s the next doctor’s appointment for themselves, their parents or their kids. It’s the roads and bridges they drive every day. It’s that public school they drop their kids off at, and it’s public safety in their community.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Mm-hmm.

GOVERNOR ANDY BESHEAR: The goal here is to focus on all of those things where, if people don’t feel secure in those areas, they don’t get to anything else. They don’t get to the crazy thing that some politicians said last night or this morning. They don’t get to that next piece of policy that’s out there.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Mm-hmm.

GOVERNOR ANDY BESHEAR: So it’s a – it’s about a relentless focus on people’s everyday needs and their everyday life.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

We’re going to take a break, come back, and have the rest of the conversation on the other side of it. All of you, please stay with us.

More from Andy Beshear in a moment.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

MARGARET BRENNAN: We will be right back with a lot more Face the Nation. Stay with us.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

MARGARET BRENNAN: Welcome back to FACE THE NATION.

We return to our conversation with Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear.

Governor, Kentucky has a lot of coal. It’s got natural gas. Mr. Trump has selected Chris Wright, the CEO of Liberty Energy, to be the next Energy secretary if confirmed. He’s also selected Doug Burgum, the governor of North Dakota, to run the Interior Department, and he’s promised to open up more federal lands to drilling.

Do you have any idea what the impact would be on your state from the signals being sent with these selections?

GOVERNOR ANDY BESHEAR: Well, we’ll see. I mean, I saw the comments recently from the CEO of Exxon, which was a little different than what we might expect, talking about needing to move to greener forms of energy regardless of what the policy of the day is. And I certainly see from companies that are coming into Kentucky each and every day. We just announced a new industrial battery facility that’s going to create 1,600 new jobs. They demand a certain portfolio of energy. Yes, the lights have to come on. But especially over time for their customers, they want a certain amount of renewables.

So, what I’ve seen as governor is a private sector push that I do not think is going to change demands placed on states, demands placed on utilities, and the private sector ultimately moving us to a more diverse and cleaner portfolio.

So here in Kentucky, yes, we have many traditional forms of energy, and they have really good jobs. And we want to make sure that we never look down on, and we support each of those jobs. But my goal is to diversify our production as much as we can so that we have the jobs of the present and those jobs of the future.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You’ve said Kentucky has something like 10,000 jobs related to electric vehicles. You really made a big push on that that.

During the campaign, Mr. Trump vowed to undo the electric vehicle mandate, that’s what he called it, and he’s going to, he says, repeal the law that includes credits for green projects.

Do you know at this point if Republican leaders intend to keep parts of that? And are there projections on what repealing that law entirely would do to the job creation in your state?

GOVERNOR ANDY BESHEAR: Well, it’s really concerning. You look at a state like Kentucky, that voted for President-elect Trump by 30 points. And it’s 10,000 EV-related jobs on the line. And those are only growing.

Go up to Ohio and look at that – I think $20 billion chips factory, which I’m a little bit jealous of, but happy for the people of Ohio, and what that would mean. Another state that voted for the president-elect.

So, you look at all of these jobs, and jobs of the future, that have come to what the administration will probably view as red states. It’s important that these projects continue.

Remember, a lot of the people taking these jobs, jobs that support their families, voted for President-elect Trump because they thought that would improve their job, that he was focused on their job. So, I hope that he will get good advice, and I’ll do everything I can to get my message out through our federal delegation of how important these jobs are.

And they’re not in urban Kentucky. They’re in rural Kentucky. They are game-changing investments that have created a bright future here. And I’m certainly going to do everything I can as governor of Kentucky to protect them. And not because I’m a Democrat –

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

GOVERNOR ANDY BESHEAR: But because I’ve shown my people that every single day I’m going to try to create a better life for them. And that’s what those jobs do.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes, $14 billion between now and 2030 was what was promised to your state.

I wonder if you just think Democrats didn’t do a good job of explaining that.

GOVERNOR ANDY BESHEAR: Well, I certainly don’t want to do any finger pointing because the vice president had 107 days, and she did her very best. And I proudly crisscrossed the country in support of her.

But what I know is going forward, over the next couple years, we have a chance every day, every moment to show the American people that we are laser focused on jobs, on their health care, on their infrastructure –

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

GOVERNOR ANDY BESHEAR: On their kids’ education. Just – just those everyday worries. And with this administration at least right now selecting some very extreme appointees –

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

GOVERNOR ANDY BESHEAR: It’s a chance to make a real difference, to really show people that – that we are where their basic needs are.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, but there was, as you know, some analysis after the fact among Democrats about the focus on some culture war issues or – so to speak.

Congressman Seth Moulton said of transgender issues, “I have two little girls. I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete. But as a Democrat, I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.” He says he’s speaking authentically and said Democrats should do more of it.

Do you think Democrats have been out of touch on some of these things that obviously resonate in states like yours?

GOVERNOR ANDY BESHEAR: Well, I think that all candidates should stand up for their beliefs, and that we don’t have to abandon those beliefs. You know, I vetoed one of the nastiest anti-LGBTQ bills that my state had ever seen in my election year.

But I did two things. Number one, I talked about my wife (ph). For me that’s my faith, where I’m taught that all children are children of God. And I wanted to stick up for some children that were being picked on in a pretty rough bill.

But the second thing is the voters in my state knew the very next day I was going to be working on jobs, I was going to be opening a new health clinic, first hospital in our largest African American neighborhood in 150 years.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

GOVERNOR ANDY BESHEAR: We just cut the ribbon on. And we’ve created two pediatric autism centers in Appalachia so that people don’t have to drive two hours. So, it’s both sharing your why and your authentic why for – for your views.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

GOVERNOR ANDY BESHEAR: But the other piece is about that focus.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

GOVERNOR ANDY BESHEAR: Because, remember, if we’re talking about this issue of the day –

MARGARET BRENNAN: OK.

GOVERNOR ANDY BESHEAR: And then we’re talking about what Donald Trump said last night –

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

GOVERNOR ANDY BESHEAR: And then we’re talking about jobs, we’re only spending a third of the time talking about what people are worried about and what impacts their life the most.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

Governor, thank you for joining us today.

We’ll be right back.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

MARGARET BRENNAN: We’re joined now by Sue Gordon. She served as the principal deputy director of national intelligence during Donald Trump’s first term in the White House.

Good to see you here again.

SUE GORDON (Former Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence): Great to see you, Margaret.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So you personally briefed Donald Trump as president in the Oval Office. If this nominee-to-be, Tulsi Gabbard, becomes the Director of National Intelligence, and John Ratcliffe becomes the CIA director, are you confident that Mr. Trump will be told the information he needs to know and not just what he wants to know?

SUE GORDON: Well, I think that’s the – I think that’s the question of the day. Intelligence is weird because it’s always uncertain. And you are always making an assessment so that a decisionmaker can figure out what they’re going to do with it. And so, it’s particular. And you – your only job is to ruthlessly report what you see, not what you prefer. So that’s the primary job of the DNI is to go in there and to be his principal adviser on intelligence. You’re the first in. You’re the last out.

You cannot afford to I’ll say pander to preference. Loyalty doesn’t serve you well in that job. You have to be so committed that you will say inconvenient things. I will say the former president would tell you that I would talk to him about Russian interference. I know he hated it. But Russia was, in fact, interfering, and he needed to hear that information.

So, do I believe that Tulsi and John can be that person if they believe they must be? They can learn. If they lean on the women and men of the intelligence community, they will produce an assessment. But that’s a hard day, and you better be good at it.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You had to undergo an FBI background check –

SUE GORDON: I did.

MARGARET BRENNAN: To obtain a security clearance and to maintain it. You were a career official, 25 years at the CIA. Then, as we said, moved on to national intelligence.

“The New York Times” is reporting the Trump team may bypass the FBI process and just use a private firm to vet candidate. Then when the president is sworn in, he can grant access to the nation’s secrets, rather than go through that screening.

What risk is there in bypassing the FBI?

SUE GORDON: Well, the first risk is that you will get an incomplete picture of the human that is carrying both the trust of the American people and the trust of our allies and partners and the trust of the women and men that are putting their lives on the line for that judgment, right? Everyone hates vetting. It’s intrusive. It – you – you don’t know why anyone should have to do it because you know who you are.

But the truth is, we know adversaries and competitors will exploit humans to be able to advance their interests, and you want to make sure that the people that hold the American people’s trust and the most precious pieces of information we have of advantage have no cracks in who they are. And so it seems expedient, but I think it will ultimately harm the institution. And by that I mean the institutions of America, if you have people who we discover later that they should not have had access or we discover later that they were vulnerable to the actions of our allies and of our adversaries and competitors.

And –

MARGARET BRENNAN: Because it’s leverage on them?

SUE GORDON: It is. I mean that’s – I mean, the craft of human intelligence is actually finding someone who has a weakness and getting them to be able to advance your interests. And it just – and what a really good day is when you find someone whose interests align with yours, and then you really push that.

So, a private firm isn’t going to have the standards that we’ve had. I know it’s inconvenient, but I think it’s a bad strategy and risky for America.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So, CBS has also learned that to date the Trump team hasn’t signed the paperwork that would start the process of the national security briefings so that someone’s not walking in cold. They’re briefed and up to speed. Along with these background checks. The Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan group that helps with the transitions, confirmed that to CBS.

Is there any good reason not to sign those papers? And what does it do for the officials who arrive without being read in on what’s happening now?

SUE GORDON: Yes, I can’t think of a – I can’t think of a good reason. I think one of the great falsehoods that’s been perpetrated on America is that our institutions are maleficent. They need to be better. They need to be slimmer. They need to be more transparent, but they’re not bums, so you’re not protecting anybody by not signing those papers.

And especially some of the nominees we have that don’t have the really deep experience base, these are big jobs. I mean intelligence is not just advising the president, it’s also running a huge enterprise in a manner that allows our allies and partners to trust us with their most precious thing. So, I can’t think of a reason why that’s not signed. And to start your gig without any foundation at all, especially when the institutions are begging to give you that foundation, just seems wrong-headed.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You’re diplomatically referring to Tulsi Gabbard there, who doesn’t have a background in intelligence.

SUE GORDON: Right.

MARGARET BRENNAN: She also has a history of statements of saying things that mirror the rhetoric of U.S. adversaries.

SUE GORDON: Right.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Vladimir Putin and Bashar al Assad. There were at least two chemical weapons attacks in Syria that killed thousands of people, and the U.S. intelligence community came to public assessments of high confidence.

SUE GORDON: Yes.

MARGARET BRENNAN: I imagine you saw all of that intelligence and you briefed on it.

SUE GORDON: Yes.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So, when she comes out and says that she doubts it, she’s skeptical, how’s that going to be received by the career professionals who work for her?

SUE GORDON: Yes, I mentioned one of her jobs would be to be the senior adviser. The second is to be responsible for all intelligence-sharing agreements. So, our allies and partners, upon whom we rely that Syia assessment, that was joint with our allies and partners. The one we had on Skripal was joint. Our assessment of Ukraine was joint.

MARGARET BRENNAN: That was – sorry, just to explain for our viewers, Skripal, you are talking about the killing on British soil of a former Russian by Russian intelligence.

SUE GORDON: Yes. Right. Right. Yes, I’m sorry.

But all those were jointly done with our allies and partners. We need them. It’s one of the greatest strengths of America. But they will make their own assessment over whether we can be trusted with their nation’s interests. And whether she meant it or not, whether she was just ill informed with that, she comes in with strikes against her in the trust perspective. Can we trust her with our most sacred intelligence to represent that in a fair way?

So, I think it’s a problem, whether it’s judgment or any other thing that she has represented there.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Another nerve in the intelligence community, of course, is Edward Snowden.

SUE GORDON: Yes.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Tulsi Gabbard and the selection for the attorney general, Matt Gaetz, put forward resolutions to call for the charges to be dropped against him because he leaked classified national intelligence material. He’s living in Russia these days. That kind of a position, how’s that going to be received?

SUE GORDON: It reflects a lack of understanding of who we are, and it reflects a lack of respect for what we do. Unauthorized disclosures of intelligence are always bad. Don’t go with the good or bad any – good outcome or whether he was right or wrong. He had no authority, and he had different paths and he harmed America. He not only harmed intelligence, he harmed our allies and partners and he harmed our businesses by what it allowed China to assume about that.

There is nothing justifiable about what he’s done. None. And so if they vacate it, what they’re basically saying is, all those rules you follow in order to be able to serve America, they don’t matter anymore.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Sue Gordon, thank you for explaining this very opaque world of intelligence to us and for your analysis today.

We’ll be back in a moment.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

MARGARET BRENNAN: Dr. Deborah Birx served as the White House coronavirus response coordinator in Donald Trump’s first term. She also had a long career in public health in the Army, working on Aids in Africa at the State Department, as well as time at the CDC.

Good morning. Welcome back.

DR. DEBORAH BIRX (Former White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator): Good morning, Margaret. Glad to be with you.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So, Dr. Birx, I want to ask you about your views on public health, which we’re looking at because of this nomination potentially of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

HHS has wide portfolio here, vaccines, medicine, overseas, Medicare, regulates food, beauty products, baby formula, reproductive health care. What would the impact be of having someone without government experience in that top job?

DEBORAH BIRX: Well, I think the most important thing is what team he would bring with him because you’re talking about really a large cap corporation with a highly diverse group. What you have to really bring together – and frankly eliminate some of the duplications between these agencies to really become more cost effective. And so really having a management person at his side, a chief of staff perhaps, that has really come out of industry, that would know how to bring and look and bring those individuals together that are running the other agencies, because it’s a very comp – HHS is probably one of our most complicated departments.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So, you’re saying people with experience around him, we need to look at those lower level appointees Mr. Trump might make.

What’s so interesting with RFK Jr. is how he has, in some ways, tapped into this health movement in America. He’s talking about more regulation, not less when it comes to American food.

Here’s some of what he’s said.

(BEGIN VC)

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY NOMINEE: I’m just going to tell the cereal companies, take all the dyes out of their food. I’ll get processed food out of school lunch immediately.

Ten percent of food stamps go to sugar drinks, to, you know, sodas. We’re creating diabetes problems in our kids by giving them food that’s poison. And I’m going to stop that.

(END VC)

MARGARET BRENNAN: Those sound like good goals. Can he actually take on big agriculture and get that through?

DEBORAH BIRX: I think because of a lot of the people who are suffering the most from these additives are actually people in our rural areas. You know, 16 percent of the Americans live in a rural area, but they are providing all of our oil and gas, all of our fiber, all of our cotton, and all of our food. And the level of diabetes in these communities because of their access to certain foods is extraordinarily high.

I just came out of the field, 58 percent of the adults in the town that I was just in had already diabetes or prediabetes based on household survey where we went house to house. This is the reality of America.

And so what I’m hoping is he brings his transparency for all Americans, and we really start to tackle these issues one by one by one. I think everybody across America wants to have healthy kids that they know will grow up, and not end up with the complications of diabetes or heart disease.

MARGARET BRENNAN: It was very hard for Michelle Obama, when she was first lady, to get any of that done. And it might be hard for lawmakers who come from some of those agricultural states to vote against their own interests in terms of the farm subsidies and the like.

DEBORAH BIRX: Well, we’re not talking about eliminating good food. We’re talking about using all of their ingredients in a way that is more healthy for Americans. And I think that’s what people are calling for now.

Europe did it years ago. And I think we are capable of doing that. We are really smart, high levels of technology. We can make food tasty without a lot of these additives because we can see that other groups are doing it in a small way. So, we’re not talking about eliminating the need for wheats and grains, we’re talking about putting those together in a healthy way.

MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you as well about some of his – the things he said about vaccines. As you know, the vaccine – vaccination rates are declining in America. He said things like restoring transparency around them. It’s not really clear what that means. Why do you think there’s a decline of vaccination?

DEBORAH BIRX: I think there’s two pieces to it. I think when we talk about things in public health, we don’t acknowledge the concerns because when my children went to school, there was maybe one in 1,000 kids with autism, diagnosed autisms. Now it’s three per 100. So, every mom is seeing a classroom of kindergarteners where one of the children has autism. That’s scary to moms and dads. They want to know why. So, it’s not good enough for us to just say, vaccines don’t cause autism, it’s us finding what is the cause of autism and reverse it.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, I think a lot of people would absolutely agree that it is ridiculous that there isn’t a lot of research and established causation with autism.

DEBORAH BIRX: Yes. Yes.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But what he has said in the past is that autism is caused by vaccines. And there’s no scientific basis for that conclusion, as I understand it.

DEBORAH BIRX: That’s correct. And so that’s why, when he talks about transparency, I’m actually excited that in a Senate hearing he would bring forward his data and the questions that come from the senators would bring forth their data.

What I know for sure is, he’s a very smart man who can bring his data and his evidence base forward, and we can have a discussion that many Americans believe already is a problem. So, until we can have that transparency and that open discussion from both sides, I know the members have incredible staffers who will bring great questions from their constituents, and that hearing would be a way for Americans to really see the data that you’re talking about, that we can’t see that causation right now. But what is causing it? And so you’re absolutely right, addressing what the cause is will be critical.

And I think what has confused people is we weren’t clear about what Covid vaccines do and don’t. And so now people are questioning, well, what do my child vaccines do and don’t. And they don’t understand that some of the vaccines that their children are getting protect them from both disease and create herd immunity, and some of them that they get are just for their child. Like H flu (ph) and pneumo vax (ph) to protect their child from getting very serious illness. And we’re just not explaining all of this correctly.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, and that’s why the messenger matters so much on this.

DEBORAH BIRX: Yes, it does.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Which is why his past statements are being scrutinized.

You worked on Aids for a good part of your career. He has said that he doesn’t take a position on the relationship between HIV and Aids, but then he laid out alternative theories in his book and said, “Dr. Fauci never produced a study to demonstrate his hypothesis using accepted scientific proof.”

Do you agree with that assertion on HIV and Aids?

DEBORAH BIRX: Well, having spent a career in understanding how HIV and Aids progresses, HIV virus is the cause of Aids.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Period.

DEBORAH BIRX: There’s a whole set of things that happen, and I think what HIV taught me is you have to – it’s asymptomatic for ten years. And we’re finally recognizing how important asymptomatic disease progression and disease transmission is. That’s what HIV taught us.

But what other HIV taught us was the entire human immune system.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

DEBORAH BIRX: So, by investing in HIV research, we learned about CAR T- cells that we use today in cancer.

So, a lot of these research and investments pay off in other areas. And I think once he’s there at HHS, he’ll see that.

MARGARET BRENNAN: OK. If he’s open to the data.

Dr. Birx, thank you.

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)

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