On this “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” broadcast, moderated by Margaret Brennan:
- National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett
- Sen. Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia
- Sen. Roger Marshall, Republican of Kansas
- Sen. Tammy Duckworth, Democrat of Illinois
- CBS News director of elections and surveys Anthony Salvanto
Click here to browse full transcripts from 2025 of “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
MARGARET BRENNAN: I’m Margaret Brennan in Washington.
And this week on Face the Nation: A not-so-hot jobs report leads to more uncertainty about the strength of the economy. With Friday’s jobs report showing an even foggier forecast for American consumers than anticipated, President Trump called on his chief economic adviser, Kevin Hassett, to explain.
(Begin VT)
KEVIN HASSETT (Director, National Economic Council): Right now, we’re puzzled about the BLS numbers and looking for new leadership there to make it so that the numbers are more reliable.
(End VT)
MARGARET BRENNAN: But can those independent agencies, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Federal Reserve, maintain their independence in light of political pressure? We will ask Kevin Hassett and get his take on the state of the economy.
Plus, as the circle of critics grows when it comes to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s handling of vaccines and management of the CDC, we will talk to Republican Senator Roger Marshall. And the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner, will also join us to weigh in on the news of the week.
Finally, as President Trump moves to rebrand the Defense Department as the Department of War and continues to warn the city of Chicago he will soon send in federal forces, we will talk to Illinois Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth.
It’s all just ahead on Face the Nation.
Good morning, and welcome to Face the Nation.
We begin this morning with the director of the National Economic Council, Kevin Hassett.
Good morning, and thank you for being here…
KEVIN HASSETT: Good morning. It’s great to be here.
MARGARET BRENNAN: … in person.
KEVIN HASSETT: Yes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: There’s a lot to get to with you, but I want to start on what just happened overnight.
Russia has launched a very significant attack on Ukraine and – in Kyiv. They actually even hit a Ukrainian government building. Does the U.S. condemn the assault? And what are you waiting for now in terms of triggering those sanctions on Russia?
KEVIN HASSETT: Well, as you know, I’m not one of the foreign policy advisers of the president, but at the National Economic Council, we are responsible for making sure that sanctions get enforced and that people that are helping Russia with their war against Ukraine, as, for example, India has been doing by – excuse me – by buying Russian oil, that we’re ready to respond to them economically.
And, you know, last night’s news is very disappointing, and I’m sure that there’s going to be a lot of talk today and tomorrow about the level of sanctions and the timing of sanctions.
MARGARET BRENNAN: The timing of additional sanctions on Russia?
KEVIN HASSETT: Perhaps, yes. I mean, it’s up to the president in the end, but, yes, it’s a very disappointing set of affairs.
MARGARET BRENNAN: On the U.S. economy, there were 22,000 jobs added last month. The past two months of data were also revised down.
You’ve said in interviews this week it suggests there’s less momentum here than you thought. Has job creation stalled, and should the Federal Reserve be concerned about the jobs picture?
KEVIN HASSETT: Right.
Well – well, first of all, the interesting thing about the jobs numbers, right, is that they had the biggest revisions in 50 years over the summer, and we came in with 22,000 in August. But if you look at what they said in ’23 and ’24, they have two ways of estimating the jobs.
There’s something called the payroll survey, where they ask the employers how many people did you hire? Then they have something called the household survey, where they call up people, they say, do you – do you have a job?
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.
KEVIN HASSETT: And over those two years, the payroll numbers said that we created 4.5 million jobs and the household survey said about two million fewer, about 2.5 million jobs. And they should have the same answer.
And so, for August, for example, the payroll survey said 22,000 and the household survey said 288,000. And so I think that what’s going on is that these old-fashioned ways of surveying – like, I wonder if you’ve ever gotten a survey in the mail and filled it out and mailed it back in. Maybe you have.
But I think that that’s the way they’re trying to do it. And the reason we’re getting these massive revisions and these numbers that don’t make sense is really that we’ve got to modernize the way we do the labor data.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.
KEVIN HASSETT: But if you look at the non-labor data, you know, second- quarter GDP was revised up to 3.3 percent. The Atlanta Fed’s GDP estimate for the third quarter right now is 3 percent. And so industrial production is at an all-time high.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But you believe all that data? All those models are functioning?
KEVIN HASSETT: And so – no, the point is, when there’s dissonance in data, that you have to sort of watch how it all works out.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Got it.
KEVIN HASSETT: And the thing that I’m most suspicious of right now in terms of data quality is the job number, in part because there are other ways to do it. There’s this company called Homebase that does it. Their August number is 15.
But, again, even think about this. If we ask households how many jobs do they have, it’s plus 288,000 in August. If we ask the employers, it’s 22,000. Then that’s – that becomes a puzzle for economists. Like, what is wrong with the data? And we kind of know what’s wrong with the data. What’s wrong with the data is, people aren’t filling out the forms and sending in the surveys.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Because, last month, the president fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, suggesting there was political bias, not just what you’re talking about, which is a very technical issue on how data is collected and crunched.
KEVIN HASSETT: Right.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Did you fix the political bias or…
KEVIN HASSETT: Well – there – there – there are patterns of the data that look like political bias, but they could be accidental. And that’s why we need to get a new set of eyes in there to make sure that things are more transparent, that we modernize the surveys and we make them so that more people trust them.
But think about this. At the Federal Reserve…
MARGARET BRENNAN: So you don’t trust these numbers from Friday?
KEVIN HASSETT: I think the BLS numbers need to really be improved. They need to be modernized.
And I gave a talk at the BLS next to Alan Greenspan we had a few years ago where I talked about the necessity of modernizing them, and so I still agree with that position.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But, trend line-wise, when we hear from companies like Caterpillar, Deere, Ford, Procter & Gamble that their costs are going up due to tariffs, that doesn’t suggest there’s going to be robust hiring in those sectors, right, when a company is taking on something that could hurt their productivity – or profitability, I should say.
KEVIN HASSETT: Well, we’ve seen inflation has come down quite a bit. It was in the high 3’s when President Trump took office. The average over the six months is 1. 9.
And, you know, even the Fed right now clearly agrees that inflation has been under control if you believe futures markets, because the federal funds futures markets are now saying the Fed is going to cut interest rates three times this year.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Expected…
(CROSSTALK)
KEVIN HASSETT: And so the Fed – they’re expected to. And so, therefore, you know, the Fed is expected to feel like it’s comfortable with where inflation is right now.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But my point being that doesn’t forecast from these companies a scenario in which they would necessarily be hiring. Have you been able to calculate what the immigration crackdown has done to employment?
KEVIN HASSETT: Well, yes, there are – there are a couple of things that we could look at. First of all, the private sector employment is up by about half-a-million this year, and government workers, government employment is down by about 100,000.
There’s another thing, is that most of the jobs that have been created in the U.S. are for native-born workers, and they’ve actually – there’s actually been a reduction in labor supply for non-native-born workers. And the other…
MARGARET BRENNAN: How do you prove that?
KEVIN HASSETT: Excuse me?
MARGARET BRENNAN: How do you prove that?
(CROSSTALK)
KEVIN HASSETT: Oh, we have a – we have a survey where they actually ask it. Now, maybe we don’t trust the surveys, right?
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.
KEVIN HASSETT: And there is actually a thing…
MARGARET BRENNAN: And if you know the corporations are hiring undocumented or have a pattern of it, are you prosecuting those companies?
KEVIN HASSETT: There – there’s technicalities that – when someone’s released into the country, then, in the previous administration, then they would often get a number that would allow them to work legally until they went to court. And so there were, for sure, people that were undocumented…
MARGARET BRENNAN: But going after the employers?
KEVIN HASSETT: … who were being able to work.
But the other thing that you can see in the data, because we get the unemployment insurance claims by, like, county, that about 80 percent of the claims for unemployment over the last few months have come from blue states. And so there are places like Portland and Chicago where people are fleeing the cities, and you’re seeing that in the numbers too.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But you don’t plan to prosecute companies who had this pattern you’re talking about of hiring people in the country illegally?
KEVIN HASSETT: I don’t work for the Justice Department, but – but I do see the pattern of native-born versus non-native-born employment.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, we are also seeing in that data you say you don’t trust necessarily that it’s manufacturing that’s trade-related, that that is where the lack of hiring is happening. Those are the areas that the president had promised there would be new jobs.
When do those new jobs in those sectors come?
KEVIN HASSETT: Right. Let’s think about it again though that in terms of the way that the data are a little frustrating for everyone right now, that industrial production is at an all-time high, GDP is booming, productivity was up 3.8 percent in the last quarter, and it looks like manufacturing jobs are down.
And so how is it that industrial production is at an all-time high while manufacturing employment is down? It’s something that we’re looking forward to seeing what happens in the revisions. The revisions have been last – last year – there’s a benchmark revision next week.
Last year, the revision was more than a million over the last year. This is why we need new and better data.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, we’ll wait to see if those jobs are created.
I want to ask you about the Fed, because the president, you were standing next to him in the Oval Office, said he might basically make you one of the most powerful men in the world, because he’s considering you to become the next chairman of the Federal Reserve.
Our CBS polling we just did shows that 70 percent of Americans want the Federal Reserve to make decisions independently from President Trump. But there’s a big partisan difference here; 59 percent of Republicans say the Fed should be guided by what Trump wants, 41 percent should be independent of Trump. Which Republican camp do you fall into?
KEVIN HASSETT: Oh, if I were in that survey, then I would say 100 percent that monetary policy, Federal Reserve monetary policy needs to be fully independent of political influence and…
MARGARET BRENNAN: Including from President Trump?
KEVIN HASSETT: Including from President Trump.
The fact is that we’ve looked at countries that have allowed the leaders to take over the central banks, and what tends to happen is that it’s a recipe for inflation and misery for consumers. And so Central Bank independence is something that – as you saw, there was a hearing this week about that, that Democrats and Republicans and the White House all agreed about.
Now, the question is, has the current Central Bank been as independent as we would like, as transparent we would as we would like? And I think that there’s some dispute about that, which we could go into if you’d like.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, Secretary Bessent went into that in an article in “The Wall Street Journal” this past week.
KEVIN HASSETT: He did.
MARGARET BRENNAN: He talked about the Central Bank’s independence being under threat due to mission creep. There should be an independent, non partisan review of the entire Fed, its role in regulation, monetary policy and research.
What’s your plan to overhaul the Fed?
KEVIN HASSETT: Well, I don’t have a plan to overhaul the Fed right now. I’m just happy to do my job.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You have to have been thinking about it.
KEVIN HASSETT: Look, I have been the president’s – one of his top economic advisers for nine years. We talk about everything from golf to decorating the Oval Office to monetary policy, but, right now, what I’m focused on is doing my job as Director of National Economic Council every day.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But you would endorse what Secretary Bessent wrote in that article fully?
KEVIN HASSETT: Yes, I agree with his article, yes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And you would be prepared to implement that vision for the Federal Reserve if you are chair?
KEVIN HASSETT: It’s a hypothetical, that – we’ll see.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, it certainly seems, from one of the political appointees, the Cabinet member, to be a vision for the future of the Fed that the Trump administration would like.
KEVIN HASSETT: Right. Oh, I – I agree – I agree with his vision, but I look forward to the president deciding who is going to be the Federal Reserve Chair. And I think that he and Secretary Bessent will do that ably. There are a lot of great candidates.
MARGARET BRENNAN: What will you do if the Supreme Court does rule that the president’s tariff policy, or at least those under the IEEPA, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, are not legal?
KEVIN HASSETT: We – we certainly don’t expect the Supreme Court to do that. And I think that we’re on pretty high ground. And so it’s a very unlikely scenario.
But the fact is that there are other legal authorities that one could use to get the same outcome. 232s, 301s, you know, numbers that we could go into if you like.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Other ways to implement tariffs.
KEVIN HASSETT: But it might be like, yes, too – too deep a dive for the show on a Sunday.
MARGARET BRENNAN: All right.
KEVIN HASSETT: But – but, yes, there are other things that could happen should it go that way.
MARGARET BRENNAN: All right, Kevin Hassett, thanks for coming in this Sunday morning.
KEVIN HASSETT: Thank you. It’s great to be here.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Face the Nation will be back in a minute. Stay with us.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
MARGARET BRENNAN: We’re joined now by the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner.
Good morning, Senator.
SENATOR MARK WARNER (D-Virginia): Good morning.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Good to have you here in person.
You are known for your Intel work, but you’re also on a number of other committees. We were just there talking about the economy. Do you agree that, basically, the economic data that the United States releases is potentially fundamentally flawed?
SENATOR MARK WARNER: No, I think that the BLS has been the gold standard for years, viewed not only in this country, but around the world.
Could there be reforms? Absolutely. But it’s a little ironic that you’re firing the referee, the president firing the head, cutting the staff. I’m not sure how that is going to improve the quality of the data.
And the president had promised that – a golden age from American workers. We’re down 80,000 manufacturing jobs since the beginning of his term. We’re at basically a flat hiring position. And what I think families who are listening, if anybody’s got a family, a family member that’s in college or immediately getting out of college, you know what a tough job market is to find this.
And one of the things I would like to have heard from Kevin and, frankly, from more economists is, we’re about to see the biggest job dislocation in our history, I believe, in terms of A.I. job dislocation. And those are many times kind of a – college-driven jobs.
I mean, think back five years ago, we said to every kid, if you want to get a good job, go become a computer programmer.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.
SENATOR MARK WARNER: Those are going to be some of the first jobs ignored and eliminated.
And so I just – I’m fearful that this focus on who’s keeping score, when I think the American public realize the job market is tough, and particularly in terms of manufacturing jobs, there is no golden age.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, and there’s also a fundamental remaking of the economy if you’re talking about artificial intelligence.
So, on that point quickly, there were more than a dozen tech titans at the White House this week, including some of these giants in the artificial intelligence space, Microsoft’s founder, Bill Gates, Google CEO, Apple CEO, and they were all around the table praising President Trump for the investment in chip manufacturing and A.I.
Do you deserve – do you think he does deserve that praise?
SENATOR MARK WARNER: Well, I can tell you, the chip manufacturing came about because of a bill that John Cornyn and I put in under Biden, the CHIPS infrastructure act…
MARGARET BRENNAN: Bipartisan.
SENATOR MARK WARNER: … with the $52 billion, totally bipartisan. President Trump has been very times critical of that bill. Now he is, I think, sending a bit of a mixed message, because some of the investments in that bill were going to Intel, our last meaning – meaningful fabricator of chips.
He took an equity stake there, which is debatable, although I do think getting some of the profits…
(CROSSTALK)
MARGARET BRENNAN: Taxpayers own 10 percent of the company now.
SENATOR MARK WARNER: Yes.
But the – here’s the weird thing. While he’s trying to support American chip manufacturing, at the same time, he’s taken off any of the restrictions on, for example, Nvidia H20 chips to sell to China. So, what – – how do we read this? If we want to say we want to build American capacity, Intel, yes, make sure we maintain our lead against China, well, why sell some of our most cutting-edge chips to China?
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
SENATOR MARK WARNER: It is a complete contradiction in – in policy.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And the White House says, oh, they’re not great chips, so, therefore we can – can sell them. That’s what the commerce secretary has said.
But on – on the Intelligence beat, as the vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee, you have an oversight authority, and under law, the Intel agencies must inform that committee about their operations. The CIA has to tell you about covert actions. This is an important kind of oversight.
But, this past week, you said you were blocked from even attending a meeting at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency out in Virginia. Why do you think you were blocked? And has your Republican counterpart promised you that this isn’t going to continue?
SENATOR MARK WARNER: I have done these visits to our intel facilities for the 10 plus years I have either been chair or vice chair of the Intelligence Committee. They are part of the normal course. You get a chance to see the work force where they’re working. You get to see the new – newest, best, coolest stuff.
And, oftentimes, I get to do a town hall meeting, because I’m not only the chair or vice chair, but many of these facilities are in Virginia.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.
SENATOR MARK WARNER: So, this – this meeting had been on the books for literally weeks, normal course of business.
This very unusual individual Laura Loomer, who is a right-wing blogger who is so controversial that the Trump administration didn’t even put her in – in their Cabinet or – and she has been a 9/11 denier. She’s been a virulent anti – anti-Muslim individual. She has been a big proponent of working with white nationalists.
Yet she seems to have the ear of President Trump. So, his first national security adviser…
MARGARET BRENNAN: She speaks to Cabinet members, including the secretary of state.
SENATOR MARK WARNER: Well, his first national security adviser got kicked out because she went after him. The head of the National Security Agency, who I saw with – recently, General Tim Haugh, got fired. She claimed that firing.
Recently, we’ve seen 37 senior intel facility individuals lose their – their security classification, which basically puts them out of a job. And she brags about all this on her blog. I mean, it really raises the question, is she actually the acting secretary of defense or secretary of war as of this morning?
Is she the real director of national intelligence? What she went after me on was something unrelated to this, and said, why can we let some anti- Trump person in to an intelligence facility? Strangely enough, Tuesday night, my meeting was canceled.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
SENATOR MARK WARNER: No, we’re not going to stand up for that. I have talked to my Republican colleagues. I think you will…
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right. Is Tom Cotton promising you this won’t happen again?
SENATOR MARK WARNER: I’m going to get those meetings held. I have raised it with Cotton. I have raised it with the other Intelligence members.
You want to talk about something that is dangerous, you restrict Congress’ ability to do oversight, particularly with this administration, then we are flying blind. And in the intelligence space, in particular, not every member can do this. Those of us who are senior on the Intel Committee, we are the limited numbers. We are the eyes and the ears of the rest of the Senate to do this oversight.
They try to restrict this, America will be less safe. And we’re going to – I’m going to get those meetings.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So, tell me about this campaign, it would seem, in Latin America, with the United States taking out this drug boat.
Secretary Rubio, your former colleague on the Senate Intelligence Committee says – quote – “If you’re on a boat full of cocaine or fentanyl or whatever headed to the United States, you’re an immediate threat to the United States.” He is saying that is a national security justification to carry out a campaign with an unclear timeline.
Have you reached out to Rubio about this? Do you know anything about how it is being formulated here with the intelligence community?
SENATOR MARK WARNER: Well, first of all, the Maduro regime in Venezuela are bad guys, and we obviously need to do all we can to stop fentanyl.
We have not been briefed on this. This was a DOD – it was not an intel project. It was a DOD project. But my fear is, there are still international laws of the sea about how the process of interdicting these kind of boats – there’s supposed to be a firing of a warning shot. You’re supposed to try to take it peacefully.
My understanding, this boat, none of those procedures were followed. And I’m going to get the full brief this week. But what I’m worried about is, if we put our sailors in harm’s way by violating international law, unless there is the appropriate designations, could this come back and – and hurt those sailors? The sailors were doing their job.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But, as far as you know, this is fully a military operation; it is not using the intelligence assets of the intelligence…
SENATOR MARK WARNER: Well, we have not…
MARGARET BRENNAN: Because the administration says they know everyone who was on that boat. They had great clarity and fidelity.”
SENATOR MARK WARNER: Well, I would like to see that data.
But this, again, goes to the point this kind of action should be briefed to the intelligence community. And I’m a member of what’s called the Gang of Eight. Those are the folks that are supposed to get the absolute secret stuff that only the president gets. I have gotten no briefing.
MARGARET BRENNAN: No briefing on this?
SENATOR MARK WARNER: No briefing on this.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Are they conducting regular information-sharing with Gang of Eight?
SENATOR MARK WARNER: There are information-sharing. The level of sharing and the timeliness of the sharing, we…
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
SENATOR MARK WARNER: For example, we were – on the Iran bombings, we were not notified beforehand. My Republican colleagues were notified.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
SENATOR MARK WARNER: When you start making oversight and who gets shared information on a partisan basis, the…
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
SENATOR MARK WARNER: This kind of cooking the books and intelligence, how we got into the war in Iraq in the first place.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Senator Warner, thank you for your time today.
We’ll be right back with a lot more Face the Nation, so stay with us.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
MARGARET BRENNAN: Our Norah O’Donnell spoke recently with Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett for CBS Sunday Morning.
Coney’s new book is “Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution.”
Here’s part of their conversation.
(Begin VT)
NORAH O’DONNELL: This court has issued stays or limited injunctions in cases regarding birthright citizenship, foreign aid funding freezes, federal work force reduction.
Will you – can you answer that question? Do these repeated emergency or shadow docket interventions by the Supreme Court risk undermining public trust, especially if they are perceived to be politically motivated and favorable to President Trump?
AMY CONEY BARRETT (U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice): Well, I think that the point of the book is that justices and judges, I want to include all federal judges in this, are deciding things on the merits.
And I think that, to the extent that any decision makes us unpopular, that’s part of the price of the job. We have to make our best judgment about what the law requires. And, sometimes, that might mean that the executive branch succeeds in litigation and sometimes not.
But it’s not our job to look across the docket and say, oh, we want to even things out so that sometimes the executive branch wins some, sometimes it loses some. That’s the antithesis of what our job entails. Our job entails making legal judgments about the cases that come before us. And we really can’t – I mean, we want the court and I want the – I want the public to have trust in the integrity of the court.
But the court can never change its decisions, its judgments about what the best – what the right outcome is in order to tailor it to public opinion. The court’s supposed to render unpopular decisions sometimes, because, sometimes, the right legal answer isn’t necessarily the popular one.
(End VT)
MARGARET BRENNAN: And you can see more of Norah’s interview on CBS Mornings tomorrow.
We will be right back.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
MARGARET BRENNAN: We will be right back with a lot more Face the Nation, Senators Roger Marshall and Tammy Duckworth, plus analysis on our new CBS poll.
Stay with us.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
MARGARET BRENNAN: Welcome back to FACE THE NATION.
We turn now to Republican Senator Roger Marshall, who joins us this morning from Wichita, Kansas.
Welcome to FACE THE NATION.
So –
SENATOR ROGER MARSHALL (R-KS): Margaret, great to with you. I know it’s going to be a great discussion.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes. I know you were an OB/GYN in practice for, you know, decades before you ran for office. This past week the HHS secretary underwent intense questioning from both Democratic lawmakers and some of your fellow Republicans who were also doctors.
Take a listen.
(BEGIN VC)
SENATOR JOHN BARRASSO (R-WY): Secretary Kennedy, in your confirmation hearings you promised to uphold the highest standards for vaccines. Since then, I’ve grown deeply concerned.
SENATOR JAMES LANKFORD (R-OK): I would say effectively we’re denying people vaccine.
(END VC)
MARGARET BRENNAN: I mean that’s – that’s the Republican whip and that is the chair of the committee, Bill Cassidy. Why do you think they’re off base in their concern?
SENATOR ROGER MARSHALL: Look, President Trump chose Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to a disruptor to the CDC. And that’s exactly what he’s doing. He’s focused on making the CDC more transparent, to make it more trustworthy right now. Right now Americans don’t trust the CDC. So, he is literally turning that place upside down.
I respect what my colleagues are saying. But I think that, you know, this whole issue today, or in that meeting, was about vaccines. In my humble opinion, not every person needs every vaccine. And I don’t think there is many children out there that need 76 jabs by the time they’re old enough to vote. But before you label me a non-vaxxer person, look, I’ve raised money for polio vaccinations. The MMR is a great vaccine. It saved thousands of lives. Vaccines overall have saved hundreds of millions of lives.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
SENATOR ROGER MARSHALL: But not every person needs every vaccine. And we just want to empower parents and the doctors to make great decisions.
MARGARET BRENNAN: OK. I just want to unpack a few things you said there and just very – because we want to be very careful in this very heated environment.
When you say you have a problem with trusting the CDC, it was just a few weeks ago a gunman walked on to the CDC campus in Atlanta and shot the place up.
Do you care to respond to that, and do you think that we need to be careful when we are discussing the CDC and public health officials right now?
SENATOR ROGER MARSHALL: Well, look, of course I condemn that shooting. But the – the lack of confidence in the CDC goes back to what the CDC did during Covid. They – they misguided us, maybe lied to us even, about the origins of Covid and how to treat it as well. And the vaccine, they – they overpromised what the vaccine could do as well. So, that’s where the distrust is.
And now Bobby Kennedy is in there trying to clean up that distrust and trying to give American parents, and grandparents and the doctors the right information, transparent information, to make good decisions.
MARGARET BRENNAN: OK. OK. But just before we talk about other vaccines, specific to Covid and what you just said. With the CDC it was – the pandemic was during the Trump administration. It began during the Trump administration. And Operation Warp Speed was a presidential directive by – by Trump, which some of your fellow Republicans say he deserves the Nobel Prize for because it stopped the pandemic. So, did you trust the CDC and Operation Warp Speed under President Trump, or are you saying you don’t think the president deserves the prize for that shot?
SENATOR ROGER MARSHALL: Yes, look, President Trump absolutely deserves the Nobel Prize. That vaccine saved millions of lives. But this is such a different time. That’s what my friends –
MARGARET BRENNAN: OK, because you just said something that sounded very contradictory to that.
SENATOR ROGER MARSHALL: I disagree with you. I think it’s such a different time today than it was five years ago. Five years ago we had a novel virus. None of us had any immunity to it. It was a strange virus made in a lab in Wuhan, China.
But today, on average, Americans have had Covid five times. We now have natural immunity to it. And not everybody needs the vaccine. So, both things can be true. And that’s why when you have people that don’t understand science, that don’t understand medicine –
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
SENATOR ROGER MARSHALL: Why they don’t get it. It was a different day then than it is today.
MARGARET BRENNAN: OK. But people do understand that when they go into their pharmacy and have a problem getting a shot, because in many states they are now told they need to go back and get a prescription, that the effect here of the Kennedy policies are making it more difficult, even if they fall into categories where they should be able to get a shot. You would acknowledge that?
SENATOR ROGER MARSHALL: Yes. Yes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: OK.
SENATOR ROGER MARSHALL: I think you’re making this way, way too complicated. That, look, vaccines are a medicine. And just like you need a prescription to get a GLP-1 –
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right, but what you said, he’s disrupting. Right, you said he’s disrupting, but effectively what you were hearing the Republican whip, John Barrasso, and the Republican Senator Bill Cassidy talk about was the – the interruption of the availability of vaccines. Cassidy said, “I would say effectively we’re denying people vaccines.” So, that’s not Margaret Brennan, that’s Bill Cassidy.
SENATOR ROGER MARSHALL: Yes. Look, I disagree. Respectfully disagree. Think about this. What the CDC is now saying is, if you’re over the age of 65, you can have the vaccine. It’s interesting that the U.K. and France have said 75 and 80 as the age. So, all you need to do is email or call your doctor’s nurse and get a prescription and you should be able to get it.
If you’re over the age of six months, you probably – it’s probably a good idea to talk to your doctor. And all your nurse has to do is look at the chart and says, oh, little Johnny’s got asthma, definitely needs the vaccination as well. So, I think we’re making this way too complicated.
Why does everybody lose their minds whether it comes to Covid vaccine? Why can’t we let the doctor and the parents decide. Let the patients decide.
MARGARET BRENNAN: OK.
SENATOR ROGER MARSHALL: There’s so many more important things out there we should be talking about.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Sure.
SENATOR ROGER MARSHALL: Chronic diseases.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
SENATOR ROGER MARSHALL: Twenty percent of our adolescents have obesity, mental health problems and – and – and are under prescription drugs. There’s so many more things to talk about than just Covid vaccines.
MARGARET BRENNAN: No, but I think we’re conflating a few things, including the operational aspect of this. I think people get frustrated with their insurance companies. I think people get frustrated with their pharmacies and the implementation of health policy. And you know that that’s more complicated than just saying we’re – we’re changing a few things here. There are big implications. And I want to talk to you about it because you said you like the MMR vaccine, you like DPT, polio, smallpox. You don’t like hepatitis b, which is a liver infection, and you don’t think newborn kids me to be vaccinated against it.
Senator Cassidy, who is a liver doctor, said he treated poor and underserved patients and that it can be a life-altering condition for the rest of your life. So, why isn’t it a compelling argument to you that this should be available?
SENATOR ROGER MARSHALL: Yes. So, I delivered a baby – I delivered a baby every day for – for 25 years. We did a hepatitis test on every one of my patients. At the time of delivery, if that mom has a negative hepatitis test, she’s in a stable, monogamous relationship, she’s not doing IV drugs, she’s not letting her baby going to play in a sandbox full of used needles, then there’s zero chance that that baby’s going to have hepatitis.
Now, there’s other moms that – or other babies that do need it, OK? We need to be more specific. We can’t be overly prescriptive. If that mom has not had prenatal care, if she’s an IV drug abuser, if she’s not in a stable relationship, a whole lot of reasons, but we need to pick and choose. Not every baby needs the hepatitis vaccine. And especially on day number one. What are these vaccines doing to – to –
MARGARET BRENNAN: Sure.
SENATOR ROGER MARSHALL: To mess with the immune system of – of that particular baby as well?
MARGARET BRENNAN: OK.
SENATOR ROGER MARSHALL: So, that’s my concern. So not every baby needs hepatitis b vaccine.
MARGARET BRENNAN: OK. And I understand it can also be spread from – in a household sharing toothbrushes or razors or, for example, if her partner was not monogamous, the pregnant lady, for example.
But – but I hear your point here, that you want this to be more bespoke, like, more picking and choosing. But others would argue here that – that in doing that you are going to drive down immunization rates overall if you create broader doubt in vaccines. And that it’s a slippery slope here. Are you at all concerned that that is going to be the takeaway?
SENATOR ROGER MARSHALL: Look, Anthony Fauci did more to create vaccine hesitancy than Bobby Kennedy will do in his four years or eight years, however long he is the secretary. That’s where the problem is. So, don’t blame Bobby Kennedy for the problems created by Anthony Fauci.
But this – but I’m just telling you, parents today want more information.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I’m asking you about what you said about the hepatitis b vaccine.
SENATOR ROGER MARSHALL: I’m sorry. Go ahead again.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I wasn’t talking about Bobby Kennedy, or Secretary Kennedy, I was talking about you and what you said about the hepatitis b vaccine and are you concerned that picking and choosing these things like this, this bespoke concept of giving more choice, that it also has the effect of undermining confidence in vaccines?
SENATOR ROGER MARSHALL: Yes, I think this is a big difference between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats want a one size fits all prescription for everybody. And I’m telling you, not everybody reads the – reads the book, does exactly like that. I have confidence in doctors, in nurses and parents and grandparents to make these decisions. I don’t think that we should have one government policy that dictates every one of these vaccines. I think local policy, local schools, if they want to have requirements, what Florida did was a bridge too far.
MARGARET BRENNAN: OK.
SENATOR ROGER MARSHALL: But how about just a little common sense. Just a little common sense would go a long ways here.
MARGARET BRENNAN: OK. OK. Because President Trump said he had some doubts about that Florida statement you just mentioned there, too, and that he likes a lot of vaccines.
Before I let you go, Secretary Kennedy founded this group that is arguing that women taking Tylenol or acetaminophen might be putting their babies at risk. They claim there’s a link to neurodevelopmental disorders. Would you take – tell a pregnant woman to take a Tylenol and not feel worried about it?
SENATOR ROGER MARSHALL: Look, Tylenol is a category b drug. I’ve given it to lots of patients. It’s on the approved – approved list.
But that being said, I try to tell my patients not – my pregnant women not to take anything because, you know, we don’t know what we don’t know. I’m very cautious. You know, why –
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
SENATOR ROGER MARSHALL: Why do 20 percent of our children have some type of a mental health illness right now? Why do we have so many peanut allergies? Why do we have so many people with autoimmune diseases?
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
SENATOR ROGER MARSHALL: I – we – so, we don’t know. What we don’t know, we don’t know. And I want gold standard studies to help us figure this out and sort it out.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
SENATOR ROGER MARSHALL: But as far as I know, Tylenol is OK in pregnancy.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Thank you, Senator. We’ll leave it there for today.
We’ll be right back.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
MARGARET BRENNAN: And we’re joined now by Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth. She joins us this morning from Schaumburg, Illinois.
Good morning to you, Senator.
SENATOR TAMMY DUCKWORTH (D-IL): Good morning.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So, you attended, as I understand it, a demonstration yesterday in Chicago where thousands of people were out on the street protesting President Trump’s vow to send in immigration agents. I know he’s also posted on social media suggesting troops will go in. Quote, “Chicago is about to find out why it is called the Department of War.”
Vice President Vance says there aren’t plans to send in troops. Do you have concrete indication now that there are plans to do so?
SENATOR TAMMY DUCKWORTH: Let’s make it clear, the president of the United States essentially just declared war on a major city in his own nation. This is not normal, Margaret. This is not acceptable behavior.
No, we don’t have any indications of them getting ready to send troops into Chicago. In fact, I was out at Great Lakes base yesterday, naval training base, and they were able to confirm that the only assistance they have been requested to provide is just office space for ICE, but that there are no barracks, no detention facilities, none of that is being requested or prepared to – in order to support troops into Chicago.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So – so then is this just, you know, social media trash- talk? When you say he’s declaring war, is this tongue-in-cheek?
SENATOR TAMMY DUCKWORTH: I think he’s renaming the Department of Defense the Department of War. And did he not just say that Chicago will find out what it means to be at war? I – I don’t – I take what the president of the United States says very seriously because that is the respect you have to give to the office. And if that’s what he’s declaring, then let me make it clear, it would be an illegal order to declare war on major city, any city, within the United States by the president of the United States.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Senator, I know you just mentioned you went out to the Great Lakes naval training session – station, I should say, and you said, the military leadership said they’ll only get office space. ICE cannot bring in lethal munitions. And the resources will not be diverted from military training. So, all of that together, did you breathe a sigh of relief and say this won’t have a real impact on the military?
SENATOR TAMMY DUCKWORTH: Well, we’re going to make sure that there’s not an impact on the military. We need to make sure that as, you know, Great Lakes naval training base is where every single recruit in the United States Navy goes through to get their basic training, and then later on some advanced training. We need to make sure that not a single dollar, not a single penny of the resources that they have there should be – that should be directed towards training our nation’s sailors and making them ready to do their jobs. None of that money needs to be diverted in order to support ICE or any of Donald Trump’s political, you know, theater efforts. We need to focus on making sure we turn out the very best sailors we possibly can out of the base.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So, in terms of how Democrats are responding to this rhetoric, “The Chicago Tribune” faulted Governor Pritzker for his threats to, quote, “not stand idly by if the Guard went in.” They wrote, “what does that threat actually mean? How about a conversation before the action or the response because it’s all potentially harmful to collective health.” It sounds like there’s a lot of tension here. Is there an opportunity to work with the administration to avoid making this worse?
SENATOR TAMMY DUCKWORTH: Well, they’ve not – they’ve not responded to any of our requests. I mean, I’ll give you a very concrete example. Senator Durbin, myself, Senator – Congressman Schneider sent a request into DHS to ask them to explain what exactly are you going to be doing at Great Lakes, and can we come look at your facility so we have a better understanding of what your operations are, and they replied, no, you can’t, and, in fact, gave their staff the day off on the day that we went to go look at the facilities and locked the doors and left the base. Basically, they fled the base. This is not the action of someone that’s doing something legal or that they are – that they’re proud of. They literally gave the people the day off, locked the doors and left.
Now, the Navy allowed us on to the post. They allowed us to tour the outside of the facility and also where they would be storing the non-lethal munitions. But DHS did not show up.
And we certainly have sent the administration multiple inquiry about what they are planning on doing, who are they bringing into Chicago. Are they planning to bring the National Guard in. They’ve none – none of that. They’ve not even reached out to local law enforcement to try to coordinate. You know, if they were truly, truly interested in fighting crime, then they would work with local law enforcement and ask them, what do you need? What help do you need? And we’ve not gotten any, any communications or feedback from the administration whatsoever.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you, in your armed services role, about what is a significance geopolitical meeting this past week. You had a lot of America’s adversaries gathering together. Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong-un of North Korea, all of them in Beijing. And China and Russia seemed to be deepening their work together. What do you think the signal to the United States here is?
MARGARET BRENNAN: The signal to the United States is – is exactly what, you know, these authoritarian regimes want to send, which is that they are the new world power, that America is losing its ground, and that they have utter disrespect for the United States. I think it was very, very clear. And it, you know, it doesn’t escape me the fact that once this meeting happened, which was humiliating to Donald Trump, he immediately responds by saying, well, then I’m going to rename the Department of Defense the Department of War and declare war in Chicago.
This is what Donald Trump does. When something bad goes – happens to him in the news cycle, or when the Epstein victims come together and have a very emotional press conference, he changes the topic and distracts us by saying things like, I’m going to send ICE into Chicago, I’m going to do this or do that. The American people cannot be fooled. We cannot be – allow him to distract us from what is truly happening, which is, this is a man who has driven our economy to a point where now there are more unemployed people than there are jobs. You know, we’re not selling our agricultural products overseas. And our adversaries are united against us.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, the unemployment rate is still low. But I hear you on a weaker than expected jobs number.
Just very quickly, there was military action taken in America’s backyard by the Trump administration. Vice President Vance says, “killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military.” He was talking about a strike on a drug boat – alleged drug boat off the coast of Venezuela. What do you make of that show of force?
SENATOR TAMMY DUCKWORTH: It was an illegal move by the Trump administration. There is a thing called due process in this country, and that needed to have happened. And the fact that it happened in international order – in international waters actually opens Americans to a similar action by our adversaries. You just – we were just talking about Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping and getting together and showing a show of force against the United States. Well, there’s nothing now to stop them from doing something like that against Americans in international waters.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
SENATOR TAMMY DUCKWORTH: And it could be civilians. And they could say, you know what, those were drug boats. We’re just going to go ahead and blow them out of the water.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well –
SENATOR TAMMY DUCKWORTH: You know, he’s setting a precedence here that puts Americans in danger.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Senator Duckworth, thank you for your time this morning.
We’ll be right back.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
MARGARET BRENNAN: We’re back now with our executive director of elections and surveys, Anthony Salvanto, for more insight on today’s CBS News poll.
So, Anthony, let’s start on the economy. That jobs report for August was lower than expected. Inflation is down from its post-Covid peak, but it’s still not at that 2 percent level the Fed wants to get to.
How are people feeling?
ANTHONY SALVANTO: Earlier this week I asked people, pick one word to describe the economy. And the top one they picked was “uncertain.” And you see here, I think tariffs are a big part of that. We’ve already seen four in ten people tell us they’re cutting back on spending because of increases from prices that they see as part of tariffs. They think tariffs are going to raise prices in both the short term and the long term. And part of that is support for imposing new tariffs has been ticking down. It is now down again. Increasingly confined just to the president’s base, to Republicans.
Now, there is their view that it will ultimately increase manufacturing jobs in the U.S., that people ought to be willing to pay a little bit more to support President Trump’s policies, but that view has not permeated beyond that base to the wider public, Margaret.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And we might need to wait until we see that job growth in those areas.
ANTHONY SALVANTO: Yes, I mean it could be, in some ways, that pull back a little bit of leading indicator as we go forward, right? People spending. The other part of this, too, is more broadly. And we talk about who and where you can impose tariffs. When we talk about influence on the Federal Reserve, a presidential influence there, the lens of this is also about presidential power and how much influence a president can have over those levers on the economy.
And, you know, I asked about this a little. And what we’re seeing is, Republicans very comfortable with Donald Trump having those levers. Other Americans, not so much.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But that’s unusual for conservatives in particular who have, for so long, trumpeted free market economy, not a centrally planned one. So really liking that there is such control in the hands of a political leader is really unusual. That’s a change.
ANTHONY SALVANTO: Well, it is in the sense that if you look back at polling over generations you would see Republicans, free markets, less government control. Here, so much of it, like so many things, centers around their trust in President Trump for that. But you also see some of those splits within Republicans where the MAGA base, they describe it as being efficient, and many others describing it as, you’re right, just more control.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And it is that MAGA base that has reshaped the entire party.
ANTHONY SALVANTO: Indeed.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So, that’s what we mean really when we talk Republican these days.
Let me ask you about the National Guard. This does seem to unify Republicans, if I understand it, from your polling. The focus on immigration and law enforcement. This surge of federal resources to D.C. He’s talking about Portland and Chicago and Boston and Baltimore. What’s the perception of it?
ANTHONY SALVANTO: Well, the lens on this touches on views of crime and what is effective of fighting crime, but also on rights and freedoms. Yes, for proponents of this, many of them Republicans, they’re saying it’s effectively about fighting crime. They say they’d support deploying the National Guard to other cities, like you mentioned. Even to their own area, whether there’s Democratic-run areas or Republican-run areas.
But for the majority, who are in opposition to this, in principle, they say, well, it’s going to impose on rights and freedoms. It’s going to make those rights and freedoms less secure, here again, through the lens of presidential power. The public generally would see sort of to the local leaders, the governor and the president all involved. One thing to note, and I think it’s related, speaking of the Republican base, the president’s overall approval rating is ticked up from July. It’s up two points. And it’s stabilized after having steadily declined over those early weeks and months of his term. That’s really helped buy Republicans.
And you look at how people evaluate the president. Republicans say they’re evaluating him more on immigration, deportation, crime, those issues. People who are evaluating him more on the economy, on inflation give him overall lower ratings.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Anthony Salvanto, thank you.
ANTHONY SALVANTO: Thank you.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We’ll be back in a moment.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
MARGARET BRENNAN: It’s a sad morning for those of us here at FACE THE NATION as we learned that the long-time associate director, Mary Frances Sirianne, has passed away. She was here with a smile on her face every Sunday morning for decades before she retired in 2020.
For FACE THE NATION, I’m Margaret Brennan.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
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