Transcript: Rep. Ted Lieu on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," May 10, 2026

Democrat Rep. Ted Lieu calls Virginia Supreme Court decision on redistricting "disgraceful" 07:30

The following is the transcript of the interview with Rep. Ted Lieu, Democrat of California, that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on May 10, 2026.

MARGARET BRENNAN: We go now to California Congressman Ted Lieu. He is the vice chair of the Democratic Caucus and a member of the foreign affairs committee. He joins us this morning from Los Angeles. Good morning to you.

REP. TED LIEU (D-CA): Good morning, Margaret.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So you are in Democratic leadership. You just heard us lay out what's going on with redistricting. How concerned are you that Republicans now hold the advantage given the recent court decisions.

REP. LIEU: Thank you, Margaret, for that question. Let me just first say Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers across America.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Thank you.

REP. LIEU: Regarding your question, I would disagree that Republicans may have a nice- nine seat advantage, because that's based on data from last term, and the Trump coalition has completely collapsed because of skyrocketing gas prices, surging inflation. And if you look at the polling data and the results we've had in special elections this year as well as last year, we think the Republicans may have an advantage of anywhere between three to five additional seats. That is not enough for them to stop a democratic blue wave coming this November. And the best thing to do when a court does something outlandish, like the Virginia Supreme Court is to get back up and fight and make sure we win in the midterms.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But that Virginia push by Democrats, you spent more than $60 million on that redistricting effort. Wouldn't those funds have been better spent on those front line candidates and arguing on the issues?

REP. LIEU: So what the Virginia Supreme Court did was not only wrong, it was disgraceful. They basically said, hey, Virginia, spend all this taxpayers' money holding an election, do all this stuff and, oh, by the way, just kidding, that election didn't count. The court could have stopped this by not having the election in the first place. They suckered the people of Virginia. It was a complete disgrace. Now, most of the money that Democrats spend in the race is called (c)(4) money, so that's not direct, hard money that we're going to need for races in the midterms. But it was taxpayers money that was wasted because of the disgraceful--

MARGARET BRENNAN: --You think it was worth--, you think it was worth the financial cost. I mean, are Democrats going to somehow continue to fight this in court?

REP. LIEU: We're going to look at all available options. We're definitely going to try to keep fighting this battle. And I just want to note the best way again, if someone shoves you down, is to get right back up and fight back. And that's what we're going to do. And of these four seats in Virginia, we believe we're going to win two of them in the midterms, and that's what we're doing. We're fighting back.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay, so you still believe that Democrats can retake the House? What is your main message?

REP. LIEU: We will take the House--

MARGARET BRENNAN: --On what message?

REP. LIEU: The American people voted in Donald Trump because they wanted lower costs and he lied to them. We have surging inflation, skyroti- skyrocketing gas prices. The Trump tariffs have raised costs across many products across America. People are drowning in debt and in bills, and Democrats are going to reduce health care costs, lower costs across the board, reduce your energy costs. That's the message we're--

MARGARET BRENNAN: --How are you going to do that? Democrats shut down the government to have an argument over health care, and they didn't get any policy concessions, and premiums went up. You lost that fight.

REP. LIEU: Well, actually, we passed through the house an extension of ACA tax credits for three years. We urged the Senate to pass that legislation as well, Democrats, when we get control, we're going to reverse the massive Medicaid cuts, the Medicare cuts and the cuts to ACA that Trump and Republicans put in last year.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Let me ask you about your position on the foreign affairs committee. Secretary Rubio said Taiwan will likely be discussed during President Trump's visit to China this week to meet with Xi Jinping. This is a hugely consequential summit. On Friday, Taiwan's Parliament approved $25 billion in funds to buy more American weapons. Are you largely supportive at this point of the Trump administration's willingness to strengthen Taiwan's defense?

REP. LIEU: Both Democratic and Republican administrations have had the exact same policy, which is to preserve the current status quo, and we're trying to keep China from doing anything stupid in the Indo-Pacific, including a military conflict. And I just want to emphasize that the Iran war has shown that we need a brand new strategy in the Indo-Pacific, because in any prolonged conflict with China or Russia, the U.S. will run out of defensive munitions. We already started running out of defensive munitions in a war that lasted less than 60 days, and even against a second rate military like Iran, they struck multiple U.S. bases. So in any overseas conflict, our overseas bases will be obliterated by Russia and China. We need a new defense strategy, and I call on the Pentagon to deliver that to Congress.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, President Trump has made these record large promises of arms sales to Taiwan. Are you saying that America actually can't deliver on them because the stockpiles are so depleted and the industrial base can't deliver?

REP. LIEU: That's absolutely correct. We don't have enough defensive munitions in any prolonged conflict with Russia and China that will sustain what we need to do. We could even do this in Iran of a war of less than 60 days. We started to run low on defensive munitions, and part of the problem is some of these missiles, for example, take a long time to make. We basically make 96 of some of these defensive missiles a year. That's just not enough.

MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you about AI The Times report-- The New York Times reported that President Trump is considering an executive order that would implement some government oversight over new AI models. I know you have legislation on [audio gap].

REP. LIEU: I just want to first say, as a recovering computer science major, I think it is horrible for the AI industry to run wild, we need to have reasonable guardrails.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yep, okay--

REP. LIEU: Can you hear me?

MARGARET BRENNAN: Sorry, I think we're having- yeah, I think we're both having audio issues there, Congressman. But I'm going to go to commercial break here. Thank you.