Transcript: Reps. Tom Suozzi and Don Bacon on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," Nov. 16, 2025

The following is the transcript of the interview with Reps. Tom Suozzi, Democrat of New York, and Don Bacon, Republican of Nebraska, that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on Nov. 16, 2025.

MARGARET BRENNAN: We begin today with two members of the so-called House Problem Solvers Caucus, New York Democrat Tom Suozzi and Nebraska Republican Don Bacon. Good morning. Good to have you here in a bipartisan conversation. You both recognize there's a problem here. Congressman Bacon, let me start with you. One out of every five dollars in this country that is spent goes to health care. We know these Covid-era tax credit subsidies for Obamacare will go away at the end of the month.* That's going to hit about 22 of the 24 million Americans who use that program. What can you do in the next six weeks to make costs go down in January?

REP. DON BACON: Well, we need a temporary extension of these tax credits to keep these prices down. Republicans nor Democrats want to see premiums skyrocket, and they will if these expire with nothing in its place. That's why I worked with Tom Suozzi and other Democrats and Republicans to find a compromise. We just want to do a clean extension. Most Republicans don't anyway, so we think there needs to be some caps on income, and we want to ensure all these credits go directly to lowering people's premiums. And right now, about a third of the money doesn't make it to the premiums. So those are some reforms that we would like to see. And if we can get those accomplished, then we can extend these tax credits and keep these- the prices lower, but we do need a longer term fix. The Affordable Care Act is unaffordable, and I think we need to have this extension to give us time to work on something bigger and deeper, and that will help lower costs overall. But I'm proud to work with Tom Suozzi on this, and I appreciate his partnership.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Congressman Suozzi, I understand this is a two-year proposed extension of those enhanced premium tax credits and an income cap that phases out for those making between $200,000 to $400,000. When you look at the breakdown, though, that's a pretty small portion of the overall recipients of the tax credits, it's like less than 10%. So what does this accomplish? How does this make it more affordable and fair?

REP. TOM SUOZZI: Well, it helps everybody else who makes under $200,000 dramatically. And the number one concern people have in America is affordability and health care affordability is right at the top of the list. So we need to do something to extend these premium tax credit--

MARGARET BRENNAN:-- How much more affordable?--

REP. SUOZZI: -- It'll save people thousands and thousands of dollars, literally $1,000 a month for some people. So it'll be dramatically more affordable. The people who make above $400,000 are the teeny little percentage of people that are not a very small group of people that would benefit from the existing tax credits. Most of the people are below- below $200,000. That $200,000 to $400,000 is a way to taper it off so there's not a cliff.

MARGARET BRENNAN: And how much Democratic support do you have for this at this point?

REP. SUOZZI: I think the Democrats are going to strongly back the idea of extending premium tax credits so that we can keep people's insurance affordable. So, we've got to come up with this compromise--

MARGARET BRENNAN: -- Even with these caps?--

REP. SUOZZI: -- Even with the caps. Yeah, people- Democrats have always said that they want to direct the policy towards lower and middle income folks, people making under $400,000 a year- is- are bread and butter issues that we want to try and make things affordable for those folks. So- and that will be like literally 95%- 99% of the people that are affected right now.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Congressman Bacon- sorry, go ahead.

REP. BACON: I would just say, as Republicans, we push back on the thought of someone earning $600,000 getting all these tax credits. So when I listened to Speaker- or Leader Thune, that was one of his big concerns on these so that's why I wanted to ensure that we had this in our framework.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But a tweak with a not permanent, just a two-year extension. Republicans haven't really been proposing a lot of alternative Obamacare options here. Do you think the entire system needs to be rebooted, and when will we see that plan?

REP. BACON: Well, I do I think Republicans and Democrats have to sit down at the table and figure out, what can we really do besides just throw more money at this. Right now, the- you know, the premiums are just going up so much faster than inflation. It's unsustainable and- but we can't do a Republican only fix it. It's not going to work. You're not gonna get 60 votes in the Senate to do it. And I know certainly some folks proposed that back in Congress. Let's go up with our plan. Well, it can't just be a Republican plan if we want to pass something. So we got to sit down with Democrats and figure out what can we do. And there's some good ideas out there. So for example, you know, I've heard, you know, if we can directly subsidize high risk people and put them in a separate pool and just lower their premiums through subsidies, and then the we can call it, the healthier folks, their premiums go- are going to go down significantly if we do that. So there's different concepts that we can do to that can have an impact, but it's going to- to be a bipartisan way forward. It's not going to be a Republican only bill, because you'll never get it passed.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Congressman Suozzi, I mean, Aetna pulled out of the Obamacare marketplace this year after CVS said they expected to lose as much as $400 million. Other big insurance companies have been pulling out. If insurance companies themselves are having problems with Obamacare, do Democrats need to be more open to broader reforms of the Affordable Care Act?

REP. SUOZZI: Yeah, we absolutely should be looking at any kind of reform. I want to mend it, not end it. You know that over the past decade that there have been over 70 attempts, mainly by the Republicans, not guys like Don Bacon, who is a very reasonable guy, to try and get rid of Obamacare altogether. We think that's a terrible idea. But if people want to try and make it a better system, to make a- health care more affordable in America and to get health care to more people, we should be doing that. That's what the people want. That's what reasonable people in Congress want. We should be working together to try and expand health care coverage, lower prices for everybody, and make health care more effective and less expensive for people. Now that's not going to happen with everybody yelling and screaming at each other. Everybody says, why don't you just- doesn't know what the hell they're talking about. You cannot solve complicated problems in an environment of fear and anger, you need reasonable people to sit down and talk to each other and say, I think this. Well, I think that, and then work your way towards finding compromise, very hard to do in this toxic environment. People like Don Bacon and other members of the Problem Solvers Caucus want to do that type of thing.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah well, but private health care costs are also going up. But on this topic of toxic environments here Congressman Suozzi, Democrats who won elections just a few days ago credited their wins to this affordability issue and the message focused on that. Can you explain the focus this past week in the House by Democrats on the Jeffrey Epstein files? Is this a tactic to distract from the failure to extract health care changes, or is there something else going on here? I mean, does the Speaker putting it to a vote end this issue?

REP. SUOZZI: I think it's a combination of factors, of people shining their lights on the most hot topic at the time. You know, Jeffrey Epstein, of course, is an important topic. I'm sure I'll vote to release his files, but that's not my priority. My priority is to focus on the things that the American people care about: affordability, immigration, taxes, crime and health care. That's what people are fighting about, that's what they're concerned about, that's what we should be focused on in Congress.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Congressman Bacon, does the Speaker putting this to a vote end the Epstein issue and get you back on to health care? I mean, the Speaker said this is all a political exercise. Certainly the families of the victims don't think it is.

REP. BACON: I think the Speaker realizes the train has left the station on this. Let's rip the Band-Aid off and get it done. I wish the president realized that. The more the White House pushes back on this. It's, you know, it just looks bad, right? I mean, it was- the attorney general came out and said, all these white binders, we're gonna release all this information and then, a month later, said, Oh, no, we're not. So it's been a PR blunder from the beginning. And I think the Speaker is right, this is gonna happen, so let's get it done and vote on it. Now, we got to realize it still has to go to the Senate. Then it has to go to the president for a signature. Meanwhile, our Oversight Committee is releasing thousands and thousands of pages of evidence concerning Epstein. So for example, like 3,000 pages was released late last week. So the Oversight Committee, Republicans and Democrats are putting out the data. They're putting out subpoenas. I think it's already working, but like Tom when this comes on the floor, I'm going to vote yes on it. I want transparency. We must- we want to protect the victims, but everything else should just be- should be open.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You also. Congressman Bacon, run the Cyber Subcommittee. I want to ask you about something significant this past week that AI firm Anthropic said that Chinese state sponsored hackers used their technology to automate break-ins and carry out the first cyber espionage operation, largely using AI. It hit like 30 different companies. What can you tell us about the scope and the targets of this attack?

REP. BACON: I can't say much more than what was just released. Other than I can say this, China has replaced Russia as the most formidable cyber threat. They have much higher technology. They are using AI, which gives you a lot more capability in finding weaknesses in your adversaries' cyber defenses. What concerns me more than anything, while China is attacking us every single day, and Russia, we've had no commander in charge of cyber command for over eight months. You know, the White House or the president, fired the Cyber Command commander over eight months ago and has not replaced him. Also, the top two positions at the National Security Agency, the top two are vacant for over eight months, and we've been cutting CISA, which is the- the agency that protects our private sector, our businesses, our infrastructure, and we've cut it by about a third. And so our cyber capabilities are going backwards. We don't- we're rudderless in a time where China is attacking us every day, and that's something that really concerns me, and I've been pushing the White House to- to deal with this and to confront the cyber threat.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, we will continue following that important story. Congressmen, thank you for trying to be problem solvers with us today. Face the Nation will be back in a minute. Stay with us.

*EDITOR'S NOTE: The enhanced premium tax credits are set to expire at the end of 2025.

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