Transcript: Sen. Roger Marshall on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," Sept. 7, 2025

The following is the transcript of an interview with Sen. Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on Sept. 7, 2025.

MARGARET BRENNAN: We're joined now by the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner. Good morning, Senator, 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?

SEN. 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 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 AI job dislocation. And those are many times kind of 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. 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 realized 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 AI, do you deserve- Do you think he does deserve that praise?

SEN. 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.

SEN. WARNER: $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–

MARGARET BRENNAN: Taxpayers own 10% of the company now.

SEN. WARNER: But 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 H-20 chips to sell to China. So what- How do we read this if we want to say we want to build American capacity until, yes, make sure we maintain our lead against China. Well, why sell some of our most cutting edge chips to China? 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.

SEN. WARNER: I have done these visits to our intel facilities for the 10 plus years I've either been Chair or Vice Chair of the Intelligence Committee. They are part of the normal course. You get a chance to see the workforce, 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.

SEN. WARNER: So this, this meeting have 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.

MARGARET BRENNAN: She speaks to top advisors including the Secretary of State.

CROSSTALK

SEN. WARNER: His first National Security Advisor- National Security Advisor got kicked out because she went after him, the head of the National Security Agency who I saw with recently, General Tim Hawk 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 a intelligence facility? Strangely enough, Tuesday night, my meeting was canceled. Now we're not going to stand up for that. I've talked to my Republican colleagues–

MARGARET BRENNAN: Right, is Tom Cotton promising you this won't happen again?

SEN. WARNER: I'm going to get those meetings held. I have raised it with Cotton. I've raised it with the other intelligence members. You want to talk about something that is dangerous, you restrict Congress's 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 made.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So, tell me about this campaign it would have seen 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.

SEN. 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, they're 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 are 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? 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?

SEN> WARNER: Yes, we not–

MARGARET BRENNAN: Because the administration says they know everyone who was on that boat, they had "great clarity and fidelity."

SEN. WARNER: Well, I'd 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's supposed to get the absolute secret stuff, the only the President gets. I've gotten no briefing.

MARGARET BRENNAN: No briefing on this?

SEN. WARNER: No briefing on this.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Are they conducting regular information sharing with Gang of Eight?

SEN. WARNER: There are information sharing, the level of sharing and the timeliness of the sharing we, for example, we were on the Iran bombings. We were not notified beforehand, our my Republican colleagues were notified. When you start making oversight and who gets shared information on a partisan basis, 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.

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Open: This is "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," Sept. 7, 2025