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Transcript: Rep. Jim Himes on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” Sept. 27, 2026

2026-09-27T11:51:11-0400 / CBS News

The following is the transcript of the interview with Rep. Jim Himes, Democrat of Connecticut, that aired on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on Sept. 27, 2026.

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MARGARET BRENNAN: And we’re back now with Connecticut Democratic Congressman Jim Himes. Congressman, you sit on the House Intelligence Committee. We are 37 days out from the midterm races. I know you received a classified briefing on foreign threats, and you released a statement saying that the US intelligence community assessed no adversary had interfered or attempted to interfere with infrastructure or vote counting. Why did you think it was important to make that statement if nothing changed?

REP. JIM HIMES: Yeah. Well, Margaret, we know, that the president, as he careens on and I overheard you talking about the Strait of Hormuz and gasoline prices and everything as the president careens towards, a very substantial loss in the election. We know that he’s going to deny its legitimacy. And I say we know it because he always does that when an election goes against him. By the way, he does it when an election doesn’t go against him in 2016, of course, he famously claimed to have won the popular vote. So this is coming. This is coming. And the only question is how prepared are we for it? And, you know, we could spend two hours on the various scenarios that Donald Trump is going to do to claim that the election is corrupted. You know, that he’s going to say that there’s illegal aliens voting in Michigan, in Florida. My little piece of this is and we saw a preview of this in his July speech to the nation. He is, quite possibly going to claim that the Iranians have taken control of the voting machinery in Florida or in North Carolina, or that the Russians or the Chinese. And as the guy who has access to that information, I’m making sure to the extent that I can, that people understand what the history is, and that in real time, I’ll have some insight as to whether what the president says in that moment is true.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You have that assurance from U.S. officials that they will provide you that real time intelligence.

REP. JIM HIMES: Well, the answer, of course, is yes. Yes, I’ve received that assurance. Do I believe it? You know, it was really interesting listening to you talk to Senator Kennedy, who in his very veiled and folksy way was- was breaking with the president and pretty substantial ways, as he said, he may end up with a picture with a sombrero on his head. You know, look, it’s, one of the attributes of this administration in this second version of his presidency is that if you go against the president, you get fired. So, yes, I have received those assurances. They only partly make me comfortable.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, we will watch for that. You said no interference. Influence campaigns, of course, are also something that I understand we’ll have to be tracking.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You heard from president–

REP. HIMES: Influence is very different. It’s important that people understand the distinction. You know, interference is messing around with the actual machinery or the vote tallies. Influence happens all the time. People buying, you know, Facebook pages opposing some candidate that happens.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah. Understood. Thank you for making that distinction. You heard President Pezeshkian at the top of this program dangle this chance at diplomacy. President Trump openly speculated at the United Nations that Iran’s waiting on a deal until after the midterms. What do you think, if anything would change after November, that could affect how the executive negotiates?

REP. HIMES: Yeah. You know, it’s funny. I read the transcript of your interview with the president of Iran, and it was a whole lot of words. There were some interesting nuggets in it about, you know, no- we’re not we’re not inviting the president to Iran. And no, we’re not- there was interesting stuff in there. But make no mistake, right. Two things are true. The president’s threat to annihilate Iran is nonsensical. You know, he’s been trying that for six months now, and he’s not wrong. We sank their navy. We destroyed a lot of their planes. But, you know, the Iranians have for six months sustained the very worst that we in the Israelis can throw at them. You know, unless the president wants to start sort of killing civilians in, in cities, we’ve shown what we can do when the Iranians have shown that they can sustain that. More interestingly, and you ask about this in the context of the election, look, the Iranians now, in some sense, control what happens on Election Day. Why do I say that? Because if the Iranian regime and this is why they’re not negotiating before the election, if the Iranian regime wants to make sure that Mike Lawler loses in New York-17, or that Ashley Hinson is not a senator in the Midwest, they will call their friends the Houthis and say, fire five missiles at fi- at five ships, or they’ll fire a couple of missiles or drones at ships in the Strait of Hormuz, oil goes up to $120 a barrel. Diesel, already at record highs, goes to $8 a gallon. And guess what? Mike Lawler and Ashley Hinson lose their elections. Right? And so the Iranians are not stupid people. They’ve been negotiating literally for thousands of years. And they understand that they now have a massive impact on what happens in November, simply because they control the flow of oil and fertilizer and other stuff out of the strait. So do you think they’re giving up that position before the election? Of course they’re not.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, a lot of what they asked for, the president had already agreed to back in June in that MOU that, that failed.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But I want to ask you about another big meeting this week. And that was in Washington between Xi and Trump. The White House said afterwards that the countries would set up a bilateral communications channel for artificial intelligence incidents. Do you consider this in any way a step forward?

REP. HIMES: Yeah, of course it’s a step forward. I mean, it’s not something that came out of the- the pageantry of the last five days, right? Scott Bessent had set this up weeks before, the- the actual visit of President Xi occurred. And look, I, you know, we all know, because we can read and watch TV, that nothing significant came out of this. But, you know, look, when you have a situation as important as the relationships between Beijing and Washington, simply talking is, is is, is a win in and of itself. So, again, we all know that nothing terribly meaningful came out of this conversation. And look, Xi himself is waiting for 37 days when he will now face a president of the United States who has been rebuked by his own people, who will be in a much weaker position of political leadership than he is today. So, you know, President Xi wasn’t going to make a commitment any more than the Iranian regime was. But like I said, let’s not be too harsh. Anytime we’re talking to the Chinese and stopping misunderstandings and making incremental progress on things like AI or not starting another trade war, you know, it’s a valuable couple of days.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Congressman Himes, always good to have you with us. Thanks for your time today. Face the Nation. We’ll be back in a moment. Stay with us.