《玛格丽特·布伦娜主持的<面对全国>》2026年11月15日完整 transcript

Full transcript of “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” Nov. 15, 2026

2026-11-15T14:00:22-0500 / CBS

On this “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” broadcast, moderated by Margaret Brennan:

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy
Rep. Jim Himes, Democrat of Connecticut
Rep. John Moolenaar, Republican of Michigan
Sen. Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana

Click here to browse full transcripts from 2026 of “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”

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MARGARET BRENNAN: I’m Margaret Brennan in Washington.

And this week on Face the Nation: A nationwide air traffic control meltdown results in an air traveler’s nightmare and raises new concerns about the safety of the skies.

The fallout from Friday’s shutdown lingered well into the weekend, with tens of thousands of air passengers struggling to complete their travel plans. Officials say they have determined what went wrong, saying it’s related to updating outdated air traffic communications systems.

(Begin VT)

SEAN DUFFY (U.S. Transportation Secretary): Let’s not do a patchwork fix to a system that’s critical for every single family. It’s not red. It’s not blue. It’s not Democrat. It’s not Republican. It’s American. Give us the money to fix it.

(End VT)

MARGARET BRENNAN: Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy will join us.

Plus: The blast radius from the Nvidia scandal keeps expanding just as President Trump is set to depart for a high-stakes trip to Asia, where he will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. We will talk with the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Connecticut’s Jim Himes, and the current chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, Michigan Republican John Moolenaar.

And, finally: As measles cases climb across the country and the U.S. loses its elimination status, we will speak with Louisiana Republican Senator Dr. Bill Cassidy.

It’s all just ahead on Face the Nation.

Good morning, and welcome to Face the Nation.

Friday’s nationwide ground stop lasted just over four hours, but the effects are still being felt this morning, with more than 1,900 flights already canceled and disruptions expected to continue. After nearly two days of silence on the crisis, President Trump is weighing in for the first time this morning on his social media platform, calling the FAA under his predecessor – quote – “a disaster” and also urging Congress to approve – quote – “desperately needed funding to modernize the system.”

For more, we go now to the secretary of transportation, Sean Duffy.

Good morning to you, Mr. Secretary.

Will the country be back to fully operational with a full flight schedule by the end of today?

SEAN DUFFY (U.S. Transportation Secretary): So, we have some delays in the airspace right now, but, as we look to the end of the day and into tomorrow, we should be running at full capacity.

What happens with a ground stop, like on Friday, we have airplanes and crews that are out of position, so it takes a little bit of time for the airlines to get back and choreographed and at full capacity in operations, but we’re well on our way.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So, I know that there was a router in El Dorado, Arkansas, as I understand it, that became an issue on Friday. You said on another network this morning there was a second issue at a radar site in Amarillo, Texas.

Are those two things related? And, if so, why did they both become problems on Friday?

SECRETARY SEAN DUFFY: Yes, so the – the Amarillo facility, that work had been done weeks ago. And so why, when we did the install in El Dorado, did that start to broadcast data into our network?

But then also the – the facility in Amarillo, why did that happen? We’re investigating that right now. We actually have both routers with L3Harris, who operates and owns our network. FAA is on site as well. FBI is offering support.

We’re looking at that right now. And when we know what the root cause of this issue was, was it not – was it the install from L3Harris, was it the router, I’m going to tell you and the American people what we find.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So, was the issue old infrastructure or was it new equipment?

SECRETARY SEAN DUFFY: So, first off, the – the – the telecom in El Dorado, it was an old copper wire that basically was – it was going to be decommissioned. They said it can’t be used anymore. So we were forced by the telecom provider to actually update that copper to fiber, and we brought in our routers and did the work.

And that’s when we saw the – the flooding of the network. So this was – this is part of our maintenance that we do on this really old architecture of a telecom network that was – I mean, this goes back decades.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Mm-hmm.

SECRETARY SEAN DUFFY: By the way, the rest of the world, every institution, every company, not just in the U.S., but around the world, they’re – they’ve all switched over to digital and fiber. It’s just the FAA is still using this really old telecom network that has to be updated, upgraded, and I think built brand new.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So the union that represents aviation safety specialists, PASS, as they’re called, said the issue was isolated…

SECRETARY SEAN DUFFY: Yes.

MARGARET BRENNAN: … to two contractor-owned-and-maintained routers that were being updated in the middle of the day, and they said their technicians were not involved in the upgrades.

So, I wonder, did the FAA do a risk assessment in advance and know that something like this was – happened, or were you totally caught off guard?

SECRETARY SEAN DUFFY: So, let’s be clear.

The – the union that works at the FAA, they’ll do the work on the radios, our equipment, or the radar, our equipment. They do all of the work on FAA- owned equipment. This union doesn’t do any work on telecom, and it’s our telecom contractor and providers, like L3Harris in this situation, they’re the ones that actually do the work.

So the FAA lets L3Harris into our – into our sites, and then L3Harris will do the telecom work. But our – this union only works on our equipment. This telecom is not our – is – that’s not our equipment. It’s L3Harris’s network. So, just to clarify that, this – this was done appropriately, which, by the way, it’s been done thousands of times by us, by others, and other companies.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

SECRETARY SEAN DUFFY: This has never happened. And so that’s why, when you have a remote location like this, we felt comfortable doing it in the middle of the day, because it’s been done thousands of times. We’ve never had this situation.

We’re going to have to reevaluate now when we do this work. Now, normally, if you have a big facility, a Newark or an Atlanta or an L.A., we have work to do, we do that at night. But, in a remote location, we can do it during the day because the risk historically has been very low.

Obviously, on Friday, we saw, no, it – it – it flooded our network, and we had to take the extraordinary step of issuing a ground stop.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So there was not a risk assessment, or there was a risk assessment, and this was just not foreseen as an issue?

SECRETARY SEAN DUFFY: Oh, no, no, listen, we do risk assessments on everything, right? And if you want to talk about a risk assessment, the GAO has done a risk assessment on my network, on all of the old equipment, and they’ll say, hey, this is – this is risky America. Make the investments and fix American air traffic control systems.

And, by the way, the Congress gave me $12.5 billion.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

SECRETARY SEAN DUFFY: I’m – I have got – ordered new radar, new radios, new voice switches. We’re doing all of that.

But it’s also risky to say we’re operating on a 1980s network with copper wires. So we’ve done a risk assessment, how do you switch over from copper to fiber? We keep airplanes safe in the sky. That’s our number one priority.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Mm-hmm.

SECRETARY SEAN DUFFY: We’ve done that, and which is why it’s worked thousands of times when we’ve made the switchover.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, when…

SECRETARY SEAN DUFFY: This time, it – it didn’t, and the – go ahead.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

So you just mentioned the – the Government Accountability Office. They also, in a September report, concluded that there is a push to modernize quickly, and that “the FAA is buying delivery speed at the risk of cost uncertainty and potential disruptions.”

So, should you have seen this coming?

SECRETARY SEAN DUFFY: Well, first off, with regard to the GAO, my number one priority is safety, which is why we shut down the airspace on Friday, right? We did the closure because we…

MARGARET BRENNAN: They’re saying speed.

SECRETARY SEAN DUFFY: My – my – no, I’m going to get to that.

But we – I want to make sure that – that Americans get from point A to point B safely, they get back to their loved ones. I want them to be on time, but I want them to be safe, which is why we issued the ground stop.

In regard to speed, we are going I think, at the – at the right speed. We have to get off old network, old telecom. By the way, that’s why I have already switched over 70 percent of copper to fiber without incident, without issue. Almost 470 radios have been switched over, new – new electronic flight strips and towers.

We’re doing incredible work. And just – let’s be clear about one thing.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

SECRETARY SEAN DUFFY: For decades, this work in our – in the FAA has not been done. It hasn’t been done because it’s hard. I don’t want to be dishonest. It’s a hard problem to solve.

The Trump administration, with my leadership, we are solving the problem. We’re building and deploying new technology. One of the problems I have is, I need more money to – to build a new…

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

SECRETARY SEAN DUFFY: … telecom network. I need new software. But we’re doing the right thing by – by way of the American people by fixing this really, really old system that was left to us.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But, respectfully, the American people have put a lot of money into infrastructure upgrades. In 2021, it was $25 billion for upgrades under Biden, under your administration, the Trump administration, as you just said, $12.5 billion for upgrades.

Democrats say the lion’s share of the money that was provided to you, you just have not obligated or spent. Why?

SECRETARY SEAN DUFFY: So, let – so…

MARGARET BRENNAN: And if the White House has allowed for reprogramming of funds, why do you keep saying Congress is stopping you from spending the money they’re giving you?

SECRETARY SEAN DUFFY: So, first off, there was a lot of money that was given to the FAA in the past. And I can’t answer for other secretaries or other FAA administrators.

A lot of money was given. Not a lot of work was done. So when I asked for a massive amount of money to fix the system, what the Congress did is, they said, OK, we’ll give you a partial funding, $12.5 billion, in One, Big Beautiful Bill. And they were very specific in how we spend it.

Now, I can’t – I can’t go buy radar off the shelf. This is a massive order. So we’ve asked those who won the contract, I want them to build the radar in America. They’ll start to deliver those radar to us in the spring. All of them will be deployed by the end of 2028. So all that money hasn’t been spent, but it’s been obligated to radar.

Radio is the same thing. I’m buying radios, but I – they don’t – they’re not on the shelf. They have to be built. They specifically said how I spend the money. And I have – and I have got it all spent, ready to be deployed by the end of the president’s tenure in office.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But…

SECRETARY SEAN DUFFY: But what I don’t have money for is a new telecom system. I don’t have money for new software.

Those – those are critical pieces to the infrastructure, and it’s been historically underinvested in. I’m making the case to the American people and the Congress, for the first time, the FAA is taking your money, and we’re actually building with your money. Let me continue. Let’s finish the job. Let’s not see what happened on Friday, let’s not let it happen again

MARGARET BRENNAN: Is $50 billion the total ask?

SECRETARY SEAN DUFFY: Let’s make sure we keep the American people safe – yes, $50 billion.

MARGARET BRENNAN: All right, Mr. Secretary, I’m told you have to get to another network. Thank you for your time this morning.

Face the Nation will be back in one minute. Stay with us.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

MARGARET BRENNAN: We’re joined now by the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Connecticut Congressman Jim Himes, who joins us from Greenwich.

Good morning.

Congressman, you just heard the secretary ask for $50 billion in funding for upgrades. There are 16 working days left in the House. Are you going to consider that funding request?

REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES (D-Connecticut): Yes, well, Margaret, I mean, look, you – you – you had the right question.

This is not a Congress money problem. You pointed out that there was $50 billion sent in the Biden administration and $12.5 billion appropriated that has not been obligated. For the American people watching, obligated is a fancy D.C. word for spent, right?

So this is not immediately a spending problem. It is a prioritization problem. And it’s payback, by the way, for – you remember when Elon Musk was standing on a stage spinning his chain saw around, cutting government willy-nilly?

Well, part of that chain saw got 1,300 employees of the FAA to resign or to retire. They fired 400 probationary employees. These are the technical specialists and the maintenance people. So, what you’re seeing here, apart from a lack of prioritization of improving our – our – our FAA system, what you’re seeing is the wages of what Elon Musk did, where he just gutted an entity that – that affected millions of Americans last Friday.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So, you’re a no on the 50 billion?

REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: Well, no, I’m not a no.

MARGARET BRENNAN: OK.

REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: Look, if – if – if – if they – I’m not on the Transportation Committee, but if they came and said – my first question would be, well, what about that other $12.5 million (sic)…

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: … that’s sitting in your bank account right now? How about if you spend that before we – we put more money in that bank account?

MARGARET BRENNAN: Understood.

I want to ask you about what is happening with this arms race with China and chips. You were one of the rest of the Gang of Eight who were briefed this past week on what is going on with Nvidia, that chipmaker.

CBS has reported, U.S. intelligence agencies believe Alice Huang, the Megaspeed CEO who was linked to Jensen Huang of Nvidia, was indeed an asset of China’s Ministry of State Security. However, when President Trump was asked about the scandal, he put it this way:

(Begin VT)

DONALD TRUMP (President of the United States): The big thing is, was the woman a spy? And I don’t know if that’s been determined yet. But if the woman was a spy, yes. If the woman was not a spy, perhaps it would be different.

(End VT)

MARGARET BRENNAN: So, how certain is U.S. intelligence that she was an asset of Chinese intelligence, and is that the central issue?

REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: Margaret, I don’t – I don’t even know how to respond to the president’s statement.

Remember, it was March when – or March or April when the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, circulated a memo to all of the senior people, including presumably the White House, saying, we have concerns that this woman is a spy.

It is now November, and the president of the United States had no interest in understanding whether, in this most essential technology, the technology which could end millions of jobs or cure cancer, and/or create, you know, a real tool for terrorists and – you know, I mean, the fact that the president in November is saying we don’t know if she’s a spy, that – that actually sort of perfectly illustrates my concern.

Now, here’s what I can tell you based on what I know. I don’t think that we know. I don’t think that we know. And when we say spy, spy is a pretty imprecise term, right? It’s possible, based on what I know, that Alice Huang had no idea that she was maybe being monitored or – or – or working for the Chinese.

That’s possible. We don’t know the answer to that question. It’s also possible, on the other end of the spectrum, that she was a fully paid-up, you know, intelligence asset and actually communicating.

But the point of all of this is, how is it possible that we don’t know this around the single most important technology of our lifetime? So, as you might imagine, Margaret, I’m going to spend a lot of time getting to the bottom of this. And I’m happy to report that, actually, as you’ve observed, Republicans in Congress are interested too.

MARGARET BRENNAN: They are indeed.

You referenced there a memo. CNN reported Marco Rubio, as national security adviser and secretary of state, drafted this based on CIA intelligence and then briefed the president. It also drew on intercepted communications between Alice Huang and Jensen Huang.

Has that memo been shared with the Gang of Eight?

REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: That memo has not been shared.

And, again, the only information that has come our way – and I’m speaking, I think, on behalf of the whole Congress here because I was with the Gang of Eight last week. The only information that has come our way was sort of a glancing, not-on-the-agenda discussion in that meeting.

So we have a lot of work to do. But, I mean, the fundamental question is, number one, has the FBI – and I don’t know the answer to this question. The FBI, as you know, is the entity that does this counterintelligence work, figuring out what Alice Huang is and what she sent to the Chinese, if anything, right?

We don’t know that. We don’t know if they launched an investigation. We’re worried about it, right, because the president and his buddy-buddies, and apparently Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, who has responsibility for keeping chips that could help build, you know, Chinese AI out of China, you know, these guys are palling around.

Jensen Huang is, you know, writing $25 million checks for the ballroom. We got to get to the bottom of this, and we’re – we haven’t even begun to get the facts we need here.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Two law enforcement sources told CBS that DOJ’s National Security Division is investigating Megaspeed. That’s the Singapore company that Alice Huang was CEO of.

She’s since left that position, as I understand it. And they’re looking at that. But it sounds like you are also saying Jensen Huang needs to be looked at with more scrutiny here, and whether he was indeed a target.

If – if he was a target of Chinese intelligence, why wouldn’t the United States tell him that?

REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: Well, let’s take that piece by piece.

Megaspeed is an entity that sort of didn’t exist 10 years ago in any meaningful way. And now they appear – and I want to say appear – to be doing possibly two things. Number one, they may be a way of getting these chips to China.

You know, Nvidia could sell them to Megaspeed, Megaspeed gives them to China. Or, more interestingly, and we know that this goes on, China wants to train its models so it doesn’t even buy the chips, but it just uses Megaspeed’s data centers, right? So, China is, you know, training up their frontier models simply online, if you will, right?

So that’s the question around Megaspeed. The question around Alice Huang is what – you know, was she a witting agent of the Chinese government, or was she just sort of being monitored? And then the really important question is, what information – and – and this is where you know Mr. Huang, Jensen Huang, comes in.

What information made its way from the CEO, Jensen, to her to the Chinese? What influence was exerted, right? I mean, if you look at the behavior of the Commerce Department in particular, it looked like somebody was standing up for Nvidia. Why? Was that influence on the part of Jensen Huang?

Twenty-five million dollars in money handed over for a ballroom sounds like a pretty good way to build influence, to me, at least.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Has Secretary Lutnick, whose Commerce Department would be in charge of overseeing some of this, did he respond to your request to meet with the Intelligence Committee?

REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: Well, that – that request just went out Friday of last week, so, you know, he – he will respond.

And, as you probably know, there’s also been a bipartisan request for him to appear in the Banking Committee in the Senate.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.

REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: But, again, if you read the reporting here, it looks like he has been the barrier inside the government to stopping the flow of these Nvidia chips to China. And the question is, why?

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, sort of to that point, I want to ask you about what the treasury secretary – if I could ask you to put your Financial Services hat on for a moment here and bridge both worlds, the treasury secretary was on FOX this morning, and he floated that more Nvidia executives should be removed.

He said there’s a culture of noncompliance that might need to be looked at, and whether they boosted potentially illicit sales of chips, he – which sort of suggests it’s part of a larger smuggling operation that you may have just touched on there.

And he cited reporting that only 1 percent of the computer chips imported to Singapore stayed there, even though Nvidia said Singapore accounted for 20 percent of their sales. Now, if a bank were entangled in those kind of activities, there would be very strong action taken.

What action needs to be taken here, in terms of answering all these questions the treasury secretary just laid out?

REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: Yes. Yes.

So, I mean, let’s be super clear here, right? Nvidia makes chips. They get wealthy when they sell chips. So, of course they have an incentive to sell these chips to the Chinese. That’s nothing new. Lots of companies would love to sell everything to the Chinese.

It’s the government’s job, it is the commerce secretary’s job, and the president’s job to stop that from happening through things like the Entity List, which, you know, prohibit American companies from doing business with anybody on that Entity List. Lo and behold, Megaspeed was not on that Entity List. Actually, the treasury secretary has been saying that.

But, yes, what you’re talking about, were banks facilitating a smuggling operation? I don’t know what the treasury secretary was talking about. But, yes, it should not just be Jensen Huang. It needs to be his people, who apparently were doing exactly everything that he – that – that they were told to do.

It needs to be the commerce secretary, who was not doing, apparently, according to the treasury secretary, enough. And, yes, if banks were facilitating this stuff, they too, you know, need to be called to account.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes, the treasury secretary was very clear that enforcement comes to Commerce, and that Commerce was not taking the action there.

We have to leave it there, Congressman. Thank you for your time this morning.

We will be right back.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

MARGARET BRENNAN: The U.S. has hit another record this year, the highest number of deportations in its immigration enforcement history.

ICE announced Thursday that it deported just over 483,000 people in the 2026 fiscal year. And while many Americans say they support the administration’s border security policies, CBS News exit polling from the midterm elections showed 58 percent of voters thought the Trump administration’s enforcement had gone too far.

Despite claims by the administration that they are deporting the worst of the worst, a CBS News analysis found in July that more than half of ICE arrests involved immigrants with no criminal convictions or pending criminal charges.

In the wake of the Republican midterm losses, President Trump told 60 Minutes last Sunday that his immigration policies might have been too tough. Days later, when asked again, he said his policy hasn’t changed.

(Begin VT)

DONALD TRUMP (President of the United States): We have a very strong deportation policy. There’s no amnesty, no – no anything.

(End VT)

MARGARET BRENNAN: In addition, the president elevated the architect of many of the most restrictive immigration policies, Stephen Miller, who just completed his first week in his new job as the White House chief of staff.

In recent weeks, ICE officials have been instructed to try to carry out around 19,000 arrests per week, up from previous targets. In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security declared: “ICE is not backing away or slowing down.”

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

MARGARET BRENNAN: We will be right back with the chair of the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, Congressman John Moolenaar, and the chair of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, Senator Dr. Bill Cassidy.

So, stay with us.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

MARGARET BRENNAN: Welcome back to “FACE THE NATION.” We turn now to Michigan Congressman John Moolenaar. He is the chair of the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, and he joins us from Grand Rapids.

Good morning to you, Congressman.

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN MOOLENAAR (D-MI): Good morning, Margaret. Good to be with you this morning.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So, President Trump will depart the U.S. later today for this trip through Asia. He’s expected to have a trilateral meeting with Xi Jinping, as well as Vladimir Putin on Thursday to discuss the reduction of nuclear weapons. To date there hasn’t been any kind of three-way nuclear agreement between our countries. Has the administration shared with your committee anything of what it has planned here?

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN MOOLENAAR: No. You know, that’s something where I think it’s important that the president meet with these leaders. Obviously, it’s in everyone’s interest to decrease the risk involving nuclear weapons and to have those conversations is important. I don’t believe any agreements are going to be made, but certainly China has resisted being part of any agreements. And if there’s a way to provide more security for the American people through those kinds of discussions, I think it’s important to have it.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, while China is expanding its nuclear arsenal, we know that the race of this century seems to be around artificial intelligence. So, that’s why I want to ask you about what’s going on with Nvidia. You’ve been very focused on these computer chips. Has Jensen Huang, the ousted CEO of Nvidia, agreed to honor your request to come in for a closed-door interview December 1st?

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN MOOLENAAR: Yes, he has. And also representatives from Nvidia. We are in the process of discussing exact dates. But, yes, they said they will be forthcoming and work with the committee – actually three committees, the Foreign Affairs, Intelligence and our China Select Committee. And we think that’s going to be a very important meeting to understand, to what degree privileged information was accessed, also to what degree this potential alleged Chinese spy influenced Nvidia’s philosophy and that may have had an influence on some of our policies with respect to A.I. and export controls.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So, you won’t have to issue the subpoena? Mr. Huang will come in and sit with you sometime in the next few weeks, you just don’t have a date?

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN MOOLENAAR: Yes.

MARGARET BRENNAN: OK.

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN MOOLENAAR: That’s correct.

MARGARET BRENNAN: OK.

You said, though, that, from what you’ve seen, Jensen Huang has, quote, “severely compromised our national security.”

President Trump hasn’t issued that kind of concern. Why are you so certain that damage has been done here? What have you seen?

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN MOOLENAAR: Well, there is an ongoing investigation into Alice Huang, but what we do know is this, she’s a Chinese national, set up a company that has been able to access over $12 billion of high-end chips. And there’s an investigation as to whether those chips were illegally smuggled into China.

And for Jensen Huang to be in a relationship like that, knowing that every Chinese national can be pressured by the Chinese Communist Party to comply whatever directives they have from the intelligence, that was simply irresponsible and a direct threat to our national security. These are vital technologies that our military depend upon, our commercial entities depend upon. And for Nvidia and for Jensen Huang not to view that as a national security risk is outrageous.

MARGARET BRENNAN: I believe she is a Hong Kong resident. You believe that she may actually be an active asset?

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN MOOLENAAR: Well, what we do know is that China has an all of society approach when it comes to their intelligence. They have national security laws in effect in Hong Kong. In fact, we remember when it was going to be one country, two systems. That’s no longer the case. That’s why Jimmy Lai is in prison right now for violating national security.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN MOOLENAAR: So, anyone who doesn’t comply with the CCP can be imprisoned, they or their family members.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So, I want to ask you about a question of judgment here. You heard the top Democrat on House Intelligence, Jim Himes, who has been briefed, he said in a limited way, but it has been shared with him, some degree of intelligence. Why would the president, after being told by the national security adviser that this was of a concern, still grant such access to Jensen Huang, even taking him aboard Air Force One and taking him to China? Why aren’t we hearing more from Republicans calling out the president for doing that?

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN MOOLENAAR: Well, my view is, I think he brought Jensen Huang to China because he felt like that would be a benefit for negotiations with whatever direction they wanted to head. And so, you know, people in history can question that.

But to me the bigger question is, what kinds of policies, either were influenced or not followed up on. And more concerning is, how do we win this competition with China –

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN MOOLENAAR: When you have the Commerce Department and others not either enforcing or investigating questionable practices.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes, there seems to be a lot of heat on Secretary Lutnick. The Treasury secretary said that the State Department, the Treasury Department, the War Department, the trade representative, they all wanted to blacklist this company, Megaspeed, that Alice Huang was running, and, quote, “Commerce has the pen.” Meaning Howard Lutnick did not do that.

President Trump’s his boss.

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN MOOLENAAR: Yes.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Who’s really at fault here, Howard Lutnick or the president for not knowing?

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN MOOLENAAR: Well, first, I think it’s – we need to examine why the Commerce Department did not update their entity list for the past year. Why did Megaspeed – why was it not thoroughly investigated? We know that Singapore wanted to investigate and now it appears that there may be a criminal investigation or some kind of Justice Department investigation. So, why is it that export controls were so adamantly opposed by Commerce?

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN MOOLENAAR: And to what degree did Jensen Huang influence that? And to what degree was he influenced by a Chinese national?

MARGARET BRENNAN: Are you comfortable with Howard Lutnick, the Commerce secretary, going to China tomorrow with the president of the United States? Should he be in that job still?

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN MOOLENAAR: No, I’ll leave that up to the president. I believe that there need to be questions answered by Howard Lutnick, by the entire Commerce Department. We need answers. And it also raises the level of importance to getting export controls in the National Defense Authorization Act. And to me, that’s going to be our focus for the next few weeks.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes, you’ve been on record for some time that you think this needs to be really overseen with more force, fewer loopholes. But let me ask you about an arrangement that the president has talked about, and proudly so.

In August of 2025, Nvidia and chip maker AMD agreed to share 15 percent of their revenues from chip sales to China with the U.S. government. The president later posted on social media that he upped that to 25 percent. These were terms negotiated by the Trump administration to approve sales of Nvidia’s computer chips.

Should this policy be revisited? Is the U.S. government actually making money off of these chip sales that you say are really an endangerment?

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN MOOLENAAR: Well, I think the key question is, what type of chips? You know, you have the advanced, the Blackwells, the Rubens, which the Trump administration has prohibited sales of those. And it’s important to designate, there are some chips that are not a threat to national security and do not incrementally or even especially exponentially improve China’s capabilities. And, to me, there still will be commerce in that area.

But we have to safeguard these crown jewels. We have to make sure that we aren’t helping China’s military industrial complex. And that’s why it’s so important that Megaspeed should have been on the entity list because they were partnering with Alibaba, which is a designated, by Department of War, as a Chinese military company. So, we have to differentiate between types of chips. We need to know where those chips are going. We need to make sure American companies have first access. We need to make sure there’s not remote access or smuggling.

And so, all of these require – and we need to build upon some of the safeguards the Trump administration has put in place and prosecutions they have done, but also have this codified in Congress. And that’s why it’s going to be so important in the next few weeks that we don’t let up on the gas pedal on this.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Secretary Bessent has been saying in interviews this week that the administration has the authorities they need. They don’t need more legislation. It’s a question of sort of will and enforcement.

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN MOOLENAAR: Yes, I think Congress has an important oversight role. But for certainty for the private sector, and for continuity between administrations, you actually need acts of Congress to put that in place. And we’ve been working very hard to codify Trump administration policies, whether it’s outbound investment or biosecurity, all of these which are positive initiatives by the Trump administration need to be followed up and codified in law.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you trust that those in those positions will do that? Because right now the Commerce secretary is Howard Lutnick and you’re saying that he hasn’t done these things.

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN MOOLENAAR: Well, I think there is a heightened awareness now. If you – if you look at the Cold War and the Sputnik moment that occurred, in some respects this advanced technology, the leader in this advanced technology, China’s role in this process has created a greater awareness than ever before on how we need to safeguard these technologies. And so, I think there will be further action and I think it’s bipartisan in Congress. That’s one of the benefits of our select committee, that we work in a bipartisan way with committees of multiple jurisdictions to focus on winning this competition, both national security, the economic technology, as well as the human rights.

Because don’t forget, China’s the master of a surveillance society. And these technologies will be used for further oppression of the Chinese people, as well as people around the world.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Understood.

Congressman Moolenaar, thank you for your time this morning.

We’ll be right back.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

MARGARET BRENNAN: We go now to the chairman of the committee on health, education, labor and pensions, Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana.

Good morning to you, Doctor.

SENATOR BILL CASSIDY (R-LA): Good morning.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You may have seen these headlines that it is now official that the U.S. has lost its status as a country where measles is eliminated our partners at KFF report. And as you know, babies don’t get their measles shot until they’re around a year old. And so that means this regular transmission of measles throughout the country can leave parents with risks of exposing their kids and little that they can do to protect them in these cold weather months. Do you think that the current health officials are doing enough to educate the public about the risk of transmission?

SENATOR BILL CASSIDY: First, let me emphasize what you just said. Speaking as a physician, the choice – you may decide not to be vaccinated because it’s your free will, but the child, who’s too young to be vaccinated, is vulnerable if you come into that child’s presence. And we’re seeing children die from measles who are too young to be vaccinated.

By the way, it’s also true for the immuno compromised, which might be a woman who is pregnant and her immunity falls. It might be – it might be someone on cancer chemotherapy. So, if you’ve not been vaccinated, you could be the person that brings death to another. That’s something to remember.

Your specific question, are public health officials doing enough? I think, if I were president, I’d be saying, stand on the mountaintop, give that message. That you may decide that this is just your body, do you what you want, but you can bring measles or some other disease into the – into the health space of a child who is not – who’s not old enough to be vaccinated. I think that should be the message going out. It should be pounded, pounded, pounded.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You have oversight of these health institutions in the next few weeks. Do you plan action? I mean why aren’t we hearing from the CDC director?

SENATOR BILL CASSIDY: So, I’m in regular contact with the CDC director. For example, there was a broken link where you fill in your zip code and it tells you where to get the flu shot. And I – somebody informed me it was broken. I texted her. She responded quickly and saying that she didn’t know about it. She would look into it. And then she texted back to say it’s been broken for a year. And so she’s working to fix it.

There’s a lot of things to fix. And Dr. Schwartz is, as best I can tell, doing her best. But there will be more comments about this. It is – we’ve got four to six weeks left – no, we’ve got about four weeks left and so there’s a limited time to have a public hearing, but there’s contact going on in the background.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes. Well, you have shared with us previously that when you voted to confirm Secretary Kennedy, you believed that he would have more oversight in that Senate confirmed position. You also said that he’s broken promises to you.

This past week, Secretary Kennedy said, while Senate Republicans used to threaten not to confirm his appointees, now that Democrats will be in the majority, his gloves will be off.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VC)

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., HHS SECRETARY: The Senate no longer has any leverage over me. And, you know, and that’s a big deal. Then we have Stephen Miller in, who’s a friend of our movement, and I don’t think anything is going to get in our way now.

(END VC)

MARGARET BRENNAN: The Senate has no leverage over me. What do you make of that?

SENATOR BILL CASSIDY: Well, first, he’s obviously trying to provide cover for failure as secretary of Health and Human Services. He was supposed to be doing something positive on ultra-processed foods. That’s what MAHA moms wanted. There’s been minimal progress.

And now we’ve lost our measles elimination status and we have infants dying from measles. So, if you’re a MAHA mom and you were hoping for something better, and hundreds of them contacted me during this debate about whether to support the secretary for HHS secretary, that’s what they wanted. They have every right to be disappointed.

And the logic that because Republicans have been there but now Democrats are in charge will make it easier for him, there is no logic. This is about covering a series of failures. And by the way, I should also say that healthcare expenses are sky high. Going higher. Small businesses dropping coverage. Employees unable to afford their deductible. This has been a failure. If I were president, I would choose someone else because there needs to be accountability for higher healthcare costs, more measles deaths, losing elimination status and no progress on processed foods.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So, a number of Democrats, including Senator Alsobrooks and Warnock have said RFK must resign or be fired. One of the incoming senators, Dr. Annie Andrews from South Carolina, she actually ran on a platform of impeaching RFK. When I’ve asked you in the past about that possibility, you told me you didn’t see an impeachable offense. Is that still the case?

SENATOR BILL CASSIDY: Well, it’s up to the president. This is ultimately the president’s legacy.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, impeachment.

SENATOR BILL CASSIDY: Oh, impeachment. As regards impeachment, you know, you can impeach, I guess, over a ham sandwich. So, they’ll have to decide what to do on that. But I do think it’s more importantly the president’s decision. The president may want a legacy of higher healthcare costs, losing measles elimination status and no progress on addressing ultra- processed foods and other things. If so, I – that will taint the president’s legacy. If the president wants actually something positive, he should change. And that’s just – that’s just speaking politically.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

SENATOR BILL CASSIDY: The American voters signaled at the midterm they don’t like status quo, particularly in healthcare. And I think it’s time for something different.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So, Republicans are racing to confirm nominees before Democrats take office in January. And this Wednesday is the vote on the nomination of Dr. Heidi Overton, the president’s nominee to become the FDA commissioner. You’ve previously said her role in crafting the Trump administration’s childhood vaccine policies was almost disqualifying. Senator Collins has raised concern about the FDA’s authorization of flavored vapes and nicotine. Senator Murkowski has worried about political pressure on scientific review and the FDA-approved abortion drug Mifepristone.

Given all of this, do you still expect that Dr. Overton will be approved by your committee?

SENATOR BILL CASSIDY: I don’t know that. I’ve been working the phones all week. Both speaking with Dr. Overton, speaking with others, I still have questions. And so, I cannot tell you the outcome of that vote right now. But I spoke to four or five of my down dais Republican members, as well as continuing to discuss things with my advisers. So, I can’t tell you that answer yet.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So, you may leave without a Senate-confirmed FDA commissioner in place? Does that worry you?

SENATOR BILL CASSIDY: Yes. And that’s part of it, Margaret. It’s always easy to say, my gosh, wouldn’t we want to have perfection. But we’re not going to have perfection. We just know that.

So, then the question is, do we want a series of short-term administrators who probably will have more influence from the secretary, as opposed to someone who may be not, you know, the perfect candidate in somebody’s mind but at least would be a permanent one and have the ability to establish some independence. And that’s part of the thought process there. That weighs on one side and, of course, other things weigh on the other.

And I’ve heard from a lot of people who are significant, who think deeply about the FDA, who have said it’s better to have a steady hand. I’ve heard from others to have a different opinion. So, it continues to go back and forth, and we’ll know Wednesday.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, we’ll see how you vote on Wednesday. As you said, you’ve got a limited number of days, 20 exact, before the end of the year. Twenty working days. You got a lot of business. There’s defense funding. There is government funding. And looks like possibly the risk of a government shutdown. You said President Trump and Senate Majority Leader John Thune have made commitments to you to address Social Security. Can you really get all that kind of serious work done in 20 working days?

SENATOR BILL CASSIDY: So, I had a commitment from both Thune and from Mike Ccrepo to have a hearing and a markup on a Social Security bill. It could be mine. Could be someone else’s. And the president actually has given me personal commitment that he would support it and his administration has been very helpful. I have Democrats who are also supportive. It’s a bipartisan bill.

The ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee, Ron Wyden, has decided he does not want to be constructive. And I said, Senator Wyden, it doesn’t have to be my bill, it can be any bill. But, no, he doesn’t want to be constructive. And so we won’t probably have that hearing unless he changes his mind, which is unfortunate because we have the ability to have 60 votes in the Senate, to have the House and have a president who will sign it, and yet he doesn’t want to be constructive. And since it’s so – Social Security is like a child and you have to – you have to care for that child the minute it starts to look ill. And right now Social Security has been looking ill for some time.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

SENATOR BILL CASSIDY: We as a country, as a government, must care for it. And I feel like that care is being neglected. Incredibly frustrating, but that’s where we are.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, yes, it will be insolvent in six years. Medicare pretty much as well. And yet you don’t see –

SENATOR BILL CASSIDY: Which is why we should act now.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

SENATOR BILL CASSIDY: But, by the way, Senator Wyden doesn’t like me plan, so he says, because we borrow $1.5 trillion, we put it in investment funds separate from Social Security trust fund, put it into the broader economy, and allow it to grow over six decades, at which point it paid for up to 70 percent of what we need to cover the debt for Social Security. He doesn’t want to put tax dollars in the stock market.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

SENATOR BILL CASSIDY: He’s done that before. He has voted for that exact same policy almost for the federal railroad retirement system under George W. Bush, and that’s done fantastic. It’s worked. We know it does. So, I think it’s a fig leaf.

By the way, I also said, let’s bring us Bernie Sanders’ plan.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

SENATOR BILL CASSIDY: We can do that. But there’s just a refusal to take part of it. And I’m so frustrated. This is so important to our country.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

SENATOR BILL CASSIDY: Congress is there to take tough choices and now we’re

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

SENATOR BILL CASSIDY: Now those tough choices are being ducked.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Senator, thank you for your time this morning. We’ll continue to cover that.

And we’ll be back in a moment.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

MARGARET BRENNAN: That’s it for us today. Thank you all for watching. Until next week. For “FACE THE NATION,” I’m Margaret Brennan.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

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