Transcript: Sen. Mark Warner on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” June 29, 2025

The following is the transcription of an interview with Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, who will be broadcast on “Face The Nation with Margaret Brennan” on June 29, 2025.

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Margaret Brennan: We are starting today with the Democrat by Virginie Mark Warner. He is vice-president of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Good morning.

Senable Mark Warner: Hello.

Margaret Brennan: You have probably been deprived of sleep with everything that is going on, but I want to ask you what is going on in Capitol Hill. Republicans will transmit this according to party lines. It’s expected, right? But, it understands things here that the Democrats, including you, had argued, right? Taxes on the supply of tips, more money for the border patrol, the expansion of the childcare tax credit up to $ 2,000. Why vote against this, when there are popular provisions within it, and that does not just allow the president to say, oh, do you want to increase taxes?

Sénable Warner: You can put as much lipstick on this pig as you wish. It will be – it will be a political albatrossess for the Republicans –

Margaret Brennan: – Why? –

Sénable Warner: – Because it takes 16 million Americans from health care coverage with Medicaid cuts and the Obamacare market. This will prevent us, as a nation, from returning to the same percentage of uninsured that we had before – before Obamacare. And, it’s not as if these people are not going to get sick. They will present themselves to the emergency room. Rural hospitals will close. This has been highlighted across the country. He also goes after food assistance. We are therefore really in a place such that we cut, in my condition, a few hundred people from school lunches, school breakfasts. They even cut food banks. It’s – it’s cruel. They also finished, at the end of the day, by reducing more than 20,000 clean energy work. And for what? It was to make sure that the highest and richest Americans can obtain an additional tax break. And, as you just saw on your chyron, there, it adds 4.5 billions of dollars to the debt. I think that many of my republican friends know that they are walking on the board on this subject, and we will see if those who have expressed quiet dismay will actually have the courage of their convictions.

Margaret Brennan: Well, some Republicans compete, well, we have to face these rights and work requirements and things that can lead to part of the lack of qualifications you are talking about. They are not as restrictive. It is a volunteer work or part -time work. So, are you over-being?

Sénable Warner: No. It is 16 million Americans of health care health. You know, Medicaid cuts – these figures, these are not my figures. These are all independent sources. And what – What I don’t think people have achieved is that people say, well, Medicaid, I’m not poor. I may buy my health insurance via the market. Your prices will increase $ 800 or $ 900 per month. And this will take place in the rest of the health care market, because if you suddenly get people from the system, they present themselves in the emergency room in unpaid care. The only way these costs are passed on is higher health insurance for all of us who have traditional coverage.

Margaret Brennan: So, if it is thus against their own interest, why could you not take off more Republicans?

Sénable Warner: Well, I think we will see. Even as recently as an hour ago, some of the special MEDICAIDIA provisions for certain states, I think, have been prohibited due to the so-called Byrd rule. It’s not over until it is finished. I will give you – I will agree that President Trump was able to keep his party online in an unprecedented way. At the other end, this bill will return and bite them. This will do so much damage in terms of health care, food aid, you know, all the concept that we are heading towards cleaner energy work, all on blocking, adding 4 billions of dollars to debt. Tell me, at the end of the day, how is it good for America? I don’t think you can do the case.

Margaret Brennan: Education is another front in this fight with the president. And I want to ask you what’s going on in Virginia. We saw the president of the University of Virginia on Friday, James Ryan on Friday. It was extraordinary. It was a pressure campaign of the Trump administration on diversity, or so-called Dei programs. In the letter, and I want to read this, Ryan wrote that if he had tried to retaliate, hundreds of employees would lose jobs, researchers would lose funding and hundreds of students could lose financial assistance or have their selected visa. But, he resigned to avoid this. Is this now the game book for other university presidents: leave, you don’t have the fight?

Sénable Warner: It is the most scandalous action, I think, this crowd followed education. We have major public universities in Virginia. We have a very strong governance system, where we have an independent board of directors appointed by the governor. Jim Ryan had done a very good job; I just finished a large capital campaign. To be threatened and, literally, it was indicated that they had received the letter that if he did not resign on last week, at five o’clock, all these cuts would take place. –

Margaret Brennan: – Was it so explicit? –

Sénable Warner: – It was also explicit. –

Margaret Brennan: It is – but it seems personal. This does not seem specific to politics or changes. For example, how is the next president of the University online and gets money?

Sénable Warner: Are you shocked that it happens – Personal attacks come out of this administration? It is, you know – I thought the Republicans concerned the rights of the States. I thought the Republicans were on the fact, transferred more power to the United States. This Federal Doe and the Ministry of Justice should take out the nose from the University of Virginia. They damage our flagship university. And if they can do it here, they will do it elsewhere. At the end of the day, I understand that with so many things at stake, that the idea, and I think that Jim Ryan established it, that he was going to make his personal work more important than these cuts. But, my boy, it shouldn’t have been the choice.

Margaret Brennan: Well, and we know that the universe that the administration examines more universities, and the AGA assistant, Harmeet Dhillon, said that publicly and that the University of California is next to the reticle, so we will monitor this carefully –

Sénable Warner: They want to make them all like Harvard. They want to take public universities, the way they have now taken the Ivy. End of the day, it will harm our Universities, continue world -class talents. And, frankly, if we do not have a certain level of academic freedom, then what kind of country are we?

Margaret Brennan: I want to ask you questions about your surveillance role on intelligence. You have been informed of what’s going on with Iran. You said you fear that the American people have a false feeling of comfort with these mission declarations accomplished. Do you think we, intelligence, knows how much the ability that Iran maintains now?

Sénable Warner: I don’t think we have final assessments. Let me first, we do not want Iran to have a nuclear weapon. Second, the army carried out an extraordinary mission, and I think they assigned a lot of damage to the Iranian installations. But, the idea that the President of the United States, without data, two hours after the strike, suddenly reaches the standard of saying total obliteration. It leads us to think that they are out of the game, and we don’t know that yet. And, let’s just be clear, you can really set up the major program where they were trying to create, potentially, and there was no decision made by Ayatollah to evolve towards armament, but where they could have an armed system with a dozen more preventive missiles. But what they do not know is that they did not do it, and it was appropriate, I do not criticize the administration; They did not go after the enriched uranium which was Isfahan, to this base, because it is buried so deep –

Margaret Brennan: – They just struck with Tomahawks, not the bunker -buses –

Sénable Warner: – So, the fact that they may still have enriched uranium, they can have a certain ability to cascade it – means that they could Always go on something, which may not be delivered by a missile, but a bomb in a chest of a car. And all that I do not want is the American people, or, moreover, our allies in the region, to count on a term which was fixed by the president before having facts.

Margaret Brennan: The point took over there on the details of the rudimentary bomb. But, coming back to what you just said, there had been no decision of the supreme chief making a weapon. Secretary of State Rubio, in this program last Sunday, told me that it was unimportant, the answer to this question, because Iran had everything that had to be done and build a weapon. So, on the basis of what you know, was there an emergency? Was there a reason why the United States had to act when he did?

Sénable Warner: We were about to know what could have been a much greater war, in terms of Iran and Israel spreading to the whole region. Was there the imminent emergency that would trigger? Because many presidents have planned to take this action, I think it is – it is very questionable. If, at the end of the day, we finish where this peace stands and Iran does not strike, Hallelujah. But, what we do not know, for example, will Iran try to hit us in the cyber with this administration, literally, half of our cybersecurity staff in this country? So, I just want to make sure that we do it in a measured way. The soldiers did very well. We put them back. But let’s not claim that they have no capacity. And the only way we can obtain a resolution on this subject, Margaret and Secretary Rubio recognized it in the brief is that we have boots on the ground with inspectors. This means that we have to go to diplomacy. If America and Iran are starting to negotiate this week, face to face, it would be good.

Margaret Brennan: And we were – we will speak to the man who directs these boots in the field, potentially, the inspectors later in the IEA program. Thank you very much, senator. We will have to leave him there. We will come back in a moment.