Transcription: Senator Mark Warner in

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

Margaret Brennan: We start today with Virginia Democrat Mark Warner. He is the vice president of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Good day.

Sen. Mark Warner: Good morning.

Margaret Brennan: You have probably been deprived of sleep with everything that is happening, but I want to ask you what is happening in Capitol Hill. The Republicans will pass this in the party lines. It is expected, right? But, includes things here that the Democrats, including you, had supported, right? Non -imposed on the provision of advice, more money for the border patrol, the expansion of the fiscal credit of child care more than $ 2,000. Why vote against, when there are popular provisions within it, and that does not allow the president to say, oh, want to increase taxes?

Sen. Warner: You can put both lipstick in this pig as you want. This will be a political albatros for Republicans-

Margaret Brennan: – Why? –

Sen. Warner: – Because it takes away 16 million Americans of medical care coverage with medicaid cuts, and cuts to the Obamacare market. That will take us, as a nation, to return to the same percentage of without sure we had before, before Obamacare. And it is not that these people would not get sick. They will appear in the emergency room. Rural hospitals will close. That has been evident throughout the country. It also goes after food assistance. So we are really in a place so we are cutting, in my state, a couple of hundreds of thousands of school lunches, school breakfasts. They even cut food banks. It is cruel. They have also finished, at the end of the day, cutting more than 20,000 clean energy works. And for what? This was to make sure that the highest and rich Americans can obtain an additional fiscal rest. And, as you just saw in your Chyron, there, add $ 4.5 billion to the debt. I think that many of my Republican friends know that they are walking on the board about this, and we will see if those who have expressed quiet dismay will really have the courage of their convictions.

Margaret Brennan: Well, some of the Republicans are discussing, well, we have to deal with these rights and the work requirements and the things that can lead to some of the lack of qualifications that he speaks of. They are not so heavy. It is voluntary work or part -time work. So are you exaggerating it?

Sen. Warner: No. 16 million Americans of medical care are. You know, Medicaid cuts: These numbers are not my numbers. All are independent sources. And what, what I don’t think people have realized is that people say, well, Medicaid, I’m not poor. I, maybe, buy my health insurance through the market. Your rates will increase $ 800 or $ 900 per month. And that will be glazed through the rest of the health market, because if suddenly it takes out people from the system, they appear in the emergency room with uncompromising care. The only way in which these costs are transmitted is higher health insurance for all of those who have traditional coverage.

Margaret Brennan: So, if this is against your own interest, why have you not been able to take off more Republicans?

Sen. Warner: Well, I think we’ll see. Even as recently as only one hour ago, some of the special provisions of Medicaid for certain states, I think, were rejected due to the so -called Byrd rule. It does not end until it ends. I will give you, I will grant that President Trump has been able to keep his party online in an unprecedented way. At the other extreme, this bill will return and bite them. This will do a lot of damage in terms of medical care, not only medical care, food assistance, you know, all the notion that we are moving towards cleaner energy work, all in the cutting block, adding $ 4 billion to the debt. Tell me, at the end of the day, how is it good for the United States? I don’t think you can present the case.

Margaret Brennan: Education is another front in this fight with the president. And I want to ask you what is happening in Virginia. We saw the president of the University of Virginia, James Ryan, resign on Friday. This was extraordinary. This was a Trump administration pressure campaign on diversity, or the so -called DEI programs. In the letter, and I want to read this, Ryan wrote that if he had tried to defend himself, hundreds of employees would lose jobs, researchers would lose funds and hundreds of students could lose financial help or have their visas. But, he resigned to avoid this. Is that now the play book for other university presidents: move away, do not have the fight?

Sen. Warner: This is the most scandalous action, I think, this crowd has taken education. We have great public universities in Virginia. We have a very strong governance system, where we have an independent Board of Visitors designated by the governor. Jim Ryan had done a very good job; I just completed an important capital campaign. For him to be threatened and, literally, there were indications that they received the letter that if he did not resign in a day last week, at five o’clock, all these cuts would take place. –

Margaret Brennan: – Was it so explicit? –

Sen. Warner: – It was so explicit. –

Margaret Brennan: that is, but that sounds personal. That does not sound specific to politics or changes. As, how does the next president of the university get online and get the money?

Sen. Warner: Are you surprised to come, personal attacks are leaving this administration? That is, you know, I thought the Republicans were about the rights of the states. I thought the Republicans were about to transfer more power in the United States. This DOE and the Federal Justice Department should draw their nose from the University of Virginia. They are hurting our flagship. 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 Jim Ryan presented it, that he was going to make his personal and personal work more important than these cuts. But, boy, that should not have been the choice.

Margaret Brennan: Well, and we know that the universe that the administration is looking at more universities, and the assistant AG, Harmet Dhillon, indicated that publicly and the University of California are next to the sight, so we will see it carefully,

Sen. Warner: Everyone wants to do them like Harvard. They want to face public universities, the way they have now taken the IVY. End of the day, this will damage our Universities, pursues what world class talent. And, frankly, if we don’t have any level of academic freedom, what kind of country are we?

Margaret Brennan: I want to ask you about your role of supervision in intelligence. They informed you what is happening with Iran. You said you fear that the American people receive a false sense of comfort with these mission statements fulfilled. Do you think intelligence knows us how much capacity will I go now?

Sen. Warner: I don’t think we have final evaluations. Let me, first, we do not want them to have a nuclear weapon. Second, the military made an extraordinary mission, and I think they affected a lot of damage to Iran’s facilities. But, the idea that the president of the United States, without data, two hours after the strike, is suddenly reaching the standard of saying total obliteration. That leads us to think that they are out of the game, and we still don’t know. And, let’s be clear, it can actually delay the main program where they were trying to create, potentially, and Ayatolá had not made a decision to move towards the weapon, but where they could have an armed system with a dozen more missile missiles that are warned. But what they do not know is that they did not, and this was appropriate, I am not criticizing the administration; They were not after the enriched uranium that was Isfahan, in that base, because it is buried so deeply,

Margaret Brennan: -Simmentely beaten with Tomahawks, not with the bunker bouphs-

Sen. Warner:- Then, the fact that they can still have enriched uranium, can have some capacity to follow that, it means that they could He still advances in something, which could not be delivered by a missile, but a bomb in a car of a car. And all I do not want is that the American people, or, for the case, our allies in the region, trust a term established by the president before he had any fact.

Margaret Brennan: Point taken there on the details of the rudimentary bomb. But, returning to what you just said, the Supreme Leader had not been decision to make a weapon. The Rubio Secretary of State, in this program, last Sunday, told me that it was irrelevant, the answer to that question, because Iran had everything he needed to do and build a weapon. So, according to what he knows, was there an emergency? Was there any reason why the United States had to act at the time he did?

Sen. Warner: We were on the edge of what could have been a much greater war, in terms of Iran and Israel extended to the entire region. Was there the imminent emergency that would trigger? Because many presidents have sought to take this action, I think that is very debatable. Yes, at the end of the day, we end up where this peace is maintained, and Iran does not go back, Halleluyh. But, what we do not know, for example, will I try to hit us in cybernetic with this administration court, literally, half of our cyber security staff in this country? Therefore, I just want to make sure we do this measured. The army did very well. We have delayed them. But we do not pretend that they have no capabilities. And the only way we can obtain a resolution on that, Margaret, and the secretary Rubio recognized this in the brief, is if we have boots on the ground with the inspectors. That means we have to go to diplomacy. If the United States and Iran begin to negotiate this week, face to face, it would be good.

Margaret Brennan: And we did it. We will talk to the man who directs those boots on the land, potentially, the inspectors later in the OIEA program. Thank you very much, senator. We will have to leave it there. We will return in a moment.

• International Atomic Energy Agency