Full transcript of "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," Sept. 15, 2024
On this "Face the Nation" broadcast, moderated by Margaret Brennan:
- Republican vice-presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance of Ohio
- Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat
- Gary Cohn, former director of the U.S. National Economic Council
- David Becker, Center of Election Innovation and Research executive director and CBS contributor, and Chris Krebs, former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and CBS News cybersecurity expert and analyst
Click here to browse full transcripts of "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan."
MARGARET BRENNAN: I'm Margaret Brennan.
And this week on Face the Nation: The campaign 2024 roller coaster continues with 51 days left before Election Day. The candidates step up their pitches to voters and key constituencies.
With their debate in the rearview mirror, former President Trump and Vice President Harris can now focus on touting their campaign policies on everything from no taxes on overtime, his, to a $25,000 credit for first- time homebuyers, hers.
Donald Trump is putting migrants at the center of it all.
(Begin VT)
DONALD TRUMP (Former President of the United States (R) and Current U.S. Presidential Candidate): Springfield was this beautiful town, and now they're going through hell. It's a sad thing. Not going to happen with me, I can tell you right now. Thank you very much.
(End VT)
MARGARET BRENNAN: He is right about the troubled times in the Ohio town, but not about the false right-wing conspiracies regarding Haitian migrants.
We will talk to Trump's running mate, Senator J.D. Vance, as well as Harris campaign surrogate Maryland Governor Wes Moore.
Plus: from tax cuts to tax credits. We will get a reality check on some of those economic proposals from both candidates that sound too good to be true from Trump's former White House economic adviser Gary Cohn.
We will also check in with election law expert David Becker on the vote-by- mail process. And we will get the latest on foreign influence campaigns and the growing impact of conspiracy theories from cybersecurity expert and analyst Chris Krebs.
It's all just ahead on Face the Nation.
Good morning, and welcome to Face the Nation.
We have a lot to get to this morning, and we begin with Republican vice presidential nominee Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio.
Welcome back to Face the Nation.
SENATOR J.D. VANCE (R-Ohio) (Vice Presidential Candidate): Thanks, Margaret. Good morning.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Senator, we heard from Donald Trump this week that he wants to end all taxes on overtime pay for workers. How would this exemption work? Would this mean someone working a 40-hour workweek would then not pay payroll taxes and not pay income taxes?
SENATOR J.D. VANCE: Well, that's exactly how he envisions it. Of course, we're talking about hourly workers. And, of course, when you work overtime in this country beyond 40 hours, you get time-and-a-half.
And the president is saying, if you're one of those select hard workers that's really busting your rear end to try to make good in Kamala Harris' economy, then you should get a tax cut. And I think it fits fully, Margaret, with his entire tax agenda, which is, we want American workers to get tax cuts under President Trump's policies, and we want to actually penalize companies that are shipping jobs overseas through tariffs.
And Kamala Harris' tax policies are, in fact, the inversion of that. She wants to raise taxes on American workers and actually reward companies for shipping jobs overseas. So, it is a really stark contrast between the agenda of Donald Trump and of Kamala Harris.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But just to follow up on that, you said penalize companies who ship jobs overseas. So your tariff policy would only apply to those companies who are shipping jobs overseas?
SENATOR J.D. VANCE: Well, almost by definition, Margaret, when you apply a tariff, what you're really doing is applying a penalty to somebody who manufactures or makes something overseas.
You're basically charging them a penalty to bring it back into our country. And so what we're trying to do here with these – these tariffs is actually induce more people to make more things in the United States of America.
One of the great tragedies of not just Kamala Harris' leadership, but 40 years of American failure, is that we've lost our critical manufacturing industries to Mexico, to China. We started to undo that for four years under Donald Trump's leadership, but we've got to do it for much longer and in a much more intense way, because, as we've learned just in the last few days, the world has gotten more dangerous.
We can't rely on other people to make the stuff we need.
MARGARET BRENNAN: It's cheaper to manufacture overseas, which is why so many companies do it, but that – but that's another issue.
Just to follow up on the promise you're making to working-class voters, you are now saying no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on income from Social Security. All of that would wipe out a big chunk of the tax base.
Do you really think that fiscally conservative Republicans in Congress are going to vote for this?
SENATOR J.D. VANCE: Well, I think, obviously, Republicans believe American workers should keep more of their own money.
And, yes, I think that if we actually balance this out by penalizing some of these companies for manufacturing overseas, I do think that we can get this to balance out in the right way, Margaret, where we're not blowing a hole in the deficit, we're giving workers more their money, but, to your point, we're actually making it easier to make things in the United States of America.
Now, you're exactly right. Sometimes, it is a little bit cheaper to manufacture overseas, but we have to ask why that is. It's because a lot of these foreign countries use literal slave labor in manufacturing. We should not be allowing slave laborers to benefit from American markets. If you want access to our market, you've got to pay our workers fair wages.
That is the Trump agenda, and it's something he already implemented once, by the way, Margaret, but is going to double down on in a second term.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So, the 10 percent to 60 percent tariffs, you're saying, this is just a range, and you'll figure out exactly who it applies to if you win the election?
SENATOR J.D. VANCE: Well, I think you have to take some recognition, Margaret, that this is a negotiating tactic. You go into some of these negotiations.
MARGARET BRENNAN: OK.
SENATOR J.D. VANCE: And, sometimes, you're going to have to do higher tariffs. Sometimes, you might be able to do lower tariffs, but I don't think you go in saying you're going to do exactly this on every country.
You use that as part of the negotiation. This is one thing that Donald Trump was so good at during his first term, is actually negotiating with foreign countries and benefiting American workers in the process.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well…
SENATOR J.D. VANCE: If you say you're not going to do any tariffs, you're basically going into these trade negotiations completely unilaterally disarmed.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.
SENATOR J.D. VANCE: You don't want somebody who's negotiating for American workers who's already saying, I'm not going to use the most important tool, which is exactly what Kamala Harris has done.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, Harris and Biden have used tariffs in strategic ways on strategic industries, and it sounds like you're saying you'll also be strategic there.
You represent Ohio here in Washington, and your state's governor is asking for federal help to deal with the influx of about 15,000 migrants over the past four years, which has strained the health system, he says, schools – caused safety issues.
You've been talking about these problems, but what have you done to help Governor DeWine with his request for federal help?
SENATOR J.D. VANCE: Well, the most important thing that we can do to assist Governor DeWine and the whole state of Ohio, and, frankly, the whole country, Margaret, is to stop Kamala Harris' open border.
And, for two years, I have been fighting for policies that do exactly that. You have to ask yourself, why have these 20,000 Haitian migrants been dropped into a small Ohio town in just a few years, Margaret? And the answer is because Kamala Harris implemented what's called Temporary Protective Service (sic) for over 100,000 Haitian migrants.
She basically, with a magic wand, granted amnesty to thousands of people who shouldn't have been in this country. And now a small Ohio town is dealing with the consequences.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well…
SENATOR J.D. VANCE: And to anybody listening, Margaret, this is what Kamala Harris wants to do to every town in this country, overwhelm them with migration, stress their municipal budgets, see communicable diseases on the rise.
What is happening in Springfield is coming to every town and city in this country if Kamala Harris' open border policies are allowed to continue.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, let me…
SENATOR J.D. VANCE: We've got to stop this. American citizens are suffering because of what she's done. And – please.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Here's the fact – yes, here's the facts, though.
Many of those Haitian migrants moved there by choice because they have Temporary Protected Status, which gives them the ability to work. That TPS, Temporary Protective Status, has been in place since 2010. And, in fact, Donald Trump renewed Temporary Protective Status for Haitians when he was president.
Should he not have done that?
SENATOR J.D. VANCE: Well, let me, let me do a little fact-check, Margaret, because there was a renewal in June of 2017, I believe, which was very early in Donald Trump's presidency.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
SENATOR J.D. VANCE: And he actually ended it in 2018, that Temporary Protective Service (sic) for Haitian migrants…
MARGARET BRENNAN: He regrets having…
SENATOR J.D. VANCE: Kamala Harris, when she became president – or vice president…
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
SENATOR J.D. VANCE: Kamala Harris reimplemented it as vice president, and now you've seen this massive explosion just in the last few years.
I mean, Margaret, just to give some context here, there were maybe 1,000 Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio just three years ago. Now there's close to 20,000. And it's impossible to overstate it's overwhelmed local services.
MARGARET BRENNAN: OK, so I understand you want to end…
SENATOR J.D. VANCE: In schools, you have 1,000 children now in a small district.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You want to end Temporary Protected Status?
(CROSSTALK)
SENATOR J.D. VANCE: Please contextualize this, Margaret, because 1,000 children who don't speak English, so now the kids who are in that school district are not getting a good education.
The local health services have become overwhelmed. This is a terrible tragedy. And I think it's important, Margaret, to say we're not mad at Haitian migrants for wanting to have a better life. We're angry at Kamala Harris for letting this happen to a small Ohio town.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, Governor DeWine has been calling attention to it and asking for federal help.
On September 9, you amplified what you said yourself were rumors about Haitian migrants eating pets. Donald Trump then claimed those were facts, and he repeated them to 67 million people on the debate stage this past week.
In Springfield yesterday, two hospitals went into lockdown after police were alerted to a bomb threat. On Friday, two elementary schools, one middle school were evacuated. Thursday, an elementary school was also evacuated, and Springfield City Hall had to evacuate due to a bomb threat made by someone who said they were concerned about immigration.
These false claims are endangering your constituents. Do you regret your words?
SENATOR J.D. VANCE: Well, Margaret, first of all, we condemn all violence and condemn all threats of violence.
I want whoever made these threats to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. But we don't believe, Margaret, in a heckler's veto in this country. You can condemn violence on the one hand, while also saying that there have been terrible problems caused by Kamala Harris' open border in Springfield.
Now, you said that these are false rumors. Well, I have heard about a dozen things from my constituents in Springfield, Ohio. Ten of them are verifiable and confirmable. A couple of them, we have direct firsthand accounts of, for example, migrants abducting geese at the local park and slaughtering them and eating them.
Now, maybe all of these constituents are lying to me, but I would appreciate if the American media showed up and did some real investigation, rather than amplifying the worst people in the world.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
SENATOR J.D. VANCE: Why is somebody calling in a bomb threat, Margaret? It's because they want attention. I think that we should ignore these ridiculous psychopaths who are threatening violence on a small Ohio town and focus on the fact that we have a vice president who is not doing her job in protecting that small Ohio town.
MARGARET BRENNAN: OK. Well, CBS did hear from community members in Springfield who work with migrants, and they have talked about security concerns.
I know the mayor of Springfield, a Republican, told ABC News: "We've been punched in a way we should not have been punched." He said: "All these federal politicians that have negatively spun our city, they need to know they're hurting our city, and it was their words who did it."
Your words, sir. Do you regret them?
SENATOR J.D. VANCE: Margaret, we've been hearing about these problems for months, even in some cases for years,.
And the problem here is not that Donald Trump and I have called out what's happened to Springfield. We've heard from so many constituents who are thankful.
MARGARET BRENNAN: No, I have talked about the problems and cited Governor DeWine saying more legitimate problems.
SENATOR J.D. VANCE: But, Margaret…
MARGARET BRENNAN: I'm not asking about that. We have documented that.
I'm asking about your words sir, which you are responsible for.
SENATOR J.D. VANCE: But, Margaret, you only documented it after Donald Trump called attention to it.
And so, look, with all respect to the Springfield mayor…
MARGARET BRENNAN: You tweeted September 9.
SENATOR J.D. VANCE: … we've heard from many people who live in his town who are grateful, who are grateful, Margaret, for the fact that we are now talking about these problems and trying to solve them.
We don't want anything bad to happen to Springfield, but the worst thing that's happened to Springfield in the last 20 years is that Kamala Harris allowed 20,000 migrants to be dropped on the front door with no plan to assimilate them, no plan to care for them, no plan to help the residents deal with the massive strain on social services.
I understand. Look, I talk to a lot of people in Springfield. People are frustrated with the national media attention. Some people are also grateful that, finally, someone is paying attention to what's going on. You're never going to get this stuff perfect, Margaret. But that's why Kamala Harris shouldn't have done this in the first place. These people are suffering because she didn't do her job.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Again, the Springfield mayor is a Republican. That's who I was quoting to you.
Yesterday, you posted a video, the origins of which CBS cannot confirm, claiming Africans are grilling cats in Dayton. Haiti is not Africa. Dayton is not Springfield.
But putting all that aside, what is your intent in furthering the focus on these people? You're not talking about how to surge federal funds to help with safety, hospitals, and schools. You're talking about this.
SENATOR J.D. VANCE: Margaret, is your argument really that it's a huge difference if migrants are grilling cats 20 miles away from Springfield, rather than downtown Springfield?
And would it change if the video was 20 miles closer to where these things allegedly occurred? My point here is that the American media ignores these stories. Everybody who has dealt with a large influx of migration knows that sometimes there are cultural practices that seem very far out there to a lot of Americans.
Are we not allowed to talk about this in the United States of America, Margaret, because the American media is more interested in fact checking innocent people who are begging for relief than they are in investigating some of these claims?
I'm going to talk about what my constituents are sending me. That video was actually filmed by a constituent. That video was filmed by a person who is worried about what's going on in these communities. I'm going to talk about it, because that's what I need to do as the United States senator for Ohio, is represent Ohio and actually make sure that people's concerns get their voice.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Again, as a representative of Ohio, these are officials from Ohio, including the Dayton police chief, who said there is no evidence of what you just claimed as being verifiable or true.
CBS confirmed – we were able to confirm this video, and it was of the Proud Boys marching through Springfield yesterday. We know hate groups have been amplifying the concerns about Haitians for weeks.
What exactly – what constituency are you trying to appeal to here by putting this at the center of the conversation?
SENATOR J.D. VANCE: Margaret, first of all, whatever some – a local mayor said about this case, I am hearing from dozens of constituents who are concerned about these issues.
They are allowed to be concerned about these issues, and I think it's shameful how the American media ignores them.
Now, you mentioned a Proud Boys march. I imagine that's the clip that I saw yesterday of about a dozen people marching down the street. Of course, I don't align myself with the views of the Proud Boys, Margaret, but we have to remember that this is a real problem. The media is using things like a dozen marchers to ignore and distract from the fact that, thanks to Kamala Harris' open borders, there are children who aren't getting a good education.
Thanks to her open border, there is a rise in HIV cases in Springfield, Ohio. Thanks to her open border, murders are up 81 percent in Springfield, Ohio. I am much more concerned about the vice president of the United States failing to do her job than I am that a dozen people carried the wrong flag when they were marching in Springfield, Ohio, yesterday.
Let's focus on the real problem. That's the vice president of the United States not doing her job.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Senator J.D. Vance, so much more to talk to you about. We have to leave it there today. I know you're pressed for time.
Face the Nation will be back in a minute. Stay with us.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
MARGARET BRENNAN: And we're joined now by Maryland Democratic Governor Wes Moore. He's a member of the Harris campaign's National Advisory Board.
Governor, I have a lot to get to with you, but I want to start on where we left the conversation with the senator from Ohio, J.D. Vance.
He argues that talking about this strain on the local community from migrant populations should not be dismissed as racist by the Harris campaign and should be discussed on its merits – merits. What do you make of the continued push to focus the conversation here?
GOVERNOR WES MOORE (D-Maryland): Well, I mean, there's a remarkable amount of not just inaccuracies, but dog-whistling that we heard from that.
But, you know, of all the many things that I think were really problematic with what Senator Vance said, when – at the end of the interview, when he started talking about the – just some local elected official and what they have to say, these are people who are closest to the ground.
These are the people who are closest to their constituents. These are public servants, and these are partners inside the work. And in the case of that Mayor, that's a Republican who's saying that, that this isn't about politics, and it's not about politicizing this issue.
We know that to be able to address these issues, and particularly big, complex issues like the border crisis that our nation continues to confront, we have to do it in partnership. And I think, when you're hearing those kind of comments from someone who is – who is aspiring to be the vice president of the United States, I think for all of us, as local and statewide elected officials, it just gives a sense about how he views partnership and how he views the intelligence that's coming from us who are on the ground having to deal with these challenges.
MARGARET BRENNAN: The governor of Ohio, a Republican, also again today said the claims being made there were not borne out by fact.
GOVERNOR WES MOORE: Yes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But he's also asking for federal help with a very real thing, strain from the migrant population.
(CROSSTALK)
MARGARET BRENNAN: Should the Harris campaign talk about that more? Should the federal government be doing more?
GOVERNOR WES MOORE: Yes, well, the federal government absolutely needs to do more, as does Congress, and I think that that's part of the reason why the frustration that we saw when it came to things like the border deal, which was a bipartisan deal that we had both Democrat and Republican support for, that one of the anchors and one of the one of the authors was one of the most conservative people within Congress, Senator Lankford.
And the deal was killed because Donald Trump said that this was not going to be advantageous to my campaign.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Mm-hmm.
GOVERNOR WES MOORE: So the challenge is, is, what we're seeing from – from both Donald Trump and J.D. Vance is, we're receiving political talking points.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
GOVERNOR WES MOORE: But we're not – but we're not receiving actually actionable ideas to be able to address the issue.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But I guess, on the issue of empathy or understanding, should there be more recognition? Not just, oh, we tried and it didn't get through up at the national level, but on the local?
GOVERNOR WES MOORE: Yes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Reach out to Governor DeWine and say, I understand you have problems with your hospitals, with your safety, with the languages? Those things are real.
GOVERNOR WES MOORE: Yes, they are real. And, frankly, those conversations have happened.
You know, we've had conversations for – continuing on for months with the White House, with the administration about what we're seeing on the ground and about the supports that we need. So, we know that we actually have an administration that is working in partnership with us.
And in the case of Vice President Harris, we have a presidential candidate who actually uses the power of personal connection to be able to connect with us as state and local leaders, from what we're seeing in the state of Maryland, what other governors are seeing around the country, and actually coming up with plans together to be able to address this crisis.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you about the Harris campaign, because you are out campaigning for them.
And there's a big push in the coming days to focus in on black voters in particular. The NAACP released a poll on Friday that showed, while Black Americans overwhelmingly – overwhelmingly identify as Democrats, over one- quarter of Black men under 50 said they would support the Republican candidate in this year's election.
Why do you think that younger male Black voters are changing their association like this?
GOVERNOR WES MOORE: You know, I think there is a – you know, especially for younger black men, there is a frustration.
But it's not necessarily frustration with Vice President Harris, and it's not even necessarily a frustration with the Democratic Party. Frankly, it's a frustration of the pace of progress in America.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Mm-hmm.
GOVERNOR WES MOORE: You know, I think about my state. In my state, when I was inaugurated, we had an eight-to-one racial wealth gap in the state of Maryland.
And that's not because one group was working eight times harder. That's because of historical policies and circumstances. When I'm – I'm the third African American ever elected governor in the history of the United States. That's not because I'm only the third African American ever qualified to be a governor.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Mm-hmm.
GOVERNOR WES MOORE: And so I think the thing that we continue to see – and, frankly, I think that debate was actually a perfect illustration – where, for many of us, we grew up being told by our family members you've got to work 10 times as hard in order to get ahead, in order to get an opportunity.
We saw Donald Trump walk on that debate stage uniquely and historically unprepared, and because he thinks he can win on a whim. And so I think the frustration that people feel is real, but I think the thing that we're continuing to push to a lot of voters, particularly African-American voters, is that Donald Trump is a vessel to the skepticism, but what he is not is actually a vehicle for the solution.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Let me ask you about something on the debate stage that the vice president said. I know you served in the Army and you deployed to Afghanistan.
During the debate, Vice President Harris said this:
(Begin VT)
KAMALA HARRIS (Vice President of the United States (D) and U.S. Presidential Candidate): As of today, there is not one member of the United States military who is in active duty in a combat zone in any war zone around the world, the first time this century,
(End VT)
MARGARET BRENNAN: That's false. That's alienating the military families. What was the intent?
GOVERNOR WES MOORE: Well, I think what was – what the intent was – was that this is not, you know, counter to the – to the convictions of the Trump administration that somehow our world was safer under him, or we had less people in conflict.
That is just not true. But I think the really important thing to remember is, is that we do have people who are in harm's way every single day. We have – we have soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, Coast Guardsmen who every single day are out there with our flag on their shoulder and who are defending our freedoms and defending our values.
We have to make sure that we're not just supporting them in their operations, but also making sure that we're supporting them when they come back home, making sure that we're supporting their families and, frankly, what we have seen from this administration, where we saw an administration who was able to pass things like the PACT Act to make sure that we are addressing – we're addressing the people coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan who are having burn pit exposure, that we actually have an administration who is focusing on things like being able to support a Department of Veterans Affairs.
And the thing that we've actually heard, in fact, recently, as recently as yesterday, from Senator Vance is that he wants to privatize the Department of Veterans Affairs. We've got to make sure we're supporting our soldiers, our sailors, our airmen and Marines, not just while they're deployed, but also while they are coming home.
And, frankly, we have one campaign, the Harris/Walz campaign, that actually has a vision for that.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Governor, thank you for your time today.
GOVERNOR WES MOORE: Thank you so much.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We'll be right back with a lot more Face the Nation. Stay with us.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
MARGARET BRENNAN: CBS News will be hosting the first and only vice presidential debate between Ohio Senator J.D. Vance and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. You can watch it right here on CBS on October the 1st or stream it on our Paramount+ and CBS News apps.
We will be right back.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
MARGARET BRENNAN: We will be right back with Gary Cohn, the vice chairman of IBM and former White House economic adviser.
Stay with us.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
MARGARET BRENNAN: Welcome back to FACE THE NATION.
We're joined now by the vice chairman of IBM, Gary Cohn, who also served as former President Trump's top economic adviser in the White House.
Good to have you back here.
It's expected to be a very big week with the Federal Reserve expected to cut interest rates because inflation does appear to be moderating. How big of a cut do you expect and what will this mean for prices, particularly for housing, which is such a big part of inflation?
GARY COHN (Vice Chairman, IBM): So, Margaret, let me - let me take one quick step back. The Federal Reserve has a dual mandate. They have a dual mandate of stable prices, which means they fight inflation, and they have a second mandate, which is full employment. For the last four years they've been fighting the stable prices mandate. They've had to bring inflation down. We got inflation as high as 9.1 percent. We've seen the Fed raise interest rates from zero to five plus percent. That has effectively dropped inflation back to 2.5 percent.
We're now to the point where the other side of the dual mandate is kicking in. We're now starting to see unemployment tick up. We're now over 4 percent unemployment. So, the Fed is going to start cutting interest rates. We all believe about 25 basis points this week, and maybe about 100 basis points, or 1 percent, between now and the end of the year.
What the Federal Reserve has control over is, they have control over the very short-term overnight interest rate. They don't control longer dated maturities or longer dated yields. When people take out a mortgage, they're borrowing money sometimes for up to 30 years. Those rates are not affected by what the Federal Reserve does. Unfortunately, I think that those rate have already priced in what the Federal Reserve is going to do. So, I do not see a major impact to the mortgage market or credit card financing or anything else by the Fed starting to drop rates this week.
MARGARET BRENNAN: That's interesting because we saw that the Federal Reserve of New York cited the highest credit card delinquency rate in over a decade. Around 9.1 percent of credit card balances turned delinquent over the past year. That suggests consumers are under pressure.
GARY COHN: Yes, consumers are under enormous pressure. So, remember, we all came out of Covid with the consumers in the best balance sheets we had seen in our lifetimes. We had put an enormous amount of stimulus into consumer's balance sheets. When the economy reopened, consumers did what we really know how to do well in the United States, is not only spend what they have in their account, they use all the capacity on their credit cards. People went out and spent. They took vacations. We saw that they spent a lot of money on their house. And they went out and got their credit cards fully charged up. They assumed that the economy was going to stay strong. They assumed that job growth was going to - going to stay steady. They assumed that they would continue to be able to maintain that lifestyle.
We're starting to see softness in the economy, softness in the job market. We're seeing it's harder and harder to get a job. And so we're starting to see it in delinquencies and credit cards. That's exactly where we would start to see the softness in the economy. And people are going to continue to have trouble getting a job that pays more than the last job.
We just got done with the cycle - and we see this in the economic data - we just got done with the cycle where a lot of people were - were quitting their job. People only quit their job when they believe they can get a job at a higher price point.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, this is going to be the economy the next president inherits.
You just heard J.D. Vance, the senator, say here that Donald Trump wants to end all taxes on overtime. No income tax, no payroll tax. Wants to end the tax on tips and Social Security. That's going to add somewhere between $4 trillion and $6 trillion to the deficit over the next ten years.
Does this math add up to you?
GARY COHN: So, Margaret, look, I think every elected politician would like to say no one has to pay taxes on anything. And I think every American citizen would like not to pay taxes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Sure, why not.
GARY COHN: I mean, why not. That would be a perfect utopian world where we didn't have to pay taxes. I don't think there's a reality in that.
Remember, at the end of the day, the government has a budgetary process. It's a very intricate budgetary process where we take in revenue. The biggest revenue creators we have in the government is taxes. Taxation on individuals. Taxation on corporations. They take in that revenue, and then they spend it. They spend it for the goods and services that we, as citizens, expect them to provide for us.
Today the biggest single expense that we have in the federal government at $3 billion a day is interest on the debt. The second biggest expense we have is our military. Our military costs us $2 billion a day. Then you start working you way down into all the social services and products that every citizen in this country wants. If we're not paying taxes into the system, how do we pay for the interest on debt, how do we defend our country, how do we give out the social services that citizens of this country expect the federal government to be delivering to them?
MARGARET BRENNAN: And that's why I asked to the senator whether fiscally conservative Republicans will ever vote for what the Trump ticket is proposing here. And the response was that the government would take in money from tariffs. And Senator Vance said that's not just on foreign made goods, but goods made by companies who produce overseas. That seems to open up punishments for American companies too.
What is he signaling here? What do you think this means?
GARY COHN: I'm not 100 percent what he means. But - but let's take a step back and look at tariffs, because I think we all talk about tariffs and I think we need to understand tariffs.
First of all, I think tariffs is an important instruction for any president to have. It's a - it's a very influential instrument that they have when they're dealing with any foreign government.
The way tariffs are used effectively, and I support this, is when a country is producing a product substantially below where we can produce it in this country because they have a competitive advantage. So, in China, they do not pay for capital. The - most of the companies are government or state- owned entities so therefore their cost to capital is zero. They do not pay living wages to their employees. So, therefore, their cost of labor is substantially lower than us. They don't have environmental controls, so they can pollute all they want. So, their ability to produce a product is substantially different than that in the United States.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.
GARY COHN: China produces an electric vehicle, let's call it at $20,000 a car. We produce pretty decent electric vehicles, Ford and GM produce them, in the $30,000 a car range. It seems completely reasonable for me, if the U.S. government wants to tariff, and they should tariff, the Chinese electric vehicle, up to a price equal to and I would say even higher than the U.S. vehicle, because we -
MARGARET BRENNAN: The Biden administration is doing that.
GARY COHN: We want to protect those jobs in America. We should not allow them to use their unfair advantage to disadvantage American workers.
On the flip side, we import many products that we do not produce in this country.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.
GARY COHN: Those products are in high demand, and we need them. A lot of them are pharmaceuticals. Many other products that we expect to have on our shelves when we go in the store. If we start tariffing those products, we will have inflation. To the extent that we want to produce those products in this country, we should start out on a very methodical path to do that. And I think we just saw the way that can be done pretty reasonably. The CHIPS Act, which was passed a year ago, was a piece of government legislation that says, we will give chips manufacturers money to build foundries in the United States so we can build chips here. And then we - we can become self-sufficient on chip manufacturing.
Then you know what we can do? Then we can tariff foreign chips from flooding our market at a discount price. But until we have the capacity to build them ourselves, putting a tariff on those chips would just be debilitating to our economy.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right. It's more complicated, in other words, than - that what we're hearing on the campaign trail.
Taxes are going to go up, as you've talked about on this program before, December 31, 2025. The new president and the Congress are going to have to come to an agreement on this. You were the architect of those tax cuts that Donald Trump says he wants to extend. How do you expect Congress and the White House to work out where we're going to end up?
GARY COHN: So, taxes on the personal side change on December 31, 2025.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Individual tax rates.
GARY COHN: The individual tax rate. The corporate tax rate is permanent.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Although both campaigns want to change it.
GARY COHN: Yes, well, look, whenever you start down the path of doing tax legislation, everything's on the table.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
GARY COHN: You know, so - so I would assume that they will look at both corporate and individual tax rates. Taxes are - are very complicated. But as you've pointed out, to change the tax law, it's a legislative process in this country. You need the House and the Senate and the White House to agree.
I think the composition of the - the House and the Senate are going to be very important to what final tax legislation looks like. And I do think there is growing and growing opposition, in both the House and the Senate, and I would say on both sides of the aisle, for a large deficit tax plan.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Of all these plans being proposed by the Harris campaign and the Trump campaign come with tremendous price tags. What I think you just said is that Congress would not agree to sign off on any of them, is that right?
GARY COHN: Well - yes. What I'm - what I'm saying is, the tax plans as proposed right now -
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
GARY COHN: Spend a lot of money, bring – don't bring in that much money.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.
GARY COHN: So, therefore, the net effect of that is we increase the United States deficit. I don't think there is a lot of appetite in the Congress to do that. We have grown our deficit quite substantially over the last four or five years. Some of that because of the pandemic. And - and that's when the government should be building a deficit. They should be building a deficit when there's a pandemic because that is their center role is to -
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
GARY COHN: To maintain the stability of the country. In better times, when we've got substantial economic growth, we should be trying to pay down that deficit to put ourselves in a better position. We're now in one of those better times, or at least not a - a bad time. And so I don't believe that Congress has a large appetite to pass a tax plan, on either side, that has a huge deficit component to it.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Gary Cohn, more to talk about with you, but we've got to leave it there for today. Good to have you back.
We'll be right back.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
MARGARET BRENNAN: For more on the upcoming election and the efforts underway to secure the vote, we turn to David Becker. He's a former civil rights attorney at the Department of Justice, who no leads the Center of Election, Innovation and Research. He's also a CBS contributor on election law. And Chris Krebs, the former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, now an expert and analyst here at CBS.
Good to have you both.
David, let me start with you.
We saw this letter this past week from secretaries of state in all 50 stated and the District of Columbia issuing concern that we could see voters disenfranchised because this increase in mail returned as undeliverable at higher than usual rates, even in cases where a voter is known not to have moved. And Donald Trump was tweet about this, this morning, you can't trust the postal service.
How much of a problem is this going to be for mail-in voting?
DAVID BECKER: Well, it's a potential problem. I'm hearing this from - from state officials and local officials, of course, they're in the states. And we are seeing mail voting spread as an option around the country. I think we're likely to see less mail voting than we did in 2020 because hopefully we won't have a pandemic to deal with in 2024. But it's a significant problem and it really stresses the importance of voters to make a plan when they're voting.
Almost every voter in the United States has an option to vote early in person. Ninety-seven percent of all of them in every state except for Mississippi, Alabama and New Hampshire. Thirty-six states and D.C. do offer mail voting without an excuse. But if you're going to vote by mail, get your ballot early, request it early, make sure you get it, and then return it early. If you're going to return it by the mail, that's fine, just do it very early. There's also options for drop boxes and dropping it off at election offices and vote centers. That's going to be incredibly important for voters to self-educate about those options just in case there are problems with the postal service.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And it's this coming week, right, where it's voter registration, or vote awareness. What is it?
DAVID BECKER: So - yes. So, this coming week, on Tuesday, is National Voter Registration Day.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Registration day.
DAVID BECKER: There's still plenty of time to register as we sit here today. There's three weeks left in every state. Some states go much longer than that. But no matter where you are, if you're an eligible voter, you can go to vote.gov. That's a great place to start. Taylor Swift mentioned it earlier this week. And it's a great place to start and get registered. Every eligible voter in the United States can still check their registration and get registered for at least three weeks.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Put it on your to-do list.
Chris, I want to talk about some of the information, environment issues, that we are in. It is not every FACE THE NATION that we begin talking about rumors of cats and dogs and geese in Ohio. The reason we're doing it is because the Republican nominee on the debate stage repeated something that started as a Facebook rumor that got amplified that the senator from Ohio says resulted in calls to his office.
This - you've watched this kind of echo chamber and eco system of information. What do you make of a moment like this and - and how frequently things like this get replicated now? Like, how does someone at home navigate truth when we - I went through fact check after fact check, the police chief, the mayor, the governor and again and again and again I was told, nope, you're wrong.
CHRIS KREBS: Yes. I mean the - the - the fact of the matter is, social media, whether it's Facebook, Twitter, X, whatever, it's - it's not the real world. It's not reality. And so, it provides an environment where specious claims like this can catch fire, but they tend to be constrained to that platform.
What we saw on Tuesday was the firewall between mainstream and reality, in this extremely online eco-system, break down and they crossed over. And keep in mind that these social media platforms, well, Facebook has a billion plus users on a monthly basis. X has much, much fewer. And so what happened Tuesday night was the vast majority of people, there are 57 million, I think, viewers of the - the debate, the vast majority of them had never heard about this cats and dogs being barbecued in Springfield, Ohio. And the - you know, I expected it because, you know, unfortunately, David and I have to live in this world to anticipate what's coming. And so I had seen it going through social media for a couple days and I fully expected it to jump, you know, into the - the conversation and go mainstream. And, boom, there it is.
So, to your question, or to your point, how does one kind of, you know, introduce some kind of personal resilience here. And it's exactly doing what you do. Go to mainstream outlet and trusted outlets and - and do a little bit of fact checking, verification. And listen to the public officials. Listen to Governor DeWine.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.
CHRIS KREBS: Listen to the mayor and the city manager, who's to know better than someone that's actually willing to put their face and their name to a claim rather than someone randomly on a social media platform.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And this will become increasingly relevant as we get to voting.
CHRIS KREBS: Yes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And going to voting facilities. Not Facebook rumors, the elected officials, the people who hold office. That's who we as journalist cite.
CHRIS KREBS: Yes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And that's who people at home should look to.
CHRIS KREBS: Well, and to David's point about vote.gov and having a voting plan, yes, that is absolutely critical. But when you do come across rumors online of registration dates changing, or voting locations or precincts closing, there are ways that you, as an individual voter, can go confirm. And that tends to go to the local election official, or the secretary of state. Trusted Info 2024. That's the campaign that the National Association of Secretaries of State and the National Association of State Election Directors have mounted now for three election cycles in a row. It's go to the authoritative source in your jurisdiction, which tends to be your secretary of state, your state election director or your local election officials.
MARGARET BRENNAN: David, in the last election, we saw some of those local officials stand up in a way that was - it took a lot of guts to stand up to federal pressure. You saw that in the state of Georgia. You saw that in the state of Arizona.
You speak to election officials in states around this country right now. Where are you seeing that strength and are there areas of concern?
DAVID BECKER: So, I'm seeing tremendous strength from the election officials despite the fact that they've been under pressure, stress, abuse and harassment for four years now. That their work has continually withstood every bit of scrutiny that's been applied. And the fact that since 2020 every election they've run has been run very well and similarly withstood that scrutiny.
But they're still exhausted. This disinformation environment Chris is talking about, that has real world impacts on our neighbors, on our fellow citizens who are working every day to give us all our voice. They are answering questions that are - have no bearing to reality all of time about importing voters, about problems with the voting process, and they're having to navigate those while they're also still having to plan for an election that is likely going to be very high turnout, probably similar to 2020, perhaps even higher. People are very interested in this election.
But they're ready. But one of the best things we can do is support them. Is to support them by, as Chris suggests, listening to the actual information. Going to the official sources for real information. Getting information and making a plan in advance about how you're going to vote. And then, finally, one of the things I always encourage, if you have any doubts or questions, volunteer to be a poll worker. You will learn so much about the process. You will find out how the process and why the process is so secure. How many redundancies and checks and balances and pieces of transparency are in place in that process that will really help your election officials out because then you become an evangelist for our very effective election system out in the community.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So, Chris, we are seeing more foreign efforts to meddle in this election. We expect, in the coming days, federal officials to file charges related to the Iranian hack and dump campaign that seems to have been foiled thus far.
CHRIS KREBS Right.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But attempt to hurt the Trump campaign.
How much more of this is coming?
CHRIS KREBS: Well, my sense, and based on prior experience, particularly in 2020, where we saw the Iranians try to meddle in that election, the Russians, the China, you know, going back to 2016 with the Russians, is that they tend not to just have a single effort or work stream. There is an overarching strategy, a multi-faceted, multi-pronged campaign that they've pulled together. We certainly know this with the Russians, that there are various work streams that they have launched against the U.S. The Iranians very likely have the same.
So, perhaps this is just the tip of the iceberg. And I've - I've said this before. Not all of these activities, these work streams, will be successful or will break through, but the hack and leak campaign specific to Iran. But the - the - the main point and what I am observing out of the United States government is that they are looking to keep constant pressure, consistent engagement against the Russians, against the Iranians, against the Chinese throughout the course of this election and afterwards. Remember, we have to run through the tape here, and that tape is inauguration.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes. Yes.
And, David, quickly, it is illegal for a non-citizen to vote in a federal election. In some localities they can vote in - in municipal elections. Donald Trump is talking about this as a real concern.
DAVID BECKER: Yes, and it's not a real concern. And even Republican states that have looked into this have found incredibly small numbers of even potential non-citizens registered. We have found virtually zero non- citizens actually voting. Georgia did a full audit of its list and found zero non-citizens voting. That's because the protections in place are very effective. We - it's illegal to - to vote as a non-citizen. ID is required to register to vote. And if you're a non-citizen and you register and you vote, you will go to jail and you will be departed.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Wow.
DAVID BECKER: So, it's very important how effective those - those deterrence mechanisms are. This is not a problem. You'll hear that from Republican and Democratic election officials across the country.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Gentlemen, thank you both.
DAVID BECKER: Thank you, Margaret.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We'll be talking a lot in the coming months.
We'll be right back.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
MARGARET BRENNAN: More than a thousand people have been charged in the January 6th attack on the Capitol in what has become the largest prosecution in history. For tonight's season premiere of "60 Minutes," Scott Pelley spoke with the lead prosecutor in charge.
Here's a review.
(BEGIN VC)
SCOTT PELLEY: Democracy stopped for about six hours. The vote was counted at 3:44 a.m. With two weeks until Inauguration Day, it was the Trump Justice Department that set the standards for the prosecutions. Decisions were made by career prosecutors who work at Justice for years regardless of who the president might be.
MAN: The career prosecutors quickly realized that you needed guidelines in place, determinations about who was going to be charged, who wasn't going to be charged, and what they would be charged with. That process started in January 7, 2021, during the prior administration. To this day, we continue to use guidelines that the career prosecutors put in place during the prior administration.
SCOTT PELLEY: And how do they guide you.
MAN: What we're generally focusing on, of the thousands of people who you could potentially charge that day, are people who actually entered into the Capitol, people who engaged in violent or destructive behavior, people who illegally carried firearms or other weapons on Capitol grounds, and people who helped others to get into the Capitol building.
SCOTT PELLEY: You're not charging everyone who was there that day?
MAN: That is correct. We have turned down hundreds of cases where the FBI is saying there is evidence here. It's your determination, prosecutors, whether you think this should be prosecuted.
SCOTT PELLEY: And why would you turn them down?
MAN: Because they don't fit within the guidelines that the career prosecutors have been using, or we don't think that there's sufficient evident to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.
(END VC)
MARGARET BRENNAN: You can watch the full story and the senior premier of "60 Minutes" tonight right after football.
We'll be right back.
(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.
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