Transcript: Rep. Jim Himes on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," March 23, 2025
The following is the transcript of an interview with Rep. Jim Himes, Democrat of Connecticut, that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on March 23, 2025.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Welcome back to Face the Nation. We turn now to the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Connecticut Congressman Jim Himes. He joins us this morning from Greenwich. Good morning to you. I want to jump right into it on the conversation about this Venezuelan gang. You have said some of your fellow Democrats have been too quick to use the term constitutional crisis, but because of the use of the Alien Enemies Act and this gang, you have started to become concerned that's where we are. Can you explain that?
REP. JIM HIMES: Yeah, that's right, Margaret, and thanks for having me. You know, constitutional crisis is a sort of broadly used term. Lots of people have different definitions for it. It's a lot of stuff you don't like- I'll tell you what I know is a constitutional crisis, if the President of the United States decides to ignore the orders of a court. We have not seen that since Andrew Jackson did that in 1834. When that happens, you have a supine, on its back, Congress of the United States, completely beholden to the president, not acting as a check. And if the President says, I don't care what the courts say- which, by the way, he has not said, but which, Tom Homan, his czar for deportations, has said, now you have a full-blown constitutional crisis. So, I think these next couple of days, as we see how this administration goes after the many judges and the many courts- many of these judges appointed by Republican presidents, who are stopping the wild and illegal actions of this administration, we're going to see whether we are in a true, you know Jacksonian constitutional crisis.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Because of your role on the Intelligence Committee, I know you have some visibility into the assessments of U.S. intelligence. The New York Times reported that the intelligence community said with moderate confidence that the gang, TDA, that we've been talking about is not directed by the Venezuelan government. However, the National Security Adviser just told us on this program, TDA is acting as a proxy of the Venezuelan Government. Why does that distinction matter?
REP. HIMES: Yeah, well, it doesn't matter, and I'll come back around to that. But look what- what- what people worry about is that this administration acts with a unbelievable kind of cocktail of incompetence and illegality. When you fire all of the people at the Department of Energy who look after our nuclear weapons and then say, oopsie, we need to hire you back. That's incompetence. I listen to Mike- Mike is a friend of mine. I have respect for Mike, but what he did was dodge your question. I'm not a lawyer, but I can read the first paragraph of the Aliens Enemy Act, which says very clearly that the authority that this administration claims is dependent on a declaration of war, not on acting as a proxy. So, Mike distorted the law and, you know, I read The New York Times article too. I haven't seen specific intelligence about whether there's any connection whatsoever between Venezuela and the TDA gang, but you're right the New York Times- by the way, I'll get an answer on this tomorrow, and I'm going to have some questions for Mike. The New York Times, of course, reported that there's that the intelligence community believes that there's not a meaningful connection between Venezuela and the TDA gang. So again, it's a bizarre combination of acting incompetently, because maybe there's a Venezuelan hairdresser, a gay Venezuelan hairdresser, with no connection to TDA. And if he's in this country illegally, fine, deport him. But to do it in this way under authorities that are not legal, is not the way to do this.
MARGARET BRENNAN : You're referring there to some reporting in Time Magazine about what happened to some of these- one particular detainee. On Friday, the Justice Department announced a criminal investigation into what they described as the leak of classified intelligence about this group, TDA, the Deputy Attorney General said they won't tolerate politically motivated efforts by the deep state to undercut President Trump's agenda by leaking false information to the New York Times. Do you have any concern, or is there concern within the intelligence community about these leaks?
REP. HIMES: There's always concerns about leaks, Margaret and as Ranking Member of the Intelligence Committee, I don't care who a leak benefits, whether benefits Joe Biden or Donald Trump or whatever, they are not okay. They are violations of the law. It's very interesting, though, that characterization that you just read, that we will not tolerate leaks that are inconsistent with President Trump's agenda. And this gets at one of my worst fears with respect to the national security apparatus under Donald Trump. Everything is about Donald Trump, right? And where I work- inside and overseeing the intelligence community, it is absolutely essential that the intelligence community be about one thing and one thing only, which is giving Donald Trump and other national leaders unvarnished, unbiased advice. And if this is all about serving the President's agenda, that is a notion that is completely at odds with what the intelligence community and what we spend $90 billion on making sure that policymakers- the president chief amongst them, has good information.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I was listening to a town hall that you did this past Thursday in Connecticut, and you were asked who the leader of the Democratic Party is. You threw out some of the sort of known entities- known governors out there. But you said, while the party is not leaderless, Hakeem Jeffries is young and untested, and leader Schumer is not a "wartime president." Do you think that your party can afford to stay the course with the existing leadership they have?
REP. HIMES: Margaret, I think we can do a lot better job with the leadership that we had. What I was acknowledging in that town hall meeting, and I will tell you, I've seen a lot of town hall meetings. I saw Chuck Grassley's town hall meeting. I saw my colleagues from Wyoming's- ruby red Wyoming's time in the barrel, and people are outraged. They're outraged mainly, by the way, because they're coming to understand what Medicaid cuts are going to look like for them, what it means to obliterate programs that so much of the country- 70 million people in the case of Medicaid rely on. So, there's an immense amount of anger. What I do know is that it was not a good look for the two congressional Democratic leaders to be on opposite sides of the continuing resolution. That created a great deal of agita out there, and legitimately so. So I am quite certain that Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer have learned from this experience and are going to, at a minimum, be unified going forward here.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We will see. Congressman Jim Himes we'll be watching you and that worldwide threat briefing that will be happening this coming week. We'll be right back.
