Full transcript of "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," Feb. 1, 2026
On this "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" broadcast, moderated by Margaret Brennan:
- Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado
- Rep. Michael McCaul, Republican of Texas
- Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn
- Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt; Mesa, Arizona Mayor Mark Freeman; Kansas City, Missouri, Mayor Quinton Lucas; and Miami Mayor Eileen Higgins
Click here to browse full transcripts from 2026 of "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan."
MARGARET BRENNAN: I'm Margaret Brennan in Washington.
And this week on Face the Nation: Anger at ICE persists across the country, plus our interview with Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado.
After a whirlwind of meetings in Washington, Machado is projecting optimism about her country's future, even as her own future remains murky, with the party she defeated in a nationwide election still holding power with the support of President Trump.
(Begin VT)
DONALD TRUMP (President of the United States): I think she's a very fine person, but I think I have to say, at the same time, the current leadership is doing a very good job.
(End VT)
MARGARET BRENNAN: We will talk to her exclusively.
Meanwhile, the debate over ICE immigration enforcement drives more protests across the country…
(Begin VT)
(CHANTING)
(End VT)
MARGARET BRENNAN: … and sparks a fight in Congress over funding for the Department of Homeland Security. We will talk to Republican Congressman Michael McCaul.
Plus, a bipartisan conversation with four of America's mayors on how they're striking a balance between local priorities and federal authority.
Finally, President Trump's top economic adviser in his first term, Gary Cohn, will join us. We will ask about the president's new pick to lead the Federal Reserve.
It's all just ahead on Face the Nation.
Good morning, and welcome to Face the Nation.
Washington is waking up to another government shutdown, this time a partial one and hopefully short, as the House is expected to start debate tomorrow on a funding package and a short-term extension of Homeland Security funding.
We will get to all of that in just a moment, but we want to begin with the Trump administration's actions here in the Western Hemisphere. It was just four weeks ago that the U.S. military captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. Since then, the U.S. has continued striking alleged drug boats and seizing oil tankers, part of Trump's plan to coerce what remains of Maduro's socialist government to make changes.
Yesterday, U.S. Ambassador Laura Dogu arrived in Caracas to oversee U.S. efforts. But calls to release political prisoners and end repression persist, and there is a mounting push for a transition to elected leadership in Venezuela.
Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado is in Washington meeting with lawmakers and Trump officials to urge support for another nationwide election. Her party won the last election, but was blocked by Maduro from taking office.
We spoke with Machado and began by asking her whether she thinks the pressure is off the current regime after President Trump said he had no plans for further military action inside the country.
(Begin VT)
MARIA CORINA MACHADO (Venezuela Opposition Leader): I do not think that the pressure is being taken away. Actually, everything Delcy Rodriguez is currently doing is because she's complying with instructions she's getting from the United States, and important steps are being taken.
So, I think that the message has been delivered, and, so far, we're seeing the results in the actions taken by the regime and also in the mood and energy that is growing within the Venezuelan population.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Are you or is anyone in your movement in touch with Delcy Rodriguez, who's the acting president of Venezuela now?
MARIA CORINA MACHADO: No, not directly.
MARGARET BRENNAN: No. Why not?
MARIA CORINA MACHADO: Well, we had offered, since we won the election by a landslide, that we were willing to – to agree in the terms of a negotiated transition. They refused.
On the contrary, they decided to unleash the – the – the most cruel, brutal repression wave. There are – as you know, there have been thousands of political prisoners, and they had not demonstrated any willingness to – to stop this cruelty, until January 3 arrived and – and happened when it happened.
So it sent a clear message to them, and they're starting to realize that things have changed for good. So, eventually, they might understand or – and even very soon, that it is in their best interest to – to accept that the transition is unstoppable.
MARGARET BRENNAN: A transition that you hope involves a democratic election at some point.
Did Secretary Rubio give you any kind of timeline for the American plans?
MARIA CORINA MACHADO: What I do have very clear is that the end result is the same, what we want, what the Venezuelan people have voted and struggled and fight for, with huge cost and sacrifice, and what the United States government and President Trump also desires.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But for the people in Venezuela still living under that regime, what has actually changed for them? And do they have the patience to wait for what you're talking about, which is basically just hoping that the Rodriguez government does what Donald Trump tells them to do?
MARIA CORINA MACHADO: Well, it's more than hoping.
We're seeing the results, the actions. Are we there yet? Not. And – and I think it's a good point, what you mentioned, patience. How much patience can the Venezuelan people have?
Because, I mean, there were over 1,000 political prisoners on January the 1st. Still, there are over 700. Not one military prisoner, political prisoner has been liberated.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, President Trump has talked a lot about Venezuela's oil and its natural resources. Do you support the law that was just passed that allows the Venezuelan government to privatize the oil industry?
MARIA CORINA MACHADO: Well, first of all, I do not recognize the National Assembly as a legitimate power.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
MARIA CORINA MACHADO: It has not been recognized by the Venezuelan people, not even by the American, U.S. – by the U.S. government.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Not legally. But, effectively, they…
MARIA CORINA MACHADO: It – so – so – yes, but whatever comes from that National Assembly has no legality, so – because this is an illegitimate power.
So, certainly, these so-called reforms introduce positive signs in terms of what we, the Venezuelan people, want in the future. We don't want socialism. We don't want the state owning every single, you know, facility or production center.
We want private property, but that requires rule of law, long-term guarantees for foreign investment, for local investment. But one thing that is the most important of all, in my opinion, you need to have people, talent, specialized, professional, willing to work and develop these enterprises.
What happened with the Venezuelan specialized talent? It was forced to flee the country, almost a third of our population. And these are people that are working all around the count – the world.
MARGARET BRENNAN: President Trump just said on camera that United States is going to start peeling back some of these sanctions so that Americans can travel back to Venezuela. He's lifted the air restrictions.
MARIA CORINA MACHADO: Well, I think…
MARGARET BRENNAN: Is it safe to go?
MARIA CORINA MACHADO: I think it is important to take steps.
I think these are signals directed to several actors, first and foremost to the regime, saying, this is going to move forward. There is no way back. And – and – and the regime knows that no American citizen or Venezuelan citizen is going to go back to a country that's still under the power of Maduro regime and the cartel.
That's not going to happen. But – but these kinds of actions, I think, give the correct…
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
MARIA CORINA MACHADO: … signals, in terms that this is going to move ahead. And I do trust the president in what he has said regarding how much he cares about the Venezuelan people. That's something that I think it was quite significant in our conversation.
MARGARET BRENNAN: If you return to Venezuela now, would you be imprisoned? And has the American government said that they will protect you, they will guarantee your safety?
MARIA CORINA MACHADO: Well, you know, things are changing very fast in Venezuela.
If they had captured me before I left, I probably would have been disappeared, or – or worse. Right now, I don't think they would dare to kill me because of the United States' presence and pressure and actions.
I don't know how much possibility of moving I would have inside Venezuela. Certainly, they would be very afraid, because the – the regime knows the connection, the intimate connection we have, you know, the Venezuelan people and – and the leadership that won the election, the legitimate government.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But you won that election, along with…
MARIA CORINA MACHADO: Edmundo.
MARGARET BRENNAN: … Edmundo Gonzalez at the top of that ticket. Even the Trump administration recognized it. Secretary Rubio testified that to Congress.
But then the president of the United States stood up there and said to the public that, even though you had won that election, you didn't have the public support. And I wonder if you can understand why they made that calculation.
MARIA CORINA MACHADO: I will concentrate in what he told me in a private conversation, looking each other in the eyes.
And I – and I truly believe he understands the nature of this regime. They all know that Delcy Rodriguez is a communist that no one can trust. Not even, you know, the people surrounding her right now does. I mean these are individuals that have strong ties with Russia, Iran, China, Cuba.
I mean, she is doing what she's doing because United States is putting enough pressure for them to understand that she has no other option. If that – if that pressure were taken away, she would turn around and go back to where loyal – her loyalty is, with these regimes are the enemies of America.
So no one is naive here. I think she's doing part of the dirty job of dismantling her own regime and entourage, but that's a – there's a limit to it for what you said before,. You know, people have to be taken account on – of. They have to be involved.
MARGARET BRENNAN: What role would you want in a future Venezuelan government? Because even President Trump says you may have a role in the future. Would you run for president?
MARIA CORINA MACHADO: I will be president when the time comes. But it doesn't matter. That should be decided in elections by the Venezuelan people.
I wasn't allowed to run in the last election, as we mentioned before, because Maduro was afraid to running against me. And he thought Edmundo was not a threat, because nobody knew who he was. And in less than three months, we managed to put the whole country supporting him, because this is – this is a matter of freedom.
I mean, this is a spiritual fight, an existential fight for Venezuela. Unlike other diasporas, and I want to stress this, our people around the world, here in the United States, want to go back, go back and live in a country where they're safe, but, most of all, where there is a future in freedom and democracy.
So if we want those hundreds of thousands and millions of Venezuelans to go back, we need to have a secure and precise timeline through which this transition will advance.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And we don't know when yet…
MARIA CORINA MACHADO: Not yet.
MARGARET BRENNAN: … from the Trump administration.
(CROSSTALK)
MARIA CORINA MACHADO: Not yet.
But I'm sure there is – and the secretary of state and many other members of the government, by instructions of the president, a clear willingness to move as fast as possible, within, you know, control and order and understanding the complexity of such a criminal structure, but understanding that the voice of the people is what brings legitimacy to this process.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Before I let you go, you know, the last time we spoke, you had made this daring covert escape by land, sea and air from Venezuela to go and receive that Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo.
You've kept those details private, you said, for safety reasons. But you did say you broke your back. You talked about being lost at sea, that you feared that you might lose your life at one point.
After all of that, why did you give your Nobel Peace Prize to President Trump, after you'd already dedicated it to him?
MARIA CORINA MACHADO: Look, I think this is a matter of justice, and it's a matter of what's in the superior interest of our country.
We, the Venezuelan people, are truly grateful for what he has done, and we're confident in what he will do in the – in the days, weeks and months to come.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You believe he supports you?
MARIA CORINA MACHADO: I do, because it is – has – it has to do first and foremost with you, the American people, and how dismantling this criminal structure not only saves millions of Venezuelan lives. It also saves lives in the Americas.
And once Venezuela is free, then the Cuban regime will follow. The Nicaraguan regime will follow, even the Iranian regime that has turned Venezuela into its safe haven and satellite only three hours away from Florida.
I mean, this has huge consequence for the Western Hemisphere, for United States. So I think this is a win-win situation for investment, for business opportunity, for security reasons, and certainly for migration tensions and crisis.
So, Venezuela will be free, and I know I will host you soon in a wonderful country that is very grateful to yours.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Maria Corina Machado, thank you very much for your time today.
We'll be right back.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
MARGARET BRENNAN: We're joined now by Texas Republican Congressman Michael McCaul.
Good to have you here.
REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL MCCAUL (R-Texas): Thanks for having me.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So, we're in this partial government shutdown presently, but Speaker Johnson said on another network this morning he expects it may end by Tuesday.
Some of your Republican colleagues, though, have said that they have conditions for getting on board. Republicans have a one-seat majority at this point. Is he – is he overconfident? He has your vote?
REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL MCCAUL: Well, he has my vote.
I mean, we voted for this last time. The Democrats, most of them voted for this. For the Democrats to turn around and vote against it on Tuesday, just to shut down the federal government, makes no sense to me at all.
I think the speaker – the trick is getting it through the Rules Committee. And I believe that the speaker would not do that if he didn't have the votes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, you know why we're in this situation and why those Democrats are now objecting.
REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL MCCAUL: Right.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Because of what happened a week ago…
REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL MCCAUL: Right.
MARGARET BRENNAN: … out in Minneapolis, when Alex Pretti, this ICU nurse, was shot dead by Border Patrol.
REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL MCCAUL: But the DHS portion is taken out of this. The D.H. portion is taken out of that appropriations.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right. It's just now a two-week continuing resolution.
REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL MCCAUL: To have reforms to DHS.
MARGARET BRENNAN: To have reforms.
REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL MCCAUL: Yes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So let's talk about that, because the Trump administration has changed personnel. They put Tom Homan now out in Minneapolis, the border czar. They took out of that position Greg Bovino, who had been running Border Patrol.
The Justice Department has also said it's opened a civil rights investigation into why federal agents shot Pretti. Secretary Noem now says the FBI is taking over the probe into what happened. Are your concerns about what happened in Minneapolis satisfied?
REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL MCCAUL: I have called for a full investigation. DOJ has opened that investigation.
Civil Rights Division would have jurisdiction over this. Look, I mean, Bovino went in there with these roving patrols. He escalated the situation. He escalated the tension between the public and law enforcement. He put his agents in a position they should never have been put in. They have no training for crowd control.
Their job is to go in and remove criminal aliens, violent felons from the United States, and get them out of here. And so, you know, I – Tom Homan is a consummate professional. He's been doing this for a long time. I have known him for a long time. He's going to go back to the core mission of ICE. And that's targeted law enforcement operations, not roving the streets, causing chaos.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But we haven't heard him say or the administration say that they're actually going to change tactics to do what you just said.
REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL MCCAUL: Well, I believe, in his press conference, he did talk about de-escalation.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL MCCAUL: He talked about going back to targeted, you know, law enforcement operations.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Does that mean ending warrantless arrests? Is that how you understand it?
REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL MCCAUL: Administrative warrants have been around for a long time…
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL MCCAUL: … to – signed by an immigration judge, order of removal, to go in, tap around prisoners under ICE detainers. That will continue.
The idea of an administrative order being – warrant being used to break into a home, that has not been the practice of ICE. And I don't think Mr. Homan is going to – going to continue that.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, we heard actually – you're right. Warrantless home entries are unconstitutional. Fourth Amendment protects all people, regardless of citizenship, from unreasonable search and seizures.
But – and we've seen the documentation from the Trump administration – their policy does allow for these so-called collateral arrests, where ICE officers carry out warrantless arrests of unauthorized immigrants who are not the targets, but people that who are encountered during an operation, and they might be trying to leave the scene.
Should the premise there be changed? Is that too broad?
REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL MCCAUL: Look, the target is a target. The target's the violent offender. You know, there – there are plenty of those to spend all our time and resources on.
When they do arrest the target, if there are illegal aliens with the target, they are caught in the net, and because they're in the country illegally, they are removed. And I don't think that practice will change. But the roving patrols…
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, it did change them, because prior administrations interpreted flight risk as not potentially showing up for a court appointment. The Trump administration interpreted it as the guy might leave the scene. And they justified some of these warrantless arrests and encounters under that.
Is that too broad? Because that's part of this roving group that you're talking about, right?
REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL MCCAUL: Well, correct.
And due process applies to all persons under the Constitution. It would apply to them as well. If they're caught in the net, though, they have to be dealt with. Look, this is going in front of courts right now. And…
MARGARET BRENNAN: And Democrats want to argue about this. They want changes.
REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL MCCAUL: And – yes. And the courts are throwing out a lot of these cases. Actually, you have – and you're having violations with U.S. citizens being arrested unlawfully.
So the American people support the deportation of criminal aliens, violent offenders. What they don't support is excessive use of force. And I believe Bovino crossed the line. I think the president was correct in telling him to get out of there. I would advise…
MARGARET BRENNAN: Should he still have a job?
REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL MCCAUL: Well, he's going back to his prior station.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.
REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL MCCAUL: But I would advise the secretary and the president to involve Tom Homan. And he should have been there from day one…
MARGARET BRENNAN: Why wasn't he?
REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL MCCAUL: … and to utilize his expertise and his talent.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Why was he cut out by Secretary Noem?
REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL MCCAUL: I don't know all the inner workings within DHS on that. I can tell you, though, he is the consummate professional when it comes to ICE removal operations.
MARGARET BRENNAN: A federal judge in Texas has ordered that this 5-year- old boy, Liam Ramos, be released, along with his father, from ICE custody. He had been detained by federal agents out in Minneapolis. His picture went viral.
The judge who ordered the release specifically referenced concern about traumatizing children. He is not the only kid being detained under current policies. And with this particular case, the administration claimed something that was not backed up in court, right?
They claimed the father was trying to flee and that he was here illegally. He was here under a policy honored by the last administration. They used an app on a phone to claim asylum. That was a legal process. So now they're out of this detention facility.
But – but doesn't that raise to you concern that there are children who are getting caught in the crosshairs, that there does need to be, perhaps from Congress, some guardrails here being put on Homeland Security and what they're doing?
REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL MCCAUL: I think that is part of the reform process we'll be looking at. I think there are…
MARGARET BRENNAN: But you have to force it, or do you trust DHS to do it?
REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL MCCAUL: I – well, we can – we can – we can pass the laws.
I think the problem is, situations like these give a black eye to actually law enforcement officers who are just trying to do their jobs. And, look, the mission, I think, is to get violent felons out of the country. Most people support that.
(CROSSTALK)
REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL MCCAUL: It's the president – the number one issue the president won the election on.
What I worry about is turning a winning issue into a liability. I still believe the American people want us to remove dangerous, violent criminals from the streets, but they don't want to see these images of children and people being dragged out of their cars and U.S. citizens.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL MCCAUL: Those excessive use of forces cases need to stop. And I think Tom Homan will de-escalate the situation, as I have been calling for, for weeks.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Congressman McCaul, thank you for your time today.
REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL MCCAUL: Thanks for having me.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We'll be right back with a lot more Face the Nation.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
MARGARET BRENNAN: The Justice Department on Friday released more than three million additional pages related to the investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, claiming it has now released all the files required by Congress in a law signed by President Trump in November.
But the authors of that law, Democrats and one Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, say the administration has not complied and has only released half of the estimated pages, including 200,000 that were redacted or withheld, and, on Saturday, submitted a formal inquiry to review all of the files.
We will be right back.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
MARGARET BRENNAN: We will be right back with former Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
MARGARET BRENNAN: Welcome back to "FACE THE NATION."
For an update now on the economy we're joined by Gary Cohn, who was the top economic advisor to President Trump touring his first term in office. He is now the vice chairman of IBM.
Good to have you back here.
GARY COHN (IBM Vice Chair): Thanks for having me.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So, the president has this editorial in "The Wall Street Journal" arguing all the economic success that we are seeing right now is due to his tariff policies. The legality of that, of some of those tariffs are being debated right now before the Supreme Court. How factual do you assess his argument to be?
GARY COHN: Well, I think we need to take a step back. The economy is quite strong right now on top-line growth. So, if you look at GDP, gross domestic product, which is the overall output of the U.S. economy, we're trending about five percent right now, which is a very high growth rate in the United States, much higher than the baseline we've had for the last decade.
So, if you look at that number alone, and that's a good number to look at, things are going well. The inflation rate has come down to the high two percents. It's still higher than we'd like it. And the unemployment rate is ticking up, but it's still in a reasonable place around four, 4.5 percent. So, overall, the economy is quite strong right now.
That said, we've got an interesting economy right now. We've got this massive wealth effect at the top end and we've got hard-working Americans who are having a very difficult time paying their bills and they're suffering in this economy. And I think the White House has acknowledged that they're suffering. And I think part of the reason the president wrote the op-ed was to try and get out in front of people who are having a hard time paying their bills and meeting their expenses. The White House is going on the offensive. The president is going to spend time out on the road talking about affordability. Affordability is going to be the issue.
MARGARET BRENNAN: He says it's a hope.
GARY COHN: Well, I think affordability will be the issue between now and the midterm elections.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right. And we know the chief of staff has said she wants the president out there talking about the economy.
But you just mentioned what consumers are feeling. The White House says people will just feel better after tax time.
GARY COHN: Yes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You wrote that original tax law that was then just renewed and extended by Congress.
GARY COHN: Yes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But you are seeing companies like Amazon announce it's cutting 16,000 corporate jobs, Mastercard cutting four percent of its 35,000-person workforce, UPS, 30,000 jobs gone, Dow, 4,500, Home Depot, 800. If everything's trending in a positive direction, what is going on there?
GARY COHN: So, we did see over 60,000 additional layoffs come out of companies last week during the earnings season. It's typically when companies talk about managing expenses. Companies today have two basic things going on. Number one, companies hoarded labor during and after Covid. When we are – when we were working from home and people were remote, productivity went down and companies were worried about getting the workloads done. So, most companies ended up hiring additional people or not letting anyone go. So, workforces ballooned.
And I think we're now in the part of the cycle where corporate America is very comfortable about replacing people, they're very comfortable about hiring people. So, they're downsizing their head count from hoarding to sort of a more naturalized level. And I think a lot of those numbers that we saw this week being announced were companies right-sizing themselves.
In addition to that, we have seen input costs for companies go up quite dramatically. Whether it be labor costs, commodity costs or tariffs. As we agree, someone has to pay the tariffs. So, as companies are trying to balance their equation –
MARGARET BRENNAN: The president says there's no cost to it that's going to hurt a company. They're going to –
GARY COHN: But we – he also says that there's $200 billion plus sitting in an account of money they've collected. So, the money is being paid by someone. So, the corporations are paying the money. They're trying to figure out how to deal with input costs going up, tariffs going off, cost of labor going up and not really having the ability to raise prices to the consumer because we've seen how tough it is for a lot of Americans to afford things today.
So, companies are walking that fine line between absorbing input cost and not being able to raise prices.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
So, the White House, as I said, they are aware they have a problem, even if they don't want to explicitly say they have a problem politically because of that lower end consumer. But when you look, one of the ideas being floated by the president is a one-year cap on credit card rates at 10 percent and somehow getting Congress to compel that. He signed an executive order to limit institutional investors to buying single-family homes. And then he's floated this idea of $2,000 checks, which may or may not require Congress.
GARY COHN: Yes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: What do you think about the consumer focused parts of the plan? Are they viable?
GARY COHN: Well, look, I think it's admirable that they're understanding that people are cash-strapped today. They're stuck with not enough disposable income. So, I think the White House is throwing out ideas that will put more disposable income back in consumers' hands.
Unfortunately –
MARGARET BRENNAN: These are not ideas you would have endorsed when you were in that advisor role?
GARY COHN: Unfortunately, those ideas probably don't solve the problem. In fact, the credit card rates probably have the opposite effect. So, credit card companies charge people a risk adjusted rate to lend them money. Obviously, worse credit, people that have the highest probability of defaulting, pay the highest rates. If you put a cap on rates that can be charged, what do – what do companies do? They actually stop lending to the riskiest part of the population. And so there consumers will lose purchasing power, not gain purchasing power.
You know, on the housing side, you know, the one thing I would – I remind people is the institutional accumulation of housing happened after the '08 financial crisis when we had a massive glut of houses in the United States, prices were plummet, so the financial market stepped in and they put a support underneath the housing market.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.
GARY COHN: And we can't forget how important these financial players are in times of stress.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, we should also say, you worked for Goldman Sachs and were president there for a very long time, including during that financial crisis. But let's not relitigate some of that, but talk about someone you got to know during that time, and that was Kevin Warsh.
GARY COHN: Yes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Who was a Fed governor and is now President Trump's pick to be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve. He's called for all sorts of reforms of the Fed.
What do you expect from him in office?
GARY COHN: So, look, I think we're very fortunate to have Kevin as – to be the nominee. Kevin has a unique background coming in as the chair. As you said, he was a member of the Fed board before. He was there during the 2008 financial crisis. He was instrumental in that crisis.
What I mean by that is, when banks were going through stress, and we saw a lot of bank mergers, we saw a lot of assets being moved around the system, Kevin was the point person at the Fed. He was involved in every one of those discussions. And I truly believe, without Kevin's expertise and without Kevin being there, we would not have come out of the 2008 crisis as well as we have. So, he's very highly qualified.
He's going to take the Fed back to its traditional sort of norms. You know, I think Kevin's going to stay out of a lot of the non-financial issues. He's going to be involved, obviously, in setting interest rate policy. There is a pressure right now for interest rates to go lower. I think that he will probably follow through on the one to two cuts this year.
Kevin also has a view that the Fed should not have the large balance sheet. You know, the Fed went in and bought an enormous amount of securities.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Quantitative easing and –
GARY COHN: I think – I think that Kevin will reverse that. I think he will be looking for the Fed to sell down their balance sheet. And on the regulatory front, I think Kevin is a – is a traditionalist, believing that we need strong regulation in the United States, but it has to be regulation that works and allows the market to grow, and allows the consumer to have access to capital.
So, I think he is actually the completely right choice in this period of time. And on Friday, when his nomination came out, the market spoke.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
GARY COHN: And I think you have to look at what the markets tell you because they're real time feedback indicators.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.
GARY COHN: So, we saw the dollar strengthen by about one percent. We saw silver drop by 25 percent. We saw gold drop by 10 percent. I could –
MARGARET BRENNAN: The president also spoke last night at a dinner and said he's going to sue Warsh if he doesn't lower interest rates. You take that as a joke?
GARY COHN: Yes, I take it as a joke. You know, look, I think the president completely understands the independence of the Fed. Kevin has been a staunch advocate for independence of the Fed.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, he's got a confirmation process to go through. And we will see if Thom Tillis' request for the Department of Justice's probe into the current Fed chair stands in the way of actually getting him through. But we'll track that.
Gary Cohn, always good to have you here
GARY COHN: Thanks for having me.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We'll be right back.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
MARGARET BRENNAN: We spoke with a bipartisan group of mayors about how local governments can find common ground on solving some of the top problems facing Americans today, particularly affordability concerns like housing costs and energy prices. But for all four mayors, Democrats Eileen Higgins of Miami, Quinton Lucas of Kansas City, plus Republicans David Holt of Oklahoma City and Mark Freeman of Mesa, Arizona, it was clear that immigration has been near top of mind following the deadly shootings of protesters in Minneapolis and the tensions between federal and local governments nationwide.
Here's part of our conversation.
(BEGIN VT)
MARGARET BRENNAN: Mayor Freeman, we checked, four percent of the population in Arizona is undocumented according to Pew. As I understand it, you've limited cooperation with ICE and you hand people over to federal authorities if they have an immigration infraction but your local authorities picked them up for something else, right? That's what, in effect, that policy means. Why does that work for you when it doesn't work in places like Minneapolis and you have this high degree of tension and this standoff?
MARK FREEMAN (R, Mayor of Mesa, Arizona): Well, I – personally, I think – that's a great question, but I think there is some misinterpretation of it because, in Mesa, we have an agreement with ICE, but, however, it's only on infractions that may be a civil infraction. And so, we don't have a jail in Mesa, Arizona. So, we go to a holding facility. And we've been working with ICE for – since 2009 with an agreement that we found very successful with.
But more importantly, what we're doing in Mesa, I've taken – I've elevated it to the next level. We have Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, that we have with our Hispanic Latino community. We have El Grito, who's the liberation of Spain from Mexico. So, we have these great experiences in Mesa, Arizona, in our downtown area, in cooperation with our Latino Hispanic area. And I meet with our pastors as well to make sure that everything is going well on their end.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And you don't feel the tension at the local level right now? Like, the debate we're having as a country –
MARK FREEMAN: No, I don't feel –
MARGARET BRENNAN: Are people talking about it?
MARK FREEMAN: Yes, they talk about it in our community, but I am meeting with the people who are actually affected by it, and they find comfort in knowing that our city stands ready to support them.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Mayor Holt, I want to ask you about your city, but also in this leadership role you have, like, how are you counseling mayors to go through this right now? This is a real pressure at the federal level to sometimes change local laws or state laws.
DAVID HOLT (R, Mayor of Oklahoma City): Well, I don't know. A few – a few observations in reaction to that. I mean, first, it's really important to point out that we have enforced immigration laws in this country for over a century. ICE has been around for two decades. There was even a previous Trump administration that – and in none of those times did you see this level of chaos in our cities. I understand in the previous Trump administration there was controversy about things at the border. But I'm talking about all the – you know, 1,000 miles from the border –
MARGARET BRENNAN: Internal enforcement, yes.
DAVID HOLT: In places like Minneapolis. So, it's – we can look back to previous eras of normality and appreciate that there are ways to competently enforce immigration laws in this country. And I think that's what we're kind of asking for is that sort of pivot back to a new strategy, that may be an old strategy. And I think we all accept that this administration prioritizes a higher level of enforcement. But what we're seeing in the conflicts in the streets of Minneapolis is just, obviously, unacceptable. And we're still sort of reeling from what happened last Saturday.
And, you know, we're generally encouraged that the administration seems to be exploring that pivot, you know. And, of course, we understand it takes time to sort of get the right personnel in place and make the policies. So, I mean, we're giving them that space.
But what was happening in Minneapolis that kind of culminated in the second death of a protester last Saturday is, obviously, something that we would all fear to happen in our cities.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
DAVID HOLT: And we fear that that kind of chaos was starting to potentially creep around the country.
I think the other thing I want to observe, though, is that mayors are certainly caught in a little bit of an impossible situation because, you know, we take these roles with our chief obligation being the protection of our residents. And we're even given a police department, people with guns, to aid us in that pursuit.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
DAVID HOLT: But there is a thing called the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution. And when the federal government and federal law enforcement comes into your city, we are fully subservient to that in the eyes of the law. And we also believe in the rule of law. So, we get caught kind of in the middle of these tensions and we need a federal government who will use discretion and restraint with that power. And that has mostly worked for the last 250 years.
So, I think we just need to remind everybody that this is possible and I think you see mayors maybe messaging some of that to our residents, some of it to Congress, some of it to the administration, just trying to find a happy medium for everybody where we can co-exist with all of these inherent tensions that, of course, have always existed.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
DAVID HOLT: And we have largely been able to manage.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, but that's why I think it's so interesting to talk to you all as mayors because you actually have to deal with these people day to day and secure their safety, as you said, but also, you know, remain compliant.
In Oklahoma, it looks like the highway patrol works with ICE to conduct stings. So, you do have some working together of state and federal.
DAVID HOLT: Yes. I mean it's a state agency, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol.
MARGARET BRENNAN: That's right.
DAVID HOLT: That is not our police department.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right. But when you see that working together, is it smooth? Are there tensions now because of what just happened in the past few weeks? Like, are people questioning whether these policies should stay?
DAVID HOLT: Well, I mean, let me differentiate it and make it clearer.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Do people look at Minneapolis and say, that could happen here, is what I'm asking though?
DAVID HOLT: Well, of course. I'm sure every mayor in America, here in D.C., was feeling that way. And again, not because – not because any of us think that there shouldn't be immigration enforcement.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.
DAVID HOLT: I mean this is not the question. It's just, how is it managed?
I mean we have some mayor colleagues that were former police chiefs, for example. Have really great expertise in law enforcement. We're all amateurs, right, but these are people who did this for a living. And they're telling us, they look at these videos and they see police tactics that haven't been utilized anywhere in 30 years in a local law enforcement agency. That these are – these are not the cutting edge techniques of law enforcement that we have been using, our police departments have been using for the last quarter century to build trust with our communities.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.
DAVID HOLT: And so, that's what's – it's not the – we're not really arguing about whether this country should enforce immigration.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.
DAVID HOLT: Everybody believes that. I mean not everybody, but the broad swath of the American public does. But what we are arguing about is police tactics and strategies and managing engagement with residents on the street. You know, we have built so much trust in these last few years and worked really hard at that. And, obviously, this whole situation has threatened to erode that trust.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
Mayor Lucas, I want to come to you on this idea of how the federal government is trying to implement immigration in your city. Because we checked, and I believe you have a similar experience out in Oklahoma too, where the federal government's looking to turn industrial warehouses into large-scale detention facilities for up to 10,000 people. That has caused some friction in Kansas City. You have tried to change things. You passed a city ordinance to combat it.
Can you actually stop the federal government from doing it?
QUINTON LUCAS (D, Mayor of Kansas City, Missouri): You know, I think there's substantial question to it. The people of Kansas City have asked us to make sure, though, that we stand up for, in this situation, simple zoning. That we make sure that we share what is the viewpoint of the people of Kansas City. There absolutely is a supremacy clause. There's also a Tenth Amendment. And so, in our view, that is – which is reserved to the states, which includes local zoning, local police powers, particularly where private contractors are in the transaction with the city we have the opportunity to engage.
There's been a long fight near us in Leavenworth, Kansas, you know, for a prison in a military base where they've also managed to reject the placement of a federal facility working through a private enterprise.
So, we wanted to make clear not that people largely didn't want a 10,000- person detention facility near them, but also that they have to go through things like zoning, a special use permit. It sounds in some way boring. It is core to what government is.
But I think taking us from perhaps the political issue, there is the simple one, which is, in all of our communities, we want to make sure people are treated humanely. Converting a gigantic distribution facility next to railroad tracks and all of that into a warehouse for 10,000 people for which it was never designed is not right. And it is fundamentally something that is inhumane and inhospitable, at least to the senses that we have in Kansas City, and I would submit to you most American cities.
So, whether it is converting giant distribution facilities into mass detention warehouses, whether it's Alligator Alcatraz in Florida, or anything under the sun, I think you are seeing communities say, we want to make sure that if there will be detention, if there will be enforcement, it is consistent with constitutional principles long term.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Can you stop it? Do you know yet?
QUINTON LUCAS: You know, I think that probably that would be a federal district court determination.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
QUINTON LUCAS: I have seen – there have been many zoning battles over the years about what can be done. I think the fact that you mainly have private enterprises that are looking to build these, then lease to the government, creates some level of a question.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And before we leave the topic of immigration, Mayor Higgins, nearly seven percent of Florida is undocumented according to Pew. In Miami, the police cooperate with ICE. But you, during your campaign, were very critical of that decision to cooperate. Can you change the policy without the governor being onboard?
EILEEN HIGGINS (D, Mayor of Miami): We were – the governor issued a requirement that local municipalities cooperate with ICE. And many municipalities, including the city of Miami, before I became mayor, signed that agreement. It is very difficult to unwind. It would take a vote of our city commission to do so.
So, obviously, as mayor, I intend to comply with the law. And so what we have done in our 1,500 person police department is we have trained three individuals should ICE call that are able to answer that call and work with them. Obviously, we're going to comply with the law, but we are not going to help beyond that because in my community in south Florida, we are the most affected.
ICE and its tactics have been in my community for over a year. They have been causing great fear and terror in our residents. I cannot go anywhere without meeting someone, my brother, my uncle, my sister, Alligator Alcatraz, (SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE), we don't know where they have been taken. And that has been going on for months. It is inhumane. It is cruel. I'm a Catholic. It's – I can barely grapple with the lack of humanity around all this.
And then what we have, very differently from any other community, in Miami- Dade County, we – which we are a part of, approximately 15 percent of our population has TPS. So, you're talking –
MARGARET BRENNAN: Temporary protected status.
EILEEN HIGGINS: Temporary protected status. We're talking about between 250,000 and 300,000 individuals that would – that have slowly by but surely – as they've lost status, they'll come overnight, illegals in the eyes of the federal government, and this enforcement in our Nicaraguan community, our (INAUDIBLE) community, our Venezuelan community, has driven many people into hiding, children are not going to school, and, obviously, ICE is deporting them.
Tuesday night we face a very, very dire situation. Our Haitian community loses its access to TPS at midnight. Twenty percent of TPS recipients with Haitian heritage work in health care. So, on Wednesday, we are talking about nursing homes, home health care aides, hospitals, nurses, physician aides, all of them are going to be out of a job when they wake up on Wednesday morning.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Because their legal pathway and status is going to be revoked.
EILEEN HIGGINS: Yes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And suddenly they become illegal.
EILEEN HIGGINS: Unnecessarily. Haiti is not safe. Venezuela is not safe. TPS should be extended immediately for Venezuelans. It was erased with a stroke of a pen. It can be put in place with the stroke of a pen. And TPS for Haitian immigrants should absolutely positively be extended. Our economy is at stake and our humanity is at stake.
(END VT)
MARGARET BRENNAN: As Mayor Higgins mentioned, legal protections for Haitians on the temporary protected status program end this Tuesday, but there are multiple lawsuits by advocacy groups to try and stop it from expiring. A federal judge in Washington, D.C., is expected to weigh in on one of those cases in the coming days. We'll keep watching.
You can find the full conversation with the mayors on our YouTube page and on our website, facethenation.com.
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.
(ANNOUNCEMENTS)
