The following is a transcript of an interview with Sue Gordon, principal deputy director of National Intelligence in the first Trump administration, on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that aired on Nov. 17, 2024.

MARGARET BRENNAN: We’re joined now by Sue Gordon. She served as the Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence during Donald Trump’s first term in the White House. Good to see you here again. 

SUE GORDON: Great to see you, Margaret. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: So you personally briefed Donald Trump as President in the Oval Office. If this nominee to be Tulsi Gabbard becomes the Director of National Intelligence, and John Ratcliffe becomes the CIA director, are you confident that Mr. Trump will be told the information he needs to know, and not just what he wants to know? 

SUE GORDON: Well, I think that’s the- I think that’s the question of the day. Intelligence is weird

because it’s always uncertain, and you are always making an assessment so that a decision-maker can figure out what they’re going to do with it. And so it’s particular. And you- your only job is to ruthlessly report what you see, not what you prefer. So that’s the primary job of the DNI, is to go in there and to be his principal advisor on intelligence. You’re the first in, you’re the last out. You cannot afford to, I’ll say pander to preference. Loyalty doesn’t serve you well in that job. You have to be so committed that you will say inconvenient things. I will say the former president would tell you that I would talk to him about Russian interference. I know he hated it, but Russia was in fact interfering, and he needed to hear that information. So do I believe that Tulsi and John can be that person? If they believe they must be, they can learn. If they lean on the women and men of the intelligence community, they will produce an assessment. But that’s a hard day, and you better be good at it. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: You had to undergo an FBI background check to obtain a security clearance and to maintain it. You were a career official, 25 years at the CIA, then, as we said, moved on to national intelligence. The New York Times is reporting the Trump team may bypass the FBI process and just use a private firm to vet candidates. Then, when the president is sworn in, he can grant access to the nation’s secrets rather than go through that screening. What risk is there in bypassing the FBI?

SUE GORDON: Well, the first risk is that you will get an incomplete picture of the human that is carrying both the trust of the American people and the trust of our allies and partners and the trust of the women and men that are putting their lives on the line for that judgment, right? Everyone hates vetting. It’s intrusive. It- you don’t know why anyone should have to do it, because you know who you are. But the truth is, we know adversaries and competitors will exploit humans to be able to advance their interests, and you want to make sure that the people that hold the American people’s trust and the most precious pieces of information we have of advantage, have no cracks in who they are. And so it seems expedient, but I think it will ultimately harm the institution. And by that I mean the institution of America, if you have people who we discover later that they should not have had access, or we discover later that they were vulnerable to the actions of our allies and of our adversaries and competitors–

MARGARET BRENNAN: –Because of leverage on them– 

SUE GORDON: — It is, I mean, that’s, I mean, the craft of human intelligence is actually finding someone who has a weakness and getting them to be able to advance your interests, and it just- and what a really good day is when you find someone whose interests align with yours, and then you really push that. So a private firm isn’t going to have the standards that we’ve had. I know it’s inconvenient, but I think it’s a bad strategy and risky for America. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: So CBS has also learned that, to date, the Trump team hasn’t signed the paperwork that would start the process of the national security briefings, so that someone’s not walking in cold they’re briefed and up to speed, along with these background checks. The Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan group that helps with the transitions, confirmed that to CBS. Is there any good reason not to sign those papers, and what does it do for the officials who arrive without being read in on what’s happening now?

SUE GORDON: Yeah, I can’t think of a- I can’t think of a good reason. I think one of the great falsehoods that’s been perpetrated on America is that our institutions are malfeasant. They need to be better, they need to be slimmer, they need to be more transparent, but they’re not bummed. So you’re not protecting anybody by not signing those papers, and especially with some of the nominees we have that don’t have the really deep experience base, these are big jobs. I mean, intelligence is not just advising the president, it’s also running a huge enterprise in a manner that allows our allies and partners to trust us with their most precious thing. So I can’t think of a reason why that’s not signed- signed, and to start your gig without any foundation at all, especially when the institutions are begging to give you that foundation just seems wrong-headed. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: You’re diplomatically referring to Tulsi Gabbard there, who doesn’t have a background in intelligence. She also has a history of statements, of saying things that mirror the rhetoric of us adversaries, Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad. There were at least two chemical weapons attacks in Syria that killed thousands of people, and the US intelligence community came to public assessments of high confidence. I imagine you saw all of that intelligence and you briefed on it. 

SUE GORDON: Yes.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So when she comes out and says that she doubts it. She’s skeptical. How is that going to be received by the career professionals who work for her?

SUE GORDON: Yeah I mentioned one of her jobs would be to be the senior advisor. The second is to be responsible for all intelligence sharing agreements so our allies and partners upon whom we rely, that Syria assessment, that was joint with our allies and partners. The one we had on Skripal was joint. Our assessment of Ukraine was joint–

MARGARET BRENNAN: –That was sorry, just to explain for our viewers, Skripal, you’re talking about the killing on British soil of a former Russian by Russian intelligence.

SUE GORDON: But all those were jointly done with our allies and partners. We need them. It’s one of the greatest strengths of America, but they will make their own assessment over whether we can be trusted with their nation’s interests, and whether she meant it or not, whether she was just ill-informed of that, she comes in with strikes against her in the trust perspective, can we trust her with our most sacred intelligence to represent that in a fair way. So I think it’s a problem, whether it’s judgment or any other thing that she has represented there.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Another nerve in the intelligence community, of course, is Edward Snowden. Tulsi Gabbard, and the selection for the attorney general, Matt Gaetz, put forward resolutions to call for the charges to be dropped against him because he leaked classified national intelligence material. He’s living in Russia these days. That kind of a position, how’s that going to be received?

SUE GORDON: It reflects a lack of understanding of who we are, and it reflects a lack of respect for what we do. Unauthorized disclosures of intelligence are always bad. Don’t go with the good or bad, any good outcome or whether he was right or wrong. He had no authority, and he had different paths, and he harmed America. He not only harmed intelligence, he harmed our allies and partners, and he harmed our businesses by what it allowed China to assume about that. there is nothing justifiable about what he’s done. None. And so if they vacate it, what they’re basically saying is all those rules you follow in order to be able to serve America, they don’t matter anymore.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Sue Gordon, thank you for explaining this very opaque world of intelligence to us and for your analysis today. We’ll be back in a moment.

The following is a transcript of an interview with Rep. Jim Himes, Democrat of Connecticut, on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that aired on Nov. 17, 2024.

MARGARET BRENNAN: And we turn now to Democratic Congressman Jim Himes. He is the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, and he joins us this morning from Stamford, Connecticut. Good morning to you. 

REP. JIM HIMES: Good morning. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: I feel like there is so much news, and I’m getting through a fraction of it frankly here. I want to- I want to pick up on Tulsi Gabbard, which we just- who we just discussed in the previous segment, she was a democratic colleague of yours for many, many years. You’re the ranking member on the Intelligence Committee. She never served on that kind of committee. Do you think experience is necessary? Is she fit for the job?

REP. HIMES: Margaret, how far we have come that on a major news show the question we’re examining is, is experience necessary for one of the most powerful positions in the land? Of course, it’s necessary. You know, it’s a little bit like our obsession right now with the ethics committee report on Matt Gaetz. You know- I mean, how is it that this is what we’re focusing on? Matt Gaetz is, by any standard, completely unqualified to be the Attorney General, and yet we’re sort of focused on this, you know, cherry on the cupcake of the ethics report. You know, it sort of reminds me of Al Capone in 1931. Al Capone is convicted of a couple of counts of tax evasion. Now he was a killer and a rum runner and a mafioso, and yet he was convicted of tax evasion. This is what the conversation we’re having about Matt Gaetz. You know, well, what about this ethics report? So, these people are manifestly unqualified, and, you know, they’re not prepared to run the very complicated organizations they’ve been asked to run. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you have any suggestion from your Republican colleagues in the Senate that either of those two individuals will not be confirmed for those positions?

REP. HIMES: Look, all I would observe is that, you know, history is- is a harsh judge and- and I understand what happens to Republicans who stand up to Donald Trump. You know, talk to Adam Kinzinger or Liz Cheney, or, you know, many of the Republicans who voted for his impeachment who are now gone. I understand that. But history is a hard- hard judge and a Republican senator who takes a vote to consent to the appointment of Matt Gaetz, a chaos agent, a performative social media, no respect for the rule of law, individual. The Republican senator who votes to confirm Matt Gaetz or Robert Kennedy or Tulsi Gabbard, will be remembered by history as somebody who completely gave up their responsibility to Donald Trump.

MARGARET BRENNAN: The Speaker of the House called him one of the greatest minds in the United States or anywhere on another program this morning. On intelligence, though, because of your committee oversight, John Ratcliffe, another former House member who went on to serve in an acting role at intelligence previously, he is the selection to run the CIA. Do you trust him to appropriately handle sensitive intelligence information?

REP. HIMES: I do Margaret and just to be balanced here, since I was pretty strong in my opinions about the Attorney General and the DNI nomination, I actually had a really good day when Marco Rubio was nominated for Secretary of State, when John Ratcliffe was nominated for CIA and when Mike Waltz was nominated to be national security advisor. I would even add the nominee for the Southern District of New York, Jay Clayton. Those are good nominations, not necessarily the nominations I would have made if I were president. But these are serious people with real experience. They’re not social media personalities. They haven’t built their careers on lies and conspiracy. So look, some of these nominations I think are quite solid, and John Ratcliffe falls in that category for me.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay. Last night, President elect Trump was at a UFC rally, and alongside him was someone who has had a lot of scrutiny, Elon Musk. He is a billionaire with extensive US government contracts, as I understand it, holds a security clearance himself. He has extensive business ties with China. Also had with him the Saudi Arabia private investment fund governor. They invest with his son in law, Jared Kushner, and they’ve held golf tournaments through the- one of their entities at Trump golf courses. Do you think that in this new Congress, there will be scrutiny of potential financial conflicts of interest around Mr. Trump?

REP. HIMES: Well, of course there will be, right? I mean, this is, this is sort of not subject to debate. We saw Trump’s first term, and the fact that that, you know, group of people weren’t particularly concerned with financial conflicts of interest. And look, all- I don’t know, Elon Musk, odd character, you know, you sort of have to respect what he’s done to disrupt, you know, space launch, to disrupt, you know, the auto industry and whatnot. But, you know, early reviews are not good. I read his, you know, 12 point government waste manifesto, you know. And he said, look at all this money we’re paying on interest on the debt. That’s, you know, that’s part of the wasteful spending. Guess what? You got to pay interest on the debt. And so, you know, I’m skeptical that he has any clue. Look, I- I live in Fairfield County, Connecticut. I know lots of wealthy people here, and there is a syndrome where very wealthy people who got wealthy in finance or as a tech entrepreneur decide that their heart surgeons and capable of running the United States. I think that’s what’s going on with Elon Musk. But, you know, again, early returns are not good with respect to his ability to understand the federal bureaucracy and make it more efficient, which is a laudable goal, but I’m going to reserve judgment 

MARGARET BRENNAN: And no offense to the Fairfield County residents who voted for you. I’m sure. On Saturday, President Biden was meeting with Xi Jinping, and they met for a little less than two hours. The White House says they did discuss that pervasive hacking of U.S. telecom companies that allowed them to steal customer call record data, compromise private communications of those involved in government and copy information related to law enforcement actions. Do you know and can you say if the hackers have actually been kicked out of U.S. infrastructure, or is China still embedded?

REP. HIMES: Yeah, Margaret, that’s not a question I can answer with an awful lot of specificity, but the fact that we obviously know about these- these hacks means that those particular hacks probably have been addressed in one way or another. But one thing I can say with great confidence, having worked in the intelligence world for some time now, is that, I promise you, they are out there in ways that we don’t know about. So my hope is that the President made it very clear that this kind of behavior is not tolerable, and that he backs that up, and quite frankly, that Donald Trump, the next president, backs that up with action. You know, as Teddy Roosevelt said, the big stick, right? We’re pretty good at hacking networks too, and I think it’s really important for the Chinese to understand that we’re not just going to name and shame the hackers and complain about it. But that we- that we are going to go into their networks and give as good as we got. I suspect that in this realm, they need to see that we are capable of inflicting a lot of damage if they continue their present behavior.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Noted. There will be some selections as we understand it, in the coming days in the financial space. You also sit on the Financial Services Committee. Trump backer, Elon Musk, yesterday blasted one of the hedge fund CEO Scott Bessent, a crypto currency skeptic, who is being considered for that role. Howard Lutnick, the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, apparently also being considered for that role. He is a crypto currency fan. Does either candidate stand out to you for a better pick? And what does it really project out to you about what’s going to happen in this space for Mr. Trump?

REP. HIMES: Well, you know, it’s obviously up to the president to decide who he’d like as Treasury Secretary. You know, I would note that his first Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin- I certainly had disagreements with him on any number of topics, including desanctioning the Russian aluminum company. But you know, in the cast of characters in version 1.0 of the Trump administration, Steve Mnuchin was far from the creepiest and crawliest of them. So we’ll see what he does on Treasury. What I will say is that, look crypto, you know, it’s a little bit like the Gaetz ethics report. Crypto has yet to make an impact on most Americans’ lives, and so I would just argue- and by the way, I’m open to crypto. I helped work on the legislation to regulate it, but this is not the determinative factor in our financial lives right now.

MARGARET BRENNAN: I know it’s a technical issue. I asked you to get to fairly quickly there, Congressman. I appreciate you weighing in and thank you for your time. “Face the Nation” will be back in a minute.