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Transcript: Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Jared Golden on “Face the Nation,” Feb. 25, 2024
The following is a transcript of an interview with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, Republican of Pennsylvania, and Jared Golden, Democrat of Maine, that aired on Feb. 25, 2024.
MARGARET BRENNAN : — And pick up another one, with Republican Brian Fitzpatrick and Democrat Jared Golden, two congressmen who have proposed an alternative to the foreign aid bill that passed the Senate and was declared by the Speaker of the House to be dead on arrival. Do you have any confidence that there’s a way to get Republican leadership to move on this?
REP. BRIAN FITZPATRICK: I do. We have a bipartisan bill. It’s the only one in the House. And as of Friday, we have filed with the clerk, expedited consideration. Normally, any kind of discharge like that would take 30 days to be considered right, we figured out a way with a parliamentarian to expedite that to a seven-day period.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Just to be clear, this is to go around the Speaker of the House who has refused to put a bill on the floor?
REP. FITZPATRICK: Well it’s–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Or forcing him to consider–
REP. FITZPATRICK: — It’s- it’s just a way to get a mechanism to get a bill to the floor. And just to be clear about what we’re trying to accomplish here. This is time sensitive, it’s existential. I just got back from Ukraine. Avdiivka fell in the past seven days. We lost Laken Riley in the past seven days. And in the past seven days, 200 families had to bury their kids because of fentanyl. So what our bill does is it combines border security with this foreign aid, both existential. And we are forcing this bill to the floor to make sure that everybody acts because as President Zelensky said, they have weeks and not months to get reinforcements on the frontlines.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So you are trying to create an alternative to the bill that’s about 60 billion- yours is about 49 or so billion. Congressman Golden- Golden here, one of the things that’s not in this bill, though, is humanitarian aid for Israel and for Ukraine. That’s a non-starter for a lot of Democrats. And you have a Remain in Mexico border security policy here that forces migrants to wait outside the US while their asylum claim is processed. How are you going to get fellow Democrats to get on board with this?
REP. GOLDEN: Well, I think that the most important thing to remember here is that the votes are there to support Ukraine and our other allies, Israel, Taiwan. And I think that the votes are there on border security as well. You know, the Senate started with a bill, they had to boil it down to whatever could get 60 votes. The House needs to go through a very similar process. Brian and I are actually talking about having a more open debate on the House floor. Amendments should be in order, we need to find a way to get a deal that gets us to 218. I think a deal like that has to grow out of the middle, and is unlikely to begin with a one-party solution.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So are you saying within that then, if your bill is up for consideration, amendments, like adding in things like humanitarian aid are possible?
REP. GOLDEN: Potentially, yes. Although I think that we also have to set priorities. So at the end of the day, what are the most important crises that we have to deal within the here and now in the very short term, and I would say that that would be securing our border, and also helping avoid battlefield catastrophes in Ukraine.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Congressman Fitzpatrick, in choosing to go this route, it is defying the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, who has said that, you know, he- I mean, he- he said the initial Senate Bill was dead on arrival here. But then he is also seemingly speaking to the Democratic Leader in the House. Are you concerned that you might be undercutting the opportunity to get that bigger package ultimately passed? Or is it indeed, so dead on arrival, you need this backup plan?
REP. FITZPATRICK: I don’t think we’re short circuiting anything, we are adding a pressure point to make sure this gets done because we cannot afford to wait here. And, you know, if the Senate bill were to make it to the floor, it would have, you know, a lot of Republican votes–
MARGARET BRENNAN: — you would vote for it?
REP. FITZPATRICK: I would. If our bill gets to the floor, it will also have a lot of votes. I mean, Jared can- can reflect the Democratic caucus perspective, but we think, you know, super, you know, a super majority, I think, two thirds of the House would support this. It is open to amendments. So our bare bones language was just a vehicle to get to the floor. But what we’re trying to do is to make sure that we do not waste another day, because these are, I mean- Ukraine is in dire straits right now. And that’s what I wanted to do. That’s why we’re doing this. This is actually to complement all the other conversations going on and a potential compromise that might ensue.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay. Does the Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries support what you’re doing?
REP. GOLDEN: You know, they currently are pushing for the Senate Bill. Obviously, they have a discharge petition. What I would say is that the discharge petition doesn’t have any Republican support. What we have now is a bill with a discharge petition that is led by a Republican,
MARGARET BRENNAN: This is just the procedural way to bypass leadership to get a vote.
REP. GOLDEN: Correct. That’s right.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But you’re not concerned, to borrow your phrase, that you’re short circuiting the bigger package.
REP. GOLDEN: My concern is, what is it going to take to get a bill to the floor that can enable the House of Representatives to take action on two key priorities. One, how do we get our own border under control. Two, how do we support our allies in their existential fights in Ukraine and in Israel.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So we’re also up against the deadline of this potential partial government shutdown, March 1. What is the timeline for what you’re trying to do and isn’t the priority number one, keeping the lights on?
REP. FITZPATRICK: Absolutely. And maybe we hit you right on the CR with this, right? I mean, hopefully we can think–
MARGARET BRENNAN: — Something this big, you think?
REP. FITZPATRICK: Yeah, this is not very big. This is I mean, this is–
MARGARET BRENNAN: — Fifty billion?
REP. FITZPATRICK: This is a pared down. But well, it’s military aid, which by the way, 80% of which gets spent inside the United States. That’s a big misnomer that’s being perpetuated. You either believe that what we’re doing for Ukraine, Israel, and- and Taiwan, is an act of charity or you believe it’s an act of global security. We believe it’s an act of global security. That’s an investment. 80% of that money gets spent inside the United States modernizing our own military in a way that we weren’t prepared to do before.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Congressman Patrick McHenry was with my colleague here on CBS just the other day, and he said, “you can either die a speaker and worry about them taking you out or live every day as your last.” He’s trying to prod the Speaker of the House to be more decisive, is your action a sign that you also think Speaker Johnson needs to be more decisive?
REP. FITZPATRICK: I think Mike’s in a tough political spot right now and needs all the help he can get from all of his allies in the House. So this is a mechanism–
MARGARET BRENNAN: — Because he could be ousted.
REP. FITZPATRICK: That’s always a risk. I mean, anytime you have a one person motion to vacate, which by the way is never going to happen ever again. We’re not going to buy that line ever again. Because you see how it’s manifested on the floor this cycle. It’s basically created gridlock. We will never ever agree to that ever again. But we got to get through this cycle. We have time sensitive existential challenges right now. Ukraine is weeks away from giving up significant ground, and we cannot allow Russia to win. So what we’re doing is adding an additional pressure point to get a bill to the floor that has bipartisan support in the House. My conversations with my Senate colleagues, any bill that comes out of the House with bipartisan support, in all likelihood will emerge out of the Senate.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Even though this would not be what the Senate has already approved.
REP. FITZPATRICK: What we’re going to open up to amendments, we’re- our- our vehicle is bare bones. It’s going to be open up to amendments and let the House work as well.
REP. GOLDEN: And it’s important to point out that the Senate would likely take up something that passes the House with a bipartisan vote.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We will watch this important move and we’ll talk more about Ukraine ahead in the program. We’ll be right back.
CBS News
Rep. Mike Turner says all “candidates need to deescalate” after Trump assassination attempts
Rep. Mike Turner, an Ohio Republican who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, responded Sunday to Eric Trump’s implication that his father’s Democratic opponents were responsible for the attempts on former President Trump’s life, saying the innuendo was “of course” inaccurate but political candidates on both sides of the aisle “need to deescalate” their rhetoric.
“No, of course not,” Turner said in his latest appearance on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” after being asked whether he believes there was truth to claims made by the former president, his son Eric, and his vice presidential running mate, Sen. JD Vance, at a rally where each either implied or suggested Democrats tried to kill him.
Trump returned Saturday to Butler, Pennsylvania, to speak to supporters gathered at the Butler Farm Show fairgrounds, the site of the July 13 assassination attempt against him. A gunman facing Trump on the podium at that rally opened fire into the crowd, grazing Trump’s ear, killing one attendee and injuring two others, according to authorities. The gunman was killed by a Secret Service sniper, officials said.
Another apparent assassination attempt happened in September when a suspect pointed a gun in Trump’s direction on the Florida course where he was playing golf. The FBI has opened probes into both incidents.
CBS News
Trump, his son and Vance all acknowledged the assassination attempt in Butler at Saturday’s campaign event.
“Over the past eight years, those who want to stop us from achieving this future have slandered me impeached me indicted me tried to throw me off the ballot and, who knows, maybe even tried to kill me,” said the former president, while Eric Trump claimed his father’s political opponents “tried to kill him, and it’s because the Democratic party, they can’t do anything right.”
Vance, in his remarks, addressed Trump’s Democratic challenger in the presidential race, Vice President Kamala Harris, and suggested that the Republican nominee “took a bullet for democracy.”
Brennan asked Turner: “You don’t mean to imply here anything that would suggest Eric Trump’s allegations that Democrats are trying to kill him?”
“No, of course not,” Turner responded. “But I do think that Vice President Harris needs to actively state and acknowledge that her administration is saying a foreign power, which would be an act of war, is actively trying to kill her opponent.”
The attempts on Trump’s life came after a citizen of Pakistan with ties to Iran was arrested and charged with allegedly planning a murder-for-hire scheme targeting Trump, among others. Although the timing of the charges coincided with the first attempt, there was no indication that the two incidents were related.
Turner criticized Harris for what he viewed as a failure to openly condemn the alleged plot.
“I think there’s certainly a role for her to play and for the president to play in this, in both identifying that there are threats against Donald Trump that need to be acknowledged and responded to, to deter,” he said. “I think all the candidates need to de-escalate, certainly in their language.”
But the congressman did acknowledge that a Biden-Harris Justice Department official, Matthew Olsen, the head of the national security division, said the U.S. government has been “intensely tracking Iranian lethal plotting efforts targeting former and current U.S. government officials — and that includes the former president.”
“I would say that we are very concerned — gravely concerned — about Iranian plotting,” Olsen told CBS News in a recent interview.
Hurricane Milton rapidly intensified into a Category 1 storm on Sunday, and it has set its path on Florida’s Gulf Coast.
Forecasters predict Milton will make landfall around the Tampa Bay area on Wednesday, bringing with it upwards of 120 mph winds and drenching an area still reeling from Hurricane Helene.
As of 2 p.m. ET on Sunday, Milton was centered about 290 miles west-northwest of Progreso, Mexico, and about 815 miles west-southwest of Tampa. It had maximum sustained winds of nearly 80 mph and was inching north-northeast at 6 mph.
Path of Hurricane Milton
A map from the National Hurricane Center shows Milton continuing to strengthen into a major hurricane as it approaches Florida’s western coast.
“Milton is forecast to rapidly intensify during the next couple of days and become a major hurricane on Monday,” forecasters said.
NOAA/National Hurricane Center
The storm is expected to remain north of Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, with heavy rainfall expected as Milton makes its way northeast toward Florida. Tropical storm watches are currently in effect from Celestun to Cancún, Mexico.
NOAA/National Hurricane Center
The hurricane center said hurricane and storm surge watches could be issued for parts of Florida later Sunday.
Florida officials prepare for more impact
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Sunday that while it remains to be seen just where Milton will strike, it’s clear that Florida is going to be hit hard. “I don’t think there’s any scenario where we don’t have major impacts at this point,” he said.
“You have time to prepare — all day today, all day Monday, probably all day Tuesday to be sure your hurricane preparedness plan is in place,” the governor said. “If you’re on that west coast of Florida, barrier islands, just assume you’ll be asked to leave.”
NOAA via AP
DeSantis expanded his state of emergency declaration Sunday to 51 counties and said Floridians should prepare for more power outages and disruptions, making sure they have a week’s worth of food and water and are ready to hit the road.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, meanwhile, coordinated with the governor and briefed President Biden Sunday on how it has staged lifesaving resources.
“I highly encourage you to evacuate” if you’re in an evacuation zone, said Kevin Guthrie, executive director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management. “We are preparing … for the largest evacuation that we have seen, most likely since 2017, Hurricane Irma. “
As many as 4,000 National Guard troops are helping state crews to remove debris, DeSantis said.
“All available state assets … are being marshaled to help remove debris,” DeSantis said. “We’re going 24-7 … it’s all hands on deck.”
An American climber was rescued after she and another alpinist from the U.K. were stranded for two days at more than 20,000 feet in the Himalayan mountains.
Michelle Dvorak, 31, and Fay Manners, 37, went missing on Thursday after their equipment and food tumbled down a ravine while trekking up India’s Chaukhamba mountain, CBS News partner BBC reported.
The pair sent an emergency message but search and rescue teams were unable to find them.
INDIAN AIR FORCE/Handout via REUTERS
Manners told the BBC they were “terrified” as they tried to make part of the descent down the treacherous mountains without supplies.
“I watched the bag tumble down the mountain and I immediately knew the consequence of what was to come,” she said. “We had none of our safety equipment left. No tent. No stove to melt snow for water. No warm clothes for the evening.”
The terrifying ordeal intensified when it started to snow. They took cover on a ledge while waiting for rescuers.
“I felt hypothermic, constantly shaking and with the lack of food my body was running out of energy to keep warm,” Manners said.
The rescue was made difficult because of the conditions, including bad weather, fog and high altitude.
“The helicopter flew passed again, couldn’t see us. We were destroyed,” Manners told the BBC.
INDIAN AIR FORCE/Handout via REUTERS
On the second day, the pair began to cautiously abseil down the mountain. They spotted a team of French climbers coming toward them. Manners said they shared their equipment and food and contacted the helicopter company with an exact location.
“I cried with relief knowing we might survive,” she said.
The Indian Air Force said in a post on the X social media platform that their helicopter airlifted the climbers from 17,400 feet after “battling two days of bad weather.”
Chaukhamba is a mountain massif in the Garhwal Himalaya in northern India.
Rep. Mike Turner says all “candidates need to deescalate” after Trump assassination attempts
Maps show track of Hurricane Milton as forecasters predict landfall in Florida this week
American and U.K. climbers rescued after 2 days stranded on Himalayan mountains in India
Rep. Mike Turner says all “candidates need to deescalate” after Trump assassination attempts
Maps show track of Hurricane Milton as forecasters predict landfall in Florida this week