Text: Senator Mark Warner on “Confronting the Nation with Margaret Brennan”, June 29, 2025

Below is a copy of an interview with Senator Mark Warner, Democrat Virginia, which will be broadcast on “confronting the nation with Margaret Brennan” on June 29, 2025.

---

Margaret Brennan: We start today with Virginia Mark Warner Democrat. He is the Vice -Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Good morning.

Sen. Mark Warner: Good morning.

Margaret Brennan: Most likely, I was deprived of everything that is happening, but I want to ask you about what is happening in the Capitol Hill. Republicans will pass this on party lines. Who is expected, right? However, it includes the things here that Democrats support, including you, right? There are no taxes on providing advice, more money for the border patrol, and expanding child care tax credit more than $ 2000. Why vote against him, when there are popular rulings within them, and this is not only allowed for the president to say, oh, do you want to raise taxes?

Sen. Warner: You can put the most lipstick on this pig as you like. This will be- this will be the political pebble of the Republicans-

Margaret Brennan: – Why? –

Sen. Warner: – Because it takes 16 million Americans from healthcare coverage with discounts to Medicaid, and discounts in the Obacare market. This will lead to us, as a nation, to the same percentage of a non -believer on us before Obama. And not such people will not get sick. They will appear in the emergency room. Rural hospitals will be closed. This has been proven throughout the country. It also follows nutritional assistance. So we are really in such a place where we cut, in my state, a few hundred thousand people from school lunch, and school breakfast meals. They even cut food banks. It is harsh. They ended up, at the end of the day, and lower 20,000 clean energy functions. And why? This was to make sure that the richer Americans could get an additional tax. And as you just saw on your Chyron, there, adds $ 4.5 trillion to debt. I think many of my Republican friends know that they are walking the plate in this, and we will see whether those who expressed a quiet panic will have already have the courage of their convictions.

Margaret Brennan: Well, some Republicans argue, well, we have to deal with these benefits, work requirements and things that may lead to some qualifications that you are talking about. They are not stressful. It is a volunteer work or part -time work. So, do you exaggerate it?

Sen. Warner: No. He is 16 million Americans of health care. As you know, Medicaid- these numbers, they are not my numbers. They are all independent sources. And what- the thing that I do not think that people have realized is that people say, well, medicaid, I am not poor. I, perhaps, buy my health insurance through the market. Your prices will rise $ 800 or 900 dollars per month. This will abandon the rest of the entire health care market, because if people suddenly take out the system, they appear in the emergency room in an improper care. The only way to pass this cost is healthy insurance for all of us who have traditional coverage.

Margaret Brennan: So, if this is against their interest, why did you not exfoliate more Republicans?

Sen. Warner: Well, I think we will see. To date only one hour ago, some of some of the special Medicaid provisions have not been allowed for some countries, I think, due to the so -called byd. It did not end until it ended. I will give you- I will give President Trump able to keep his party in an unprecedented way. At the other end, this bill will return and bite them. This will cause a lot of damage in terms of, not only for health care, food assistance, as you know, the full idea that we are moving towards cleaner energy functions, all on the cutting block, with the addition of 4 trillion dollars for debt. Tell me, at the end of the day, how is this good for America? I don’t think you can file the case.

Margaret Brennan: Education is another front in this battle with the president. And I want to ask you about what is happening in Virginia. We saw the President of Virginia University, James Ryan, on Friday. This was unusual. This was a pressure campaign from the Trump administration on diversity, or the so -called Dei programs. In the letter, I want to read this, Ryan wrote that if he tries to fight, hundreds of employees will lose their jobs, researchers will lose funding, and hundreds of students may lose financial aid or their visas have been blocked. But he resigned to avoid this. Is this now playing book for other university presidents: Do you get away, you don’t have the battle?

Sen. Warner: This is the most examined work, I think, this crowd has taken education. We have great public universities in Virginia. We have a very strong governance system, where we have an independent visitor council appointed by the ruler. Jim Ryan did a very good job; I just completed a major capitalist campaign. In order to be threatened, literally, there was an indication that they had received the message that if he did not resign in one day last week, by five o’clock, all these cuts will occur. –

Margaret Brennan: – Is this clear? –

Sen. Warner: – This was clear. –

Margaret Brennan: This- but this looks personally. This does not seem to be a policy or changes. Like, how does the next president of the university come in and get the money?

Sen. Warner: I was shocked because personal attacks come out of this administration? This, as you know- I believed that the Republicans were about the rights of states. I believed that the Republicans were about to transfer more power in the United States. This must graduate from the Federal Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Justice from the University of Virginia. They are damaged to our leading university. If they can do this here, they will do it elsewhere. At the end of the day, I understand that with many things at stake, the idea, and I think Jim Ryan put it, as he would have made his personal job more important than these cuts. But boy, this was not the choice.

Margaret Brennan: Well, and we know that the universe that is looking for management in more universities, and the assistant AG, Harmet Delon indicated that the public, and the University of California are located next to the intersection, so we will carefully monitor it –

Sen. Warner: They all want to make them like Harvard. They want to confront public universities, and the way they now took on IVYS. The end of the day, this will harm us Universities, chase away from global talents. Frankly, if we do not have a level of academic freedom, what is the type of country that we are?

Margaret Brennan: I want to ask you about the role of supervising intelligence. You have been briefed on what is happening with Iran. I said you are afraid that the American people will be given a false feeling of comfort with the task ads that have been accomplished. Do you believe that intelligence knows how much Iran is now keeping?

Sen. Warner: I don’t think we have final reviews. Allow me first and foremost, we do not want Iran to have a nuclear weapon. Second, the army conducted an extraordinary mission, and I think they have affected a great deal of damage to Iran’s facilities. But the idea that the President of the United States, with no data, after two hours of the strike, suddenly strikes the level of completely broken words. This leads us to believe that they are outside the game, and we don’t know that yet. And let us only be clear, you can actually restore the main program as they were trying to create, and perhaps, and there was no decision by Ayatollah to actually move towards weapons, but where they could have a weapon system with dozens of missiles that exceeded it. But what they do not know is that they did not do, and this was appropriate, I do not criticize the administration; They did not pursue the enriched uranium that was two sins at that rule, because it was buried deeply –

Margaret Brennan:-They only struck it with Tomahax, not the followers of the cellar-

Sen. Warner:- So, the fact that they can have, still, uranium enriched, may have some ability to continue to do so- means they are able to do so It is still moving forward in something, it may not be delivered by a missile, but a bomb in a car box. And all that I do not want is the American people, or, for this issue, our allies in the region, to rely on the term of the main situation before it has any facts.

Margaret Brennan: A point there on the details of the primitive bomb. However, returning to what you just said, there was no decision by the Supreme Leader to create a weapon. Foreign Minister Rubio told me, on this program, last Sunday, that he was not related to the answer to this question, because Iran has everything it needs to make a weapon and its construction. Therefore, based on what you know, was there an emergency? Was there a reason that the United States had to behave at the moment it did?

Sen. Warner: We were about to be a much larger war, in terms of Iran and Israel spreading to the entire region. Was there an imminent emergency that would lead? Since many presidents have searched for this action, I think this- this is very discussed. So, at the end of the day, we end up where this peace carries, and Iran does not retreat, Glory be to God. However, what we do not know, for example, will Iran try to strike us on the Internet with this administration, literally, half of the cybersecurity employees in this country? So, I just want to make sure that we- do this in a calculated way. The act of the army is great. We prepared them. But let’s not claim that they have no capabilities. And the only way we can get a decision on that, Margaret, and Amin Rubio approved it in the summary, is if we have shoes on the floor with the inspectors. This means that we must go to diplomacy. If America and Iran start negotiating this week, it will be good.

Margaret Brennan: We were talking to the man who directs these shoes on the ground, that the inspectors later be in the program from the International Atomic Energy Agency. Thank you very much, Senator. We will have to leave it there. We will return in a moment.