CEO Brian Moynihan, CBS News Washington Correspondents Panel

20:24So it's impersonating someone, but then also using AI to figure out where vulnerabilities are in a system and what a target audience or a target entity is going to respond to.

20:36Margaret Brennan:So I want both of you to weigh in on this. But, Chris, we heard just last month the first documented case of a fully automated cyber attack by a foreign government. This was the AI chatbot Claude. They said the suspected Chinese hackers had used their AI to breach about 30 global organizations, just to do it really quickly and efficiently, as I understand it. So whose job is it to protect against it? Is it the government's job or is it a private corporation to figure out how to protect against all these risks you laid out? Well, I think there are two things in play right now. One is what's the regulatory environment look like that requires the safe use of these platforms?

21:16And we've seen a pullback on the regulatory front from this administration. The Biden administration had an AI executive order that required certain notifications and safety testings. That's been pulled back. Instead, we're in this innovation first model. And so late touch.

21:31Margaret Brennan:This is even this is no touch. This is yes. Again, this is really putting the the full weight of the government behind the U.S. technology industry winning the global AI race. That is the top priority. And so what's happening in the meantime is you'd normally say, OK, the states are going to regulate. But now you have the White House weighing in saying states cannot regulate in the AI space. And again, CEOs want some guidance. They want governance. So they have to do it themselves. So switching gears for a moment here, we're looking at 2026, a huge number of mass gatherings in the United States.

22:11Margaret Brennan:You've got FIFA, World Cup, the Super Bowl, the nation's 250th anniversary. Are you concerned about homeland security in the new year? There are always a lot of threats facing the homeland. What is materially different in the coming year, in 2026, is that there are structural issues that I fear make us more vulnerable to successful attack. That includes the fact that the United States, probably for the first time in our history, is no longer viewed globally as the leader and poster child for rules-based international order. Other actors feel like they don't have to follow the rules if we're not going to.

22:47That could introduce new threats. At the same time, there has been a degradation in the systems of government that do identify threats and then work to prevent them, not just today, but over the medium and longer term. We're going to take a quick break here, come back on the other side of it.

23:03Margaret Brennan:more things to worry about in the new year in just a minute. Stay with us. Why doesn't he tell Republicans, come into my office, let's hammer this thing out? Margaret, it's a totally fair question. Politics isn't a game. Why are you opposed to this deployment? It's unconstitutional. Politics is about policy. I'm a voracious consumer of information, and I'm impatient. I don't like to be spun. To be moderator of Face the Nation means bringing the most powerful stakeholders to the table to become better informed.

23:39Margaret Brennan:Coming up in our next half hour, more of our conversation on national security, plus our annual CBS News Correspondence Roundtable. Stay with us. It is not hard to destroy a college. Last season, the podcast Campus Files brought you stories of fraternity drug rings, stolen body parts, campus cults, and more. And now Campus Files is back for another season. There's a guy screaming into his phone. He's like, I just saw Charlie Kirk get assassinated right in front of me. Every week is a new episode and a new story. It was so chaotic. It's almost like a university on a siege. Listen to and follow Campus Files, available now wherever you get your podcasts.

24:19Margaret Brennan:And we're back with Samantha Vinograd and Chris Krebs, both our CBS contributors. Sam, you worked in Homeland Security under the Biden administration, and we heard at that time that the administration was just hamstrung unless Congress did something on the immigration front. This administration is taking a completely different approach. I mean, let's just look at what they did this year. Mass deportation campaigns, significant changes to legal immigration. Border crossings are now at the lowest level in decades, secured major funding for ICE and CBP, half a million arrests conducted. They repealed protected status for many immigrants.

24:56Margaret Brennan:And now there's a travel ban or restrictions on about 39 countries total. What is the longer term impact of these kind of really massive changes? Well, to be clear, the Biden administration did take action in July of 2024 to try to curtail unlawful immigration. December 2023, we saw almost 250 ,000 individuals unlawfully crossing our border. by January of 2025, that was down about 85 percent before Biden left office as a result of his executive order. We are seeing and will likely continue to see a systemic dismemberment of lawful immigration pathways to the United States. And the administration has shared a variety of reasons for that.

25:38Failure for refugees, for example, to assimilate into the United States, security concerns, and other matters. But if you just look at the numbers, Immigrants today account for over 15 percent of the U.S. labor force. Millions of people in this country are immigrants. And if we look at the economic impact of removing that talent, removing those people from this country, there will certainly be an economic impact as well as, I do believe, a technological and innovative impact. As we look at the individuals coming here on student visas, on H-1B visas and more, They are direct contributors to innovation in this country.

26:19And I fear that we risk losing out on that and getting the balance wrong between security, economic growth, and innovation.

26:26Margaret Brennan:But on that point, Chris, the administration says you can financially sort of arrange for more H-1B visas. These are the highly skilled workers. Are we losing a competitive edge because of these restrictions? I think this has been in play for several years, in fact, and going back even several administrations. administrations. What the Chinese, for instance, have figured out is that if they put their own capital into their Silicon Valley equivalent, they can retain high Chinese talent that has typically gone to the U.S., gone to university in the U.S. and then stayed here because our venture capital space is booming.

27:01The Chinese have figured it out. And what we're seeing now, back to the risks piece, is that the Chinese are using their financial resources to pull highly advanced, highly capable engineers out of the U.S. and European workforce, bring them back and then copy much of the technology that's giving us the edge.

27:24Margaret Brennan:So there is a connection here back to immigration policy changes, too. Absolutely. Sam, I want to ask you about another big event that's coming, the midterm races. We have seen a lot of political violence or concern about political violence in months past. The assassination of Charlie Kirk, the murder of a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband. We saw Governor Shapiro's Pennsylvania residence burnt. These are just some of the high profile things. There's more that's happened. What do you anticipate? Should we be fearful of a political environment and elections? Politically motivated violence is probably the threat that keeps me up the most at night, particularly as we look at the year ahead.

28:08Undoubtedly, the United States is viewed as one of the largest sources of conflict and homes of conflict in the world today, which is a seismic change, if you think about it. Heading into the midterms and, of course, looking ahead to the presidential, we have already seen terrorism becoming a tool of choice in the homeland to settle both personal grievances and political vendettas. The reasons for that are, of course, enhanced rhetoric, but also, frankly, enhanced access to like-minded individuals, enhanced access to tactics and techniques online, the ability to find out where your target is going to be and when, and more.

28:46the rhetoric needs to be calmed down, but there also needs to be the right investments in critical infrastructure protection and in appropriately identifying foreign influence to try to stoke up political violence and other threats.

29:03Margaret Brennan:And there have been actual cutbacks in the things you just laid out as necessary tools in terms of the FBI, their task force on foreign influence operations. Chris, the agency you used to work for, CISA. it's seen not just budget cuts, but just open jobs here. What is going on? Why not build up protection going into an environment like this? It's just not a priority right now for this administration. I think they believe that there were missteps in the past on what the Biden administration, even the first Trump administration did on identifying and countering information operations, particularly as they relate to elections.

29:40But we know that these threats are real. We know these risks are real. And we also know that they're multiplying. Sam talked earlier about the exponential explosion of capabilities in the hands of bad actors and the explosion of bad actors themselves because of tools like AI. When I think about the 26 midterms, we are going to be two to three generations beyond what the current AI model capabilities are. So they're only going to be more sophisticated, more advanced, more capabilities in the hands of those foreign and domestic that want to disrupt our ability to choose who represents us in Congress.

30:15Margaret Brennan:Thank you very much both for sharing your expertise with us. Thank you. Thank you. We'll be right back. What's ahead in 2026? It's time to check in with some of our exhausted Washington Beat reporters, including Chief Washington Correspondent Major Garrett, who also hosts The Takeout on our 24-7 digital network, Chief Washington Analyst Robert Costa, Justice Correspondent Scott McFarlane, Chief Legal Correspondent Jan Crawford, and Senior White House Reporter Jennifer Jacobs. It's great to have you all here. Exhaustible also energized. You know, we've got to keep the energy going. Keep the coffee coming, Major.

30:50Margaret Brennan:We're going to need it for the year ahead. But we looked at the polling, Costa. I want to get your take on this because a majority of Americans disapprove of the president's signature policy issue, immigration, came in at 54%. His approval of his handling of the economy, which is his other signature issue he was elected on, is now at 37%, according to our latest CBS poll. Is the president frustrated with the perception of his first year? Margaret, the Democrats are looking at those numbers, and that's why they're making their whole argument to the country. Affordability. They see real vulnerability for this administration on the economy.

31:25But inside the White House, I would say the phrase is not affordability. It's self-confidence. This president behind the scenes is telling his advisers to stay steady, to not have alarm. There is frustration about press coverage. There's frustration about how Republicans in Congress seem to be so worried ahead of the midterm, some heading for the exits with retirement. The president again and again in private conversations with his top officials is insistent that the trade policy is working. He's not going to pull off, pull back on tariffs at all. He believes he can have a new start with the new Fed chairman coming in in 2026.

31:58And so it's President Trump at the center driving this conversation and staving off any concern.

32:04Margaret Brennan:Jennifer, what do your sources tell you about how the president's going to tackle specifically some of these economic issues? Housing costs are really eating into wages. And the president has been shown polling that showed this is a really hot issue for both Democratic voters and Republican voters alike. The president has about a dozen proposals before him that have all sorts of ideas for how to lower mortgage costs, decrease rental costs. They're thinking about creating a new savings account that would be similar to the 529 college savings account, but this would be for first-time homebuyers.

32:40They're talking about federal lands, opening up federal lands for new housing construction. He has scheduled meetings down in Florida while he's there for Christmas break to talk to his advisors about this. I'm told that the president wants the housing cost issue to be the very first big policy decision that he launches in the new year sometime January or February.

33:00Margaret Brennan:Focusing in on that biggest contributor to inflation, shelter costs. Jan, tariffs are at the very heart of the president's agenda. And we know the court is expected to decide soon on the legality on a certain set of the president's tariffs that he justified by citing fentanyl. Should the White House be so confident that they're going to win? I certainly didn't get that impression from the argument. I mean, the chief justice, Justice Gorsuch, solid conservatives were asking questions really skeptical of the administration's arguments on tariffs. It was kind of a tale of two arguments, though, because it's that case kind of progressed.

33:36Margaret Brennan:Then they started asking questions skeptical of the other side. So, I mean, I think that anyone that comes out and confidently predicts how the court's going to rule in this case is just wishful thinking. I mean, it could be very close. I could see a 5-4 ruling, Trump losing. I could see a 6-3 decision. Perhaps Trump wins. Scott, on the legal front, the president has gone after some perceived enemies in things like executive orders, announced, you know, stripping away of security clearances, even of people who don't even currently have one. But he's made his point. But his attempt to prosecute opponents hasn't been quite as simple.

34:14Margaret Brennan:What are you saying? He campaigned a year ago arguing he'd end the weaponization of the Department of Justice against political enemies. And what do we see in 2025? An awful lot of investigations and criminal cases against his political critics. We saw these flailing attempts to charge James Comey and Letitia James, the New York attorney general. Those cases were dismissed. And twice in the past few weeks, grand juries have said no to efforts to try to resuscitate the case against Letitia James. grand juries rarely say no to prosecutors. That was a profound thing. And I think more fundamentally, Margaret, it's not just the cases or the investigations or the calls.

34:51It's the changes inside the Department of Justice. They have purged out prosecutors who handle cases Trump doesn't like, bringing in potentially new voices that critics would say are poised to weaponize against critics. And a tacit admission from the White House chief of staff that there is a retribution campaign in the article written by Vanity Fair, Chris Whipple. Susie Wiles said, yes, she was going to try to put a time limit on that unsuccessfully. But acknowledging what Scott just said is a real thing.

35:20Margaret Brennan:Well, on this question, though, of limits to authority, Major, we've seen some limits to congressional power or at least willingness to exert its authority. Do you think that's going to change this year? The political contours of the Congress going into 2026 are going to really flow through how anxious are Republicans about their own ability to obtain reelection? And do they have to create some noticeable difference between themselves and the president and the Trump administration? So all 2025, the answer that was no, we're good. We're staying in with Trump. But if the atmosphere, which currently exists, leading to some retirements, continues to worsen, you will see more congressional pushback.

35:59Does it manifold in a way that stops Trump and the administration cold? No, but it complicates things. And if anyone leaves the cabinet, the idea of who the nominee is and what their Senate confirmation prospects are will be filtered through this.

36:12Margaret Brennan:Costa, on that point, do you see departures from the cabinet happening? It's very possible, though. President Trump is not one to just make a move immediately because there's a flurry of news, negative news about one of his cabinet members. We see he often takes his time to make some of these decisions. And he doesn't like to be pressured to get rid of anybody. But there are so many people in the so-called MAGA universe who want these slots, and they are able to get access to this president. A lot of these cabinet officials I've spoken to privately and their top aides say they're going to try to make it through the midterm elections and then leave.

36:52But if the president is feeling pressure to make some kind of significant change ahead of the midterms, I wouldn't rule anything out based on my reporting. I can tell you, Margaret, this is not cabinet members, but this is in the West Wing. That main pack of inner circle advisers is going to stay intact. And that includes Susie Wiles and Stephen Miller and Caroline Levitt on the way down that core group of people. They're not going anywhere. I think we will see some senior advisers in the West Wing leave. Just keep in mind that there are some advisers that have young children, so they might be leaving for family reasons.

37:22Margaret Brennan:Jen, there is a perception that the Supreme Court has shown limited resistance to the president's efforts to expand the powers of the executive. Do you think that's fair? And do you think on that big case that's coming with birthright citizenship that they will find in his favor? I think there is a perception because of the way the court has handled some of these emergency requests from the Trump administration to step in to these cases and put lower court rulings on hold while the litigation plays out. So that would let the policies take effect. And the Trump administration has had tremendous success.

37:58Margaret Brennan:I mean, well over 20 such requests have been granted to let some of these policies go into effect, whether it's on deportations, on immigration stops. mass firings, but those are temporary interim orders. And the administration has been very strategic and only appealing these adverse rulings from courts below that it thinks it can win. Again, these are just interim orders. Once we do get to the merits, I don't think Trump's gonna win all these cases. And I certainly don't think he's gonna win the birthright citizenship case. You don't? No, absolutely not. He may not win the tariffs case. Right now it's looking great for Trump and the Supreme Court, but it may look very different come June when we've kind of gotten through some of these big landmark rulings.

38:41And Jan's Beat is going to be at the center of the 2026 politics. Tariffs, Voting Rights Act, and Birthright Citizenship all will have massive political consequences.

38:50Margaret Brennan:Oh, and so many social issue cases as well. Transgender participation in girls' sports. We've got two huge gun rights cases. This is a highly consequential term for the court. And, you know, it's going to be in conflict, I think, with President Trump by the end of the term because he's not going to like all these rulings. And we'll be right back with more from our panel. Starting a business can seem like a daunting task, unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website, to marketing, to selling and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need.

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40:05Margaret Brennan:Max$100 cash back per month. And we're back with our panel predictions for 2026. Robert Costa. My motto as a reporter is assume nothing. And we're very early in the 2028 presidential cycle and discussion. Governor Gavin Newsom of California, Governor Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Governor Pritzker of Illinois. The list goes on. But my prediction is in 2026, we're going to see some names we're not discussing at all start to emerge as possible contenders for the Democrats in 2028. Some celebrities might come into the mix. And one name I would venture based on some recent reporting. Stephen A. Smith, the sports personality, is talking to people in the Democratic Party about whether he has a future, whether he runs or not.

40:49TBD. But something to watch celebrity politics in the age of Trump on both sides.

40:56Margaret Brennan:Jan Crawford. I'm going to revisit a prediction I made last year when I kind of confidently said that Justice Alito was probably going to retire and give President Trump his fourth nomination to the Supreme Court. Sources close to Justice Alito say he has not made up his mind. He in many ways is too young to retire. He's 75 years old. But then there's the concern that he's too old not to, because if he cares about his legacy and he is that intellectual leader of the conservative wing, if he cares about his legacy with a Republican in the White House or Republican controlled Senate, this year would be the best time for him to retire.

41:35Margaret Brennan:Scott? I think Americans will begin or increasingly feel the effects of doge. There's an awful lot of people lost their jobs in the last 12 months. A lot of longtime career civil servants who were good at delivering products for the American citizens. In my world, the Department of Justice got rid of 5 ,000 people. that can't help but slow down prosecutions, investigations and doing right by American people. And that's true across the board in Washington. Jennifer, fraud investigations. I think you're going to see this administration really dig in deeper to try to find evidence that proves fraud in various government programs.

42:12People cheating the system, trying to fleece taxpayers. Major. So I'm going to be the glue for this process because we have predictions and underreported. Mine merged together. So prediction is data centers and AI expansion will be a underappreciated but potent political issue in 2026. Eight executive orders signed by President Trump related to artificial intelligence just behind tariffs and immigration. He has made himself the AI president. Yet let me give you some names of states, Indiana, Arizona, Missouri, Texas, all in one way or another on the Republican side aren't up in arms about either AI regulation, lack thereof, or data centers and their implications.

42:5060 % in our most recent poll, nearly 60 % of Americans believe artificial intelligence will not increase jobs but take jobs away. And 44 % in our most recent poll want more regulation of AI than less. This is a wedge issue that Democrats have identified because it is not cohered on the MAGA side. The president has already put down his chips on it.

43:11Margaret Brennan:Okay. Underreported. What did you want to report that you couldn't? To Scott's point, I'm going to build on it. Elon Musk and the Doge team, they promised to cut the federal workforce. We're at the end of the year. So what is the tally for the year? It is 271 ,000 workers. That's according to the latest jobs report that showed how many workers the federal government shed. So just to put that into perspective, that's roughly the population of Madison, Wisconsin. So imagine if every single person in Madison, Wisconsin were to lose their job, either ousted or they leave their job. So the bottom line on Doge is that they did not succeed in cutting overall government spending, but they did fulfill their mission to trim the federal headcount by roughly about 10 percent.

44:00And I think it's going to be important to track those workers and to see where they end up, what their fates are, because they are not being scooped up in the private sector, at least not yet. There was some attention, but not the requisite attention to the thermonuclear use of pardons in 2025. Blanket pardons, family pardons, preemptive pardons. Is the next person going to bring it back to what we've enjoyed over the past couple centuries, the traditional controversies around pardons?

44:28Margaret Brennan:Jan, underreported? You know, there is a narrative that the Supreme Court is corrupt. I mean, we saw that emerge in the wake of the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe versus Wade. And now we see it that they're in the tank for Trump. Not only is that narrative overreported, it is patently false and it is dangerous for the institution and the public's faith and confidence in the rule of law. This is a conservative Supreme Court. It has been a conservative Supreme Court for 20 years. People can disagree and do disagree with their opinions, but it's profoundly wrong to call it or say corruption where there, in fact, is none.

45:07Margaret Brennan:What's underreported is any understanding of what this court's been doing for the past 20 years, its views of its role vis-a-vis the other branches, how it sees the law, how it's trying in its focus to restore some kind of accountability in our constitutional structure. Again, this is a court that is functional. It is consistent. They are nine justices. They don't necessarily see the Constitution the same way by any means or how to interpret federal law. They're in a struggle over the proper way to interpret the Constitution, but that is as it should be. And I think as we approach our 250th anniversary of this country, it's important to think about the court and the rule of law as the justices are doing, especially if we hope to keep democracy intact.

45:53Margaret Brennan:That's a big statement, Jan, if we hope to keep democracy intact. If the public lose confidence in the rule of law, I don't know what that means for democracy. Yeah. And that's why I think some of the rhetoric about corruption is so, so profoundly irresponsible. And it causes threats. Oh, yes. Which, again, I mean, the justices are under tremendous, and federal judges as well. Well, it's all institutions, including the fourth estate. Bob Costa, you're underreported. Just briefly, one of the most striking stories of the year politically, Zoran Mamdani, young. He's underreported? No, no. Let me make my point.

46:35One of the most striking stories was Mamdani's victory. The big question a lot of people have is, well, how does this happen? How does this young Democratic Socialist win in New York City? In my view, the most underreported story of the year is how someone laid the foundation for Zoran Mamdani, someone nearly 50 years older. Senator Bernie Sanders, independent Democratic Socialist of Vermont, had what's called a fight oligarchy tour earlier in 2025, drawing thousands of people in red states and blue states. Sanders enabled Mamdani and others like him to start to gain traction for Democratic Socialism inside of the Democratic construct in this country in 2025.

47:12Margaret Brennan:Interesting indeed. Thanks to all of you. Thank you. And good luck to us all in 2026. Thanks for watching. We want to wish all our viewers a very happy new year. For Face the Nation, I'm Margaret Brannon. We'll see you in 2026. Today's guests were Bank of America's CEO and Chairman Brian Moynihan, the former Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Chris Krebs, former Senior Counterterrorism Official at the Department of Homeland Security, Samantha Vinograd, and our CBS News Correspondents Roundtable, featuring our chief legal correspondent, Jan Crawford, chief Washington analyst, Robert Costa, chief Washington correspondent, Major Garrett, justice correspondent, Scott McFarlane and senior White House reporter, Jennifer Jacobs.

47:58Margaret Brennan:The senior executive producer of Face the Nation is Mary Hager, and the executive producer is Anne Hsu. This broadcast was directed by Shelley Schwartz. Face the Nation originates from CBS News in Washington. For more, we're online at facethenation.com and on YouTube. We're also rebroadcast on our CBS News 24-7 streaming network at 1230 on Sundays. And we're available through our apps, CBS News and Paramount+. There's a lot going on right now. Mounting economic inequality, threats to democracy, environmental disaster, the sour stench of chaos in the air. I'm Brooke Gladstone, host of WNYC's On the Media.

48:39Want to understand the reasons and the meanings of the narratives that led us here? And maybe how to head them off at the pass?

48:48Margaret Brennan:That's On the Media's specialty. Take a listen wherever you get your podcasts. It is my great honor to welcome you all to Starfleet Academy. There's never been a better time to enroll in Star Trek. It's our job to prepare you for the unimaginable. Till the night, cadet! In high-pressure situations, positive reinforcement is crucial to one's success. You're doing a great job. This is what we train for. These friends of mine, they all live for something bigger than themselves. And that's Starfleet. Starfleet Academy. New series now streaming on Paramount+.