Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Rep. Jim Himes, Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, and Mayor Karen Bass

19:11Margaret Brennan:He doesn't unilaterally set those rates, but we have to leave it there. We are out of time. Mr. Secretary, thank you for joining us and sticking through the technical issues we had. We turn now to the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Jim Hines. He joins us from Connecticut. Good morning to you, Congressman. You are on the Financial Services Committee, so let's pick up right there. The Supreme Court indicated the president of the United States does not have the authority to fire the Fed chair unless there is cause. It sounds like the White House is trying to build a case that they have cause.

19:46Margaret Brennan:If we go ahead with it, what happens? Yeah, well, you know, Margaret, the last question you asked the secretary shows what a con man he is. And I just listened to his whole thing. And, you know, if you're over the age of five, you've dealt with hucksters and con men. Everything's going to be great in two weeks. By August 1, we're going to have a deal. The American people are going to be so happy. Complete failure to understand the facts, right? He said that tariffs are paid by foreign countries. Tariffs are not paid by foreign countries. He said Jay Powell is torturing the American people. Margaret, you didn't have the time, but if you'd had a minute, you would have said, wait a minute.

20:23There's a federal open market committee that is comprised of seven Fed governors and all of the heads of the central bank offices around the country, that committee comprised of people who have been appointed by Democratic and Republican presidents set the interest rates, right? So this notion that Jay Powell is unilaterally stopping a decline in interest rates, which, by the way, in the face, for those folks who know a little bit about economics, in the face of upticking inflation, which we're seeing, would be absolutely bananas. So what you just saw was a masterclass by a huckster and a con man who uses words like torture that are very, very dangerous words, not just for the economy, but for the physical safety of people like Jay Powell.

21:07Margaret Brennan:Well, just to be clear, that's why I said it's not the chairman's unilateral decision for exactly the reason you raised that there is a committee that makes the decision. The inflation rate for the CPI was 2.7 percent. If you strip out energy and food, which is more volatile, it's up two-tenths of a percent. So that economic data is what we are pointing to there, not opinion on pricing. But is there congressional pushback that can be done? I mean, what happens if there's a tweet that says the Fed chair is gone? Well, interestingly, inside the White House, and I don't know who it is, my guess is it's maybe the Treasury Secretary, is saying, and this is a very difficult thing to say to a person like Donald Trump, that if you fire the Fed chair, either illegally, which they're happy to do, or because you trump up some baloney-like charge associated with a renovation of the headquarters, there is going to be a massive market reaction because you cannot lie to the capital markets.

22:10We saw this the day after Liberation Day before we all were familiarized with the taco trade. The day after Liberation Day, the stock and the bond markets took a nosedive. So my guess is that somebody is saying to the president, because he doesn't care if he follows the law or not, and the law is very clear that he can't fire the Fed chair. But somebody is saying to the president, the economic instability that gets caused when the cornerstone of the global economy and capital markets all of a sudden has a politically driven interest rate policy. I think that's the one thing that's holding them off.

22:56Margaret Brennan:We'll be right back with Congressman Jim Himes, an exclusive interview with the acting ICE director, Todd Lyons. Stay with us.

23:19Margaret Brennan:Welcome back to Face the Nation. We are continuing our conversation now with Connecticut Congressman Jim Himes, who is the ranking member on the Intelligence Committee. Congressman, I want to pick up on that topic. Just a statement of fact here. A bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee investigation found that the U.S. intelligence community's assessment of Russian interference in the 2016 election was correct. They deemed it to be so on a bipartisan basis. I'm saying that because today and yesterday, the director of the intelligence community, Tulsi Gabbard, has said that she is referring for prosecution.

24:01Margaret Brennan:Former American officials she accused of treasonous conspiracy, a years long coup against President Trump because they assessed Russia had tried to influence the election. This is weeks after the CIA director issued a report critiquing the tradecraft that went into that 2016 assessment. Is there any legal basis for any kind of prosecution here?

24:29None. Absolutely none, Margaret. What you saw from the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, was not just a lie, but a very dangerous lie. because when you start throwing around language like sedition and treason, somebody's going to get hurt. Now, you pointed out that the Senate committee, then led by Marco Rubio, a Republican and now Secretary of State, found unanimously that Russia meddled in the election to try to assist Donald Trump. John Durham, special counsel appointed by Donald Trump, investigated this, found that the Senate report was correct. Now, what Tulsi is doing, it's a little sleight of hand, but it's worth focusing on.

25:09She is saying that the Intelligence Committee early on said that the Russians could not use cyber tools to mess with the voting infrastructure, the machines that tally our votes. And that was true then, and it is true now. Though the Russians tried to break into a couple of states' election technical infrastructure, they didn't do it. But it is well known and well established that the Russians hacked into the DNC and undertook any number of other influence operations, including buying reams of Facebook ads to discredit Hillary Clinton. That is not in contention, right? And what is horrifying about this whole lie out of Gabbard is, number one, it puts people at risk.

25:52And right now, you know, the mouth breathers on MAGA online are just going out of their minds based on a lie. And number two, the intelligence community is full of very, very good people who do their jobs every single day. And now they're watching their leader do something that each and every one of them knows is dishonest. And it is a really, really bad thing for the safety and security of the American people when that dynamic is out there.

26:18Margaret Brennan:That Senate report is online. The findings are there. But I understand your distinction there. And it's an important one in influence versus physical hacking. By the way, Margaret, if I may, if I may, you asked about the referral. Here's the test. This is Epstein all over again. Criminal referrals. We're going to prosecute Barack Obama. You know, treasonous and seditious. Here's the thing. And I hope that four or five, six weeks from now, don't take it from this Democrat. Four or five, six weeks from now, let's see if this administration, Tulsi Gabbard, accusing a former president of treason. Let's see if they bring charges.

26:54They won't. They won't because there's not a judge in the land, not a single judge who will treat this with anything other than laughter that will be heard from the Atlantic to the Pacific in this country. So the test of this is four or five, six weeks from now is the DOJ bringing charges. And the answer to that is no. And now we're going to be in Epstein world. We're like, wait a minute, treason is conspiracy by a former president. Why isn't the Department of Justice bringing charges? And the answer to that question is that it is a lie.

27:24Margaret Brennan:Understood. On the other topic I want to ask you about, as a Democrat, the New York Times, the DNC is reporting the DNC's examination of what went wrong in the last election is going to steer clear the decisions made by the Biden turned Harris campaign. You were very direct early on in calling for then President Biden to drop out of this race. You don't parse your words normally. Do you actually think it is possible for your party to self-diagnose problems without looking at the presidential race itself in terms of the candidates?

28:04Um, look, we we we need to acknowledge and every and all of America saw it on the night of that disastrous debate in the July before the election that Joe Biden was not going to win the election. That was not just evident in the debate, it was evident in the polling that his people were keeping from him. Okay, so that is a fact. Now, Democrats are a big tent party. We go from Joe Manchin, who's practically a Republican, to AOC, who is a Democratic Socialist. So we always have a struggle in coming up with sort of one set of policies, one set of messaging, and it's particularly hard to do when we don't have a presidential candidate.

28:45You know, a presidential candidate, of course, attracts the attention as sort of the one person who must run nationwide and speak for the party as a whole. Right now, we're having a lot of conversations with a lot of different views. And I understand that's enormously frustrating to Democrats who are so upset over the result of the election. But, you know, other than fight back with the tools that we have right now, we've got to be introspective about what we have done wrong that resulted in a dramatic win by Donald Trump in 2020. There's an awful lot of rage in the Democratic Party and my message to my Democratic friends is fine.

29:20I get the rage. Believe me, I was in the chamber on January 6, 2021 and worried for my own life. But the thing to do right now is to be introspective and ask yourself, what can we do better to appeal to more people, including those people that we have lost time and time again in elections.

29:34Margaret Brennan:Fifteen months out from the midterm races. Congressman Jim Himes, thank you. Mass deportation was one of President Trump's biggest campaign promises. Six months into his administration, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has deported nearly 150 ,000 people thus far. And with the recent passage of Trump's tax and border bill, the agency will be getting an unprecedented infusion of funds, becoming the highest funded law enforcement agency in this country. Our immigration and politics reporter, Camilo Montoya-Galvez, spoke with the acting director of ICE, Todd Lyons, this Friday, and he began by asking whether the new money will help the administration meet its goal of one million deportations per year.

30:23I definitely think it's possible. One thing, though, that ICE is historically known for in our mission is we detain to remove. We don't detain punitively. So people do hear that increase in the bed space, but it's not for long term. There's no reason for someone to linger in a detention facility after they've been lawfully ordered by an immigration judge. We want to ensure that they can get back to their home country safely and quickly. More than a dozen individuals are facing charges for that violent attack against an ICE facility in Texas. The Department of Homeland Security, as you know, has also reported a sharp increase in attacks against your agents.

31:00What do you think is behind that? I think the sharp increase in the rhetoric, especially from a lot of elected officials that are shaming, if you will, or speaking out against the ICE law enforcement mission is what's really increasing these attacks on officers. And that, unfortunately, the Alvarado incident down in Prairieland, that is one that's really taken it to the next level. Just the increase is amazing. The fact that, like you said, 830 % increase from last year in assaults on officers. Do you think the increase in attacks against ICE officers is connected to the broader increase in ICE arrests across the country?

31:36Because you're seeing more arrests, you're seeing more attacks too. I think we're seeing both. I think because we are more visible in the community. You know, there was recently people that talked about the amount of support that ICE had under President Obama. Well, during those times, we did make more custodial arrests, those arrests like you would in jails, right? We weren't really out there. We just don't see that now with a lot of the sanctuary policies and just a lot of lack of cooperation. So you are seeing us out more. And I think there is more of a tension, kind of like you said, the immigration mission is one of the forefront of this administration.

32:13So there's a lot of scrutiny and publicity to it. What do you say, Director, to the criticism that law enforcement officials, including ICE officers, should be identifying themselves and that the use of masks could be potentially dangerous, including because it could lead to imposters posing as ICE agents? Yeah, and that's one of our biggest concerns. And I've said it publicly before. I'm not a proponent of the masks. However, if that's a tool that the men and women of vice to keep themselves and their families safe, then I'll allow it. I do kind of push back on the criticism that they don't identify themselves.

32:48Men and women of vice and our DOJ partners and local law enforcement do help us. They are identified on their vest. You can see the HSI, ERO, federal police officer, FBI on the back of the vest. So I would push back on the notion that we aren't identifying themselves. Now, what I would advocate for, and I've said this many times, is I know a lot of elected officials have put forward legislation or proposed legislation about banning of the mask, things like that. I would also want elected officials to help us hold those people accountable that do dox or threat an ICE officer or agent or their family.

33:25So you will continue to allow ICE officers to wear masks during operations? I will. So do you know how many of the individuals arrested by ICE are people here illegally, but who also have serious criminal records? ICE is always focused on the worst of the worst. One difference you'll see now is under this administration, we have opened up the whole aperture of the immigration portfolio. Meaning that if you're here illegally and ICE goes out and arrests someone that is released from a sanctuary jurisdiction or one in their home country, and an ICE officer finds other individuals with them who are in the country illegally, we're going to take them as well.

34:00One thing, though, that I'd like to highlight is the fact that foreign criminal records aren't in U.S. data systems. So when we do go out and, say, arrest someone that has an Interpol red notice because they're one in their home country, they're still a criminal, but under the American judicial state, they don't have an American criminal history. But that doesn't mean they don't have a criminal history in their home country. If your agents encounter anyone who is here illegally, irrespective of whether or not they have a criminal record, that person will be taken into custody. If they're here in the United States illegally, yes, they will.

34:34Those are called collateral arrests. Correct. We just, as you mentioned, rode along with border, not Border Patrol, but ICE agents in Maryland. And we saw the agents arresting sex offenders, suspected gang members, the individuals that the president has promised to deport from the country. He often talks about getting rid of the worst of the worst who are in the country illegally. But we have also seen ICE arrest day laborers outside of Home Depot's, in some cases farm workers, people attending their court hearings and immigration court. Is the policy still to prioritize the arrests and deportation of people who are here illegally but also are violent offenders?

35:17Yes, ICE is going to focus on the worst of the worst. And that's what we do need to focus our limited resources on. That's one thing I've always said from the start. What's, again, frustrating for me is the fact that we would love to focus on these criminal aliens that are inside a jail facility, right? A local law enforcement agency, state agency already deemed that person a public safety threat and arrested them and they're in detention. I'd much rather focus all of our limited resources on that to take them into custody. But we do have to go out into the community and make those arrests. And that's what we are seeing those increase of if we encounter someone, say, that is a hair in the country legally.

35:54We will take them into custody. In regards to the worksite, like you mentioned, one thing that I really like to highlight, especially what kicked off June 6th in L.A., is the fact that when you see ICE doing these work raids, like the marijuana grow farm, we are going there with criminal search warrants or criminal arrest warrants. Not only are we focused on those individuals that are, you know, working here illegally, We're focused on these American companies that are actually exploiting these laborers. These people that came here for a better life, either forced labor, child trafficking. A lot of these worksite cases just isn't a victimless crime of someone here working legally.

36:30And that's why we're going there with these criminal warrants to focus on these American businesses that are trying to make an extra dollar on the backs of these people that came here for a better life. So you are planning on holding accountable to the employers, the companies that are hiring people who are here legally, not just the workers? 100%. Because that has been a concern. It is. Our colleague Margaret Brennan recently obtained ICE data showing that only a small percentage of the convicted criminals that ICE has deported over the past six months had convictions for violent offenses. For example, fewer than 1 % had homicide convictions.

37:03What do you make of that data? We can't look at it just based on the violence or the propensity of violence in that crime. What I looked at is someone has committed a crime in the United States. Now, if you look at someone that has just been arrested, say, for DUI, while some people might say that's only a misdemeanor, we may have prevented vehicular homicide down the road for someone that's a habitual traffic offender. I can't look at the larger scale of what specific crimes are, whether it's a rape, a homicide. Of course, you want to get those worse of the worst. But if someone's committed a crime here in the United States and been let back into the community and they're here illegally, we need to focus on that.

37:44Margaret Brennan:We'll be back in one moment. We turn now to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. Good morning, Madam Mayor. Good morning, good morning. Glad you can hear me. We are looking at immigration issues six months in. You have had such a firsthand experience out in L.A. given the deployment of U.S. troops. The president ordered the early release of nearly half of the National Guard from L.A. Have they departed yet? What are the remaining ones doing? Well, I believe they've departed, but they were never needed in the first place. And the remaining ones are doing what they were doing all along, which is essentially protecting two federal buildings, one of which in Westwood, where there never has been a big protest against the immigration raids.

38:37This is just such an incredible misuse of not only taxpayers' money, but of the young people who are in the National Guard, who've had to leave their families, their jobs, and their education for this deployment that is completely unnecessary. 4 ,000 troops, my understanding is most of their time has been spent in complete boredom, playing video games, and essentially waiting around because, again, 4 ,000 deployed and about 200 actually used.

39:09Margaret Brennan:The White House, of course, argues they deployed them because there was interference with the operations of law enforcement in carrying out some of the roundups. There are still enforcement actions by ICE taking place. You have talked about your objections, as you described them, to masked men, unmarked cars, drawing guns, snatching people off the street. You filed a freedom of information request to, quote, know who these masked men are. Why, though, is their identity important to you? Do you plan to prosecute them? Well, no. Let me just explain. Because you have people who are literally walking down the street, sitting at bus stops are individual vendors selling fruit on the street.

39:54These masked men pull up in unmarked cars and jump out of the cars with rifles and detain people. So for the average citizen, it looks like it's a violent kidnapping. So you should never have that. They don't identify themselves. And furthermore, to your previous guests, how on earth do they know that they're a threat when they're just chasing random people through parking lots, at Home Depots, going to car washes and rounding up people. It's difficult to get your car washed in Los Angeles now because most of the car washes, the employees won't come to work out of fear that a raid will take place.

40:33Margaret Brennan:Well, the acting director says that his agents, some of them fear that their families will be retaliated against. And that's why they are covering their faces, that they do wear markings for the agencies that they work with. How do you respond? Well, first of all, let me just tell you that the masked men are not from Los Angeles. And so how their families could be retaliated against. And then what is that to say to local law enforcement, the Los Angeles Police Department, none of whom are ever masked, who always identify themselves and even hand someone a business card. So that makes absolutely no sense at all.

41:13And I don't know, but I have a hard time believing that the woman selling pineapples on the corner is going to attack an ICE agent. And then when he says that there's identification, the problem is many of these men are in plain clothes with vest on that say police. It looks like something that they could have gotten online. I think it's really important to point out the extreme nature of the randomness. And, you know, Homan has said he's mentioned a number of criteria for why they stop people. One of the points of criteria is physical appearance. Los Angeles is 3.8 million people and about 50 percent of our population is Latino.

41:53So I guess that means 50 percent of Los Angeles could be possible suspects in an immigration raid.

41:59Margaret Brennan:Well, Tom Homan has Tom Homan has said physical description cannot be the sole factor for reasonable suspicion. but things like location, occupation, physical appearance add up, particularly if a person runs away or if there's a tattoo or something. You don't seem to believe that. Location, sitting at a bus stop, walking down the street, selling fruit. No, I do dispute that. Absolutely. And, you know, again, the National Guard should have never been deployed in the first place. We did not ask for them. This is the federal seizure of power from a governor deploying the National Guard when the National Guard were not even needed.

42:41We had protests at the end of the at the end of the peaceful protest. There absolutely was was some violence and some looting and vandalism. We brought that completely under control. The troops have never been involved in crowd control, never involved in the protests. They have been guarding a building. Our police department and our sheriff's department are the ones that brought the protests when it devolved into violence under control. We never needed the National Guard in the first place. This is a political stunt, a terrible misuse of taxpayers' dollars.

43:18Margaret Brennan:There's more we could talk about here, but I want to ask you about fires because we are now officially in fire season. It was just six months ago we saw those blazes in L.A. You fired the then fire chief for, you said, a failure to prepare. But you still don't have a permanent fire chief in that role. Isn't that a problem? Are you prepared? No. No, I don't think that that's a problem at all. Our interim fire chief has 40 years of experience. In fact, he had just recently retired. I called him in out of retirement during the fires. He was doing the emergency operations center. So he stepped in, didn't miss a beat by taking over the fire department.

44:03And we are prepared. We do know that it's fire season.

44:08Margaret Brennan:So is your plan to keep him in place since you brought him out of retirement? No, I'm sorry. No, we're doing a national search and he is certainly open to apply. But the nation's second largest city needs to make sure that we search the nation for the best talent. And I'm sure that there will be people in the department that apply, but we want to cast the net wide. We did the same type of search for our police chief. Okay. In the meantime, he is more than capable of managing. Well, we wish the city well. We will be watching as you move through fire season. Thank you, Madam Mayor. We'll be right back.

45:21Margaret Brennan: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+.