Rep. Ro Khanna, Sen. Bill Cassidy, Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, Gary Cohn

22:11Margaret Brennan:Well, it was the free press that brought it forward in the first place. It was a publication called ProPublica, important reporting there. Let me ask you about an issue that I know is on your radar, and that is the debt we are in. As a country, we are$40 trillion in debt. President Trump said he's going to pay out$5 ,000 to Americans if Republicans win in these upcoming midterm elections. I know the Treasury Secretary says he'll avoid going to Congress for that money, even if it's not fiscal spending. Isn't it inflationary, and is it actually a good idea? It's absolutely inflationary. If Joe Biden had proposed that, conservatives would have been all against it.

22:54And I say that because if the government borrows money, it's going to drive up how much somebody pays for their mortgage, for the car note, perhaps for the credit card. And so for that family struggling to buy their first home or to refinance a home or to buy a car, it becomes that much more out of reach to you. We need to actually pay attention to our national debt. And I can tell you that if we can control our debt, that will be a stimulus to somebody. That will help them be able to afford life better. That's a better way to go.

23:25Margaret Brennan:Anything like that going to happen post-midterms to control the debt? Well, so as you know, I've been pushing to address Social Security. And the nice thing about addressing Social Security, which I would still love to do this Congress, is that not only do you ensure the benefit that has been promised to the American people, but you also take care of 20 percent of our nation's indebtedness. And so that's why I've been so pushing for this. If we wait six years till the trust fund goes insolvent, my gosh, that's too late. We need to do it now. Absolutely. Let's talk more about it in a minute. I'm going to take this commercial break, Senator, and we'll have much more with Dr.

24:05Margaret Brennan:Bill Cassidy. Stay with us.

24:12Margaret Brennan:Welcome back to Face the Nation. We return now to our conversation with Louisiana Republican Senator and Dr. Bill Cassidy. Senator, you, as we mentioned, run the health committee. President Trump spoke at length on Friday again about vaccines, and he said he's going to demand that drug companies split up kids vaccines into five doses. He said it will lead, quote, to a massive reduction in autism. Take a listen. So you have shot one, shot two, shot three, shot four shot five. So instead of having a massive dose of 82 or 88 different vaccines pumped into your arm, we'll take out certain vaccines that people are a little worried about.

25:04Margaret Brennan:Do you know what vaccines he means or whether vaccine makers are actually going to do what he just promised? I don't know that. There needs to be, though, radical honesty. Have the president come forward. What is he basing this on? Who's giving him advice? And I approach this as a physician. I spoke to a pediatrician the other night who says that patients are so worried. Patients' mothers are so worried. And so we need to address that worry where it is, not by coming up with stuff which may have no clue where it's coming from, but kind of in a radically honest way, explain what you think. If you want to be radically honest, the vaccines are safe.

25:44They've been proven to be safe. And the current regimen has been timed to be most convenient to the parent. At any point, the parent can say, I want something different. But I would just ask the president to be aware that people are listening to him. If he discourages immunization, there'll be fewer people immunized. And if we're speaking of measles, there'll be more people sick in the hospital or even die.

26:05Margaret Brennan:Well, and just on the math of it all, he's talking about more shots, adding shots rather than reducing them. But your committee holds a hearing this coming week on the nominee to be the next FDA commissioner, Dr. Heidi Overton. She was standing beside President Trump a few weeks ago when he falsely called the MMR vaccine lethal. You said it was a nonsensical executive order that he was signing to change the childhood vaccine schedule. She'd be involved with the vaccine makers here. You said her presence and involvement was almost disqualifying. Why not automatically? What do you need to hear from her to be persuaded?

26:51I need to hear that she understands that calling the measles vaccine lethal is absurd, and we need radical honesty. Tell us, Mr. President, why do you think this vaccine is lethal. Have you ever seen a case of lethality? And what about the people who are not vaccinated, who are getting sick and even dying? By the way, a 40-year-old and an 18-year-old most recently. And what do we say to those families in the neonatal intensive care unit at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, where a child, an older child, with active measles walked through, exposing those children in that ICU? We should have a common voice of radical honesty, of trying to help the American people understand what is safe.

27:36And if the president calls it lethal, then where are you getting your information, Mr. President? And if you really don't have it, why are you willing to risk the lives of fellow Americans?

27:46Margaret Brennan:And on this program, Dr. Oz did admit that it was not lethal when we pressed him. But no one did on camera. And Margaret, can I also point out that the president's nominee for Surgeon General, Dr. Sapphire, just said in committee hearing last week that it's not lethal, it is safe, and people should be vaccinated. Did she earn your vote? And if so, when will we see her confirmed as Surgeon General? So she did earn my vote, and she'll be part of, I'm sure, the en bloc, you know, there's a whole group of people that'll be all approved at the same time. But when somebody is willing to be honest to the American people and say that vaccines are safe, you should be taking it, and the consequence of not can even include death.

28:33Well, what else can you ask for when it comes to vaccines?

28:36Margaret Brennan:You mentioned a moment ago the concern that the Pennsylvania Department of Health has said about the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and exposure of babies, infants in NICU. A baby's not immunized until around 12 months of age. So these infants are at risk here. And Dr. Paul Offit, who heads the Vaccine Education Center, said the United States is severely underestimating the epidemic of measles right now. So we have had for about two and a half weeks now a new CDC director, Dr. Erica Schwartz. In her very first interview, she said the CDC is working on a definition of what a measles-related death is.

29:19Margaret Brennan:Is that really what the CDC should be focused on, the nuance around the language? So, Dr. Schwartz and I have communicated on multiple occasions, and there is a difference in medicine between caused by and associated with. Of the four deaths in Pennsylvania, one was associated with measles, but the coroner did not say that measles caused the death. The other three, a coroner, by the way, all Republicans, have said that the deaths were caused by measles. Now, there's apparently a lag time between the records being sent and received by CDC from Pennsylvania and being posted. But the coroner in Pennsylvania has three different cases have said that these deaths were caused by measles.

30:10And I'll repeat, Margaret, one was 40 and one was 18 years old. Having measles is not a kind of victimless kind of experience. It's a little bit like drunk driving. You can drive drunk. You can drink and get drunk, but if you drive, you're going to hurt other people. You can get measles, but when you start spreading it to other people, a 40-year-old dies, an 18-year-old dies. Children in neonatal intensive care unit are at risk. People have got to realize, and the government has to realize, the president should be saying, be vaccinated. It is safe and effective.

30:42Margaret Brennan:Do you think this is going to hurt your party in the midterms? if you look at polling women who make most of the health decisions for a family overwhelmingly support childhood immunization and so if if the american people feel as if there is a message coming out which is not good for the health of the united states and which is confusing people i can tell you it probably does hurt dr cassidy senator thank you for your time today we'll leave it there we'll be right back I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey. And we're The Office Ladies. We're still talking about all the hilarious behind-the-scenes details from The Office with icons from the show like Rainn Wilson, Greg Daniels, Melora Hardin, and so many more.

31:28And we can't forget our two conversations with Office Ladies superfan Billie Eilish. Hello. So join us for brand new episodes every Wednesday. And revisit The Office rewatch every Monday. Follow and listen to Office Ladies wherever you get your podcasts.

31:44Margaret Brennan:And we're joined now by Gary Cohn. He is the vice chairman at IBM. He previously served as the top economic advisor to President Trump during that first term. Welcome back. It's always good to have you here. Thanks for having me. So we have a lot of pressure points right now. One of them's diesel prices at this record high motor oil jet fuel cost. They're all affecting consumers. And this is not just in America. I mean, around the world, the video alone of what's happening with protests in some of these countries, in Syria, Philippines, Guatemala, all gas price protests. How concerned are you about the state of the consumer and the global economy?

32:20Well, Margaret, I think you went through the exact topic that the consumer in the United States is most concerned about. It's energy and energy products. You start with gasoline, the most obvious thing. People go to the pump daily, weekly, and they sit there and they hold the nozzle down and they watch the numbers tick. And they see these numbers are higher than they were last week and they're higher than the week before. Is this ever going to stop? So directly, they see it. Then indirectly, when you talk about diesel, diesel is really the feedstock for food in this country. You know, our farmers go through diesel to grow their crops, to pick their crops, to deliver their crops.

32:54The transportation network is all dependent on diesel. So they see the secondhand effects of diesel in the economy as well. So the consumer sediment has turned quite negative. And then throw on top of that, the the unknowns of A.I. is really concerning people because they see very high prices. They're unsure about A.I. They're unsure about the job market. And so sentiment has become quite negative recently.

33:16Margaret Brennan:It's become negative. And yet you hear Treasury Secretary Besson and others saying we've got all these positive data points, right, with like, you know, the poverty rate in this country really at a historic low. This morning he was posting about that on social media as he's getting ready to meet with the Chinese. He says there's strong foreign demand for U.S. assets. He refutes the ideas that investors are balking at treasuries. But there does seem this concern about America's stability and fiscal health. You know, we're in a very funny place here. The overall economy is quite stable. So if you look at some of the headline indicators, you look at GDP, you look at employment, you look at consumer spending, the numbers are pretty good.

33:56They're pretty good to very good. So what's actually going on in the day-to-day economy that Secretary Besant is talking about. He's right. But when you ask consumers about how they feel about the economy and where they think they're going to be in a month from now, a quarter from now, a year from now, then you see this very negative sentiment of all these issues flowing through. But we have not seen a slowdown in consumption. That said, we have seen real wages turn negative in the last few months, meaning that wage growth is slower than inflation growth. So your purchasing power goes down. But people have decided to use their savings and savings is diminishing.

34:32They've decided to use their savings to continue to consume products the way they have always consumed products. Now, that can't go on forever. We will run out of savings.

34:41Margaret Brennan:That says a lot about us as Americans, doesn't it? Well, we are very good consumers in America. Well, this past week, we had this significant move, though, by the new Federal Reserve chair, Kevin Warsh. I know you know him personally. He came out and said the economy is strengthening with new hiring, private sector earnings, capital investment. But the Open Market Committee unanimously said, we've got to hike rates because of persistent inflation. Did it surprise you? Not at all. As you know, the Fed has a dual mandate. Mandate number one is full employment. And the chair came out and talked about how strong the employment was.

35:15I just talked about how strong employment pictured in the United States is. Point two that they deal with, the second part of their mandate, is something called stable prices. Stable prices means that they're trying to shoot for a 2 % unemployment rate. The chairman has made it very clear, very clear that he is going to fight inflation. He said it in his first meeting. He said it in his Jackson Hole. He said it in any interview he's given. He's told you he's going to fight inflation. So we now come to this meeting last week, and we still have inflation up in the high 2%, closer to 3%. And he did exactly what he told you he was going to do.

35:49And more importantly, he did it with a unanimous vote of all of the governors in the Fed. I think it's been many, many meetings. I don't want to guess exactly. It's probably been six plus meetings since we have had a consensus unanimous vote inside the Fed.

36:03Margaret Brennan:And on the cusp of an election that surprised so many people. But the president said the Fed did the wrong thing. Maybe he meant politically. But practically speaking, what will this hike do? So practically, it's an interesting hike because we all know that the inflation is being driven from the supply side of the equation, meaning that we don't have enough supply in the system going back to energy. If we had more energy in the system, the price of energy would come down and we'd see some of the deflation come out of the system. So this is not this cut can't change the amount of oil that's in the system.

36:38It can't create diesel. It can't create gasoline. But what this increase does, sorry about that, this increase does is it makes the cost of borrowing more expensive. And that's the intention. The intention is to have consumers buy less product. Therefore, there's less demand that offsets with the lower supply that we have in the system. It's really a balancing act in here. Now, it's 25 basis points. And remember, it's federal funds, which means it's the very front end of the interest rate curve. So they raised the rates in the front end of the interest in curve. An interesting thing actually happened.

37:13The longer-dated securities, interest-sensitive, actually got cheaper or the rates went down on them. So the key— The government bonds. So in essence, the curve, which had been fairly steep, meaning the difference between the overnight rate and the 30-year rate, it technically flattened. So the differential between those two rates flattened. So to the extent that people are getting a mortgage or they're getting a car loan or they're financing their credit card, the rate of which the banks used to set that really did not change or went lower over the course of the week. And the rate at which depositors can get money overnight on their deposits actually went up.

37:49Margaret Brennan:Well, you thank you on the yield curve and bonds because that's where I was going on. Besant, the Treasury Secretary, buying$5 billion in U.S. debt. Does that improve anything or is it really just Congress has got to cut their own spending? Well, ultimately, Congress has to cut their own spending. And it's not only just Congress. We have enormous demand from the data centers in the AI world. There's more debt being issued by corporates as well as the governments than we've seen in a long period of time. But what Secretary Besant was doing is exactly what Chairman Walsh is doing. They're both trying to make the longer end of the curve, the part of the curve where you and I borrow money when we get a car, when we buy a home.

38:27They're trying to make the longer dated maturities cheaper. They're trying to drive the interest rates down on the long end of the curve. Secretary Besant used the tool he has available to him. And Chairman Walsh used the tool he has available to him. And they're both driving the same outcome.

38:43Margaret Brennan:Well, we'll see if it works. We will hope it works. We'll hope it works. Gary Cohn, always good to have you here. Thanks for having me. We'll be back in a moment. Matching outfits, extravagant birthdays, many nicknames, a few classic moves of a dog-obsessed parent. At OLLI, they're obsessed with how obsessed you are with your pup, which is why they obsess over giving your dog the best. OLLI's fresh, human-grade recipes are developed by real chefs and backed by vet nutritionists. The meals are perfectly portioned. And come with a pup-tainer and scoop for easy storing and mess-free serving, delivering the best experience for you and your pup.

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39:47Margaret Brennan:As the debate over the direction and future of artificial intelligence intensifies, our new CBS poll shows Americans are fundamentally divided on the technology and the questions of at what pace or should we even develop AI technology? 43 % of Americans say AI companies should slow down development. 12 % say we should stop, while 44 % say we should keep the current pace or even speed up. Nearly two-thirds of Americans, 64%, say the U.S. developing AI is necessary to compete with other countries. After an AI researcher spoke earlier this month of his concerns that the technology could pose a threat to humanity within 10 years, Americans say they do have concerns about AI models potentially causing harm to humans, with half saying they probably or certainly will, with the other half divided between those who think the models probably or certainly will not or are not sure.

40:47Margaret Brennan:One industry leader who's firmly on the side of acceleration is NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, whose company makes chips used by AI developers in both the U.S. and China. He spoke with our Jo Ling Kent for CBS Sunday Morning. Here's some of their conversation. Are we all going to be, in the words of some, gone in a decade? No, that's completely false. And that kind of narrative is dramatic, it gets a lot of attention. Of course, obviously, it's gotten the attention of the press. And I think at its core, they care deeply that the products are built safely. They're transitioning from a lab to engineering.

41:32They have to dedicate a lot more of their research, researchers, a lot more of their compute to safety. All the messaging around the drama of it is unnecessary. It is quite frankly too much drama, irresponsible. It is now grounded on facts, it's now grounded on science. So it's wrong. Well, it's wrong because it's not grounded on science. Their concern is not wrong. I just want to make sure that at the core of it, the concern is not wrong. Do you think that we should be pacing the development of AI right now, given where we are vis-a-vis China? We should go as fast as we can, but not faster than we should.

42:16And if we're compromising safety, that can happen. If you're compromising safety and you deliver products that are unsafe, that put people in harm's way, we have laws of all kinds to come after you. And so the companies that are developing these technologies are perfectly incentivized to do the right thing. And I have every confidence, I have every confidence, because they're incentivized to do so, they have the capability to do so, that we will deliver, we will create AI, advance AI in a way that's safe to society. The president is calling this fear a hoax. Do you agree with his characterization of it?

42:58I believe the claims of the end of the world, stirring fear across America, and doing it by the people who are doing it makes no sense to me. So they must be doing it for ulterior reasons. that's that's maybe it's political maybe it's otherwise maybe just attention grabbing maybe so that they could get a great interview with you I don't I don't know what is the reason for it but however it's characterized 2030 is not going to be the end of the world there is zero percent chance that's going to be the end of the world and so I think that scaring people is unnecessary, it is irresponsible, and I don't know what their motives are.

43:53However, what he did say and some of the other things, so that's one thing that he said. The other thing that he said was that we don't need more regulations. We need to apply the current regulations we have. That's a very practical, very sensible thing, and we just spoke about that as well, and I agree with You will be attending the state dinner with President Xi Jinping of China. If you get a chance to speak to him about this situation that we're in right now, the one that Americans are so concerned about, what will you say to the president of China? I would say that I'm delighted to see AI's technology transitioning from laboratories to now really useful capabilities and products and services.

44:41And because it's making that transition, it would be good for all countries that are developing and advancing AI to do so in a way where we share best practices, maybe set global standards about product expectations. Work closer together. Of course work closer together. If we want, look, they want China to be safe. They want China to have the benefit of AI. They want China to prosper just as we want the United States to prosper. I'm glad they have ambitious expectations and aspirations. As they advance the technology, we ought to make sure that we work with each other as much as we can. I want to ask you about something that's really bothering a lot of Americans right now.

45:32There's a lot of people who don't want data centers in their backyards. Yeah. This is rare bipartisan unity. The backlash is bipartisan. NVIDIA powers a lot of data centers. What do you say to the people out there who are speaking out and saying, we do not want these in our neighborhoods? I would say, we're sorry we didn't come talk to you sooner. We need to go engage the communities long before we set up the data centers. And I think all of my colleagues recognize this today. You know, it's just all of this happened so quickly, and it happened all over America so quickly. We didn't realize and we didn't get a chance to be polite, to be a visitor in some new town.

46:24However, I will also say the data centers are also improving tremendously and tremendously quickly.

46:32Margaret Brennan:Joe Ling's full conversation with Jensen Huang can be seen on the CBS Sunday Morning YouTube channel. And this breaking news development with the president's plan for a 250-foot triumphal arch to be built near Arlington Cemetery just across the Potomac River in Virginia, inspired from the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. In a new social media post, the president says it may now feature a national security facility featuring drones and snipers. Quote, at the strong request of the United States military and for national security purposes, I have agreed to convert the magnificent triumphal arch planned since the Civil War era many years ago at the receptive circle adjoining the Arlington Memorial Bridge into a top grade military complex triumphal arch to house, store and have the rapid ability to use large numbers of drones plus snipers on both the roof and plaza areas.

47:25Margaret Brennan:and additionally have and hold large quantities of sniper ammunition in storage. And we will continue to follow that one. That's it for us today. Thank you for watching. Until next week. For Face the Nation, I'm Margaret Brennan. The senior executive producer of Face the Nation is Mary Hager Laird. The executive producer is Anne Hsu. This broadcast was directed by Shelley Schwartz. Face the Nation originates from CBS News in Washington. For more Face the Nation, we're online at facethenation.com and on YouTube. Face the Nation is also rebroadcast on our CBS News 24-7 streaming network at 1230 on Sundays.

48:08Margaret Brennan:It's available through our Paramount Plus app. Paramount Plus is your streaming home for the NFL on CBS every Sunday. Touchdown! With the most anticipated games and football's biggest stars. Oh, what a catch! Sign up for Paramount Plus today. See you Sunday!