Sen. Bill Cassidy, Sec. Dan Driscoll, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen

21:36we're going to have private industry do it. We are not doing that with drones because if you look at Ukraine's manufacturing, 4 million a year, China, I think, is at 12 to 14 million drones a year. And we as a nation will have to have our private sector able to help us. And so what we are going to do is we are going to invest in things like sensors and brushless motors and circuit boards and a lot of the components that are really hard for the private sector to get right now. The United States Army is going to build those on our bases and empower the private sector to purchase from us. And so we will make drones, our private partners will make drones, and we will catch up and surpass the Chinese incredibly quickly.

22:12Margaret Brennan:Secretary, thank you for your time. And I do want to make the point that you are taking questions, and that is unusual these days since the Pentagon has restricted access to reporters. And we think it's important here that the American people hear about their own security as well as the military's 3 million or more employees. So thank you. The Trump administration has launched another immigration enforcement operation, this time in Charlotte, North Carolina, a blue city with one of the fastest growing immigrant populations in the country. The operation called Charlotte's Web by the Department of Homeland Security started Saturday.

22:51Margaret Brennan:Federal agents from the CBP, U.S. Customs and Border Protection have been seen making arrests, questioning gardeners, patrolling a Home Depot parking lot and smashing windows. Trump administration officials tell our immigration reporter, Camilo Montoya-Galvez, that New Orleans is the next Border Patrol operation planned for this month.

23:18Margaret Brennan:Welcome back to Face the Nation. On Friday, we spoke with the chairman of one of the Senate committees responsible for crafting health care legislation. Louisiana's Bill Cassidy, who is also a doctor. We began by showing him what the president is thinking of for health care fix. I'm calling today for insurance companies not to be paid, but for the money, this massive amount of money to be paid directly to the people of our country so that they can buy their own health care, which will be far better and far less expensive than the disaster known as Obamacare. So are you, Senator, coordinating with the White House on this proposal?

23:59So we're absolutely in communication with the White House and with the administration because there's a lot of stuff that you have to work out to do that. But let me give a little meat on the bones of what the president's speaking about. If you look at an Obamacare policy now, there's a$6 ,000 deductible. Democrats are fighting to lower the premiums. You lower a premium on something which has$6 ,000 deductible. It's basically a catastrophic policy. Now, I like to speak of the cost of being insured, not just the cost of the health insurance. The president is proposing that we take the$26 billion that would be going to insurance companies if we just do a straight-out extension.

24:36And by the way, 20 % of that$26 billion, 20 % will go for profit and administrative overhead. give it directly to the American people in an account in which 100 percent of the money is used for them to purchase health care on their own terms. Now, now that makes them an informed consumer. It also helps address the need to have coverage for that deductible. And if they get that policy with a higher deductible, they can actually lower their premium. It's a sweet spot. Lower premiums help with the deductible, making the patient the informed consumer. The president and I are united. We should all be united about that.

25:12Margaret Brennan:Well, the president's economic advisor, Kevin Hassett, was on this program last Sunday. He said the president was just brainstorming things aren't formally put together among Republican senators yet. But I just want to clarify what you are coordinating with the president on here, because is it to buy your own insurance policy, which is kind of complicated, or is it to use this flexible spending account you've talked about for related health care needs? Like, are there restrictions on how you can use that money? So first, there's two types of premium tax credits. There's the baseline premium tax credit, which was part of Obamacare.

25:49That would stay in effect and people would still buy a policy, for example, they get in a car wreck, something disastrous. They need somebody negotiating on their behalf with all the providers. That stays the same. What we're talking about, and the shutdown was over, the enhanced premium tax credits. policies that become so expensive under Obamacare that under Joe Biden, Democrats passed another subsidy on top of the first subsidy. That's what we're fighting about. And what Republicans are saying, and I'd like to hope Democrats will do. Hey, wait a second. If we can have lower premiums and help people with their deductible by giving the money directly to the patient, by the way, 20 % doesn't go for insurance company profit and overhead.

26:29100 % goes for healthcare. Why don't we unite Republican and Democrats in doing that. That's where the president is. You've got to figure some things out, but we're a lot further along than you might imagine.

26:40Margaret Brennan:So do you want to fix Obamacare or do you want to eliminate Obamacare? First, you have to like we're going into 2026. That's like a month and a half from now. Right. And so you've got to work with what you have. But on the other hand, Obamacare was a top heavy, administratively heavy type system in which a lot of money and responsibility is taken from individuals and given to insurance companies as one example. I'm a doctor. I worked for 20 years in a hospital for the uninsured. I found that if you give the patient the power, good things happen. That's supported, by the way, by the medical literature.

27:20If the patient is engaged in her health care and the health care of her family, she's going to be a wise shopper, wise for her health and wise for her pocketbook. We need to have a new model. And that model is to engage the patient in her own health care. Doing so is good for her. Good for us all.

27:36Margaret Brennan:OK, but you said we need to work with what we have. That is, as you just said, you have a short amount of time before the end of the year. Do you think you need to extend the health care tax subsidies that are currently in place until you figure out all the rest of this complicated policy making. Let me back you up just a little bit, Margaret, to say everybody assumes it's easy just to extend the premium tax credits, the enhanced premium tax credits. It's not that easy. Fifty percent of the states did not plan on them being extended, and they don't have rates as if they were to be extended. So that means if we pass this mid-December, they've got to recalculate rates in time for, wait a second, by that time we're already into 2026.

28:22It's not an easy matter. And by the way, did I mention, the policies that people want to lower the premiums for have$6 ,000 deductibles. It is basically something for insurance companies to make money off of and for the individual to wade through$6 ,000 of debt before they can finally access it. Now, the kind of proposal I am proposing, Republicans are, and I hope Democrats will join, is let's take that money and we have a mechanism to do so. We give it to the patient. By giving her that money, she could choose a bronze level plan, which is to say lower premiums. So now her premiums are down, but she has money in an account to help with the deductible.

29:01And I think we can figure that out about as easily as we could figure out what we would do if we just did a straight out extension.

29:07Margaret Brennan:So you want to do all this, though, by the second week of December when the Democrats have been promised they'll have a vote on an ACA bill of their choice? Yes. And I tell my Democratic colleagues, first, let's not be Democrats and Republicans. Let's be Americans representing all of Americans. Let's recognize what you're doing just gives money to insurance companies, but we can do it better with lower premiums and with money and accounts to pay deductibles. And then why don't we come together? There can be a Democratic bill and a Republican bill and both fail. Let's do an American bill where the American people benefit and let's work together, collaborate to lower those premiums and to help them with that first dollar coverage in the deductible.

29:47Margaret Brennan:So we looked and there are about 293 ,000 Louisianans, your state, enrolled in Obamacare currently. Six weeks from now, those expanded tax credits that you've been talking about will go away for individuals making$62 ,000 or above. Individuals making less than that amount will see their tax credit shrinks. So are you telling those hundreds of thousands of Louisianans that that tax credit is going away no matter what, that they should make plans for higher prices? I'm telling them that we are working to make it work better for them. And they would tell you, by the way, wait a second, I got a$6 ,000 deductible.

30:27That does not work for me. Margaret, I'm a doctor. I would talk to people when they'd come to see me, And they would tell me, I can't afford that. My deductible is too high. That's reality. And that reality is being lost in this discussion. We've got to do something about sky high deductibles. Maybe you can afford the premium. You can't afford the policy. Let's lower the cost of having health insurance focusing by not just on the premium, but the deductible. And I think we can do both.

30:54Margaret Brennan:Well, even in the private market, health care costs have gone up about six to nine percent when you look at the projections. But I want to ask you about your oversight rule. Secretary Kennedy has this handpicked panel of vaccine advisors. You know them at ACIP. They're going to meet in a few days and potentially vote on changing the hepatitis B vaccine schedule for infants. That same vaccine advisory group is also considering the safety of vaccine ingredients like aluminum, which would impact a number of childhood shots. this should matter for American parents. Are you comfortable with what they are about to put to a vote?

31:35I'm very concerned about this. As it turns out, my medical practice focused on hepatitis B. And so we know that because of a recommended dose at birth of hepatitis B vaccine, recommended, not mandated, the number of children born contracting hepatitis B at birth or shortly thereafter has decreased from about 20 ,000 20 years ago to like 200 now. That's effectively a clerical error. We have decreased the incidence of chronic hepatitis B by 20 ,000 people over the last two decades with this kind of recommendation. And by the way, if you're infected at birth, you're more likely, you're 95 % likely to become a chronic carrier.

32:15The vaccine is safe. It has been established. And these ingredients they're speaking of have been shown to be safe. This is policy by people who don't understand the epidemiology of hepatitis B or who've grown comfortable with the fact that we've been so successful with our recommendation that now the incidence of hepatitis B is so low they feel like we can rest on our laurels. I'm a doctor. I have seen people die from vaccine-preventable disease. I want people to be healthy. I want to make America healthy and you don't start by stopping recommendations that have made us substantially healthier.

32:49Margaret Brennan:Well, the president of the United States also told American women not to take Tylenol or give it to their kids. This is based on a theory that it causes autism somehow. And he also in a social media post, the same one called for the measles, mumps and rubella shot to be broken up into three different shots that was then endorsed by the acting CDC director. Are you concerned by this kind of suggestive linkage at the top of the CDC and from the White House? Again, I'm a doctor, and so I'm going to go where the evidence takes me. And the best evidence is a study out of Sweden with 2 million children that found no causality, no association, if you will, between taking Tylenol in pregnancy and getting autism.

33:34And, of course, that concerns me because there's going to be a mom out there. Again, I'm a doctor. I talk to patients in a room. And her child is autism. She took Tylenol for a high fever during pregnancy, and now she blames herself. That's just the way mamas think. And that's wrong. We don't want her to think that. The best evidence is there is no relationship. By the way, if you have a high fever during pregnancy, that may be a risk for autism. Now, of course, if you're pregnant, talk to your physician before you take anything. But point being, the best evidence is that there is no relationship between the two.

34:11And I don't want women putting themselves on a guilt trip when the best evidence shows not. By the way, the president has spoken out strongly in favor of immunizations in other cases. And I noted when he got his physical, he got the flu and COVID shots. So the president has demonstrated that he believes in immunization.

34:27Margaret Brennan:But that's why clarifying these statements, I think, is important since you interpret them differently. I wonder, do you regret your confirmation vote for Secretary Kennedy? I smile because every reporter asked me that. Well, because these questions run right into a pledge that you extracted from him not to tinker with some of the structures that were set in place to have oversight of these vaccines and this process. So you live life forward. Again, you just do. Let the days on troubles be sufficient for the day. And I'll credit the secretary. He's brought attention to things like ultra processed food that has frankly never received this sort of attention before.

35:10And people praise him for that. So he and I have publicly disagreed on some matters, but I strongly agree with him on others. And so so that's how I'll answer your question.

35:19Margaret Brennan:That sounds like yes. Is if this is your final year in office or will you make overhauling health care your top priority? Well, I sure hope it's not my final year in office, but I've been thinking about health care for 30 years. Because when I worked in a public hospital for the uninsured, I saw the burden that could be on middle income families who have middle income but couldn't afford the insurance or couldn't afford the health care. And so it's been my priority for 30 years. And I will continue to do that. And if there's a silver lining, if there's a silver lining in the shutdown we just had, the silver lining is now we are focused on how do we make health care more affordable for the American people?

36:00That should be our goal, not to be partisan one way or the other. How do we make it more affordable for fellow Americans? If we can accomplish that, I will feel like I've done my job.

36:10Margaret Brennan:Senator, thank you for your time. And we'll be right back. We go now to New Hampshire Democratic Senator Jean Shaheen. Good morning to you, Senator. Good morning. Nice to be with you. Well, you have spent a good part of the past year trying to get legislation through to extend those Obamacare tax credit subsidies. Last Sunday, you crossed the aisle. You agreed to reopen the government and the shutdown without a guaranteed extension, but with a promise to have some kind of vote on an ACA bill of Democrats' own choosing. Do you have consensus among Democrats that this needs to be a vote simply to extend the tax credits as they stand now?

36:52Margaret Brennan:Or are you open to a broader reform of Obamacare? Well, from the beginning of this shutdown, I've had two goals. One is to get government up and running again to end the suffering that too many Americans were experiencing because they lost food assistance or they weren't getting paid federal employees. And the second was to address the high cost of health insurance that people are looking at because insurance companies are setting rates based on the fact that those premium tax credits are supposed to go away at the end of this year. I think people are now very aware of the fact that they are going to see huge rate increases double for so many people and an unaffordable cost of health insurance if those premium tax credits go away.

37:44And what I think we need to do, and these are conversations that we need to have, is we need to work with our Republican colleagues to try and get a bill that can be supported, that can get through both houses of Congress. We've been talking to our Republicans, Senator Cassidy, throughout the shutdown about what we might be able to agree to. We've been talking to House members on both sides of the aisle. And so now we need to work together. I agree with Senator Cassidy. this should be a bill that is not partisan, but it should be a bill to extend those premium tax credits because, as everybody has talked about, there is real urgency to get this done.

38:25And if we don't address it, then people are going to see huge rate increases. So we can work together, we can extend the credits, but we probably can't implement significant reforms that Senator Cassidy was talking about in the time frame that we've got. So we need to look both in the short term and in the long term for how we address the cost of health care.

38:47Margaret Brennan:Okay, so that's an important point. So the$26 billion or so that he talks about as the cost for extension of these that he wants to redirect into these cash accounts, these flexible accounts, you're saying you can't get that done in six weeks' time? No, you can't. And again, there's real urgency to do this. There's some good bipartisan legislation that has come out of committee in the Senate that I think we should take up, things that would expedite approval of generic drugs and biosimilars, that would address PBM reform, which is a huge cost increase for health care. But that's a longer-term issue.

39:25Right now, we need to address what people are facing in terms of those high rate increases because of the threat that these premium tax credits are going to end.

39:34Margaret Brennan:Just to put a fine point on it, when we heard the congressman at the top of the program talk about, you know, caps on income and restrictions on who can benefit from those tax credits. Can you get your fellow Democrats, who, by the way, are pretty angry at each other, angry at you as well, about this decision to reopen the government. Can you get everyone on board or can you at least get to 60 votes to be able to extend those subsidies with tweaks? Well, first of all, we need to put the shutdown behind us in the circular firing squad and remember why we're in this situation. We're in this situation because Donald Trump and Speaker Johnson and the Republican majorities in the House and Senate have refused to address the cost of health care and are trying to throw people off their health care.

40:23Can we get to consensus? Well, we need to if we're going to get a bipartisan bill out of the Congress. I think we've seen and heard from health insurance companies that implementing significant changes in the first year is going to be really difficult to do, almost impossible. But we ought to be able to agree on some changes, like capping the income of people who receive those premium tax credits. Right now, 94 percent of people who get the credits earn under$200 ,000 a year. And the average income for a single recipient is about a little over$30 ,000 a year. So most people who are getting these tax credits are not in that high income level.

41:08And so we should be able to agree on that. We should be able to agree that we don't want any fraud and abuse in the program. That's something Republicans and Democrats believe in. So let's focus on what we can agree to. Let's look at what we can get done in the time frame we have and recognize there is real urgency to get these premium tax credits extended.

41:29Margaret Brennan:So you're going to have this vote around the second week of December, but premiums are already notified out. They are already sort of baked in here for certainly for Americans who buy government health care. Is it too late to extend open enrollment? I mean, Senator Cassidy was saying like ship has sailed here. No, we could actually decide that we were willing as part of this legislation to extend open enrollment. Obviously, we need support from the administration, but insurance companies, in meeting with the insurance industry, they've indicated that while it would be difficult, they could address some of the challenges around not getting agreement until December.

42:15Again, that's why there's urgency to get this done.

42:19Margaret Brennan:I want to ask you about another matter. Survivors of convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as well as some of the families of those survivors, wrote a letter to lawmakers supporting the release of Justice Department internal communications in regard to his case. In that letter, they said there was no middle ground here. There was no hiding behind party affiliation. We will remember your decision at the ballot box. You know this House vote is set to come up this week. Should there be a vote in the Senate, and would you support it to see the release of these documents? Absolutely. We need to release the documents.

42:59The American people need to see what's in them. And if President Trump says there's nothing there that he's concerned about, then why doesn't he support release of the documents?

43:09Margaret Brennan:Well, we will see if the Republican leader in the Senate takes up your proposal there. There has not been a commitment to have that kind of vote. But on Venezuela, since you are a ranking member on Senate Foreign Relations, I want to make sure I ask you. The president said he has sort of made up his mind on what to do about Venezuela. You were one of the very few senators who have received briefings within the past few weeks from Secretaries Rubio and Hegseth regarding the strikes that are being carried out on these small, fast-moving boats. Is there a clear endgame here? And is your understanding that ousting Nicolas Maduro from power is part of the administration's plan?

43:56I don't think it's clear what the endgame is for this administration with respect to Venezuela. They're relying on a legal opinion, excuse me, in terms of the boat strikes that they have not released. They have finally made it available to members of Congress, but they haven't released it to the public. They are escalating in a way that, talking about a land strike through special operations that puts at risk our men and women in the military. We have so much firepower now in the Caribbean. And the Gerald R. Ford has been taken from the Red Sea so that now we don't have any firepower really in the Middle East.

44:42As we look at the threats there, we don't have what we need, I think, in the Indo-Pacific or in Europe. And so what the president has done here is to put at risk other parts of the world and Americans in other parts of the world for this fascination on trying to get rid of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, who clearly is a bad character. He's been involved in illegal drugs, but he is not a threat to the United States of America. And what the president is doing is raising real questions.

45:21Margaret Brennan:Senator Shaheen, thank you for your time this morning. That's it for us today. Thank you for watching. Until next week.

45:53Margaret Brennan: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 Plus.