Full transcript of “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” Aug. 4, 2024

On “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” this week, moderated by Ed O’Keefe: 

• Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas
• UAW president Shawn Fain
• deputy national security adviser Jon Finer
• Wall Street Journal assistant editor Paul Beckett

Click here to browse full transcripts of “Face the Nation.”   

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ED O’KEEFE: I’m Ed O’Keefe.

And today on “Face the Nation”: Two weeks after Vice President Kamala Harris replaced Joe Biden on the Democratic presidential ticket, what difference has that made? We will tell you.

Former President Donald Trump, still adjusting to his new opponent, is testing new lines of attack.

(Begin VT)

DONALD TRUMP (Former President of the United States (R) and Current U.S. Presidential Candidate): We have to work hard to define her. We – I don’t want to even define her. I just want to say who she is. She’s a horror show. She will destroy our country.

She supports mandatory gun confiscation. Harris is a radical trans activist. She wants to get rid of your cows. No more cows.

(End VT)

ED O’KEEFE: Harris, exploiting a sudden burst of Democratic enthusiasm, is trying to turn the page on the former president.

(Begin VT)

KAMALA HARRIS (Vice President of the United States (D) and U.S. Presidential Candidate): It was the same old show, the divisiveness and the disrespect. And let me just say, the American people deserve better. The American people deserve better.

(APPLAUSE)

(End VT)

ED O’KEEFE: As for the American people, what are they thinking with just three months left until Election Day?

Our new CBS poll that takes a look at the state of the race nationwide and in the all-important battleground states.

Trump ally Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton will be here, along with United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain, whose union endorsed Harris last week.

And we will get the latest on the rising tensions in the Middle East with Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer.

Then, inside the historic deal to free three Americans, including “Wall Street Journal” reporter Evan Gershkovich from Russia. We will hear from “Journal” editor Paul Beckett, who made it his daily assignment to bring Evan home.

It’s all ahead on Face the Nation.

Good morning. Welcome to Face the Nation. Margaret is off.

We’re now just hours away from presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris announcing her choice for a running mate. And, today, CBS News has learned at least three of the contenders, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, and Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, are traveling here to Washington to meet with the vice president in person.

And as she holds those meetings, we’re getting a fresh look at the state of the race nationwide. A new CBS News poll shows Harris has something President Biden never enjoyed this year, a slight edge over Donald Trump. And across the battleground states, the two candidates are tied, 50/50, all in all, an essentially even race.

For more, let’s go to our executive director of elections and surveys, Anthony Salvanto.

Good to see you. Happy Sunday.

Out on the road this week talking to Democratic voters, there was a sense of increased enthusiasm, excitement, a sense that they might actually be able to win this thing now. Is the polling reflecting that?

ANTHONY SALVANTO: Good morning, Ed.

And the short answer is yes. Let me remind everybody this is a shift because Joe Biden, when he was the nominee, was down five points nationally to Donald Trump. So, what’s behind this is really interesting, because you see more Democrats now say not only are they excited about Harris as the nominee, but that they’re going to vote.

And that will make your poll numbers go up. In fact, if you look at our estimates across each and every one of the battleground states, from Pennsylvania, to Michigan, down South, Georgia, Arizona and others, they’re all even or close. And that is your reset race.

You see core Democratic constituencies saying they’re going to vote. Specifically, black voters are enthusiastic. Their numbers of saying they’re going to vote are up from July.

And I want to talk about the women’s vote, because not only does Harris do better than Biden was doing, but women tell us they think that Harris would look out for the interests of women much more so than Donald Trump. So it’s not just the demographic break. That’s the rationale behind it, Ed.

ED O’KEEFE: And they were the ones that seemed most excited, women.

But, bottom line, what you’re saying is that, over two weeks, she’s brought the race back to even, in essence?

ANTHONY SALVANTO: Yes, big reset.

ED O’KEEFE: Now, she’d make history as the first black woman to be nominated by the Democratic Party, potentially the first black woman to win the presidency. Does the polling suggest the country’s ready for that?

ANTHONY SALVANTO: So, when people assess the state of the country, that answer is yes.

And I will give you some historical context. There’s an old CBS polling question. It goes back 25 years, which was, was America ready to elect a black president? By around the year 2000, that number was low. It changed when Barack Obama was running, and it went to a majority saying yes.

And now you ask a similar question, is America ready to elect a black woman president, and you get over two-thirds, including people who aren’t voting for her. That’s the state of the country.

ED O’KEEFE: Hmm.

ANTHONY SALVANTO: But what’s also interesting, Ed, is the way the script has flipped a little on some of these campaign dynamics, like who has the mental and cognitive health to serve as president? That was something, obviously, Joe Biden was trailing on before he left the race.

Now it’s Harris who’s seen as having more of that. And she’s also closer to Trump on key views, like being competent, being effective, more so than Joe Biden was, which, all in all, goes back to that idea of Democratic excitement, like they think they have got a better candidate to take on Trump.

ED O’KEEFE: And it explains part of why they have been attacking Trump and calling him weird and raising questions about his age as well, because they must be seeing that as well.

Now, the race to define Harris is underway. They’re spending tens of millions of dollars in her campaign to play up the fact that she was a prosecutor and has worked with the president on various issues, the former president calling her a San Francisco liberal and doing other things.

But on the issues also, does he still enjoy an advantage over Harris, now the Democrat, on the big issues or concerns of voters?

ANTHONY SALVANTO: So, that’s really important because some things in this race have not changed.

The idea that you would be better off financially if Trump were elected, Trump still has a big advantage over now Kamala Harris on that. And the idea that his policies would slow or decrease the number of migrants trying to cross the border, that, he still has an edge on.

But to your point about defining Harris, well, there’s a larger number who say they think her policies are similar, mostly the same, but not entirely the same as Joe Biden’s. So it’s that little bit of difference defining what that is that I do think is going to be key to watch in the campaign in the next few weeks.

ED O’KEEFE: Anthony Salvanto is our executive director of elections and surveys.

We will talk more about it later in the broadcast. Thanks for now.

ANTHONY SALVANTO: Thank you.

ED O’KEEFE: We turn now to Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton, a good friend of the former president and a big ally of the Trump/Vance campaign.

Senator, great to see you. Thanks for being here.

SENATOR TOM COTTON (R-Arkansas): Thank you, Ed.

ED O’KEEFE: I want to start with something that Mr. Trump said last night in Atlanta. He attacked the governor of that state, Brian Kemp, and the secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, both of them Republicans. Take a listen.

(Begin VT) TAPE)

FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Raffensperger and Brian Kemp, your governor, who I got elected, by the way – if it wasn’t for me, he would not be your governor. I think everybody knows that.

He’s a very disloyal person, isn’t he, very disloyal. Your governor, Kemp, and Raffensperger, they are doing everything possible to make 2024 difficult for Republicans to win. They – what are they doing? I don’t know. They want us to lose. That’s actually my opinion. And we can’t let that happen.

(End VT)

ED O’KEEFE: It’s a must-win state for the former president, and he also said both Raffensperger and Kemp – quote – “don’t want the vote to be honest.”

Why attack a governor and a secretary of state who are popular with Republicans in that key battleground state?

SENATOR TOM COTTON: Well, Ed, I think it’s obvious that those guys have their differences, and they have had them for a long time.

But what they agree on and what we all agree on is what a disaster Kamala Harris would be as president. She is a dangerous San Francisco liberal, who wants to do things like take your health insurance away on the job and give it to illegal aliens, because she wants to decriminalize illegal immigration into this country.

That’s just the small tip of the iceberg of her radical views. So, obviously, they have their differences. But we’re all united in the need to stop Kamala Harris, because, if you think the last four years have been bad for your family, the worst is yet to come if Kamala Harris gets elected president.

ED O’KEEFE: And Governor Kemp made that point: I want to defeat her as well, but stop attacking me. Focus on the issues.

He continues to not do that. Do you think he’s underestimating the potential strength of the Harris campaign now that she’s at least brought the campaign back to even?

SENATOR TOM COTTON: No, I think we always knew this campaign was going to be a close race.

But remember, she’s only been the nominee for two weeks now. She hasn’t answered a single question, not one single question by the media, Ed. She’s only had one single unscripted moment, Thursday night at Andrews Air Force Base, welcoming those hostages back. And she served up the kind of incomprehensible word salad for which she’s become famous.

When she has to encounter the media, and I’m sure you’re going to insist that she does, she’s going to have to answer for things like why she wants to eliminate oil and gas production in this country, why she wants to ban gas-powered cars, why she wants to confiscate private firearms.

So we knew this race was going to be close all along, whoever the Democrats wanted to put up against President Trump. But Kamala Harris has only been the nominee for two weeks and hasn’t answered a single question. When the American people get a better look at her and her radical positions, I think you’re going to see that they don’t want her to continue the Biden/Harris legacy.

ED O’KEEFE: I appreciate that you’re critical of her not doing more interviews and engaging in more unscripted events.

You’ve just done a decent job there of explaining the potential policy differences between the former president and the vice president. But Trump doesn’t do that himself. He wants…

(CROSSTALK)

SENATOR TOM COTTON: No, Ed – Ed, I dispute that. I dis…

ED O’KEEFE: Well, but he wants – let’s – hold on a second. What earned him the most attention this week? Questioning whether or not the vice president is black. That became the big focus on him this week, instead of those conversations about policy that you suggest should be the focus of the campaign.

SENATOR TOM COTTON: But, no – no, Ed, I dispute that.

I – I watched his conversation at the National Association of Black Journalists. I watched last night at his rally in Georgia. The vast majority of that time is spent contrasting his record of peace and prosperity and the Biden/Harris record of high inflation and a wide-open border and war and chaos around the world.

I know you – you played a clip of him airing differences with other Republicans, but the vast majority of it was what you showed at the beginning of this show, when he talks about Kamala Harris’ record of being a radical trans activist or wanting to ban cows or ban oil and gas production.

That’s where President Trump’s focus has been throughout this campaign. And as the American people start getting answers from Kamala Harris, which, as you said, I’m sure you’re going to insist upon – you got shamed by the White House last month for having the temerity to ask about Joe Biden’s age and infirmity – they’re not going to like what they hear.

So I think it’s incumbent upon the media to hold Kamala Harris to the same standard that every other nominee who earned their nomination has ever been held to. Donald Trump in ’16, Barack Obama in ’08, they all had to go through more than a year of testing at town halls and VFWs and debates because they earned the nomination.

Kamala Harris had it given to her. For two weeks, she’s dodged the press. She can’t dodge the press for another 13 weeks.

ED O’KEEFE: Are you personally OK with him questioning whether she’s black?

SENATOR TOM COTTON: Ed, he wasn’t saying – he wasn’t saying that what matters is how she identifies as her race. He explicitly said he didn’t care. One was fine. The other was fine. Both was fine. She identifies as a dangerous San Francisco liberal. That’s the danger to the American people.

ED O’KEEFE: Right.

Well, let’s move on to some other things. Last night, the former President congratulated Vladimir Putin for the prisoner exchange, suggesting that he had extorted the – or he has in recent days suggested that he extorted the United States by getting this deal.

You yourself haven’t actually weighed in on – on what you make of this agreement. Do you agree with the former president that Putin got a better deal here?

SENATOR TOM COTTON: Well – well, of course, we all join in the joy for the family and friends of the American hostages that were released.

We’re always welcoming them back. Unfortunately, that joy is tempered by the reality that there are going to be more hostages in the future, and families are going to have to grieve for their absence in the future because Vladimir Putin, just like the Ayatollahs, have played Joe Biden and Kamala Harris like a fiddle.

I mean, there’s even reports suggesting that Putin specifically took Evan Gershkovich hostage because of previous failed hostage exchanges between the Biden/Harris administration and Russia because he was a prominent reporter for a prominent global media company.

What you see now is, there’s a market for this kind of hostage-taking. That’s why the ayatollahs take hostages, because they got $6 billion from Joe Biden. You didn’t have that with Donald Trump. He got more than 50 hostages back to the United States without paying a dime of ransom or having any high-profile prisoner exchange.

He also was willing to use our military to conduct hostage rescue missions, another thing that Joe Biden has never done. So, of course we join in rejoicing at the return of the American hostage – American hostages. But we have to realize that, if Kamala Harris is elected president, it is once again going to be open season on Americans overseas.

ED O’KEEFE: What would a deal under a Trump administration have looked like?

SENATOR TOM COTTON: Well, part of the point is that you might have had these hostages taken in the first place.

There’s “Wall Street Journal” reporting that indicates that the Germans went forward with this now because they believe that Vladimir Putin was scared of Donald Trump becoming president again. Again, we don’t have to speculate.

(CROSSTALK)

ED O’KEEFE: … guarantee that no American…

(CROSSTALK)

SENATOR TOM COTTON: We don’t have to speculate what it would look like in the future. For the first time in 100 years, we have the record of a former president to compare to the Biden/Harris administration, more than 50 hostages returned under Donald Trump, not a dime of ransom and no high- profile prisoners exchanged either.

ED O’KEEFE: All right, Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, good to see you.

Thank you for being here. We appreciate you.

SENATOR TOM COTTON: Thank you, Ed.

ED O’KEEFE: “Face the Nation” will be back in a minute. Stay with us.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

ED O’KEEFE: We’re joined now by the United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain, who is in Detroit this morning.

Mr. Fain, thank you for being with us.

I wanted to start by asking you. President Biden stepped out of this race on July 21, and your union endorsed the Vice President 10 days later. What did she actually do to earn your endorsement?

SHAWN FAIN (President, United Auto Workers): Hey, thanks for having us, Ed.

Well, I mean, many things. It’s the body of work. And it’s one thing we do as a union. You know, we put the membership in charge. And, you know, we listen to our members. We listen to our reps all over the country. And then we take that and move forward.

But the thing we’ve done most of all in any election is, we look at the body of work between the candidates. And when you put Kamala Harris and Donald Trump side by side, there’s a very telling difference in who stands with working-class people and who left working-class people behind.

You know, you go back to 2019, when Donald Trump was president. GM workers were on strike for 40 days. Where was Donald Trump then? What did he do and what did he say about the striking workers? You want you know what he did? He did nothing. He said nothing. Kamala Harris, she was actually out on the picket line before it was a popular thing to do.

She stood shoulder to shoulder with striking workers to say, I got your back, you know? And you go further, Lordstown, Ohio. Multiple plants closed in this country when Donald Trump was president. Donald Trump told workers in Lordstown Assembly in Ohio: Don’t sell your houses.

You want to know what he did and what he said afterwards to help change that situation? He did nothing. Workers in Lordstown got sent all over this country to GM plants, and their lives were wrecked.

And you want to know what Kamala Harris and the Biden administration did and their team did? They went to work when they became – when they took over the White House. And they actually put a path forward, they located a new battery plant in Lordstown, Ohio.

And now, under Harris and under Biden, those workers are moving back home now. They were dis – that were dislocated under Trump. So, you know, Trump’s been all talk for working-class people.

You look at inflation. One of the biggest issues facing this country is inflation.

ED O’KEEFE: Yes.

SHAWN FAIN: It’s not policy-driven. It’s driven by corporate greed and consumer price gouging. And that’s what Donald Trump stands for.

ED O’KEEFE: Let me ask you…

SHAWN FAIN: The rich get richer, and the working class get left behind.

ED O’KEEFE: … does the fact that she is now even with Trump, both nationally and in the automaking state of Michigan, eliminate your union’s concerns about Democrats’ ability to win in November?

SHAWN FAIN: Look, we believe Democrats are going to win.

And – and I will tell you, obviously, when – when Kamala Harris became the candidate, I mean, there’s a new energy around the campaign. There’s new passion. We’re hearing from people that we weren’t hearing from before. And there’s – and there’s a reason why, because they see a difference now. They see a path forward.

And they see that we can have a better life than what we had under Trump. We don’t want to go backwards. And I believe we’re going to win Michigan. But – but we can’t we can’t just look at polling and say, hey, the polling has changed, it’s getting better, we got this.

We got to keep the pedal to the metal until the end of this thing and ensure it happens. And it’s going to happen.

ED O’KEEFE: And you know that, this weekend, she of course is trying to sort out who should be her running mate. There are believed to be at least six in the mix. We – four governors, a senator and a cabinet secretary.

And of those six, give us a sense, who’s your favorite? Who would be the best for organized labor?

SHAWN FAIN: Well, I mean, you know, we’ve – we’ve really broken down these candidates really looked at them.

And I will tell you, my favorite’s Andy Beshear from Kentucky. I mean, I – the man stood with us, you know, on the picket line. He – you know, he’s been there for workers throughout every – every bit of our walk. And, you know, he’s won in a state where Mitch McConnell’s from. I mean, it’s a red – been a red state traditionally. He’s won twice there.

And I just believe he brings a huge dynamic. And I believe the Harris and Beshear ticket would be unbeatable. I believe both of them would just be such dynamic candidates. But we really like Tim Walz from Minnesota also, think he’s an awesome guy for labor, 100 percent behind labor.

And those would be our top two if we had to pick any. But, ultimately, look, I mean, Vice President Harris has to pick who she’s most comfortable with, you know, because it’s her running mate, and it’s who she’s going to be serving with. So, you know, we – you know, that’s who we believe would be best for labor and for working-class people.

But, you know, that’s her decision.

ED O’KEEFE: You didn’t mention the Pennsylvania governor, Josh Shapiro. I know he has been supportive of private school vouchers, which is not something that teachers unions are a fan of, understandably.

SHAWN FAIN: Yes. I mean, that’s a – that’s a – that’s a struggle, yes.

ED O’KEEFE: Are there any other union issues in his history? Are there any other union issues in his history?

SHAWN FAIN: I mean, well, I mean, I just – you know, one of the bigger ones is the school vouchers, obviously. And, I mean, you know, I don’t believe that, you know – that, you know, public education should be – it’s been under attack under Republican administrations forever.

And – you know, but they – they – they want to pass vouchers so that the rich people can subsidize their kids’ education, and then the working-class kids can get excluded, because there’s no guarantee we can go to those schools. But that’s one of the bigger issues we see with – with Shapiro.

ED O’KEEFE: And Mark Kelly, the Arizona senator, until recently didn’t support this legislation…

SHAWN FAIN: Yes.

ED O’KEEFE: … that essentially…

SHAWN FAIN: Yes.

ED O’KEEFE: … provides more legal protections for unions, makes it easier for people to unionize.

SHAWN FAIN: Yes.

ED O’KEEFE: Suddenly, he’s supported it as his name starts getting floated. Is doing that enough to assuage your concerns about him?

SHAWN FAIN: Not really, because all – look, I mean, look, when the PRO Act was out there, when it was being discussed and debated, I mean, people showed where they were when they voted on it. And that’s what we look at.

And so that was a concern of ours. You know, so obviously, that’s – that’s a problem area for us.

ED O’KEEFE: I mean, if Shapiro or Kelly are the guy, does it make it harder for you to convince union members to go out and knock on doors and to vote for Harris?

SHAWN FAIN: I don’t think it makes it, you know, impossible or harder. I mean, obviously, there’s just candidates we think are better for labor.

And, ultimately, look, we know this. Kamala Harris is for labor. She’s for working-class people. You know, we’ve watched – we’ve watched – this – this election is about – you know, we saw this in our contract campaign for the Big Three.

I mean, 75 percent of Americans supported us in our – in our strike, because they’re all – union or not, they’re all living the same thing in this country. The wages have been suppressed. We don’t have adequate health care. People want retirement security, and they want their lives back.

ED O’KEEFE: Right.

SHAWN FAIN: They don’t have to work seven days a week or two and three jobs. Kamala Harris gets that.

And if you look at the comment you guys played by former President Trump a little bit ago about talking about the governor from – from Georgia, saying he was very disloyal, that’s the difference in what this election’s about.

Trump expects people to pledge loyalty to him. It’s all about him. Kamala Harris is about the people. And that’s what this election is about. And that’s why I believe that people will vote for Kamala Harris.

ED O’KEEFE: Real quick, do you think J.D. Vance and himself calling – or calling himself the most labor-friendly senator in Congress helps Republicans at all with the organized labor union?

(LAUGHTER)

SHAWN FAIN: I think that’s a complete joke.

J.D. Vance is a fraud. He is not for working-class people. I mean, let’s be real. He talks about his hillbilly roots. Look, I got hillbilly roots. One lesson my parents and grandparents taught us growing up is you don’t forget where you come from.

I don’t work for a venture capitalist. I work for working-class people. He went to work as a venture capitalist, you know, which goes in and destroy communities, destroys businesses…

ED O’KEEFE: Yes.

SHAWN FAIN: … ruins people’s lives. That’s not someone that stands for working-class people.

ED O’KEEFE: All right, Shawn Fain is president of the United Auto Workers.

We thank you for joining us this Sunday.

And we’ll be right back with a lot more Face the Nation. Stay with us.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

ED O’KEEFE: We turn now to the historic prisoner swap that freed “Wall Street Journal” – the “Wall Street Journal” reporter Evan Gershkovich from Russian captivity.

“The Journal”‘s assistant editor, Paul Beckett, joins us now.

You devoted your life, essentially, and your career to getting him released over the last 400-plus days. Most importantly, I think people must be wondering, how is he and his family doing this morning?

PAUL BECKETT (Assistant Editor, “The Wall Street Journal”): Thanks very much, Ed.

They’re – they’re doing fine. They’re having a wonderful reunion down in Texas, where all the detainees were taken when they came back. And it’s just a joy for us to think of them there getting reunited.

ED O’KEEFE: You are wearing one of the buttons that became ubiquitous with this movement: “I Stand With Evan.” It was something that was seen in the pages of “The Journal” every day, on the Web site, among reporters in this town and across the world.

Talk to us briefly – and we will talk more about it after the break – about the decision to be so public about his case, when, in most instances, detained Americans, it’s kept a little quieter.

PAUL BECKETT: Very, very early on, someone in the government who we will always be grateful to for this advice said, there’s a time to be loud and there’s a time to be quiet, and now is the time to be loud.

And so we stayed loud, until we knew the time to be quiet, and that time to be quiet was Wednesday and Thursday of this week.

ED O’KEEFE: Because it ultimately led to his release?

PAUL BECKETT: Correct.

ED O’KEEFE: And it earned the assistance of world leaders, of celebrities, but most especially Evan’s mother.

PAUL BECKETT: She’s an extraordinary advocate for him.

The whole family has been. And she was in her own way a power player in getting this done. And we’re just so grateful to everybody who contributed, CBS high among them.

You know, everybody came out and said, we stand with Evan too, and that meant the world to us.

ED O’KEEFE: We do, and we – and we – we did and we do.

And we will talk more about it in a moment. Please stay with us.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

ED O’KEEFE: We will be back with a lot more with “Wall Street Journal” editor Paul Beckett, Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer, and an all-star political panel.

Stay with us.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

ED O’KEEFE: Welcome back to FACE THE NATION.

We return to our conversation with “Wall Street Journal” assistant editor Paul Beckett, whose assignment in essence for the last several months has been to bring home Evan Gershkovich. And you’ve certainly completed that assignment quite well.

I want to go back to this decision to be public about his situation versus many cases where they tell people to keep quiet about it, that’s better. Was there ever a concern that by being so public it potentially put him at greater risk, or that it put other colleagues, either at “The Journal” or at other publications, at greater risk?

PAUL BECKETT: There is a fascinating argument around that. The Russians didn’t give us much of a choice because they came out and said he is a spy. Total nonsense. But what were we going to do then? I mean we had to very, very quickly and very loudly make it very clear to the world that he works for “The Wall Street Journal” and “The Wall Street Journal” only. So, to some degree, that became academic.

I do think the Biden administration had an idea of what it would take to get him back from the moment he was seized, and I don’t think that changed for all our noise. I don’t think the dynamic changed. If anything, maybe it expanded the aperture so that 16 people came back.

ED O’KEEFE: We were talking about this a little in the break, you’re working with an administration to get a colleague home, but at the same time, as any good American newspaper does, aggressively covering and scrutinizing the exact same people that some of you at least had to be on the phone with. That had to have been a little awkward at times.

PAUL BECKETT: We tried to separate the two as best we could and appropriately so. We had the newsroom, who was covering the story, and we have written a huge amount of tremendous journalism on the case and related cases and the dynamics and everything. We’ve covered it very aggressively will as a story.

And then there were a few of us who were really ambassadors for Evan, and we went about that advocacy work with the appropriate, I think, separation from the coverage just so that we could do everything we could to get our guy back, while also delivering for our readers and the country on what was happening.

ED O’KEEFE: You know, there’s always conversation when Americans are freed in these kinds of negotiations, that it potentially puts more Americans at risk in the future. I also wonder, given the high-profile nature of Evan’s case, whether it’s going to make it harder for journalists who either are American or work for American outlets to be working in places like China, Iran, Hungary, Russia, even some parts of Latin America? Does this now increase the risk for all of them?

PAUL BECKETT: It’s a very complicated picture. First of all, we have huge respect – I have huge respect for the fact that the United States dedicates such efforts to get its citizens back. Not every country does that.

Secondly, nobody likes these deals. I don’t think the administration likes the deal. I think, and we’re grateful for that, that they saw travesties of justice – remember, Vladimir Putin is the aggressor here. He committed crimes against these people. And bringing them home ends a path that would have had Evan Gershkovich, this week, in a Russian penal colony.

So, we understand the risks. We understand the hypotheticals. I think the key to all of this is, what can now be done to prevent these countries doing this in the future. We need to find a way to take away the incentive to do it in the first place. Once they’ve been taken, that conversation becomes a bit mute because then you’re either going to leave them there or you’re going to get them back. It’s pretty binary.

ED O’KEEFE: Right.

Do you expect Evan to return to reporting full-time for “The Journal”?

PAUL BECKETT: The amazing thing about this is, he will get to do whatever he wants.

ED O’KEEFE: He put in a formal request as he was leaving Russia in writing in Russian to Vladimir Putin saying, could we conduct an interview together. Has he gotten any response yet?

PAUL BECKETT: I saw a spokesman for the Kremlin said that it would be considered. I think we might ask that it be done over here.

ED O’KEEFE: Or at least remotely.

PAUL BECKETT: Yes, or that (ph).

ED O’KEEFE: Yes.

Well, Paul Beckett, you’ve – you’ve been a hero to so many at “The Wall Street Journal,” but really, frankly, to all of us in journalism for devoting yourself to this on behalf of a colleague. We appreciate you being here today. And we’re so thrilled for Evan and his family and for all the detained Americans who are now home.

PAUL BECKETT: Thank you to CBS and to you for all your support.

ED O’KEEFE: All right.

We’ll be right back.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

ED O’KEEFE: We turn now to Deputy National Security Adviser Jonathan Finer.

Jon, thank you for spending some of your time this Sunday morning with us.

I want to start with the fact that United States, the United Kingdom and Jordan are advising citizens to get out of Lebanon right now. Is the Biden administration anticipating Israel will strike inside Lebanon soon, or how real is the risk that a second front could open up in Lebanon?

JONATHAN FINER (Deputy National Security Adviser): Well, Ed, what we’re trying to do is prepare for any eventuality, any possibility. That’s only responsible for the United States. Obviously, we’ve been quite clear that we will work with our ally, Israel, to defend itself against any threats that it faces, and we are in a moment that appears to be of heightened threat.

That’s what we have said it our own citizens is, is should they choose or desire to leave Lebanon, the time to do that would be while commercial options are available, as they currently are. Beyond that, obviously, these are personal decisions that we will leave to – to people to make. We’ve raised our travel advisory to level four, which discourages Americans from traveling to Lebanon. And we are preparing for whatever may come.

But this is no prediction about future events. It is – it is prudent planning for them and for our government.

ED O’KEEFE: Is that why the U.S. is deploying additional fighter squadrons to the Middle East and moving in other naval vessels?

JONATHAN FINER: So, you’re referring to the announcement that was made on – on Friday, where the United States and our Pentagon said that we are moving a carrier, an aircraft carrier group to the region and some additional air assets. That is entirely focused on defending Israel against potential threats it may face. And out of our desire to both deter those threats, defend against them and ultimately deescalate this situation and avoid it sliding into a regional war. We, obviously, had a very close call on a broader regional conflict on April 13th when the United States worked very closely with Israel and with our other partners and allies to defeat a threat and an attack that Iran made against Israel. And – and should that situation arise again, we want to be prepared to do it.

But the overall goal is to turn the temperature down in the region, deter and defend against those attacks, and avoid regional conflict, which has been our goal really since October 7th.

ED O’KEEFE: I want to talk to you a little bit about the prison swap from this past week. The president and Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, were especially focused on the case of Marc Fogel, an American schoolteacher still being detained by Russia. Why was he left out of this deal? And is it realistic to think he can be home by the end of the Biden administration?

JONATHAN FINER: So, I want to say a few things.

One, predictions about future events like this is – is not a business I want to be in. But we think about Marc Fogel every single day. And not open think about him, we work on his case every single day. And we are going to do what we can to try to bring Marc home as soon as possible. We’ve worked to try to get Marc included in the deal that consummated last week, and we are right back at it to try to get Marc back to the United States and united with his family. Beyond that, I don’t want to get into the details.

ED O’KEEFE: Well, more specifically, what is the administration doing to ensure that the next Marc Fogel or Paul Whelan or Evan Gershkovich isn’t captured, either in Russia or elsewhere?

JONATHAN FINER: It’s a really good and important question, Ed. And we’re doing a few things that are novel in this administration. One is, we have created a list of countries for which there is a heightened alert for Americans who travel there, that they may be detained unlawfully or wrongfully, and we draw a lot of attention to places where we do not think Americans should travel for exactly that reason.

Second, and this came about in work with Congress and under a statute called the Levinson Act, which has been passed, there are new sanctions authorities available to the U.S. government against countries and officials who conduct these sorts of wrongful or unlawful detentions. And we will deploy those as well, as well as the kind of public messaging that we’ve just been discussing ability where Americans should and should not travel. Beyond that, we have also been clear, though, that the United States will work to get Americans in these terrible situations home and reunited with their families.

ED O’KEEFE: I want to bring you to a situation in this hemisphere, in Venezuela specifically. The situation quite grim. The secretary of state on Friday said that the opposition candidate won more votes than Nicolas Maduro. He also spoke with opposition leaders. Did the opposition candidate, Edmundo Gonzales Urrutia win that election?

JONATHAN FINER: Hey, look, we’ve been quite clear about that, that Edmundo Gonzales got the most votes in this election. And what I think is interesting about the current moment is that you have seen very few countries come out and ratify what the Maduro regime has claimed, which is that it won the election. You’ve seen a number of countries take a position that we’ve taken, based on a whole range of factors, not just what the opposition claims, but exit polls, quick counts that took place based on a significant percentage of actual data, tally sheets, from precinct level voting places in Venezuela that suggest not only that Edmundo Gonzales won, but that he won with a – quite a considerable margin.

And so what we are focused on now is conveying to the regime that it needs to focus on – if it believes that it won this election, showing its work, showing the data, which it has refused to do. And I think we know the reasons why that is the case.

And if not, embark on a transition back to democratic norms in Venezuela. We are working very closely with key countries in the region that have influence in Venezuela to try to stay on the same page and build a coalition for a process that will ultimately lead back to a transition to democracy in Venezuela. That’s been our goal from the minute this administration arrived.

ED O’KEEFE: But given that Maduro is likely to stay in power, at least for now, is the United States anticipating another influx of migrants from Venezuela?

JONATHAN FINER: I guess we’ll have to see how that all plays out. One of the things that we’ve been quite clear about as well is that the detention of anyone involved in protesting peacefully against what the regime has claimed is not acceptable to us. We are concerned about the prospect of instability should there continue to be these detentions. And we believe that the regime should do the right thing, acknowledge the actual results of this election and embark on the process of transition back to democratic norms.

ED O’KEEFE: All right, Deputy National Security Adviser Jonathan Finer, thank you for your time. We’ll talk to you again soon.

JONATHAN FINER: Thanks very much, Ed.

ED O’KEEFE: And we’ll be back in a moment.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

ED O’KEEFE: For some political analysis, including more from our latest CBS News poll, we’re joined now by “Cook Political Report” editor in chief Amy Walter, making her FACE THE NATION debut, “Semafor” political reporter Kadia Goba, CBS News senior White House correspondent Weijia Jiang, and our director of elections and services Anthony Salvanto is back with us as well.

Anthony shared the top line numbers a little earlier, Weijia, suggesting that we are back to a tie and that there’s certainly some wind at the back of the vice president. How is the Harris campaign planning to capitalize on this newfound enthusiasm?

WEIJIA JIANG: Well, this week she’s going to be getting a lot of miles, Ed, crisscrossing the country, going right to battleground states with her running mate. Of course, we don’t know exactly who that is yet. But whoever it is going to be will be at her side and they really want to use this week to, as you mentioned, drum up even more energy, even more enthusiasm, because they know it’s a fleeting moment.

I mean we were in a fundraiser with the vice president and she was very direct and said, look, we are the underdogs. Despite what the polls say, despite what we’re seeing at rallies, we still have a lot of work to do. So, you know, they’re trying to use what they can and use this big announcement to really set that up.

ED O’KEEFE: And, Amy, you wrote in a recent piece that despite this shift in polling, and the enthusiasm for the vice president, the fundamentals of the race are still leaning in Trump’s direction. Remind the viewer why.

AMY WALTER (Publisher and Editor in Chief, “Cook Political Report”): Yes. And Anthony also highlighted this too –

ED O’KEEFE: Yes.

AMY WALTER: She is new and yet she’s not new. She’s new to a lot of voters. She’s not defined very well in the minds of a lot of voters. But she is the incumbent. And the incumbent party right now has a lot of baggage, notably the frustration about the state of the economy, what we saw in the CBS poll, what we’re seeing in the other polling like “The Wall Street Journal” poll where Donald Trump still has a sizable lead on who do you think would do a better job on the economy, who would do a better job on handling the border. On the question of who has better temperament to be president, Harris has a significant advantage there.

ED O’KEEFE: Yes.

AMY WALTER: And this was the case that the Biden campaign had been making for months and months and months, right? If we can make this election a referendum on Trump rather than about a referendum on the state – the current state of the economy, then we have a real opportunity to win here.

What Harris has been able to do is not just get the energy up among the base, but the focus is now back on to Donald Trump. And thanks to this interview here, the reminder that when the focus does go back on to Donald Trump, it doesn’t always end well for the campaign. And the campaign message.

ED O’KEEFE: And I – I thought it was telling. The one thing I heard Senator Cotton saying is, you know, everyone else in recent years has had to go through years of this or months of this, town hall meetings and interviews and, you know, big stories written about – she’s doing this in 90 days. In essence trying to set the table for, once again, it was unfair for us. And that’s kind of what I’m hearing her – I don’t know if you’re hearing that at all because you hear from Republicans.

KADIA GOBA (Politics Reporter, “Semafor”): Yes. Yes. Definitely it’s coming out of the Trump campaign saying that she, you know, was handed the election. And I think it’s just part of this setup to probably say that the election wasn’t fair if Republic – if Donald Trump doesn’t win. We’ve been seeing this, and also just how they’re categorize everything.

But there is a race to kind of define her at this point. And the race is between the Harris campaign and the Trump campaign, right? Trump is on the stump post talking about, you know, questioning her identity, her racial identity, but also the Harris people need to, you know, push forward with this. This little bump that we see is coming from her base.

ED O’KEEFE: Right.

KADIA GOBA: Or young voters that she’s been able to convince or, you know, rally. She needs to – independent voters are the people who are going to decide this race, and she needs to, you know, I don’t know if the prosecutor’s move is what they want to hear.

ED O’KEEFE: For – the subject of her early advertising.

KADIA GOBA: Yes.

ED O’KEEFE: Reminding people that she was an attorney general.

AMY WALTER: We need to watch her advertising and the – you know, the – what the campaigns say, what the candidates say is really important, but what their ads are saying, what they – it’s telling you really what they want the campaign to be about.

ED O’KEEFE: Right.

AMY WALTER: And Harris is not just leaning into the prosecutor, but about the economy. She’s talking a great deal about that. So, they understand that if Trump has a double-digit lead on who’s doing a better job on the economy, that’s going to be really tough for them to overcome.

ED O’KEEFE: Now, we are sitting here with bated breath waiting to figure out who on earth she’s going to pick to be her running mate. The poll has some sense of what Democrats broadly are looking for, right?

ANTHONY SALVANTO: Yes. It’s a lot of things because, you know, people have their wants and then you kind of turn them into strategists a little bit. So, one of the things we asked is, you know, should it be somebody from a battleground state. And there’s a high percentage who say, yes, it should be. And there’s also a split between those who want to see a moderate and those who want to see a liberal.

In the abstract, that’s the kind of thing that happens. But it also goes back to this point about what people don’t know about Harris. Obviously, this is a first big decision that people will see her make. And there’s still that one in five people when we ask, do you feel you know enough about her yet or do you feel like you still can know more? This is one of those telling moments where it’s going to be, OK, this is part of that knowing more is this decision.

ED O’KEEFE: So, Weijia, how are they approaching this decision?

WEIJIA JIANG: Well, this is a very short timeframe for the vice president. What has been communicated very clearly is that we should actually not expect a decision by the end of the weekend because she’s been on the road. She’s been very busy with small windows to really focus on this monumental decision. And so, you know, we know that she is meeting in person with at least three Democratic governors at her residence here in Washington today. We also know that she’s having interviews in person and virtually with people who are not in the media, who are not confirmed as big, you know, headliners because she is taking this extremely seriously.

ED O’KEEFE: To underscore, what you’re saying is, there are names that have not been mentioned in the press who are being interviewed?

WEIJIA JIANG: Mentioned in the context of going to the naval observatory today –

ED O’KEEFE: Got it (ph).

WEIJIA JIANG: And sitting down with her face to face because, you know, just – it’s easy to assume, well, that must mean they’re on the shortest of the short list, but that’s not the case.

ED O’KEEFE: Right.

WEIJIA JIANG: So, you know, she doesn’t have a lot of time. Aides have been really frustrated. They wish that – they wish they had much more time. But this is the way this has all played out.

So, one thing I’ve observed from the vice president is what really matters to her is her rapport with people, is chemistry. So, it might just come down to that. But, at the end of the day, we all know it’s who’s going to help her win and who’s going to bring to the ticket what Joe Biden is leaving behind. So that’s a –

ED O’KEEFE: And yet historically, ultimately –

AMY WALTER: We don’t – yes, does it matter? Does it not matter? It usually is not as significant. We – we love it because we love politics and this is part of our day-to-day life. I don’t think for voters, they’re not viewing who they’re voting for president through the lens of the vice president.

But what it does do, especially for people who don’t know much about Kamala Harris, it’s her first major decision that she’s making as an executive, so tells you about her – not just her thought process but the kind of person she wants to lead with. And for somebody who’s not very well defined, to have somebody, whoever she picks, the definition of that person is also going to help define her.

So, right now you see the Trump campaign leaning into, she’s liberal, she’s way too liberal. Picking somebody who’s more moderate or centrist, the goal then, of course, would be to say, oh, well, there’s some guardrails around that. And that was a lot of the discussion we were all having before Trump made his pick, right? Is he going to pick somebody who’s going to put the guardrails around Trump for voters who say, I don’t know, Trump’s personality, his style it’s a little much for me. Instead, Trump leaned right – I mean went way into somebody who had those same style, that same personality, that MAGA sort of thing.

KADIA GOBA: Yes, to your point, he said that in the interview at NABJ the other day. He –

ED O’KEEFE: Let’s pause. I have that footage that I want to show people. Let’s play what he had to say about J.D. Vance. (BEGIN VC)

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Historically, the vice president, in terms of the election, does not have any impact. I mean virtually no impact. You have two or three days where there’s a lot of commotion as to who – like you’re having it on the Democrat side, who it’s going to be. And then that dies down and it’s all about the presidential pick. Virtually never has it mattered.

(END VC)

ED O’KEEFE: Not exactly singing Vance’s praises there.

KADIA GOBA: No, it wasn’t. And, you know, leading up to the pick before he was announced, Republicans were kind of split on this. I had heard a lot of them saying, well, J.D. Vance, as long as it’s not J.D. Vance because he brings nothing to the ticket.

On the other side people said, well, they liked his background. They liked he was this guy, came from nothing, now he’s a senator.

But also, I mean, either way, for a presidential nominee to say that about his running mate is pretty detrimental. Whether it’s – he might very well be, you know, accurate, but it’s kind of like interesting to say that.

WEIJIA JIANG: Well, especially because all you have to look at is what we’ve been talking about with regard to the Republican ticket since Vance was named, which is his comments from a few years ago about single cat ladies, which is how weird he is. So, it’s taking away from Trump, and that is an impact in and of itself.

ED O’KEEFE: You were one of the three that questioned him at this National Association of Black Journalist events. He questioned whether or not the vice president is black. Though, obviously, the biggest attention was devoted to that.

Who do you think he’s trying to reach by saying that?

KADIA GOBA: I don’t think he – that was a plan at all. I honestly question whether or not that is a talking point that’s going forward. Because when I talk to Republicans, they say that they don’t want to step into this conversation about race at all. I think that was – it could have been him just going off the cuff there.

You know, it’s funny because when I interviewed him, I didn’t expect that reaction from him. When I interviewed him in June, he had a lot of different things to say, and I was – welcomed this opportunity because I thought, hey, I’ll get him on some questions he didn’t talk – answer back then. Did not anticipate him going off the rails like that.

ED O’KEEFE: It was a fantastic read. All about his relationship with guys like Mike Tyson and Don King.

KADIA GOBA: Yes.

ED O’KEEFE: And how his relationship with African Americans was rooted in that.

KADIA GOBA: Yes.

ED O’KEEFE: The controversy about whether he should have been there or not, where do you stand on whether or not he should be questioned in that kind of setting?

KADIA GOBA: I mean he’s a Republican nominee. For years the National Association of Black Journalists have encouraged presidential candidates to come there. Having had a Republican since George W. Bush. So, no, that was a great opportunity to question him.

ED O’KEEFE: We’ve got to leave it there, unfortunately.

But Kadia, Weijia, Amy, Anthony, we sit with bated breath on the running mate decision. We will see where this poll takes us next. Thank you all for being here and we’ll be right back.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

ED O’KEEFE: That’s it for us today. Thank you for watching. Until next week, for FACE THE NATION, I’m Ed O’Keefe.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

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