>> brennan: today on "face the nation." the trump white house wind up another week filled with turmoil, chaos and confusion on controversial policies and embattled personnel. one campaign rival south carolina republican lindsey graham is now a trump ally. what does he think of the upheaval? we'll ask him. west virginia democrat joe manchin is a moderate from a red state and he's trying to work with the president on new gun control laws. he'll be with us. white house trade policy advisor peter navarro will explain how the president's surprise deal and tariffs will impact our economy and trade with foreign countries. plus andrew pollack the father of one of the 14 students killed in the marjorie stoneman douglas high school shooting made an emotional plea at the white house last month. >> i'm pissed.

my daughter i'm not going to see again. she's not here merry christmas are the politicians listening we'll see what he thinks. cbs news seth doane will take us inside syria for a closer look at the assad regime brutal attacks on rebel held area outside damascus. also plenty of analysis on all the news ahead on "face the nation." captioning sponsored by cbs good morning and welcome to "face the nation" i'm margaret brennan. the trump administration has seen turbulent weeks before but this one left washington reeling. on the policy front the president endorsed position on gun control that appeared to be more in step with democrats, confusing republicans and the nra. in a free wheeling televised meeting with lawmakers he suggested that when it came to potential threat -- >> go through due process. >> brennan: that would be unconstitutional. he endorsed the bill tightening background checks at gun shows

proposed by pennsylvania republican and democrat joe manchin. and demanded to know why it didn't in clued raising the purchase age for some weapons to 21. >> we didn't address it -- because you're afraid of the nra, right? >> brennan: the president insisted he wasn't afraid of the nra but after meet meeting with their top lobbyist, he backed off and the nra said he agreed with them. republicans downplayed the president's evolving position. >> you may have noticed that interesting reality tv show at the white house. >> brennan: but the president had another surprise policy announcement. this one also supported by some democrats. >> we'll be imposing tariffs on steel imports and tariffs on aluminum imports. it witness be 25% steel. it will be 10%. >> brennan: republicans weren't the only ones unhappy with that the stock market dropped 500 points. u.s. trading partners were furious even the "wall street journal" called it the biggest

policy blunder of his presidency. the president responded in a tweet that, trade wars are good and easy to win. he later threatened to tax european carxd imports. on the personnel front president trump publicly blasted attorney general jeff sessions again and new press reports revived an old rumor. that national security advisor h.r. mcmaster was on his way out. following a day of questioning by lawmakers investigating russian collusion, the president's longest serving aide hope hicks announced her departure from the west wing. jared kushner's security clearance was downgraded, as the fbi continues to look into his business dealings. and on friday the "new york times" record that the president has privately asked white house chief of staff kelly for his help in moving them, meaning jared and ivanka out. also a rough week admitting to reporters had not properly handled the security clearance issues and kelly aggravated the president when he joked at a

celebration for his former department. >> the last thing i wanted to do was walk away from one of the great, secretary of homeland security. but did i something wrong god punished me i guess. >> brennan: at an off-camera press dinner last night the president made light of the chaos joking that it's been another calm week at the white house. and it's finally running like a fine-tuned machine. with that we begin with south carolina republican senator lindsey graham joins us from clemson, south carolina. >> you got to be kidding me. >> brennan: senator, where do we begin here? do you have a message to the president after this week? >> yes. as to guns, you have an obligation to give you a package to consider regarding school safety and guns, you did a good job talking in front of the country about the problem. come up with solutions that are bipartisan. propose something,

mr. president, i think republicans have obligation to work with democrats to make it law if we can. that's to be. on trade, you correctly identified the problem of china dumping steel throughout the world to destroy the american. solution let china off the hook only going to hurt american consumers and our allies, please reconsider your solution. >> brennan: on the issue of personnel confusion and some policy poll fusion that you referred to -- >> could help you on the personnel front. >> brennan: do you have faithish chief of staff john kelly now rumors once again about the fate of the national security advisor, h.r. mcmaster, are you confident in him? >> i'm very confident in h.r. mcmaster i think he's learned as much about the war on terror from fighting it than anybody that i know. i think he's really smart on north korean, iran, i hope president will keep him around but up to the president. he can fire anybody he likes but i have lot of confidence in general mcmaster. john kelly has created order out

of chaos initially, it's back sliding but i think john kelly is the right guy to continue to help the president organize his agenda, have a lot of faith and trust in john kelly, hope he stays. >> brennan: you just came back from the middle east, given the concerns about jared kushner's security clearance bubble being downgraded do you think that he can possibly lead this middle east peace policy push without the full security clearance? >> the last thing on my mind right now is the peace process. we're about to have a war between isreal and hazy and southern lebanon. eye ran is winning and we're losing. i went to israel and jordan, the king of jordan is under siege, plus we have no policy regarding the russian-iranian access, southern lebanon is a rocket-launching site against israel. they are developing precise precise-guided weapons. i would focus on iran rather than pushing the peace process.

if we don't come up with a strategy against iran we're going to make israel go to war here pretty soon with hazy elements in southern elements. >> the out growth of the war in syria, president was very clear, we're there this get rid of isis and get out does he need to rethat are, how do you fix the problem you identified? >> i said he did not want to turn iran over -- syria over to iran. we don't have a strategy to contain iran. they are about to take over damascus. he's done a good job fighting isil. hezbollah supplying supplied have over 100,000 missiles pointed at isreal. they have suffered. if we don't pushy ran out and come up with annie groom in that gives syria back to the syrians with war never ends. mr. president is just not about defeating isil if you leave syria in the hands of russia and the iranians this war never ends and our friend in israel will

hurt. >> brennan: do you know where the president's red line is with chemical weapons which they continue. >> i thought i did. clearly he did use chemical weapons yet again. what i'd like to see is no fly zone inside of syria where people can go back to syria from the surrounding neighborhood and we would train syrian democratic forces to take assad on. tell the russians and iranians if you bomb these people you do so at your own peril and try to level out the chaos in syria, to go geneva to get a peace agreement. you'll never get an agreement in geneva as long as assad is winning on the battlefield. our policy in syria is a complete mess. we're awol when it comes to containing russia and iran and syria that's a real threat. >> brennan: get back to what you referred to there in regard to the president's surprise announcement on trade tariffs on steel and aluminum. bmw has largest plant in the world in your home state now president is talking about

putting taxes on european cars. >> right. >> brennan: what are you going to tell the president to do? are you calling for a full reversal? >> bad idea. here is what i would tell the president. the reason our steel industry has been decimated because of china jump dumping. china produce more steel than the world consumes for several years in a row. china is your -- taxing european car imports hurts bmw because they can do the same thing to us. bmw makes more cars in greenville, south carolina, than any plant in the entire bmw family. volkswagen has come to south carolina. we got a steel plant in south carolina, we make more tires than any place in the united states. 32% of the tires exported from the night states comes from south carolina. this tariff on steel is going to hurt them. >> brennan: you want president to be more targeted at beijing and perhaps certain countries? >> letting china off the hook. china wins when we fight with europe. china wins when the american

consumer has higher prices because of tariffs that don't affectñi china. look book to the transpacific partnership. hit them on intellectual property theft. hit them about steel dumping. china is winning and we're losing with this tariff regime. you're letting china off the hook, you're punishing the american consumer and am lice. making a huge mistake here. go after china not the rest of the world. >> brennan: you seem to think there was something possible to get done i understand you're introducing a bill this week regarding so-called red flag policy that would allow authorities to seize guns before people commit violence. what kind of prospects do you see for this? >> really good prospects. the president did a good job talking about we should be able to do something to top shootings like this. we tell our citizens if you see something, say something. everybody saw something, everybody said something, but the government did nothing. so under this bill you could go

to federal judge, law enforcement people, family members could, petition for restraining order when you got to make the case, give due process, this person is about to blow up here. they're becoming mentally unstable. create system that would intervene, this guy was visited by the cops 30 times, people called the fbi nobody did a damn thing. so this bill would allow judges to take guns away from a guy like this before it's too late. i hope the president will get behind this because it worked in indiana that's -- >> brennan: very quickly, any idea as republican leadership will take this to the floor and controversial issue in an election year? >> if we don't we're going to get hurt because most americans believe we should solve problems that americans are facing like gun violence and school safety problems. if we don't take this up and if democrats don't work with us, we'll all suffer. we should. >> brennan: all right. senator lindsey graham thank you for joining us this morning. from south carolina. we turn to senator joe manchin

he is democrat from west virginia, state that gave candidate donald trump 68% of the vote and has the fourth highest gun ownership rate in the country. senator, welcome to the show. i know you are trying to do something. >> yes. >> brennan: on gun control. you were with the president this week, do you have any idea what the vote count is on the bill you're putting -- >> first of all it's not gun control it's gun sense. i introduced a bill in 2013, pat was my cosponsor we worked together on this. and we protected the second amendment rights. we protected law abiding gun owners. all we defense go in to the loopholes that the gun shows, on internet sales, commercial transactions when you don't know people. and make sure that we do that background check before youñi he that gun. >> brennan: that bill did not cross the threshold back in 2013. where are the votes now? >> excuse me. p president trump would have been president in 2013 that would have -- the bill would

have passed. i'm very hopeful. president trump has said, background checks is needed. this bill of ours, the manchin-toomey bill should work off of it. john cornyn had a fix. but this makes gun sense, it makes common sense. it keeps it out of the hands of the wrong people. when the terrorists go on website, if you want to do marm in america go down to the gun show, buy what you want. that's all we're saying that you have to respect the law abiding gun owner they're not going to sell the gun to straikers or criminals or terrorist. they're going to do the right thing. but when you don't know 'em and transaction is commercial you should make sure you have a background check that's all we've said. i think we can with a president, he can -- president trump coming forth something like this putting his support will give republicans enough cover to support this and most reasonable, responsible way. >> brennan: you don't have the --

>> no, we had a great meeting on wednesday i know the nra said they had a great meeting on thursday f. we both had great meetings, can't we come to get a good great result from those meetings? and do something that's supporting and protecting our children and we have school, we have to have school lock downs, school security, that has to be done. mentalñr background, making sure the bill that lindsey is talking about is very good. when people say something they come forth we should act upon that. >> brennan: the president called out your partner on this bill said that pat toomy was afraid of the nra because you didn't include an increase in the age limit for purchases of some weapons in this bill. are you actually going to consider include can that? >> the age is a no brainer. >> brennan: you are going to -- >> but again going to take the president's support to put that in to the bill to make sure we can get the votes to pass it. >> brennan: this provision isn't there right now. >> provision was not in there, it was not brought up at that time. that's the only reason it wasn

wasn't. it wasn't brought to our attention that that was a criteria that we should say, your handguns at 21, long guns or the assault rifles are at 1 that wasn't considered. we were just trying to move the ball forward say listen, background checks, just at gun shows and on internet makes gun sense, it's common sense. couldn't even get that. when he said, didn't put that in there it wasn't considered because it wasn't brought up to that level. >> brennan: you're very specific in what you're proposing. but broadly speaking are you concerned that this push among democrats for more gun regulation could hurt your own personal prospects? >> it will stop everything. i'm not going to take the guns away from any law abiding gun owner i'm going to protect the second amendment right. but we have to make sure that we're moving in a way that we can bet something accomplished. how do you security the schools. how do we make sure that the children -- only fear child should have, did they do their homework and are they ready for

the test? that's what they should be scared of. they shouldn't be scared of their safety. we've got to make sure that we do that. mental -- so many things that contribute to this. but to have an open system where you can go to a gun show and to go a table that's not by federal licensed dealer buy whatever you want without anyone asking one question needs to be stopped. >> brennan: i want to ask you about trade. do you support the president's proposal? >> i like where the president is going on this. i really do. west virginia, we've lost thousands and thousands of jobs. >> brennan: 25 owned 10% tariff. >> i think that the end of the day we'll come to whatñi is responsible. if someone is charging united states of america 25% for us to send our goods to their shores and they're coming into our market at 5%. don't you think they should be tit for tat should be equal. we talked about fair trade.

free trade wasn't worked well for west virginia. we've lost thousands of jobs. we're taking about fairness to the system. >> brennan: concerns about trickle down cost, price going up, you've dismissed that? >> that's wall street talking. that's all wall street talking. i know exactly. follow the money. that's what is talking here. the people in main street we got hurt. we've lost good jobs with benefits we can't compete. when you have china producing 50% of the world's steel, you have united states of america basically as consuming largest importer of steel, put the dots together, lindsey talked about. that connect the dots we've got to do something. but also she wouldn't punish our favorite trading nation, we have surpluses with them. there's not a negative trade war. >> brennan: i want to ask you because you sit on intelligence committee, three dozen white house officials have their security clearances downgraded this week. does it concern you how the white house is handling classified? >> the consideration, sitting on

the intel committee, 15 of us. we captain even discuss with the other 85 senators what we talk about and what we understand and what we learn. that tells you how serious it is, top secret information that we're able to have access. to this is very serious, i have faith in john kelly that he will get this under control. it is of serious concern, something has to be done. and we have to get those people in responsible position with the clearance as quickly as we can f. there is a problem you can't get through it, then they're going to have to make some decisions. >> brennan: senator manchin, appreciate it. we'll be back in one minute to talk with one of the president's key trade advisors. stay with us.

>> i'm surprised anyone was surprised by this. this goes back to april when the president directed the secretary of commerce to investigate what is severe just threat to our aluminum and steel industry. gone to many meetings, secretary of commerce came out with two reports in january. president has been talking about this am the way back to the campaign trail. >> brennan: these rates are they set in stone is president going to sign on them? >> schedule these are going -- new office of council, we expect probably by the end of the week that these will be signed. president at that thursday meeting which was a beautiful event to, give you context, this is a serious decision to make. president wanted to make a measured decision and so he brought in the executives from the steel and aluminum

industries, went around the room, gave everybody an opportunity. you know what happened. he asked them what they thought. they liked tariffs better than quota, they wanted it across the board. wanted open ended so that would encourage maximum investment. >> brennan: you're right. steel and aluminum ceos love? but those who use it in their products, car makers are saying they're going to be increased cost to them they may pass those on to consumers what are your projection on that? >> my projection is there is negligible. let me just give you numbers. six pack of beer or coke. aluminum, cent and a half at the most in terms of cost. the other end of the spectrum one of the greatest planes, the boeing 77, $330 millionaire craft, 10% tariff on aluminum raises the cost by $25,000. >> brennan: is boeing giving that you number or your calculation. >> it's a good number.

>> brennan: in terms of trickle down to consumer you think some of these companies that the costs go up they're going to eat it not pass it along to every day americans 1234. >> that's a great point in and of itself. but even if they don't eat it, i think the american people are willing to pay a cent and half more for six pack of beer in order to have aluminum steel industry. i think this is the most important point about these two particular action because different from a lot of things we're doing on trade. the president said, correctly, that we don't have a country unless we have an aluminum industry and steel industry. i can tell you right now that aluminum is on life support. we lost six smelters since 2013, down to five smelters, only two of them are at full capacity. we want 4 3% capacity rate and we only ha one that makes high aluminum for defense applications. >> brennan: your concern because of over supply and dumping by china, president mentioned that last week. why not target the sanctions

towards -- tariffs towards beijing? are you going to have exemptions or carve out for any countries? >> that's not the way to look at this particular problem. the problem here simply that i am efforts are coming in -- imports are come in putting our aluminum companies out of business and steel companies out of business. since 2000 we've lost 75,000 steelworkers and countless facilities. >> you don't want to target beijing? >> this is not a china problem. we have plenty of issues with china, we have an investigation where they are stealing intellectual property, forcing technology transfer. it's a china problem in that as senator manchin said earlier, china controls 5 5% of the aluminum market and about 50% of the steel market. you go back to 2000. aluminum we were the largest aluminum producer in the world. today we have 1.5% of global marketshare, china's got 55%.

what happens is, when they overproduce put pressure on the whole market it's not a china problem. you can't get from here to beijing and solve this problem, what you want to do for national security -- >> brennan: the economy and markets are things are going well. >> wouldn't that be the best time to do that? this -- look, the president going back 20 years has identified problems with the loss of our manufacturing, defense and industrial base that's what we're doing here. we need an aluminum industry and steel industry the president stood up against the swamp giving the people -- >> brennan: we'll wait to get those details later this week. thank you, we'll be back in a moment. om any well instantly. so they can analyze trends and stop potential problems in their tracks. because safety is never being satisfied and always working to be better. hey ron! they're finally taking down that schwab billboard. oh, not so fast, carl. ♪

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>> brennan: we'll be right back with a lot more "face the nation."

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