captioning sponsored by cbs >> brennan: it's sunday, february 24th. i'm margaret brennan, and this is "face the nation." as north korean leader kim jong-un and president trump prepare for a second summit, speculation about special counsel robert mueller's report intensifies. president trump reached his conclusion the day the investigation was opened, and he is sticking to it. >> it's one of the greatest hoaxes ever perpetrated on this country. >> brennan: but a former top adviser to the president predicts the report will trigger "a real meat grinder." >> i think that 2019 will be the most vitriolic year in american politics since before the civil war. >> brennan: we'll talk to a republican on the senate intelligence committee, missouri's roy blunt, and we'll ask massachusetts democrat ed

markey, a key voice on north korea policy in the senate, about the prospects of any real results out of that summit with kim jong-un. and as administration officials assess what funds can be used for the president's border emergency, house democrats try to stop it. illinois republican congressman adam kinzinger joins us. he's just back from national guard service at the border. we'll also check in with two democratic governors who oppose the president's emergency to build his wall. >> we got to bust threw some walls to make changes. >> brennan: new mexico governor michelle lujan grisham and likely 2020 presidential candidate washington governor jay inslee. all of that and more ahead on "face the nation." >> brennan: good morning and welcome to "face the nation." with the president headed to vietnam this week, the release of the mueller report appears to be on hold.

but speculation about what's in that report continues. yesterday cbs news correspondent seth doane spoke with former white house chief strategist steve bannon near the vatican. bannon ce francis, was on the sidelines of the papal summit on sex abuse. we'll have a report on that conference later, but first, seth questioned steve bannon about the mueller investigation. >> i was someone that told the president many, many times that he should not fire james comey, that i thought that this collusion investigation was a lot of nonsense and was going to come to naught. now, i happen to think that the president of the united states had full rights and authority to fire comey. i think you'll see a lot of stuff in the mueller report. i believe that a deal with potential obstruction of justice, and it will come down to decisions that people think the president of the united states as chief law enforcement officer has the right to make those decisions or not. but i have been adamant that the collusion thing to me was always

essentially a nothing burger in that the comey investigation should have just played out. >> reporter: looking ahead to come pain 2020, do you think president trump will see a primary contend center. >> definitely from the center from the republican party moderates and from the left of the republican party. >> reporter: can he stand up to that? >> i think it will be symbolic. i don't think it will be serious. i think the next 90 days will be a real meat grinder. you have the mueller report coming out. you have what's happening on this investigation, the southern district of new york. you have other investigations going on. the pressure on the president is coming from many different angles. you already see it from the reports these democrats have been dropping. i think now they control the house, they can weaponize this. they can weaponize the mueller report. i think that 2019 is going to be the most vitriolic year in american politics since before the civil war. and i include vietnam in that. i think we're in for a very nasty 2019.

i think what comes out on the other side of that, then you can position yourself in 2020. >> reporter: you think the president can come out of 2019 in a much weaker position in. >> no, i think he comes out in a much more battle-hardened position. i think it will be a tough four or five months for the president, for the team around him, but i think it will get him focused. >> reporter: do you think the rnc is doing enough to protect mr. trump? >> look, i had a good experience with the rnc during the campaign. i'm a little disappointed in 2018. i think the focus should have been on the house. i think there's no reason we should have lost the house. i think the rnc and the trump campaign should have maniacally focused on the house to make sure we weren't in the situation with these investigations and the ability to weaponize the mueller report. so they have to get better than they were in '18. '18 i think they let the president down. they have to get better for '20. i think every indication, they are. >> brennan: bannon also says as of now he has zero doubt the president will run again, but he

stressed that we are about to enter an extraordinary time in american politics. we begin with missouri republican senator roy blunt, who sits on the intelligence committee, which has been conducting their own investigation into russian meddling in the 2016 campaign. it certainly feels extraordinary, senator, in terms of the time we are in, but you heard steve bannon there say that he thinks the meat of this mueller report is going to be about obstruction of justice. have you felt any pressure from the president when it comes to the senate investigation? >> i have not. we have been involved in that investigation now for almost two years. i think we've -- most of the members on the intelligence committee have been very thoughtful in the way they approach both the president and the administration on this issue. i think the pressure from the president is the same pressure we all feel, which is let's get this over with. it would have been the reason not to slow down the investigation, as mr. bannon said, to change the leaders, but

at the same time, when you look at how director comey had handled things the previous year with the clinton investigation, the determination, i'm going to say she did a lot of bad things, but none of them are worthy of indictment, one of those two things was a mistake, but probably the biggest mistake was not reporting directly to the attorney general rather than to take this new obligation on himself to decide what was right and what was wrong. so i understand that, but i have always been of the view that anything that slows down the investigation is not a good thing, that we need to get the facts out there, get this behind us in a way that people thought that anybody that should have been talked to was talked to, any question that should have been asked was asked. and we've been trying to do that in the senate committee i think in a very appropriate way. remember, cohen, who will be testifying both to our committee privately and the house i think publicly next week. >> brennan: the president's long-time fixer.

>> one of the charges against hill was lying to investigators when he was asked questions. that's totally unacceptable. >> brennan: so he's lied to congress last time. he's admitted that. why are you having him back? why do you believe him this time? >> i don't know if we believe him this time. the reason you have him back, when somebody lies to congress, the questions you might have asked the next witness don't get asked. somebody you might have called doesn't get called. it's serious well beyond whatever cohen might have said in that you misdirect the investigation. that's why it's so important that those kinds of charges be taken very seriously, and obviously they are. he's going to go to jail because of it. >> brennan: do you have any concerns that your investigation is too narrow? michael cohen is now working with manhattan prosecutors on some financial crimes and questions about inaugural committee, which as you heard steve bannon says is a bigger issue, he thinks. >> i think, margaret, the problem with all these investigation, which is why we don't do that totally independent special counsel

anymore, democrats and republicans let that lapse, is not that they're too narrow, but they get too broad. i'm not sure that george washington's expense account could stand up against the entire force of the federal government if you looked at everything related to everything as opposed to really focusing on what was supposed to be the charge here, which is collusion. our chairman, chairman burr said two or three weeks ago that we have so far found no evidence of collusion, and you can see everybody backpedaling now, house and senate both, on the idea that collusion's going to be in the report. they want to come up with lots of other things that i think are going to be much more arguable than a purifieding of -- pure finding of collusion because i don't think it's there. >> brennan: senator burr said, "if it were written now, there's no collusion, bats but as you said, your committee is still investigating. >> we would like more access to

the mueller investigation before we coming to a final conclusion. his report will help us write our final report. we've given mueller full access to all of our interviews, all of our investigation. we haven't had that reciprocated. so we'll soon find out what else is out there that we might not know about. >> brennan: well, on that report, the house intel chairman, adam schiff, told abc thinks morning that democrats are going to subpoena that mueller report if it is not made public and to expect that the special counsel will be called to testify. should we expect him to testify in front of the senate? can you actually enforce a subpoena to get the justice department to do something they refuse to do in the first place? >> i don't know that you can. you know, the new attorney general, bill barr, was very specific on this when asked during his confirmation what should happen, what should be released, what shouldn't be released. should you release things you find out that don't lead to an indictment or might not lead to an indictment in the future? should you release things that people did that are merely

embarrassing? you know, again, the weight of the government here is very strong, and people need to think about that when they begin to demand, we need know whatever you found out, whether it led anywhere or not. >> brennan: and we should expect mueller to testify before your committee in public? >> i this i we'll have to wait and see what's in the report. >> brennan: i want to also ask you about this declaration in the national emergency that the president made. do you think republican leadership in the senate will allow for a vote on a resolution to try to block emergency declaration? we know the house is moving forward. >> brennan: i don't think we have a choice. i think the way that '74 law was written, the house has a vote and we have to have a vote. it's a privileged motion, if it's written correctly. i don't have any reason to believe they won't write it correctly. >> brennan: how will you vote? >> i don't know yet. i don't like the process. i don't think that the emergency declaration law was written to deal with things that the president asked the congress to do and then the congress didn't do. it's never been used that way before.

i want to look carefully at the law. i want to hear what the president's lawyers have to say about it. i really think the president would have been better served by, one, taking the money that he got in the bill he signed, two, using the transfer authority he had, and i am absolutely confident that those two amounts of money would be more money than could be spent between now and september 30th. i think it's an unfortunate decision. >> brennan: that's practically speaking, but in terms of clarifying what you just said, are you saying it is possible that what the president declared is unconstitutional? >> no. >> brennan: you believe he has full authorities to do this? >> well, i don't know that. >> brennan: to bypass the power of the purse strings of congress to achieve a policy outcome that congress refused to deliver on? >> i think there is a likelihood that he's within the law that congress passed, but, you know, that was long before i got to the congress. i haven't... no president has used that law this way before, and i think we're going to have to evaluate whether this is

really the intention of an emergency. is it really an emergency if, again, the president asks the congress to do it and they fail to, that's different than the way this law has been used in the past. >> brennan: so you could vote to try to block the president from moving forward with this emergency, you just haven't decided yet. is that fair? >> i think that's fair. it's also fair to understand that the president says he'll veto whatever passes the house and senate, so this will be decided in the courts. i think it's highly unlikely that the veto would be overridden in the house and probably not overridden in the senate either one some it's going to be decided in the courts. i think it's a significant court decision. >> brennan: senator, thank you very much. >> by the way, let me say on, this i do agree with what the president is trying to do here. i just think there io tone. >> brennan: an it's anio. so i want to turn now to massachusetts democrat senator ed markey, who is the top

democrat on the senate foreign relations subcommittee responsible for u.s. policy on north korea. before we get, there i'd like do you weigh in on this, this declaration of the national emergency. is congress powerless to stop the president? >> it's a clear usurpation of congressional authority. there will be a resolution of disapproval, which most likely will pass in the house of representatives this week. then it will come over to the united states senate. it's uncertain whether there are enough -- >> brennan: well, the president says he's going to veto it. >> even if there are small handful of republicans who are willing to volt for that resolution of disapproval, the president says he's going to veto it, and then it will come back to the house and senate, and i believe it's highly unlikely that there will be two-thirds of the house and senate who will vote that way given the base support of the republican party for president trump and his actions, and then it will go to the courts.

and i think in the cowrtle we're going to have a very strong case that this is an unconstitutional action by the president in usurping an authority which was deliberately built into the constitution by the founding fathers to ensure that there was a separation of powers, that there was a check and balance on a president so that they could not act unilaterally. >> brennan: that is the bigger point i think for viewers to understand, that this seems all procedural, bureaucratic talk in washington, but that bigger purpose of how our government is supposed to function and how it is is the question here. in the past, under president obama, you were supportive of his use of executive authority on a number of different fronts, including immigration. do you regret that now, and why is it different what president trump -- how he's ewing it. >> the clear difference here is the congress, house and senate, democrats and republicans, just reached an agreement on funding for border security. they just finished it.

they sent it to the president. a president cannot use his executive authority, his emergency authority when none exists, when congress just finished acting on it, when they provided money for the president to provide additional security along the border. so, no, this is a new area that the president -- which president trump has now entered. it's not hurricane katrina, it's not after 9/11. this is something quite substantial, which would have precedential value when a democrat is president. and i think republicans should be very, very cautious in allowing for president trump to take this authority, because it would lead to a very significant diminution of the authority of the congress in the future when any president, democrat or republican, seek to act. >> brennan: north korea, as we said, you watch asia policy very

carefully here. a number of leading national security-minded democrats have released a letter saying that the administration is just not sharing information at all on the diplomacy under way. what are your thoughts on that? what do you need to know? >> well, right now it's pretty clear that kim wants to have a personal meeting with trump with hopes that he can, in fact, illicit con senses from president trump that otherwise might not be possible if it was just our diplomats talking one on one. so i think there's apprehension. in fact, amongst president trump's own diplomats heading into this summit, nothing is clear, and i think as a result we could run the risk that kim is given concessions which are not accompanied by real concessions that the united states is receiving in return from kim and his regime. >> brennan: you're saying the president's going to get played?

>> i think that he has to be very careful going in. he has to make sure -- >> brennan: what does that mean? what is congress most concerned about? is it troops on the peninsula? the president has said he's not looking the withdraw them. >> he's looking far declaration to the end of the korean war. he's looking for other concessions. but i think that in order to be sure that this summit is, in fact, successful, the president should first return with a codification of the freezing of the missile program and a nuclear program in north korea, that testing should not continue. second, there should be a verifiable program of inspection of the entire nuclear program in north korea, and third, that there should be a roadmap, which is put in place to ensure that no concessions made by the united states, for example, in lifting of sanctions, occurs without verifiable evidence that

kim is complying step by step with the dedlearation ofnorth k. >> very quickly, is there a risk to democrats weaponizing the mueller report as bannon accused democrats of doing? >> the responsibility to make sure that there was not a compromise of the presidential election of 2016. if the attorney general takes the mueller report and then sanitizes it and releases that as the answer to a comprehensive investigation, then i think the democrats in the house and senate along with republicans have a responsibility to ensure that the american people know what happened in 2016. what was the relationship between the trump campaign and the russian government? was there any subsequent relationship in the post election period? we don't know the answers to those questions. the mueller report potentially gives us those answers, and it's going to be critical that the

american public knows what happened in 2016. right now everything rides on that mueller report, and the attorney general, william barr, not sanitizing it in a way that is not transparent to the public and the congress, but democrats have a responsibility to do that job. >> brennan: senator markey, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> brennan: we will be right back. the ibm cloud. the cloud that proactively protects your business from threats, instead of just reacting to them. that lets you modernize and move more of your apps without re-writing. that unlocks insights from all your data and puts it to work with ai. get a faster, more secure journey to the cloud. the ibm cloud. the cloud for smarter business. ♪ ♪ welcome to fowler, indiana. one of the windiest places in america. and home to three bp wind farms.

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>> because as everyone ought to be doing, right, i was on the border, and i'm looking and assessing whether or not there is a real emergency or crisis. and there isn't.s that these trs need to be available when there is a serious issue or an emergency to deal with. now, interestingly enough, given the fact that the president's policies along the border, including the wall, have created real issues for humanitarian efforts for asylum seekers. so i did place some national guard, law enforcement, and most importantly, health responders to an area where they're forcing them to come across a really desolate area in the southern part of the state. >> brennan: because you see there the record number of families crossing? >> children and mothers. >> brennan: even though border crossings are at a 50-year low. >> you're asking people the take

a more dangerous journey. they voluntarily give themselves to border patrole king se theht kin rviceson chen d a thoseborder areas in tg ever again in our state. >> brennan: governor, washington state has not brought suit against the administration. that there are about 16 states that have challenged the president's emergency declaration. will you? >> yes. the moment that the administration jeopardizes any federal expenditure in our state, we will file suit, and we feel good about our chances to succeed. we have done. i'm proud to be first governor to sue to stop the muslim ban, and we're happy to rein in this president. we do not have national security emergency. donald trump has a political emergency. he was unable to get mexico to pay for his wall. he does not have the support for either party. and the entire u.s. congress on a bipartisan basis have told him his wall is a colossal mistake.

he ought to be responding to real emergencies like the forest fires. we just came from a meeting with the cabinet members asking for help with the federal government with our forest fires. and climate change is burning down our forest. that's an emergency where we ought to have the help of the federal government. we don't have it. >> and the governor pointed out something really important. for my state it's $150 million that we stand to lose by virtue if his national declaration for an emergency that doesn't exist, and now he's harming our military assets. this doesn't make any sense, and it's completely inappropriate to a state like mine. >> brennan: i'll ask you more about what money he is using, but governor inslee, you said you would be open to declaring a national emergency based on climate. so how do you define when the president has the constitutional authority to declare an emergency if you say on the grounds of the border crisis, as he deems it, it's unconstitutional. >> i believe under our current system of democracy, this action by this plot pwesident is

illegal and unconstitutional. that's what i believe. think republicans ought to stand up on their hind legs, because they took an oath to the constitution, not donald trump, and reverse this decision. if that doesn't happen, we need the judicial system to reverse this decision. but ultimately, in responding to the climate change emergency, we need to work together in the executive and legislative branch, but if there are new rules, the republicans have to understand that democrats will play by whatever the rules are, particularly when it comes to climate change. >> brennan: i'll come back to that because i can't let it sit there, but we are going to have to take a break. you have a few minutes to stay with us, both of you governor, if you would. stay with us. we hope all of you will, too. we'll be back in a moment. crohn's disease, stelara® works differently. studies showed relief and remission, with dosing every 8 weeks. stelara® may lower your ability to fight infections and may increase your risk of infections and cancer. some serious infections require hospitalization. before treatment, get tested for tb.

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