i'm margaret brennan in washington, and this week on "face the nation," president-elect trump promises

big change for america's role in the world. but with much of the world on fire, will his policies extinguish the flames or fuel them? mr. trump's traveling transition team didn't have far to go for the annual army-navy game. this year it was just outside washington. the game gave hisational security picking the opportunity to review and cheer on some of our future troops. >> we love our navy except today. >> go, army. >> go army, beat navy. >> unfortunately for them, navy won. and some of trump's intended nominees will face a tough path to victory themselves, but one man who's definitely headed to are a job in the white house, incoming national security adviser mike waltz will join us to preview the new administration's priorities amid instability throughout the middle east, tensions in asia and an unrelenting war in ukraine. ukraine's ambassador to the

u.s. will also be here. we'll ask how new leadership in washington will change her own country's calculus as russia's invasion grinds on. then president biden breaks a record by commuting the sentences of 1500 americans. we'll ask democratic senator amy klobuchar about that and the future of law enforcement under trump. plus, donald trump promises wall street big changes are ahead. >> we're going to do things i think that haven't really been done before. we're going to be cutting taxes still further. >> we'll dive into the details with ibm vice chairman gary cohn who served as a top economic aide to trump during the first term. finally, a conversation with the head of the united nation's world food program cindy mccain about the link between global hunger and global instability. it's all just ahead on "face the nation."

good morning and welcome to "face the nation." congress and the biden administration are rushing to get business wrapped up during this last work week of the year for lawmakers before the former and president-elect takes the oath of office in january. we begin with congressman mike waltz of florida, who is the incoming white house national security adviser. good morning to you. >> good morning, margaret. tough day for army but great for america. >> indeed. well, as a green beret, i know you had a reason to be cheering there for army, sir. i want to ask you a number of topics, but before i go overseas, you sit on the house intelligence committee. you also, because of your new role, are in contact with president biden's national security adviser jake sullivan. do you think the public should be concerned about these reported drones all over the

east coast? and have you the need for more authority to deal with them? >> well, i think what the drone issue points out are kind of gaps in our agencies, gaps in our authorities between the department of homeland security, local law enforcement, the defense department. i think americans are finding it hard to believe we can't figure out where these are coming from. i can tell you from the defense department standpoint, they're focused on bombers and cruise missiles and it's pointing to gaps in our capabilities and our ability to clamp down on what's going on here. we need to get to the bottom of it, and i think the biden administration is working to do that. >> but at this point given the intelligence you've seen, is there any reason for the public to be worried? >> well, look, when you have sensitive sites like picatinni

arsenal, you have of course president trump's residence at bedminster and you have other no fly areas, those need to be enforced. we need to know who's behind it, but right now i think law enforcement seems to be -- the department of homeland security and defense department are kind of all doing this and pointing at each other. so when we come in, how do we enforce these low-level, long-loitering, could be dangerous drones? one thing for people to appreciate, they're evolving so rapidly, it's not necessarily somebody that's just on the other end be flying it, they could be following pre-positioned gps coordinates. they could be coming from off shore, and we need to take a hard look at our homeland defenses. president trump has talked about an iron dome for america. that needs to include drones as well, not just adversarial actions like hyper sonic missiles. we need to have an all of the above protection of u.s. air

space. >> understood. let me ask you about china. the president-elect said a few things in the past week about china, and he said his team has been talking and discussing, as he put it, with china's president xi jinping. cbs was the first to report that an invitation was extended to the inauguration, though we do not expect xi to come. was that the extent of the back and forth? do the two leaders intend to speak by phone? >> well, margaret, it's been amazing. i mean, the entire world is reaching out to the president. in fact, it's been a little overwhelming, the outreach. not only be to speak with him, to congratulate him, but to even come to the inauguration themselves. ment so the outreach has been tremendous. president trump is taking all calls. as you know, he believes in having a relationship with allies and adversaries at that kind of head of state level, and

those conversations -- those conversations are ongoing. but they are really nothing beyond congratulatory and niceties. we are in communication with the current administration. we don't agree on all things, but as i've said before, none of our adversaries should think this is a moment to take advantage of this transition. we don't agree with all things, but we are in in full coordination with the current administratin. >> well, china, you said there should be consequences because of their massive and pervasive hack of 8 u.s. telecom companies which has breached the meta data of potentially millions of americans. senator marco rubio said it was egregious, dangerous and a vulnerability that no one anticipated. you're going to be working together. what do you plan for the consequences to be? >> i think senator rubio and hopefully future secretary of state rubio is absolutely right.

we are -- we have been over the years trying to play better and better defense when it comes to cyber. we need to start going on offense and start imposing, i think, higher costs and consequences to private actors and nation state actors that continue to steal our data, that continue to spy on us and that even worse with the volt typhoon penetration that are putting cyber time bombs on our infrastructure, our water systems, our grids, even our ports. that is wholly unacceptable, and i think we need to take a much stronger stance. senator rubio is right. president trump has indicated that as well. we need to start changing behaviors on the other side rather than just constantly having this kind of escalation of their offense and our defense. the colonial pipeline hack was another key point, and then finally we've got a tremendous private sector with a lot of

capability. that relationship between public an private with our tech industry, they could be doing a lot of good. >> is this sanctions? >> also making our adversaries vulnerable. >> is this sanctions day one from the trump administration? >> well, i'm not going to get ahead of everything we're doing day one, but taking a different approach to cyber, looking at our doctrine and starting to impose costs on the other side to get them to knock this off is something we'll be taking a look at, i think. >> you were at mar-a-lago this past week when hungary's prime minister viktor or bon, and mr. trump and elon musk. he said he spoke to vladimir putin. he seems to be floating a he christmas cease-fire and prisoner swap. is he carrying with him some trump? >> well, orbon has regular engagement with the russians,

and he clearly has a good relationship with president trump. and i would hope the entire world would want to see some type of cessation to the slaughter that is happening in eastern ukraine. i mean, margaret -- >> did mr. trump ask him to do that? >> this is world war i style warfare. it is a meat grinder of human beings. president trump's been very concerned about the carnage that's ongoing, and where is this all going? >> right. >> we need to stop the fighting, and, you know, look, if that is some type of cease-fire as a first step, again, we'll take a hard look at what that means, but until january 20th we are also in coordination with this current administration. >> okay. so no message was sent through orbon to putin by trump, that's what i understand you saying there? >> i'm not going to -- yeah, i'm not going to get into specifics of back and forths. >> okay. >> but one is talking.

of course, we're going to continue to talk. president trump's made it clear he wants this war to stop. >> does the trump team plan to limit how ukraine can use u.s. weapons or targeting systems when you take office? >> well, i mean, president trump just said in the interview that, you know, a blank check -- in his interview with "time magazine", i believe, a blank check isn't -- you know, isn't a strategy. this kind of forever war that we seem to be backing into. the what does success look like in line with our interests? how do we end the war? who's at the table? how do we drive all sides to the table? and what's the framework for an agreement? those are things that we're thinking through with his fantastic team that he's assembling. >> was that discussed in that 45 minute meeting that mr. trump had with mr. zelenskyy in paris last week and do you support putting nato member states as peacekeepers in ukraine?

>> well, you know what's been so interesting, margaret, is just since the election everyone coming to us, our european allies, president zelenskyy in that meeting and others have shifted to that framework i just talked about. how do we end this conflict? how do we do it in a way that restores stability, stops the carnage and hopefully, you know, makes this a permanent end, not just -- not just a pause. those are all things that we're thinking through. and in terms of, you know, the question you just asked, the nato secretary general came here to mar-a-lago. he's talking about the europeans taking a bigger role, whether that's on the ground or otherwise, after this conflict is over, and that's exactly what president trump has been asking for. >> i have to quickly ask you about the middle east. during the last trump administration donald trump pulled some u.s. troops out of

syria. does he intend to keep the 900 u.s. troops there? >> look, our number one interest is keeping a lid on isis. we cannot have an explosion of isis back into a caliphate that threatens iraq, threatens jordan, threatens turkey and europe, inspires attacks in the united states like we saw in 2014. president trump cleaned it up then with his team. thousands of isis fighters are in prison camps. the we're in conversation with israelis as well. they're taking down assad's chemical stockpiles as well as other things we don't want falling into the hands of anybody. and, you know, the other piece there that he asked for in the first term and that we need to see is, again, europe who was hit so badly by isis attacks taking a greater role in keeping isis contained. so those are all conversations that we're having, again in consultation with the current administration. >> yeah. >> and we'll see moving forward.

>> congressman mike waltz, thank you for joining us today. "face the nation" will be back in a minute. stay with us. mary. janet. hey! eddie. no! fraser. frank. frank. fred. how are you? support up to seven brain health indicators, including memory. when you need to remember, remember neuriva. for more than a decade farxiga has been trusted again and again, and again. ♪far-xi-ga♪ ♪far-xi-ga♪ ask your doctor about farxiga. when my hair started to thin, i thought, am i going to have any hair left. after i gave birth, my hair wasn't even thinning. it was gone. when i spoke to my dermatologist, he immediately pointed me in the direction of nutrafol. it's 100% drug free and clinically tested. within 3 months, my hair was fuller. its' longer, it's so much thicker. i had more scalp coverage. it's so nice to be noticed for my hair

after hiding it for so many years. start your hair growth journey at nutrafol.com and we're joined now by minnesota democratic senator, amy klobuchar. >> great to be back on. >> i do want to ask you about these drones on the east coast. we looked at your record and you actually co-sponsored legislation a few years ago trying to expand authorities to deal with them. why do you need an act of congress to deal with this? and why didn't the democrats move on it? >> well, first of all, the administration has repeatedly assured people that they are safe, however, one, we need a briefing for the members of the senate to figure out what's going on here. two, we need more transparency. and, three, i appreciated some of the congressman's words because what he is talking about is we need to have a new regulatory rules in place here.

right now you have to register a drone if it's over a half pound, and there are penalties if you don't do that. well, i think we have to make sure that regime is enforced with local and state authorities, and then we've got to figure out, do we really want all these drones. while these may be safe, who knows what happens in the future. and they have to be within 400 feet. these things are going to be, what, flying over people's family picnics, over their homes, over beaches? like this is not going to be a good future if we see too many of these, so i think i was pleased that he said he wanted to move forward on some rules and finding a way to regulate these in a better way because this just can't be no one knows why this huge drone is right over their house. >> so you might bring this up in the new republican-controlled senate? >> yes. >> moving on. you sit on the judiciary committee. so you're going to have a key role in overseeing law enforcement under the trump administration, and you'll get

to question his selectee to run the fbi, kash patel, who has published in his book a list of enemies, vowed retribution. i want to play something for you that republican senator murkowski said just a few days ago. >> the approach is going to be everybody tow the line. everybody line up. we gotcha here, and if you want to survive, you better be good. don't get on santa's naughty list here because we will primary you. >> that is a remarkable thing for a republican senator to say on the record as clearly as she said. she said they are being threatened if they don't get in line and vote for some of these nominees. are you getting the sense from your republican colleagues on judiciary they will get in line and vote through kash patel? >> sadly there is some of that going on, but then you have other people like lisa murkowski who has always been a thoughtful, independent voice. she believes her job is to do

what our constitution tells us, advise and consent, and also that we take an oath to support and defend the constitution of the united states so we have to do our due diligence and make decisions. i voted for a number of the past trump nominees for many different jobs. i looked at them and decided if i thought they were qualified and could they perform the mission of the agency and did they have integrity. that's what has to happen here. so when you look at someone like kash patel, who would be replacing christopher wray who i believe in body, was a trump a point tee, went through biden and embodied the mission of the fbi, which is fidelity, bravery, integrity. so now you have someone who says he's on a revenge mission when we should be on a national security safety mission here when we look at cybersecurity attacks you just talked to the congressman about and various other things. he says he wants to dismantle

the fbi headquarters and turn it into a museum. to me, this is not the direction we need to go. i appreciate senator murkowski's words and also her demand and other republicans. it's going to be their decisions on these nominees. we may vote against them or for them, but in the end it's their decision. her demand for fbi reports and making sure these are not recess appointments and there must be open hearings. >> they have enough votes essentially to move on these on their own. i want to ask you about president biden. this past week he had this record number of commutations, 1500 americans, more than any other president in any single day. among them though there was a judge involved in a so-called cash for kids scheme. >> did not like that one. >> sent thousands of kids to jail for millions of dollars. a man who committed tax fraud at a cost of more than $1.6 billion. described as the most utterly unrepented tax cheat in u.s. history. a woman involved in a $26 million scheme to defraud medicare. are you comfortable with some of

these decisions? >> no. there's also a man in duluth that was running a major drug house basically, had all of this money under his bathroom tiles was commuted. i also didn't agree with the pardon of the president's son. i also have not agreed with a number of pardons that president trump gave so i believe and i've long advocated for this, while the pardon ability is part of our constitution, we're not going to change that, right, go way back to president lincoln who made hard decisions himself about desserters against the army. that's been going on a long time. but we should have some kind of an outside board that governors have. governors have the ability to give mercy to people after years have gone by, but a lot of them have boards that make recommendations and other things instead of people just doing it in the middle of the night. >> right. >> people in the white house. this makes no sense to me. >> this is why it was so surprising because the white

house described it as just based on a broad category and not the specifics of the case. >> exactly. >> was that prudent? >> i have no doubt there were some righteous pardons in this group, okay? i believe that there were, but there were a number that i think make no sense at all. so instead of doing a whole category, why don't in a coming year before the end of a president's term, if that's when they're mostly going to do these, that a board looks at these and looks at them individually when people petition for them based on the facts instead of just in a large group. so large groups have been done before, i believe, but i just -- i think that this whole process cries out for reform because otherwise you undermine the justice system. again, i emphasize, this also happened in a big way under president trump. you undermine the work of these line fbi agents, these line prosecutors who have taken on these cases, followed the sentencing guidelines and made a decision. might you want mercy ten years later?

yes, you might, but let's at least look at these on a factual basis and a risk basis, instead of just in the middle of the night a month before a president leaves. >> senator klobuchar, thank you for being here. >> it was great to be on. thank you, margaret. >> we'll be right back with a lot more "face the nation." stay with us. i got the power of 3. i lowered my a1c, cv risk, and lost some weight. in studies, the majority of people reached an a1c under 7 and maintained it. i'm under 7. ozempic® lowers the risk of major cardiovascular events such as stroke, heart attack, or death in adults also with known heart disease. i'm lowering my risk. and adults lost up to 14 pounds. i lost some weight. ozempic® isn't for type 1 diabetes or children. don't share needles or pens, or reuse needles. don't take if you or your family had mtc, men 2, or if allergic to it. stop taking and get medical help right away if you get a lump or swelling in your neck, severe stomach pain, or any of these allergic reactions.

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and we're back now with the vice chairman of ibm, gary cohn who also served as the white house economic adviser in president trump's first term. gary, welcome back. it's expected the fed is going to cut rates again this week, even though we did see in the economic data released that inflation is still high. president trump said can't lower prices once they're high. seems to be admitting it's not in the president's role to see what you're spending at the grocery store. >> we had consumer prices and producer prices. both came in on the high side of where economists were hoping.

if you look at the consumer prices, we're looking at about 2.7% on consumer prices. the fed's target is about 2%. we're running almost a percent high. producer prices came in even higher than we were expecting. so we're not down to that target 2% where the fed would like to get to. that said, the fed is meeting next week. the fed is highly -- it's highly viewed that the fed will cut interest rates by 25 basis points next week. that means over the course of this year they will cut interest rates by 100 basis points. now as you look forward into next year, people had projected they would cut a lot more. i think we're seeing the rate of cuts slow down and slow down quite dramatically as people are starting to evaluate the economic data that we have. >> what does that mean in terms of the economy president trump will be inheriting? is it. >> so the president's inheriting a very good economy, a very stable economy. we have real solid economic growth. we have real job growth. we have real wage growth.

i think some of the wage growth we're seeing, we've seen a lot of these union contracts be renegotiated in in the second half of the year. the wages feed through the economy. they feed through as inflation. the economy the president is inheriting is quite strong. i think it continues to stay quite strong. in fact, the american consumer today, as well as corporate america, is quite excited about what the trump administration is talking about and the business environment is very positive. corporate america is talking about a lot of expansion, a lot of capital expenditure next year, about repatriating a lot of jobs back to the united states, about building a lot of factories in the united states, hiring more workers. >> you think that's going to happen? >> i do think that's going to happen. net net this is a positive business cycle going forward into 2025. >> is the stock market really the best way to gauge it? you saw mr. trump at the stock exchange this past week. >> look, the stock market is one benchmark. it's an index. it's a benchmark.

remember, the stock market is an index. there's a huge diversity of what's going on. there's some of the tech stocks at the high end performing very, very well. >> yes. >> there's some of the more traditional stocks in the middle of the market that are not performing as well. >> we've got to take a break and finish this conversation on the other side of it. stay with us, gary. we'll be right back.

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