welcome back to "face the nation." we go now to little rock, arkansas, and republican congressman french hill. good morning to you, sir. >> good morning, margaret. merry christmas. >> merry christmas as well to you. this was quite the journey to get you back home and to get lawmakers to wrap up business

this past week. no democrat voted against this measure to keep the government open, but 34 republicans did. doesn't this show that republicans really struggle to govern when they pass things along party lines? won't they need to work with democrats in this new congress? >> well, i think it is very, very important that speaker johnson and incoming majority leader thune have a steady plan together to work with the incoming trump administration to prioritize the president's priorities, our priorities in the house and senate, and make sure we're on the same page because with narrow majorities we have got to work together and that's critical and i think this last week demonstrated that. >> well, you will have a fractured conference, a slim majority. mark short, who was the director of legislative affairs in the first trump administration said this chaos shows just how hard it will be to tackle border and tax policies in 2025.

what is the reality check on the timing of that and actually delivering on what trump campaigned on? >> well, i think speaker johnson and, again, majority leader thune working with president trump wanted to use the budget reconciliation process. that is still being discussed as to exactly what that procedure will be. but i believe actually that republicans on both sides of the hill are united that we want to unleash american energy for future production and all of the above energy strategy. we want to secure the border. we want to fight inflation through supply side regulatory reforms. we want to roll back those regulations that are constraining the markets and constraining private business, having access to capital. i think we're on the same page. i think budget reconciliation will be a way to start that process and rein in unsustainable $2 trillion deficits. >> right, but you can do party line vote in the senate there with the republicans, but can

you really get 218 republicans to vote in the same direction when it was such a struggle just with keeping the lights on? >> i think we can. i think we demonstrated that last year in the last congress when we put together the most comprehensive republican only voting for border security for an all an above energy strategy. those are two priorities that president trump campaigned on. we are united on those strategies and i think we can get those priorities across the house floor as well as i say rolling back unneeded regulatory burden on the american economy and small businesses to help fight inflation. >> well, one of the things stripped out of that initial bipartisan deal that speaker johnson had put together was a restriction on u.s. investments in china, would have affirmed presidential authority to impose sanctions on advanced technologies. your democrat colleague rosa

deluria insinuated that elon musk came out against this because his real motivation was his extensive business ties to china. do you share her concerns and will this get passed? >> well, look, president biden had an executive order governing outbound investment. we had a debate in congress between the house and senate on the best way to do that. we all want to limit american investment in dangerous, i would say, dual use technologies that can be turned around and hurt america's national security, but striking that balance has been difficult. but i don't believe that was at the heart of the 1500 page problem. i think people -- a majority of members clearly wanted a simple straightforward continuing resolution and not what was turned into a large omnibus spending bill on top of a cr. so i think president -- i mean speaker johnson did a good job coming back around from that,

focusing on disaster assistance to the hurricane hurt states in the southeast, farm assistance for those farmers and having a clean cr with an agreement with president trump, with majority leader thune on how we would tackle reconciliation to cut spending next congress. >> you are going to be the incoming chair of the house financial services committee in the new congress. that's one of 17 committees. patrick mchenry, the outgoing chair of house financial services, was asked whether it matters that the republican party chose only male leaders. take a listen. >> for us to have no women chairs of committees is a huge mistake and really an unfortunate thing because we have powerful, smart, capable, tenacious republican women that are capable of leading big committees and doing major things. >> why didn't the republican party select any female leaders? >> well, that's a decision made

by our steering committee, but i'm delighted in the house financial services committee that we have strong, very passionate, successful republican women like ann wagner of missouri, young kim of california, monica della cruz of texas and lisa mcclain from michigan, our conference chairwoman, and also maria salazar from south florida, joining our committee. they will be active leaders in financial services policymaking. >> quickly, i know you've been trying to restrict this amphetamine drug that the assad regime was selling to prop up the dictatorship. our teams in syria filmed factories full of this stuff. what is going to happen now? >> well, first, we need the united states to be very active, work with partners to support a free and democratic syria.

secondly, we need to document the war crimes committed by the assad regime as it relates to all the people murdered, killed and imprisoned, tortured, in the -- from the regime, and also track down the networks that were producing captagon. we will have support from the kingdom and jordan, saudi arabia, the gulf states to do that. but it needs to be stopped. i'm proud of the work we did to interdict it and cut off the funding because i think it absolutely contributed to the end of the assad regime and that's something to celebrate. >> well, we will be tracking what happens with that. before i let you go, i do want to ask you as well, a source familiar with the investigation tells cbs news that tomorrow the house ethics committee's work investigating former congressman matt gaetz's alleged sexual misconduct and drug use will be released. last month, on this program, you said it is up to that committee, but we don't want to set a precedent where we, under any

circumstances, will release documents from that committee. do you still object? >> it is not -- i don't know, but that's how i would characterize what i said. i said it is up to that committee, i think they are -- they have released documents before. but i think that's something they should do with a great deal of caution because you open up a pandora's box of a lot of other investigations over many, many years, conducted by that committee. if they thought it through, reviewed the material and made that decision, that's their decision. >> okay. congressman french hill, thank you and have a merry christmas. we'll be right back.

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next year when republicans are fully in charge of washington. so, when you were speaking to us on "face the nation" last january, you said i love my country too much to vote for donald trump. i think it would be very detrimental to my country. he's the president-elect. do you think he is detrimental to america? >> january 6th was a bridge too far for me. i think everyone knows that. i was one of the few democrats that went over and worked with him and we always got along great, very friendly, we had disagreements on some things, but ouyou can do that. when the people speak and they make their choice and the election is over, you better pray with everything you that the president will be successful. this is about our country. i want him to succeed. i said this to him, i'll do whatever i can to help in any way humanly possible. >> but you've talked about the need to return to bipartisanship and regular order. donald trump is promising to destroy regular order, upend the

system. >> i have -- >> how do you reconcile that? >> i have total faith and confidence in my republican senate colleagues that are institutionists that they won't let that happen. i think there are enough republican senators and democrat senators that are not going to let the filibuster blow apart, they're not going to let basically run amok of the reconciliation process just to do anything they want to. it takes four republican senators, just four, and i guarantee you, i think there is a lot more than four. >> who are going to hold the line. >> that will protect the institution. they have been here long enough. what goes around comes around. and in two years, this thing could flip. 2026, you never know. it is the power of the people. >> in the first 100 days of the trump administration, leader john thune has said he plans a once in a generation investment in border security, but he's going to try to do it without democratic votes, using that reconciliation process you just talked about. with 51 votes, not the 60.

you're saying right now this is not how the system is supposed to work. >> it is not supposed to -- >> that's what the republican leader is saying he's going to do right out of the gate. >> if it is harming our country in the financial burden we're carrying because of the illegals that are coming and he can tie that to it, he'll have a pathway forward. >> and tax reform. also through reconciliation. >> well, here, i followed chuck schumer and joe biden starting out in their 117th congress with the aarp. i begged the president -- >> the american rescue plan. >> not to go and reconciliation. when you've given up that you can't work with the other side, they come out of the box that way. this is the way the republicans are following now that the democrats basically showed them the pathway. >> is it a strategic mistake? >> i think it is. >> the inflation reduction act, the i.r.a., you played a big

role in crafting that. that was party line that was through reconciliation. >> that's how the vote came down. we wrote that in my committee. i guarantee you i had five years of input with republicans, because of reconciliation, they don't cross over and vote, that's the way it was. >> and you feel good about that. >> i feel -- i feel horrible about that we had to do reconciliation. i feel horrible about that. but i can tell you the united states of america has benefited from that. we didn't fall into a recession. we brought down inflation from 9% to 3%. we brought down gas prices from $5 to $3. we did all of that. the supply dhan chains were so n because of the pandemic. food, things of that sort, made it so much unbearable for people -- for the burden they were carrying. i.r.a. kept the united states economy in better shape than any place else in the world, during the pandemic. that's a fact. >> the president-elect has vowed

to repeal it. >> well, i think there is some things that need to be fixed. when you pass a piece of legislation, and you write the bill, and we wrote it as tight as we possibly could, and then they start basically putting the rules tos to it. the white house says i want this type of interpretation, it is very liberal interpretation, it is not what the bill is supposed to do in spite of themselves trying to liberalize and putting evs out and all the critical minerals, we're still depending on china and supposed to be weaning ourself off of china, he can fix that immediately. he can change some of the rules to get back and change the bill, it will be his energy bill, but -- >> reprogramming some of these funds you would be okay with. there are things in our tax credits for nuclear biofuels. do you think -- you think parts of this will survive? >> i think it almost has to. the investments are made, and most of the investments, the majority of the investments are made in which you consider red

states. republican states. that's just because of what they do and how they operate, like west virginia. >> and you didn't hear much about that from the democratic ticket. >> they couldn't talk about it. he was tongue tied. >> why? >> i had no idea. i kept saying, can't you tell what the bill did? they said renewable, renewable, renewable. i said, you cannot eliminate your way to a cleaner environment. you can't just say i want to get rid of coal, i want to get rid of oil, no gas, nothing extracted. everything renewables. we would be a third world country. you can't keep this economy running. now, you can do it with innovation, technology. so i said we're going to produce what we need and cleaner and better than anywhere in the world. you wouldn't be number one in the world right now 30 trillion cubic feet of gas, 4.7 billion barrels of oil, you wouldn't do that if we had written that bill. he can take that and go further with it. there are so many good things in that bill that he can change,

change the name, it will be his, i'll help any way i can. >> you sound, speaking about energy policy, like a republican. >> i hope i sound like an american. it makes sense. okay? my democrat friends walked so far off the rail. i love them all. guys, but a lot of them understand it, they can't speak it because the base has gone so far and that's -- i couldn't take it anymore. >> alaska senator lisa murkowski, she is a republican, but she's also known for being pretty independent. >> the best of the best. my dear friend. >> she said the next four years are going to be hard, the trump administration's approach is going to be everybody toe the line, everybody line up we got you here and if you want to survive, you better be good or we will primary you. >> thank good for rank choice voting. without rank choice voting, my dear friend lisa wouldn't be here. or open primaries. if the democrat and republican party control the primaries, they can control you up here. they're going to say, hey,

margaret, i'm sorry, you just didn't toe the line right, you didn't vote with us when we needed you, i'm going to find somebody else i can control. >> who else is going to stand up to the president-elect when they disagree and be willing to say so out loud? are there other senators up here who will do it? >> i would hope. my father used to tell me, if you can say no with a tear in your eye, you're okay. if you can do it with respect and say i'm so sorry, where i come from, that doesn't make sense, i can't explain it back home, i never just say you're wrong, you can't start out a conversation that is going to end productive, i tell you how bad you are. >> we'll be right back.

the ambassador charged by the biden administration with freeing americans held overseas, roger carstens, traveled to syria late last week to make the first known contact with that country's caretaker government following the ouster of dictator bashar al assad two weeks ago. carstens sought help finding american journalist austin tice, who disappeared 12 years ago. we spoke with carstens on friday about why it was important to be on the ground in syria.

you told reporters you were amazed at the number of secret prisons that bashar al assad had, more than 40 of them. have those prisons been searched yet and do you know if journalist austin tice was held in them? >> so, it is not going to shock me to find out that there are prisons yet to be discovered and searched. i would say if i'm stunned by anything, it is just the amount of prisons. you would almost think if you were running a country and you wanted to jail your enemies, you would have one prison and wouldn't be secret. but to have, like, 35 or 40 secret prisons, i find that just horrifying, disturbing and yet in a way fascinating. but really the bottom line is that we have to help and -- or rather work with our interim authorities, officials, to make sure we do a good search, so that i can one day look deborah tice in the eyes and tell them

our search has been exhausted. in a perfect world, we're going to find austin tice. i think i've gone on record numerous times saying i believe he's alive and he's waiting for me to find him. the president said he believes austin is alive. our job in the u.s. government is to keep pressing and pressing and pressing to find out austin's location, his disposition, his status and to bring him home. >> you're referring to them as interim authorities. the head of hts, was described by state department officials as being very pragmatic in those meetings today. but his group and he hadimself still considered a terrorist under u.s. law. do you trust they are being helpful to the u.s. now? >> they were definitely helpful today. we conducted a joint search of a facility that we all thought

would have a probable, i guess, some sort of relation to austin tice. so, i understand, of course, their past. what i can tell you is right now they're being helpful in the search for austin. >> so you conducted a joint search with hts of a prison today. did you believe that is where austin was being held? >> we came up with a priority list of about six sites. and of those six sites we felt that this had the highest probability of having held austin at one time. but really the long -- i guess i would say the best way to describe it is we're just not sure, with the time we have on the ground, it seemed to be our best shot. so we gave it a good hard look. we're going to review all the information and evidence that we collected, and hopefully render some more decisions about the probability. but really, our job is just to keep searching. >> assad intelligence ministries were known for keeping scrupulously detailed records,

numbering prisoners, alive and dead. do those records still exist? >> we have had a chance to find various documents or i would even say file folders holding information. again, in the joint search that we conducted with the interim authorities today, we came across numerous documents. that's going to have to be brought back. it is going to have to be translated from arabic into english. and sometimes these doupts docu will have evidence on them, may have fingerprints, traces of dna. >> this is a search you conducted along with special operators from jsoc? >> i would never go into talking about who i was with, but i was with members of the fbi. people that are experts at looking at crime scenes and they did a wonderful job of sweeping it. >> i know back in 2020, you went there at the direction of then president donald trump along

with kash patel. the regime at that time never admitted to the united states that they held austin tice. do you believe they were lying back then? and that the regime did have him? >> the regime, when we talked to them in 2020, they issued maximalist demands, they asked for the world, they weren't really giving anything. they never admitted to having austin tice. they never promised to give us any proof of life. i would say that at some point we came across information and that is highlighted by president biden and secretary of state tony blinken that led us to believe that at one point the syrian government truly did have austin tice. did they have him until the very end? that's information we're still trying to sort through. but at one point we feel very confident that the regime did detain and have austin tice in their custody. >> we will be right back. ♪♪ imagine checking your own heart

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that's it for us today. we want to wish you all a very happy holiday season. this year, i wish you a merry christmas, happy hanukkah and kwanzaa, because they are all celebrated this week. and since my colleague major garrett will be here next sunday while i spend some sparetime w time with my family, i'll add happy new year. thank you all for watching "face the nation." i'm margaret brennan.

♪ hello and thanks for staying up with us. i'm matt pieper in new york and here are the top stories on "cbs news roundup." millions of americans are trav