national bird. i'm lee cowan. join us when our trumpet sounds again next "sunday morning." enjoy the rest of your weekend. ♪ i'm margaret brennan in washington, and this week on "face the nation," the nation's capitol unprecedented in the new year amid growing threats to our nation's security. as washington prepares to certify the 2024 presidential election to bid a former farewell to the 39th president, and make way for the return of the 45th who becomes the 47th to

the oval office. extraordinary security arrangements are under way. all this as the struggle to make sense of the horrifying new year's attack in new orleans and the incident in las vegas continues. we'll sit down with the heads of the house intelligence committee, ohio's mike turner and connecticut's jim himes. on capitol hill, speaker mike johnson's job is safe for now, and in the senate, republicans take control with a new leader. south dakota's john thune. he's responsible for getting president-elect trump's ambitious agenda through the senate. >> will you tell him when you think he's wrong? >> i will. >> at the top of mr. trump's to-do list, what he promises will be the largest mass deportation in u.s. history. we'll ask his border czar, tom homan, how he plans to execute that. and as we mark four years since the january 6th attack on

the capitol, former house speaker nancy pelosi will be here to talk about the growing threats of political violence. it's all just ahead on "face the nation." ♪ good morning, and welcome to "face the nation." as we begin the new year, the first few days of january are already proving and providing enormous challenges both here in washington and around the country, especially in terms of security. we begin today with house intelligence committee chairman mike turner and ranking member, jim himes who join us in a bipartisan fashion. thank you for doing so and joining us today. >> thanks for having us. >> so we have, chairman, heightened security at u.s. airports on trains, military bases, this bulletin that went out recently warning of perhaps

retaliatory attacks, copycat attacks from that new orleans car-ramming incident. how should americans understand the threat environment we're in? >> right. it's certainly very difficult, and our heart breaks as we think of what occurred just after new year's eve, on new year's day. the -- we know what the fbi has said that we are in a heightened threatened environment. we see from of course, what occurred in new orleans. we have the threat of those who can be lone wolves, those individuals who might be as the self-declared terrorists as indicated, inspire d by isis, b terrorist threats and we also have those who are here that have come across the border that the director has said are affiliated with terrorist groups or organizations outside of the country who want to do americans harm. those individuals still pose a

threat to americans and to the united states. the director, the fbi, local law enforcement are going to continue to work to find them and lessen the risk, but certainly at this time as we go into the inauguration for donald trump where we even have, you know, state actors like iran who where we have in custody, individuals who have come here with a stated purpose to assassinate as a part of a plot, to, you know, who have been alleged to perpetrate a plot to assassinate donald trump, we have a number of actors that pose a risk and a threat to americans. >> congressman himes, isis has not claimed responsibility for this new orleans attacker. he did pledge allegiance in these social media videos, but homeland security as far as we have heard from them, said there's no linkage to the u.s. border. there is no linkage established to a foreign actor at this point. is this just an example of someone with mental health issues choosing violence?

>> well, and i'm glad you said that because there was some misinformation right out of the box because these attacks happened at the same time, you know, there was all sorts of stuff about on social media about how these consider coordinated together, las vegas with new orleans. you know, the new orleans, jabbar, the attacker there, clearly had himself affiliated with isis. now what we need to know, and what to date there is no evidence that this is the case, but we need to know whether that individual was deliberately tasked. again, no evidence that he was, and of course, we constantly see these lone wolf attackers who get radicalized, maybe on social media, maybe in some other locations, and, you know, i would certainly agree with mike's characterization that the danger out there, but just add that as americans think about the people who are protecting them and i think the chairman would agree with me on this, the people and asset that is we put up against this threat are the best in the world. it is also true that lone wolf attackers, that is an individual who's not communicating with somebody abroad, who's not sending texts or sending emails,

are extraordinarily difficult to detect, and, you know, though our people are the best in the world, that is hard to find, and by the way, there's a role for people, you know, new york city if you go on the sub ways, if you see something, say something. there's a role for everybody out there to help try to -- to help try to stop these kinds of lone wolf attacks. >> but as one official said to me, this isn't a problem you solve with another aircraft carrier to the middle east. some things run deeper in terms of the lone wolf element. that's the term you've used. how do you diagnose and deal with that, chair turner? if people are able to be ra radicalized online, and whether it's political violence or just another form of domestic violent extremism? >> on the issue of new orleans, don't know yet whether or not he will evolve as the actual lone wolf where he operated completely alone. as jim is saying, as the investigation unfolds, he himself indicated that he joined as he claimed it, isis in the summer. we don't know what that

involved. we don't know if it's going to turn out that he was tasked -- excuse me. he -- he went to new orleans also in october. there may have been opportunities or times at which he could have been found and could have been prevented. we'll learn what those are and ways in which he might have been found and maybe we could have intervened, but those will give us greater opportunities in which we'll look into how we might be able in the future to find other. >> we spoke to both of you on this program in the heightened threat environment many times and when there was that arrest in june, of those eight men, you said on this program, we have terrorists that are actively working inside the united states that are a threat to americans. do you know if there are active terror chells in the united states right now? >> well, the i think the issue of cells and we were talking about that in the beginning of the show, are there individuals

that are affiliated with isis and terrorist group organizations that are across the border and inside the united states? director wray, the fbi director has said so. we certainly have intelligence that says so. i have seen it. jim has also seen it and he's testified before our committee publicly about that fact. those individuals are working in conjunction with isis with the intention of harming americans. the director has said it directly. >> they are known to u.s. intelligence and law enforcement a is what you're talking about? >> we're working diligently to take them down and prevent them from doing so, and that's why the public is saying so. that's what the new administration is going to be handled, the fact that these individuals are here and we need to locate them and remove them and bring them to justice and prevent them from doing harm to americans. >> when we have spoken about this issue in the past, you characterized particularly the arrest of the eight as a success story because there was no plot carried out. they were disrupted. are the individuals that are of

concern -- do we know where they are? in terms of those eight, they are -- we know they were detained and five of them were actually sent back to taj tajikistan. >> you don't know what you don't know. none of us in positions in responsibility would ever say there are not terrorists in the united states. i'll say what i said before. we have the very best people and the best technology looking to root these people out and find them. the question is what should americans be afraid of? what has killed americans since 9/11? it hasn't been people sneaking across the border, and that's not to say that the border shouldn't be secure. the border must be secure, but what has been killing americans, whether it was fort hood in 2009, i think. whether it was the new york attacks that killed eight people in 2017, what we just sadly saw in new orleans, it's actually americans who are in this country. actually in a bizarre number of cases, service people. that was the fort hood attacks. that was what we saw in new orleans. that was though -- it doesn't seem to be shaping up as a

terrorist attack, what we saw in las vegas. so again, that's hard, right? why is that hard? because if you are in this country, you have constitutional rights, meaning the fbi can't say without a warrant, i want your facebook posts. i want your emails. that's what makes this very hard, and again, let's look at what has actually killed americans in the 20 years, and sadly it has been radicalized other americans. so this gets to the question of what are the mechanisms by which they are radicalized and how can we as a community, push back on that radicalization? >> which is why i asked you. that's a harder problem to solve for. >> much harder because you have constitutional rights and because, you know, let me give you an example. if somebody is standing on the street kocorner saying isis is e greatest thing in the world and the president is a traitor, people would say, we should interview that person. that is constitutionally protected speech and i wonder how my colleagues would respond to the idea because this individual in new orleans did

say, i pledge allegiance to isis, you know, what if we had to debate? should facebook have instantly submitted that to the fbi, and if so, where's the line? if i say i'm not a big fan of the next president and i don't believe that he was, you know, whatever -- should that go to the fbi? it's a tough conversation? >> margaret, there's no question that that's what we're seeing from new orleans, but the answer to your question is, no, we don't know where they are. we don't know where the people are -- >> the people who have exploited vulnerabilities of the southwest border. >> those that have come across the border, that are terrorists affiliated with isis, that intend to do americans harm that are here in our country, we do not know where they are, and part of the work and part of the reason why he's raising the alarm is we need to find them, and to protect americans. now what jim's saying is absolutely correct, and that obviously is the part that also breaks our heart and makes what happened in new orleans so hard is -- is that we had an american who was killing americans. >> right.

american-born army vet. i want to ask you both about china as well in terms of traditional adversariadversarie. they are looming large here. we learned just in the past few days that china hacked the u.s. treasury department. this is on top of the major cyberespionage against nine telecom companies against hacking of u.s. infrastructure that incoming national security adviser mike waltz said was planting cyber time bombs in u.s. infrastructure. how much of a trump card is this? i mean, can the u.s. expel china from these systems and get control? >> so i mean, let's start with what we know. china has been absolutely predatory in just about every dimension. they've stolen our ip, our intel y -- intellectual property, and absolutely predatory. i happen to believe if the chairman agrees with me on this, but they believe they can operate inside our networks

without consequence, and that needs to change immediately. they need to understand that we're as good at this stuff as they are, and if they get into our networks and start planning land mines, we'll do things to them to establish deterrence. you have to acknowledge that china does, and the u.s. do about $800 billion in trade bark and forth, right? if you snap your fingers and make that go away, you think covid inflation was bad? wait until you see that. by the way, they own a trillion dollars of our treasury. so the point i'm making here is that i think we need to be a lot tougher on them on the areas in which they are predatory against us even as we recognize that there are areas where we need to tread very carefully including that economic interconnection. >> i know we're going to have you both back to talk about exactly this problem. i'm out of time today, but thank you. >> there have to be consequences. what he said. >> stay tuned. "face the nation" will be back in one minute. stay with us. ith us.

tomorrow marks four years since the attack on the u.s. capitol, and we spoke to then-house speaker nancy pelosi

just a short while ago this morning. she's recovering from a fall last month, and we began by asking her why she thinks so many americans decided that donald trump's support for the rioters in 2020 should not disqualify him from a second term as president. >> i wouldn't say that the american people disregarded this. they just had a different view as to what was in their interest economically and the rest. so i don't -- i don't call this a disregard of january 6th. i just call it something that they saw in their interest economically. >> i mean, even just last night at mar-a-lago, donald trump was screening a documentary about the 2020 election claiming his win, and trying to talk about the legal challenges he had.

there seems to be a continued effort to claim that he won in 2020. >> it's really sad. it really is sad, and i don't know about the film that he had and the rest, but it's almost sick that he would be thinking that in 2020, he's won the election now. that will be clear -- that will be clear and tomorrow, he will be clearly will be accepting the results of the electoral college. so he should be triumphant about that, but to be still trying to fight a fight that he knows he lost is really sad. >> you know, the president-elect has said that in the first nine minutes of his new term, he will pardon many of those who participated in january 6th.

he said, he'll look at it on a cause by case basis, but in looking back at what happened four years ago, there are recordings. there's video evidence of what happened. this is personal for you. some of these rioters in your office, chanting your name, one of them -- one of the defendants, we were looking for nancy to shoot her in the friggin' brain, but we didn't find her. for you, this is personal. so when you hear about pardons, do you think the nonviolent attackers deserve to be pardoned? >> the nonviolent -- i think that's a violent attacker. with the intention -- >> the violence itself. the violent language you think? >> the violent language, yes. the intention, and of course, the intention to attack the vice president of the united states. now it didn't end that day. as you know, he called out to

these people to continue their violence. my husband being a victim of all of that, and it's still -- he still has injuries from that attack so it just goes on and on. it isn't something that happens and then it's over. no. once you are attacked, you have consequences that continue. so it's really a strange person who's going to be president of the united states who thinks that it's okay to pardon people who were engaged in an attack, but, you know, let's do this. let's just say, okay to the american people, this is what this is about. do not be conned by the denial of the election of 2020, and why would he be saying that?

but he -- but he is, and then on top of that, the denial of what happened on january 6th. >> but some of the 1,600 defendants here were really only charged with trespassing, and when you look at the profiles, university of chicago did a study. half of those who broke into the capitol were white collar workers. they were small business owners. didn't necessarily have a criminal record. when you look at that profile, you said intention. it was the intention itself, you think, that needs to be considered more so than the crime, you know, that it casts the crime itself of trespassing in a different light for you. >> well, the president said he would go on a case by case basis. >> right. >> so i assume that some of those people may not have engaged in the violent

activities that some of the others did. look at this beautiful capitol, the dome built by lincoln. under lincoln's leadership during the civil war, they said to don't build the dome. it takes too much steel and person power -- manpower, they said, from the war effort and he said, no. i have to show the resilience of america, and then under that dome you saw -- you saw flags, the flags that, you know, just horrible flags under the dome of lincoln, and so it was a tragedy, and we cannot be in denial about what it was. if the president's going to go on a case by case basis, i hope he does. >> trespassers, you would be comfortable with pardoning? >> well, it depends on how they

define what that is, but the -- but i know that some of that encouragement and then the follow-up that so many people were threatened, including me, and to my home looking for me and finding my husband, and as i say, who still suffers from head injuries from -- on that day. so these things don't just happen and go away when you have a head injury. >> right. >> but anyway, to -- to see the threat to so many people in elective office, you know, going beyond me, but, you know, seem people in elective office, it shouldn't be a threat to your family that you have chosen to do public service. >> you wrote in your book about that 2022 attack on your husband, and you said your daughter told you she had known

what you were signing up for, she would never have given you her blessing to run for office in the first place. do you think that this threat of domestic violent extremism is having a chilling effect on new talent, and anyone running for office? >> well, i certainly hope not, but over the years when i was encouraging people to run for office, especially women, they would say, we could never take the abuse that you take, and that was really just abuse. it wasn't physical. it was criticism and the rest of that, and we don't want our children subjected to that, and yes, i do think it will have a negative impact on people running for office. just in other words, if your mom and they go after after you as a mom, and your child comes home crying from school because

somebody said a negative thing because they saw it on tv, that the other side said something bad about you, you might not run for office. >> so you think it will discourage particularly women? >> particularly women. >> from running? >> yeah, i do. i mean, i know that it has, but i hope that it will not, that we will have -- shine a bright light on this and just say, this is unacceptable. this is unacceptable. see, for women, they always -- they always -- women are known to be more shall we say, ethical than men, and so when they go after women candidates, they go after their ethics, and they'll say this, that and the other thing, and then the child comes home from school crying because somebody said a bad thing about mom on tv, and nobody -- nobody

wants that. so hopefully the bright light shining on that will reduce -- reduce that, but i think that women have proven that they are -- are more ethical, and that they -- that they are -- well, maybe they're not more ethical, they are ethical, but they can withstand that criticism. >> and you can see more of our conversation with speaker emer a nancy pelosi on our website and on our youtube page. amerita nancy pelosi on our website and on our youtube page. have you always had trouble with your weight? same. discover the power of wegovy®. with wegovy®, i lost 35 pounds. and some lost over 46 pounds. and i'm keeping the weight off.

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