Face the Nation, Salvanto, Hinojosa

[0:03] welcome back to face the nation we're joined by cbs news elections and surveys executive director [0:08] anthony salvato anthony speaker johnson said last week that it is hilarious to see projections that [0:16] democrats will take a 230 seat majority what is your polling show well the model and the vote [0:23] preference has been pretty stable at 229. there is a range around that there is a narrow path for [0:29] republicans to still hold on to the house democrats could go a little bit higher the big thing is that [0:37] does not describe a giant blue wave that would be a fairly historically narrow house majority number [0:45] one turnout is a big factor it does favor democrats right now more democrats tell us that they are [0:52] definitely going to vote or already have than republicans do but here's the thing about the [0:57] republican side if you look at the voters who say well there may be going to vote more of them [1:03] are republicans they're just planning to stay at home right now if they get activated or motivated [1:09] then yeah this thing could shift or change a little this relates to because it's about voter attitudes [1:15] that explains this number one democrats are winning more of the voters who say that they're concerned [1:21] about inflation and that's pretty typical for a midterm that push back against the party in power [1:26] number two is look at gas prices and you ask people what do you think is going to happen to gas prices [1:30] depending on who wins and more of them think prices will go up if republicans win how much is president [1:38] trump himself a factor look he is on pace to be to set his own record for being a factor in an election [1:47] which is to say when you ask voters as we do for many past presidents is the president a factor [1:53] either to support him or oppose him you get this two-thirds majority saying that he is [1:59] and the opposition side is dominant there there's more people saying they're voting to oppose his [2:04] policies even to the extent that people voting for democrats say that they're mostly voting to try [2:10] to block trump's policies even then to affirm democratic ones on the republican side there is a [2:16] motivating factor for him that's probably why you see him hitting the campaign trail but that works [2:21] mainly for mega voters not the entire republican party so it's it's closing argument time what is [2:27] resonating you look at government corruption is a big deal for voters of both parties both of them [2:33] say it's a very large factor finances people's own they've told us are are an issue they think that [2:41] the president prioritizes his own over those of the country that could be trouble for republicans but look [2:48] we've seen for a long time in terms of general focus people thinking the administration not [2:53] putting enough on inflation and finally look cultural identity issues a lot of republicans think [3:01] that democrats would be a threat to their way of life and their culture so that partly explains some [3:07] of the advertising that you'll see in these closing arguments it's about inflation but it's not just [3:12] about inflation anthony salvante thank you thanks we turn now to north carolina republican senator tom [3:18] tillis who joins us from charlotte this morning good morning to you sir good morning i want to ask you [3:26] to be a bit of a pundit before we get into some policy cbs polling shows voters see corruption as a [3:33] major factor 83 percent see it as a concern in determining their vote and they see it as more of an issue [3:41] with republicans how does your party overcome this perception well i think a part of what we have to [3:49] do is be open about what about what we've done right and where we've kind of skated into the gray [3:54] area i'll give you a good example of why i think maybe people feel that way you can't have an oligarch [3:59] pay tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for the president's son's wedding and not make it look [4:05] odd particularly when that oligarch is aligned with putin and has gone on delegations with putin to [4:10] beijing that's just one example what we need to do is learn the rule of figure out where the line is and [4:16] take a step back or american people are already predisposed to assume democrats and republicans [4:22] are corrupt we're just feeding that narrative when we let things like that happen whether it's [4:25] legal or not it's irrelevant yeah well it seems democrats may be carrying out some scrutiny if they [4:34] do win the majority you will not be in the senate at that time you're retiring and you were deeply [4:42] frustrated by republicans when they passed this tax and spending bill on a party line vote that included [4:48] cuts to medicaid and will deeply affect rural hospitals in your state more than 25 percent of [4:56] people rely on medicaid i know north carolina's tried to patch things up here to plan ahead do you [5:02] still expect devastating health care cuts in the new year we're going to have significant headwinds it's [5:11] really a 10-year impact if you take a look at the original bill and by the way i supported the tax [5:16] provisions of the bill it was the health care provisions beyond what the house has proposed [5:21] that are problematic and it's going to take time what i was trying to do was not necessarily get rid of [5:26] the cuts but try to affect their timing i think they're coming too soon and i have a lot of experience [5:32] with the state budget here in north carolina understanding medicaid i believe it's going to be very very [5:36] challenging and we're going to have to get it we've got our work cut out for us because some of those [5:40] impacts could also feed right into the 2028 election so healthcare will be a big factor in that [5:47] election is your prediction it sounds like um i want to ask you absolutely a bit about what i engaged [5:54] with the attorney general on um in in recent weeks the justice department has filed this case up in [6:00] alaska to preemptively challenge the outcome there out in california doj also told election officials [6:08] they'll risk quote legal consequences if they continue to send vote by mail ballots to a list of [6:13] voters they say are not confirmed citizens and then there was of course this action taken against [6:21] congresswoman ilhan omar though she has not been charged with a crime do you see a pattern here and [6:27] are you comfortable with these actions this close to an election well i think we have to be careful [6:34] uh first you got to take them separately california has been guilty of ballot harvesting they have a [6:40] policy to do it they have a system there that is ripe for abuse and they need to be looked at [6:46] alaska has a candidate who just coincidentally happens to be the same name as my friend and [6:51] colleague who came in with me in 2014 and they also have rate choice voting so i think it's appropriate [6:57] to take a look at it i'm not sure why they thought they had to file a lawsuit other than as todd said [7:02] earlier make sure that you have the ballots right so we can be certain that the democrats were not [7:08] successful in confusing candidates to vote for someone else to better position patola for uh for [7:13] being the winner and with respect to omar i've got to look at the details there but i found it very [7:18] concerning you know as a member of congress you better have a very very high bar to issue a subpoena [7:25] and and a search warrant and the facts better be there otherwise the doj needs to be held accountable [7:30] it's that simple i'd say the same thing if it was a uh and i have in the past in a biden administration [7:35] where i felt like they were uh moving a little bit out ahead of their skis they better have the [7:40] facts to substantiate their action well i guess that gets to the timing of it all because the action itself [7:47] draws attention and scrutiny whether or not the cases actually have legs to them but up in alaska [7:53] your republican colleague lisa murkowski the other republican senator said the doj should never have [8:00] filed the lawsuit she said when it came to the ballot alaskans don't need help picking a preferred [8:07] candidate the state already handled this by distinguishing the candidates on the ballot and [8:12] the department of justice should never have filed the lawsuit you sit on judiciary i mean what are the [8:18] consequences will there be any well there are very few people that know alaska better than lisa um to be [8:26] honest with you lisa murkowski is a friend an extraordinary member of the u.s senate i agree [8:31] that i think the lawsuit i mean filing a lawsuit before anything that could be substantiated that's a [8:36] legal question even before the elections judiciary but i'm not an attorney yeah that's what i mean it's [8:42] almost a pre a preemptive a presumptive um uh posture versus simply telling the alaska election [8:49] officials we're going to be watching this closely because clearly democrats game the system by having [8:54] a dan sullivan on the ballot either the democrat party there's some evidence to suggest that chuck [8:59] schumer may have even been involved so i don't mind looking at it but i do mind the the appearance [9:04] of filing a lawsuit before we even know if the facts that would substantiate a lawsuit actually occur [9:09] mm-hmm well that dan other dan sullivan claims he's he's not a democrat but there has been reporting [9:16] that um a democratic strategist may have helped him along the way but that is something that it's a [9:23] strange coincidence we can all admit that no doubt no doubt but um the state has handled it and clearly [9:30] the senator thinks handled it well um i want to get back to vladimir putin because you have been very [9:37] vocal in recent days about your concern here with president trump and his actions just yesterday [9:43] elon musk um said the spacex satellite services have been restored um and senator kramer of north [9:51] dakota who was on this program last week told us though he is concerned one person or one company [9:58] just has too much control over america's ability to protect the domain of space you know people might [10:05] be confused over which service was switched on and off and to what degree but the bigger picture issue [10:10] here that your republican colleagues seem concerned about is just how much control elon musk has over [10:17] defense do you share that concern yeah i do and i have a concern with the whole narrative that played [10:25] out elon musk i i was trying to put pressure on everyone to own responsibility for this elon musk originally [10:32] said he didn't do it uh then we start focusing on the administration and now we hear elon says that [10:38] he did um and and also to the american people many members of congress this distinction between star [10:44] link and star shield are you telling me and i agree with kevin kramer he's a great senator also [10:50] are you telling me that we don't know something as important as is as a tool that's being used by [10:56] our western nations is subject to the whims of one ceo and that there's some other the star defense [11:06] is that controlled by him controlled by somebody in dod we need answers to this question and i'm not [11:12] satisfied i'm glad that the capabilities back up shame on whoever is responsible for it ever having [11:18] elapsed people died in that intervening time but what i want to know more importantly is what to what [11:24] extent is the department of defense and and the u.s government involved in this i get it's a private [11:30] company but they're playing into military space geopolitical space that there's got to be some guard [11:35] rounds guard rails and accountability in my opinion well i know you helped organize a call with senator [11:40] blumenthal and president zielinski this past week to try to get some clarity around this from what you [11:47] know are all of the arrangements to expand access to let ukraine target inside of russia is all of [11:55] that on hold right now um you know the best we can tell you when we're thankful for doing nothing more [12:03] than re-establishing the current capabilities i am concerned that we're not expanding it look there is a [12:09] bad guy and there is a a good country in the mix here the bad guy is vladimir putin the good country is [12:15] ukraine we like the other western european nations need to support them expand capabilities and defeat [12:21] putin putin is no friend there is no such thing as a win-win when you're dealing with a despot a [12:27] totalitarian in the western world so we we need to plus out that capability not simply be thankful [12:33] for getting something back uh that was working fine two weeks ago was working okay when i was in ukraine [12:39] just a month ago so in the back and forth over exactly what was turned off and why russia was [12:46] able to hit inside of ukraine um so much over the past 10 days it came to light that there were also [12:53] failures of the early warning system um two if not three the bc3 systems did not detect incoming [13:03] russian ballistic missiles into ukraine secretary rubio was asked about this and he talked about [13:09] technical issues that sounds deeply concerning i mean does this mean that russia can subvert [13:16] american early warning systems or are we misunderstanding that i think that's a legitimate question that's why [13:24] i think this whole timeline needs to be examined probably in a in a secured uh setting uh not necessarily [13:32] in a public hearing but we need to go through that entire timeline and say seriously guys we're that [13:36] vulnerable i don't think we are and so i'm beginning to think that maybe we're finessing around the [13:42] reality that somebody needs to own the lapse in service and it became it came at the same time the [13:47] starlink or star star shield capabilities went down let's just map this out folks i don't mind the american [13:54] people don't mind people making mistakes or maybe having a policy that they decide they got to [13:59] uh they've got a reverse but this sort of uh who's on first game being played with who actually called [14:06] this who's responsible for it's unacceptable we're the greatest day we're an exceptional nation greatest [14:11] nation on earth this is a simple question we should have simple answers for it well we will continue to [14:16] try to get answers uh sir thank you senator for your time today thank you and we will be right back we [14:26] turn now to the texas governor's race and democratic candidate gina hinojosa she joins us from austin [14:32] good to have you here it's great to be with you so if you win you would be the first democratic [14:38] governor and the first female governor in over 30 years you're running in a state though that has [14:45] more republicans than democrats so what is your message to get republicans to cross over and vote [14:51] for you well right now nobody wants politics as usual most of us see that it is broken and so what we are [14:58] seeing in texas is because there is deep disappointment in both political parties people are forging a new [15:05] way for for one that is post-partisan in some ways the data centers are a physical manifestation of a [15:11] governor governor abbott and a government that's working for the moneyed interests and leaving the [15:17] people of texas to fend for themselves public schools are another issue where there has been by a [15:23] bipartisan coming together in support of our public schools and so listen this creates an opportunity [15:30] for texans to evaluate the candidate i believe that's why we have now six or seven polls out of [15:37] the last six weeks that show us winning all polls show us within the margin of error turnout is high [15:43] enthusiasm is high on our side so we feel really good about where we are you mentioned schools i was [15:49] surprised to see that 181 school districts in texas are operating just four days a week some schools [15:55] have shut down how much of this is people just moving to more populated areas out of the rural ones [16:02] and how much of it is funding a lot of it is funding greg abbott in 2023 withheld funding our schools needed [16:10] because we didn't pass vouchers he said he would withhold it if we didn't pass it and we did it we [16:16] fought it myself myself and james talarico led that fight to stop school vouchers he passed it last [16:23] year that took a billion dollars from our neighborhood public schools to take and put into unaccountable [16:29] private schools and so school districts are really struggling our schools are shutting down teachers have [16:34] left and you should know that public schools are part of our identity as texans they are enshrined in our [16:40] texas constitution as being essential to our liberties they are the largest employer [16:45] in most or many of our counties they are friday night lights and so there is bipartisan anger about [16:52] what greg abbott has done to our public schools and listen i'm running my broad agendas to secure [16:58] the american dream and public schools are essential are an essential part of the american dream because [17:04] they provide the gateway and the opportunity to the american dream so saving texas public schools is a key [17:10] part of my agenda and that's why this campaign has resonated amongst texans [17:15] you've been campaigning on the issue of texas having the highest uninsured rate and the highest [17:20] number of uninsured children in this country if you win you're still going to have a republican [17:26] controlled legislature you're likely to have a republican lieutenant governor how do you work with them to [17:32] improve health care well i'll tell you that my agenda is not a democratic agenda it is a popular [17:37] populist agenda one that delivers for the people of texas so my health care policy and platform and [17:43] plan is to ensure every texas child has quality health care because we have the most uninsured [17:49] children of any state in america we're one of the few states that hasn't expanded medicaid [17:53] expanding medicaid is one way to get there democrats of the past have run on expanding medicaid i am [17:58] not because most people don't understand what that means they know what it means to provide quality [18:03] health care to our children so that is what i'm running on i think there is bipartisan support to [18:08] get there there's also a big problem in texas with those of us who have insurance paying more and [18:14] it's harder to see the doctors we need get getting and getting the medication we need so banning those [18:19] bad faith denials is a key part of my agenda as well but you do want to expand medicaid just to be [18:25] clear yes but we're not running on that that is just the process it's kind of a geeky way to talk [18:32] about ensuring people we're talking about ensuring every texas child has quality health care and [18:37] that's part of my secure the american dream agenda that can be found on my website at ginafortexas.com [18:44] okay so governor abbott gave hyperscale data centers which you mentioned a 20-year tax break and [18:53] wanted to make your state the epicenter he said of ai development you were calling for a moratorium an [18:59] immediate one on building any data centers until the state legislature puts in place protections [19:05] do you want to repeal those tax breaks like what exactly are the protections you think you can get [19:11] your republicans that you will deal with on board with you know what's interesting is nobody's pushing [19:17] back against the data centers harder than mega because these data centers are mostly moving into [19:23] our rural communities that are unincorporated there are no zoning regulations there are no rules or laws [19:29] and so this these this part of texas is being taken advantage of by these data centers and the [19:34] people of texas and rural texas are being taken advantage of so there's pressure on republicans as well [19:40] to put in place some laws to stop this data center takeover yes i would repeal those tax breaks and most [19:47] importantly i would give texans a seat at the table to decide if and how these data centers come into their [19:53] community there are big water concerns there are big electricity cost concerns property rights concerns [19:59] and so we need to visit all of it and make sure texans are protected and first and foremost have a [20:04] seat at the table you talk about repealing tax breaks someone who's a big investor whose companies [20:10] are in texas is elon musk he's given about half a million dollars to governor abbott's campaign you've [20:17] filed a lawsuit as i understand it to try to obtain emails between him and and governor abbott what are [20:23] you trying to do with this and isn't it dangerous frankly to go after someone who employs so many [20:30] texans well listen we can't be afraid to do what's right as leaders in texas and so the right thing is [20:38] to see what are these emails about we have had breaking news in the last few months just most recently we [20:44] learned that greg abbott's parks and wildlife board plans to sell our beach boca chica beach to elon musk [20:53] who has plans to launch 356 rockets from these sites i'm from this part of texas every time these rockets [21:01] launch it feels like an earthquake happening so we need to know what is exactly is going on we know [21:07] elon musk received 1.7 billion in tax breaks after he donated to greg abbott's campaign we know that [21:14] over this summer greg abbott intervened to redirect a 100 million dollar broadband contract to elon musk [21:21] this was from testimony during a senate hearing by the director of the broadband office so there's a [21:26] lot that we need to see and as a legislator i have a responsibility and a right to see what those emails [21:32] are about we'll see what you get uh we'll watch your campaign thank you for your time today we'll be [21:37] back in a moment that's it for us today thank you for watching until next week for face the nation i'm [21:45] margaret brennan