Transcript: Reps. Mike Turner and Jim Himes “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” Jan. 5, 2025

MARGARET BRENNAN: 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 for joining us today. 

REP. MIKE TURNER: Thanks for having us. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: 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? 

REP. TURNER: Right, right. Well, 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- what we know that the FBI director has said is that we- 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 terrorist has indicated, inspired by ISIS, by terrorist threats. We also have those who- who are here, who have come across the border, that the director has said are affiliated with terrorist groups, 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 continuing to work to try to find them and try to lessen the risk, but certainly at this time, as we go into the inauguration for Donald Trump, where we even have state actors like Iran who- where we have in-custody individuals who have come here with the stated purpose to- to assassinate as a part of a plot, to 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.

MARGARET BRENNAN: 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 US 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?

REP. JIM HIMES: Well- and I’m glad you said that, because there was so much misinformation right out of the box, because these attacks happened at the same time. You know, there was all sorts of stuff on social media about how they were coordinated and together, and that the 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 location. And- and you know, I would certainly agree with Mike’s characterization of the danger out there. But just to 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 assets that 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. In New York City, if you go on the subway, it says, if you see something, say something. And so there’s a role for everybody out there, you know, to help try to solve, to help try to stop these kinds of lone wolf attacks.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But as one official said to me, this isn’t a problem you solve with another aircraft carrier to the Middle East. Some of these 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 radicalized online? And whether it’s political violence or just another form of domestic violent extremism?

REP. TURNER: Well, on the issue of New Orleans, we- we don’t know yet whether or not he- he will evolve as- 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- been found, and maybe we could have intervened. But those will give us greater opportunities at which we’ll look to how we might be able to, in the future, find others.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Now, we’ve spoken to both of you on this program, in particular about the heightened threat environment many times. And back in June, when there was that arrest of those eight men from Tajikistan who were ISIS linked, we spoke in depth about that. Chair Turner, shortly after that, 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 cells in the United States right now?

REP. TURNER: Well, I think- I think the issue of cells, and you are talking about that beginning of the show, are there individuals that are affiliated with ISIS and terrorist groups and organizations that have crossed the border, that are inside the United States? Director Wray, FBI director, has said so, we certainly have intelligence that says so, I agree with his assessment that- Jim has also seen it. He’s testified before our committee publicly of that fact. Those individuals are working in conjunction with- with ISIS, with the intention of harming Americans. The director has said it directly. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: They are known to U.S. intelligence and law enforcement, is what you’re telling me.

REP. TURNER: And we are working diligently to try to take them down, to prevent them from doing so. And that’s why the director is publicly saying such, and that’s what the new administration is going to be handed the fact that these individuals are here, that we need to locate them, we need to remove them, we need to bring them to justice and prevent them from doing harm to Americans.

MARGARET BRENNAN: When we have spoken about this issue in the past, you characterized particularly the rest 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 Tajikistan.

REP. HIMES: You never know what you don’t know. And so none of us, certainly in positions of responsibility, would ever say that there’s not terrorists in the United States. Now, I’ll say what I said before, which is that we have the very best people and the very best technology looking to root these people out and find them. But let’s- if 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–

MARGARET BRENNAN: –Right.

REP. HIMES: 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 sad- 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 I don’t- 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’re 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 radicalism?

MARGARET BRENNAN: Right. Which is why I asked you, that’s a harder problem to solve for.

REP. HIMES: Much harder. Because you have constitutional rights and because, you know, let me give you an example, if somebody is standing out on the street corner right now saying ISIS is the greatest thing in the world, and the President is a traitor. That people would say, boy, we should interview that person. That is constitutionally protected speech. And I wonder how some of my colleagues would respond to the idea, because this individual in New Orleans did post some Facebook posts saying, I pledge allegiance to ISIS. You know what if we had that debate? Should- 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. 

REP. TURNER: Margaret, there’s no question that- that- that is 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 that Director Wray has indicated–

MARGARET BRENNAN: –the people who have exploited vulnerabilites at the southwest border.

REP. TURNER: –that has come across the border, that are terrorists affiliated with ISIS that intend to do American harm- 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 to protect Americans. Now, what Jim’s saying is absolutely correct, and that 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. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: Right. American born Army vet. I want to ask you both about China as well. In terms of traditional adversaries, 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 cyber espionage against nine telecom companies, against hacking of US 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?

REP. HIMES: 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 IP, our intellectual property. You know, they’ve manipulated the trading system to hollow out our industrial base, absolutely predatory. And by the way, I happen to believe, and It’ll be interesting the chair, if the chairman agrees with me on this, 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 planting beacons or start planting landmines or whatever, we’re going to do the same to them, so that we establish deterrence. Now you also have to acknowledge that China does, and the U.S. do about $800 billion in trade back and forth, right? And if you snap your fingers and make that go away, you think COVID inflation was bad? Wait till 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.

MARGARET BRENNAN: I know that we’re going to have you both back to talk about exactly this problem. I’m out of time today, but thank you–

REP. TURNER: –There have to be consequences.

REP. HIMES: What he said. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: We will stay tuned. Face the Nation will be back in one minute. Stay with us.