The following is the transcript of an interview with Sen. Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, that aired on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on July 19, 2026.
MARGARET BRENNAN: For more now, we begin with the Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Democrat Mark Warner of Virginia. Senator, good morning to you. You are part of the very small group of people on Capitol Hill who are supposed to have sensitive information shared with them. Since this was the second hit in about two days, on a base where Americans are in Jordan, do you have any insight into why they were able to penetrate those American defenses?
SEN. MARK WARNER: First of all, condolences to the service members’ families, and it’s remarkable in many ways that we’ve not had more casualties. We literally have hundreds of seriously wounded, but I think we’re at 16 fatalities. I would argue, Margaret, this is what happens when you start a war of choice. And as a member of the Gang of Eight, I can say unequivocally there was no imminent threat from Iran. You start a war of choice without a plan. And very briefly, if you go through what the administration finally said their goals were, regime change. Well, the guys in charge now are worse than the prior crowd. Getting the enriched uranium, no progress on that. It’ll take 15,000 troops on the ground. Nobody wants to do that.
MARGARET BRENNAN: 15,000.
SEN. WARNER: 15,000- been the minimum assumption you’d need to go into these bunkers, take out this enriched uranium in canisters would be very difficult. The Iranians would be shooting at them. Nobody has been moving on that. We said we were going to degrade their ability to use missiles and drones. Obviously, we’ve not been successful on that point. It gets me particularly crazy because we’re using missiles that cost two and a half million dollars to shoot down Iranian drones that cost $50,000 and the country that has figured out how to do this cheaply, efficiently is Ukraine. They can take out Iranian drones with $5,000 drones, and we turn down their offer of their technology. And then finally, the Strait of Hormuz, you know, gas is now back up to four bucks. That’s $1.20 more than it was, at least in Virginia when the war started, and there is no plan on how we keep the Strait open.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, the president said he might look at that drone deal. You’re right; it hasn’t been followed through on yet. But just to put a fine point on it, back in May, the U.S. sanctioned Chinese entities for helping Iran’s military secure weapons and satellite imagery. Does this direct hit signal to you they are getting targeting help from our adversaries?
SEN. WARNER: I have not been briefed on whether they’re getting targeting help. I do know that these bases have been on and off under attack since the beginning five months ago of again this war of choice.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay, I want to move to another topic, and that is the director of national intelligence, Jay Clayton, who is currently the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, seemed unaware under questioning this week that Tulsi Gabbard had been searching an election center down in the state of Georgia, something that she does not have the legal mandate to do. The president has also tasked Bill Pulte, the acting DNI, to dig up information on 2020. You pressed Jay Clayton on who won the 2020 election, and he said Joe Biden was certified as president. Is that sufficient for you? Do you intend to vote him out of committee? How quickly will this happen?
SEN. WARNER: I’ve known Jay for a long time. I like Jay. I worked well with him when he was at the SEC, but I was bitterly disappointed by his performance in front of my committee. Not just from my questions, but from many of my colleagues, or him even kind of acting like he didn’t understand what Gabbard had done in Fulton County. So I will be voting against Jay Clayton–
MARGARET BRENNAN: So he won’t advance out of committee?
SEN. WARNER: He will advance out as long as all the Republicans vote for him. He will advance out, and we’re a little, rock a hard place here. I hope- I know Jay Clayton will probably get confirmed. I hope we see the Jay Clayton that I know and have worked with. The one thing I also know is the absolute disaster we have right now with the acting DNI Bill Pulte, who has no intelligence experience, who has nothing but loyalty to Trump, and frankly, a past history when he was head of the Fannie and Freddie of taking private mortgage information and politically weaponizing that. That is not the kind of person we want in as DNI.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So- so you want a quick replacement, but you’re not going to vote for his replacement. Though you think you think he’s got the Republican votes to actually get the job soon?
SEN. WARNER: I hope so.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You hope so. The president, as you know, declassified intelligence this past week. He argues there’s vulnerabilities in infrastructure. It has been public for years that the intelligence community assessed China tried to influence the U.S. election, basically change what people think, not necessarily hack their ballots, so to speak. Listen to what he said here, though.
[SOT]
DONALD TRUMP: This evidence shows that the election system we have dangerously exposes- and really exposes like levels never thought possible, to hacking, exploitation and foreign interference.
[END SOT]
MARGARET BRENNAN: Has your committee been given evidence to back up those claims that suggest a direct ability to interfere?
SEN. WARNER: No, absolutely not. And matter of fact, here is the- there are so many absurdities and falsehoods in Trump’s Thursday night speech, and I’m glad that most media treated it not as serious news. And I know some folks at your network- the journalists, I have huge respect for. I was disappointed that your senior management made the decision to cover it as news. There’s so many falsehoods where do you begin? You know, the only election that Trump is concerned about is 2020. That was the election that his administration was in charge of. Matter of fact, the director of national intelligence, Mr. Ratcliffe was DNI then. He’s CIA director now. If there was mistakes made, why is he CIA director? You know, he goes through this focus on China when he forgets or just omits the biggest country that tries to influence on every election is Russia. We’ve documented that time and again, and the complete conclusion of the intelligence community, 18 different agencies, said yes. Folks tried to influence, didn’t mean they changed any vote, and they sure didn’t interfere in the machinery. Now, when he talks about getting all these voter files, yes, you can buy those; they’re commercially available. What we should be more concerned about is the fact that China hacked into the OPM, which gives the background on all federal employees, or when they hacked into some of our insurance companies, and they’ve got personal information on- on each of us. But the idea that they and I would bet you a dozen other countries have bought up voter files, or knows in politics you don’t run in a state like mine. You know, I have to buy the voter file to figure out who to contact as my voters.
MARGARET BRENNAN: No and some of my colleagues here have obtained them. You went on websites and showed you can do that publicly. I’m wondering, though, since the Trump administration has been in office for so long now, have they released to the Intelligence Committee their analysis of the 2024 election that President Trump won? What degree of foreign influence or interference was?
SEN. WARNER: We have not had it released. The–
MARGARET BRENNAN: –Why?
SEN. WARNER: I haven’t the foggiest idea.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay.
SEN. WARNER: Because literally the 2020 election, which was so much hubbub about, it was- the president was briefed on January 7, 2025. So, you know, literally- actually, that was after the- January 2021–
MARGARET BRENNAN: January 2021
SEN. WARNER: There’s no explanation. And if Donald Trump is suddenly interested in election security, why is he taking the cybersecurity agency, which did on a voluntary basis- Chris Krebs did a great job on that years earlier as a Trump appointee, and they’ve basically completely downsized it. Why have they taken the voluntary programs like ERIC, where you know if you move from one state to another, making sure that dead people don’t vote or people who have- have- try to vote in two states, they’ve dismantled that. The Election Assistance Commission, not very well known, but this is the group that works with individual registrars in states, making sure their voting machines are safe. They- Trump recently fired the Democrats and made the Republican quit. Why is he doing all these things? I believe it’s because Donald Trump intends to interfere in this year’s elections. He knows if there is a free and fair election, his policies will be rejected at record levels.
MARGARET BRENNAN: What do you mean, interfere?
SEN. WARNER: Whether that takes- I think that what we just saw was this was the opening shot, the opening shot of trying to undermine Americans’ confidence that their vote will be actually counted and mean something. I fear as well that if he tries to pull something that could potentially- he’s not ruled out bringing ICE to the polls. He’s not even ruled out the idea of trying to bar certain voting machines.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, we’re going to talk about what is U.S. law in terms of presence and how those election facilities are going to be run with our two experts next. Senator Warner, thank you for your time.
SEN. WARNER: Thank you.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We’ll be right back.