Transcript: Rep. Chrissy Houlahan on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," Sept. 22, 2024

 

MARGARET BRENNAN We go now to Popular Senator Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania. Good morning, Senator, I know you're one of the lawgivers looking into this near miss in terms of the attempt on the life of Donald Trump  lately, and the incident back in July. Did you get the answers you  demanded from Secret Service this  once week? 

And yes, I am one of 13 members, seven Rs, six Ds, that are looking into this particular event on July, but also the most recent bone  as well. Yes, we've been getting the answers that we have been asking for. We've been asking for quite a lot out of both the Secret Service as well as original law enforcement. And I believe that the answers have been largely forthcoming.However, the good thing about this particular group is that we've process authority to be  suitable to make sure that we get the answers, If for whatever reason they are not. It's really important that this group works bipartisan- ly and  snappily to be  suitable to understand what  happed, to be  suitable to make sure that it does not be again, and to your  discussion with Senator Rubio, to make sure that we restore the faith and trust in the- with the American people in the institutions  similar as law enforcement and the Congress.

MARGARET BRENNAN Well, Senator, I know the Secret Service on Friday intimately admitted some of the failures on their own part. It was a five-  runner summary, but the Secret Service said agents failed to use technology to  descry the  bushwhacker back in July as he flew a drone over the rally. Trump's detail had no idea police were looking for a suspicious person until shots were fired, and they  noway  directed original police to cover a  near rooftop. Do you trust the current leadership to address  veritably serious issues like this?

HOULAHAN These are  veritably,  veritably serious issues, and they've come up in our  exchanges and in the briefings that we have  entered, and there were some enormous gaps that .In terms of people not indeed knowing that there were two command centers, there were huge gaps. And there were also some gaps,  honestly, in kind of culture and people being  fairly lax in the way that they communicated with one another, and all of these  effects have to be fixed. I do believe that the attention of the association is completely on all of the different  effects that they can and should be doing to be correct- to correct themselves. I  suppose also the attention of the Congress is on them as well to make sure they've the  coffers to be  suitable to make those corrections too.

MARGARET BRENNAN And I want to talk to you  further about some of those  results on the other side of this  marketable break, if you could stay with us, Senator, so we could finish our  discussion. And we'll be right back with  further from Senator Houlahan. Stay with us.

MARGARET BRENNAN Drink back to" Face The Nation." We're continuing our  discussion with Pennsylvania Senator Chrissy Houlahan. Senator, just to button up this  discussion about the Secret Service and political violence right now, our  rearmost CBS bean shows Harris  sympathizers  suppose the nation will see a advanced  trouble of violence if Donald Trump is  tagged, and Trump backers  suppose the nation will see advanced  pitfalls if Vice President Kamala Harris is  tagged. Do you have any concern about rhetoric? And with Egalitarians characterizing Donald Trump as a  trouble to republic, do you  suppose that can be used to justify or inadvertently indeed encourage violence?  

HOULAHAN Sure, and let's start from the  morning. Political violence of any form is  inferior and we wo n't tolerate it. And the Democratic Party, starting from the  veritably top, from President Biden to Vice President Harris to members of Congress  similar as myself, have  reprobated political violence full stop. And it's one of those  effects where we really do need to  telephone down the temperature and the vitriol and I  suppose that it's important that everybody do that. And as you mentioned in your earlier member, it starts at the top. Leadership matters, and so both sides of the aisle need to make sure that we are being thoughtful about these  exchanges that we are having. But important to you about me to know is, you and I would  probably not be talking had there not been the first election of President Trump. And  numerous of the ways that he conducts himself, really need to make sure that that we understand that should he return to the White House, I'm  tête-à-tête concerned that that would be a problem for our republic. But that means that I am working hard to make sure that I get out the vote and have the  exchanges to make sure that Kamala Harris is successful in her  sweats to go to the White House.

MARGARET BRENNAN And you said that in this bipartisan  disquisition that's a focus for you, to make sure that you have Republicans and Egalitarians delivering the same communication. And I take your point there.

HOULAHAN Absolutely and- exactly. We were chosen because we are serious lawgivers. We were chosen because we tend to be those people who are willing to do the work and to do it  still and effectively, and to do it bipartisan- ly, and that is what I intend to do.

MARGARET BRENNAN You are, as we said, a representative from Pennsylvania and the Commonwealth is a  crucial battlefield. Our CBS polling shows it's just dead heat there. But  history, Senator JD Vance was campaigning in Pennsylvania, and he said they feel extremely good about their prospects there. Do you have that kind of confidence?

REP. HOULAHAN I've the  contrary feeling, which is, as I mentioned, I would not be talking to you had Hillary Clinton been successful times agone. And we had confidence as Egalitarians that evening that Pennsylvania would be blue, and as we all know, that was not the case. So I'll let Mr. Vance have his confidence, because I am going to keep working all the way into the end of the election and through the finish line and through the tape recording, because I really believe it's that important that we take nothing for granted and that we work as hard as we can during this coming several weeks I guess. Six weeks now.   MARGARET BRENNAN Six weeks.

And you know, on that debate stage, I heard Vice President Harris  veritably specifically speak to the  500,000 Polish Americans she said, live in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and she drew that directly to her position on Ukraine and the war there. I know you're leading outreach to Polish Americans. How do you quantify how that war, 1000s of  long hauls down from the United States, impacts how choosers in the state of Pennsylvania actually  suppose about it? Do you really  suppose that it has an influence on the vote?

REP. HOULAHAN I do, and I can draw a straight line to it. My father was born in Poland. He was born in 1942 into a Jewish family. He and his  mama  survived the Holocaust. I am then, I am then in America because he was  suitable to survive and came then and had a thriving nonmilitary career, and now I am a member of Congress one generation  latterly. That's because of the constant war that goes over that part of our of our world, starting back in the Huns. And I  suppose it's really important that we talk to the Polish- American population, as well as everybody from the kind of Eastern Europe area, because it's not that long ago that World War Two was and that's absolutely  commodity that can repeat itself if we do not support the Ukrainians, and we do not support their fight for their republic, which is their fight for all of our republic. Also, importantly as a Pennsylvanian, the Lithuanian National Guard is our  mate country, and so our men and women are in Lithuania at this moment, within  detriment's way, if we do not help Ukraine. So I do  suppose it's absolutely an issue that makes sense and that we should talk about in places like Pennsylvania.