Virginia senator on ‘big, beautiful bill,’ universities and Iran

WASHINGTON (CBS, KYMA/KECY) - Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) spoke with Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation Sunday about President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill."

Senate Republicans released the latest version of President Trump's massive spending and tax bill late Friday as the GOP eyes an ambitious July 4 deadline to approve the centerpiece legislation of the president's second-term agenda.

After the House narrowly approved the legislation that addresses the president's tax, defense, border and energy priorities last month, Senate Republicans have been putting their imprint on the bill.

But GOP leaders are seeking a middle ground to appease the upper chamber without alienating House Republicans, who will have to approve the Senate's changes before the bill can head to the president's desk for his signature.

The Senate voted Saturday to advance the measure, overcoming a key hurdle as the upper chamber works toward final passage.

At the center of the bill is an extension to Trump's 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, slated to sunset at year's end, seeking to make the cuts permanent in what has been a key priority for Senate Republicans.

It also includes increased spending for border security, defense and energy production, which are offset in part by cuts to healthcare and nutrition programs.

When asked why he's voting against the bill, which has provisions such as no taxes on tips, Senator Warner said:

"This will be a political albatross for the Republicans  because it takes 16 million Americans off of health care coverage with cuts to Medicaid, and cuts to the Obamacare marketplace. That will move us, as a nation, back to the same percentage of uninsured we had before Obamacare. And, it's not like these people are not going to get sick. They're going to show up at the emergency room. Rural hospitals are going to shut down. That has been evidenced across the nation. It also goes after food assistance. So we are really in such a place that we're cutting, in my state, a couple hundred thousand people off of school lunches, school breakfasts. They even cut food banks. It's cruel. They have also ended up, at the end of the day, cutting 20,000+ clean energy jobs. And for what? This was to make sure that the highest, most wealthy Americans can get an extra tax-break. And, as you just saw on your chyron, there, it adds $4.5 trillion to the debt. I think many of my Republican friends know they're walking the plank on this, and we'll see if those who've expressed quiet consternation will actually have the courage of their convictions."

During the interview, Brennan and Warner talked about President Trump's fight with higher education.

The University of Virginia's president, James E. Ryan, submitted his resignation Friday in an effort to resolve Trump administration demands related to a federal investigation into the school's diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The move is the first such pressure campaign on a public university, which is the latest escalation in the Trump administration's months-long national effort to reshape higher education at America's top universities.

The Justice Department Civil Rights Division pressured the university to uproot diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, as ordered by President Trump, and accused Ryan of simply rebranding them.

Multiple sources familiar with the situation told CBS News that the university feared losing federal funding unless a compromise was reached.

Ryan's resignation followed.

This prompted Brennan to ask Warner if Ryan's resignation is "now the playbook for other university presidents: walk away, don't have the fight," to which Warner said:

"This is the most outrageous action, I think, this crowd has taken on education. We have great public universities in Virginia. We have a very strong governance system, where we have an independent board of visitors appointed by the Governor. Jim Ryan had done a very good job; just completed a major capital campaign. For him to be threatened, and, literally, there was indication that they received the letter that if he didn't resign on a day last week, by five o'clock, all these cuts would take place."

Brennan followed up by asking Warner how Ryan's successor will "get in line and get the money," and Warner answered saying:

"I thought the Republicans were about, let's transfer more power in the States. This federal D.O.E. and Department of Justice should get their nose out of University of Virginia. They are doing damage to our flagship university. And if they can do it here, they'll do it elsewhere. At the end of the day, I understand that, with so many things at stake, that the idea, and I think Jim Ryan laid it out, that he was going to make his personal job more important than these cuts. But, boy, that shouldn't have been the choice."

Later in the interview, Brennan and Warner talked about Iran.

Top intelligence officials said Wednesday that new intelligence showed the nuclear program had been "severely damaged" and its facilities "destroyed."

It would take the Iranians "years" to rebuild the facilities, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth called it "an historically successful attack" in a contentious press briefing Thursday.

When asked if he believes "U.S. intelligence knows how much of a capability Iran maintains now," Warner said:

"I don't think we have final assessments...First of all, we don't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon. Secondly, the military performed an extraordinary mission, and I think they affected a great deal of damage to Iran's facilities. But, the idea that the President of the United States, with no data, two hours after the strike, is suddenly hitting the standard of saying total obliteration. That leads us to think that they are out of the game, and we don't know that yet. And, let's just be clear, you can actually set back the major program where they were trying to create, potentially, and there'd been no decision made by the Ayatollah to actually move towards weaponization, but where they could have a weaponized system with a dozen-plus missiles that are nuclear warned. But what they don't know is they didn't, and this was appropriate, I'm not criticizing the administration; they didn't go after the enriched uranium that was Isfahan, at that base, because it's buried so deeply... So, the fact that they can have, still, enriched uranium, they may have some ability to still cascade that means they could still move forward on something, that might be not delivered by a missile, but a bomb in a trunk of a car. And all I don't want is the American people, or, for that matter, our allies in the region, to rely on a term that was set by the President before he had any facts."

To watch more of Brennan's interview with Warner, click here.