Minnesota senator on drone sightings in New Jersey, Kash Patel and Biden pardons

WASHINGTON (CBS, KYMA/KECY) - Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) spoke to Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation Sunday about the drone sightings across New Jersey.

Brennan said that Klobuchar co-sponsored a legislation years ago trying to "expand authorities to deal" with the drones. When asked why she needs Congress to deal with it, and why didn't Democrats move on it, Klobuchar said:

"First of all, the administration has repeatedly assured people that they are safe. However, one, we need a briefing for the members of the Senate to figure out what's going on here. Two, we need more transparency and three, I appreciated some of the Congressman's words, because what he is talking about is we need to have a new regulatory rules in place here. Right now, you have to register a drone if it's over a half pound, and there are penalties if you don't do that. Well, I think we have to make sure that regime is enforced with local and state authorities, and then we've got to figure out, do we really want all these drones, because while these may be safe, who knows what happens in the future, and they have to be within 400 feet, so these things are going to be what? Flying over people's family picnics and over their homes and over beaches? Like this is not going to be a good future if we see too many of these. So I think I was pleased that he said he wanted to move forward on some rules and finding a way to regulate these in a better way, because this just can't be. No one knows why this huge drone is right over their house."

When asked if she might bring this up in the new Republican-controlled Senate, Klobuchar said, "Yes."

During the interview, Brennan and Klobuchar talked about President-Elect Donald Trump's cabinet nominees, particularly Kash Patel being chosen as the Director of the FBI.

"I voted for a number of the past Trump nominees for many different jobs. I looked at them and decided if I thought they were qualified, and could they perform the mission of the agency, and did they have integrity? That's what has to happen here. And so when you look at someone like Kash Patel, who would be replacing Christopher Wray, who I believe embodied- he was a Trump appointee, went through Biden and embodied the mission of the FBI, which is fidelity, bravery, integrity. And so now you have someone who says he's on a revenge mission when we should be on a national security safety mission here, when we look at cyber security attacks that you just talked to the congressman about and various other things. He says he wants to dismantle the FBI headquarters and turn it into a museum. To me, this is not the direction we need to go. So I appreciate Senator Murkowski's words and also her demand and other Republicans. It's going to be their decisions on these nominees. We may vote against them or for them, but in the end, it's their decision to demand for FBI reports and making sure that these are not recess appointments and there must be open hearings."

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.)

Later in the interview, Brennan and Klobuchar talked about President Biden's pardons.

On Thursday, President Biden commuted the sentences of nearly 1,500 people, who were released from prison and placed on home confinement during the coronavirus pandemic, and is pardoning 39 Americans convicted of nonviolent crimes. It's the largest single-day act of clemency in modern history.

When asked if she was confortable with some of the decisions, Klobuchar said in part:

"No...I also didn't agree with the pardon of the president's son. I also have not agreed with a number of pardons that President Trump gave. So I believe, and I've long advocated for this, that while the pardon ability is part of our Constitution, we're not going to change that right? Go way back to President Lincoln, who made hard decisions himself about deserters from the army, things like that. That's been going on a long time, but we should have some kind of an outside board that governors have. Governors have the ability to give mercy to people after years have gone by, but a lot of them have boards that make recommendations and other things, instead of people just doing it in the middle of the night and people in the White House. This makes no sense to me."

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