Virginia senator on job market, oversight authority and more

WASHINGTON (CBS, KYMA/KECY) - Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), Vice Chairman on the Senate Intelligence Committee, spoke with Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation Sunday about the job market.

According to the latest jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), there were 22,000 jobs added last month, prompting Brennan to ask Senator Warner if he agrees that the "economic data that the United States releases is potentially fundamentally flawed," to which the senator said:

"No, I think that the BLS has been the gold standard for years, viewed not only in this country, but around the world. Could there be reforms? Absolutely, but it's a little ironic that you're firing the referee, the president firing the head, cutting the staff. I'm not sure how that is going to improve the quality of the data. And the President had promised that a golden age from American workers. We're down 80,000 manufacturing jobs since the beginning of his term. We're basically a flat hiring position. And what I think families who are listening, if anybody's got a family, a family member that's in college or immediately getting out of college. You know what a tough job market is to find this. And one of the things I would like to have heard from Kevin, and frankly, from more economists, is we're about to see the biggest job dislocation in our history, I believe, in terms of AI job dislocation. And those are many times kind of college driven jobs. I mean, think back five years ago, we said to every kid, if you want to get a good job, go become a computer programmer. Those are going to be some of the first jobs ignored and eliminated. And so I just, I'm fearful that this focus on who's keeping score when I think the American public realized the job market is tough, and particularly in terms of manufacturing jobs, there is no golden age."

During the interview, Brennan and Warner talked about oversight authority because, according to Brennan, under law, intelligence agencies must inform the Senate Intelligence Committee about their operations.

However, Brennan says Warner was blocked from "attending a meeting at the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency out in Virginia" this past week, leading her to ask Warner why he thinks he was blocked, and Warner said:

"I have done these visits to our intel facilities for the 10+ years I've either been Chair or Vice Chair of the Intelligence Committee. They are part of the normal course. You get a chance to see the workforce, where they're working. You get to see the new, newest, best, coolest stuff, and oftentimes I get to do a town hall meeting, because I'm not only the Chair or Vice Chair, but many of these facilities are in Virginia...So this meeting have been on the books for literally weeks. Normal course of business. This very unusual individual, Laura Loomer, who is a right wing blogger who is so controversial that the Trump administration didn't even put her in their cabinet, and she has been a 9/11 denier. She's been a virulent anti-Muslim individual. She has been a big proponent of working with white nationalists, yet she seems to have the ear of President Trump...Recently, we've seen 37 senior intel facility individuals lose their, their security classification, which basically puts them out of a job. And she brags about all this on her blog. I mean, it really raises the question, is she actually the Acting Secretary of Defense or Secretary of War as of this morning? Is she the real Director of National Intelligence? What she went after me on was something unrelated to this, and said, 'Why can we let some anti Trump person in to a intelligence facility?' Strangely enough, Tuesday night, my meeting was canceled. Now, we're not going to stand up for that."

Brennan followed up if Warner's Republican counterpart, Tom Cotton, promised him it won't happen again, and Warner said:

"I'm going to get those meetings held. I have raised it with Cotton. I've raised it with the other intelligence members. You want to talk about something that is dangerous, you restrict Congress's ability to do oversight, particularly with this administration, then we are flying blind. And in the intelligence space in particular, not every member can do this. Those of us who are senior on the Intel Committee, we are the limited numbers, we are the eyes and the ears of the rest of the Senate to do this oversight. They try to restrict this America will be less safe. And we're going to, I'm going to get those made."

Later in the interview, Brennan and Warner talked about the U.S. military destroying a boat operated by Tren de Aragua.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, according to Brennan, said, "If you're on a boat full of cocaine or fentanyl or whatever headed to the United States, you're an immediate threat to the United States."

When asked if he spoke to Secretary Rubio about it, and if he knows anything "about how it is being formulated here with the intelligence community," Warner said:

"First of all, the Maduro regime in Venezuela are bad guys, and we obviously need to do all we can to stop fentanyl. We have not been briefed on this. This was a DOD, it was not an Intel project. It was a DOD project. But my fear is, there are still international laws of the sea about how the process of interdicting these kind of boats, they're supposed to be a firing of a warning shot. You're supposed to try to take it peacefully. My understanding, this boat, none of those procedures are followed, and I'm going to get the full brief this week. But what I'm worried about is if we put our sailors in harm's way by violating international law, unless there is the appropriate designations, could this come back and and hurt those sailors? Sailors were doing their job."

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