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Transcript: Democratic Rep. Jason Crow on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” June 21, 2026

2026-06-21T12:27:17-0400 / CBS News

The following is the transcript of the interview with Democratic Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado that aired on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on June 21, 2026.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Welcome back to Face the Nation. We go now to Colorado Democratic Congressman Jason Crow. Happy Father’s Day to you.

REPRESENTATIVE JASON CROW (D-CO): Thanks, Margaret.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Congressman, you’re on Armed Services and you’re on the Intelligence Committee, so I want to get to some of your responsibilities here, particularly on the Intel front. We were just speaking with Senator Graham about what’s happening at the top of the Office of National Intelligence and the lapse of the surveillance authority. Right now, Bill Pulte is the acting Director of National Intelligence. He is someone who has been accused of using mortgage information to go after the president’s political enemies. I know that’s under investigation currently by the GAO, but the fact that he’s in the role right now, what harm can be done, if any? And do Democrats have any power to stop that?

REP. CROW: Well, I’m obviously concerned that this is somebody who’s a political attack dog, and his single biggest qualification is that he’s loyal to Donald Trump and is willing to go after Donald Trump’s enemies. But my more immediate concern is the fact that this is a really important position. This sits atop our intelligence agencies. And by law Congress mandated this person have significant intelligence experience because they have to make sure that we’re keeping Americans safe, which is not what Bill Pulte is capable of doing. So, I’m just more worried day to day that Americans are at risk because we have someone who’s incompetent at the head of this agency.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But will Democrats actually still reauthorize FISA. You heard Senator Graham again link the two issues here and said that’s really the bigger risk, the lapse of this key surveillance authority. I know when this was up for a vote in front of the House, you were proud of having voted against reauthoriza- reauthorization of this surveillance tool. Do you think your party miscalculated here?

REP. CROW: Yeah, no, not at all. I mean, I’ve always voted for FISA before. I’m on the intelligence committee, I know how important it is, but I’m unwilling to trade Americans’ constitutional rights, privacy, and essential civil liberties for temporary extension to this program. I’m just unwilling to do it. Right, that’s what this administration is asking us to do. They say, give up your constitutional rights, give up Americans’ rights and privacy, and we’ll just make sure we keep you protected. I mean, that’s what autocracies say. I’m not going to do that. I’m willing to have a discussion about what checks we need to put in place. A short-term extension, I’m not going to give them a three-year runway on this program. What about this administration would give us confidence that they’re going to follow the law? Short term extensions, then we can talk.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But the chair of the Intelligence Committee, in terms of the Democratic leadership there, Jim Himes said he hadn’t seen violations. You’re saying that the Trump administration is doing that? I mean, you’re disagreeing with your own Democratic leadership.

REP. CROW: No, I’m not disagreeing with Jim. Jim and I talk frequently, and we’re aligned on this. There are- there are public reports, many public reports of potentially thousands of violations, and to be more specific, these public reports allege that the Trump administration is using a filtering tool, again this is all public, a filtering tool to bypass the checks and the warrant requirements that would normally be in place to prevent the violation of privacy rights and civil rights of Americans. Now we’ve gone to the Trump administration and said, tell us this is wrong, show us why this is wrong, and if we have confidence, then we can kind of move forward to figure out what we need to do. They have not responded to us at all. So, why would we sit here with no response, all of these allegations, numerous public reports of violations, and just vote blindly to extend this program? It would be absurd for us to do that–

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well–

REP. CROW: –and you know we have the trust of our constituents and Americans, and we’re not going to violate that trust.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, on the Senate side, where the fight currently is, Senator Warner said he thinks Trump wants the expiration of this surveillance tool to stay, because he could then blame Democrats if some sort of attack happened here. So, what do you make of that? And what will it take for you to reauthorize FISA? Because it does- I don’t hear a solution from what you just said.

REP. JASON CROW: Yeah, well, first of all, I agree with Senator Warner. I don’t think Donald Trump cares about Americans’ national security and safety. I think he has shown very clearly over the years his willingness to weaponize national defense, the military, the intelligence community, the Department of Justice against his enemies to score political points at the jeopardy of American citizens. I mean, hell, the guy tried to put me in prison back in February, simply because I told soldiers that they have to follow the law and obey the- obey their oaths, so that that is true. What we need to do is we need very specific guarantees from this administration. I want the facts: are they violating the law, are they skirting around the requirement? Number one, number two, additional safeguards. The last time we authorized this program, we put 55 additional safeguards in place. We’ve learned between now and then there are more safeguards that are necessary.

MARGARET BRENNAN: This all takes time.

REP. JASON CROW: And number three, a shorter term extension, a shorter term extension. No, it wouldn’t take that much time. In a matter of days, they could give us that information, we could figure that out, we could vote on something that we could get it done.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Let me ask you, because there was other news this week on the Armed Services Committee. Secretary Hegseth announced the U.S. is going to conduct a six month review of U.S. force posture in Europe. He threatened to cut American dues to NATO if European nations don’t boost military spending. He said NATO reluctance to assist in the American strikes on Iran seem to be linked here to a potential reduction of U.S. forces in Europe. Have you received any information on what this means, where the troops would be pulled from? What does this look like?

REP. JASON CROW: Well, this administration is going to have a heck of a time in front of the bipartisan Armed Services Committee, which, in an overwhelming bipartisan manner, has said very clearly no troop withdrawals or changes from Europe unless they come to the committee and explain why that’s in our national security interests. Over and over, we’ve done that, and we just did that last month when we marked up the annual defense budget, so they haven’t come to us, they haven’t given us any, any of those details. I’m not presumptively against troop changes, but what I am against troop changes is when they’re not tied to our national security, you know? If they want to move troops around Europe, fine, let’s have that discussion, but pulling them out of Europe would actually be detrimental to Americans.

MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you about Iran. The delegation that arrived in Switzerland was on board a plane that had painted on the side the word “Minab 168” that’s a reference to the bombing that killed 168 people, most of them school children. The U.S. military is still investigating, but what can you tell us about American culpability and that probe?

REP. JASON CROW: Yeah, unfortunately not very much. I’ve been pushing extremely hard, CENTCOM, Central Command Commander Admiral Cooper, and others for facts on this. This could be the large, single largest civilian casualty incident in U.S. military history*. We need facts. We need to make sure that we own up to it, that we take accountability, that we make it right. And you know, as the founder of the Protection of Civilians in Conflict Caucus, I actually have done work for years around protection of civilians and conflict, because my own time at war taught me the devastating effects, not just morally, but to our national security when we kill innocents. We need answers to this. And they’re clearly slow rolling us. Right, this administration has no problem putting, posting videos of strikes, posting videos of operations when they want us to see it, and then when they don’t want us to see it, they slow roll it. That’s clearly what’s happening here. So we’re going to push hard to get answers.

MARGARET BRENNAN: All right, we’ll be tracking it. Jason Crow, Congressman from Colorado. Thank you very much. We’ll be right back.

Editor’s Note: * Crow later said he meant to call the bombing of a school in Iran the largest civilian casualty incident in “modern” military history, not the largest in “U.S.” military history.