Face the Nation transcripts June 26, 2016: Rubio
JOHN DICKERSON, CBS HOST: Today on FACE THE NATION: Britain leaves the European Union, and ripples are felt across the pond and the world. While some in Britain cheer, financial markets buckle and American politicians see similar forces at work here.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R), FLORIDA: There's a sense in many countries around the world that this is because we are too engaged with this global economy, we're too engaged with the world. I think you see it manifested here in America. I think you saw it in that vote there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DICKERSON: We sat down with Senator Marco Rubio, who announced this week he's back in the running for his Senate seat.
And from the fairway of his golf course in Scotland, Donald Trump used the Brexit surprise to take a swing at his Democratic rival.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Hillary Clinton, or, as I say, crooked Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama called it totally wrong. You know what? They call everything wrong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DICKERSON: Clinton used the economic turmoil to make her own case.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NARRATOR: In a volatile world, the last thing we need is a volatile president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DICKERSON: We will discuss the global fallout and have the latest on the 2016 presidential race, including new CBS News Battleground Tracker results from key states.
It's all ahead on FACE THE NATION.
Good morning, and welcome to FACE THE NATION. I'm John Dickerson.
We begin this morning with former Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio. We caught up with the senator yesterday in Miami and started with the big news from the U.K.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DICKERSON: In terms of the politics of this, do you see any parallels between the Brexit push and what's happening in American politics?
RUBIO: I think globalization, the kind of move of the economy to this global economy, is having an impact in multiple countries around the world.
I think the reality that we have a new economy and the new economy is creating a lot of new jobs, that the people hired for the new jobs are not the same people that are losing jobs under the old economy. In essence, the people losing their jobs are the not the ones people being hired by the new economy. All of this has created an incredible amount of strain and friction all over the world.
And so there's a sense in many countries around the world that this is because we're too engaged with this global economy, we're too engaged with world. I think you see it manifested here in America. I think you saw it in that vote there. I think there's other places where you may see that pop up as well.
DICKERSON: Do you see it manifested in America in the support for Donald Trump?
RUBIO: Sure.
It's one of the fundamental arguments he's made, is that the U.S. needs to isolate itself a little bit more from some of the other things that are going on around the world and focus on America first. And there are some elements of truth to that argument, but ultimately, again not entirely, because, given the dynamics that we now live in today, we cannot isolate ourselves from global events. We are the United States of America.
We're not a small, irrelevant country. We are directly and immediately impacted by global events, whether we want to be or not, whether they're national security ones or economic ones. We're 5 percent of the world's population. If all we do is sell things to each other, there's only so much growth we can create. We need to be able to engage with economies all over the world.
DICKERSON: Do you have any concern about a kind of "burn the system down" mentality that some people have seen in the Brexit vote and that they see in American politics today? The elites are wrong. The fancy economists are wrong. The members of Congress are wrong.
Do you see that?
RUBIO: Well, I think it's good to hold the elites and the fancy economists and the Congress accountable for the decisions they make.
And I do not believe it's an illegitimate argument for someone who works in manufacturing to argue, for example, don't do this, because it will cost us jobs at the expense of them going to another country. I don't think that's an illegitimate argument for them to make.
I think it challenges policy-makers to figure out how it is we can embrace a new economy we cannot avoid. The future cannot be stopped. It's going to happen. Whether we like it or not, automation's going to happen. The nature of the economy is going to continue to change. You couldn't stop the Industrial Revolution. You're not going to be able to stop the 21st century economy.
But we have to figure out how to benefit from it not, just be hurt by it.
DICKERSON: You said you didn't trust Donald Trump with the nuclear codes. Do you trust Hillary Clinton with the nuclear codes?
RUBIO: You know, I think the argument goes deeper than that when it comes to her. And that is, what kind of foreign policy will she pursue and where will it lead us ultimately to make decisions like that dramatic as the one you just outlined?
This is a person who has generally supported virtually all of the Obama agenda, whether it was the reset with Russia, which has blown up in our face, whether it was the pivot to Asia, which was largely rhetorical, but sent the message to Europe that we were disengaging from them, whether it was the Iran nuclear deal, which I believe will one day will come to haunt us, whether it's the release of prisoners from Guantanamo, one of whom was sent to Uruguay, and has now Uruguay, headed to Brazil, and on his way back to Syria.
And he's not going back to Syria to open up a chain of car washes. I mean, this is the things she's supporting.
DICKERSON: But do you trust her with the codes?
RUBIO: Well, look, I think there's a process for the presidency.
And once you assume the office, no matter who holds that office, I think that the reality and gravity of it always weighs on these people. It's a very difficult issue to face. So, I would hope that I can trust no matter who wins with the nuclear codes.
But here's a better approach, and that is ensuring that we have a foreign policy to ensure that we never reach a point where something that could actually happen, where nuclear weapons would have to be used, which in my mind obviously is the worst and most apocalyptic scenario possible. DICKERSON: Let me try it another way.
The presidency on national security issues sometimes comes down to one person by themselves in a room alone, no matter how much advice they have gotten. On those tough decisions, whether it's about the nuclear codes or about the other kinds of decisions a single president can make, do you think that Donald Trump has better character and judgment in those alone situations than Hillary Clinton?
RUBIO: So, that's the challenge Donald has over the next two, three months.
DICKERSON: Well, what does Senator Rubio think?
RUBIO: Well, but there's a campaign. So, that's what I'm going to watch now.
I know Donald as a primary candidate trying to stand out in a field of 17 people. He is now the Republican nominee. And he's going to have the next three months to go out and make the argument to the American people and help us envision him as president. And these are the kinds of issues that he's going to have to earn people's trust. That's part of the process for anyone who runs.
DICKERSON: I know you want to stay on the legislative, but there was a poll recently that has you as the most popular choice for vice president.
RUBIO: Yes, well, it's too late for that. I'm running for the United States Senate from Florida, and you can't run for two offices at once, so...
DICKERSON: Even if you were asked to not run for...
RUBIO: No, I -- that's not for me a viable option.
And I said that months ago, that the differences in policies that me and Donald have had are too big for something like that to work. It would be a distraction, quite frankly, to his campaign.
DICKERSON: Let me ask you about some of those policies. The Supreme Court ruled that the president overreached on his authority in terms of deferring deportation.
If a person is in the country illegally, maybe the children who have been born here, if they're here and they have broken no other law other than the immigration law, if Donald Trump is president, should they worry they're going to be deported?
RUBIO: Well, I have said this before. Donald's argument is that he's going to create this program. And the reality of it is, he can't do it. You can't round up and deport 11 million people. There are people that need to be deported. Criminals need to be deported.
But you can't round up and deport 11, 10, nine million people. The American people wouldn't stand for it once they saw what it would take to make that happen. And what's why I argue for a piecemeal step-by-step approach that begins with enforcement and I think leads to the confidence we need from the American people to do something reasonable, but responsible about people facing these circumstances.
DICKERSON: Here's a challenge reelected Senator Marco Rubio will face in 2017. If Donald Trump is elected, there will be an effort to deport 11 million. If Hillary Clinton is elected, she said she will present comprehensive immigration reform to the Congress.
Which one is the better starting point to get to what you want?
RUBIO: Neither. Neither will happen. In that sense, Donald is not going -- he's already kind of even backtracked from that a little bit and said that there's flexibility here about how this is dealt with.
People do need to be deported.
(CROSSTALK)
DICKERSON: When I talk to him about it, he sure seems like he wants to deport those 11 million.
RUBIO: Well, again, I think that there are people that need to be deported, criminals, people that are dangerous, quite frankly, people that haven't been here very long.
There has to be a cutoff point. Can't just be anyone who comes and gets to stay. So, I don't think that's what's going to happen, no matter what he says on the campaign. And on the other side, she's wasting -- first of all, I would ask her, why didn't the Democrats do that eight years ago when they controlled the House, the Senate and the presidency?
Instead, they focused on Obamacare. Second, the votes aren't there. There's less votes today for comprehensive reform than there was two years ago, four years ago.
DICKERSON: Another scenario for the newly elected senator, if that happens, Donald Trump is president. He says he will have this temporary ban, which he has -- he believes he has the authority do. What does Senator Rubio do when the executive does that?
RUBIO: Temporary ban on?
DICKERSON: Muslim immigration.
RUBIO: That's also not going to happen. And there's two reasons why.
We have -- we -- for example, we talk about ISIS and the need to defend ISIS. And one of our great partners in defeating ISIS are Kurds in Kurdistan, who I visited a few weeks ago. They're Muslims. You go and see some of our troops embedded around the world that many times are in the front line of going into communities and working alongside these communities to defeat ISIS. They're Muslim. You see our best allies in Jordan. Our allies in that reach that are working to us to defeat ISIS, they're Muslims. You look at communities in America who are reporting to the FBI, we have got a radical here in our midst, they're Muslims. And so it's just -- that's not a real proposal. It's not something that's going to happen.
DICKERSON: But he thinks he has executive authority do that. If he did, would Senator Rubio do something to undo that or thwart it?
RUBIO: Sure.
I think it's bad policy for the country to say you're going to have a religious exclusion. And I think you have heard from multiple leaders in our party say that. And, by the way, I believe or I would hope that we would have the opportunity to encourage him, if he's elected president, in a different direction about how to deal with the problem he's trying to deal with, is radical Islamic terror.
And I believe we will be able -- or I hope we will be able to encourage him in a different direction from that.
DICKERSON: When you're -- if you're reelected to the Senate, what do you want to do?
RUBIO: There's a lot of things I think are important.
The first, of course, is I think the Senate needs to fulfill its role as a check and balance on the president, no matter who it is, and that means a president of our own party. And if we agree on something, we need to work together with that president. And if we disagree on it, we need to be willing to stand up to the presidency, even if they're of your own parry.
I think, from a personal perspective, I remain, on a macro scale, obviously, I think it's really important for America to fully benefit from this transition to a new economy. We can't stop the pace of progress. We either benefit from it, or we're left behind by it. But we recognize people are being hurt by it.
DICKERSON: Can those things that you want to do, other than being a check on a president, can any of those things happen in a Senate that you described as a presidential candidate as a place where things go to die?
RUBIO: I hope so. It's hard.
DICKERSON: You were pretty tough on the Senate.
(CROSSTALK)
RUBIO: And I continue to be.
DICKERSON: Why would you go back? Seventeen percent public approval rating.
RUBIO: Well, that's a good question.
I think, for me, it came down to, it wasn't my plan to run again. But I think it came down to whether or not you just give up on it. Do you give up or do you say, I'm going to take one more crack at really hoping that this place gets better?
I'm frustrated. As you said, I'm not alone. A lot of Americans are frustrated. Look at Zika, an issue that's impacting Florida. It took us forever to get anything. And even what we got is not enough. It's extremely frustrating.
But ultimately it's the process we have. And we need people working within that process to make things happen as long as and as hard as it may be.
DICKERSON: All right. Marco Rubio, thanks so much.
RUBIO: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DICKERSON: We turn now to the surprising vote this week by the United Kingdom to leave the European Union.
To talk about what the Brexit means for Britain, for the United States, and the world, we turn to Rana Foroohar, "TIME" magazine assistant managing editor, and the author of a new book, "Makers and Takers." David Ignatius is a columnist at "The Washington Post." David Rennie is the Washington bureau chief at "The Economist." And Mark Zandi is the chief economist at Moody's Analytics.
David Ignatius, I want to start with you, very simple question. Why did this happen?
DAVID IGNATIUS, COLUMNIST, "THE WASHINGTON POST": As we look at this, I think we can see that, for many years, the momentum of the postwar world, the institutions, the E.U. prime among them, has been slowing and now has been reversed.
I think there are many reasons for that. Partly, the rhetoric of integration was always more extreme than popular support would have allowed. Again and again, year after year, Europeans leaders said ever wider, ever deeper.
But when this was to put to votes to countries, even like France, which we think of as the center of the European Union, France turned down the E.U. Constitution when it was put to French voters some years ago. So I think the public has always been more uneasy about this union than the elites, who saw, had a vision of it and certainly profited from it.
And we have run up against a wall. I just would note that economic globalization is here to stay. Economic nationalism is not a viable idea. Political nationalism clearly is strong. It's powerful in Britain. It's powerful in Russia. It's powerful everywhere. But you're not going to reverse the way in which the world's trade flows are now bound together. And I think that's the problem that the British people have to think about.
DICKERSON: David, pick up on this thread. What -- where do you -- what do you think caused this? Was it -- was immigration a bigger deal than the economic pinch? What...
DAVID RENNIE, "THE ECONOMIST": So, some of the forces are the same.
We have seen a ton of rich Western democracies, and clearly here in America. You can look at the demographics of the Trump vote and you can see echoes in the Brexit vote in the U.K. It tended to be people without college degrees. It tended to be older people, pensioners, people who lived in small towns out in the provinces, kind of the places we would call Rust Belt here in America.
But I think the tragedy -- and I think this is where David is right about economic nationalism, that kind of empty promise -- is that when we were all watching the results come in on Thursday night, one of the first places to vote decisively to leave, it was a big shock, was a northern sort of Rust Belt town called Sunderland, voted massively to leave.
The most famous thing about Sunderland right now economically is that it's home to a gigantic car plant own by Nissan. And Nissan had warned that they might have to reconsider making cars for the European market in the U.K., because if you're a big multinational and you are trying to decide can you sell cars or whatever you're making into Europe with so much legal uncertainty over the next few years, why would you keep that plant there?
So, for us at "The Economist," the tragedy is, these people's pain about the changing world and globalization, increased competition is clearly real. Elites haven't listened to it carefully enough. But they're committing economic suicide.
DICKERSON: So, the people voting for it are the ones likely to be hurt from it.
RENNIE: They're going to suffer.
DICKERSON: Rana, what do you think are the implications? Help people who are kind of wondering what this all means. Give us some concrete implications of this.
RANA FOROOHAR, "TIME": Yes.
Well, I think what Brexit says is that there has been a major trust gap between elites both in British and everywhere else and the mass population. And I think that this is down to 40 years of globalization, which at a global level has increased prosperity and within many countries has increased prosperity, but it has also created groups of losers, economic losers. And I think that establishment parties not only in Britain, but in the U.S. and many continental European countries, have not been so great at saying, OK, here are the people that have suffered, and here's what we're going to do for them.
Until quite recently, it was unthinkable to question whether free trade was an unadulterated good. And, as I say, it does increase prosperity at a global level, but we have to start getting better in the U.S. and the U.K. and continental Europe at figuring out how to help the losers.
DICKERSON: Mark, about 40 seconds. The fallout from this. What do you think's going to happen immediately?
MARK ZANDI, CHIEF ECONOMIST, MOODY'S ANALYTICS: Well, I think the U.K.'s going down rabbit hole. I think this is going to be really tough for them.
I think a recession is likely over the next six, 12 months. For the European Union, this is going to hurt, but I think they can digest it. The E.U.'s a big place. And U.K.'s big, but I think the E.U.'s big enough to take it down and not go into recession.
For us here in the United States, I don't think this is a big deal. I really don't, if this doesn't lead to a broader splintering of Europe. That would be a problem for everybody, including us. But barring that, if what we're seeing now is what we're going to get, I think the U.S. economy is going to be just fine.
In fact, there's some benefits to us. I mean, capital starts flowing into other places in world that are deemed to be safer, and that would include the United States.
DICKERSON: All right. We're going to take just a quick commercial break here and then we will be and back have more conversation.
So, stick with us. We will be back with our panel in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) DICKERSON: And we're back with more from our Brexit panel.
Rana, pick up on what Mark was saying. What does it mean to go down a rabbit hole? What are some of the implications of this?
FOROOHAR: Well, so I want to push back a little bit. I agree with Mark that it's not like the U.K. going into recession is going to kill the U.S. economy.
But it has already had some big implications. For one, the Fed is keeping interest rates low for longer, in part because of the volatility that this has created. There's a lot of reasons that the Fed might want to start raising interest rates. So, it's having a big implication. And I think it underscores the fact that central bankers everywhere are still left holding the bag. We have national governments that are gridlocked, that are more and more nationalistic. That leaves central bankers doing the heavy lifting. We need to get to beyond that. We need to have some real fiscal policy to create a main street recovery rather than one that's been genetically engineered by the Fed.
ZANDI: But for the average American -- and that's what matters most -- it's not going to affect their job. It's not going to affect the wages that they're going to get, their wage increases. It's not going to affect their stock. The stock prices went down Friday. We saw that.
But they had run up significantly prior to that. And we're exactly where we were at the start of the year. So for -- the mortgage rates could even be lower a result of this, again going back into the capital flows into the country and lower interest rates.
FOROOHAR: Could raise the dollar, though, which would affect trade.
DICKERSON: What happens tomorrow in the U.K.?
RENNIE: Well, one of the things that I think's really shocking for people in the U.K. right now is that the very disparate and rather diverse group of people who led the campaign out, you had some kind of free market liberal romantic nationalists on the Tory side. You had some basically anti-immigration people.
They have kind of gone into hiding. They don't know what do. They're the kind of dog that caught the car. And we just don't know what their plan is. And there's now a kind of -- the entire of Westminster, London, is focused on a Tory leadership challenge and now possibly a challenge to the Labor leader. So there's a lot of navel- gazing.
I think they're missing the big picture, which is geopolitics. And to get back to the point about, should America worry, let's take the geopolitics of this. I will tell you who's really panicking, is the German government. Angela Merkel has intervened twice now to say everyone should calm down.
Why is she so worried? Angela Merkel, who is probably America's most important partner in Europe, is terrified of a European Union in which that large voice for globalism, for liberal, outward-facing kind of ambition, Britain, has left the room, leaving her with a very weak France and a Southern Europe that's still very much closed in on itself.
She does not want to be left in Europe without the Brits there. She is panicking, and that should panic America.
DICKERSON: And, David, pick up on that point. If Angela Merkel is panicking, is it in part because she is worried about Russia? Is she worried about China? There's no longer a big strong European counterbalance to China. What are some of the...
IGNATIUS: I sure she is worried about both.
But I think most of all she's worried about how Germany, this big, successful, gigantic force in Europe, how it conducts policy with the European Union, which has sort of shielded German power, made it acceptable to people, as that falls away around her.
Talking to Germans over the last few months as the Brexit vote neared, I heard a lot of anxiety about precisely this question. And I think we're going to see a Europe in which there will be a smaller group of countries with which Germany has shared interests, shared cultural values that will group around Germany.
There'll be looser controls for the periphery, I suspect. But I think, more broadly, that the political issue here, economic globalization isn't going away in Germany or anywhere. But politicians have got to find a language to talk about how the wealth that it creates is shared and how people feel governed -- I mean, nationalism is picking up. People want to live in countries. How are they going to be governed so they feel some ownership?
And I think that -- every single place...
(CROSSTALK)
ZANDI: I don't think we should be complacent about globalization.
FOROOHAR: I agree.
ZANDI: I think this is really important.
This is a train that can stop and can get reversed.
FOROOHAR: Yes.
ZANDI: And if we're not careful, it will exactly do that.
DICKERSON: You means if there's a crack-up?
ZANDI: Even if there's not a crack-up, thinks about what this means for own political process and what we're talking about here.
We're talking about immigration -- changing the way we view immigration, talking about tariffs on Chinese and Mexican imports, building walls. This is exactly opposite of what David is talking about. We're moving back from globalization.
And globalization has been a net positive for the economy. Yes, there's winners and there's losers, and we have to be very careful about how we bring up the losers in all this. But this thing is not inevitable. It can certainly reverse itself.
FOROOHAR: Yes.
DICKERSON: Global recession a possibility?
FOROOHAR: Yes. Well, statistically, global recessions happens about once every eight years.
So, we're kind of on track for it, even if this breakup wasn't happening. I would point out one thing about nationalism too. Across the world, millennials tend to be more nationalistic than the older generation. It's interesting. In the U.K., it the younger people that wanted to stay in.
But in may countries, China, Russia, there is a nationalistic group of younger people. And I think that this is something that's going to keep coming back. If we don't get the new rules of globalization right, we could dealing with lots more populism in the future.
DICKERSON: David, is there any -- there are some regrets we see, but is there any chance this could be reversed at all?
RENNIE: I don't see how. The real tragedy of what has just happened is that 17 million British people have given their political classes a mandate for something that cannot be delivered.
They want continued prosperity, selling tons of stuff in and out of Europe, to be a global free trading power, but they want to close the borders to any foreigners that we don't want to come in. And that can't be delivered.
And so they have been lied to. So if you think this is the end of the anger, this is the beginning of the anger, because we just saw a revolt against the experts and the elites, and the elites cannot now deliver what the people have demanded.
DICKERSON: All right.
Well, unfortunately, that's going to have to be the end of the conversation for the moment, though I'm sure we will come back to it. Thanks to all of you.
And we will be right back with news from our latest CBS News 2016 Battleground Tracker poll.
Stay with us.
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DICKERSON: And we're back with the results from our latest CBS News Battleground Tracker poll.
In all four of the competitive states we polled, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has a narrow lead on Donald Trump. In Florida, Clinton leads by three points, 44 percent to 41 percent. In North Carolina, she's ahead 44 percent to 42 percent. Clinton has her widest lead in Wisconsin, 41 percent to Trump's 36 percent.
And it's extremely close in Colorado, with Clinton barely leading Trump by one point with 40 percent to his 39 percent.
We will be back with more results and what they signal for November with our CBS News director of elections, Anthony Salvanto.
Stay with us.
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DICKERSON: Some of our CBS stations are leaving us now, but, for most of you, we will be right back with a lot more FACE THE NATION. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DICKERSON: Welcome back to FACE THE NATION. I'm John Dickerson.
We're back with CBS News director of elections, Anthony Salvanto.
Anthony, good to have you back.
Donald Trump has had a bad couple of weeks. And yet, in the polling, he's not -- something's holding him up. What is it?
ANTHONY SALVANTO, CBS NEWS ELECTIONS DIRECTOR: What's holding him up is that his voters are concerned with much larger issues than what we in Washington get concerned about, the day-to-day ups and downs, what he says, how much money he raises in the campaign. They're concerned about issues like, what it means to be an American. Big themes, that's what they say.
They're concerned about things like the pace of globalization. You were talking about Brexit earlier. And there are some similarities between what we saw over there in Britain and what you see in Donald Trump's voters that I think are instructive, not necessarily predictive. You know, his voters are saying that the pace of cultural change is going too fast for them.
So with these larger themes in mind -- and their missions is really to upend and change a system that they don't think is working, then the day-to-day movements of the campaign and what he says just don't matter that much.
DICKERSON: Right, so they're focused on the big stuff, where they think there's a big distinction between the candidates. So any little thing is just kind of beside the point.
SALVANTO: Yes.
DICKERSON: Let's talk about -- in the -- in the polls, there had been a national picture which shows Donald Trump doing worse than Hillary Clinton by 4, 5, 6 points depending on which national poll you look at. But in these states it seems much closer. Is there a reason for that?
SALVANTO: Yes, and it's partisanship. I mean one of the reasons you should always watch the battleground states, besides the obvious fact that the election is decided state by state, is that these are battleground states for a reason. They're close in terms of their partisan split between Democrats and Republicans. And what you see in all of these numbers now is that partisans have come home to both these candidates, divided into their respective corners and they're not moving. And that's -- that's underpinning each of their support.
DICKERSON: So let's talk about Hillary Clinton. What is holding her up? What do her voters want to see?
SALVANTO: Yes, something very different, which is, they're looking for somebody who can manage things day to day. They're interested in having an economy that they think works fairly and securing rights for people who don't yet have them but deserve them. So that's a very big contrast.
In fact, you know, you want to make note of that contrast. Even as we get here in the early part of the campaign, defining what the campaign is about. You know, they're not always -- even arguing over the same things.
DICKERSON: Right.
SALVANTO: These voters -- for Republicans, this is almost, you know, at the risk of hyperbole, this is almost existential. They're talking about not only what it means to be an American. They see the nation as being at war. Larger issues of identity.
DICKERSON: Think of it more in terms of terrorism.
SALVANTO: Yes.
DICKERSON: The threat from terrorism continues.
SALVANTO: Yes. Yes. And -- and so -- so those are larger issues for them, whereas for Democrats it seems much more procedural, how they manage this, how the economy works and so they're very -- they're very, very different in both -- in what they see as actually this election being about.
DICKERSON: Any -- anything nervous for Hillary Clinton to -- or anything for her to be nervous about in these findings?
SALVANTO: Yes, well, she's leading, but at the same time, she has to watch a couple of things. One is that Donald Trump continues to own the issue of change. More people in these states say he can bring change.
Now, he's limited to some extent, because the voters we talked about, the ones who feel like they're not at ease with globalization, et cetera, there is enough of them to keep him where he is, but not yet to propel him to a win. So if they start to look more for change for change's sake, then I think we could see the needle move a little bit.
DICKERSON: Twenty seconds. What about candidate running as Republicans with Donald Trump at the top of the ticket. What do they have to be concerned about?
SALVANTO: Well, the top of the ticket always effects the down ballot -- we call it down ballot races. The mechanics of that are that people don't split tickets much anymore and so the party will be concerned that if their presidential candidate doesn't do well, that people running for Senate and House will get dragged down because of that.
DICKERSON: Wonderful, Anthony. Thanks, as always. We'll look forward to having you back.
And stick with us. We'll be right back.
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DICKERSON: We're back now with our politics panel. Peggy Noonan is a "Wall Street Journal" columnist and a CBS News contributor. Tavis Smiley is host of "The Tavis Smiley Show" on PBS and author of "Before you Judge Me." Susan Page is the Washington bureau chief for "USA Today." And Mark Leibovich is the national -- the chief national correspondent of "The New York Times" magazine and has the cover story this week on Donald Trump and his divide within the Republican Party.
Peggy, I want to start with you first on the question of Brexit. We've seen both candidates grab this moment. Donald Trump on the -- on the golf links there saying that he was right, that this was a good thing.
PEGGY NOONAN, CBS NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Yes.
DICKERSON: Hillary Clinton saying, Donald Trump, in a -- in a crazy world, you don't want to have a dangerous president like Donald Trump. How do you assess how each took this moment?
NOONAN: Well, Hillary's still is in a sense one of the faces of the administration. The administration, the White House lost on this one. They had tried to convince Great Britain, don't leave Europe. Great Britain lost Europe. So that doesn't help Mrs. Clinton. And she reacted in a sort of reasonable, bureaucratic, well-wishing way.
Trump's side, if you will, won. He -- he got to claim, if he wanted to, that he is on the side of this populous wave that is sweeping across the -- the western democracies. I can't imagine he did himself that much good by saying essentially, I'm glad they voted that way in England. By the way, it's good for me and my golf course in Scotland.
DICKERSON: Yes.
NOONAN: That seemed insufficiently serious.
DICKERSON: Yes. Yes.
NOONAN: Well, I'll leave it there.
DICKERSON: Well, Tavis, because what Peggy's hitting on is that this is more than just an event that we look to the candidates to speak to.
TAVIS SMILEY, PBS: Right.
DICKERSON: Because as Marco Rubio said, the themes underlying this are -- are present here in America, the idea that elites don't know what they're talking about, that there is an unrest that needs to be fixed. How do you feel like the candidates addressed this first round of responses to this?
SMILEY: If Trump thinks he won, first of all, it's short term, Peggy, and, second of all, it's delusional, I think. We've been talking a lot on this program, some great conversation today, John, about economic nationalism and about globalization. But what some view as retrenchment, others view as race baiting.
David Cameron made a huge turn to the right last year. He threw immigrants under the bus, tried to distances himself from the refugee crisis, tried to connect then candidate Khan, now the mayor of London, to ISIS. So clearly there was some race baiting in this campaign and the rise of racial movements in the country, around the world rather, in this country are disturbing.
So when you bring it back home to Donald Trump and his -- his -- his mantra continues to be, make America great again, there are three questions one has to ask very quickly. One, for whom? Number two, what (INAUDIBLE) days are you talking about going back to? When was America so great we want to return to it? Number three, what about those fellow citizens for whom they've been waiting perennially to experience the true greatness of America? And I think when people start asking those questions, it's not going to be a victory for Donald Trump.
DICKERSON: Susan, we have the moment. OK, that's fine. We've gotten through that news cycle. But both of these candidates are trying to win the argument. As we talked with Anthony, Republicans see this as an existential threat to America. And Donald Trump seeps to be speaking that. Hillary Clinton is saying, I've got a series of programs here that will help you in your economic pain, but listen to my series of programs.
How do you see that conversation playing out going forward? Is it two separate conversations, or does it mean somewhere in the middle and these -- and -- and the two candidates get to kind of actually adjudicate what might happen to our country?
SUSAN PAGE, USA TODAY: You know, they do seem to be ruing for two different offices in some ways, although a lot of their focus is on how unacceptable the -- the other -- the other candidate is. You know -- and one problem it seems to me is that Hillary Clinton is making this argument that we heard in -- in the Brexit debate, that it is too risky. It's catastrophic if you take this course. And voters in Britain decided they were willing to take a risk. They were just that dissatisfied.
And the question is, I guess, Donald Trump is making kind of the same bet here, that voters are so unhappy with the status quo that they're willing to do something that seems quite risky. And look at the ad that you showed earlier, the -- a volatile -- we don't need a volatile president in a volatile time. You know, I think there are a certain number of voters who say, this is a volatile time. Just exactly what we need is a volatile president.
DICKERSON: Right. And if it's risky, it's risky for the people who live in the fancy houses, and the bankers, and the people who have been making money. It's not -- I've already been taking a hit economically. How much worse could it get?
Mark, how do you think -- you know, if this is a change election -- sorry to use that old cliche, but Hillary Clinton is not the change candidate. Her argument is, though, there's change and then there's chaos. How do you think that plays out?
MARK LEIBOVICH, "NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE": Well, I mean, I think certainly if Donald Trump wins, this will very much be a change election. I think Hillary Clinton is banking on the fact that she can, you know, I guess define Donald Trump to a point where the earthquake that Donald Trump would represent if he is elected would be far too destructive to be something that anyone should go forward with. So I think in that sense it's -- it's a very, very clear choice.
You know, as far as Brexit being predictive, I think instructive is the better word. That was the word Anthony used. You know, I think the demographics are very different. I also think that there's several months -- or four or five months now that are going to pass in which fallout is going to be experienced in 401(k)s, you know, at least on the global stage where this becomes less of an abstraction and more of a reality that people are going to be voting on.
SMILEY: I think the other thing, John, too is that this -- I think to pick up on Mark's point, in -- in -- in the U.K. they were vote on an issue. Here we're voting for an individual.
DICKERSON: Right.
SMILEY: Those or two very different things. So to get to the issues that Donald is talking about, you've got to get past the individual. And if the negatives remain as high as they do and he keeps insulting everyone, it's a very different conversation. An issue, I think, Peggy, versus individual.
NOONAN: I actually agree with this point. There are many Trump supporters --
SMILEY: Yes, Peggy agrees.
NOONAN: Well done. There are many Trump supporters who think Brexit is an indicator of Trump's inevitable victory. I sort of think, you know what, Trump himself is going to be the big indicator of Trump's inevitable or evitable victory.
SMILEY: I agree.
NOONAN: In other words, how he acts, who he is, how he proceeds for the next few months, his acceptance speech, the campaign he wages, that's what's going to determine his future. Brexit is not really a wave you can ride. It is simply a sign that, in the west, people are pushing back against the way things have been for about 15 years that they don't like.
DICKERSON: Susan, haven't we known, though, that voters are angry and upset for a while? I mean when we -- I -- I -- because what I'm trying to figure out is -- I mean if you covered the Tea Party movement, you -- you knew that people were unhappy. If you listened to all the politicians who have talking about economic inequality and stagnant wages and -- this has been a conversation in politics for a while. Is there something new that's happened here or is just Donald Trump the thing that is new?
PAGE: You know, one thing that I think has changed a little is, we've know people have been unhappy about the state of their economy and about the cost of college and college debt and about the feeling kind of the American dream is slipping away. The additional layer it seems to me that we're hearing now is that I've been -- that people are saying, I've been telling my government about this and they aren't doing anything about it. And I think that is a theme we heard in Great Brittan and it is definitely something you hear in this country talking to either Trump voters and also to Bernie Sanders voters.
DICKERSON: Yes. And if you haven't been listening to me when I talk about it now I'm going to shout.
SMILEY: But it also makes a difference, though, I think Susan's right, but I think it makes a difference, though, when you have someone, though, actively campaigning and appealing to those fears, to your -- to -- to -- not to your hopes and aspirations, but to your fears. And I think that makes a difference as well.
DICKERSON: Mark, you wrote about the Republican Party and its embrace, sometimes non-embrace, of Donald Trump. Where is the state of that relationship?
LEIBOVICH: I think it's precarious. I mean I think in the last -- in the last few weeks, just talking to Republicans, you look at these two big global events. You look at Brexit. You look at Orlando two weeks ago. And a lot of people that I've spoken to see these as big missed opportunities for Trump, because I think -- I'm not sure how the Brexit reaction on the golf course is going to play out over the next few days, but, I mean, people do define these candidates in times of crisis, whether it's a change election or not, in these moments. And -- and certainly the Orlando reaction, you know, among a lot of Republicans I've spoken to for this story, and just generally, find it very, very troubling because it was a potentially presidential moment. This could have been a more presidential moment after Brexit, which he didn't -- it wasn't even clear that he knew what Brexit was a few weeks ago.
PAGE: And, you know, one reason the Hillary Clinton people are spending so much money on ads in -- in key states right now, more than 23 million already, is because it's like concrete being poured. So the concrete is being poured on these two candidates. Impressions are being set. And as time goes on, it gets harder and harder to change things. By the time you get to the fall, when presumably the -- the Donald Trump people will be advertising to, they'll need jackhammers to change the impression that's been set of Donald.
LEIBOVICH: Exactly.
NOONAN: All this is true, but you know what was interesting in Anthony's polling? It was that in each of the states he looked at, the battleground states, it was fairly close, but also Trump was holding on to Republicans. He may be losing Republicans in Washington. He may be losing Republicans in media land, but he's holding on to Republicans in Colorado and various states that's so interesting to me. It's as if they're looking at all of us and saying, I don't care.
DICKERSON: Right.
NOONAN: I want change.
DICKERSON: And -- that's right. And, Tavis, Hillary Clinton is spending -- or her super PAC's supporting her are spending mountain of money in these states. Donald Trump is not. There were all kinds of stories this week about the disparities in fundraising, in staff and so forth. But what don't people know about Donald Trump, a, and, b, if he is this other character running his own kind of way, maybe those old metrics don't matter.
SMILEY: I think, one, and I've never believed that Trump needs as much money as Hillary, so I'm not -- I'm personally not buying into all the stories about the gap in the fundraising. He doesn't need it, number one. Number two, he is -- who is Donald Trump? I don't know. I keep asking, will the real Donald Trump show up -- show up or stand up, because what he says in public, his friends say, that's not the Donald that I know.
But I think fundamentally, John, this election is going to be about what kind of nation we're going to be. Who are we really as a people? That's the ultimate question. And so the numbers, I think, may be interesting at moment, but when people start to wrestle with that question, I think the Brexit vote is instructive, because it makes a statement to the world who we really are as a nation, who we really are as a people.
LEIBOVICH: I -- but I also think, look, as -- sort of getting to -- to Peggy's point, there is no Brent Scokroft (ph) bump here for Hillary Clinton. There is no (INAUDIBLE) --
(CROSS TALK)
NOONAN: Well said.
DICKERSON: (INAUDIBLE) Republican.
LEIBOVICH: There's no Hank Paulson bump. I mean we're talking about --
DICKERSON: (INAUDIBLE) establishment -- LEIBOVICH: Establishment elite Republicans versus the Republicans who actually vote in the Denver suburbs, in the Cleveland suburbs, in the Milwaukee suburbs, what have you. So, again, this is the same disconnect we're talking about that -- that, you know, played out somewhat, not completely in (INAUDIBLE), but somewhat in England, and that we have to be very mindful of here.
DICKERSON: Peggy, let me ask you a question. Marco Rubio, in my conversation with him, he has said the post peppery things about Donald Trump of any of his opponents.
NOONAN: He has. Yes.
DICKERSON: But then he said, well, you know, he gave a good speech last week. It seemed to me that Rubio's claims about Trump were about moral and character and judgment, but the speech he gave this week was about basically Hillary Clinton being no good.
NOONAN: Right. Right.
DICKERSON: That may be good politics, but does it get at the concerns people in the Republican Party have had about Trump's moral and temperament and judgment?
NOONAN: I think Trump's speech this week about Hillary Clinton had the effect of, a, exciting some Republicans, that he -- they really wanted someone to bring it to her, and so he did. He did it in a new way, not in this way he was doing it a few months ago about Bill's enabler, but it was about money. It was about being the candidate of the hedge funders. It was -- it was questioning her judgment. So there was that. That might be what Rubio means in part, that it was a good speech.
Rubio himself is interesting to me in that he appears to have been pressed to run again for the Senate. The assumption is, he'll win the seat. But I look from far away and think, if he is going to be a real Trump critic and separate himself deeply from Trump for reasons of conscience or whatever, fine. Trump won Florida and beat Marco Rubio by about 20 points in -- in the primaries. And I just think Rubio may be putting himself in a differ place. I'm not sure it's a safe seat if he's running for it.
DICKERSON: Susan, we have 20 -- just about 20 seconds left. There was news on the email front with Hillary Clinton. Didn't turn over an email that showed there were problems with her server. That's not good.
PAGE: An important disclosure for two reasons. Number one, it showed that she was concerned about letting -- she gave a different explanation for why she had a private email server. She was concerned about the personal being accessible. It wasn't a matter of convenience, which is what she told the world.
DICKERSON: Originally.
NOONAN: Yes. PAGE: Secondly, she didn't turn it over. She deleted this email, apparently, and it came up because it came through an -- through -- to the aid that she had sent it to. So it goes right to those questions about honesty, trustworthiness, and transparency.
DICKERSON: And that e-mail was about the problems that having a home brew server would cause, which -- so we'll end it there.
Thanks to all of you. And we'll be right back.
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DICKERSON: We're joined now by the president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and head of the campaign to fix the debt, Maya MacGuineas.
Maya, welcome.
You have some new numbers, a new report. What does it say?
MAYA MACGUINEAS, PRESIDENT, COMMITTEE FOR A RESPONSIBLE FEDERAL BUDGET: We do, John. OK, so thanks for having me.
What we have been doing through this campaign is looking at the promises of all of the candidates. And along with those promises come price tags. So we've been doing this for over a year now. We've look at the candidates from Ted Cruz to Bernie Sanders. What we' going to come out with tomorrow is our first big, deep dive comparing the policies of Trump and Clinton. So we'll talk about this some more.
But what we find is, both candidates, at a time when our debt is already at record levels, would not put forth a plan that would put the death on a sustainable path. But that said, the plan of Donald Trump would add much, much more to the debt than Hillary Clinton's.
DICKERSON: Why? Why Trump's more than Clinton?
MACGUINEAS: So when you look at Donald Trump's plan, it is really all about tax cuts. He has very significant tax cuts. Almost $10 trillion added to the debt. And if you want to go that route, if you want to add tax -- add a great amount to the debt through tax cuts, you need to cut government spending. But, in fact, his plan that has spending in health care, in immigration costs, and, importantly, in veterans' benefits, and the biggest part of his plan, more interest on the debt because he borrows so much, actually increases spending. And what Donald Trump has said is that, don't worry, I will have very large economic growth.
DICKERSON: Yes.
MACGUINEAS: And that will get rid of the problem. So we looked at those numbers as well. And what we found is that because there's such huge amount added to the debt, again, over the ten years looking at his numbers, the total, including what we're on track to already borrow, would be $20 trillion. He would add about $11 trillion to the debt on top of $10 trillion that's already there. You would have to grow the economy by 10 percent a year. That's five times as much as the impartial estimators are already projecting. And it's well above the record we've ever had. So that's -- just because you say it doesn't make it true that's not going to happen.
DICKERSON: Just to remind some people about where we are in the deficit budget picture, regardless of what the candidates propose, there is an existing challenge that the American government faces, right? An existing -- you've got to balance the books, regardless of what new things you propose.
MACGUINEAS: No, there really is. And our debt situation is really bad. And, honestly, you wouldn't know it from how candidates or the parties talk about it because if there's one tiny area of bipartisan agreement, it's that nobody wants to talk about this issue because it's hard. But we are at record levels of debt, the highest it's been since we came out of World War II. We're on track to add $10 trillion over the next ten years if we do nothing before any of these promises come true. The fastest growing part of the budget is interest payments. And that's squeezing out all other important parts of the budget. And this affects American families. If you want to fix the economy, if you want to do all the things we're talking about in this campaign, we need a leader who's also going to have a plan to deal with the debt, and so far we don't have that from either major candidate.
DICKERSON: Explain why there is a cost to delay, to not getting -- having this conversation?
MACGUINEAS: So there's so many reasons that the debt actually affects voters. One thing is, just last week, we heard from the trustees of Social Security and Medicare, that these two important programs need to have changes to stay solvent. And yet both candidates are not putting forth plans to secure Social Security. Donald Trump has said he won't touch the program except for waste, fraud and abuse, which is not going to fix the program, and Hillary Clinton has been talking about expanding it in targeted ways, but has made no mention of a plan to save Social Security. The longer we wait, the more expensive it becomes.
And in all other areas of the budget, actually having these high debt levels, it slows the growth of the economy. It slows wages. It squeezes out the important priorities we have. Nobody can implement the plans they want if we don't have reasonable debt levels.
And, importantly, you're not prepared for crises when they come along. Brexit is a great reminder of why we need to have a debt that's under control, because emergencies will happen, because downturns will happen, and you want to have a strong fiscal house to get started.
DICKERSON: Last question. About 30 seconds left. If I'm a voter and I'm on the rope line and one of these candidates comes to me, what question do I ask them to get them to focus on this?
MACGUINEAS: I mean it's really so important because it underlies all the other issues. But how would they deal with the unsustainable national debt? What would they put in their first budget that would bring the debt down to a sustainable level? I'm not even saying you have to balance the budget, but get it to the point where the debt's not growing faster than the economy, and that's going to require real policy choices. These choices have costs and so far the costs of both candidates would make the situation worse not better. We're going to have to change course.
DICKERSON: All right, Maya MacGuineas, thanks so much for being with us.
MACGUINEAS: Thanks, John.
DICKERSON: And we'll be back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DICKERSON: That's it for us today. Thanks for watching the show. And turn in next week for more news, politics, and our Fourth of July presidential book panel.
Until then, for FACE THE NATION, I'm John Dickerson.