Transcript: Sens. Chris Coons and James Lankford on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” Sept. 14, 2025

The following is the transcript of an interview with Sens. Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, and James Lankford, Republican of Oklahoma, that aired on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on Sept. 14, 2025.

MAJOR GARRETT: Welcome back to “Face The Nation.” For a look at how Congress may- may help bridge political divisions in the country presently, we turn to a couple of lawmakers with a lot of experience in that space. Democratic Senator Chris Coons, who joins us from Wilmington, Delaware, Republican Senator James Lankford, who joins us from Oklahoma City. Gentlemen, you have a well-earned reputation, both, for preaching bipartisanship, taking the rhetorical temperature in Washington and nationwide down a notch or two. Senator Coons, I want to start with you. After the events of this week, do you feel that’s harder than ever to achieve?

SEN. CHRIS COONS: It is. And, Major, thank you, for a chance to be on with you and with my friend, Senator Lankford. The brutal assassination of Charlie Kirk, while he was in the middle of a debate on a college campus, goes to the very heart of what it means to be American, of the importance of the First Amendment, of free speech, and someone like Charlie Kirk, who was a nationally known figure, who dedicated himself to debate, to engagement with his political adversaries, should not have paid with his life for the opportunity to speak out. No matter how much I might deeply disagree with his political views, the idea that he would be killed in such a grotesque and public way has to bring all of us to reflect about how hard it’s getting, because the internet is an accelerant. It is driving extremism in our country. It’s driving us apart, left and right, and leaders like Senator Lankford, Governor Cox, have an obligation and an opportunity to join with leaders from my party in urging folks to set aside any thought of political violence and to respect each other, even as we keep advancing our political differences through discourse.

MAJOR GARRETT: Senator Lankford, do you ever at times feel as if your appeals for better angels, calmer rhetoric, more bipartisanship, is shouting into an internet void?

SEN. JAMES LANKFORD: It is, because the algorithm pushes people to the most extreme. The algorithm is all- on social media is always pushing who’s the angriest, who’s the loudest, who says the craziest thing, that’s what gets repeated over and over and over again. So anytime that there is cogent dialogue or an issue on something where people may disagree, but they’re having a civil conversation on it, that gets pushed aside, towards someone that’s just angry and focused. This is somewhat human nature, to be able to say, we disagree. We find areas where we disagree, and we try to be able to solve those. The best way to be able to solve those is through words, talking it out, finding an opportunity to be able to do it. But I would tell you, this kind of anger is as old as Cain and Abel. To be able to go back and say, I’m mad at you, so I’m going to try to destroy you, whether it’s destroy you online, or to try to humiliate you, or to cancel you, or to, in this case, try to murder you publicly. It is- it is painful to be able to see that part of humanity, and it is better for us to be able to push better angels.

MAJOR GARRETT: Senator Lankford, first you, then Senator Coons. Senator Lankford, are you afraid for your own security right now?

SEN. LANKFORD: I am- I am attentive to my own security, how about that, for myself and for my family. My staff and I have to- have to talk through each public event, but we’ve had to do that for a while. As you may know well, there have been 14,000 threats against members of Congress just this calendar year. This is not new, but it continues to be able to rise. As we’ve seen, Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota, in their own home, have a home invasion, to be murdered in their home, as we’ve seen a governor in Pennsylvania have his home set on fire. It’s not just public events, it’s also in our private spaces as well, that we’re keenly aware that there are people that are irrational, that do irrational acts.

MAJOR GARRETT: Senator Coons?

SEN. COONS: I agree that for all of us who serve in public life, whether it’s leading a nonprofit or a church, teaching in a school, or being a public advocate, someone engaged in public debate as Charlie Kirk was, the risk is getting higher. And to have to worry about the safety of your own family, if you step forward to serve as a judge, if you write editorials, if you lead a nonprofit, or if you serve in Congress or run for president, to have to worry not just about your own physical safety, but the safety of your spouse and children, I think, weakens our ability to have good and robust debates, to have a well-led nation, and to demonstrate to the world that we’re a nation committed to free speech, but where we reject political violence. So of course, anyone in public life today is more concerned about the tragedy in Utah, about the incidents that Senator Lankford just referenced, the attempt to kidnap the governor of Michigan, to assault Speaker Pelosi’s husband, the shooting of Steve Scalise and the shootings at other members of Congress. The recent incidents have gotten worse and worse and I think I know the reason. It’s principally because the internet is fueling and accelerating those deep-seated inclinations towards violence and seeing others as enemies that James was referencing. And there are steps we can and should take in Congress to address that.

MAJOR GARRETT: The administration this weekend, as I’m sure you two are both aware, putting before Congress $58 billion in security for members of Congress, the judiciary and the like. Senator Coons, you believe Congress will be disposed to agree to that?

SEN. COONS: I hope that we will step up and invest more. I just hosted a bipartisan event last week on protecting state judges, and we had state judicial leaders from across the country, from Delaware and Texas and many other states, talk about harrowing incidents and tragic killings of members of the judiciary. I hope we will invest in securing our public life, because incidents like this tragedy in Utah, like the murder of Melissa and her husband Mark Hortman in Minnesota, frankly, fuel further anger in our country, and the ways in which folks are then taking the horrific images of these incidents and propagating them on the internet, adds fuel to the fire. We can and should pass bills, as we just did. Senator Cruz and Senator Klobuchar worked together to pass, and President Trump signed into law, the TAKE IT DOWN Act, to remove some of the most harmful pornographic, revenge porn images from the internet. And we have a bill right in front of us, the Kids Online Safety Act that’s broadly bipartisan, that we should pass to help reduce some of the risks and harms to our families in our country, from the internet.

MAJOR GARRETT: Senator Lankford, I misspoke that’s 58 million, not 58 billion, but it’s a substantial sum.

SEN. LANKFORD: Yeah, it is a substantial sum. What was funny was I was going to actually correct you on that, to let you know it’s an ‘M’, not a ‘B’ on that particular one, but it is something to be able to set aside and say, what are we doing? It’s not- it is about the person and their family, but it’s also about the title. It’s about the task, because that person represents that state, that- that part of the nation, that particular task, my wife and I often talk about the fact that I have this title of senator for a season. Someone else had it before me, someone else will have it after me. But while I have it, I’m a steward of that task and that responsibility. And so when we’re talking about protecting judges and protecting individuals, it’s not just their personal safety. It is really declaring to the nation that we believe that these tasks are hard, that there should be intense debate, that we have very different perspectives. Chris Coons and I are very close friends, but we have very different ideas on some things. But we have the ability to be able to represent our individual states instead of ideas, and to be able to talk those two things out, and to be able to bring things together and say, I know areas where we disagree, where do we agree? How can we solve it? That is where we are at our best as Americans is to say we don’t oppress each other. We try to be able to find our common ground and to be able to move forward as we can and- but as Chris has mentioned, the online kids safety Act is a great piece of legislation to be able to protect our kids. We are seeing people radicalize online, on social media and through the internet in the United States, by other Americans and by the algorithm that’s there. And I would tell you, as recently as just a couple of weeks ago, I was in a school in Oklahoma that now Oklahoma schools have banned all cell phones from bell to bell at school. You cannot have a cell phone on your- on your- on from bell to bell on campus. And the principals and the teachers all talk about how dramatically different the environment is on campus right now because people are looking up, people are interacting. People are talking again. They’re not just staring at their phone. They’re not getting fed all this vitriol all day long. And so it changes the mood of everything just by looking at each other in the face and saying, let’s see if we can work this out.

MAJOR GARRETT: Senator Lankford, I’m going to bring up something that’s playing out through the country right now, and it’s making all the things you and Senator Coons have talked about more difficult, which is people who have posted about Charlie Kirk have jobs and are being fired because what they’ve posted online has been viewed by their personnel directors or leaders as inappropriate. At any governmental level or in the private sector, are you comfortable having someone fired for an utterance about Charlie Kirk’s death?

SEN. LANKFORD: Yeah, this is about protecting the individual businesses. And what people are seeing is this cancel culture that still persists, that if you voice something that becomes a big push back from the community, the employer will step up and say, hey, you’re about to kill our business based on what you’re saying online. Everyone has to understand what they say privately online can get connected to their business. We have a veterinarian clinic in Oklahoma City right now that one of the veterinarians posted something just absolutely horrific about–and now we’re calling out the sick ones right after Charlie Kirk was murdered that now there’s been big pushback through that veterinary clinic, because people are saying, okay, this is the person- do I want to do business with that person if they have that belief? So this is part of the challenge that we have with social media and with employments. Employers are going to say, don’t hurt our business based on the foolish things that you choose to say, to be able to say online.

MAJOR GARRETT: Senator Coons, how about within the federal government?

SEN. COONS: Well, the way James put it there, I think, is a good balance between it’s okay to have codes of conduct to say to an employee, you shouldn’t be speaking out on behalf of this company or this department of the federal government, where your role, for example, requires that you be trusted and that you not take partisan political positions. One of the challenges of the intersection of the line between social media and one’s conduct on behalf of the government is that today we can see into your internal views. But it’s not that new. So, let’s imagine that you’re a career federal prosecutor or you’re a judge. Historically, there have been clear rules against engaging in partisan politics while you’re performing those functions. The internet just makes it easier for folks to police and punish those who make statements that are considered extreme or out of the mainstream. Cancel culture is a real challenge to us, to balancing free speech with positions of responsibility, and we have to find our way through this together in a way that offers some grace and humility while celebrating the free speech that is the foundation of our republic, and urging people to think twice before they post things that are outrageous online.

MAJOR GARRETT: Senator Lankford, the country is going to look to Congress here in the next couple of weeks to avert a government shutdown. Also possibly extend soon to expire Affordable Care Act subsidies that help people afford insurance. In this climate and with those eyes of the nation upon Congress, how do you expect that to play out?

SEN. LANKFORD: I expect us to be able to solve the budget issues, which the American people expect to be able to- to do as well. These are hard issues. We’re sent to be able to do hard things. We should do hard things on it. We should not, first and foremost, have a government shutdown. We have $37 trillion in debt right now. We should have hard conversations about debt and deficit, but they shouldn’t be during a government shutdown. What we’re currently arguing right now about is a seven-week extension on the current budget spending, to say we’re not changing anything, but for the next seven weeks, let’s just hold it until we get a longer budget agreement and can actually come to agreement. What has been floated is a $300 billion requirement, by some of my Democratic colleagues, to say, if we don’t spend an additional $300 billion, we’re not going to keep the government open the next seven weeks. This is also a subsidy, an insurance subsidy, that was put in place during COVID and just after COVID, to say, due to the health care issues around COVID, we’re going to extend additional insurance coverage that’s there. COVID and the crisis of COVID has now passed on it, it’s difficult to say we should spend an additional $300 billion just to stay open the next seven weeks due to a COVID emergency at this point. So yes, we’ll have- we’ll have hard conversations, but let’s have it. Let’s- let’s talk it out. Let’s figure it out.

MAJOR GARRETT: Senator Coons, you’re going to get the last word. Respond to Senator Lankford on that.

SEN. COONS: Well, this is an area where Senator Lankford and I disagree. We are both appropriators. We both want to find a way to work together to keep the government open, but the Republican-only bill that was passed earlier this year, the so-called Big Beautiful Bill, threatens to raise rates for health care for millions of Americans and to throw millions more off of health care. I think there are ways we can reduce the harm to Americans’ healthcare through the appropriations process. The bill that we both voted for in our committee in July would restore many of the proposed deep cuts to the National Institutes of Health for example, one positive step forward. We have to find a way to resolve these issues and reduce or reverse some of the harm that’s being done to Americans’ health care.

MAJOR GARRETT: Senator Chris Coons, Delaware Democrat. Senator James Lankford, Oklahoma Republican. Thank you both. I appreciate it. And we’ll be right back.