Transcript: Sen. Elizabeth Warren on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” Nov. 8, 2026
The following is the transcript of the interview with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, that aired on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on Nov. 8, 2026.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We go now to Massachusetts Democrat Elizabeth Warren, the expected incoming Senate Banking Committee Chair, and she joins us from Cambridge. Good morning to you, Senator.
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN: Good morning.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So you have written an outline here, an op-ed about what it’s going to look like with Democrats in the majority. You said Democrats won by being populist economic fighters who are unafraid to call out corrupt politicians and corporate interests who have rigged the system at the expense of everyone else. That has echoes of President Trump’s populist economic message. Not what he said there, of course, but certainly what he has said to voters again and again. What specific policies do you think you can work with him on?
SEN. WARREN: Look, President Trump himself said that he wants to reduce interest rates on credit cards to 10%. I got the bill, I’m ready to go. President Trump says he wants to do more on housing. We’re ready. We have the bills ready to go. And besides that, we got a whole bunch more that the American people have told us that they want on price gouging, on protecting our rural hospitals, on making sure that people have access to health care. We have a lot of work lined out that we can do. In fact, one of the best parts of this election was how many Democrats stood up and didn’t just say, “I’m for the middle class.” They said, “Here, I understand what is broken. Here are my specific plans to fix it, and I am committed to doing that.” So you end up with this situation where, in Michigan and Texas, you’ve got the candidates saying the same thing, break up big medicine. You end up with a situation where in Kansas and in South Carolina, you’ve got the Democratic candidates saying, “We love that road to housing bill, but we want to go bolder, bigger, more housing.” Situation where in North Carolina and Alaska, we’ve got candidates saying, “Hey, we need to break up the grocery monopolies–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah.
SEN. WARREN:–and stop price gouging.” Iowa and Maine, where- where the Senate candidates there said “We’re going to shore up Social Security and make billionaires pay their fair share,” and you know, Margaret, those may sound like lots of different pieces.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
SEN. WARREN: They’re not. They’re all about economic power–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well–
SEN. WARREN: –and people have told us that’s what they want, and we’ve got the team to deliver now.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, I mean, I don’t have to tell you it’s different to campaign than it is to actually legislate. But President Trump has said he does want to work with Democrats on a few things here: immigration, tax cuts- or cuts, or quote “maybe certain things having to do with taxes to make it more convenient, a lot of economic development initiatives.” Does that track with your expectations of how this White House will be able to work with you, run by Stephen Miller and of course President Trump?
SEN. WARREN: Look, let’s- let’s be clear. The American people are the ones who’ve really set the agenda here. They’re the ones who have told us what they wanted. They didn’t just tell Democrats. They delivered a message to the Republicans–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah.
SEN. WARREN:–pretty loud and clear. And I just follow through on what happened in the- just this last summer. We put together a bipartisan housing bill that is going to expand the supply of housing and help bring down the cost of housing, and for the first time ever in American history–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah.
SEN. WARREN: –going to ban private equity. Donald Trump didn’t even sign the damn thing, and yet it is now law. We got a lot of ways to deliver for the American people, whether Donald Trump wants to be part of it or not.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Because you got a veto-proof majority on that particular bill, that’s going to be perhaps more challenging. You have said you want to bring big tech CEOs, Wall Street executives, and giant corporations who may have broken the law to face consequences. To be clear, is your focus going to be legislation or is it going to be investigation?
SEN. WARREN: Look, we- we have to do both. But I do want to be clear: if you’ve been making your profits by cheating American families and scamming your investors, you better get ready for some investigations, serious ones.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Who do you have in mind there when you say that?
SEN. WARREN: Anyone who’s been cheating. That’s what investigations are all about.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay, so you don’t have a list of people you plan to subpoena yet. You- even though you’re going to be in this chair?
SEN. WARREN: We- I- it is important that we go through the steps–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay.
SEN. WARREN: –for investigation because look, the American people are just damn sick of this.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well–
SEN. WARREN: They are sick of a White House that wouldn’t enforce the laws even when they got cheated. They are sick of a White House that dropped investigations that said, “Oh, if you make a nice contribution to Donald Trump’s ballroom–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah.
SEN. WARREN: –then there won’t be any enforcement of the law when you’ve cheated millions of American customers.”
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well–
SEN. WARREN: That has to end.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Under- and we saw that in the polling, a concern about corruption. Senator Chris Coons, who is slated to take over Senate Foreign Relations in the new Congress, has said he wants questions answered about- it appears to be Nvidia, the chip maker, and its CEO Jensen Huang–
SEN. WARREN: Yes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: The New York Times says he may have had a close relationship with a spy from China. Is there anything you can tell us about that? Is AI going to be a focus for you, and specifically this tech- this chip maker?
SEN. WARREN: Well, on the chip maker specifically, you know, this is an issue where we have actually substantial bipartisan support in the Banking Committee. We’ve got- we’ve got Republicans and Democrats. I’m on bipartisan bills in order to- to put more restraints on the ability to export our chips to China.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah.
SEN. WARREN: In fact, we have worked on a bipartisan basis to try to stop Donald Trump from encouraging Nvidia, permitting Nvidia to send these chips to China, and now we’re seeing some of the consequences of that. So, we’ve got a lot of places where work needs to be done and a lot of different avenues to do it, but the central part is going to be lowering costs for families and rooting out the corruption. It’s- it’s not a long agenda.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, one of the things Democrats promised was to end the war with Iran. There are a few more weeks left in this Republican–
SEN. WARREN: Yeah.
MARGARET BRENNAN: –majority. You sit on the Armed Services Committee. There are senators like Senators Bennet and Senator Mark Kelly who have said something to the effect of Democrats should cut off funding for White House operations in order to pressure President Trump to end the war. There are people in the House making noise like that. I mean, what does this look like? Are we looking at cutting off all government funding? Are we looking at a government shutdown in the next few weeks?
SEN. WARREN: Look, the pressure is building to end this war. People have told us they want us to stop the war, a war that is illegal, that is halfway around the world, that to this day, the Trump administration can’t explain what their goals are, and what their exit ramp looks like. They want us to stop it. They want us not to spend money over there. They want to be able to buy gasoline and heating oil fuel because they want this economy to work again. The way I think of this is the wind is at our backs to end this war, we got a lot of different tools on the table to get this done–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Leverage, you mean?
SEN. WARREN: This is a democracy, and- yes, and the American people have spoken, and it is time to listen to the American people. Democrats are ready to fight for that, and we invite the Republicans to join us.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We will watch for what that looks like. Senator Elizabeth Warren, thank you for joining us today. Face the Nation will be back in one minute. Stay with us.
