Transcript: Sen. Jeanne Shaheen on

The following is the transcript of an interview with GOP Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire that aired on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on Feb. 16, 2025.

MARGARET BRENNAN: And joining me now is Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, joining us from Munich Security Conference. Senator, you were on stage with Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy Friday, discussing the future of U.S. and Ukraine security cooperation. He said he hopes President Trump will help Ukraine. Can Congress? Can senators like yourself give him any assurances that U.S. support in his fight with Russia will continue?

SEN. JEANNE SHAHEEN: Well, we had a bipartisan panel participating with President Zelenskyy, two Democrats, two Republicans, and I think it’s fair to say that we were unanimous in our support for Ukraine, for continuing the fight against Russia, for thinking about how we hold Vladimir Putin accountable, and for providing as much leverage as we can to Ukraine before any kind of negotiations start to end the war.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, in terms of negotiations, there were some comments made by President Trump this week. There were also comments made by his Defense Secretary that I know got a lot of attention among our European counterparts. The Defense Secretary said returning to Ukraine’s pre 2014 borders is unrealistic. He’s suggesting that maybe the east and another part of Ukraine and Crimea will be taken by Russia. Why do you think there was this plan to give concessions before talks begin? 

SEN. SHAHEEN: Well, I think it was a mixed message coming from the administration. On the one hand, you heard Secretary Hegseth saying they were going to take NATO off the table, that Ukraine needed to give up territory, and on the other hand, you had Vice President Vance yesterday, or at the conference, saying that everything should be on the table, including the possibility of putting boots on the ground in Ukraine. So it’s a mixed message. I hope that the upshot of that is that we are going to do everything we can to support Ukraine.

MARGARET BRENNAN: In terms of what Congress can do, are your hands tied here? Or are some of your Republican colleagues willing to put something perhaps in an upcoming defense bill, for example, that might help Ukraine?

SEN. SHAHEEN: Well, I think that’s one option. One of the things that we’re talking about doing right away is making some statements on the the repossession of assets by Russia that are held in the United States and in Europe, and the importance of having those assets go to Ukraine to help both with the execution of the military conflict, but also to think about rebuilding.  Again, there’s bipartisan support, there was bipartisan support for the bill, and there’s bipartisan support to continue to try and ensure that those assets from Russia get repaid to Ukraine, because Russia is really the aggressor here, and we need to hold Vladimir Putin accountable. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: You know, your Republican counterpart, Roger Wicker, He is the chair of the Armed Services Committee was really sharp in his comments at Munich. He was saying he was puzzled. He was disturbed by what the Defense Secretary, a member of his own party, had said about Ukraine. He was very clear that what Vladimir Putin is doing, he said, is absolutely out of Adolf Hitler’s playbook. Those are sharp words, considering the President of the United States says he wants to meet face to face to Vladimir Putin and possibly bring him to the White House.

SEN. SHAHEEN: Well, they are sharp words, and they are very much justified, regardless of what President Trump may be doing to try and lay the groundwork for any future negotiations. The fact is, there is strong bipartisan support in Congress to help Ukraine in this unfair war that Russia has initiated. And I think Senator Wicker’s comments are very important. We need to make sure that the world knows that we want to hold Vladimir Putin and Russia accountable for what, for what they’ve done.

MARGARET BRENNAN: At the conference you’re at, you are able to speak with European leaders. What are they saying to you about their view of America now?

SEN. SHAHEEN: Well, we’re here in Munich, which is one of the biggest security conferences worldwide, and we have leaders from all over the world, a lot of European leaders. And we had a chance to meet with representatives from Britain, from Canada, not a European country, but also very concerned about Ukraine. With- people from the Balkan countries, with President Zelenskyy, obviously, and there is a great deal of concern about the U.S. position on Ukraine. At the panel that we had with President Zelenskyy, we talked about the importance of Europe and the United States acting in concert so that we can hold Putin accountable with sanctions, so that we can- so that there is no daylight between the United States and our NATO allies and our European allies. Clearly, that’s what Vladimir Putin has been trying to do throughout this conflict, and we need to make it clear that that is not going to happen, that we are going to work together and we are going to support Ukraine.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Does Congress need to be any part of approving this deal President Trump says he wants, to take possession of some of the critical minerals that Ukraine has inside their territory? He says he wants to use that as sort of repayment for what the U.S. has spent on weapons.

SEN. SHAHEEN: Well, I think there are some benefits to having the United States have some investments in Ukraine. That’s part of what a critical minerals deal would do. It’s not at all clear who- who has possession of those critical minerals. Some of them are in the eastern part of Ukraine, where Russia controls the territory, some of them are owned by private- actually, oligarchs. There are some oligarchs who own a number of those critical mineral sites. So I think those are details that have not yet been worked out, and I have not seen the agreement that’s been put in front of President Zelenskyy.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, we know Zelenskyy will be discussing that with other members of the administration. We’ll stay tuned on that, but I do want to bring up something that we–

SEN. SHAHEEN: He–

MARGARET BRENNAN: Sorry, go ahead.

SEN. SHAHEEN: Well, I just- I wanted to- one of the things that in our conversations with President Zelenskyy, that we talked about, that I know that he’s got to be concerned about, is making sure that Ukraine is at the table, whether literally, or however those negotiations work out, for any conversations about what happens in Ukraine, and President Zelenskyy reiterated, nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine. And I- he got reassurances from the bipartisan senators that he met with, that we agree, Ukraine absolutely must be part of any negotiations between Russia and the United States.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But you know, for this administration, they have made the argument time and again that Europe needs to do more to defend itself, that the U.S. can’t be responsible for it. Senator Lindsey Graham, who was alongside you with Zelenskyy, defended President Trump’s phone call earlier this week with Vladimir Putin, saying, “All the people worried about the phone call, where were you when we needed to stop Putin?” He was talking about going all the way back to 2014, in the Obama administration. What do you think- you know, how do you respond to this idea that this was just a conversation, and that if people were truly worried about security, they should have done more earlier?

SEN. SHAHEEN: Well, I think we should have done more earlier. In 2014 I was in the group that said we needed to give lethal weapons to Ukraine so that they could fight back. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, but- but now the issue is, what are we going to do to ensure that they can continue to protect their territorial integrity, that we don’t allow Vladimir Putin, or any other dictator, to unilaterally invade a country just because they want to get the territory? And we know that China and President Xi are watching very closely what happens in Ukraine. We’ve seen North Korea send troops, and they’re losing thousands of North Koreans in this battle. We know Iran is watching. So this is not just about Russia and Ukraine. It’s also about our other adversaries, and whether both our allies and our adversaries understand that we are going to stand up and support our allies and do everything we can to ensure that they are successful, that the United States is not going to walk away.

MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you about China. You wrote a letter along with your Republican colleague, Susan Collins, stating concern that this so-called buyout program the Trump administration is offering would leave at risk a Navy shipyard in the Northeast that helps to service submarines. You pointed right at the nuclear threat posed by China to the United States. Have you responded- have you received a response from the Navy, and how significant of an impact will this have?

SEN. SHAHEEN: Well, we haven’t received a response. That was in- with concern about a shipyard, the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard that New Hampshire and Maine shares. So the delegations from both New Hampshire and Maine are very concerned about what happens at the shipyard. They do maintenance and repair on our nuclear submarine fleet. It’s one of the areas where we have an advantage over China. We need to ensure that our submarine fleet is maintained, that it’s out and sea worthy, and we need to ensure that we have the workers that it takes to do all of that work, that we are able to make the investments in our public shipyards so they can do the repairs and make sure that those nuclear submarines are patrolling our seas and keeping America safe.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Before I let you go, I need to ask you about this freeze on foreign assistance. I know one of your colleagues has put a hold on all the picks to go to the State Department to work under Secretary Rubio because of these objections, do you support putting a freeze on getting Secretary Rubio’s team in place? Is that in the best interest of the country right now?

SEN. SHAHEEN: Listen, I think we need to get all of our diplomatic officials on the ground as quickly as possible. But what Elon Musk and this administration have done is to unilaterally stop our programs that are providing critical foreign assistance that help keep America safe, that help blunt China, that help address- I mean, in Ukraine, we know that there are programs that have been stopped because of what’s happening. We have commodities that are from U.S. farmers that are sitting in ports around the world and in the U.S. that can’t get to the people. These are commodities that have been paid for and they can’t get unloaded because of the stop work orders and this freeze. That doesn’t make sense. That’s not efficient. And what we’re doing is leaving a vacuum for China and Russia and our adversaries to move into and really eliminate the trust that has been built over years because of all of the good work that has been done by these foreign assistance efforts. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: Senator Shaheen, thank you for your time today. 

SEN. SHAHEEN: Thank you. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: And we’ll be right back.