
Transcript: Dr. Peter Marks on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," April 13, 2025
CBSN
The following is the full transcript of an interview with Dr. Peter Marks, former head of FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, a portion of which aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on April 13, 2025.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We are joined by Dr. Peter Marks, who recently resigned as the FDA's top vaccine regulator. Welcome to Face the Nation.

Fifty years ago, when the city of Saigon fell and the U.S. military intervention in Southeast Asia came to an end, President Gerald Ford faced a choice: Many anti-communist South Vietnamese feared forced relocation and political persecution at home, and looked to America for refuge. But the American public was bitterly divided over whether to accept such a large influx of refugees. At the time, Lesley Stahl reported on the "overwhelmingly hostile" mail received on Capitol Hill about the issue; one letter, from a Nebraska constituent, read, "They bring only disease, corruption, and apathy."

At the end of the Vietnam War, South Vietnamese soldiers swarmed a Pan Am airliner to save themselves from the rapidly-advancing North Vietnamese army. CBS News correspondent Bruce Dunning, who was on board, reported: "They left their wives, their children, their aged parents on the runway, while they forced their own way on board, a rabble of young enlisted men. … The plane raced down the taxiway, swerving to avoid abandoned vehicles, perhaps even running over people."

On July 5, 2018, Detective Daniel Hayes of the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office, north of Atlanta, responded to a most unusual call. MELODY FARRIS (police interview audio): He and Scott would get into it pretty heavily. I mean, you know, and they'd come blows just over things because Gary was so anal about everything. I mean, Scott's hot. … I mean he is — he's hot tempered. SCOTT FARRIS (police interview audio): I've always had this gut feeling, if something ever happened to my dad, that somebody needed to check her out. DET. HAYES (police interview audio): So your statement is you didn't do anything to harm Gary?