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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt
DNI Tulsi Gabbard Declines To Say If Iran Was "Imminent Threat"; Mullin Presents Himself As Different DHS Head In Tense Hearing. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired March 18, 2026 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: -- other nations in releasing a record amount of oil from their strategic reserves.
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But we'll see how and if these moves impact those rising costs.
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Thank you so much for joining us this afternoon.
THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT starts right now.
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KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: Hi, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. Welcome to THE ARENA. It's good to have you with us on this Wednesday.
Right now in Washington, the Trump administration's top intelligence officials just finished testifying about global threats facing the United States as the Iranian government issues new threats amid war raging across the Middle East. All eyes today on Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who not so long ago was a Democrat running for president and selling "No war with Iran" T-shirts.
Now?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JON OSSOFF (D-GA): You've stated today that the intelligence community's assessment is that Iran's nuclear enrichment program was obliterated. And that, quote, "there have been no efforts since then to try to rebuild their enrichment capability." Was it the intelligence community's assessment that nevertheless, despite this obliteration, there was a, quote, "imminent" nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime? Yes or no?
TULSI GABBARD, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: It is not the intelligence community's responsibility to determine what is and is not an imminent threat. That is up to the president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: This testimony comes as the war with Iran drives oil and gas prices higher and higher. This footage shows the aftermath of what an Israeli source confirms was a new IDF strike on an oil and gas facility in southern Iran. At the same time, the Strait of Hormuz remains all but closed. We at CNN have previously reported that multiple sources say the Trump administration significantly underestimated Iran's willingness to close the strait and paralyze one of the world's most important shipping routes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MARK WARNER (D-VA): Did you brief the president if he starts a war of choice, that the likely result would be that Iran would strike adjacent gulf nations and close the Strait of Hormuz?
GABBARD: I have not and won't divulge internal conversations.
SEN. MARK KELLY (D-AZ): Were you asked to brief on whether Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz?
GABBARD: I'm not going to comment on what the president did or didn't ask me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right. Let's get off the sidelines, head into THE ARENA. Senator Mark Kelly, who you saw there is here with us.
But first, let's bring in CNN senior national security reporter Zachary Cohen.
Zach, what is your reporting tell you inform -- how does it inform what you saw in that hearing today?
ZACHARY COHEN, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yeah, Kasie. Tulsi Gabbard, along with the other top Trump officials who were testifying today, were repeatedly pressed by lawmakers on those core questions that we've been asking and reporting on for the last couple of weeks now and that is one, why is the U.S. at war with Iran at the moment? And two was the president aware of the potential downsides of initiating this conflict, or did he just ignore them?
And I think that that is something that lawmakers, particularly Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, tried to hone in on today. Gabbard in particular, under a microscope as it comes one day after her former top aide, Joe Kent, resigning in protest of the Trump administration's decision to join these -- joint military operations with Israel, targeting Iran and stating that he believed that Iran did not pose an imminent threat to the United States. And that really is the core of the Trump administration's justification for launching this conflict, and one that has evolved and taken various forms, as far as the explanation goes, over the last two-plus weeks.
But it was interesting because Tulsi Gabbard really did try to walk a fine line and appeared to go out of her way to try to not contradict what the president and the White House have said, as far as their reasoning for launching this military operation, and one point even skipping over a piece of her written, prepared remarks while delivering those remarks in person. And it was a piece of her written testimony that had to do with the I.C.'s assessment related to Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Now, Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, really quickly seized on this omission and pushed Gabbard to explain why she left that out.
Take a listen to that exchange.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WARNER: In your printed testimony today on page six and your last paragraph on page six, as a result of Operation Midnight Hammer, Iran's nuclear enrichment program was obliterated. There's been no efforts to try to rebuild their enrichment capability, you omitted that paragraph from your oral opening. Was that because the president said there was an imminent threat two weeks?
GABBARD: Oh, sir, I recognize that the time was running long, and I skipped through some of the portions of my --
WARNER: You chose -- you chose to take --
GABBARD: -- my oral delivered remarks.
WARNER: You chose to omit the parts that contradict the president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[16:05:04]
COHEN: So Gabbard ultimately said that it was up to the president to decide if there was an imminent threat. But we did find a tweet from Gabbard back in 2020 where she was writing that about an imminent attack or a supposed one saying, quote, "If you don't know when and you don't know where, that is not imminent." So she clearly had a viewpoint back then.
HUNT: Indeed.
All right. Zach Cohen for us -- Zach, thanks very much for that.
And joining me now in THE ARENA is one of the senators you saw question Gabbard there, Democrat from Arizona, Senator Mark Kelly.
Sir, thanks very much for being here.
SEN. MARK KELLY (D-AZ): Good to be here.
HUNT: The director of national intelligence did not answer the question that you posed there. Do you think there was a significant underestimation by this administration? What is your understanding based on the classified briefings I know you received?
KELLY: Well, speaking about imminent threats, you know, the last topic here, you know, one point we were told that there was an imminent threat sometime in the future. Now there's nothing very imminent about the future there.
HUNT: Sometime in the future that's imminent. They seem to be opposite.
KELLY: They -- and they merge them together, imminent in the future. They're flailing. I mean, this has been a train wreck. They have not been able to tell the American people, you know why we are in this fight. You know, what is the strategic goal? What is the plan? What's the timeline? How do you get out of it?
And today, we're trying to figure out what did the president know and when did he know it? And was he briefed on something pretty basic, which was the Strait of Hormuz, whether or not the Iranians would try to shut it down.
And we've gotten different answers from the White House. And I even got to the point I was trying to make this very simple for the DNI, for Tulsi Gabbard. Like what was there a request for a brief or did you offer a brief on the Strait of Hormuz?
I didn't even ask her if it was given or what was in it. She would not even answer that question. And this is what happens when you put a lot of "yes" people in an administration where their number one priority is to please the commander in chief. And when you do that, this is -- this is why this is a lot different than Donald Trump's first term with a lot of very professional people around him, this is what you get.
You get a lot of non-answers. You get a lot of, you know, just trying to get around, you know, some pretty basic things
HUNT: Do you have you been hearing different things behind closed doors from people like Marco Rubio, who has been a frequent presence on the Hill than what you've been hearing in public from Tulsi Gabbard?
KELLY: Well, we get different answers. Like even today, I'm not going to go into what the answers to the questions were because were in a SCIF, but it's a little bit different attitude because, you know, they know that there's -- there's no audience there except for except for the senators on the intelligence committee.
HUNT: And did you feel reassured by whatever it was that you heard behind closed doors?
KELLY: No.
HUNT: And you're just going to leave it at that?
KELLY: I'm going to leave it at that. I mean --
HUNT: So, you are someone who knows more than most Americans about the Strait of Hormuz.
KELLY: Yeah, I've been through there a number of times. HUNT: Can you talk -- speak a little bit to the stakes for the United
States considering our NATO allies have essentially said you're on your own when it comes to reopening the strait?
KELLY: Yeah. Well, if we tried to try to help ships get through there, escort them with naval vessel destroyers, frigates, however, we would do this. It puts those sailors at great risk. There are sea mines there. The Iranians have the capability to add more.
They also have the ability to attack those ships with missiles that they have from Iranian soil. It's only 20 miles across the strait, so it's pretty narrow. It's hard to maneuver.
And when you have -- now, we have ships that are, you know, hazardous to navigation there. It's very risky. So that's why the president wants to get our allies. But they don't want -- they don't have any interest in this because they weren't told about this ahead of time.
Then we have the added problem, you know, right now of -- and I mentioned this in the hearing -- sanctions relief so the Russians are now getting off the hook here on sanctions, and they're able to sell more of their oil at a higher price. So, Putin is refilling his bank account. He's going to use those proceeds.
We tried to ask those questions, right? And I got a lot of non-answers about that, that how do you think Putin is going to use the extra revenue he has? Is he going to use it in the war against Ukraine? They didn't have an opinion about that, but I think it's pretty obvious that's what he will do.
So, this is going to affect our ally. It's going to cost more Ukrainian lives because we have an administration that is not thinking even one step ahead. You know, you got to think about second and third order effects here, how is this going to help the Russians? How is it going to help the Chinese? How's it -- how's it going to hurt our allies?
Can we help the Emiratis and the Kuwaitis, Saudi Arabia defend themselves from these ballistic missile attacks? We knew how many -- we have a general idea how many ballistic missiles they have, and we know how many interceptors we have in the region.
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And now, we're in a situation where we've got some magazine-deep issues that we're trying to address.
HUNT: Say more about that?
KELLY: Well, interceptors, you know, this becomes a math problem. At some point, they're firing, you know drones that are $35,000 and ballistic missiles that they build relatively cheaply. And we have interceptors.
To give you an example, the PAC-3 interceptor for the Patriot system, which is a relatively lower altitude interceptor, is $1 million to $2 million, depending on which version that interceptor could be about $10 million to $12 million.
And an SM-3, which is exo-atmospheric for the, you know, the much longer range. These are for ballistic missiles that exit the atmosphere and reenter those rounds are up to $24 million, depending on which version.
So, we're -- the financial, you know, math doesn't work out like we're spending a lot of money to take out stuff that they're building relatively inexpensively
HUNT: Sir, what do you think is the best case scenario for the United States of America now that we are in this? Do we need to continue to see this through? Do we need to pull out right away? What do you think is the answer sitting here right now?
KELLY: Well, I mean, that's the million-dollar question here. How do you extract yourself from something where you never set a goal and now you didn't have an exit strategy? You know how do we get out? And what is the president going to be able to say he accomplished here? If he leaves, they still have enriched uranium. They don't have Ayatollah Khamenei, but they have Mojtaba Khamenei, the son, who is a bigger hardliner.
So, this has really been from a strategic standpoint, it's been sort of a disaster operationally. Our military is really good at destroying targets. I mean, I had a lot of experience at that myself. I mean, we're good at bombing stuff, hitting the target, getting out you know, safely.
But we have lost, you know, the lives of, you know multiple service members injured over 200 at this point, these families in some cases, you know, certainly the families that lost their loved ones have been changed forever. Paid the ultimate sacrifice because this president didn't have a plan for how to get out and, you know, to you know, figure it out now.
I hope what he's doing is trying to get real intelligence to figure out what, you know what can we do? What are the options? What is the objective?
We're trying to get out of them today. Like what -- today, what is the objective? Couldn't even really get that out of him. I mean, there's multiple things. I have a running list of 14 things, 14 reasons why we are in this war, you know, starting with nuclear weapons and then regime change, ballistic missiles, the imminent threat in the future, oil, you know, taking out their industry.
HUNT: So, to take that first one that you mentioned, nuclear weapons -- there is this live question about how far will the president go? And you know, when you -- when you press administration officials, Republicans on Capitol Hill, they would look at someone like you and say, well, won't the world be better off if we prevent the Iranians from having nuclear weapons? How far do you think we should go to prevent that? Should we put American boots on the ground to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons? KELLY: Let me go. Let me just say two things up front here. 2017.
They were enriching uranium at around 3.5 percent, well below what they are now. They're at 60 percent. You know how you know why they got to 60 percent? Because Donald Trump tore up the Iran deal, the JCPOA, which kept their enrichment very low. So, he set the --
HUNT: Obama administration did open the financial --
KELLY: That is true. And I think that is -- that -- that --
HUNT: Was that a mistake?
KELLY: Well, well, if the goal is to keep the uranium enrichment at a level to support civilian use, that was accomplished, it was below 5 percent. And Donald Trump blew that up and it went -- it's at around 60 percent. I think that's pretty public now, is about where it is. They would need to enrich it higher to get there.
HUNT: It was a mistake for the Obama administration to allow more money to flow to the Iranian --
KELLY: I think you can -- you can criticize a deal, right? And maybe there should have been more restrictions on them building ballistic missiles. I think that might be valid, valid criticism. But the reason we're here today with the -- with them closer to building a nuclear weapon was because of what happened in 2018. And now, how close are they going to be?
And here's the big question. Does the son -- does he now race to get a nuclear weapon? And for us --
HUNT: Doesn't that argue for maybe putting boots on the ground?
KELLY: Well, how many -- how many -- how many -- and this is what we're trying to figure out today you know, is -- what is the risk in trying to do that? How many service members lives are we going to lose if we do this? And, you know, maybe ultimately, I think they should maybe pursue, you know, another agreement with the Iranians.
[16:15:01]
It's -- they were having a discussion about this, right? The discussion -- you remember this about three weeks ago?
HUNT: Yeah.
KELLY: There were -- they were having a discussion. It got cut off. The next day, we were dropping bombs.
HUNT: It sounds like you might be open to the idea that American boots on the ground could be --
(CROSSTALK)
KELLY: I do not want to see -- no, I do not want to see U.S. service members on the ground in Iran -- HUNT: For any mission, including this nuclear --
KELLY: You're getting very hypothetical here. So let's talk -- I don\t want to see 2003, '04, '05 --
HUNT: The president seems to be thinking about it actively.
KELLY: Well --
HUNT: Like it doesn't seem entirely hypothetical.
KELLY: I'll let the -- I'll let the White House answer that question for you, see if you can get an answer from them on that. But what happened in Iraq in 2003 and beyond --
HUNT: Yeah.
KELLY: -- we had U.S. service members, over 1,500, 2,000 of them lose their lives in a -- in a war that lasted well over a decade, almost two decades, I do not want to see a repeat of that.
HUNT: Fair enough. All right. Senator Mark Kelly, thank you very much for your service. Of course, as always, and thanks for being here today.
KELLY: Appreciate it.
HUNT: All right. Coming up next in THE ARENA, what Vice President J.D. Vance is saying today after the resignation of a top intelligence official and what he says others in the administration should do if they also disagree with the war in Iran.
Also this hour, whether Senator Markwayne Mullin is closer or not to being Secretary Markwayne Mullin, after a tense confirmation hearing today in his bid to be DHS secretary.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. GARY PETERS (D-MI): Would you want to apologize to the family of Alex Pretti?
SEN. MARKWAYNE MULLIN (R-OK): Well, sir, I just said I regret those statements.
PETERS: Is that the same as an apology?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:21:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If you are on the team and you can't help implement the decisions of his administration, he has the right to make those decisions, then it's a good thing for you to resign. And I think that's exactly right. It's fine to disagree, but once the president makes a decision, it's up to everybody who serves in his administration to make it as successful as possible. That's how I do my job and I think that's how everybody in the administration should do their job, too.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Vice President J.D. Vance today, hailing the resignation of former counterterrorism chief Joe Kent as a, quote, "good thing". Why? As you heard there, because administration officials need to be able to carry out the president's decisions he says, whether or not they agree with them.
Vance, who initially had his own reservations about the war, made those comments as national security officials testified on Capitol Hill, including Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. She has been a longtime opponent of war with Iran, as a general matter. Gabbard was very careful today not to contradict the president's claims of a, quote, imminent threat from Iran amid renewed speculation about her future in the administration.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JON OSSOFF (D-GA): Was it the intelligence community's assessment that nevertheless, despite this obliteration there was a, quote, imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime? Yes or no?
TULSI GABBARD, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: It is not the intelligence community's responsibility to determine what is and is not an imminent threat. That is up to the president.
OSSOFF: Okay, here's --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Okay. My panel is here in THE ARENA to discuss that. CNN legal analyst Elliot Williams, CNN political commentator Xochitl Hinojosa, and former Republican congressman from Michigan, Peter Meijer.
Welcome to all of you. Thank you very much for being here.
Congressman, you've got a lot of experience in the national security space. Whose job is it in our government to decide whether or not -- assess, I should say -- whether or not there is an imminent threat from somewhere? I completely understand it is the president's prerogative. Once presented with information, to make decisions. But that determination -- I mean, that should be the intelligence community, no?
PETER MEIJER (R), FORMER MICHIGAN CONGRESSMAN: Well, Tulsi Gabbard was there for a worldwide threats briefing. So, obviously the intelligence community briefs congress and briefs the president on threats.
The particular point, and this was both in the very carefully worded statement that she put out yesterday, and what Tulsi Gabbard said before Congress today is the determination of whether something satisfies is an imminent threat in the technical legal sense, in order to use that as the -- as the justification to invoke the presidents responsibilities under article two, powers as commander in chief, to put our forces into a wartime footing.
That is a different question. That's different from the colloquial understanding of imminence.
HUNT: The understanding of every voter in America basically.
MEIJER: But again, it's for that -- how is that legal justification going to be set down? How is the president going to justify and say, I have statutory authority to do this? It is by that determination of an imminent threat.
HUNT: Okay, Xochitl?
XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah. So the imminent threat and I think that what the White House and the administration are struggling with isn't just something that is in Donald Trump's head. It is obviously, as you mentioned, he is briefed by the FBI, by the secretary of defense or the secretary of war, by the CIA, and then makes a determination.
On the imminent threat piece, you did not hear Tulsi Gabbard ever defend the imminent threat. You didn't talk about how, like the president has said, there are two weeks away from having a nuclear weapon or any of that information. And that is the talking point that Donald Trump has stood on, because as the right and others have criticized him entering the war, this is what they have fallen back on. Yet there is no evidence that we know of to date that shows that there was an imminent threat.
Now, what I heard from Mark Kelly's interview with you was that the classified briefing, while he could not speak about it, it did not satisfy him in any way that there was more evidence of an imminent threat.
[16:25:03]
But as of right now, we don't know if there was even an imminent threat.
HUNT: Yeah. I mean, Elliot, the one -- well, can you speak to the legal piece of this here?
ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I mean, everybody's right that it's a legal determination. She could say this is the information we provided to the president. And one can draw whatever conclusions they wish on that. As Peter and I were talking about before this, she actually should have not answered the question. And she could easily have said, this is information that I provided to the president of the United States in my capacity of national security advisor, and I'm not going to talk about it in this forum. And quite frankly, that would have been far more credible than these sort of ham-fisted answers she gave today if she had just sort of put her hands up and said that I have a duty to provide sensitive information to the president, and I'm not going to talk about it here, at least in public. She would have been in better footing.
HUNT: Let's circle back to what J.D. Vance said there. And he was, of course, talking about Joe Kent, who's a top aide to Tulsi Gabbard. I want to show you, Tulsi Gabbard was selling T-shirts in 2020, okay? This is what they looked like. This is what they said. We're going to put them up on the screen momentarily.
They said, "No war with Iran". She was also calling at the time to get our troops out of Iraq and Syria as well. Now, you remember at one point she did actually go and meet with Bashar al-Assad when he was running Syria. Related, but perhaps a separate conversation.
Congressman, is she a plausible person to defend the president's policy in Iran right now?
MEIJER: I mean, realistically, that's not her job or her role at ODNI. It's not a --
HUNT: I mean, the vice president said, listen, if you can't get on board, you should get out basically. Which does it seem like she's on board.
MEIJER: Was Joe Kent, which I think the right, honorable thing to do. If you disagree with the president's direction or whichever direction the administration is taking and you do not feel that you can still uphold your responsibilities in the office, you have you should resign. He did that.
I don't know if you should do it as publicly. That created much more of a stir. But he took that right course in resigning. Tulsi Gabbard -- I think it's pretty clear that she doesn't agree. She's probably much more in line with her prior positions on Iran.
I actually don't think that's a problem, so long as she does feel she can continue to faithfully execute the role.
WILLIAMS: That's the important -- this idea of faithfully executing the role is the important point here. And lost here is the fact that dissent among the highest ranks of government is actually a good thing. You want people to provide differing opinions of the president of United States, and he can make his --
HUNT: Lincoln's team of rivals, right?
WILLIAMS: Lincoln's team of rivals. But every administration, frankly, since time immemorial, has people from different parties. I think what we're losing a little bit here is this idea, you know, repeatedly the president has gotten rid of people around him who disagree, quite frankly, career public officials who don't take the administration's line. That's problematic because it's a much healthier government where people are providing, you know consensus or disagreement and ultimately coming to the right decision. HINOJOSA: But as there's more heat and as gas prices go up and
they're feeling the political pressure, that's when you start seeing leaks from the White House saying I did not agree with the president on this. Theres now stories about how there was buyer's remorse, something that is interesting about this administration is, regardless of the issue, whether it is in your lane or not, they all believe that they have a duty to defend the president on whatever it issue it is.
You have Pam Bondi talk about the stock market at the top of her hearing. She's in charge of the stock market. I don't think so. But she is all about defending the president. They are sort of all, you know, these are --
MEIJER: All also being asked by the media constantly to defend the president, so it's a two-way street on that.
HINOJOSA: But they're willing -- they're not -- they're willing to go out of their lane and sort of be these you know, essentially defenders of the president. So it'll be interesting to see in the weeks to come as they face more and more pressure, whether behind the scenes, they're still standing by the president or whether there are people that are starting to say and show light about how they disagreed with this decision, because it is becoming more and more unpopular.
MEIJER: I do think if you compare this term to the president's first term, it is a night and day difference in terms of the dynamics within the White House within those closest to the oval.
HINOJOSA: He demands loyalty.
MEIJER: Well, no, but also, I think Susie Wiles is doing a damn good job in terms of keeping that circle tight. Not having a bunch of folks who are constantly butting heads because that was what you saw as everyone getting out of the meeting, running to the media, telling their favorite journalists the inside scoop and those leaks, which made for very compelling and fun TV and, and sort of the kind of court drama there.
But at the end of the day, that's not an effective way to run an administration. I think you're seeing a much tighter ship.
WILLIAMS: But there is some nuance to that, though. I serve at the pleasure of the president's -- or we serve at the pleasure of the president is very different than we all have to agree with the president at all times. And we have a healthier government and, frankly, healthier presidency, if different people, even from the same political party, are providing differing advice. And I just think --
MEIJER: But once the decision is made, you know, you don't run to the media and --
WILLIAMS: And but this idea that the mere fact that someone on the national security team disagreed with the president on a consequential decision to send people to war, and it should be heralded as a good thing. Well, good we got -- we got him out is not -- that's not how government ought to be working, I think. [16:30:05]
HUNT: Fair enough.
All right. Coming up next here in THE ARENA, what Senator Markwayne Mullin says he'll do differently than Kristi Noem if he's confirmed as DHS secretary.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MARKWAYNE MULLIN (R-OK): I'll work with any senator. I work with any committee to make sure that we are getting the information you need to do your job. But just for harassment purposes. Don't -- please I ask you if you want me to do my job and do it right and be transparent with you. Don't play games with me either because -- and if we -- if you have real concerns, like I said everybody on this committee and really for our colleagues for that matter, have my personal cell phone, that number.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[16:35:07]
HUNT: So that was one of the less contentious moments on Capitol Hill during Senator Markwayne Mullin's confirmation hearing to serve as the next homeland security secretary, Mullin worked to put some distance between himself and the outgoing Secretary, Kristi Noem, by saying there'd be no more micromanaging. He wants ICE off of the front lines and he says he would admit his own mistakes.
Now, one of those he mentioned basically right out of the gate -- out of the gate this morning when he was asked about Alex Pretti, the American ICU nurse who was killed by federal agents during that confrontation earlier this year in Minneapolis.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. GARY PETERS (D-MI): You called Alex Pretti, quote, a deranged individual that came in to cause max damage. Could we expect those kinds of quick responses? If you are confirmed as secretary, would you be basically, will you -- you did. You responded as Secretary Noem or are we going to just expect that same behavior all over again?
MULLIN: No, Senator, I have a deep amount of respect for you. We've had our differences, but I do respect you I think I said this privately when we had a conversation. Those words probably should have been retracted, I shouldn't have said that. And secretary, I wouldn't -- the investigation is ongoing and there is like I said, there's sometimes going to make mistakes and I own it.
That one, I went out there too fast. I was responding immediately without the facts, that's my fault. That won't happen as secretary.
(END VIDEO CLIP) HUNT: "I make a mistake and I own it". Congressman, that's a rare thing in Washington when somebody is actually willing to do that. I think it seems to underscore here that there is a deep understanding of just how problematic what happened with Alex Pretti was and is.
MEIJER: Yeah. And I think you saw in the immediate aftermath of that shooting, some statements from the White House that were not backed up, backed up by facts. You know, a narrative got out there that was unsupported by the actual evidence at the time.
And then there were just some comments by various officials, especially about second amendment issues that were, I think, pretty disturbing to many members of the Republican base. I give Markwayne Mullin a lot of credit for owning that up. I think that's exactly what you should do. And I think it's also him trying to strike a very different tone in terms of how he's going to interact with Congress. I think as secretary of homeland security, because that was a significant issue under the predecessor.
And you can have a far better relationship if you have connections on both sides of the aisle and in both chambers of Congress, which Markwayne Mullin, who served with me in the House or I should say I served with him he preceded me and then followed me was still in office after I left and then obviously in the Senate as well, where he has strong relationships with many of his colleagues, though, with maybe one notable exception of the chairman of that committee.
HUNT: Yes, it is a notable exception.
I -- Elliot Williams, you worked at ICE and this, of course, is something that became the front and center piece of what the president was doing on immigration, right? I mean, he ran on the border and Republicans often say, well, he secured the border. Sure, but it's really telling that this has since become the thing.
WILLIAMS: Right.
HUNT: I mean, there was so much trust among voters for Republicans, for President Trump on immigration, and they squandered so much.
WILLIAMS: Right. And it's -- in many respects a liability for the president. Now, when it was his biggest strength coming, certainly at the time that he won. And over the course of the last year, I think the big question and congressman touched on this a little bit.
The big question is, is this just a tonal shift for the department? Yes, he is a sort of more friendly, positive face, in many regards than Kristi Noem was, who was much more combative. But are the tactics remaining the same?
And I don't know if that question really has been answered by anyone in the administration or him today. What's going to be different about immigration enforcement? Or he's ultimately going to end up in six months coming back and facing really aggressive questioning from both sides of the aisle about how DHS is carrying out its immigration enforcement. HINOJOSA: Well, and I think the answer to that question is that
people believe that the tactics will remain the same in terms of will there be mass deportations? Will they be detaining children and families? The answer is yes. Are they just going to go after violent criminals? The answer is no, and part of it is because the White House and Stephen Miller control what the decisions and the major decisions happening at the Department of Homeland Security, similar to what they're doing at DOJ.
And so as long as you have a White House who is eager to have mass deportations and go beyond what the president promised not just deporting your most violent criminals, then yes, it will largely be the same. Now, my hope is that there is -- we don't have Americans shot on the streets now.
And to be honest with you, I think there needs to be some policies like border patrol should be on our border. They should not be in our communities. ICE -- there should be some oversight of ICE, so my hope is that he will do that because as of now and through the years, DHS hasn't done a very good job of that.
But -- and there have been some thoughts about maybe a future president moving ICE under DOJ or another place where you can do interior enforcement.
[16:40:08]
Not somewhere like DHS, that continues to show that they're problematic when it comes to interior enforcement.
There's a lot of questions beyond just the -- you know, his tenure in that hearing.
WILLIAMS: The irony of moving ICE under DOJ is, is that that's how it used to be 25 years ago before ICE was created.
HUNT: Right.
WILLIAMS: But, you know, it's interesting, the guidance that came out a couple weeks ago urging people, you know the Republicans not to speak of mass deportations is sort of the point I'm making here. It's really just a question of how they speak about it publicly.
But I think the tactics remain the same. They -- they've made clear that they wish to remove a lot of people from the country. And it's just not -- it's still a mass deportation, whatever name you slap on it.
HUNT: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: Most of the political liability is not coming from 95 percent of what they're doing. It's coming from the five percentage cases. And I think that's where you see Tom Homan coming in and wanting to -- you know, have much more of an eye towards that rather than being intentionally provocative rather than wanting those edge cases, you know, it's like -- hey, this is not a game that were going to win.
This is something where we will win by sticking to the law, by sticking to the facts and not getting over our skis on the margins here, when we can rebuild and work to rebuild that trust of the 95 percent of the work that they're doing, that is overwhelmingly supported by the people.
HUNT: Yeah, I want to touch on, one eyebrow raising portion of the hearing today, where Senator Mullin was essentially has been accused of so-called stolen valor. He's referred to the smell of war, having never served in a public way anyway in a war. So he was pressed about that, and he talked about a trip that he took that he claimed was classified. And I want to show the moment that he talked about that, and we'll talk about it. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MULLIN: In 2015, I was asked to train with a very small contingency and go to a certain area, which was scheduled for 2016. During that time, I was asked to go through, had to meet certain training qualifications, certain qualifications had to go through SERE training. I think there was only people, only four people right in on it.
PETERS: So where was that trip?
MULLIN: I just said it's classified, sir.
PETERS: It's classified
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: It's classified.
Now, the chairman of the committee, Senator Rand Paul then suggested that because this was new information to the committee that he might have grounds to cancel the vote that is planned to move Mullin's nomination from committee. Let's watch that moment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): It's confusing to us, because there may have been some papers that said your official trips were excluded. I don't know which ones were or weren't, but you've now mentioned today that you have activities you've done, and so I think it would be easy, and I'm still willing to have the vote tomorrow, but I can cancel the vote tomorrow.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: And of course, Congressman, there were -- there are -- there's other significant animosity between these two men. But I would I wanted to ask you, is this a thing that you've heard of, a member of Congress being asked to go on a classified trip that required SERE training, which for people who don't know, is the training that they give to Navy SEALs or part of it anyway? MEIJER: I mean, I'm jealous. I wish I could have had that
opportunity. No. So Speaker McCarthy was there in the hearing. He was seated right behind Markwayne Mullin. He told reporters afterwards that he had -- he had not heard of it initially. He reached out to former Speaker Ryan, who was the speaker at the time who confirmed that what Markwayne Mullin said, you know, a trip had occurred like that. He was, you know, in that role and offered nothing else beyond that.
HUNT: Right.
MEIJER: So, I'm as curious as I think all the rest of us are. But again, I know Markwayne to be a trustworthy individual. I have no reason to doubt the veracity of what he's saying or that there's anything nefarious or shady here.
HUNT: All right, fair enough. Coming up next here in THE ARENA, former NATO supreme allied commander, James Stavridis, is here, as Iran today ramps up targets in the Middle East, energy sites.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GABBARD: The intelligence community assessed that Iran maintained the intention to rebuild and to continue to grow their nuclear enrichment capability.
OSSOFF: Was it the assessment of the intelligence community that there was a, quote, imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime? Yes or no?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:48:56]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OSSOFF: Was it the assessment of the intelligence community that there was a, quote, imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime? Yes or no?
GABBARD: Senator, the only person who can determine what is and is not an imminent threat is the president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: That was the Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard saying President Trump, not the intelligence community, determines what constitutes -- what constitutes an imminent threat. Her comments come as top intelligence officials testified on Capitol Hill about the worldwide threats facing the United States. We are, of course, 18 days into this war with Iran.
Joining me now to discuss, CNN military analyst, retired Admiral James Stavridis. He is, of course, the former NATO supreme allied commander. Sir, it's always great to have you on the show. Thank you so much for
being here.
If the intelligence community doesn't decide if something is an imminent threat, how are we supposed to figure that out?
JAMES STAVRIDIS, CNN SENIOR MILITARY ANALYST: My sense is, you can have opinions about how imminent a threat is. It's kind of like someone standing in front of you with a gun, there's context.
[16:50:01]
Who knows?
I think that's what Director Gabbard, charitably, was trying to make that case. As I look at it, as a military officer, I think, okay, there are very credible reports of 1,000 pounds of uranium enriched to 60 percent. That's a hop, skip and a jump away from getting up to serious weapons grade.
So, I think that is a significant threat. Whether you can then make the leap of faith that says and therefore we were in imminent danger. I don't have access to the intelligence to make that judgment, but certainly, the intelligence community has an obligation to the president to be honest and truthful in what they say about everything. I hope that's been the case.
HUNT: Fair enough for sure. So, I want to ask you a little bit about what we're learning about the Iranian leadership, because, of course, there's news overnight of additional members of that leadership, including the head of the intelligence community. They're killed in strikes, potentially raising the question of whether there is anyone left who is actually willing to potentially talk in resolving this conflict in any way.
What is your take on the kind of the current leadership situation in Iran and what it means for potential ways to end this?
STAVRIDIS: Let's go back to Iraq and Afghanistan. All of the commands, including a number under my command particularly in Afghanistan, maintain these kind of picture boards where they would have the leadership laid out their position in the hierarchy. And they were targets.
So, what you really are doing, you put it exactly right, Kasie. They're kind of drilling down lower and lower into those tiers of leaders, like drilling into rock. And the hope is that sooner or later yeah, you do get to a point where you have an individual who, from a combination of personal fear and ambition and hopefully making the right judgments for his nation, will make a determination that he would come forward for a conversation.
At the moment, I don't see any likely candidates. You hear press reports about the Iranian foreign minister, Araghchi, who was the lead negotiator. He's still alive. I hear press reporting that he is in some kind of conversation with
Steve Witkoff. They got to know each other. The foreign minister speaks perfect English to the degree I see anyone on the chessboard who could even have a conversation, it would probably be him. But the problem is to conclude he doesn't have any power.
So, no, I don't see anybody at the moment who is going to suddenly pop up and become a rational actor with whom we can deal.
HUNT: And in terms of the factors that would push towards a deal -- I mean, a significant one is, of course the price of oil and we saw Israeli strikes on oil infrastructure, which has been something that has been there -- everyone has been a little bit more careful about that. In some ways, it marks a new set of tactics here. How significant do you think it is and how concerning?
STAVRIDIS: Very significant and very concerning. And there are really two clocks that are kind of ticking at the same time right now. One is putting pressure on the United States, and that is your point. The acceleration in the price of gasoline, all of that turmoil, the cost of the war, probably $1 billion a day, that's a ticking clock over here. That puts real pressure on the administration to come to some kind of resolution.
The other clock that's ticking is on the Iranians. How much damage can they sustain particularly longer term, to their economy? Right now, it's a foot race between those two clocks.
HUNT: Pretty with incredibly significant consequences, for sure.
Retired Admiral James Stavridis -- sir, thanks very much for your time. Always appreciate it.
STAVRIDIS: Thanks, Kasie.
HUNT: All right. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:59:17]
HUNT: All right. Thanks very much to my panel. I hear none of you have filled out your brackets yet.
HINOJOSA: No.
HUNT: And you won't choose between Michigan and Michigan State. And I am judging you hard for it
MEIJER: I will accept your judgment.
HUNT: Okay, because I don't know. Like, I don't understand how you can live in the state of Michigan and not have an opinion.
MEIJER: Not -- I try to be a nonpartisan guy. I try to be a bipartisan guy. That fence all day long, all day long. HUNT: At least we can agree on our shared mutual hatred of the
Buckeyes.
WILLIAMS: Well --
HUNT: Okay
WILLIAMS: Duke, Duke.
HUNT: Well, also that we can agree on that. America can agree on that.
All right. Guys, thank you. I really appreciate it.
You at home don't forget, you can now stream THE ARENA live, catch up whenever you want in the CNN app. Just scan that QR code below on your screen. You can also catch up by listening to THE ARENA's podcast. You can follow the show on X and Instagram @TheArenaCNN.
Now, Jake Tapper is standing by for "THE LEAD".
