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Fed Chair Powell Speaks on Interest Rate Decision; Missiles Intercepted Over Saudi Arabia Near Site of Meeting Between Arab, Islamic Foreign Ministers; Gabbard: Only the President Can Determine an Imminent Threat; Bondi, Blanche to Meet with House Oversight Committee; Iconic Labor Leader Chavez Accused of Decades of Sexual Abuse. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired March 18, 2026 - 14:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[14:30:00]

AARON KLEIN, FORMER DEPUTY SECRETARY, TREASURY DEPARTMENT: ... seven months. So the economy is weakening, but inflation is getting stronger. So the Fed isn't quite sure what to do. And they're kind of hunkering down and waiting.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: As you noted, this is Powell's likely second to last meeting. And there is the Fed chair Jerome Powell right now. Let's go ahead and listen in.

JEROME POWELL, FEDERAL RESERVE CHAIR: Good afternoon. My colleagues and I remain squarely focused on achieving our dual mandate goals of maximum employment and stable prices for the benefit of the American people. The U.S. economy has been expanding at a solid pace. While job gains have remained low, the unemployment rate has been little changed in recent months, and inflation remains somewhat elevated. Today, the FOMC decided to leave our policy rate unchanged. We see the current stance of monetary policy as appropriate to promote progress toward our maximum employment and 2 percent inflation goals.

The implications of developments in the Middle East for the U.S. economy are uncertain. We will remain attentive to risks to both sides of our dual mandate. And I'll have more to say about monetary policy after briefly reviewing economic developments.

Available indicators suggest that economic activity has been expanding at a solid pace. Consumer spending has been resilient, and business fixed investment has continued to expand. In contrast, activity in the housing sector has remained weak.

In our summary of economic projections, the median participant projects that real GDP will rise 2.4 percent this year and 2.3 percent next year, somewhat stronger than projected in December. In the labor market, the unemployment rate was 4.4 percent in February and has changed little since late last summer. Job gains have remained low.

A good part of the slowing in the pace of job growth over the past year reflects a decline in the growth of the labor force due to lower immigration and labor force participation, though labor demand has clearly softened as well. BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: All right, so we're listening to the Fed chair there talking about how the decision was appropriate to keep interest rates where they were. Let's continue our conversation with Aaron Klein. And Aaron, actually, you wanted you were asking him a question when we were interrupted by Jerome Powell, weren't you?

SANCHEZ: That's --

KEILAR: Take it away.

SANCHEZ: That's true. Listen, Jerome Powell stayed on his prepared remarks. We don't really expect him to say anything too explosive. We were hoping that he might be asked questions a little bit sooner because, you know, the question is going to come up regarding the Fed's independence, President Trump's relentless pressure campaign on the Fed chair to drop interest rates, and then also the big news last week that a federal judge quashed this grand jury subpoena that DOJ wanted in order to investigate Powell.

How do you think he's going to answer those questions? Someone who frequently doesn't get into that stuff.

KLEIN: Yes, so look, Jay clearly has his afterthoughts about what he's going to do when he's gone and left the Fed, and he's delaying engaging that as much as possible. This March, February, Congress has always had a semiannual hearing with the Fed chair. It's called the Humphrey Hawkins Act hearing from a law passed in the 70s that required it.

This is the first time -- I used to work on those hearings for years. The first time they haven't had them in decades, in part because the Fed chair doesn't want to answer those uncomfortable questions about this relentless pressure campaign from President Trump. Look, Jay Powell comes from the land of reasonable Republicans who've stood up to President Trump, OK?

And most of the people in that land, they have died. And Powell has been taking tremendous heat, tremendous heat, and stood up with massive fortitude against the president to the point where a judge was quashing these subpoenas as just total political power plays by the president to try and get the Fed, you know, threatening him with real sanctions and criminal prosecution just in a campaign to lower interest rates. And the Fed got those things quashed as well they should be.

KEILAR: It is just interesting listening to his tone during his announcement.

SANCHEZ: Nothing else is going on.

KEILAR: For the non-plus just going. I do just want to actually, Aaron, hold on. We are going to continue on because we do have a report ahead that we want to make sure we have time for. Aaron Klein, thank you so much. We'll be right back.

[14:35:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: We're following some breaking news, some missiles intercepted over Riyadh near the site of a meeting between foreign ministers from Arab and Islamic countries. Let's get the very latest from Nic Robertson, who is there. Nic, what can you tell us about this?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, we're at the location where the foreign ministers are meeting. And just a few minutes ago, sirens went off. We've rushed through the front door here to take a look at what was happening.

We heard the explosions going off as well, possible intercepts, and saw debris or a missile itself coming down from the sky and landing perhaps a mile or so away from this location. Now, there are perhaps a dozen to 20 foreign ministers from the Gulf countries. I talked with the Turkish foreign minister as he came in here, met with the Syrian delegation.

The Jordanians are here as well. The Egyptians are here. Pakistan's foreign minister is here as well.

[14:40:00]

So there are a lot of foreign ministers right now just about to sit down to a key meeting. I think our viewers have really gotten used to seeing all over the Gulf region missiles being intercepted, sirens going off, all that sort of thing. Happening here in Riyadh, I cannot underscore how much this is an exception.

We've been here for about two and a half weeks, a short time in Kuwait. And in that time here in the capital Riyadh, we have not seen intercepts like this. We had an announcement a couple of hours ago when we heard explosions over the city that ballistic missiles were in the air, intercepted debris falling on the city.

This is new and hasn't happened here during this war so far.

KEILAR: Yes, that's a big deal. And we're glad you're keeping an eye on it for us. Nic Robertson, live for us in Riyadh at a key meeting. Thank you.

Top intelligence officials testifying publicly for the first time today since the launch of the Iran war, and many of their answers did not satisfy lawmakers. At one point, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard rattled some committee members when she said it's not her job to determine what is an imminent threat.

We're joined now by Leon Panetta, who is former Defense Secretary and CIA Director under President Obama. He's a former White House chief of staff for President Bill Clinton. So thanks for being with us.

The moment that is really, I think, getting a lot of attention is this one between Senator Ossoff and Tulsi Gabbard. She is not touching this question of was Iran posing an imminent threat with a 10-foot pole. She said, Senator, the only person who can determine what is and is not an imminent threat is the president.

What do you think of that?

LEON PANETTA, DEFENSE SECRETARY UNDER PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, she's obviously bobbing and weaving and trying to not in any way look like she's contradicting the president. But bottom line is that the responsibility of the intelligence community is to make very clear to the president and other leaders in the country where imminent threats are coming from and whether the United States could be a victim of an imminent threat. So the intelligence community is the one that presents that kind of intelligence to the president.

And they have that responsibility. And I think it's pretty clear that the intelligence community did not come to the conclusion that there was an imminent threat from Iran, but the president did. And that's been a reason he's often cited as the reason we went to war.

KEILAR: And Senator Mark Kelly asked Gabbard and also Director Ratcliffe directly if they had been asked, not just if they did, but if they were asked by the White House to brief on this question of the possibility of Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz and how U.S. adversaries and allies would respond to the war in Iran. They really sidestepped that question pretty much. What could the implications of that line of questioning be?

PANETTA: Well, you know, it's pretty obvious what the consequences would be of starting a war with Iran. When I was in the National Security Council, when we were discussing the issue of what would happen if we were in a confrontation with Iran, there was no question that a closure of the Straits of Hormuz would be a major consequence of that kind of conflict. And I'm sure that intelligence presented that to the president, whether he thought about it, whether he kind of excused it because he thought this war was going to end quickly.

I don't know how the president handled that information, but there is no mistake that people at the White House knew that one of the primary consequences of war with Iran was that Iran would respond by closing the Straits of Hormuz, and that's exactly what they did.

KEILAR: I wonder how you're seeing the activity in the region. There have been obviously, you know, Israel touting, taking out a number more officials here recently. You have Iran saying the U.S. and Israel attacked Iranian oil production facilities. The U.S. is saying it wasn't the U.S. Israel is saying one of the strikes was in coordination with the U.S., nonetheless. And we also just heard that report, which I think you may have heard from our Nic Robertson, who's in Riyadh at this meeting of foreign ministers from Arab and Islamic countries, where he's saying that there was a missile, at least one missile.

[14:45:00]

It appears, or something coming in was maybe intercepted very close to that meeting. How are you seeing this moment that we're in?

PANETTA: Brianna, I think we're at a major crossroads here as to the war in Iran. Either the president is going to declare victory and perhaps try to open up the Straits of Hormuz so we can get some kind of ceasefire agreement with Iran and basically bring our forces back home. That's clearly one path.

The other path is to continue to do what we're doing now, which is to be very ambivalent about where this war is going. And in the midst of that ambivalence, there are going to be continuing strikes that take place. There are missiles that will be directed, whether it's to Riyadh or to other parts of the Mideast region.

That's going to continue. Israel, the United States will continue to bomb targets that will increase the price of fuel and create more disruption. And the bottom line of that path is that we are stuck in a very prolonged war that is not going to end soon.

So we'll have to wait and see what path this president decides to take. But right now, we are on the path towards a very prolonged war in the Middle East.

KEILAR: Leon Panetta, thank you so much for being with us.

And coming up, the nation's top prosecutor subpoenaed by Congress after public outcry over the Justice Department's handling of the Epstein files. What we can expect from today's briefing between Pam Bondi and lawmakers next.

[14:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: In a new interview, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche is defending the Department of Justice amid criticism over its handling of the Epstein files.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TODD BLANCHE, DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: I'm not trying to defend Epstein. I'm not. And I do defend the work that this department is doing today, right now, which is going after every single perpetrator anywhere. And if there's a narrative that exists that we're ignoring Epstein victims, that is false.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Blanche also said the DOJ has no new evidence to prosecute anyone for crimes related to the late sex offender. CNN's Paula Reid joins us now. Paula, those comments came ahead of a closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill today.

What more are you learning?

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Boris. In just a few hours, Bondi and Blanche will head up to the Hill to brief lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee about their much- criticized handling of the Epstein files. And I'm told those lawmakers can expect to hear a lot of the same things that Blanche told Katie Miller in that interview.

She really pressed him on how they've handled the Epstein investigation. We can expect that he is going to defend the department, insist that there has been no cover-up, no effort to protect President Trump, and also push the idea that the files that were withheld that have not been released don't have any new information. Now, lawmakers are likely to have a lot of follow-up questions about that.

These lawmakers have had the opportunity to look at the redacted files, files that were released but parts were blacked out. They likely have a lot of questions about what they've seen even under those redactions. He's also going to insist that there's no smoking gun, no video evidence that they could use in a successful criminal prosecution.

He also insists that there is no client list. There was an address book, but there's no client list. It'll also be interesting to see if lawmakers ask about how Epstein died in light of recent reporting. All of those sort of theories have reemerged.

And in this interview with Katie Miller, Blanche insisted that, based on what he knows, that he confirmed the conclusion of the previous Trump administration, saying that Epstein died by suicide. Now, plenty to discuss clearly in this briefing, but will it be enough?

Because just yesterday, this committee subpoenaed the attorney general to testify under oath and deposition on April 14th. Now, any time an official gets a subpoena like this, there's a negotiation. They try to offer documents, maybe behind closed doors, testimony.

Because we know that the administration has not been thrilled with Bondi's messaging on the Epstein matter. Her last appearance before the House was also really combative. It actually became a meme on social media because she was so really out of character and combative when it came to questions about Epstein and his victims.

So they're eager not to repeat that performance. We'll see if whatever they say this afternoon will be enough.

SANCHEZ: Paula Reid, thank you so much for that update.

Still ahead, shocking sexual assault allegations coming to light against one of the Latino community's most prominent civil rights icons, Cesar Chavez. We'll discuss next.

[14:55:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Today, Latino leaders say they are shocked by deeply troubling sexual misconduct allegations made against one of the most prominent Latino civil rights icons, Cesar Chavez. Those claims have now been detailed in a New York Times investigative report. And in it, there are allegations that Chavez abused and molested multiple women over the course of decades. Including minors and legendary activist Dolores Huerta, who co-founded the United Farm Workers Union with Chavez. Huerta told the Times, quote, "Unfortunately, he used some of his great leadership to abuse women and children. It's really awful."

In a statement after the release of the report, Huerta says that she had sexual encounters with Chavez twice, once against her will, and once when she said she was manipulated and pressured by him, both resulting in pregnancies. To be clear, CNN has not independently verified these allegations. According to the New York Times,

Chavez's family has said quote, "These allegations are deeply painful to our family." They went on to say that "... As a family steeped in the values of equity and justice, we honor the voices of those who feel unheard and who report sexual misconduct." Today, the Cesar Chavez Foundation says it's quote, "... working with leaders in the farm worker movement ... END