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House GOP Rejects DHS Bill, Extending Shutdown; Rubio: Expecting Iran's Response to Peace Proposal at Any Moment; Americans Growing More Worried About Economic Impact of Iran War; NASA's Artemis II Crew Speaks Ahead of Moon Mission; Epstein Survivors Sue DOJ and Google Over Release of Private Info. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired March 27, 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]

KEITH JEFFRIES, FORMER FEDERAL SECURITY DIRECTOR, LOS ANGELES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT: ... damages that they have to, that's a very stressful position. How focused are they if they're thinking about how am I going to pay my next bills?

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Yes, it's a tough position to be in. Keith Jeffries, thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us.

Jeff Zeleny, you've been watching all of this. Last word to you, what are your thoughts?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Look, I think what this means now is there's going to be a new immigration fight starting really all over again. If the House presumably passes this this afternoon or this evening, as the Speaker said, the Senate is already out for two weeks. So if nothing else changes, the TSA officials and agents will be paid if this bill goes through.

But what this means is a brand new immigration fight over the border and other things. So it really makes you wonder what the wisdom of the politics of this are, because a strength of the Republican Party and the president's a year ago immigration is no longer. It is a major weakness in this midterm election season.

But the anger and frustration towards Washington in general is so clear. There are political risks for both sides, there's no doubt. But I think the bottom line, the president signed off on this plan.

He knew exactly what was going on. But the divides between the Republicans in the House and the Senate are something that should be worrisome for the White House.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Yes, certainly. What a mess we are watching in these lines here in Washington, as we just heard from the House speaker, that they are rejecting the DHS funding bill that was passed by the Senate, which will mean the partial shutdown of a very important Department of Homeland Security continues. We have much more after a quick break.

[14:35:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: We're tracking some major breaking news now in the war with Iran. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says he's expecting Iran's response to the White House's proposal to end the war at any moment.

KEILAR: CNN's Kylie Atwood is with us now. Kylie, what more are you hearing?

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so the secretary just spoke to reporters on his way back to the United States from France, where he was meeting with allies of the G7. He said that the administration has not yet received from Iran a response to the 15-point proposal that the U.S. put on the table for negotiations with Iran earlier this week. But he said it could come at any moment now, citing potentially today, potentially tomorrow.

He did say that there has been an exchange of messages between the U.S. and Iran. Of course, we've reported on that, which he said has signaled a willingness on behalf of Iran to enter into these talks. But he made clear that the United States still needs clarity on who is going to be actually negotiating for Iran, what they will be allowed to discuss at the negotiating table, and when those conversations would take place.

He also notably said that the U.S. military objectives in Iran can be accomplished without putting any U.S. troops on the ground. Listen to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARCO RUBIO, SECRETARY OF STATE: We can achieve. We are achieving all those objectives. We are ahead of schedule on most of them.

And we can achieve them without any ground troops, without any. Now, in terms of why there's deployments, number one, the president has to be prepared for multiple contingencies, which I'm not going to discuss in the media. And, again, I refer you to the Department of War, who will probably tell you the exact same thing.

But we can achieve all of our objectives without ground troops. But we are always going to be prepared to give the president maximum optionality and maximum opportunity to adjust to contingencies should they emerge.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ATWOOD: Now, the context here is that he is saying this while we know that more than 1,000 troops have been ordered to deploy to the Middle East. He is effectively saying that the U.S. doesn't necessarily need those troops but could use those in the case that there is a contingency where President Trump determines that they are needed. Not being clear in terms of what would actually trigger the U.S. to put those troops on the ground and saying that the U.S. will be finishing this war within weeks, not months.

KEILAR: All right, Kylie Atwood, thank you so much.

Uncertainty about the duration of the war with Iran and nerves about energy inflation have the Dow hovering on the verge of a correction right now. You see it right there, down 712 points.

Let's talk more about this with Kevin O'Leary. He is the chairman of O'Leary Ventures. Kevin, how concerned are you as you're watching the Dow on the verge of correction territory?

KEVIN O'LEARY, CHAIRMAN, O'LEARY VENTURES: I've been at this a long time. There's always volatility. And you can go back just over the last 36 months and see different events, including Freedom Day when we started tariffs and everything else. We had massive corrections.

And of course, over time, you realize it becomes buying opportunities. You never catch the bottom. But I've been actually adding to my positions lately because the fundamentals and earnings this year look pretty good.

And we also have the productivity gains of AI. No one's talking about that right now because we're all discussing the price of the input of energy costs going up. No question that's an issue.

But you could see oil at $75 in 45 minutes if this conflict is resolved. And I also know that about commodities.

So it's really about what the outcome of this conflict is going to be. And the one very encouraging development for investors is the actual narrative coming out of the UAE.

[14:40:00]

For the first time ever in 60 years, instead of staying on the sidelines, they're actually talking about the status quo being not acceptable going forward. They did it twice.

They did it out of the UAE. And they also went to see Vance. Vice President Vance has said the same thing regarding energy.

That's unprecedented. Now, a lot of people didn't make news out of that. But for me, it's very important because whatever we have now is not going to work out.

And so you've got an alliance of the willing, including Saudi Arabia. They're here in Miami right now, two blocks from here. This is the number one discussion going on at the PIV conference, specifically this. Trump will speak in about two hours here. He'll talk about this.

But you have to, as an investor, look out 60 and 90 days from now. Even if energy stays up here for another 30 days, it's not going to affect the long-term position of earnings in this economy right now.

KEILAR: OK, but you're on CNN. And it sounds like you see opportunity here, and maybe investors see opportunity. But everyday Americans, they are not looking at this and seeing opportunity or feeling opportunity. And I know that you've said Americans are willing to take some short- term pain for long-term energy security. But this consumer sentiment report that's out, it shows that even rich people are freaking out about the cost. Their sentiment is not yours that I just heard.

It is a far cry from it.

O'LEARY: There's different opinions in the market, obviously. My job is to deploy capital. That's what I have to do every day, whether the market's up 700 points or down 700 points.

So I ask myself, what's changed fundamentally for this year? Now, if you believe, and you're suggesting some people do, that this war is an endless war, and that we're going to have energy prices above $95 in terms of oil --

KEILAR: That's not what I'm -- Kevin, let's rewind a little bit, because I have a limited amount of time with you. I'm not suggesting that this is an endless war, although it has not ended yet.

But what I'm suggesting is that when you're talking about commodities and oil going back to a certain price per barrel, that's not what happens for gas. And the president is -- you know, today, there's an event.

Farmers can't afford this. Things don't spring back immediately. They've already required a cash infusion.

They're looking at the price of diesel. Trump's shouting out a gold tractor today. You're talking about opportunities for investment.

That's not how they see it, right? It's tough for them. Is he getting it?

O'LEARY: I'm telling you -- yes, no, I get it. I get volatility causes angst.

But unfortunately, in capital markets, you get volatility, and you're seeing it happen right now. It's not a straight line up. But I would ask anybody to just go back 36 months and look at the American economy's chart through all of it's been through, including all kinds of events that cause major corrections.

This is another one. And yes, of course, you can freak out, but that's useless to me. There's millions of people that have a job like I do.

We don't freak out. We can't afford to freak out. We have to think strategically on where we're going.

And what I'm saying is, I actually like where we're going. So at the end of the day, I'm not saying I support war. I don't.

But I see a difference now that I've never seen before in 60 years. We've gone through conflict in that region for 60 years. And finally, we're getting a different tonality that would be good for the whole world if this thing gets resolved. And that's what I'm thinking about. The old adage, think where the puck is going, not where it is right now. I have to do that.

I have no choice. That's what I think.

KEILAR: Yes, let's hope that that is correct. And we shall see, Kevin, when we're not sure. But at some point, we know that we will.

Kevin O'Leary, thank you very much.

O'LEARY: Thank you.

KEILAR: Happening right now, Artemis 2 astronauts are preparing for their historic launch. Their mission will lay the groundwork for a return to the moon. We're going to discuss next.

[14:45:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Happening right now at Kennedy Space Center, the four astronauts of NASA's Artemis 2 mission are entering final preparations for what will be a historic launch into space.

KEILAR: Some very cool sunglasses. Super cool, because this is a cool mission as the crew is taking some questions right now. NASA targeting this Wednesday for the crew's historic 10 day journey that is going to take them around the moon. But they say that they are still taking things day by day.

Anthony Colangelo, space podcaster and host of Main Engine Cutoff, is with us now to talk about this. All right, so this group includes some pretty historic firsts. Tell us a little bit about that and what they're going to be doing.

ANTHONY COLANGELO, SPACE PODCAST HOST, MAIN ENGIN CUT OFF: For sure. This is a very historic mission. We have not been out of Earth orbit since 1972 with the last Apollo mission.

So this is the first time we're putting people on this nice big orange rocket you're seeing here, the SLS. First time crew will be flying on Orion. They'll be launching and going around the moon, not orbiting the moon, but around the moon and back in a, you know, multi-day mission.

Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen

A lot of firsts on board, you know, the first woman that will leave Earth orbit and go to the moon, Christina Koch. The first non-American in Jeremy Hansen, he is a Canadian astronaut. First person of color, Victor Glover. So a lot of historic firsts in the people sense, but then for the program as well, it's a really big moment.

Definitely a moment everyone needs to come in clutch here because if things don't go well for this, it really shuffles up the entire program from this point forward. [14:50:00]

SANCHEZ: Talk to us about the importance of this slingshot they're going to do around the moon. They're going further than anybody has ever.

COLANGELO: Yep. This is a free return trajectory, so they're not going to be pulling into orbit of the moon. But what it also means is that they do engine burns while they're still in Earth orbit.

Once they set up for that trajectory out to the moon, they don't have to do any engine burns when they are all the way out there to come home successfully. This is the same kind of trajectory that Apollo 13 ended up using after they had their explosion on board the spacecraft. They wanted to, you know, quicken their journey home.

So they set up for this kind of trajectory where you slingshot around the moon and that puts you on course back to Earth. It's a safe way to do it when you're still testing out a lot of these systems because if you do have an engine failure or something else go wrong, if all else fails, you're still coming back home to Earth. And so they kind of like that as a nice safe trajectory to do the first crewed mission out this far in over 50 years.

KEILAR: Yes, they're going to do it on purpose, though, which is the key difference here, right? And these astronauts will get to fly by the far side of the moon. So we hope that they get to play some Pink Floyd maybe as they're doing that.

But the far side of the moon, it always faces away from Earth. They're going to see parts that the Apollo astronauts never got to see, right?

COLANGELO: Yes, there's different lighting scenarios. And it's a really important part of planning a lunar mission is where do you want to be and what do you want to see. Because a lunar day is 14 days long, right?

It takes a very long time for the sun to move across the surface because it is always locked to, you know, facing us. So the lighting works very differently on the moon. So you have to be careful about. Well we want to make sure that we're able to image this crater or this landing site.

So we need to launch on a particular time of the month to get there. So that's why these launch windows set up for about once a month. They have a weeklong launch period that they're able to do these opportunities to launch.

And then if they don't get off in this window, they have another one coming up very late April into early May. And that's kind of just the cycle, which is part of why it takes so long to get this thing off of the launch pad.

SANCHEZ: I can imagine the view is going to be spectacular. We can't wait to see it as it happens. Anthony Colangelo, thanks so much for the expertise. COLANGELO: Thanks again.

SANCHEZ: So Epstein survivors are suing the Justice Department and Google. We have details on their lawsuit when we come back.

[14:55:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: A group of Jeffrey Epstein survivors have now filed a class action lawsuit against the Department of Justice and Google. They're suing over the release of victim identifying information related to the late convicted sex offender. The complaint alleges the documents the DOJ released in late 2025 and early 2026 outed approximately 100 survivors publishing their private information and identifying them to the world.

KEILAR: We're joined now by Brendan Ballou. He's a former federal prosecutor and the founder of the Public Integrity Project. One hundred people.

I mean, it's pretty stunning the amount here. What's your reaction to this suit?

BRANDAN BALLOU, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: It makes a lot of sense. You know, as you said, it's a lot of people, a lot of victims that were affected here. And the information that was disclosed was just extraordinary.

You're talking about not just their names, but their contact information, in some cases, their addresses, in some cases, their photos. And the government's failure here was pretty extraordinary, either producing this information publicly, not redacting them in the first place. Or when they did redact it at times, just putting a little black box over things.

You could actually just copy and paste the underlying text and still access it. So at least as alleged, extremely concerning. So I think for the government, it's going to be a very tough case to say that it wasn't violating the law here.

I think for Google, it's going to be an interesting but very difficult case for them to bring.

SANCHEZ: The lawsuit alleges that DOJ publishing this identifying victim information was retaliatory. How difficult is that to prove?

BALLOU: That's going to be tough. So, you know, I think it's pretty obvious that they weren't complying with the Privacy Act of 1974 to get to the intentionality that it was retaliation. I'm not sure that they yet have the evidence for that, you know, based on this initial review of the complaint.

But it's possible that discovery is going to reveal exactly what the administration was trying to do. You know, the challenge that they have in both sides of these lawsuits, both suing the government and suing Google, is at least some of the claims that they have require what we call mens rea elements, saying that, in fact, Google and the government intended to do this. That's going to be a little tricky.

But again, the fundamental violations here are pretty clear.

KEILAR: So on the Google part of it, which you said is tough, their point is that, OK, yes, so the government puts out this stuff. We alert them. It might still get redacted, but then it's still out on the Internet. Right. Online entities like Google continue to republish it. They say refusing victims, please, to take it down.

They say that Google could, though they could remove or deindex specific content from search results and caches, but refuse to use such tools. Is that going to be tough for them to prove?

BALLOU: Yes. So what makes it tough is when you're normally suing a Web site like Google, there's something called Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which means that if your Web site that's just publishing third party information and not curating it, you're not responsible for that information. So that's why Facebook isn't responsible for the angry messages you put on their Web site.

What is really clever about this Web site is that they're saying, oh, this lawsuit, I should say, is they're saying Google isn't just publishing this information. They're actually integrating it into their AI responses. They're curating this information.

So if you go into Google's AI product and say, is Jane Doe an Epstein victim? It'll actually say, yes, that's a way to get around Section 230, which I think is very clever.

KEILAR: Interesting.

SANCHEZ: Lastly, Attorney General Pam Bondi has been subpoenaed to testify before House Oversight. There's been some back and forth. I'm sure you've seen the headlines.

How likely is it that it can happen? Is there a chance that through discovery or some other means we answer some of the questions that we've had of the Attorney General regarding any number of things, Ghislaine Maxwell, et cetera?

BALLOU: Yes. You know, I think the Attorney General has really shown that she is not interested in having a dialogue with this Congress. I think to the extent that we are going to get answers about how this administration handled the Epstein disclosures, it's going to be through litigation like this.

SANCHEZ: Wow. Brennan Ballou, thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate it.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

END