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Artemis II Crew Set to Take Off on Historic Journey; Interview with Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA): Hegseth Says U.S. Aims to Unpredictable About Boots on the Ground. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired March 31, 2026 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: The countdown is officially on for the first manned flight to the moon in more than 50 years. The Artemis II mission is set to launch tomorrow evening. Right now, critical final preparations are underway at Kennedy Space Center, and we're going to bring you a front-row seat.

We're actually going to be there as this historic event unfolds, so be sure to join us and tune in to our special coverage of the "MISSION TO THE MOON" starting at 5 p.m. Eastern tomorrow right here on CNN. But before the crew blasts off, I got a chance to speak with the head of NASA. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: Here with us to talk about the mission, NASA's administrator, Jared Isaacman. Administrator, thank you so much for joining us. First, is your team tracking anything right now that could stand in the way of liftoff tomorrow?

JARED ISAACMAN, NASA ADMINISTRATOR: Well, I'll tell you, it's an extremely complicated rocket that we have out on the field, so we are monitoring it constantly, but if you ask me at this moment, the rocket is healthy, the spacecraft on top of it is healthy, the crew is here and ready to go, and the weather, weather's looking good.

SANCHEZ: That is exciting to hear. Artemis II is obviously a precursor to Artemis III, which involves launching a crewed NASA space capsule to Earth's orbit and then docking with a prototype lunar lander vehicle. What do you need to see from Artemis II to move forward with Artemis III in 2027?

ISAACMAN: Yes, that's a really good question. So we are getting back to some of the basics here at NASA and leveraging the playbook that we used on July 20, 1969, where we put Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the surface of the moon, meaning we build up to these extraordinary world-changing outcomes in a very logical, iterative way. So right out on the pad, you have Artemis II, as you said.

We're going to send that vehicle potentially farther into space than humans have ever gone before, potentially faster than humans ever went before, and over those 10 days, we are going to use that to test out the Orion spacecraft, get very comfortable with its operations, including manually piloting the vehicle, which we'll set up for Artemis III, which will launch in 2027. And as you mentioned, Orion and our landers will dock in Earth orbit. That's going to be very Apollo 9-esque.

We're going to get very comfortable with the integrated operations of the lander and the Orion spacecraft, which sets up for 2028, where those landers will eventually take astronauts down to the surface of the moon.

SANCHEZ: On the question of timelines, China is aiming to land astronauts on the moon by 2030. Is the United States going to get there first? What does it mean if we don't?

ISAACMAN: Well, I certainly think that NASA, even though we are all about the peaceful exploration in space for science and discovery, has a national security mission. You go back to, again, July 20, 1969, American astronauts landed on the moon, brought them safely home to Earth. We did what many thought was impossible.

It sends a message to the world of what else is America potentially capable of. Now, you come up short on the grand return to the moon, and it says something might not be working right, and that might embolden others to challenge us across all of the different emerging technological domains.

[15:35:00]

So this is a responsibility we take seriously. This is why industry is responding well to changes, which is we're not going to go right from Artemis II around the moon to landing our Artemis III. We're going to get back to basics. We're going to add missions.

We're going to increase production rate, pull timelines to the left and start doing it like we did in the 1960s again. So I'd say the workforce has responded extremely well.

Industry has responded well. International partners have responded well. So we now have an achievable path to getting back to the moon before the end of President Trump's term, which should give us some margin before when we think our great rival will get there.

But, again, we are measuring success and failure in months here, not years.

SANCHEZ: You've obviously taken on a risky mission yourself. You were commander of Polaris Dawn. What is it like in the final moments for these four astronauts as they're about to leave Earth and their family and everything behind to go where few have ever been?

ISAACMAN: Well, I'll tell you, there is no comparison at all. I mean, I felt very fortunate to be on the Polaris Dawn mission. But what the Artemis II astronauts are taking on right now is a different ball game altogether.

I mean, 1.8 million pounds of thrust versus 8.8 million pounds of thrust. When you're in Earth orbit, you're hours away from being in the water. When you commit to the translunar injection, when we send that spacecraft out deep into space and around the moon, you are days away from coming home if something goes wrong.

These astronauts understand that. They spent years preparing for it, and they're doing it because they know what's coming next. This is not a one-and-done mission.

Artemis is a program that will eventually see astronauts undertaking frequent missions to the lunar surface so we can stay, so we can build the lunar base, realize the scientific and economic potential there, use it as a technological proving ground for what comes thereafter, which is someday sending American astronauts to Mars.

SANCHEZ: Administrator, you also recently announced an ambitious set of goals for NASA, including a new Mars mission powered by nuclear propulsion. There are a lot of questions, though, about the price tag on that and how you're going to fund it, how much you're going to rely on private enterprise. I wonder what your message is to folks who see these plans and who think there are a lot of issues here on Earth in our country that require funding and attention.

Why are we devoting so much to this mission when there are problems here on Earth that that money can help address? What would you say to them?

ISAACMAN: You know, it's a common question. It's come up quite frequently throughout my entire space career is, why are we doing all this stuff? Why do we have moon rockets?

Why are we building a moon base? Why are we building a nuclear-powered spacecraft? We should just hit pause on all progress across the world and concentrate all of our resources on the problems and the hardships of the day.

It doesn't work that way. I mean, throughout human history, we try and address the challenges of the moment to make life better for the people while investing in a better and brighter future for our children of tomorrow. NASA gets a quarter percent of the discretionary budget.

That's a small price to pay for all that we may learn in science and discovery and to inspire our children to want to grow up and take us even farther into space right now. People, you said, is there questions about the affordability of what we announced at ignition? Everything we covered at ignition, from the acceleration of the Artemis program, which is America's return to the moon, to building the moon base on the surface of the moon, to launching nuclear power and propulsion, is all covered under President Trump's One Big, Beautiful Bill.

It was a significant investment in human space exploration. You know, when we didn't have a competitor for a very long time, we were able to do lots of little things. That's different now.

We have a geopolitical rival that's challenging us in the ultimate high ground of space. We are focusing back on the needle-moving objectives in line with President Trump's national space policy, which is return to the moon, which is covered in the One Big, Beautiful Bill funding. Build the moon base.

We are pivoting from a orbital outpost above the moon and concentrating those resources on infrastructure on the moon. Our nuclear power and propulsion demonstration is making use of decades of investments of NASA and lots of nuclear programs that have never left the lab. We're taking that hardware.

We're building the Nautilus. Nautilus was never designed to be a nuclear submarine. It was a diesel sub.

It was a 70 percent solution. But it got America underway on nuclear power. We're about to get America underway on nuclear power and propulsion in space.

SANCHEZ: It's all very exciting. I wonder, lastly, Administrator, if you could share with us whether you've talked to the Artemis II astronauts recently and if you have a sense of how they're feeling ahead of the launch.

ISAACMAN: Oh, I speak to the Artemis II crew all the time. I've known them, you know, long before I was ever in this role. Victor Glover, who's the pilot on Artemis II, he flew Crew Dragon Resilience on NASA's Crew-1 mission.

[15:40:00]

You know, I was the next one to fly that same spacecraft. So I'd say we've had a little bit of a bond there for some time. I text them all the time.

What do you need? Do you need DoorDash? Can we get you some coffee and donuts over there?

Do we need to go fly? Whatever you need, we're here for you.

I can tell you they're feeling great. They're energized. They've been preparing for this moment for years.

And I'll tell you, those announcements from last week, building the moon base, accelerating SLS production, getting back into a rhythm of launching moon rockets, that's what they want to hear. They want to know the risk they're taking to undertake this mission is part of something bigger.

SANCHEZ: We are hoping for a successful liftoff tomorrow. It is going to be incredible to watch. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, we'll leave the conversation there.

Thank you so much for joining us.

ISAACMAN: Thank you for your time. Take care.

SANCHEZ: Of course.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: And CNN All Access will have full coverage of the historic mission to the moon. If you have questions, send them to AskArtemis@cnn.com.

Space experts and former astronauts are going to be answering them during CNN's All Access coverage of the Artemis II mission. Tune in at cnn.com/watch. We'll be right back.

[15:45:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth vowing today that the next few days will be decisive in the war with Iran. He says the U.S. military will continue to, quote, negotiate with bombs until a deal to end the war is reached. Hegseth also will not rule out U.S. boots on the ground. This is happening, all of this, as the Navy warship USS Tripoli, believed to be carrying more than 3,000 Marines and sailors, is now in the Indian Ocean after arriving in the Middle East region a few days ago.

We're joined now by Congressman Jake Auchincloss. He's a Democrat from Massachusetts. He also commanded a Marine infantry unit in Afghanistan and special operations in Panama. Congressman, thank you for joining us. As the secretary said, he said there has been regime change in Iran.

Is that how you see it?

REP. JAKE AUCHINCLOSS (D-MA): No. The administration replaced an 86- year-old terrorist dictator with a 56-year-old terrorist dictator who is even more hardened and hardline than his father.

KEILAR: They say they're talking to someone, negotiating with someone. How are you seeing someone who is not the ayatollah, how are you seeing those negotiations?

AUCHINCLOSS: Negotiating for what? That's what this administration can't convey because internally they don't know. The president, the president's spokesman, the secretary of state, and the secretary of defense, those four individuals have each, in the last 48 hours, offered different strategic objectives to the American public.

One says we already have regime change. One says the Strait of Hormuz is a requirement to end the war. One says it is not.

One says that the bombs are going to continue until all military power projection is degraded until 2030. One says that that is debatable. How can the administration possibly be negotiating with the Islamic Republic when the administration is cacophonous internally about what they even want?

And while this is going on, while we have this complete clown show of strategic incompetence, congressional Republicans have held zero hearings, zero hearings to try to understand from this administration why they think spending $200 billion and the lives of American service members is an appropriate course of action right now when Iran was not an imminent threat to the United States homeland.

KEILAR: You've been briefed on the war, certainly at least to some degree. Do you have any clarity on who they're talking to in Iran?

AUCHINCLOSS: No, I don't. And my guess is what's really happening here is the Pakistanis, maybe the Qataris, maybe others, are acting as intermediaries, and there's probably a host of different actors who are weighing in here. So maybe the Khamenei, the new Ayatollah, is in fact the figurehead, and there are hardline elements within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who are actually putting forward the red lines.

The command and control within the Islamic Republic is significantly degraded, so they may be as discordant on their side as our administration is here in the United States. None of this is a recipe for a political endgame that's coherent. And my concern is that as the mutual incompetence continues to spiral, this president reaches for the easy button.

He thinks the United States Marine Corps landing on the shoreline or islands of the Strait of Hormuz is how he bails himself out of his strategic failure, and we end up with boots on the ground quagmire, which, again, is why Republicans in Congress need to finally do their Article 1 job and call some hearings and put forward a War Powers Resolution that takes over the steering wheel from this foreign policy.

KEILAR: If that happens, there are obviously members of the 82nd Airborne, these Marine expeditionary units that are there in the region. What do you think that looks like, and what makes you say that it moves into a quagmire?

AUCHINCLOSS: These Marines, the 82nd Airborne, if they get an order from the commander-in-chief to seize Kharg Island, to seize some of these islands that are depots for drones or mines, they're going to seize them. These guys don't leave missions incomplete. They are ferocious and they are tactically sound, but they can only sustain warfare for 15 to 30 days at a time.

[15:50:00]

That's what a Marine expeditionary unit is. It's an integrated air, land, sea task force with 15 days of organic sustainment. So they're going to need reinforcement and resupply, and they will be under persistent rocket and drone fire from the Iranians.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the IRGC in fact hopes that the United States puts boots on the ground because it gives them a new leverage point.

And then the president's going to be faced with a scenario that frankly faced Lyndon Johnson with Vietnam was, well, we got boots on the ground, and we should send more to help those guys who are already there, and we should send more. The American public has seen this play before. They saw it in Afghanistan.

They saw it in Iraq. They are exhausted by it. The American public has been crystal clear, crystal clear with policymakers that cost of living and affordability is their number one priority.

And this president over the last year has done everything except make American life more affordable. He's added tariffs to raise prices. He's cut health care.

There was One Big, Beautiful Bill. He's engaged in reckless warmongering overseas, done everything except for what the American public had told him they actually want him to focus on.

KEILAR: There does appear to be this assumption that bringing in more U.S. troops puts pressure on Iran. But you're saying that actually that's something that Iran welcomes and hopes that the U.S. stumbles into because they won't be able to get out of it.

AUCHINCLOSS: Oh, yes. So I saw this mistake in Afghanistan. There is a conflation by too many policymakers between a political endgame and military dominance.

I'll give you the preview right now. The U.S. Marine Corps, 82nd Airborne, they'll win any tactical fights they're in in Iran, just like we never lost the battle in the Marine Corps in Afghanistan. Right now, I'll tell you, we will win. We're good at this.

That is very different than a political endgame that actually gets our troops out of harm's way and actually accomplishes goals that makes the United States and its allies in the region safer. What makes us safer is if the Strait of Hormuz is passable.

What makes us safer is maintaining air dominance over the Islamic Republic. What makes us safer is an approach to the Islamic regime that modulates its behavior rather than attempts regime change through bombs.

KEILAR: And can the U.S. declare this war over without securing or opening the strait?

AUCHINCLOSS: I think there's a three-part approach here. This president has dug himself into such a strategic hole that at this point what needs to happen is, number one, war needs to stop, and it needs to stop in exchange for Iran reopening the strait. Number two, we got to work with our Gulf allies, Israel and our other Arab allies, to instrument the Strait of Hormuz for counter-drone and counter-mine transit.

And then number three is we need to double down on the India-Middle East-Europe economic corridor, the so-called Golden Road, that serves as a counter to China's Belt and Road initiative so that we can link together the Abraham Accords with NATO from Ukraine all the way up through Israel and UAE. This is the long-term project. Now, I don't think this president, candidly, is strategically capable of focusing for long enough to get it done, but for serious policymakers in Washington on both sides of the aisle who recognize that this war has been a mistake, this is the path forward for actually making the United States and its allies more secure.

KEILAR: Congressman Jake Auchincloss, thank you for the conversation. We appreciate it.

AUCHINCLOSS: Take care.

KEILAR: Still to come, run it back, the women's final four looking exactly like last year's, but will the winner also be a repeat?

[15:55:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: The NCAA women's final four is set. Top seeds UConn, Texas, South Carolina and UCLA are all headed to Phoenix for the tournament's final weekend.

CNN Sports anchor Don Riddell is with us now. Don, all number one seeds. Should be exciting, though.

DON RIDDELL, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Yes, I think so. Absolutely. This is only the fifth time in the tournament's history that all of the top seeds have made the final four, and it's the first time that this has happened since 2018.

South Carolina's head coach Dawn Staley has the Gamecocks in the final four for a sixth consecutive season. They are just the second team ever to do that, alongside UConn, South Carolina, pulling away from TCU in the second half to win by 78 points to 52. They will now play UConn, who has won 54 games in a row, and it's going to be a rematch of last year's title game. We can look forward to that on Friday.

And if you want to know just what all of this means to the players, just look at TCU's Marta Suarez, just absolutely crying her eyes out at the end of the game. For South Carolina, though, it was all joy, and their coach says she doesn't take this kind of success for granted.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAWN STALEY, SOUTH CAROLINE HEAD COACH: I mean, any time you're able to play on a third weekend in the NCAA tournament is always special. I mean, I don't know, I think it's our sixth in a row, but it really doesn't feel like that because the work that it requires for you to get to this place it's a lot.

I'm just happy for our game. I'm happy for our players that they get to experience all the things that come with it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RIDDELL: And as it happens, the women's Final Four is exactly the same as it was last year. Red Hot Texas routing Michigan by 77-41. Next up, the Longhorns will take on UCLA, and they are rolling back the years. Texas last won it all in 1986. That's 40 years ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RORI HARMON, TEXAS GUARD: We have some urgency right now. We have a chip on our shoulder. I can see it. Everybody stays. We're very locked in. I like my teammates locked in because I think we're unbeatable when we're locked in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RIDDELL: So lots of basketball to look forward to. The women's Final Four games are on Friday, followed by the men on Saturday. UConn, of course, still alive in both the men's and women's brackets.

[16:00:00]

KEILAR: Yes, that's the only reason why my bracket is still alive, in fact. Don Riddell, thank you very much.

"THE ARENA" with Kasie Hunt starts right now.

END