Return to Transcripts main page

Inside Politics

Senate Passes Bill To Fund Most Of DHS But Fate Unclear In House; Johnson On House Passing Senate DHS Deal: "Stay Tuned"; Conservative House Republicans Say They Oppose Senate Deal; Source: Iran-Linked Hackers Breached FBI Dir. Patel's Personal Email; War Begins Second Month As Trump Weighs Next Steps; War Divides Conservatives At Right-Wing CPAC Conference. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired March 27, 2026 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: The Senate votes to end the DHS shutdown. Will the House follow suit? I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at Inside Politics.

This morning, Americans are still waiting on long lines at major airports across the country, and TSA agents are still working without a paycheck. There may be hope ahead. The Senate voted unanimously overnight to fund most of the Homeland Security Department, except the parts, dealing with immigration enforcement. But there's still a perilous path, and that is a question about the House of Representatives, whether the House will vote and send that bill to the president's desk.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has been talking to reporters after coming out of a meeting with his fellow Democrats. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): Between ending this chaos or not, are House Republicans. There is a bipartisan bill that emerged from the Senate with uniform support, and it should be brought to the floor immediately, so we can pay TSA agents, so we can end the chaos at airports across the country and stop inconveniencing millions of Americans as we approach Holy Week. Passover, Palm Sunday and Easter.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are Democrats willing to support the rule? Are Democrats willing to support the rule?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- that had some of those DHS reforms. Would something have been better than nothing?

JEFFRIES: There's legislation in front of us right now to end the airport chaos and House Republicans just stop blocking.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are Democrats willing to --

JEFFRIES: Hold, hold on. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm talking about ICE reforms. There was a Republican --

JEFFRIES: We have made clear that ICE needs to be brought under control. And what we want to see is ICE conducting themselves like every other cop, police officer and law enforcement agency in the country, taxpayer dollars should be used to make life more affordable for the American people, not brutalize or kill them, which is what has been happening in America and the American people have had enough.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are Democrats willing to support the rule in order to get this moving today?

JEFFRIES: We're willing to -- that did not come up in the caucus meeting, but we are willing to do whatever is necessary to pay TSA agents to end the chaos and to stop inconveniencing millions of Americans, which is what Donald Trump and extremists in the Republican Party have done for weeks for no reason.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you consider this -- do you consider this a win?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: OK, let's bring in CNN congressional correspondent Lauren Fox, who you just saw there, asking questions of Leader Jeffries. Lauren, what's the upshot right now?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it certainly sounds from those remarks that we just heard from the Democratic leader in the House that they stand ready to vote however needed in order to get this passed sooner than later. But the huge question mark right now, Dana, is whether or not Republican leadership is even going to put the Senate passed bill on the floor of the House of Representatives.

Right now, you are hearing from HFC members, the House Freedom Caucus, that they want additional changes to this bill. They want to ping-pong it back to the Senate. Obviously, that would take additional time that TSA workers just don't have right now, given the fact that they're expected to miss a second paycheck this weekend.

Now, the question becomes, does speaker Johnson put this on the floor? Now he has told reporters to quote, stay tuned when it comes to next steps. Here he was earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): We're going to get all the members together and decide that this morning, but I'll say, it's infuriating that Democrats are willing to inflict pain on the American people simply so they can defund the agency that is responsible for removing criminal illegal aliens, that is what this is about.

[12:05:00]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Since the Senate left, though, are you committed to passing this deal or?

JOHNSON: Stay tuned.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOX: And of course, the huge question mark right now is Speaker Johnson knows the realities in the Senate. He knows that any deal is going to have to get 60 votes. It's going to have to get Democratic support, but he's getting a lot of pressure from conservatives, and you can hear there. Republican leadership in the House is not happy with this deal that John Thune agreed to yesterday. So, we are expecting that there will be, at some point a republican conference call where they're going to discuss this. We're just waiting to see what those next steps are. Dana?

BASH: And Lauren, before I let you go, you asked Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader, a really important question. I was kind of surprised. He said that they didn't talk about it among House Democrats, which is whether Democrats would support the so-called rule. It's a little bit in the weeds, but the weeds matter a lot here in the big question about whether or not TSA will be funded, those lines will go away. Agents will start getting paid, because that will basically grease the skids for this vote to actually happen in a bipartisan way on the House floor.

What are you hearing from your sources about how that's going to go?

FOX: Yeah, Dana. There are some procedural obstacles right now for the speaker when it comes to moving this expeditiously. And so, one of the questions is, are they going to have to go through the House Rules Committee? Typically, Republicans back rules. That is essentially just a vote to get on to the legislation.

It's procedural, but it matters, and if Republicans are so frustrated that they don't want to back this deal, then perhaps the Democrats would have to get behind that procedural step, something they don't typically do. But you heard there from Jeffries, he sounds very open and willing to do whatever they need to in order to move this today. Dana?

BASH: Lauren, we're lucky to have you up there. Great reporting, as always. And here at the table, we have additional terrific reporters to talk about what is going on or not going on in the United States Congress right now. Jeff Zeleny, I'm going to start with you.

And if we just kind of take a step back to look at where we were and where we are, and what the Senate -- and it's kind of a surprise move passed overnight was funding for the Department of Homeland Security, everything except for the border agencies, CPB and also ICE, which already have the funding anyway.

And so, the question is, what did Democrats get out of this long fight? What did Democrats get out of this shutdown because they wanted very specific policy changes which are not in this. And I don't know, what do we think the answer is. JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: The only thing that I can determine that Democrats got out of it was the fight itself. Democrats wanted to draw attention to ICE, but we were so far removed from Minneapolis. That's when this first started after the horrific events in Minneapolis, Democrats said we are going to stand firm, and they wanted changes made at Homeland Security. As we end the month here, there have been changes. Obviously, the secretary is entirely different, so that is one change.

But beyond that, it's hard -- I'm hard pressed to think of any specific things that Democrats got out of this, except the fight itself. But that, I think, is why Leader Jeffries there is saying that we will do whatever it takes to get this going forward. I think including, he didn't rule out voting for the rule. He dodged Lauren's very smart question there, but I think we know where this is heading, if past is prolog.

The president may have to get involved with some -- with some resistant House Republicans or Democrats will join and vote on the rule, but I'm hard pressed to see this going beyond this weekend. But that does not mean the pain is over because agents still aren't getting paid, so the flying coming up is going to be a challenge, and the bottom line is they still have to fund the agency. So, it's one of those Washington fights where sometimes the biggest thing is the fight itself.

BASH: And on that great question that Jeff just asked, what are you hearing about the potential for the president to get involved in order to get this over the finish line. Because the question is, these conservative House Republicans, members of the House Freedom Caucus. I mean, there are some, I'll just give you some examples of things that they put on their social media.

Congressman Ogles. We in the House should amend the Senate Bill, add voter ID and force a vote in the Senate. The Democrats will steal the elections. You know, Congressman Keith Self, we're not taking any breaks on the SAVE America Act. Those in the Senate should take note. Now this is injecting another piece of legislation that is the president says his top priority, which he at various times during this past week has said he wants to be a part of this funding bill and it's not.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, I mean, he originally told the demo -- I mean, the Republican senators not to make any deal with Democrats because he wanted that to be part of it. And essentially, the deal that did get passed was already the deal that they had on the table. And President Trump kind of take a step back and stopped fighting it publicly after multiple conversations with Thune and other Republican leaders when it became clear that that just wasn't going to happen at this time.

[12:10:00]

But this is where the really difficult part is, trying to get President Trump to weigh in, to sway Republicans on something that he doesn't fundamentally believe. He wants these people fighting for the SAVE Act. He believes that that's his bill, that's something that's his priority. So, trying to get him to fight against that, we know President Trump picks up the phone for just about anyone who will call him, if he's free to do so.

These lawmakers are going to be calling him as well. And some of them, the ones who are fighting, saying they're going to fight for the SAVE Act, are some of his most staunch supporters. So how do you then convince him, oh, actually, don't do what they want, which is also what you want, and help us get this through.

BASH: And Tolu, what you said, what Jeff said about the fight being the fight. It is important to remember that because of the horrific killings that we saw in Minneapolis and some of the other what ended up on people's television screens and on their phones. What was the president's number one plus in his column has gone down across the board?

Let's just look at a poll that came out just a couple of weeks ago. Question about more ICE funding. Only 36 percent said, this is all Americans said, yes. Allow ICE to ICE opposite sensitive locations, only a quarter, 24 percent said. Yes, arrests and relocations before due process, 28 percent. ICE officers should be allowed to conceal identity, only 35 percent.

And then look at this question of the president's handling immigration broken down by party from last year, March 2025 to now, about a year later. It's gone down across the board, including and especially with Republicans. It's still high, but that's a pretty big dip. That's, I think, the biggest dip you see there among independents.

TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, STAFF WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: Yeah, that's what Democrats would say. If you ask them, what did they get out of all of this, this government shutdown that's gone for more than 40 days. They will say that they have changed public opinion. They have keyed into some of the energy that we saw on the streets, with people taking to the protests in Minneapolis, and they've built off of that energy and actually taking it to Capitol Hill to get something beyond just, you know, legislation, but also public sentiment.

They're looking at the elections that Democrats have done well on in terms of special elections, and they're looking at November saying that we may not be able to get all of our policy priorities now, but we are changing public sentiment, and we are building momentum for November. And we're already seeing the president and some of his allies say, let's talk less about mass deportation and let's focus on other things. And so, they have shifted the vibes around the politics of this, whether or not that leads to policy change that remains to be seen.

BASH: Yeah. All right, everybody standby, coming up. We do have breaking news. We're learning that the FBI director's personal email was accessed by hackers linked to Iran. Don't go anywhere.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:15:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: The breaking news. The personal email of FBI Director Kash Patel was breached by hackers linked to the Iranian government. That's according to a person familiar with the hack. I want to get straight to CNN senior justice correspondent, Evan Perez. Evan, what are you learning?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Dana, the Iranians started posting images that appeared to come from Kash Patel's personal email account. And so, it appears, it is actually -- it is -- these are genuine emails that were taken from his personal account. What we know is this, that it appears that the emails date from like 2011 to 2022, and they're mostly personal photographs. They are some of his personal travel plans, his apartment search, things that he may have forwarded. It appears back when he was at the National Security Division for the Justice Department.

So, all of this predates the time that he was FBI director. So, it's not his FBI email that was hacked. It's his personal Gmail account that appears that the Iranian connected hackers got into. And of course, you know, it's an embarrassing thing because you don't want the FBI director even his personal email to be hacked. But this is part of a wider campaign that the Iranians have been doing.

We know that back in 2024, they targeted Kash Patel, along with a number of other people connected with President Trump. And they started posting some of those -- some of those emails, and that included John Bolton. You remember that they posted some of those emails, and that ended up causing some real legal problems for John Bolton, and he's now facing charges because of some of the things that the Iranians managed to post from his personal accounts.

We know that that's not the first time that Kash has been targeted by the Iranians, and it is part of, again, a wider effort by the Iranians to try to show what they are capable of doing with their -- with their own hackers.

BASH: Yeah. And just emphasize what you said. These are apparently unclassified personal emails from before he was FBI director. It seems like a shot across the bow from a country that the U.S. is at war with. Thank you so much, Evan. Appreciate it. And up next, we are going to be looking at the effect of President Trump's war in Iran and what that has had on the MAGA base after promising he wouldn't start wars but stop them.

[12:20:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:25:00]

BASH: Tomorrow marks one month of war in Iran, and at this point, we really don't know whether President Trump is headed for an off ramp or an escalation. He claims peace talk or -- peace talks rather are making progress, while he's also saying he's not sure he wants a deal and is sending more troops to the region. Yesterday, he went on Fox to defend his decision.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We have people that are weak or stupid or low IQ people that don't mind having Iran have a nuclear weapon. The MAGA people is smart. Now, that doesn't mean they want us over there for -- like Bush for years, you know, just for years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: And my panel is back. Kristen Holmes, the Trump whisperer. You can decipher what is really going on because not only do you speak Trump, but you talk to sources in the White House all day long. What do you think? What do you make of the back and forth, the toing and froing that we saw all week and even in the last 24 hours?

HOLMES: It's been really hard to decipher. I mean, he has gone back and forth so many times, and even in the cabinet meeting yesterday, he's basically saying he doesn't care about the negotiations, but at the same time saying that he wants the negotiations, then saying that he's going to strike them, you know, to oblivion, then saying, Steve is telling me things are going well. I mean, that was one sitting and that was one conversation.

And when you talk to Republicans around him, they do feel as though he has bought -- boxed himself in here, that he got ahead of his skis, that he spent his time comparing this to Venezuela, thinking that he could get in and get out, that the leadership structure would be the same because things are going well in Venezuela.

They do feel like America has control of the government there with their -- with their relationship with Delcy Rodriguez, and he was very excited about that. But anyone who has studied any of this would understand that a comparison between Venezuela and Iran and the deep- seated theocracy, the environment in Iran would be a completely different game.

However, he is here now. And the question is, what are the next steps? And we know that they are planning or making plans for a potential ground invasion. Should they have to get there? And that is something that President Trump has always said, both privately and publicly, he never wanted to do. But again, talk to these Republicans. They feel like he's boxed himself in and there really aren't that many options now.

BASH: And so far, he talked about the MAGA base and that sound bite, so far, the MAGA base is very much with him because as we've been saying, as he said, rightly so, he is MAGA and MAGA is Trump. So there, in fact, I can put up this poll right now. The question is, approve of military action against Iran? All Republicans 84 percent, MAGA Republicans 92 percent, non-MAGA Republicans, those exist much these days, 70 percent.

The question is, how long is this going to last? Steve Bannon, who has a very big megaphone, he is at CPAC, which is going on the Conservative Political Action Committee meeting. It's going on in Texas right now and this tends to be, in recent years, a meeting of the most ardent Trump supporters in the country. He's speaking later today, but he did his podcast from there yesterday and gave a preview of his speech.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE BANNON, HOST, THE WAR ROOM WITH STEVE BANNON: I don't think, when you guys think about it, I don't think there's that much difference between the 65 percent of Maga says, finish what they started, and the 35 percent of MAGA right now that says we want to get the hell out. Is everybody in agreement that President Trump needs to think this through, because the impact of this will last decades and decades and decades. How many or four if American boys and girls go to Kharg Island?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: That was very, very telling, Tolu.

OLORUNNIPA: Exactly, four weeks in, you have certain leash for the president where supporters say, let's give him some time. He's done things in the past that maybe seemed unorthodox at the beginning, but over time, he was able to do things that we didn't expect and were positive in the end. And so, he's gotten that leeway from his supporters and that has lasted for the last month.

But if we start escalating and elongating this process, and this goes on for two months, three months, ground troops, sending men and women over into Iran, and you have all of the potential risks that come along with that, that is how you start to lose some of that support. And that support is very tepid right now. It's very light. It's not sort of strongly supporting. We're with the president no matter what, for however long.

They're giving him support for a short-term duration operation. And if it turns into something more than what he said, it's going to be, which is four to five or six weeks and in and out, multiple versions of victory. If it turns into something more prolonged, it's going to be much harder for him to sell this to his own supporters.

BASH: Yeah. And tomorrow marks four weeks. Our colleague Steve Contorno was talking to young people who were attending CPAC. Listen to a couple of those conversations.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, if the president thinks this was a necessary step that we needed to make then, you know, I support that, but I would like to see the war come to an end soon. Because it's -- not only is it wreaking havoc to the, you know, the markets and the world, but really, this isn't, you know, what I voted for.