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The Source with Kaitlan Collins
WH Warns Trump Will "Unleash Hell" If Iran Doesn't Make Deal; Senate Once Again Fails To Advance DHS Funding Amid TSA Crisis; Air Canada Plane Moved Off Runway As Investigation Continues. Aired 9-10p ET
Aired March 25, 2026 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[21:00:00]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, ANDERSON COOPER 360: --I mean, you think it will make some sort of a difference in the long run?
KARA SWISHER, CNN CONTRIBUTOR, HOST, "ON WITH KARA SWISHER" PODCAST, CO-HOST, "PIVOT" PODCAST, AUTHOR, "BURN BOOK: A TECH LOVE STORY": I do. I think it's the -- this is -- there's so many cases coming behind this. And finally, there's some victories.
Now, again, these companies have unlimited funds to run this down. They have a friend in the Trump administration and are going to try to stop this kind of stuff.
COOPER: Yes.
SWISHER: But there's a movement across the globe happening right now, and it's coming here now. It's happened in Spain, in Australia, everywhere else. It's coming here.
COOPER: Yes. Well, as the parent of two little kids, I certainly hope so.
SWISHER: You know.
COOPER: Kara Swisher, thank you so much.
SWISHER: Yes.
COOPER: Appreciate it.
SWISHER: Thanks.
COOPER: That's it for us. The news continues. "THE SOURCE WITH KAITLAN COLLINS" starts now. I'll see you tomorrow.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, CNN HOST, THE SOURCE WITH KAITLAN COLLINS: Tonight, as President Trump is pushing for peace talks, the U.S. is sending more troops to the Middle East, and Iran is working to fortify its crown jewel.
I'm Kaitlan Collins. And this is THE SOURCE. As we come on the air tonight, Iran appears to be digging in and preparing for a potential, key word, potential there, U.S. ground invasion, amid questions tonight about whether or not peace talks between the two nations are making any progress.
Now, as we wait to see if those negotiations happen in person this weekend, as is being discussed, much of the focus has stayed on Kharg Island, which is roughly a third of the size of Manhattan and is where, sources tell CNN tonight that, Iran is lining the coast with mines that are designed to maim or even kill.
This might be why. Thousands more U.S. forces are on their way to the region tonight, with the elite 82nd Airborne and two Marine Expeditionary Units expected to arrive within a matter of days. Now, the Pentagon has not said what their mission will be, and the White House says the President is keeping his options open.
Kharg Island, of course, is the Iranian regime's economic heartbeat. It handles nearly all of the country's oil exports, the cash flow that keeps that government running and its economy alive. If Kharg goes down, Iran's main source of revenue goes with it, and the impact would be immediate and severe.
For now, the American attacks that we've seen in Iran have been limited to air strikes. And both U.S. officials and military experts that CNN has spoken with say that if the order is given, that taking Kharg Island by ground attack could potentially result in a large number of U.S. casualties.
Now, I want to be clear. This is what Iran is preparing for tonight. We don't know if this is what the President has planned, and even if he does, nothing is final until he gives the order.
But the White House is issuing this warning that if those talks I mentioned don't go anywhere, this is what could happen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: President Trump does not bluff, and he is prepared to unleash hell. Iran should not miscalculate again. Their last miscalculation cost them their senior leadership, their navy, their air force and their air defense system. Any violence beyond this point will be because the Iranian regime refuse to understand they have already been defeated and refuse to come to a deal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: On Capitol Hill today, there was bipartisan frustration, after a classified briefing by the administration, in front of the House and Senate Armed Services committees.
Republican Nancy Mace left her briefing and wrote after, quote, "The justifications presented to the American public for the war in Iran were not the same military objectives we were briefed on today in the House Armed Services Committee." She said, This gap is deeply troubling. The longer this war continues, the faster it will lose the support of Congress and the American people.
Just a few moments ago, President Trump was speaking here in Washington tonight. And after nearly four weeks of calling this a war in Iran, he told a room full of Republicans why he is suddenly changing his tune.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: They say if you use the word, War, that's maybe not a good thing to do. They don't like the word, War, because you're supposed to get approval. So, I'll use the word, Military operation, which is really what it is.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: My lead source tonight is President Trump's former National Security Advisor, Ambassador John Bolton.
And thank you for being here.
I mean, as someone who obviously used to spend a lot of time inside the Situation Room with the President, when you hear what he says there, do you believe it matters what the President calls this?
JOHN BOLTON, FORMER TRUMP NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N.: Well, I think he's been looking, for some time, for a way to get out of this. And although it started as a regime change operation, which I think was the right objective, I think he's been nervous about the outcome for some time.
It's not unusual for presidents to try and disguise what's actually going on. Let's not forget, Harry Truman called the war in Korea a police exercise, a police operation. But I think it shows that Trump is confused about what his objectives are, and that doesn't bode well.
[21:05:00]
COLLINS: I mean, the White House says it's been very clear what their objectives are. You don't think it is?
BOLTON: Well, how many have they named over the course of the last three-plus weeks? I think the correct objective is to overthrow the regime. I don't think it's going to negotiate with any seriousness at all. I don't think that's what they want. And I don't think that there's anybody in this regime with whom we can negotiate. If we weren't prepared to stick this out, then I don't think the President ever should have -- ever should have started it.
COLLINS: I mean, we've seen the President saying that Iran really wants to make a deal. The White House today, even when asked by my colleague, Kristen Holmes, who exactly they're speaking with, still haven't said who that person is.
Do you think these talks are genuine, or do you think the President is buying time? BOLTON: Well, it could be he's buying time to assemble this additional military capability. Perhaps he just wants to show he's trying to be reasonable. But the chances of reaching an acceptable agreement with this regime, no matter how many of their leaders we have killed, is zero.
And what we need to do is continue destroying the instruments of Iranian state power, like the Revolutionary Guard and its subsidiaries, the Quds Force, which threatens us, and Israel, and the Gulf Arabs externally, and the Basij militia which threatens its people internally. By doing that, we are destabilizing the regime.
We're not looking for somebody within the regime we can negotiate with, but somebody outside, somebody from the regular army not caught up in the extreme, fanatic views of the regime itself.
COLLINS: On Kharg Island, you said that you think the United States should block Iranian oil shipments and take Kharg Island. I mean, we're seeing this troop buildup. And we were just talking last night about the 82nd Airborne, what exactly they're designed to do. Do you think that that is something that they're actively preparing for, not just keeping options open? Do you think taking Kharg Island is a real thing we could see in the next few days or weeks?
BOLTON: Well, if we had taken Kharg Island about three weeks ago, when it still would have been a surprise to the Iranians, that might have made some sense.
I think the main thing is to stop the flow of Iranian oil onto the world market. I don't understand why we didn't blockade the Strait of Hormuz ourselves at the beginning. To allow any Iranian oil to get out was a mistake. To waive sanctions on Iranian oil is a mistake. We don't want to finance the Iranian regime in its military campaign against our service members.
So, at this point, I think Kharg Island, I mean, one way to look at it might be, it is a deception operation. Let the Iranian authorities put all kinds of minds on Kharg Island and around it, and divert their attention from something else. That may be what's at work.
COLLINS: On the Iranian oil, I asked the President about this on Monday. Because, I've covered him for a long time. He has heavily criticized Obama for allowing those pallets of cash, at $1.7 billion, to go to Iran when he was in office. By un-sanctioning that Iranian oil that's at sea. What does that say to you? Is that something you would have advocated for if you were advising him?
BOLTON: No, and it's not clear that the administration has taken steps to prevent the purchasers of that oil from making payments to Iran. I think if we had left the oil sanctioned, we had grounds to stop their ships at sea. There are a lot of other things we could have done. It's just inconceivable that we would allow financing to get to the government in Tehran to continue the war operation.
But the main thing is to make sure no more of their oil gets out. And honestly, as I say, I don't understand why we didn't do that on the first day of the war.
COLLINS: What's your biggest question about what's going to happen next year, and what you're watching, based on what we've heard from the President or his top officials today and yesterday?
BOLTON: Well, the question I've asked from the beginning is, how much have we cooperated with opposition figures and forces and factions inside the country? How much help are we giving the opposition? What are we doing to find alternative leaders, other than those in the regime itself? What resources are we giving to the opposition? Are we giving them telecommunications? Are we giving them money? Are we giving them weapons?
What can we do to put more pressure on the regime, not just from the attacks from the sky, but on the ground that after the attacks finish, which they will at some point, if the regime is not already collapsed by then, how to continue the struggle with the Iranian people?
COLLINS: Yes. We'll see if those questions get answered.
Ambassador John Bolton, thank you for joining us tonight.
BOLTON: Thank you.
COLLINS: I'm also joined by our CNN Political Analyst, and The New York Times White House correspondent, Maggie Haberman.
[21:10:00]
And Maggie, obviously you heard what Ambassador Bolton had to say. We also heard from the President tonight on the very real effect that this war is having on people here at home, on gas prices.
This is what he told Republicans, just a few moments ago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I actually thought when I went on this excursion, as I call it, excursion into hell, excursion into a terrible place, when I went on to do something that for 47 years should have been done by any of the other presidents. And you heard numerous of them said they wished they did it. But they didn't have the guts to do it. They had no choice.
But I thought it would be much worse. I thought that the energy prices, oil price would go up higher. I thought the stock market would go somewhat lower. But it didn't matter to me. It's short term. What we had to do is get rid of the cancer. We had to cut out the cancer. The cancer was Iran with a nuclear weapon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Does that match what you've heard Maggie that in the short term, that doesn't bother him?
MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES, AUTHOR, "CONFIDENCE MAN": It bothers him. It doesn't bother him quite as much as it bothers people around him, Kaitlan. And it certainly doesn't bother people -- him as much, consistently anyway, as it does Republican leaders who have members or senators who are facing election fights in the fall and for whom, if gas prices remain high, this is a huge problem.
Yes, I think for Trump, this is less of a concern. He's not on the ballot, and we've heard him talk about that repeatedly. You and I have discussed this before. So, he is aware of it. He is concerned about it. He knows it's an issue. There clearly is no short-term answer right now, and he seems to be aware of that at this point, and I think is just making do with the facts that he has.
COLLINS: He sounded frustrated tonight by at least the coverage that this war is getting, a month in, and how this has gone on.
HABERMAN: Yes.
COLLINS: What's your sense of how he personally feels? Is it just that he's bothered by the coverage that's not completely praising what's happening? Or do you think he has real questions, as John Bolton suggested about how to get out of this?
HABERMAN: I think that two things can be true at once, Kaitlan. I do think that he is uncertain what the end is here. He's been quite public that he thought that things were going to have wrapped up by now. Steve Witkoff said that the President was frustrated that Iran had not folded, for lack of a better word, a couple of weeks ago. Again, that was a couple weeks ago.
This is a war, it's interesting to bear in mind, Kaitlan, this is the first war that we have had, in the era of Twitter, in the era of social -- mass social media, the way we have it now. Everything feels like it is taking many, many days inside of one day. It has been, as wars go in the history of the U.S., a fairly short amount of time.
But yes, the President is incredibly attuned to his coverage, as you and I both know well. He often reacts to how something is playing, as opposed to what the actual events are. He reacts to how the coverage of it is going.
In this case, on the one hand, he leaves himself, wide latitude to not pin himself down to a goal, right, publicly. This is what the achievement is. He very rarely says, This is what we want, other than, Iran can't have a nuclear weapon, which we've heard him say many, many times over many, many years.
The flip side of that -- yes, that gives him some strategic room to move. The flip side is that you are going to get coverage you don't like, because nobody can quite identify what the end point is. And so, if you are so concerned about what the coverage is, you're going to be frustrated by how the White House is conducting this.
COLLINS: Yes, and he was arguing tonight, the war was won after just a few days.
HABERMAN: Right. COLLINS: But obviously, when troops are going to the region, there's a question really tonight about Kharg Island--
HABERMAN: Right.
COLLINS: --and I haven't gotten a really good indication yet from people about whether or not that is going to be on the agenda.
HABERMAN: Yes.
COLLINS: I mean, this is something Trump has been talking about since 1988. He was telling The Guardian back then--
HABERMAN: Correct.
COLLINS: --that he believed, One bullet shot at one of our men or ships and I'd do a number on Kharg Island. I'd go in and take it.
HABERMAN: Right.
COLLINS: Do you think that that is something that has just been a consistent view of his? Or what's your sense of that?
HABERMAN: I think that there are certain topics on which he has been pretty consistent over many decades, as you know well too. You know, sort of an impulse about the U.S. being ripped off in one way or another. Obviously, Iran is something he's been talking about for some time.
But, I'd go in and take Kharg Island as a very easy thing to say. Actually doing it is much harder. It's why we've seen this iterative process. Doing it from the air is one thing. Sending in boots on the ground to take over the oil supply there is going to require not just a very, very precision military operation.
And to be clear, these military operations, over the last year, from this administration have generally been effective. Obviously, the Houthis campaign had some asterisks on it, and there have been a fair number of service members lives lost recently. But I understand why the President, after Venezuela, felt good about the military's ability to conduct very, very precision operations.
[21:15:00]
This is just something very different, and it's very hard. And I think the Ambassador talked about this, if not in this interview, then before, you can't just do -- it's not a one-off. You don't just go in and then get out. It is going to require some kind of a sustained effort, military presence by the U.S., if that is the end goal. So, we'll see.
COLLINS: Yes, Trump seems emboldened by the worst-case scenarios that he's been warned about in other situations--
HABERMAN: Right.
COLLINS: --with Soleimani--
HABERMAN: Right.
COLLINS: --with Venezuela, not playing out.
HABERMAN: Correct.
COLLINS: But obviously, this is -- this is much more complicated, has bigger goals.
On the troops on the ground, we've heard a lot from Republicans on this in Washington. This is what their concerns have been.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ANNA PAULINA LUNA (R-FL): I would not support troops going into Iran. Period. No ifs, ands, or buts.
REP. TIM BURCHETT (R-TN): I don't -- I don't want to put Americans on the ground, out there in any shape, form or fashion.
REP. MICHAEL MCCAUL (R-TX): I think boots on the ground, I think has pretty much been ruled out.
REPORTER: Do you think Congress needs to be briefed if there are boots on the ground?
SEN. LISA MURKOWSKI (R-AK): Yes, absolutely.
REP. MIKE LAWLER (R-NY): If boots are going to be required to go on the ground, for instance, that is something that I do think there would need to be a much larger discussion, and Congress would need to act.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Do you think those warnings resonate with the President himself, not just his inner circle?
HABERMAN: I think that depends on how loud they get. I think they did not before. I think that the President is aware of what he ran on previously. I think the more he starts hearing voices saying, We can't be in favor of this, more publicly, I think you have to believe that he is going to hear that privately from some of the congressional Republican leadership.
It's just not positive or beneficial for a number of the senators and House members who are running in November to be able to say, Well, this is fine if the President does this, especially as long as it goes on. Many of them were opposed to boots on the ground for a long time.
The President himself ran against new wars. We, you know, we know this. I understand that he is in a different term than he was, his first term, and then I think he necessarily thought he was going to be in the campaign. But everybody else in his party has an election of their own to run. And with some exceptions, like Lindsey Graham, not everybody wants to be talking about this right now. And, and they don't want to have to be confronted by their own constituents about why they're not doing more.
Because, Kaitlan, as much as we talk about the separation of powers and the expansion of presidential power under this President, that is obviously true on a number of fronts. But at the same time with the Republican Congress, it is largely just them not doing much to engage in their own powers to constrain the President. It's not quite the same as him taking them. This is something that's a choice that they're going to have to make.
COLLINS: Yes, that's a good point.
Maggie Haberman, as always, excellent reporting, and thank you for joining us tonight.
HABERMAN: Thanks, Kaitlan.
COLLINS: Up next here on THE SOURCE. We're going to let you hear more of that bipartisan frustration. The questions lawmakers had after getting a briefing behind closed doors about what's next in Iran.
Also, from high hopes to low expectations. Within 24 hours, those talks to end the Department of Homeland Security shutdown have now stalled. Why your lines at the airport might get longer. My source is here tonight.
[21:20:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Tonight, there is no sign that the misery that is playing out at airports across the country is anywhere near ending, after the Senate, once again, failed to move the ball on funding for the Department of Homeland Security.
The Republican Senate Majority Leader, John Thune, railed against Democrats for their latest counteroffer this morning, which included several reforms for ICE, including funding for body cameras, as he said, these talks that are underway are only going in circles.
Hundreds of TSA agents have quit since this shutdown started 40 days ago. And the agents who are still on the job could miss their second full paycheck this weekend. That could mean even longer wait times at TSA for you.
It's something that travelers at Houston's Bush Airport were all too familiar with this morning, as you can see the lines were going outside the building. Some travelers waited more than three hours just to get through security. And a CBS reporter even spotted the President's former Attorney General, Bill Barr, among those who were waiting in those extra-long lines.
Now this comes as the top official at the TSA issued this dire warning to lawmakers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HA NGUYEN MCNEILL, ACTING TSA ADMINISTRATOR: Many in our workforce have missed bill payments, received eviction notices, had their cars repossessed and utilities shut off, lost their child care, defaulted on loans, damaged their credit line and drained their retirement savings. Some are sleeping in their cars, selling their blood and plasma, and taking on job -- second jobs, to make ends meet. All while being expected to perform at the highest level when in uniform to protect the traveling public.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: I'm joined tonight by the Democratic congressman, Jamie Raskin of Maryland.
You just heard what people are going through, TSA agents, what they're having to do just to make ends meet. What are the American people getting out of this shutdown tonight?
REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): Well, what they're getting is that Donald Trump refuses to fund the Coast Guard, or TSA, or any of the other functions that are being unnecessarily dragged into this skirmish.
Obviously, the Democrats are not going to fund ICE without precautions taken, so we don't have American citizens being gunned down in the streets of America. But we have repeatedly voted to and repeatedly offered to fund everything else.
[21:25:00]
And Donald -- and the Republican senators agreed with that, and they said, We should accept this deal. But Donald Trump said, No, no deal with the Democrats, and then he wanted to throw the SAVE Act into the bargain as well, so he could try to restrict the franchise and cut down on the electorate. So--
COLLINS: But can I ask you, because it seemed like yesterday--
(CROSSTALK)
RASKIN: --turn of events.
COLLINS: --it seemed like yesterday, they were coalescing, Republicans included, around an agreement that basically would have funded TSA, the Coast Guard, FEMA, and set aside a small port -- small part of immigration enforcement to deal with and deal with on its own, separately, which was the deal on the table until Schumer sent his counteroffer this morning.
Do you think that they should have taken that deal that was on the table?
RASKIN: No, what the Democrats have supported from the beginning is to take the agencies and programs that are not in this struggle, off the table, fund them, and then let's deal with the ICE question, and the masks that are being worn, and the failure to have cameras, and violating the search warrant requirement and so on. That's all that needs to happen.
And Donald Trump was the one who essentially exploded the deal when the Republican senators brought it to him.
COLLINS: But then he met with Republican senators--
RASKIN: That's my understanding.
COLLINS: Then he met with Republican senators on Monday night. And they came out of that yesterday and said, We've got this deal that would fund this and just have this limited subsection of immigration enforcement that we'll work on later, which basically Republicans were just going to try to find the votes on their own to pass and have that.
And then Schumer sent a counteroffer this morning. That's what derailed it today.
RASKIN: OK. Well, you might be a couple steps ahead of me then.
All that that I knew, and I've been caught up in business on the House side, was that the President rejected the deal that all the Democrats and all the Republicans in the House and Senate wanted. If they went back to get him to revisit that, and the President changed his mind, that's news to me. And that would be good if he changed his mind. And then at that point, we should go back to that original offer.
COLLINS: Yes, because I know you had suggested that last week, Pass what you can and then focus on where you disagree with Republicans.
Obviously, we're seeing who's being held in the middle of this.
You mentioned other things that you've been working on. You were arguing today that a new release from the Justice Department shows -- the files that came out, show prosecutors once considered whether or not President Trump had improperly kept classified material that was relevant to his own business interests, after his first term in office.
The Justice Department responded to you. They said that your letter was baseless.
And I want you to listen to what the White House press secretary said today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEAVITT: I saw that letter from Congressman Raskin this morning, who I would add, has zero credibility, and this letter was clearly a cheap political stunt.
He took untrue and salacious claims in a memo that was produced by Jack Smith, who has been completely discredited for his lawfare and his witch-hunts against this president. And that information was unverified. It never even made it into the indictment because it was so unverified. And what happened to that indictment anyway? It was thrown out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: What's your reaction to what Karoline Leavitt said today?
RASKIN: Well, I disagree with pretty much everything she just said.
But let's start with this. If it's a cheap political stunt, it's on the part of her Department of Justice, because they were the ones who sent it to us. Everybody is congratulating the Judiciary Committee on our great sleuthing work here, and we have great detectives on the Judiciary Committee. But they just sent it to us, and apparently it was a big mistake.
But they included in their effort to go after Jack Smith and to try to continue to defame him, a bunch of stuff that had been found in his investigation. They didn't mean to send it to us, at least they haven't asserted that they intended to send it to us.
But in that letter were some remarkable findings, right? One of them was that Donald Trump read and showed on the airplane, a series of top secret documents to people that he was on an airplane with, after he left office. Another document that he pilfered, essentially, and removed from the White House and took with him after leaving office, in 2021, was so top secret, it was seen by only six people in the government, including the President of the United States.
So, there are a series of things that we found out, and probably the most important of them was that there's been a mystery as to why Donald Trump would take this great risk of removing all these documents from the White House when he left, and everybody remembers seeing the boxes at Mar-a-Lago of all these documents there.
COLLINS: Yes.
[21:30:00]
RASKIN: Well, why? The reason was for business interests, and that is in this memo, which the Department of Justice sent to us. We didn't send it to them. We wrote to follow up and say, Look, why don't you just release the entire volume two of Jack Smith's Special Counsel report. Because every other Special Counsel report has been released by everybody else.
COLLINS: Yes.
RASKIN: Robert Hur, Robert Mueller, Ken Starr, you name it.
COLLINS: Well obviously the judge here--
RASKIN: Why should this one not be released?
COLLINS: The judge here is the one who's blocking that from being released.
But to your point about the business interests, and that's not something--
RASKIN: Judge Cannon, yes.
COLLINS: --that's not something that Jack Smith himself argued in an indictment. I mean, obviously it's something you would -- they'd look up and, I mean, they'd look out when they were investigating him. But they didn't actually make that argument in their indictment or in court.
RASKIN: Well that's -- that's true. But in indictment -- an indictment doesn't usually elaborate the motive behind having the specific intent, which is the legal mens rea requirement. So, obviously there was a lot more proof to come at trial. But Donald Trump won the election, and that's why the prosecution didn't go forward, because there's a policy the Department of Justice has, of not prosecuting a sitting president.
But if there's nothing to be afraid of, if they believe that there's nothing there, just release the report the way they've demanded every other Special Counsel report be released about Joe Biden or Hunter Biden, the way every -- you know, Bill Clinton, all of the Special Counsel reports have been released.
COLLINS: Yes, and Judge Cannon obviously threw that out, saying that Jack Smith was not rightfully put into--
RASKIN: Right.
COLLINS: --to that job.
RASKIN: Right.
COLLINS: Congressman Jamie Raskin, thank you.
RASKIN: Judge Aileen Cannon--
COLLINS: Yes, Judge Cannon in Florida.
RASKIN: Yes. Yes.
COLLINS: Congressman Jamie Raskin, thank you for joining us to respond to that tonight.
RASKIN: You bet.
COLLINS: We also have more breaking news that we're covering here tonight. There's new reporting that I have on President Trump's top housing official, Bill Pulte. He just issued two new criminal referrals for the New York Attorney General, and longtime opponent of Donald Trump's, Letitia James.
This is now the second time, actually, in less than a year, that Bill Pulte has referred James for criminal prosecution. The new referrals that we got here today, to the Justice Department, both allege suspected homeowners insurance fraud.
One alleges that James, quote, may have defrauded Allstate when she submitted a homeowners insurance application for her property in Virginia. The other alleges that she might have done so on her homeowners insurance application for a Florida-based company, which is why they were filed, respectively in Illinois and in Florida. Notably, though, both of them cite posts like these on X, by a longtime Trump legal adviser. His name is Mike Davis.
And so we asked Tish James' attorney for a statement in response to this, given this is something that they have now dealt with multiple times from the administration in different forms.
And Abbe Lowell told us, in part, that they believe that the administration is: Frustrated by repeated failures, where judges and grand juries have rejected their attempts to charge Attorney General James, Trump and his political enablers keep abusing their power to pursue a vendetta against her by trying to rename, refile, and repeat baseless allegations.
Now, of course, Letitia James was indicted in October last year on bank fraud and false statement charges. She pleaded not guilty to those, but it didn't go anywhere because that case was ultimately dismissed and thrown out, after a judge said it wasn't brought by a valid U.S. attorney.
We'll bring you any updates on that.
Up next here. Lawmakers got a new briefing today on the war. Coming out of it, no one was happy, not Republicans, not Democrats. They say they still have more questions than answers. We'll try to answer some of those, right after this.
[21:35:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Tonight, there is growing frustration from lawmakers, on the House Armed Services Committee, including Republicans, after they got out of a classified briefing today on Iran.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JASON CROW (D-CO): We're not getting answers from the administration on the endgame, on the strategy, on how they're going to protect the 50,000 troops who are in that region, how we're going to de-escalate, and what our ultimate goal is. And our service members deserve better.
REPORTER: Would you support troops on the ground in Iran at this point?
REP. DERRICK VAN ORDEN (R-WI): No. I've answered, a 100 percent crystal clear from the beginning, no.
The answer is no. We can achieve the strategic goals that Donald Trump wants to achieve without doing that. I don't support that.
REP. ADAM SMITH (D-WA): The objective seems to be basically to fundamentally break Iran so that they no longer have a nuclear program, they no longer have a ballistic missile program, and they no longer support terrorist proxies in the region. But we don't have a way from here to there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Now that anxiety that you're hearing from lawmakers comes, as at around a 1,000 Army soldiers with the 82nd Airborne Division were approved to deploy to the Middle East late last night. All the while, Iran is building up its defenses of Kharg Island to prepare for what they seem to believe could be a potential U.S. ground attack, to take control of it.
I'm joined tonight by CNN's Global Affairs Analyst, Brett McGurk.
And our Military Analyst, Lieutenant General Mark Schwartz.
And General, when you look at this and you see about the potential for ground operations, what's your sense of, at least, what they're preparing to give themselves the potential to do?
[21:40:00]
LT. GEN. MARK SCHWARTZ (RET.), U.S. ARMY (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST, FORMER U.S. SECURITY COORDINATOR, ISRAEL & THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY: Well, I think first, the intent of bringing these 82nd Airborne Paratroopers 4 (ph) is to take the slack out of potential employment of ground forces. Obviously, the Marines, two MEUs are moving into the area of operations as well. Marines and infantry from the United States Army are -- they do a multitude of tasks, but seizing terrain is certainly high on that list.
COLLINS: I mean, if this -- let's say the President does this. And we don't know that he is going to. But if he does, what would -- I mean, can you explain to us what that would look like in the initial phase, at least?
SCHWARTZ: Well, what's coming in with the MEU is the rotary-wing lift that would be necessary to bring forces on Kharg Island, or potentially, on the, you know, the shore of Iran, on the -- on the north side of the Strait of Hormuz, for instance. So, they have the capability to move the force as the Army-MEU (ph) comes in, and you've got the ground forces to do that.
But you also have to bring in all the enablers. So, the good -- the good thing is we have air supremacy. So, we have dominance of the air, the ability to employ fires to support those forces as they come ashore, probably by a helicopter assault, and then to sustain them over time.
Not that it's going to be easy, it's extremely high-risk operation, but they have the capability and the enablers to support the force once it gets on the ground. But the likelihood of them being able to do this uncontested is very unlikely.
COLLINS: OK. I mean, with that, Brett, obviously, that is why the stakes have been so raised here, in terms of what this would look like, and if it is contested, how that would play out.
What's your sense from what you're hearing from officials today? Are talks happening? Do you think they're making progress? Is anything happening, in your understanding?
BRETT MCGURK, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST, FORMER MIDDLE EAST & NORTH AFRICA COORDINATOR, NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL: I think, Kaitlan, we called the diplomacy last night. We said, probably unlikely to go anywhere, but you're testing it out. You're kind of positioning, not really negotiating. Today, Iran came out with a very maximalist set of demands. So that's all going on, trying to see if anything is there. I think the President would love to have an option there. Again, right now, I think the odds there are very low.
But signal from noise, we have two dates on the calendar, I'd keep in mind. So, April 11th will be the six-week mark of this campaign. And it was originally a four to six week campaign. I think CENTCOM will go through that six weeks in its targeting campaign. And we now have a new date on the calendar with the President going to China on May 14, 15.
So, I would kind of -- I mean, I think -- I would anticipate the military campaign is going to continue here for the next two and a half weeks, and then you'll see if there's an option for something like this. Do you have a permissive enough environment to do something like that with an acceptable level of risk?
Because if Iran can still get off drones and missiles, it's very -- you have -- we can take the island maybe, then you got to hold it, and you got to sustain it. So, that's very high risk, and then for what? I assume it'd be for a card in a future negotiation. But there's a lot of open questions here, which is why I think you're seeing from Congress some questions coming out of these briefings.
COLLINS: I mean, they were really frustrated, and those were Republicans who were saying, We don't really know what the plan would be if boots were put on the ground.
If they took Kharg Island, to the General's point there, how long could that take? Do we have any idea?
MCGURK: It's an island, I mean, to put it, it's about eight square miles. It's about a third of the size of Manhattan. It has a population, Kaitlan, about 20,000 people, mostly oil workers. But this is a -- it's an oil platform. It's also, there's a -- there's a Christian monastery there from the 6th century. I mean, it's an island that people have been living there for a long time. But you have all those people there, so you have to think.
And look, we've dealt with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and the Quds Force and all these guys, OK? Some of those workers will be IRGC people, they will be ready to fight. So, you got to go in heavy and make sure you can really seize it and hold it. It's a serious, serious operation.
Now, the fact that Kharg Island is being talked about so much makes me think maybe this is a little bit of a feint. I mean, talk about there's absolutely no surprise here, so.
But I would assume the next two weeks, again, steady state, military is doing its thing, trying to degrade missiles, drones, and then you'll have some decisions to make, with that real mark on the calendar. I think the President does not want to go to China with this war ongoing, so.
COLLINS: Yes, and vice versa. China may not want him to come there with the war still ongoing.
MCGURK: Well, maybe I could -- I could see Xi saying, Hey, I just talked to the Iranians. Let me help you with a way out of this.
I do not think that would be good for the United States. You got to have this wrapped up before the President goes to China.
COLLINS: Brett McGurk--
MCGURK: So, we now have two dates on the calendar.
COLLINS: Yes, we'll be watching those very closely.
MCGURK: Yes.
SCHWARTZ: Yes.
COLLINS: Brett McGurk. Lieutenant General Mark Schwartz. Great to have both of your expertise here on this as we track all these developments.
Also here tonight, we're also following another breaking story. As the Chair of the National Transportation Safety Board is going to join me right after this, with investigators zeroing in on the new evidence they have from that deadly crash at New York's LaGuardia Airport.
[21:45:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Tonight, the National Transportation Safety Board tells CNN that officials gathered new evidence at the site of the deadly runway crash at New York's LaGuardia Airport.
The regional jet, that you see here, that slammed into the fire truck as it was landing, has now been released by investigators. It's been moved off the runway and into a hangar.
And since this crash happened, we have now learned, there were two controllers only on duty in the airport's tower, who were managing the active runways when this happened.
My source here tonight is leading this investigation. It is the NTSB Chair herself, Jennifer Homendy.
And it's great to have you here. Obviously, you've been doing a lot of the briefings. I know you've been very busy. So, thank you for your time tonight.
And we are told that the primary air traffic controller who was in the tower, when this happened, was scheduled to be interviewed last night, I believe. Can you tell us if that has happened?
[21:50:00]
JENNIFER HOMENDY, NTSB CHAIR: So, the local controller was interviewed, last night, pretty late, and then interviews started pretty early this morning, and are going on as we speak, continuing through other controllers that were -- one controller that was in the tower, the controller in charge, as well as the air traffic manager and the operation supervisor.
COLLINS: And have you been able to learn anything new from them, from their perspective of what happened?
HOMENDY: Not yet. I have left our investigators alone, so that they can focus on the interviews and the questions that they have. So, I haven't had a briefing from them since. These interviews go on for hours.
COLLINS: They stretch for hours?
HOMENDY: Hours.
COLLINS: And what kind of questions are they asked? Is it about the mindset, the understanding of what their job was? What questions do you have for them?
HOMENDY: The initial questions are usually focused on what was going on in the tower at the time, who came off duty, when people came off duty, when the United Flight, for example, had begun to -- when they had a rejected takeoff, initially, when they had the second rejected takeoff, when they reported there was some sort of a smell or fumes in the cabin, when they requested assistance. We start to build a timeline and then dig into each of those questions to find out more.
COLLINS: And one thing that was revealed is that the fire truck that was going out to that flight that had the odor did not have a transponder on it, which basically made the ground collision warning system not helpful not -- it wasn't useful in this situation, because they couldn't basically use it.
And the FAA only encourages those on ground vehicles. Do you think that is something that should change?
HOMENDY: That is something -- I don't want to get ahead of the investigation. But what I will do -- what I will say is that our air traffic control team has long stated that, that they should have transponders. If you're an air traffic controller, you should be able to see everything that's on the ground, everything that's in the immediate airspace, so you can ensure safety.
COLLINS: So you do think that that should be required?
HOMENDY: I personally feel that, and our team feels that. We have to get there on our recommendations and throughout the investigation. I will say, in this case, it wasn't just -- it was one truck that crossed, but we now have learned that there was a -- it was a convoy of six trucks. One ended up crossing, of course, in front of the plane, and wasn't seen on that runway safety technology.
COLLINS: Yes, we spoke to a survivor from the crash who said, We noticed there were all these fire trucks on the ground when they landed, and they were alarmed by that.
In terms of staffing. It's not just this. We've heard with the midair collision that happened here in Washington, the near-miss in Austin, a lot about staffing in these towers. There were two people here. It's the overnight shift. But that's when people are tired and fatigued. Doesn't that mean that in those shifts, that's when there should maybe be more people in the tower, not fewer?
HOMENDY: Well, in this case, and what is concerning is that this is the standard across the national airspace, where during the shift, you pretty typically have two controllers.
In this case, you have LaGuardia that has 900 flights per day, and one would think that between 10 o'clock and 6 o'clock, it would be lower traffic. But in this case, we saw that there was a pretty heavy workload for these two controllers, where you had an emergency going on, you had several flights that they had to attend to, so it was a high workload for them.
In this investigation, we will look at controller staffing during that mid-shift, we will look at controller staffing entirely in this tower, but then across the national airspace.
COLLINS: OK, so that is something that you think will be reevaluated as part of this?
HOMENDY: Yes.
COLLINS: And in terms of the investigation, we learned that both controllers were not immediately relieved right after the crash happened. Obviously, there were the hours after, in terms of this. One was heard over the radio, 18 minutes after, saying, I messed up.
When you listen and you hear that, and you think about the stress that is on the aviation system overall, that you have highlighted, and the DHS funding that's happening -- shutdown that's happening here in Washington. Is the system at a point where it is at a level that it just cannot take the stress that's on it?
HOMENDY: Well, there is a significant amount of stress on our aviation system. What I will say is that our aviation system is incredibly safe. But that is not -- no solace to those who have lost loved ones, to those who have died. So, that is why we're on the scene. We want to prevent the next tragedy. We want to make sure that our investigation leads to safety change.
What I will say is that we have issued so many recommendations in the past that have never been adopted. Then we see another accident and another accident. The investigation is only the first part of what we do. If our recommendations aren't adopted, this is going to happen again, and lives will be lost.
COLLINS: How do you change that?
[21:55:00]
HOMENDY: The NTSB does not have regulatory authority. That is something we work through with the recipients of our recommendations. And in the case of the midair collision, near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, we issued 50 recommendations.
And so, we work with the Department of Transportation, the Inspector General, the Army, the Department of Defense, and the FAA, to make sure that it doesn't happen again. But we have so many recommendations that aren't implemented, and we keep saying, Unless they are, safety won't change.
COLLINS: Yes.
HOMENDY: And that's why we're here.
COLLINS: Yes, that's quite a warning.
Jennifer Homendy, thank you for joining us tonight.
HOMENDY: Thank you so much for having me.
COLLINS: Really appreciate it.
And up next here for us. There was quite a strange scene at the White House today. What you're seeing here, we'll explain right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:00:00]
COLLINS: OK. You might have seen this today and been wondering what is happening here at the White House, as a robot was guest-walking alongside the first lady, Melania Trump, during an AI summit that happened in the East Wing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FIGURE 03, AI-POWERED HUMANOID ROBOT: Thank you, first lady Melania Trump, for inviting me to the White House. It is an honor to be at Fostering the Future Together's global coalition inaugural meeting. I'm Figure 03, a humanoid built in the United States of America. I am grateful to be part of this historic movement to empower children with technology and education.
(END VIDEO CLIP) COLLINS: Figure 03 was the American-made robot delivering those greetings in multiple languages.
Thanks so much for joining us here tonight.
"CNN NEWSNIGHT" starts now.
