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State of the Union

Interview With Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA); Interview With Sen. John Curtis (R-UT); Interview With Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL); Interview With White House Border Czar Tom Homan. Aired 9-10a ET

Aired December 07, 2025 - 09:00   ET

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

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(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANA BASH, CNN HOST (voice-over): Outburst. President Trump ramps up his immigration crackdown, targeting new Democratic cities and lashing out at Somali immigrants.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage. We don't want them in our country.

BASH: How far will this latest escalation go? White House border czar Tom Homan joins me live.

Plus: Out of step? As Republicans fret over an affordability backlash, President Trump takes a different approach.

TRUMP: Affordability is a hoax, a Democrat scam, a con job.

BASH: Is that the message Americans want to hear? I will ask Republican Senator John Curtis. Plus, our political panel breaks it all down.

And in hot water. Dueling controversies land Trump's Pentagon chief on the defensive.

PETE HEGSETH, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: It was the right call. This is called the fog of war.

BASH: Did he cross a line? Iraq War veteran and Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth weighs in ahead.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: Hello. I'm Dana Bash in Washington, where the state of our union is doubling down.

That's the case with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who's shrugging off multiple controversies this week, first an inspector general report that Hegseth claims totally exonerated him, but which, in reality, found he put U.S. troops at risk by sharing sensitive attack plans in a group chat earlier this year.

He's also defending his actions amid bipartisan blowback over a controversial so-called double tap strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean.

Meanwhile, President Trump is doubling down on his efforts to restrict both illegal and legal immigration to the U.S. and launching new ICE raids on Democratic cities after this tirade against Somali immigrants in Minnesota:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I don't want them in our country, I will be honest with you, OK? Somebody would say, oh, that's not politically correct. I don't care. I don't want them in our country.

We're going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Here with me now is President Trump's border czar, Tom Homan.

Thank you so much for being here this morning, sir.

I do want to start with the new ICE raids in Minnesota. They are sparking widespread fear and uncertainty among people in the Somali community in the Twin Cities. Now, that Somali community in Minnesota is about 80,000 people. The vast majority are U.S. citizens or legal residents.

So what is the reason for sending ICE there?

TOM HOMAN, WHITE HOUSE BORDER CZAR: Well, look, we also know there's a large illegal Somali community there. There's an illegal alien community, a large illegal alien community there.

You know, if you're a U.S. citizen, you will have nothing to fear. We're looking for criminal aliens. And, also, if you're a resident alien, you have a -- like a felony conviction, by statute, you could be set up for deportation.

So we're looking for public safety threats, national security threats, and illegal aliens. Nothing's changed, Dana, from day one.

BASH: I have talked to several state and local officials who've said that the number of Somali immigrants who are living in the U.S. illegally there is very, very small, and that this is about scaring people more than it is about arresting criminals.

So what have you actually accomplished with this operation so far in Minnesota?

HOMAN: Well, we're just starting. And I disagree with the fact when people -- even we don't know how

many illegal Somalians there are, because, remember, under the last four years and Joe Biden, there was over two million got-aways, known got-aways, people caught on video, drone traffic or sensor traffic, that crossed the border illegally and weren't apprehended and weren't vetted.

And so what President Trump's doing is fixing the last four years of the open border, where millions of people were released in this country, many we don't know who they are. So we're going to do the same thing we -- in the Twin Cities we have done across the nation.

We're going to focus on those illegal alien public safety threats in these cities. And if they weren't a sanctuary city, I mean, many of these people would be apprehended in the safety and security of the county jail. But because they're a sanctuary city, we have got to send more resources there to flood the zone, because it takes a whole team to find somebody in the community, where it would take one agent arrest one bad guy in a county jail.

BASH: So...

HOMAN: So this is exactly what President Trump promised the American people we're going to do, and that's what we're doing.

BASH: So you are confident that, once this operation is over in Minneapolis, in the Twin Cities, you are confident that you will unearth many more illegal immigrants in the Somali community than people who are there local officials, state officials believe actually exist?

[09:05:08]

HOMAN: Look, we're going to arrest every illegal alien that we find there.

But, again, we're going to prioritize the public safety threats, the national security threats. These are targeted enforcement operations. And the success has been proven in Washington, D.C., in New York City, Chicago, North Carolina.

I mean, every city we have hit, we have arrested a lot of criminal illegal aliens. I looked at the numbers today. By the end of this calendar year, we're going to be around 600,000 deportation, and the majority of them being public safety threats.

BASH: Minneapolis, the city councilman there, in particular, Jamal Osman, who was born in Somalia, told CNN that -- quote -- "Somali citizens have been stopped on the street, asked to provide documentation," and that he never thought he'd have to tell people to carry their passports around because they look Somali.

Are ICE agents stopping people because they look -- quote, unquote -- "Somali"?

HOMAN: No, they're not. The law requires agents are trained to Fourth Amendment training every

six months. Border Patrol is trained in Fourth Amendment training. They stop -- you can detain and question people for a short period of time based on a reasonable suspicion. That's the federal statute. That's what the federal statute says.

BASH: And what is that suspicion? Is it based on how they look?

HOMAN: No, based -- their appearance alone can't raise reasonable suspicion. It's articulable facts, a lot of different facts taken into consideration.

And the Supreme Court just backed the Trump administration up on this. I know a lot of the media says, oh, the Supreme Court just justified racial profiling. That's not what the Supreme Court said. The Supreme Court said they agree with the way these operations are being conducted because the standard of reasonable suspicion is being used by both ICE and the Border Patrol in the interior operations.

BASH: Mr. Homan, the president said very clearly this week that he doesn't want Somali immigrants in America. He called them garbage.

Is that the real reason this operation is happening in the Somali community?

HOMAN: No, I think that President Trump's referring to public safety threats and national security threats from Somalia and every other country. I mean, he's been clear from day one.

BASH: Well, he didn't say that. He said the whole -- the whole -- he talked about the whole community.

HOMAN: Well, look, I'm not aware what President Trump was thinking when he said that.

But I agree with President Trump. From day one, he has said, we are concentrating on public safety threats and national security threats. He was put in the Oval Office to run the biggest deportation operation this country has ever seen. And that's exactly what we're doing. That's what the American people voted for.

So, every -- there's numerous countries that President Trump is looking at, everybody that came in from these countries, make sure they're vetted properly. Some of these countries don't have the proper systems in place to totally vet somebody, so we don't know who they really are.

So President Trump's taken it upon himself in this administration to make sure anybody that came in this country illegally that we find, and those that came in through a vetting process that wasn't -- that weren't property vetting because they don't have the database and information to ensure they're property vetted, that we're going to re- look at those cases and make sure they're property vetted and we have all the data we have from them.

Some of these countries don't have the databases we have. Some of these countries don't even do the proper checks before they issue a passport to their citizens to come to this country. So President Trump's doing the right thing, making sure everybody that came here illegally came in through property vetting, especially from countries that are related to terrorism or are somehow related to high numbers of overstays or high number of criminal aliens in this country.

That's what he's doing. He's protecting America. And I agree with him 100 percent what he's doing, Dana.

BASH: The Department of Homeland Security posted on social media this week that ICE does not arrest or deport U.S. citizens.

Just the other day, I want to give you -- show you some video. There was an incident of masked ICE agents targeting a 22-year-old mother in New Orleans, chasing her to her home, even though she told them she was a U.S. citizen.

And then there was this video, which I am actually going to show you. It was an incident in the state of Florida.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm a U.S. citizen! Please help me! This is unfair! Why are you doing this to me?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Now, she was released once they found her driver's license in her car that said she was in fact a U.S. citizen.

So, if ICE says it doesn't arrest U.S. citizens, why do we keep seeing incidents like the one I just played, so aggressively pursuing people as they say they are lawfully in America?

HOMAN: Well, a couple things.

First of all, I started as a Border Patrol agent in 1984. Through my nearly four decades of work, I can't tell how you many times an illegal alien claimed to be a U.S. citizen. It happens all the time.

But it's getting back to what I just said, reasonable suspicion. If they have reasonable suspicion to stop and question somebody and shortly hold them and detain them briefly for questioning, if they have reasonable suspicion, they can stop.

[09:10:06]

So, am I -- do I think there's been zero U.S. citizens that have been detained for questioning because reasonable suspicion said they may be in the country illegally, they may have an issue with that?

But as soon as that questioning is over, if they're a U.S. citizen, they will be released. It takes probable cause to arrest somebody and actually transport and take them into custody.

BASH: Yes. Well, I think it's... HOMAN: So I'm not aware of these specific cases, Dana. I'm not there, but I'm going to have faith that the ICE agents are gathering articulable facts for reasonable suspicion to detain somebody and question them.

BASH: So there's reasonable suspicion that you're talking about. There is releasing somebody once they're comfortable that they are a U.S. citizen, and then there's just the aggressive tactics that we are seeing in video after video.

You're comfortable with those tactics that we're all seeing with our own eyes?

HOMAN: Look, threats on ICE officers are up 1200 percent. They're being doxxed on social media. They're getting death threats every day.

They have been attacked. They have been shot at. And these officers are out there looking for the worst of the worst. So they're protecting themselves. And I think they're following the law. And if any ICE officer or Border Patrol agent acts out of policy or does something inappropriate, they will be held accountable.

But we got to remember, I mean, they're under attack. And we're at a place in this country where, all of a sudden, the ones who enforce the law are the bad guys and the ones who wrote the laws are victims.

I'm going to trust the men and women of ICE and Border Patrol, who have been trained very well. They're doing the right thing. But I will say again, if someone does something inappropriate, out of policy, illegal, they need to be held accountable.

But I simply think I haven't seen that. And, again, I'm not in every arrest. I'm not in every operation. I trust the men and women of ICE and Border Patrol to do the right thing.

BASH: Tom Homan, thank you so much for being here this morning. I appreciate it.

HOMAN: All right, thank you.

BASH: And President Trump says affordability is a Democratic con job. Is that the message his party wants to hear?

Republican Senator John Curtis of Utah will be here in the studio next.

Plus, a Democratic senator and military veteran isn't mincing words about Pete Hegseth. That's ahead.

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BASH: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION.

My guest now is a Republican senator who thinks America's immigration system should be -- quote -- "Compassion meets the rule of law."

Senator John Curtis of Utah is here with me now in studio.

Thank you so much for being here. It's nice to see you.

You just heard me speak with the border czar, Tom Homan.

SEN. JOHN CURTIS (R-UT): Yes.

BASH: Is that the kind of compassionate immigration enforcement you have in mind?

(LAUGHTER)

CURTIS: You know, it reminded me of a painful conversation. And, sadly, a lot of times, when we were talking about immigration, it's just painful. It really is.

I absolutely believe it's a false narrative that we can't have rule of law and compassion at the same time, but I think we're getting compassion -- we're really struggling with compassion.

For instance, going back to the Biden administration, we were told it was compassion to have an open border. It wasn't. That's not compassion. And now what's happening in our cities also feels like it's not compassion.

BASH: So, what should they be doing better?

CURTIS: Well, listen, you know I was a mayor. If I were mayor, the very first thing I would do is, I'd sit down with ICE and I say, I want the bad guys out of my city and I want my citizens to feel safe. Now let's do that.

And too much of that isn't happening. It's like us against them. I don't think these protesters are compassionate. I think, to the extent that ICE is not transparent, it brings this fear into a community, and we have got to get rid of that fear. We have got to get rid of the bad guys and to be compassionate at the same time. We can do it.

BASH: Just on specifically what's happening in Minnesota and the Somali community, President Trump is ramping up his attacks against Somali immigrants. He said this week they are -- quote -- "garbage" and that he doesn't want them in the country and they should go back to where they came from.

Now, after Charlie Kirk was murdered in your state, everybody talked about turning down the rhetoric, full stop.

CURTIS: Yes.

So, listen, I have learned, sadly, I can't control anybody but me, right? And the best thing I can do is set my example. And I think all of us need to wake up every morning, look in the mirror and say, what are we doing, what am I doing specifically today to make this country a better country, to make our -- all of our immigrants feel more welcome?

That's what we have always had. And I think, if more of us would do that, it would matter less what individuals said.

BASH: Right. But, as you know, he's not just an individual. He's the president of the United States calling an entire community garbage.

CURTIS: Well, so it wasn't very long ago, just a little year ago, that we elected him. And we knew very well what we were electing at the time. The country wanted a disrupter.

And he's put disrupters into place, Tom Homan and things like that. And that disruption is very, very painful. But you have to remember the reason I think the country went that direction is they were -- are very uncomfortable with a number of things we were doing in this country. And we wanted a disrupter.

And for good or bad, that's what disruption brings.

BASH: I want to ask you about the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth.

CURTIS: Yes.

BASH: Just this week, a government watchdog report found that his use of the Signal chat put American troops at risk, what he said in that chat. Lawmakers are continuing to look at his involvement in that double tap strike in the Caribbean on an alleged drug boat.

If you were to take the confirmation vote again today, would you vote to make Pete Hegseth defense secretary?

CURTIS: That's a question I can't answer without as much thoughtful research as I did the first time I did that vote. I think you might...

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BASH: Now you have evidence, not research.

CURTIS: Yes, but, you know, what the reality of it is, if you go on what's in the newspapers, it's near impossible to know exactly on.

We heard one day that he had put an order in to kill the survivors. The next day, we're hearing something else, and the next day we're hearing something else. But I will tell you, I am pleased with Congress' role of oversight. I think we're doing a really good job of demanding answers and getting answers.

I chair the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee, and we're going to have a hearing on this. You're hearing -- having other hearings. And I think Congress really wants to know exactly what's happening and the real facts, not what's reported in the newspaper. If you go back to his confirmation, that's what I tried really, really hard to do, is, like, separate out what we're hearing.

Let's get to the real facts and let's make a good decision.

BASH: You said that you are going to have a hearing in the subcommittee that you chair in Western Hemisphere.

CURTIS: Yes.

BASH: Are you going to try to get the players involved in that to come up and testify? And...

CURTIS: Yes, so, listen, if I had a magic wand, absolutely.

BASH: Yes. Well, you do. You're an oversight chair.

CURTIS: Now, the -- my reality of it is -- yes, but I don't get subpoena authority, right.

BASH: Right.

CURTIS: I don't get to demand that they come.

BASH: Right.

CURTIS: But I think my members on the subcommittee want answers, both Republicans and Democrats. I think you're seeing that on the broader, the full committee. The chair and the ranking member are also asking for answers. You're seeing that not just on the Foreign Relations Committee, but I think you're seeing a pretty good bipartisan quest for answers.

BASH: But are you sure about that? Because, certainly, it seemed that way at the last weekend and the beginning of the week. But then, as the week evolved, and the top Republican, the top Democrat on the Intel Committees, for example, and Armed Services saw the video, there were definitely divergent perceptions of what they saw.

And then, yesterday, Pete Hegseth said he's not sure that he will actually release the video. Are you confident you will see the video? And should it be released?

CURTIS: So, listen, there's always a fine line between classified and unclassified.

I think, if you're going to err, in my opinion, you err on the side of transparency. When we're not transparent, it just fuels...

BASH: So it should be released?

CURTIS: I haven't seen it. So I really don't know what's classified and what's not.

BASH: OK.

CURTIS: But I just feel like let's err on the side of transparency. The American people, they like to make decisions too based on facts, not just on what we tell them. And the more we can give them that information, the more comfortable they're going to feel.

And that's actually one of the ways we're actually going to restore trust in government is by being more transparent. BASH: We'd love to see that.

Let's talk about what's happening in the U.S. Senate this coming week. There is going to be a vote on Thursday to extend the Obamacare subsidies that are running out at the end of the year. I don't need to tell you, one in 10 constituents of yours in Utah are on Obamacare. How are you going to vote?

CURTIS: So, sadly, this is not really a serious effort. Just to extend three years something that has not been working that was meant to be temporary from the beginning is not a good vote.

We know, look, we need a minimum premium for people, even if it's a couple of bucks. We know we need a cap on income. That's not a serious effort if you're not willing to talk about, look, we know there's flaws with these and we're not willing to change those flaws.

Sadly, there are a lot of Republicans and Democrats talking about both -- two things. One is, how do we actually lower the cost, not just of insurance, but of health care? And then what do we do in the interim while we're waiting to do that? Those are two really questions that we're not having thoughtful conversation about.

And I don't get a thoughtful vote next week. That's not a thoughtful vote to say, we're just going to extend what we're doing.

BASH: Yes, and that's fair. And the fact that there aren't thoughtful conversations after all of these years is -- says a lot about the institution in which you serve.

But, separate from that, the short term, it's, what, 10 legislative days between now and when the premiums of the existing program do run out. So we're talking about people who are really going to suffer while you're saying Congress isn't talking to each other.

Can you at least -- would you at least be willing to put a Band-Aid on?

CURTIS: You can't have this conversation without saying we took six or seven weeks away from this conversation while we had this silly shutdown. We wasted valuable, valuable time.

These conversations were going on before the shutdown. They totally stopped during the shutdown. But even under that, in the best of circumstances, these are complicated issues that you're not just going to be able to throw out there in a couple of weeks.

BASH: The president called the term affordability or just the notion of affordability a con job.

You think that's the right message from the messenger in chief?

CURTIS: So, listen, a year or two ago, when we were told inflation was transitory, like, you can't tell people who are buying food at the store. They know. My wife came back the other day and said, this Thanksgiving dinner is

going to cost us -- she gave me a number. Like, people know costs are up. As Republicans, as Democrats, as elected officials, we would be wise to realize that really matters to people, and we need to be taking that into account in every decision that we make.

[09:25:09]

BASH: Algorithm. Algorithms...

CURTIS: Yes, thank you for bringing that up.

BASH: .. in social media. Yes, I mean, you know I'm obsessed with this as a parent, as every parent is and should be.

You have a bill, bipartisan bill, with Democratic Senator Mark Kelly calling on social media companies to bear responsibility if their algorithms cause harm to everyday Americans. I know that your goal is to get social media companies to change the algorithms, but do you really think that's realistic?

I mean, there -- they certainly haven't been willing to take...

(CROSSTALK)

CURTIS: So, let me just -- let me slightly alter that.

The goal is not to get them to change it. The goal is to get them to be accountable.

BASH: Accountable.

CURTIS: So, a lot of what happens with social media is very, very good. My daughters will tell you they like things showing up that they want to buy. That's not harmful necessarily. But it can be.

And so any industry -- if you make an automobile and have a bad product, we hold you liable. If you make a medicine and it's a bad product, we hold you liable. Why don't we have that same philosophy with our social media companies? And without that, there are no guardrails, right? There's nothing holding them back.

And we know some very, very bad things happen with these algorithms.

BASH: Traction? You have traction on this?

CURTIS: Absolutely.

I'm really pleased. I had two co-sponsors jump on it, Republican, Democrat, very quickly in the House. And they're great co-sponsors. And all my conversations with my colleagues are, yes, we need to do something. And they're finally pleased that somebody has actually got a proposal out there so we can start having this conversation.

BASH: Senator Curtis of the great state of Utah, thank you so much for being here. CURTIS: Dana, yes. It's great to be with you on a Sunday morning.

Take care, yes.

BASH: Appreciate it.

CURTIS: Yes.

BASH: And up next: Was that controversial U.S. boat strike justified or, as some Democrats are saying, a war crime?

A member of the Senate Armed Services Committee will join me next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:31:03]

BASH: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION.

Top House and Senate lawmakers are deeply divided along party lines over whether a deadly so-called double tap strike on a suspected drug boat in the Caribbean was justified or violated the laws of war.

Here with me now is Democratic Senator and Army combat veteran Tammy Duckworth.

Thank you so much for being here, Senator.

Secretary Hegseth defended his actions again yesterday. He compared the operation in the Caribbean to the fight against terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan. Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HEGSETH: What people think is cavalier or cowboy about it is the exact opposite. These are the most professional Americans going through specific processes about what they can and cannot do, understanding all the authorities, all the laws of war, all the capabilities, and applying it to deter our adversaries.

The catch-and-release program of the pat them on the head and release them so they can go back to the fight didn't work in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it's not going to work in the Caribbean.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Like Secretary Hegseth, as I mentioned, you are an Iraq War veteran. What's your reaction?

SEN. TAMMY DUCKWORTH (D-IL): Well, there was actually a vote by Congress to put us at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. There was no such a vote, there was no such debate here in this situation. So the fact that we do have professionals -- our military men and women are the utmost professionals.

The problem is, they have not been authorized to be at war. And, by the way, the individuals in that boat were not even aimed at the United States. So, everything that they have done has been illegal. It's illegal under international law. It's illegal under the Geneva Convention. And it certainly is even illegal under domestic law.

It was essentially murder with that double tap strike.

BASH: I mean, that's a very strong statement, murder. Does that constitute a war crime? Is that what you're saying?

DUCKWORTH: It is a war crime. It's illegal. However you put it, it's all illegal.

Look, I have been shot down behind enemy lines. Under the laws of war, if a pilot bails out, he gets shot down, he bails out, he's in a rubber dinghy in the middle of the ocean, under all the international laws of warfare, you are supposed to help render aid to that individual.

Even if they have a radio and they're calling for their side to come pick them up, you're not allowed to go back in and kill them, even if you know that they're going to conduct future operations against you. That's the Geneva Convention.

And so everything that they did here was illegal. In fact, the two survivors were clinging to half of a boat in the middle of the ocean and had no access to a radio, per the admiral's briefing. And so, yes, all of the -- the whole operation is illegal to begin with.

BASH: Senator, have you seen the video.

DUCKWORTH: I have seen the video. And it is deeply disturbing.

I am mostly concerned with the fact that we are putting our American service men and women in jeopardy here. We're putting them in jeopardy in case they ever get shot down. We're putting them in legal jeopardy. They could be brought up in international criminal courts.

And so what we're doing here is taking those professionals, our utmost professionals, and putting them into harm's way. And that's what bothers me the most about what Pete Hegseth is doing. He is the least qualified secretary of defense in our nation's history. And he's very cavalier about doing things.

The fact of the matter is, only Congress can decide that we can go to war. And there was no such declaration made.

BASH: I just want to make sure that I get this accurate. You have seen the classified video of this particular strike, the first strike, and then the double tap, as it's known.

DUCKWORTH: No, I have just seen what's been available in the media.

BASH: Yes.

DUCKWORTH: I have read the full report, but I have not seen the actual video. I have requested to be able to see the actual video. I have also actually asked to see the after-action reports from the

pilots and the drone operators, as well as the intelligence debrief that all pilots and drone operators conduct after they have completed a mission.

[09:35:09]

BASH: Senator, you said at the beginning of this conversation that you don't even know if this boat was headed to the U.S.

What makes you say that?

DUCKWORTH: Well, the admiral who briefed Congress said that.

And quite a few of the previous boat strikes, from what I have read also, were not -- not all of them were headed towards the United States.

BASH: Senator, the...

DUCKWORTH: And...

BASH: Go ahead.

DUCKWORTH: Look, if they really cared about drug traffickers, the president wouldn't be pardoning drug traffickers. They would be putting money towards law enforcement.

So let's go after the drug traffickers, but let's not be committing international war crimes and internationally illegal actions to do it.

BASH: Can I just ask, just on the war crimes and the video, you haven't -- you read the report. You haven't seen the video.

What makes you so sure that this is murder and a war crime?

DUCKWORTH: You had two survivors clinging to half of a boat, and then you went in and you killed them. That's a war crime.

BASH: Yes.

On the issue of the video, the president of the United States said this week that he had no problem releasing it. And, yesterday, Secretary Hegseth didn't commit to that. He said, like, it's possible that we can't release it because we need to protect sources and methods.

Does he have a point there?

DUCKWORTH: No, he doesn't, not at all. He could certainly release it to the members of Congress. We all have the top secret clearances. And we are, unlike him, unlikely to put things out on Signal.

And so we should have access to it. And, in fact, the Democratic members of the Armed Services Committee have requested access to all of the video footage, not just the one in this particular boat strike. BASH: I do want to ask you about a separate issue.

And that is that the House speaker reportedly is working on stripping in vitro fertilization coverage from active duty service members. Now, you wrote President Trump. And you gave him an annotated letter urging him to stop Johnson. You warned him that Speaker Johnson wants to become the deadbeat dad of IVF, and not, of course, to Donald Trump's declaration that he's the father of IVF.

You have been really public about your own struggles with infertility. I know this is personal to you.

DUCKWORTH: Well, it is.

It's also personal to me because I saw so many of my comrades who were recovering at Walter Reed and other military medical centers who lost their fertility as a result of their military service. And I also, having worked in veterans issues for a long time, know that veterans suffer from much higher rates of infertility than the average population.

And many women in the military would like to freeze their eggs prior to being deployed to a combat zone. By the way, Dana, this passed unanimously out of the House Armed Services Committee last year. It passed by a roll call vote out of the Senate committee. This year, it passed again out of the House, out of the Senate committee.

The committees in both chambers support this. There's nobody opposing this other than Speaker Johnson and his religious views, because, if you believe that a fertilized egg is a human being, has personhood, then some of the processes within IVF is considered murder.

And so he's stripping away something that a bipartisan group in Congress has said that, you know what, we want our military men and women and their families to be able to have access to IVF. And, by the way, the president of the United States said and he promised on a campaign trail to make IVF available to all Americans.

And I can't think of a better place to make it available than the men and women who wear the uniform of this great nation.

BASH: Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it.

DUCKWORTH: Thank you.

BASH: And the health care clock is ticking. Does Congress have a plan?

My panel weighs in next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:43:36]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): Republicans dialed in like a laser, with laser focus, on the cost of living and affordability. We're the ones fixing it. So, I would tell everybody, relax, OK? We're exactly on the trajectory of where we have always planned to be. Steady at the wheel, everybody. It's going to be fine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: "It's going to be fine," that is what you just heard from the House speaker, his message to Americans worried about the affordability crisis in America.

My panel is here now.

Shermichael, is that the kind of advice that you would give to the speaker, the president and others on this issue?

SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think you certainly want to corral sort of the rest of the party to indicate to the nation that they're all on the same page, but I don't think that's enough.

I would probably advise the speaker going into Q1 of '26 to at least have one or two major legislative initiatives that address affordability. I would also perhaps advise addressing the housing shortage. That's a great thing that impacts all Americans.

And you could also message under housing the opportunity of employing younger men to help build some of the houses, since we don't -- know that for a fact we have a supply issue. And so I get it, but I think there needs to be a little more substance to the message.

BASH: Congressman?

REP. JAKE AUCHINCLOSS (D-MA): Actions speak louder than words.

My constituents care about health care costs. At the beginning of this year, the speaker had the chance to take on the drug pricing middlemen who add thousands of dollars to generic drugs at the pharmacy counter. He chose instead to cut Medicaid.

[09:45:02]

At the end of the year, he had the chance to strengthen the Affordable Care Act, lower premiums for millions of Americans. He chose to cut SNAP benefits for Thanksgiving. And now Republicans have a chance to take on Donald Trump when he says that affordability is a con job, and instead they're choosing to resign from Congress.

So there's no actions that back up their claims to take affordability seriously.

KRISTIN DAVISON, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, Politico had a poll, I think, a week or -- last week, this week, where it showed, what are the top economic issues? And it was housing, it was health care, it was cost of living and groceries. And so part of this message needs to be, we came into a mess, we are

trying to get it back, but we still feel your pain. That cares about you metric is so important. And, frankly, even though the congressman hit Republicans, Americans don't believe Democrats care about them either.

So, right now, both Democrats, Republicans, and the White House, Americans are frustrated with all leadership right now. And we're going to be in a race here to the end of the year and to -- starting of 2026 where Republicans and the president can really take hold and not just say the word affordability, because I agree with the president there.

You can't just say the word affordability, we have to talk about it. That's ridiculous. Talk about housing. Talk about cost of living. Talk about groceries. Talk about energy. Talk about gas. These are the things that Republicans can get ahead of to take back that metric of, who cares about me the most?

That's what President Trump has always done so well in 2016 and 2024, and what he needs to get back now and going into the next year.

BASH: "SNL" weighed in on the affordability argument last night. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES AUSTIN JOHNSON, ACTOR: Final question.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, Mr. President. More Americans, including your own voters, now blame you for the affordability crisis. What's your message to them?

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shh. He's sleeping.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: By the way, that was Pete Hegseth.

(LAUGHTER)

JAMAL SIMMONS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Right.

Listen, I spent a few -- some amount of time in the Biden administration, where people tried to argue that it was all going to be OK.

BASH: How did that work out for you?

SIMMONS: This is why it's working, right?

It's never a good idea. I have had this conversation with some Democratic leaders earlier in the year also on the Hill. The answer is always, we can do better. We can always do more. People are in the mood for change. They want something to be different.

And getting back to the point you were making, if we're not talking about how we're going to change things as a Democratic Party or as a Republican Party or anybody in political leadership, you're not doing your job, when the American voters clearly are saying they're not happy.

SINGLETON: I think you got to get the president back out there. I was watching your other show, I think, a day or two ago, and I think you raised a question, when was the last time the president actually was campaigning, talking to the American people?

DAVISON: He's going Tuesday.

(CROSSTALK)

SINGLETON: And I'm happy. We need to get him back out there to listen to his voters, to some of those independent voters, to get an idea of what the average American person is facing. He did an amazing job last year articulating a message, the contrast between the Biden/Harris administration and what Republicans could do if given the keys to the palace.

We were given the keys to the palace. Now it's time to deliver.

AUCHINCLOSS: I think in that void that the president is leaving, you're going to see Democratic governors step up.

In Virginia, Abigail Spanberger, in New Jersey, Mikie Sherrill just had big wins campaigning on affordability. You're going to see them in this next year to deliver, particularly, I think, on electricity rates, which are double digits in both states.

BASH: They were big issues in those campaigns.

AUCHINCLOSS: Huge issues. And what you're going to see them do is take on these hyperscaling A.I. data centers and say to them, you are not having cost spillovers that are leading to rate increases for our constituents. You're putting that energy behind the meter. You are going to pay for this yourselves.

And, again, that contrasts with Republicans in Congress is going to be ferocious. They're trying to put a moratorium on any state level laws for A.I. at the time when Democratic governors are going to be taking on these companies.

SINGLETON: Can I just add, just in a bipartisan way to sort of -- and that's not contrast with you, Congressman, but to agree with what you're saying, I would like to see Republicans and Democrats actually work on addressing the fact that artificial intelligence is going to wipe out about a third of jobs over the next five to eight years.

AUCHINCLOSS: A hundred percent.

SINGLETON: And we're not talking about that at all. That's not a Republican issue. It's not a Democratic issue. It's an American issue. And I think we can all agree on that.

AUCHINCLOSS: Well, I actually just introduced a bipartisan bill on that front that would start by holding the A.I. companies liable for deepfakes, defamation, revenge porn, et cetera.

DAVISON: Well, I think the Democrat governors could take a lesson here. So, Governor-elect Spanberger and Mikie in New Jersey need to see that, if you don't deliver, patience is short.

AUCHINCLOSS: Right.

DAVISON: Voters do not have a lot of patience. You say you are going to come in and turn things around. They have a very, very short window, as we saw this year.

And answering with big government solutions might not be the way to do it, especially in Virginia and New Jersey. And so I think a lot of eyes will be on them, and their voters will have maybe a month of grace to them before they start getting angry.

(LAUGHTER)

SIMMONS: Listen, at the end of the day -- I don't know if we're going to talk about Pete Hegseth, but one of the things that concerns me about this administration's approach is that they don't really seem to understand why America is secure.

We have these concentric rings of security that exist for us. One of them is our moral suasion. One of them is our economic power. It's our cultural power. But it's also who -- and our military power. But it's also who we are as a country, how we are united. This economic problem that we're facing is one that's pulling us apart.

[09:50:00]

And we really don't have anybody in our national life that is telling a story, that's knitting us together. And if Democrats can capture that story about what's going to knit us together as a people, and then what's going to knit us together economically, I think they're going to be a very powerful force.

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: We're almost out of time, but, Congressman, I do want to mention -- you mentioned Hegseth.

You commanded a special ops counterterrorism mission in Panama. Given that kind of experience that you have, what's your view on what we're seeing the Caribbean?

AUCHINCLOSS: I saw how to effectively interdict drugs. You work with our allies, the Panamanians, the Colombians, you do riverine and jungle tactics.

What you don't do is park an aircraft carrier off the coast of Venezuela and strengthen the hand of Maduro by playing into his narrative. What is happening here is, this president is trying to talk Americans into blood for oil 2.0.

Twenty years ago, we saw a Republican president do this with Iraq. It was a disaster. We cannot let him do it again in Venezuela.

BASH: All right, everybody, thank you so much. Nice to see you all on this Sunday morning.

Coming up: President Trump loves putting his name on buildings. Could an iconic institution be next?

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:55:42]

BASH: Tonight, President Trump won't just be attending the Kennedy Center Honors. He will be the emcee.

Honorees include Kiss, Gloria Gaynor, and actor Sylvester Stallone. And it comes as the president hints, bigger changes to the iconic institution could be coming.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: You have a big event on Friday at the Trump-Kennedy Center. Oh, excuse me, at the Kennedy Center.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: Pardon me. Such a terrible mistake.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Slip of the tongue? We shall see.

Thank you so much for spending your Sunday morning with us.

Fareed Zakaria picks it up next.