← Deadline: White House
Deadline: White House
“An end to the war? Or an escalation?”
00:40:08
Alicia Menendez is in for Nicolle Wallace. Alicia covers the head-spinning announcements from Donald Trump that make it increasingly unclear whether the war with Iran will end or whether it will escalate.
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- [00:01]
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Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling
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- [01:02]
Alicia Menendez
Hi everyone, it is four o' clock here in Washington D.C. i'm Alicia Menendez in for Nicole Wallace. Day 24 of the war with Iran and here's where things stand. Gas prices are now more than a dollar a gallon higher than they were just a month ago, and the Trump administration has eased sanctions on oil from Iran, the country that we are at war with. And a series of head spinning announcements from Donald Trump has made it even less clear whether we're about to see an end to war or an escalation, or just whether in the face of growing economic concerns, Trump simply blinked. Let's begin with a threat that had the world on edge all weekend. Donald Trump threatened to attack Iran's power plants if the regime did not reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping route for a fifth of the world's oil. It was an ultimatum. They had 48 hours to comply. Then this morning, just ahead of the market's opening here in the us, Trump announced on Truth Social that he was postponing strikes on Iran power grid for at least five days and that the US And Iran were negotiating an end to the war. Trump's Middle east envoy Steve Witkoff and his son in law Jared Kushner, who has no official role in the government, are leading the negotiations on the US Side. That's according to Trump. The price of oil fell almost immediately, even though Iran says that no such talks are taking place. Here's what Trump had to say about it just this morning.
- [02:28]
Donald Trump
Mr. President, Iran's foreign Ministry says you're not telling the truth when it comes to productive conversations.
- [02:34]
Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling
To end the world, they're going to have to get themselves better Public relations people, we have had very, very strong talk.
- [02:42]
Donald Trump
Stop speaking with Mr. President.
- [02:44]
Greg Myhre
A top. A top person.
- [02:48]
Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling
No, not the supreme leader.
- [02:50]
Alicia Menendez
While Trump was, as you can see there, incredibly vague on the details of his talks, he was even more vague when it came to questions of what he wanted out these talks.
- [03:01]
Amanda Carpenter
Will Iran still be able to control
- [03:02]
Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling
the flow of oil, Be jointly controlled by whom? Maybe me.
- [03:09]
Donald Trump
Maybe me.
- [03:10]
Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling
Me and the ayatollah. Whoever the ayatollah is, whoever the next ayatollah.
- [03:14]
Greg Myhre
And it'll also be a form of a. A very serious form of a regime change. They want to. They want peace.
- [03:22]
Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling
They've agreed. They will not have a nuclear weapon, you know, et cetera, et cetera. But we'll see.
- [03:28]
Alicia Menendez
Okay, to sum it all up, Trump is saying that talks are underway and Iran has already backed off of its nuclear ambitions. But Trump won't say who the administration is talking to, although it's not the supreme leader, which is the son of the leader killed in an Israeli airstrike in the first day of this war. Trump also claiming that there will be regime change, although, again, the Iranian regime has replaced one dictator with that dictator's son. Trump backing off a potentially major escalation in his war with Iran as he makes conflicting claims about an end to the conflict. And talks with Iran is where we start today. Lieutenant General Mark Hertling is here. He served as the commanding general of the US army in Europe. And with me at the table, NPR national security correspondent Greg Myhrey. He has spent years as a foreign correspondent covering conflicts around the globe, including the Middle east, and writer and editor for Protect Democracy. Amanda Carpenter is here with me at the table. It is good to see you all. Greg, were there talks. What do we know about the possibility of these talks?
- [04:28]
Greg Myhre
Well, depends who you believe. Trump says no. Iran says yes. It seems, and I emphasize seems, there may have been indirect talks that perhaps Oman or some other country is acting as an intermediary at this stage, but nothing official that we've seen. So I think the key will be keep an eye on Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, see if they head off somewhere. And President Trump, you know, we're hitting that point in the war where there's not a lot of movement on the battlefield. There's a sort of regular daily pattern here, so you can kind of escalate or de escalate if you want to change the notion. Trump's trying to do both. He's talking, he was talking over the weekend about smashing Iranian power plants. Today, he's talking about possible peace deals. So he's kind of all over the map right now.
- [05:13]
Alicia Menendez
I'm so struck, Amanda, by the number of caveats we had to put in that script, given that the President of the United States is not a reliable narrator generally and specifically during wartime.
- [05:22]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah. I mean, what is extraordinary to me is that we are being walked into a war and it seems like nobody wants to talk about it because we do not understand what is happening. I mean, this seems to me to be a deliberate strategy. But on the other hand, Trump has gone to the public and said that we have decimated the leadership. True. We have obliterated facilities many times over. Iran is not getting a nuclear weapon. So what is the end goal? Why can they not articulate some kind of strategy? And on the other hand, why isn't there any political opposition demanding it, even from the MAGA coalition? We know that Iran and going into the Mideast again splits the coalition. But I spent the day listening to conservative media just trying to understand where are they at on this? This is the war no one wants to talk about. They are deliberately focusing, I think, on the SAVE act, trying to assign political blame for the DHS dysfunction on Democrats. And this is just like a non factor. And to me, that is just extraordinary given that Donald Trump came into office largely by being the anti Iraq war Republican who was willing to challenge the conventional wisdom on that. And somehow he continues to get a free pass on this. I think people really just have to demand answers. What are we doing and why?
- [06:38]
Alicia Menendez
What are we doing? Why, General Hertling, especially when you have 50,000 U.S. troops already in the region, when we're reporting 2,200 to 2,500 Marines being deployed from California to the region, all of it raising the prospect of boots on the ground. Your sense when Amanda talks about the lack of clarity around an objective here is the president just looking for an off ramp?
- [07:01]
Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling
Not just a lack of clarity around the objective, Alicia. It's also the lack of clarity around speech. I mean, when he gave the pronouncement on Saturday, I think it was that there would be 48 hours before attack came. You know, I immediately started questioning it myself, saying that's impossible to do. You don't change targeting data that quickly, especially against those kind of targets. And beyond that, every single thing that he was talking about hitting would have been an element of a war crime. So I would suspect that most of the military commanders would have said that to him. When the reports started coming in that there would be such a rabid response on the part of the Iranians to any kind of attack that would cause that much damage among the civilian population that I think his advisors started him talking him back from the precipice and in fact he retreated from it very quickly, I think when people gave him the implications of the things he was saying. So now we not only have a chaotic strategy, we also have last minute discussions and orders to do things that haven't been planned out from the military perspective. To answer your question, I don't know what an operational objective would be to bring Marines or other troops into the area for the kind of campaign they're waging right now. Now, certainly I don't have to know that because I'm not in the intelligence channel and I don't have a security clearance. But usually when a president goes to war, he convinces the American people to support him. When that doesn't occur, it's a chaotic and dysfunctional war. And that's what we're seeing right now.
- [08:42]
Alicia Menendez
And I'm gonna come back to you, General Hertling, on what we have heard from some elected Republicans about the reality of boots on the ground. But first, Greg, I wanna make sure I. Because the President said today that Iran has agreed to not build nukes, here's the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ralph Grassi on cbs. Take a listen.
- [09:03]
Greg Myhre
We still need to find a framework, an agreed framework that is going to be providing us with the necessary provisibility and sense of a clear idea of where they are, what they want to go.
- [09:22]
Alicia Menendez
Because this war will not destroy Iran's nuclear ambitions and capabilities.
- [09:26]
Greg Myhre
I would say any war, any war, unless it was nuclear war. And you go for destruction in an unfathomable way, which we hope, of course, will never be the case.
- [09:38]
Alicia Menendez
Help me understand that in the context of what we've heard from the President of the United States.
- [09:42]
Jason Hauser
Right.
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Greg Myhre
Well, it seems to be a big gap or a big contradiction here. Iran has not had its nuclear material seen by the International Atomic Energy Agency or anybody else since last year. Trump is suddenly saying that Iran might be, you know, is willing to give up its nuclear stockpiles, that its program will be effectively dismantled. This has come out of nowhere and it's really hard to imagine that. Well, it's hard to believe that they've had any kind of serious talks. I'm sure that's an issue the US Will raise, but that's something that takes time to work through. And at this point that's one of Iran's best cards, is they've got this highly enriched uranium is somewhere, perhaps under a mountain in Isfahan and perhaps a couple other places. They're not going to give that up easily. So this would require detailed negotiations and concessions by the United States. That's not something Iran is going to give away.
- [10:41]
Alicia Menendez
The contours to me of this discussion is one what we can and cannot believe from this president based on his own description of where we are. There's this question of objectives. They were not clear going in. It seems now they are trying to work backwards from what is possible, and they will state that as the objective, as though it has been from the beginning. And then this question of what it means for our friends and allies around the globe, the way this president has spoken with them, engaged them on this issue. On the Strait of Hormuz, Trump said over the weekend he wanted the countries who used the Strait of Hormuz to police it. Richard Haass, you see often on this network, President Emerita of the Council of Foreign Relations put it this way, and I thought it was quite perfect. Think of it as a new Trump doctrine for the Middle East. We broke it, but you own it. Right. I mean, we now are going in making a mess and the President is trying to hand that off to our allies who then wants to be our ally.
- [11:38]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah. And that might even be a rosy situation. Right. I think, as you mentioned, the biggest challenge of Trump 2.0 as it was in the first one, but to a more extreme level, is trying to figure out what is true and what is not. You mentioned that you think, and I think this is probably right, when we're looking to find out information about what is happening in Iran. We should be looking at Witkoff and Jared Kushner. That is a terrible situation to be in where we have to read the tea leaves for the President's son in law to find out what is happening about our war and Iran. I mean, you look at the messengers that they send out to speak about this. I mean, Scott Bessant, the Treasury Secretary, is probably one of the most visible figures. Why is that? I mean, they're treating this almost like it's only an economic story. And I don't think that's positive for them because they don't have a plan to deal with $4 gas. But even taken at face value, why are we listening to Scott Bessant speak about this? We have no point of information to go to, to even get an official government line, even knowing that may be flawed.
- [12:34]
Alicia Menendez
Wait, stay on this point though, because I think the timing of this around the opening of the markets is not coincidental. I mean, to your point, whether they are selling it as an economic story, whether they're understanding it as an economic story, whether that is the only element here that is pressuring an off ramp, it does seem to be factoring into their thinking.
- [12:53]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah. I mean, there's very little political checks that Donald Trump is subject to, and one of the only checks that we have on his power is public accountability. And you see that in the form of polls. She is smart enough to realize that working against him and people who are souring on the economy, I mean, Donald Trump understands that high gas prices work against him because he wielded that so effectively against Joe Biden. Do you remember the last election where they put in the stickers everywhere? Joe Biden did that? I mean, the public is figuring out that war in Iran, we don't know what we're doing. And why is making me pay at the pump. That is a very clear, easy line to draw.
- [13:28]
Greg Myhre
Also, just, I think we're seeing this sort of movement away from what's happening on the battlefield to the political and economic consequences, whether it's the high oil prices, high gas prices, the Pentagon apparently asking for another $200 billion to fund the war effort, seeing allies be very hesitant to get involved in this. So this change of focus in the past week or so of just away from what's happening on the battlefield to the political economic consequences is something I think we're going to be looking at in the days to come.
- [13:59]
Alicia Menendez
General Hartling, to the point that Amanda made about the fact that the president not being a reliable narrator means that we are left with Scott Besant, we're left with Witkoff, we're left with Jared Kushner. I would argue we're also left with the Israelis as some of our most transparent windows into what is actually happening here. You have the New York Times reporting that is Israeli military officials say the campaign against Iran is, quote, midway. If that's true, if what we're hearing from the Israelis is true, how then is the United States having the talks the President claims he is having?
- [14:36]
Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling
Yeah, if I can go back for a second, Alicia, and what Amanda just said, too, about Secretary Bessant being the primary spokesman on the Sunday shows, as a soldier, that's pretty offensive to me. And especially when he says things like to sometimes to de. Escalate, you have to escalate. That's ludicrous. You know, I'm not going to go on any Sunday shows and start talking about economic policy. He seems to be talking about military operations. And to me, that's just bizarre when you're talking about allies who want us to continue, specifically Israel and some of the Arab countries in the Middle East. They want us to, quote, unquote, finish the job because they can't do it alone. And in some Arab countries, they don't want to do it at all. So they want us to take it on. But again, we don't have a strategy. What are we trying to accomplish? What kind of military formations are we going to have next that we don't know about? And how much more money is the Pentagon going to be asking for for a war that doesn't have an end state in mind? All of these things are truthfully disturbing to the military planners in terms of what's going on, because they are right now fighting battles as part of an operational campaign with no strategic objective, or at least not one that the American public knows about and which they have to support.
- [15:58]
Alicia Menendez
Since we're talking about messengers, let's play some sound of Senator Lindsey Graham from this Sunday Supply.
- [16:06]
Greg Myhre
I'm sort of tired of all this armchair quarterback. And this has been an amazing military operation. God bless the fallen.
- [16:13]
Alicia Menendez
But it's a difference. When we talk about troops on the
- [16:15]
Greg Myhre
ground, I trust the Marines, not that guy. I trust dod. We got two Marine Expeditionary Units sailing to this island. We did Iwo Jima. We can do this. The Marines. My money is always on the Marines. I don't know if you take the island or you blockade the island, but I know this. The day we control that island, this regime, this terrorist regime, has been weakened.
- [16:39]
Alicia Menendez
That sounds general. I mean, if you have a loved one who is in the armed services currently, to hear the irreverence from the Senator on what this will require, the sacrifice that this will require, what is the message to those folks?
- [16:57]
Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling
Well, first of all, the example that he used of Iwo Jima, I would ask most people to take a look at the Wikipedia page of what happened on Iwo Jima and how there were tens of thousands of deaths and injuries over a very long period of time. And when you're talking about sending two, two Marine Expeditionary Units, which truthfully are capable units, and they're very good, but they're also very small, into an area that is a couple of hundred miles north of the Strait of Hormuz in Carg island, where there would be no defensive, no logistics support, and the kinds of things that you need for a military operation. And again, I would ask the question, what are they going to do there, control the oil supplies and the pipelines, because I had that as one of my responsibilities in Northern Iraq in 2007. And it was very difficult to control the Beijing oil fields with 30,000 soldiers. So I'm happy that Senator Graham is very competent in the Marine Corps. But I would question, well, I would question his military again, like Secretary Besson, I would question him producing input on military operations when he's an Air Force Reserve JAG officer.
- [18:15]
Alicia Menendez
And interestingly, to a point that Amanda made earlier about a political resistance, this is some of where we have seen those first signs of resistance and fissures. All right, no one is going anywhere. When we come back, a blow to Donald Trump. Pete Hegseth and control of the administration has tried to hold over the news media, the Pentagon press hoping to get back into the room. Plus, ICE agents are now roaming US Airports sent there by Donald Trump to, quote, help TSA agents. We're going to look at what that might be, what might be the real reason Trump is putting ICE officers at our airports. And later on the show, the MAGA split over the war in Iran deepens even further thanks to those new remarks by Senator Lindsey Graham. We're going to get to all those stories and more when Deadline White House continues after this.
- [19:02]
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- [19:27]
Greg Myhre
You.
- [19:32]
Donald Trump
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- [20:24]
Alicia Menendez
a federal judge has issued a rebuke of Pete Hegseth and the Pentagon's war on the free press. Judge Paul Friedman granted a request from the New York Times to void the Pentagon's press credential policy on the grounds that it violated the first and Fifth Amendments. Last fall saw a mass exodus of nearly all members of the Pentagon press corps after journalists refused to agree to a strict set of rules for reporting and news gathering in order to keep their credentials and access to the building. The policy required journalists to sign a document agreeing to only report information that was approved by the Pentagon, even if it was unclassified. The rules were deemed so extreme that even conservative outlets like Fox News and Newsmax refused to agree. In his ruling, the judge ordered the Pentagon return press credentials to the seven New York Times reporters who turned their passes in immediately. We are back with General Hertling, with Greg and with Amanda. Your sense, Greg, of how this has changed reporting of the Pentagon, what response has been?
- [21:27]
Greg Myhre
Yeah, I mean, it's an absolute change. You had, you go back 60, 70 years since the Pentagon was open. You had reporters that were able to really move around and speak. Journalists at the Pentagon really do have good access. Now, some people say maybe that relationship was too cozy, but it has really forced a change in those relations at a time when you have all of these military operations going on. In Iran almost for two months last year, the US Was bombing Yemen with the Houthis, the operation in Venezuela. Venezuela, you've had a number of operations where it's been much, much more difficult for that daily contact that you would see. I recall way back you used to have briefings every day almost in peacetime, but in wartime, you might have one or two briefings in a day. So it's just changed the day to day level of communication and contact, it
- [22:20]
Alicia Menendez
seems, of a piece with the fact that this administration did not have a narrative they were clearly communicating to the American public from day one. That is ordinarily what you would that they would go and sell their vision to the American people. They haven't been doing that. And they haven't been doing that in part because the vehicles through which they would have done that have been obliterated.
- [22:39]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah, I mean, it shouldn't be a loss on us that Donald Trump appointed a former Fox News host to lead the Department of Defense. And one of the first things that he did was set on expunging the press corps once he kicked out and booted the credible Press corps. You saw people come in, like Matt Gaetz, Laura Loomer into the Pentagon press briefing room, where they tried to hold this guise of having accessibility. That was not the case at all. But I really want to commend the reporters for going through on this. I mean, there's a lot of times where collective action does not work because people compete against each other. Decide, well, I'm going to agree to the policy so I can keep a foot in the door. You saw the press corps look at this and understand on a united front that this is a threat to us all, Turn in their badges, leave their jobs, risk their entire careers to go fight this out in court. And today they won. I think we should take a minute to celebrate that, because it really is remarkable. But I don't want to, like, sugarcoat it either, because you had to go fight it out in court, and the outcome wasn't certain. They still have to get back in there to do their jobs. But without question, this is an administration that wants to control the free flow of information so they can protect their political narrative.
- [23:50]
Greg Myhre
And so far, nothing has happened yet. The passes have not been returned. These different news organizations, including npr, are working on it, trying to get passes back, but so far, nothing's happened, and the Pentagon says they're appealing.
- [24:02]
Alicia Menendez
General Hertling in his briefings. Since this war began in Iran, Pete Hagseth has scolded the media for not being patriotic in the way that they have covered this war. Does that comport with your sense, your understanding of patriotism?
- [24:18]
Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling
Not at all, Alicia. And if I may, I'm going to tell you a little secret, so don't tell anybody. When I was still wearing the uniform, I often didn't like members of the. Of the media or the press. But I realized that it's important because our Constitution says that the freedom of impression, the freedom of the press is important, that it informs the American public. So one of the things I attempted to do was work to build relationships, trusting relationships with a lot of members of the media. And that's critically important because they report directly to the people. And what we're seeing right now is the patriotism of these members of. Of the journalist profession going back and saying, we are going to report. And it's especially important because it seems like the Pentagon isn't telling the true story to most Americans who want to know what's going on in these various operations. That's why the freedom of the press is important. It informs the people. And by the way, it's one of only Two specific professions that are named in the Congress, the press and the military. So from that perspective, I think that the civilian leadership inside the Pentagon better start trying to find a way to get along with members of the fourth estate.
- [25:34]
Alicia Menendez
General Hardling, I promise that secret is safe. You, me, Amanda Gregg, and a million of our closest friends and viewers. You know what was interesting to me, Greg, was that you actually found out through this process that the Pentagon realized that we in the press do have some value only once they had forced us all out. This. Let me read this to you. A lawyer representing the Pentagon Press association said that before a briefing earlier this month, Pentagon officials invited the new press corps to attend. And then they realized none of those people could really get the information out to TV networks and others. Since they didn't have a camera, the Pentagon quickly requested placement of a pool camera for the major TV network. Yeah, like there is a symbiotic relationship here.
- [26:20]
Greg Myhre
Oh, absolutely. And you have to have those relationships before a war starts. Because in a war, you're going to get the contradictory claims coming from Iran, coming from here. And if you have to have a trust that's developed over a relationship that's been in place, not just one that begins when the war starts.
- [26:37]
Alicia Menendez
Absolutely wild times. Lt. Gen. Mark Hartling, Greg Myhre, thank you so much both for getting us started. Amanda, you are sticking with me. After the break, a look at how travelers are responding to immigration enforcement officers at airports. We'll talk with a former ICE official on whether it's really helping with anything. Quick break. We'll be right back
- [26:59]
VRBO/Progressive Ad Narrator
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- [27:15]
Donald Trump
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- [27:45]
Amanda Carpenter
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- [28:16]
Donald Trump
We could pass a bill today if
- [28:19]
Alicia Menendez
the president would agree to it, that
- [28:21]
Donald Trump
would send all of the TSA officers back there and be able to keep our line short. Instead, he wants to terrorize our airports. It's just his way of doing things.
- [28:33]
Alicia Menendez
Congressman Dan Goldman as Donald Trump deploys ICE agents to airports all across the country. The presence of ICE agents comes as part of Trump's pressure campaign to get Democrats to agree to a Republican government funding deal after Democrats refused to fund DHS due to the refusal of the Trump administration to rein in ICE agents. ICE agents have been deployed to 14 airports, according to CNN. That list includes Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland, Houston, Fort Myers, New Orleans, JFK and LaGuardia airports in New York, Newark, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh and San Juan Airport in Puerto Rico. That's according to cnn. Trump calling airports, quote, fertile territory for ice, even as he claims that's not the purpose of deploying agents. While White House borders are Tom Homan over the weekend said that ICE agents will not be engaged in actual security screenings, but will instead be assisting in other ways. Mississippi now's Laura Baron Lopez reports that ICE agents have been given unclear directives as to what their role actually is. Quote, ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations officers deployed to airports do not have the ability to check travelers identification or screen passengers. As ICE offices are scrambling to figure out what role agents will fill at airports, three former DHS officials briefed on the directives given to ICE agents told Ms. Now hero officers were told not to wear masks and told not to engage people unless assistance is requested, according to one of the former DHS officials. Joining us now, former top ICE and DHS official Jason Hauser. Amanda is still with me, but I want to start on the ground with reporter Will McDuffie who is is at Newark International Airport. Will, I was there this morning. We were like ships in the night. You have been there all day. What are you seeing?
- [30:23]
Will McDuffie
Well, I gotta be honest, Alicia, it actually feels like a pretty standard travel day here. I mean, lines for security have not been very long. Now, mind you, we're only in one of the several terminals here and it's just hard to tell like what to attribute this to, I mean, is it just a good day amid all, you know, these weeks of chaos and long security lines, or have these ICE agents actually made a difference? I will say we saw about a dozen or so ICE agents here in the terminal earlier today. They really were just kind of patrolling baggage claim, patrolling the check in area. They were maskless, they were armed, but it was kind of hard to tell what they were really doing and if they were having any sort of effect on the lines at all. And that just goes back to what you were saying earlier. Like we don't know exactly what their responsibilities are supposed to be. We've had trouble getting responses from officials about that. And so we just got to continue to see how this plays out.
- [31:20]
Alicia Menendez
Alicia, we don't know. And according to the reporting, they may not know either. You spoke with travelers today. Here's just a little bit of what they had to say.
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Will McDuffie
What do you make of this ongoing chaos at the airports?
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Airport Traveler
Listen, I think it's terrible. I think it's, I don't want to get political too much here, but I think they should solve this. And I what I'm hearing is that there are some proposals on the table to get tsa, you know, do funding for the tsa just flew in here and saw a bunch of ICE people down at the baggage claims. Not sure what they're doing at the baggage claims. I don't know if tsa, I don't know why would they would be people getting their baggage.
- [32:05]
Will McDuffie
Who do you blame for all this, Trump?
- [32:09]
Airport Traveler
Yeah, I really do. I mean, I've seen what's going on in Minneapolis and I'm very opposed to some of the tactics of ice. So I do, I stand with the Democrats on this one.
- [32:20]
Will McDuffie
What about the fact that they're walking around without masks on? Does that help?
- [32:24]
Airport Traveler
No, not at all. And I'm watching downstairs. We all came in, you saw people bracing themselves like, what the hell going on here? And there were a lot of people who were taking pictures and sort of watching them. They were just milling around. They weren't even doing anything. I don't just sort of chatting. I don't know what their function was.
- [32:44]
Will McDuffie
And like that woman mentioned, I mean, everyone has seen, you know, what happened in Minneapolis. I think just like the presence of ICE officers anywhere is giving some travelers here at these airports some unease.
- [32:57]
Alicia Menendez
Alicia, I just got to say, as a proud New Jersey and I love the I'm not going to get political followed by, oh, I blame Trump. Will McDuffie, thank you so much for being at Newark Airport for us. We'll see you in a little bit. Jason, is this how ICE agents are supposed to be deployed? And is it a surprise to you that not only do travelers not understand why they're there, according to the reporting, ICE agents haven't been clear, given clear direction about why they are there. Does that raise concerns for you?
- [33:31]
Jason Hauser
You know, it's, of course it does. You know, we've had a year of sort of the, the musical chairs of federal law enforcement doing everybody else's job. I mean, we've had, we've had CBP agents doing ISIS job. We've had DEA and FBI doing ISIS job. We now have ICE doing PSA's job. We've had National Guard playing the role of city police. What I worry about is, is the idea that, you know, we're now putting officers whipsawing sort of ace officers, whether it's enforcement and removal or it's a Homeland Security investigations, whipsawing them into sort of this sort of the, you know, doing, doing sort of, you know, patrols in airports when they actually do have a mission set that they need to carry out humanely and justly. And, and one other item here is if we're taking Homeland Security investigations, which is a big part of ICE off of their mission set, which is actually tackling potentially malign influence of Iranian activity in the country, illicit human smuggling, financial crimes, other types of weapons trafficking, these are mission set that Homeland Security investigations within ICE carries out if they're now in airports, sort of just doing these patrols because the, you know, the administration cannot sort of just, you know, come to the table around some of these common sense immigration reforms to sort of, you know, and I'll, I'll take Tom Homan at his work. The gentleman has said for, for years now, ICE needs to be focused on the worst of the worst and whether that's, that's, and that's the guardrails that, that, that the Congress is trying to put on some of the money and resources and policies on immigration forces. But now, again, we don't have ICE focused on the threats to our communities. We have them filling these roles that are sort of outside their mission set.
- [35:23]
Alicia Menendez
You invoke Tom Holman. I want you to take a listen to what Tom Holman had to say this weekend about the role of TSA agents at airports.
- [35:33]
Greg Myhre
We're finalizing plans today. But you know, there's a lot of things that TSA does, it doesn't require like specialized training, right. Like you have exit lanes where people leave the airport. Now People try to enter those exit lanes, that's a security breach. Well, an ICE agent can maintain those exits. And that allows a TSA officer to go back to screening, to move people through quicker. You know, ICE can check identification before people enter the screening area. Right.
- [36:00]
Alicia Menendez
I'm just so struck, Amanda, by the fact that that is not actually what these agents are trained to do. Much like what Customs and Border Patrol agents who were sent to Minneapolis were not doing, roles that they were trained to do. And if the sense is not even to say to make Americans safer, but to make Americans feel safer, I think they are losing that argument. I don't know anyone who feels safer as a result of having federal agents who are untrained for the jobs and the roles that they are currently doing being forced into positions where they're out of place.
- [36:30]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah. There are a number of important conversations about what is happening with ICE at airports. There's a question, is this their mission? Are they trained to do it? But I think big picture, what I am concerned about from a democracy perspective is that you have Donald Trump effectively taking a federal law enforcement force and moving them around the country to solve his political problems. Okay. Because the DHS funding fight is a political problem. You go talk to Congress about that. You go have that debate with Democrats. He's saying, no, I have this. This force I can use that is funded to the hilt, that is capable of violence, that has absolutely no meaningful accountability when they engage in violence.
- [37:15]
Alicia Menendez
And I'm just flirting with sending them to polling locations, just maybe.
- [37:18]
Amanda Carpenter
And so I want people to look at the big picture. He is moving these agents around with no checks to solve political problems. Elections are a political problem. What else will be he using these agents for?
- [37:32]
Alicia Menendez
You referenced Thune in the fight that is happening on Capitol Hill. I want to talk a little bit about that. Amanda, Jason are both staying with me. Got a quick break. And then what some GOP lawmakers think of his plan to have ICE at the Air Force. Going to have more after. Quick break. Stay with us.
- [37:48]
Donald Trump
I think it's terrible what's happening.
- [37:51]
Greg Myhre
I'm glad the president's put ICE in there for a multitude of reasons that will drive the Democrats crazy.
- [37:58]
Alicia Menendez
That was Republican Congressman James Comer reacting to ICE agents at some of our busiest airports. We are back with Jason and Amanda. I gotta say, Jason, I love when they just, like there's no subtext. They just allow the subtext to be textual. Right. I mean, this, to Amanda's point, is part of a political fight. That is why the president is sending these ICE agents to airports. Do you think it has the consequence or the motivating element that Congressman Comer seems to think it will?
- [38:24]
Greg Myhre
Well,
- [38:27]
Jason Hauser
you know, it comes across to me as an irritant to the, to the American people to kind of to drive fear. I think that fear is being driven by the, of the administration and how they've used ICE over the last, you know, last year, how they've taken them off the focus on national security and public safety threats. But, but notably, I do find it a bit humorous that even, you know, in the president's budget for fiscal year 2026, he proposed cutting TSA by about $247 million and reducing the workforce by 2,600 jobs. So the idea of bringing in a couple hundred ICE agents to sort of fill in the gaps is a bit comical, quite frankly. And additionally.
- [39:16]
Alicia Menendez
No, no, go ahead, Jason.
- [39:17]
Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling
Then.
- [39:17]
Jason Hauser
No, it's Ms. You know, as Mr. You know, Homan said over the weekend, you know, think of this. He says there's a Mr. There's a plan that I'm developing. It's on my desk now. He said that in multiple interviews. When, when do we do planning after we've already stated sort of what we're going to be executing and what we're going to be operationalizing. And that just shows you how, how this was kind of, you know, shot from the hip just to be an attack to kind of, you know, insert this, you know, into the media narrative of, you know, we have to get back to funding dhs, putting guardrails on, on a lot of these operations that are widely disliked by, you know, bipartisan across, you know, across the electorate in the United States when it comes to immigration enforcement. But we have to also, we are at war. We are at war with Iran. And federal law enforcement is now sort of, you know, out, you know, taking on other agencies, roles within airports, you know, that are outside of their mission set. There's a lot of pieces of ice, not just on the immigration enforcement side, but a lot of operations and investigations and authorities that protect us from threats from, like from China and Iran. And we need those officers focused there.
- [40:29]
Alicia Menendez
All of that pressure, Amanda, building on folks on Capitol Hill, both parties, you had Punchbowl reporting this. Senate Majority Leader John Thune approached Trump with a new proposal on Sunday at the urging of his Senate Republican colleagues and even some White House agencies, aids. Thune told Trump that Senate Republicans would support funding all of DHS except ice. Democrats wouldn't get some of their chief demands, plus TSA agents would get their paychecks and the security line madness at airports would end. But Trump said no. According to multiple sources, the president wants Republicans to stay in D.C. and keep fighting with Democrats over DHS funding in the Save America act and GOP's voter ID and proof of citizenship bill. Not only that, Trump warned that he'd publicly slam Senate Republicans if they left town for the upcoming recession. It's completely self inflicted chaos.
- [41:15]
Amanda Carpenter
Here's what I think is going on when James Comer says he's sort of happy to see ICE at airports. I think a lot of Republicans are because they see it as sort of an elegant solution to their problems.
- [41:25]
Alicia Menendez
Right.
- [41:25]
Amanda Carpenter
There's pain at the airports and there's pain from the public at ICE in the streets. So you give them a feel good job. And meanwhile, Donald Trump continues the shutdown, which again, it is insane that we have DHS shut down while we're going to war with Iran over this SAVE ACT fight that he's having with the Democrats. And if you look at how the Republicans are positioning the SAVE Act, I think they're very content, at least the election denialist wing of the party to have that messaging battle for as long as they can. Because the whole discussion over the SAVE act is allegedly about how Democrats are bringing the vote because they want safe and protected mail in balloting. They are happy to have that conversation. So if they can make that pain at the airport go away with ice, I think this could go on for a lot longer.
- [42:14]
Alicia Menendez
Amanda Carpenter, I am always so grateful to have time with you and have you here at the table. Jason Hauser, thank you so much for being with us. When we come back, what officials are saying this afternoon about that deadly Runway collision at New York's LaGuardia Airport. We're going to sneak in another break and then we'll be right back. An update on the deadly crash at LaGuardia Airport in New York. Here is new video of the moment. An Air Canada jet collided with a Port Authority fire truck, killing the plane's two pilots and injuring dozens of people late last night, prompting LaGuardia to be closed for most of today. Reopening this afternoon. Officials from the FAA as well as New York state and city officials held a press conference last hour where they said LaGuardia would be open at a reduced capacity. The National Transportation Safety Board will be conducting an investigation into the crash. But what we do know now, air traffic controllers can be heard in chilling audio from the moment of the crash directing the Air Canada plane. Then a person is heard quickly instructing the truck to stop multiple times before the audio cuts out. When it comes back, someone indicates they, quote, messed up. We're going to continue to bring more on this story after the break. How Lindsey Graham's appearance on a Sunday talk show brought yet yet another furious reaction to the war in Iran from Donald Trump's own supporters. We're going to take one more quick break deadline. White House continues after this.
- [43:42]
Donald Trump
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