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- [00:00]
Director Avril Haines
This is an iHeart podcast.
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FBI Director Christopher Wray
Guaranteed Human. If you work in university maintenance, Grainger considers you an MVP because your playbook ensures your arena is always ready for tip off. And Grainger is your trusted partner, offering the products you need all in one place, from H Vac and plumbing supplies to lighting and more. And all delivered with plenty of time left on the clock so your team always gets the win. Call 1-800-GRAINGER visit grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.
- [00:35]
Secretary of Defense Rubio
The Bleacher Report app is your destination for sports right now. The NBA is heating up, March Madness is here, and MLB is almost back. Every day there's a new headline, a new highlight, a new moment you've got to see for yourself. That's why I stay locked in with the Bleacher Report app. For me, it's about staying connected to my sports. I can follow the teams I care about, get real time, scores, breaking news and highlights all in one place. Download the Bleacher Report app today so you never miss a moment.
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That's W I I M S O
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Director Avril Haines
U n D Has the news been getting you down? I'm Megan McCardell and I'm here to help. I'm the host of a new show from Washington Post Opinion called Reasonably Optimistic and it's an antidote to the pessimism that's riddling America right now. Every Wednesday I'm gonna talk to people who see a path through.
- [01:52]
Ranking Member Jim Jordan
It does seem to me that there is some awakening of a desire to act together to solve problems where they are.
- [01:58]
FBI Director Christopher Wray
You know I am a believer in
- [01:59]
Whimsound Smart Speaker Announcer
America and it's worth fighting for.
- [02:01]
Director Avril Haines
Join me Wednesdays on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [02:05]
David Brody
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Secretary of Defense Rubio
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Secretary of Defense Rubio
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David Brody
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Secretary of Defense Rubio
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- [02:38]
David Brody
Good morning, America.
- [02:41]
Welcome to American Sunrise. Whether it's culture, we have breaking news to share with you.
- [02:46]
Terrence K.
Politics.
- [02:47]
David Brody
President Trump is joining us live now from Florida.
- [02:51]
Terrence K.
We've got you covered.
- [02:52]
David Brody
This is what it looks like to be a patriot.
- [02:55]
Terrence K.
We have to protect the American family.
- [02:58]
David Brody
The American dream is still alive.
- [03:01]
I'm David Brody.
- [03:02]
Terrence K.
I'm terrence.
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David Brody
And I'm Dr. Gina.
- [03:08]
John Solomon
Breaking news from Real America's Voice.
- [03:14]
Terrence K.
We begin with breaking news. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Kaine are set to hold a briefing on the military operations in Iran any minute now. You can see the podiums already set up, everyone waiting for them to arrive. We'll, of course, take you there live once it does begin. In the meantime, today's hearing comes on the heels of Iran hitting a Saudi oil refinery on the Red Sea and simultaneously setting Qatari liquefied natural gas facilities as well as two Kuwaiti oil refineries on fire. Iran is lashing out in retaliation for Israeli strikes. Taken to truth social. President Trump also chiming in and threatening to, quote, massively blow up the entirety of Iran's Pars natural gas field if Iran attacks Qatar again. That South Pars facility, by the way, is the world's largest gas field. Let's bring in David and Dr. Gina to discuss this a little bit further as we wait for the secretary of War, Pete Hegseth to arrive and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. David, want to pose this first question to you if you remember last that the last time we heard from the secretary of war, he really chided the media for saying that the war is expanding. In fact, he said it's contracting. But I'm sorry, these attacks on Iran's neighbors seem to be just the opposite. It seems that this war is, in fact, expanding.
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David Brody
Yep. And I have a feeling we're going to see more of that expansion in just mere moments. I have five words. This could go sideways quickly. We're seeing that as everything you just reported. T. Bates in terms of the region and oil fields and the liquefied natural gas. And Trump now threatening to blow up the South Pars oil field there in Iran. And if Qatar is attacked by Iran and specifically the liquefied natural gas, Trump is going to just escalate this here and now. Gina, potential ground troops. We're hearing Reuters reporting that the administration is weighing ground troops now to bring into Iran. And you wonder if that is going to be announced this morning. We'll wait and see.
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Secretary of Defense Rubio
Wow.
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David Brody
Well, David Brody, all I'll say is you called this, I believe, from like day one of this war. And it's interesting because you're not opposed to the war, but you called how this would expand and how this could really affect the midterms. It really MAGA is extraordinarily divided over it and you called it. I don't think there's a person out there that doesn't think that if Iran had the potential to have nukes in the extraordinarily close future, then something needed to be done about it. But this is now going to go beyond that and we'll see how the public responds. Terrence.
- [05:59]
Terrence K.
All right, guys, so as we wait for this news conference to start, let's bring in the editor in chief of Just the News, John Solomon, to offer up a little bit more perspective here. John, good morning. Appreciate you joining us. We may ultimately have to interrupt you if, in fact, if and when this news conference starts, your thoughts on all of this, the latest developments and how this is going to play up and what we're probably going to hear today from the secretary.
- [06:22]
John Solomon
Well, what we'll hear is that the number of Iranian missiles being fired continues to decline by a large number. So their capability to fire is less and less. Now, they do pull off a provocative attack like they did in Qatar this morning in retaliation for Israel's attack on their airfield. So it's a tit for tat. There's a psychological capability for Iran, but it's military capability is significantly diminished. And the reason they are firing fewer and fewer missiles is that we've destroyed most of their supplies underground. We've dropped these big bunker busters where they stored these drones and where they stored these missiles. And so they can make a headline for a few hours, but they can't sustain a large barrage like they did a year ago, two years ago or even two weeks ago. And I think you'll hear that today from the Pentagon. I also think that President Trump is getting closer to declaring that this is the operation has met its goal, which is to completely degrade Iran. Its leadership is not really in command and control right now, and its military capabilities are greatly diminished. And I think there may be a moment soon, next week, week after, where you see a pause in operations and then an opportunity for some form of a meaningful negotiation if Iran wants it. If not, we can always resume. But I think at this moment, that's the trajectory of the war. The Strait of Hormuz is probably a negotiated situation with some military Operations in between. We'll see how that, how that works out. Looks like he's coming in, John.
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Terrence K.
Yes, he is coming in. So let's take you to the Pentagon right now.
- [07:59]
Secretary of Defense Rubio
Well, good morning. Yesterday at Dover Air Force Base, President Trump, the chairman and I stood in solemn silence as heroes came home. Flag draped caskets. We honored them, we grieved with their families and we listened. What I heard, through tears, through hugs, through strength and through unbreakable resolve was the same from family after family. They said, finish this honor their sacrifice, do not waver, do not stop until the job is done. My response, along with that of the President, was simple. Of course we will finish this. We will honor their sacrifice. Their sacrifice only steals our commitment. I wear this bracelet, Staff Sergeant Jorge Oliveira. He was one of my sergeants or one of my specialists in Guantanamo Bay. He deployed later to Afghanistan where he was killed on the 19th of October 2011. Killed 10 years after 9 11, 15 years ago. He was one of the 1%, the best of America. Not just a guardsman, but a law enforcement officer back home and a family man. I remember him every day. Just like so many other men and women of our generation and previous generations who wear bracelets like this. Just as we will always remember those lost in this conflict, their names are now etched into our mission and into the soul of a grateful nation. I stand here today speaking to you, the American people. Not through filters, not through reporters, not through cable news spin. A dishonest and anti Trump press will stop at nothing. We know this at this point to downplay progress, amplify every cost and call into question every step. Sadly, TDS is in their DNA. They want President Trump to fail. But you, the American people, know better. Yes, there are reporters in front of me, but they are not our audience today. It's you, the good, decent, patriotic American people. You, the hard working, tax paying, God fearing American patriots. The media here, not all of it, but much of it, wants you to think, just 19 days into this conflict, that we're somehow spinning toward an endless abyss or a forever war or a quagmire. Nothing could be further from the truth. Hear it from me, one of hundreds of thousands who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, who watched previous foolish politicians like Bush, Obama and Biden squander American credibility. This is not the those wars. President Trump knows better. Epic fury is different. It's laser focused. It's decisive. Our objectives given directly from our America first president remain exactly what they were on day one. These are not the media's objectives, not Iran's objectives, not new objectives. Our objectives unchanged on target and on plan. Destroy missiles, launchers and Iran's defense industrial base so they cannot rebuild. Destroy their navy and Iran never gets a nuclear weapon. Our objectives from day one. To the patriotic members of the press, nobody can deliver perfection in wartime. This building knows that more than anyone. But report the reality. We're winning decisively and on our terms. Iran is a vast country and just like Hamas and their tunnels, they've poured any aid, any economic development, humanitarian aid into tunnels and rockets. That's what they did with Hamas. Iran has funneled decades of state resources not to their people, but into missiles and drones and proxies and buried facilities. But we are hunting them down methodically, ruthlessly and overwhelmingly like no other military in the world can do. And the results speak for themselves. To date, We've struck over 7,000 targets across Iran and its military infrastructure. That is not incremental, that is overwhelming force applied with precision. And again today will be the largest strike package yet. Just like yesterday was. As I've said from day one, our capabilities continue to build. Iran's continue to degrade. We're hunting and striking death and destruction from above. Iran's air defenses flattened. Iran's defense industrial base. The factories, the production lines that feed their missile and drone programs being overwhelmingly destroyed. We've hit hundreds of their defense industrial bases directly. Their ability to manufacture new ballistic missiles has probably taken the hardest hit of all. Ballistic missile attacks against our forces, down 90% since the start of the conflict. Same with one way attack UAVs. Think kamikaze drones, down 90% now the Iranians will still shoot, we know that. But they would shoot a lot more if they could. But they can't. The last job anyone in the world wants right now, Senior leader for the irgc. Or besiege temp jobs, all of them. And to borrow a page from Admiral Ernest King In World War II, we've decided to share the ocean with Iran. We've given them the bottom half. We've damaged or sunk over 120 of their Navy ships with battle damage assessments pending for many more. See Oftentimes we have to wait a few days on battle damage assessment to get the real number. Their surface fleet is no longer a factor. Their submarines they once had 11 are gone. Their military ports are crippled. Iran has terrorized United States and our interests for 47 years. Their core industries, not steel or agriculture, tourism. Their core industries are state sponsored terrorism, proxy militias, underground networks, ballistic missiles and a violent messianic Islamist Ideology chasing some sort of apocalyptic endgame. A regime like that refusing to abandon its nuclear ambitions is not just a regional problem. It's a direct threat to America, to freedom and to civilization. The world, the Middle east, our ungrateful allies in Europe, even segments of our own press should be saying one thing to President Trump. Thank you. Thank you for the courage to stop this terror state from holding the world hostage with missiles while building or attempting to build a nuclear bomb. Thank you for doing the work of the free world. Yesterday's ceremony reminded us why we fight not for nation building or democracy promotion, but to crush direct threats to America, Americans and our interests. We fight to win, and we are winning on our terms, following our objectives. My 13 year old son popped into my office last night while I was editing these remarks. He asked about the war and the families I met at Dover. And I looked at him and I said, they died for you, son. So that your generation doesn't have to deal with a nuclear Iran. It's the truth. And they did so. To the families who said, finish this, we will. And I say the same to every American who wants peace through strength. May Almighty God continue to bless our troops in this fight. And again to the American people, please pray for them every day on bended knee with your family, in your schools, in your churches, in the name of Jesus Christ. To the troops, keep going and Godspeed. Over to you, Mr. Chairman.
- [17:22]
General Dan Kaine
Thank you, Mr. Secretary, ladies and gentlemen, good morning and thank you all for being here. I also had the honor yesterday, as the Secretary said, of traveling up to Dover with the President to welcome home our six fallen. It was an honor and a privilege for me to be there and to say thank you to their families and I want to mention their names this morning. From the 6th Aerial Refueling Wing out of MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, but stationed as part of an active associate unit at Birmingham, Alabama. Major Alex Klenner. John Alex Klenner. Major Arianna Savino. She was posthumously promoted from Captain to Major and Technical Sergeant. Ashley Pruitt, the boom operator on that crew from the 121st Aerial Fueling Ring, Ohio Air National Guard out of Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base in Columbus, Ohio. Captain Seth Koval, Captain Curtis Angst, and now Master Sergeant Tyler Simmons, who was also promoted in the boom operator on that crew. To a person and every family member I spoke with yesterday, they all shared that their family members love serving. They loved being part of a great team and a crew and they loved airplanes and aviation. Our nation's tanker Crews really are unsung heroes, incredible warriors who put their lives on the line so we can continue to take the fight to an enemy. I've personally witnessed their courage and tenacity many times. From the morning of September 11th where they answered my call for some help to the skies over foreign countries where they've come forward out of their safe tanker track to give me gas when I simply could not leave a ground force that was engaged in a firefight. They've answered the call and come forward time and time and time again. I'm filled with incredible pride and gratitude for all that the tanker crews do. Our pilots, our boom operators and the maintainers, and to the families of our six fallen, know that we share your grief. Our nation will never forget their sacrifice and we will never forget their names. Our entire joint force mourns with you today and will continue to remember their incredible gift of a great example for all of us. Now let me turn to an operations update. US CENTCOM remains on plan to achieve our military objectives and remain unrelenting in our pursuit of Iranian missile capabilities, UAV capabilities and their navy, and as the Secretary said, their industrial base. Each day we continue to attack deeper into Iranian territory. As reported by US Central Command yesterday, the US military dropped 5,000 pound penetrator weapons into underground storage facilities storing coastal defense cruise missiles and other support equipment. These weapons are bespokely designed to get through concrete and or rocks and function after penetrating those those barriers. We continue to hunt and kill mine storage facilities and naval ammunition depots. We continue to hunt and kill afloat assets, including more than 120 vessels and 44 minelayers. And the pressure will continue. We're flying further to the east now and penetrating deeper into Iranian airspace to hunt and kill one way attack air. Since destroying Iran's ability to project power outside of its borders, the A10 Warthog is now in the fight across the southern flank and is hunting and killing fast attack watercraft in the Straits of Hormuz. In addition, AH64 Apaches have joined the fight on the southern flank and they continue to work on the southern side. And that includes some of our allies who are using Apaches to handle one way attack drones in Iraq. AH64s have been striking against Iranian aligned militia groups to make sure that we suppress any threat in Iraq against U.S. forces or U.S. interests. And we remain focused on pursuit of any platform that Iran could field to harm Americans or our partners. Last Friday, Admiral Cooper and the CENTCOM team conducted precision strikes against more than 90 targets on CARG island, which included all of their military only infrastructure, which included air defenses, naval base, mine storage and deployment facilities. And as the Secretary mentioned, we continue to strike against Iran's defense industrial base and will continue to do so. Today I want to continue my theme of talking about members of our incredible joint force. Today I want to talk about some exceptional airmen who are engaged in the fight daily. United States Air Force, Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard crews within our Bomber Force, the B1s, B2s and B52s, and the airmen on the ground who maintain and load these weapons systems. And they are the backbone of America's long range strike capability. And their contributions to epic fury have been decisive. Assigned a STRATCOM under Admiral Rich Correll and supported by transcom, the tanker force that we've talked about under the command of General Randall Reed. Every mission is designed to achieve overwhelming outcomes on behalf of the United States and our allies. Last weekend I had the chance to go out and see some of our deployed bomber forces, the B1 and B52 crews. And I had a chance to sit down with some young aviators and maintainers and ask them, how do you feel? Tell me about your typical day. And these are crews comprised of between 2 and 5 airmen. 2 on the B2s, 5 on the B52s and 4, 4 in the B1s out there. Some of these Americans are in their early or mid-20s and we give them the gift of this incredible responsibility. Hundreds of thousands of pounds of aircraft and they take off and go do our work as required. Their mission actually begins the day prior when they're given a target or a bunch of targets and they begin to study those targets, look at what are the effects required, what are the weapons required to get there? How will we program these weapons? What is the weather? What is the tanker flow? It's an incredibly complex problem that we give each and every one of these crews and they work it over the period of 24 hours prior, get some rest and then step out the door to go fly. The last thing they do is they check all of their equipment, their oxygen masks, survival gear, load pistols and get ready to go. They crank the jets about an hour prior to takeoff and then launch into the daylight, doing their pre flight checks and as the kids say, lock in and prepare to go to war. Sometimes on a long and stressful journey. During the flight, they're surrounded by technology and capabilities and they'll do multiple aerial refueling efforts across tankers on the way to the AOR area of Responsibility either coming from the States or coming from a forward deployed basin. And I will tell you, as a fighter pilot, getting gas is a lot easier in an F16 than it is in a B1, B2, or a B52, where you are handling this airplane. It is a physical thing, unlike a fighter, that's a lot easier. And they stay on that boom for sometimes up to 30 minutes, taking hundreds of thousands of pounds of gas. It is a physical, demanding thing to take gas. And they do it multiple times on the way there, and they do it multiple times on the way home. As they enter the operating area, they bring the entirety of America's joint force together to go do the things that we've tasked them to do, to put bombs on time, on target, with the proper effects. And I know they're feeling a range of emotions, but the thing the American people should take away from it is they're filled with a focus that is incredibly impressive. And they have fear, of course, but their bigger fear is, dear God, please don't let me screw this up. The warrior's prayer that we all have in our souls in the days of epic fury, they were shooting, as we've talked about in this room, a lot of standoff weapons. Now we've switched and rolled, as I mentioned last week, to stand in weapons. And behind each and every one of them are incredible maintainers and weapons builders who go out there and make sure these aircraft and their weapons systems are ready to go. These airplanes are so big that they're not in hangars. They're out in the cold, out in the snow, out in the rain. The bombs are being built outside for protection and to make sure that it's safe. And they do it 24 7, 365. It's not comfortable work, but when you go spend just a minute with these incredibly young Americans who are so motivated, you cannot come away from that exchange not being hopeful for America's future. It is simply awesome. And we hand these Americans, young Americans, incredible and weighty responsibility. And they deliver every single time, quietly, with professionalism and humility, doing the things that we ask them to do. In conclusion, we will continue major combat operations. As the Secretary said, we continue to get busier. I know the Secretary and I share that. We're incredibly proud of 2.8 million members of our joint force. I am personally and we are personally grateful for the tenacity and professionalism of the brave men and women who serve inside stratcom, centcom, Spacecom, Cybercom, transcom, and the rest of the Joint Force. And I'll close where I started. I ask today that we remember those six fallen that came home. They represent the best of our nation. For those families that are feeling the pain, know that we are with you and will remain with you. May we always prove worthy of their sacrifice. And I'll turn it back over to you, sir.
- [27:48]
Chairman
Thank you.
- [27:48]
Secretary of Defense Rubio
Mr. Chairman, take a couple questions.
- [27:51]
Director Avril Haines
Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
- [27:51]
FBI Director Christopher Wray
Thank you.
- [27:52]
Director Avril Haines
Mr. Chairman, given the updated degradation in strike target numbers you laid out, how
- [27:56]
Secretary of Defense Rubio
close would you say we are towards achieving the President's objectives?
- [28:00]
Director Avril Haines
And what is the endgame of the
- [28:01]
Secretary of Defense Rubio
operation without divulging any sensitive battle plans? Well, we wouldn't want to set a definitive time frame on that, but as we've said, we're on plan. So we're looking at those metrics very closely, relaying that to the President and the national security team. But feel confident that as again, we're more stand in means we're over the top even further in, and we have even more of an exact sense of what we're striking and why, and even more dynamically meaning because the intelligence improves, we're able to more quickly identify targets when they, let's say they come out of an underground facility where they've been hiding and able to strike it before it strikes or right after it shoots. But we are very much on plan. And that's what I. That's why I want to speak to the American people here. You hear a lot of noise about widening or new missions or speculation about what we should or should not be doing. This is a clear set of objectives. The President has given us every capability we need to accomplish that. We've got the best in the world in uniform, executing it on the ground. They believe in and are invested in this mission, and it will be at the President's choosing ultimately, where we say, hey, we've achieved what we need to on behalf of the American people to ensure our security. So no time set on that, but we're very much on track. Absolutely. Yes, right here.
- [29:15]
David Zia
Good morning, Mr. Secretary. David Zia, real America's Voice News. What countries have been the most cooperative with us, including the Gulf states as Europe. Hedges and I also wanted to ask you, the Internet blackouts by the regiment, it's been shut down for weeks. Is the US Military playing a role in, you know, fighting against the regime, blocking VPN networks and satellites and other things? Is there a role for the US Military there?
- [29:45]
Secretary of Defense Rubio
Obviously, on the allies and partners side, Israel from day one has been an incredible and capable partner, willing and able there's nothing like capabilities and partners that are able to use them. The Gulf states have stepped up incredibly. In fact, Iran's sort of reckless attempt to strike civilian infrastructure and other things has brought countries who maybe would have not been as all in as they are today squarely into our orbit. And we're proud to be defending with them, standing with them, you name it, uae, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and others who have been right there. And we're grateful for that kind of support. As far as the Internet, we're watching the regime try to tighten its grip as much as possible. We're obviously taking countermeasures, many of which we can't talk about here, to ensure that messaging is delivered not just to the Iranian people writ large, but to the right audiences, certain audiences that need to hear certain things about what their fate might look like or what their choices are. So even though that regime is trying really hard to ensure the world can't see right, they want, they want to put out fake AI generated images, which by the way, sometimes our press happens to fall for, like the Abraham Lincoln on fire and turning around. These AI generated images are meant to make it look like something's happening when the exact opposite is so. They make up fake reports and fake images to lie to their own people to try to make it. But even then their own people can barely receive a lot of those messages and communicate because of the blackout that they've imposed upon them. But we work around that for sure.
- [31:18]
Congressman
Thank you, Mr. Secretary General. Overnight, Iran launched missiles across the Gulf. They managed to hit the Saudi oil refinery on the Red Sea. What does it mean that they have that capability now, three weeks into the war? And Mr. Secretary, you mentioned civilian infrastructure. Iran seems to be treating US diplomatic outposts, embassies, consulates, like they are legitimate hard targets in the region. Now, what is the Pentagon doing to I guess secure those assets, stop those attacks?
- [31:53]
Secretary of Defense Rubio
Absolutely.
- [31:55]
General Dan Kaine
Thanks for the question on the missile strikes. You know, as we said and have always said, clearly they came into this fight with a lot of weapons. This is why we continue to be as aggressive and assertive as we can against their ballistic missile capability, both their medium range ballistic missile capability and their short range missile capabilities. So we are continuing to hunt and find them and kill them, and we will continue to do so. So they still retain some capability. And we have layered defenses throughout the region that will allow us to protect those. And we're working with our partners across the Gulf region to help them improve any defensive capabilities that they may need.
- [32:37]
Secretary of Defense Rubio
To that point, on capabilities. You know, Iran is an energy rich country, could be, should be. Instead, like so many other places, driven by a radical ideology, they've spent that money instead of investing in their people. That's why you had millions of Iranians protesting, because they felt like their condition, quality of life, didn't match what it could be or should be. And what was the Iranian state? There's a reason we call Iran the number one state sponsor of terrorism, because they took the money they make and they invest it in tunnels and they invested in missiles and they invested in launchers and UAVs. And we are destroying and degrading that, degrading that in historic proportions. But it doesn't mean they won't still have some and try to hold people at issue, which is why we're fighting every single day to continue to compel. And you mentioned embassies and consulates, unlike previous administrations, we are doubling and tripling down on ensuring that our people, regardless of their Department of War, Department of State, whatever they do, are secure in those facilities. And the best defense is, is, is a good offense. And so we're not, we're not afraid to go after and kill anybody. And we have a lot of them attempting to target our diplomatic facilities. Iran, you know, we're not, we're not surprised that they would indiscriminately target. And we're still seeing that, Jerry,
- [33:51]
Whimsound Smart Speaker Announcer
as part of the justification for the war against Iran. The White House has laid out in fairly comprehensive fashion The Iranian regime's 47 years of terrorism aimed at the US including pointing to the IRGC's provision of weapons and EFPs to help kill Americans in Iraq. The Pentagon in 2019 assessed Iran was responsible for the deaths of at least 603 servicemembers in Iraq. But there hasn't been a similar accounting, public accounting by Iran's role in helping the Taliban in Afghanistan. And that also hasn't been part of the White House's public argument. I was wondering if you could speak to Iran's role in helping the Taliban during the war in Afghanistan. And Chairman, as you and the Secretary eloquently spoke about, 13 U.S. service members have been killed so far during Operation Epic Fury. I was wondering what lessons have been learned from those deaths, both from Iranian strikes, from an aircraft refueling accident. How are those lessons being applied to the current conflict? And how are those lessons going to be applied to a potential conflict in Do Baikon?
- [35:05]
General Dan Kaine
Thank you.
- [35:06]
Secretary of Defense Rubio
Well, thank you for the question. And it's true, in a town that can have A very short memory. President Trump does not. He remembers what this Iranian regime was founded on, what their declaration has been from the beginning. Death to America. Death to Israel. They've stated that they've intended to in every way try to accomplish that. Killing Americans in any theater they can. Embassies for a long, for quite a long time in Iraq, that was the deadliest weapon was the efp, the explosively formed penetrator. I was there when that tactic and technique started to emerge. And the realization was it wasn't just jihadis putting together 155 rounds, Daisy chained. It was a entire state, a country with its apparatus, apparatus able to mold steel in a way that was specifically designed to penetrate American armor and kill Americans. This was not, oh, maybe we send him a couple of thoughts about how to build a bomb. This was Iran specifically passing technology and wherewithal and personnel into Iraq to kill Americans specifically. I know the number is said to be 600. A lot of us think it's higher than that given the amount of capability they brought in. So they have been at war with us, whether we acknowledge it or not, for 47 years. The same goes in Afghanistan. Name the Islamist enemy, whether they are Sunni or Shia, because this is a Shia regime, Sunni or Shia. And Iran's been willing to harbor them as long as that group is willing to try to kill Americans. So the enemy of their enemy has been their friend as well in the Islamist world. So Iran, whether it's Iraq, Iraq, whether it's Afghanistan, whether it's around the world, has been targeting Americans. And what they wanted in this context and what President Trump would not tolerate is a regime of that nature being closer and closer to nuclear capabilities, a capability they would have said they would want to use. And we ought believe what our enemies say they would do if they got the most dangerous weapon in the world. So it's been across every theater that Iran's been a threat to America. And sometimes we have to remind folks of that. But thank goodness we have a commander in chief who on behalf of this country has internalized that and said, hey, we're going to do something about it.
- [37:14]
General Dan Kaine
Jerry, I do want to talk about the lessons learned question because it's important to me. I won't share particular tactical lessons, and the KC135 incident is under investigation. But I do want to talk about how I think about this and how we think about it. And this is something that I'm pretty passionate about. I believe the Joint Force has to be a very fast learning organization. Early Often and always. And so in each case, both at the strategic, operational and tactical level, we've charged a joint force to look at themselves and say, what was our plan? Well, first, did we have a plan? Yes or no? The answer is always yes, because we plan for literally every did we execute our plan, yes or no? If we did, did it work? If not, why not? If we didn't execute our plan but did something better, what's the lesson learned associated with that? And then how do we quickly capture those lessons after every loss or every engagement and quickly adopt those lessons and then share them across the entirety of the Joint Force and inside the Joint Staff? We've tasked our J7 directorate under the lead of General Lieutenant General Liszewski, a United States Marine, to be extremely entrepreneurial in harvesting and capturing those lessons in a proactive and not reactive way. In fact, we've got teammates from the J7 who are now spread out across the CENTCOM theater, both here in the States and forward, to ensure that in every opportunity, we do not miss a chance to grab that lesson and quickly accelerate it into the practice that we adopt inside the Joint Force, so that if there's a loss or if there's something that we can learn from that, we learn it not only in the CENTCOM aor, but we adapt it across all of the combatant commands, not just into a pacom, and it's across all of the warfighting functions. Asked them to look rigorously to check our egos at the door, to remember this is about what's right, not who's right, and to be clinical around the way we look at lessons learned, because we owe it to the force to do that. Thanks for that question.
- [39:33]
Secretary of Defense Rubio
Absolutely. Brown, Jack at the back. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Jonathan Drayer with ROKA Politics.
- [39:39]
Whimsound Smart Speaker Announcer
As you said, at the end of
- [39:40]
Secretary of Defense Rubio
this war, Iran will be without a missile or drone capability, a navy, or the ability to make nuclear weapons. Since the largest threat and sponsor of terror in the region will be incapacitated, are there plans to move assets and troops out of the Middle East? I guess in a perfect world, a year after the war has ended, what
- [39:57]
Whimsound Smart Speaker Announcer
does the military presence in the Middle
- [39:59]
John Solomon
east look like compared to before the war?
- [40:01]
Secretary of Defense Rubio
Well, I appreciate the question. I do think when you address a real threat head on, it creates new options on the other side. I think what President Trump refuses to do, which too often this town does, is just sit in the status quo. Oh, nobody could do about that. They've got too much capability. What if this happens? What if that Happens, he instead says, what's in the interest of the American people? It's gonna take some courage. It's gonna take some capabilities. We're gonna have to gather some forces there in order to do it. We're not gonna tell people how many or how long or what we're willing to do or what we're not willing to do. But if you do that and do that decisively, then out the other end is a recognition that it opens the aperture of what's possible. I mean, President Trump did the same thing in creating an opportunity for the abra. Now you've got a situation where a lot of those countries are coming alongside us, recognizing the threat of Iran. So I think our posture in the future will be based first and foremost on our own national security, power projection, the ability to defend our people and our interests. But no doubt working alongside our partners, the President will look at what makes the most sense going forward. Appreciate that question. Yes, Right here.
- [41:09]
Ranking Member Jim Jordan
Crime.
- [41:09]
Secretary of Defense Rubio
Is that the policy of the US Military? I didn't.
- [41:12]
Congressman
Thank you.
- [41:12]
Director Avril Haines
Secretary Nexa, two questions for you. The vice President has often emphasized that the goal of this war is to denuclearize Iran while also avoiding a larger quagmire. I know that you touched on this. I'd like you to expand on. How do you do that? How do you denuclearize the country while also avoiding this forever war? And then there was a report last
- [41:35]
Congressman
night that the Pentagon asked the White
- [41:37]
Director Avril Haines
House for 200 billion for Iran war, supplemental. Can you confirm this, and can you explain why a package this large is necessary?
- [41:47]
Secretary of Defense Rubio
Well, first of all, none of this would have been possible without Midnight Hammer, without that audacious mission with very clear goals that did obliterate their ability to enrich and the capabilities they have in those facilities. So it created the conditions for Iran to step forward and say, okay, you can reach out and touch us like that in our nuclear ambitions. You can see that we're still trying to do this, make a deal. And President Trump put our two best folks on it, Steve and Jared, and they worked diligently, earnestly. I watched it to try to pursue that deal. And ultimately, I think the whole time, Iran sort of said, well, we'll talk as we build more missiles and as we build more UAVs, and we create this conventional umbrella so that if we chose to, we could try to reconstitute the program and sort of naively thinking that President Trump wouldn't do something about it. And that's why, as Secretary Rubio has said, and I'VE said it's the conventional umbrella that was growing and growing and growing, that was meant to protect that nuclear capability. So you had to address both what happened with Midnight Hammer and what happened with that, as well. As far as $200 billion, I think that number could move. Obviously, it takes money to kill bad guys. So we're going back to Congress and folks there to ensure that we're properly funded for what's been done, for what we may have to do in the future, ensure that our ammunition is. Everything's refilled. And not just refilled, but above and beyond. I mean, President Trump, as he said, rebuilt the military in his first term, didn't think he'd use it as dynamically in his second, but he had, so thank goodness he did that. And an investment like this is meant to say, hey, we'll replace anything that was spent. And now that we're reviving our defense industrial base and rebuilding the arsenal of freedom and cutting deals like our great deputy secretaries here is doing long lead times on exquisite munitions, we're going to be refilled faster than anyone imagined. And I think, you know, we're also still dealing with the environment that Joe Biden created, which was depleting those stockholds and not sending them to our own military, but to Ukraine, which is when every time we reach back and look at any sort of a challenge we have, it goes back to, well, send it to Ukraine. Ultimately, we think this should be these, these munitions are better spent in our own interests at this point. And this kind of funding bill is going to ensure that we're properly funded going forward. We'll take. We'll take one more.
- [44:07]
FBI Director Christopher Wray
Right.
- [44:07]
General Dan Kaine
Thank you, Sir.
- [44:08]
David Zia
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
- [44:09]
General Dan Kaine
Jordan Conradson with the Gateway Pundit.
- [44:12]
Secretary of Defense Rubio
So with the strike yesterday on South Pars gas field, you know, if the US didn't know about it or didn't approve of it, it kind of seems
- [44:20]
General Dan Kaine
like a trick trend of Israel apparently
- [44:23]
Secretary of Defense Rubio
pursuing their own objectives over US objectives. I'm not sure if you agree with that, but the president has said he
- [44:29]
General Dan Kaine
doesn't want to hit Iran's oil infrastructure right now.
- [44:33]
Secretary of Defense Rubio
As you said, the US avoided this on Park Island. Oil is nearing $120.
- [44:38]
John Solomon
Why are we helping Israel prosecute this war if they're going to pursue their own objectives?
- [44:42]
Secretary of Defense Rubio
We hold the cards. We have objectives. Those objectives are clear. We have allies pursuing objectives as well. And the truth speaks for itself. I mean, President Trump was very clear about that. Iran has weaponized energy for decades. Israel clearly sent a warning and POTUS has made it clear, very clear, Iran knows when you hit Carg island and you hit military capabilities on Carg island, which is the only thing we hit, we can hold anything at issue, anything. The United States military controls the fate of that country. Iran has the ability to make the right choices. It should not going forward, target Arab allies, Arab countries trying to create pain, the pain that they created themselves. Thank you all very much. Appreciate it. Thank you for your time.
- [45:42]
Terrence K.
You were just listening to Secretary of War Pete Hagseth and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Cain. General Dan Kaine updating us on the current situation when it comes to Iran. Let's bring back Dr. Gina David and John Solomon, who was joining us before all of this. John, I want to start with you. Appreciate you sticking around. It seemed the tone particularly early on to open this news conference was a lot different than what we'd heard in the past. A lot more solemn, but also a conversation directly with the American people using the media as a conduit. Was this about narrative? Was this about shaping a narrative in your mind?
- [46:19]
John Solomon
Well, I think it's about correcting a narrative. I think a lot of the people in the media have reported things that are simply not consistent with how war things. You know, what Iran is banking on is the US Media, which is depleted of a lot of experience over the last few decades, haven't covered prior wars. And they can fall for not only an AI image, but the notion that maybe they did a couple of menace attacks in the American media will see that as Iran is very strong. What the Secretary just did, what General Kaine just did, was look into the camera, bypass the media for the first 30 minutes, talk about the extraordinary capabilities of our men and women, the sacrifices they've made, and then give a brutal accounting of what we've done to Iran. I mean, it is a brutal accounting running. There is no Air Force, there is no Navy. Their number of missile strikes are down 90%. Now, that means they were shooting 120 to 240 missiles on day one. Now they can only shoot 10 or 20 a day because they've not only destroyed the current missiles, they've destroyed the factories that will make them in the future or tomorrow or the day after. Same thing with drone strikes. Now they said Iran has the capability to create menace attacks. And that is going to continue. The most important thing I heard, and I've covered five conflicts in my career, the most important thing I heard that tells you where the military is in their mission is that they're now using Warthogs and close in helicopters to attack small armaments. What does that mean? It means the big hardware is so disabled in Iran that our close in operations are no longer afraid of being shut down. That is a significant milestone. When you talk about military dominance, that's the first time I heard them mention, mentioned that today. Blackhawk helicopters, Warthogs and other close in capabilities. That means Iran really has no big stuff left. And now we're cleaning up small things like gunboats and military arsenals and single trucks that might carry a rocket launcher on them. That means we've really advanced far. I think the other headline you heard today, they are on schedule, they are on plan. They said that about 10 times. President Trump gave a five week plan. And you heard today though they say the President will hopefully make the decision that they're right on that schedule. And I think that that should give all of us a little bit of comfort. The mistake that a lot in the media have made these last few weeks and some of it's just by pure lack of experience in reporting, some of it is by Trump derangement syndrome. They simply just want to make it look like Trump's losing the war is that Iran is really down to creating small menace attacks. Now. They're still alarming, they still kill people, they still destroy things, but they don't have large warfare capabilities anymore. And I think today you heard that in very strong and precise detail. That was one of the most transparent set of numbers I've heard.
- [49:06]
David Brody
John, let me ask you though, a couple of things. First of all, what about what he talked about, the Secretary of War talking about underground tunnels, there's a lot of stuff buried underneath. So this idea that the war is going to end in of front three weeks, four weeks, six weeks, whatever it is. I mean the truth of the matter is how much do we really know what they have underground? I mean it's a large country the size of both Texas and Alaska. I mean, we don't know if we're ever going to get everything that they have buried. You know, what lies beneath, number one. And number two, you're telling me, John, help me out here. You're telling me the United States had no clue? Not that you're telling me this, but we're supposed to believe that the United States had no clue that the IDF was going to attack the South Pars oil field. I mean, so that's a problem. If Israel is doing that willy nilly without letting us know, I can't imagine that being the case. That CENTCOM had no clue.
- [50:04]
John Solomon
Yeah, I haven't done the reporting. That was a surprising moment. And as you saw this morning, the President said Israel has told us they won't do that again. That does sort of suggest that Israel may have freelance. It also is a reminder that while we are in a joint mission that sometimes Israel and the United States have different objectives. There are things that Israel wants to achieve that the United States isn't necessarily interested in. That is always the case when you're working with allies. Now there's no doubt who's the big dog in this race. Right. The United States is the big race. There is some suggestion in just the way the communications has been handled. I've not yet been able to make calls this morning that Israel may have freelanced on that or may have done it with very short notice or at a low level in the military, not going up to the command. But it's very clear that Israel was told now by the President. United States, you're not doing that because we're staying to military objectives. Now let me get you to the bunkers. That is exactly what we are targeting right now. We are targeting with these giant 5,000 pound bunker busters, which by the way are about the equivalent of a quarter to a third of a nuclear weapon that we dropped on Hiroshima. Them, they're very powerful. They collapse in these capabilities. We do know almost all of the tunnels that we have. We have very unique capabilities from the sky to detect things that are 4 or 500ft underground with new capabilities that our satellites have. And so they have a very good sense of where things have been moving. We've been watching for three years, even under Joe Biden, where these things were being built. Israel's been watching. And so we are systematically going in and you heard yesterday, 900 sorties in attacks targeted yesterday. 900, that's a large number in a single day. They seem to know where these things are. Now. Will they find every one of them? We don't know. But at some point, if you've destroyed the large share of them, Iran has to ask itself, what do we got left? A few missiles. And I think they're trying to get Iran to that point of realizing that, all right, we might have 100 here, 20 there, but there's no way to win this war. And I think that that is the goal right now is to see if Iran will come to its senses and realize it cannot win this war. It can continue to run guerrilla tactics in the Hormuz and occasionally fire a missile here and there. But it will not, does not have the objective capacity to project any strength or to project any power other than menace attacks. And again, menace attacks are dangerous. They can prolong this. But I think they're getting to a point now where Iran has to, you know, at the end of the day, the Iranian regime has always been more pragmatic behind their ideology. For one good example, they've never really unleashed their Hezbollah cells in America. They haven't. They're very good, those cells. They haven't released them. Why? Because I think they've decided that the pain for that would not be worth the political losses that they would have with the American people. So at some point, knowing that that's been their thinking all along, the military is probably thinking we might get them to a pain point where that pragmatism kicks in. And I think that's what they're doing. But you know, again, Hormuz, that's a tricky thing. But I think that the overall destruction Iran is so widespread right now, it's going to be hard for the Iranians to look and say, what do I fire tomorrow? In a couple more days or in a couple more weeks?
- [53:27]
David Brody
Yeah. Well, I'll tell you what, John, listening to this audience, they loved that Secretary Hegseth opened with talking.
- [53:35]
John Solomon
Wasn't that amazing?
- [53:37]
David Brody
That was beautiful. People were, we actually sang the Star Spangled Banner via chat in our, in the chat today. And they loved that he had questions from real media, from people like Rav, from people like just the news, from people like Gateway Pundit. So a lot of solid optics there. John Solomon, thank you for that.
- [53:57]
John Solomon
You know, I also love General Kaine also just talking about what our pilots do on these long range missions, they don't, people don't know how grueling and brutal it is. I thought the way that he just saluted those young men and women, what a great tribute from, from a guy that has a lot of bars on his shoulders.
- [54:13]
David Brody
Absolutely. John Solomon, thanks again for being with us.
- [54:16]
Chairman
Thanks, John.
- [54:17]
David Brody
We want to bring in RAP correspondent David Zier, who was at the briefing. David, we heard your question and we wanted to play it. Here we go.
- [54:27]
David Zia
Secretary DAVID Zia, Real America's Voice News. What countries have been the most cooperative with us, including the Gulf states as Europe, Hedges and I also wanted to ask you the Internet blackouts by the regime, it's been shut down for weeks. Is the US Military playing a role in, you know, fighting against the regime, blocking VPN networks and satellites and other things? Is there, is there a role for
- [54:53]
Secretary of Defense Rubio
the US military there, obviously, on the allies and partners side, Israel from day one has been an incredible and capable partner, willing and able. There's nothing like capabilities and partners that are able to use them. The Gulf states have stepped up incredibly. In fact, Iran's sort of reckless attempt to strike civilian infrastructure and other things has brought countries who maybe would have not been as all in as they are today squarely into our orbit.
- [55:23]
John Solomon
Orbit.
- [55:23]
Secretary of Defense Rubio
And we're proud to be defending with them, standing with them, you name it, uae, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and others who have been right there. And we're grateful for that kind of support. As far as the Internet, we're watching the regime try to tighten its grip as much as possible. We're obviously taking countermeasures, many of which we can't talk about here, to ensure that messaging is delivered not just to the Iranian people writ large, but to the right audiences, certain audiences that need to hear certain things about what their fate might look like or what their choices are. So even though that regime is trying really hard to ensure the world can't see right, they want. They want to put out fake AI generated images, which, by the way, sometimes our press happens to fall for, like the Abraham Lincoln on fire and turning around. These AI generated images are meant to make it look like something's happening when the exact opposite is. So they make up fake reports and fake images to lie to their own people to try to make it. But even then, their own people can barely receive a lot of those messages and communicate because of the blackout that they've imposed upon them. But we work around that for sure.
- [56:30]
David Brody
David, did you feel like your question was thoroughly answered?
- [56:33]
David Zia
Hmm, I do. I was asking because there's word from the people's Mujahideen inside Iran that there's been about 15 different uprisings across the country. One is this Fyre festival campaign against the regime. And word is that the regime is still in control of Internet communications. It's about three weeks of blackout so far, censoring information, but also targeting private VPN networks that are easily traceable back by them. And also other types of things like the satellite streets and, you know, looking for dishes around. And so I think it's important. Right, because where. Where do we go from here? Right. If targets are softened up and the people will take to the streets. I understand that starting. I thought it was an important question to ask.
- [57:28]
Terrence K.
Absolutely. David. It was very clear from the news conference that the operation to dismantle Iran's not only nuclear capabilities, but also missile and drone capabilities is moving forward swiftly and very well. But one of the things I noticed the Secretary called the senior leadership jobs in the IB in the irgc, excuse me, in the besieged temp jobs, which also shows that dismantling the leadership infrastructure in Iran remains a key part of this strategy.
- [58:03]
John Solomon
Yes.
- [58:03]
David Zia
And the targeting overnight in the last few days with these 5,000 pound bunk of buster T penetrator bombs has been critical in taking out anti ship cruise missile facilities buried underground that dot the coast all over the Persian Gulf and out through the Strait of Hormuz. Because, you know, these ships are vulnerable. About 17 ships have been attacked. So anything to weaken the IRGC leadership, you know, will go a long way towards that. I also wanted to ask a question about the MEU, the 31st MEU, the USS Tripoli spotted off the coast of Singapore. Singapore will be in theater in about a week. About 2200 Marines. What role would they play? And you know, will they take hold of some of these islands and you know, monitor what's going on along with the these a 10s given close air support in the straight of Hormuz. Another unique role for the A10 which is just an incredible close air support aircraft. But you know, what will the role of the Marines be to effectively, you know, neuter the IRGC's ability to attack ships in those shipping lanes. So yeah, I think they're on the ropes.
- [59:17]
David Brody
David Cyr, do you feel like the Pentagon, it's just a matter of time before they just say mission accomplished? I mean in other words, they could call this at any time point. You know, it's kind of like name the score, you know, like, I just feel like they already have like pretty much accomplished a lot of what they need to accomplish. So it's just a matter of President Trump going, okay, that's it, let's, let's, we're done here. Like to me, like it's already kind of just a matter of being a done deal. And I know they'll never say that and I know they believe there's a lot more to get, get over there. But at some point don't you just feel like they're just going to say okay, we're done, like, and that's number one. And that's the mission that Hegseth is talking about. There's two missions here, there's the battlefield mission and then what comes next mission? Because that's a whole different mission. Maybe not for the Pentagon specifically, but possibly as it relates to figuring out what happens with Iran now that you left it in smithereen.
- [60:19]
David Zia
We saw how that went for President George W. Bush when he flew the A6 intruder onto the deck of the Abraham Lincoln with that Mission Accomplished banner hanging up. I don't know if they want to go there quite yet. And also, you know, with the plans Wall Street Journal and other outlets, Reuters, I believe, reported there's a plan for boots on the ground, possibly whether that's Carg island or whether it's taking some of these islands with Marine Expeditionary Units. Also, the role of. I'm sorry, there's some noise in the background here, but yeah, we'll see where that goes. But also Special Forces may be needed to take control of some of these deep enriched uranium sites too. And that's an option still on the table. So it's premature. I think we got a couple of weeks ahead of us.
- [61:15]
David Brody
All right, David Zier, thank you so much for being with us. We want to take you out to the House of Representatives where dni, Tulsi, Gabbard and other top intelligence officials are currently testifying. Let's. Let's listen.
- [61:27]
Director Avril Haines
Permanent infrastructure China, though not an Arctic country, is engaged in more limited efforts in the region to advance its strategic and economic interests. On the technology front, artificial intelligence capabilities are rapidly advancing and changing the threat landscape. As this is a defining technology that enables computers and machines to simulate human learning, comprehension, problem solving, creativity and autonomy, it'll be critical to ensure that humans remain in control of how AI is used and of the machines that may threaten to autonomously violate the interests of the American people across all domains. The IC assesses that China is the most capable competitor in this field and aims to displace the US as the global AI leader by 2030. AI adoption at scale across the spectrum of usage poses serious risks. AI has the potential to aid in weapons and systems design and has been used in recent conflicts to influence targeting and streamline decision making, underscoring the risk and likely threats that could manifest on the battlefield. Early developers in quantum computers will give countries an extraordinary technology technological advantage over others to quickly process national security information and break current encryption methodology used to protect sensitive finance, health care and government information. The global security landscape is volatile and complex, with armed conflict growing more common and posing potential threats threats against U.S. interests. The space domain is becoming increasingly contested, with China and Russia developing counter space capabilities to challenge U.S. space efforts. The threat of nuclear proliferation and advancing chemical and biological warfare capabilities continues to grow. Turn now to the Western Hemisphere where flagging economies, high crime rates, pervasive organized crime, migration flows, corruption, narcotics trafficking present a broad spectrum of risks to US Interests and where strategic competitors seek to gain greater influence in the region. The IC assesses that Latin America and the Caribbean almost certainly will see hotspots of volatility in the coming year with the potential to undermine or distract from countries some countries from improving economies and living conditions and tackling illicit drug flows and cartels. The US Mexico Canada Agreement review in 2026 will likely increase uncertainty in many Latin American countries, especially those that rely on Mexico as an export destination for intermediate goods for manufacture and onward export to the U.S. china, Russia and Iran are seeking to sustain economic, political and military engagement with Latin America. The IC assesses that China's demand for raw materials is likely to drive continued economic outreach, while Russia likely wants to expand its current security and diplomatic ties with Cuba and Nicaragua. The IC assesses that China aims to elevate its own political, economic, military and technological power to increase its own regional positioning, global influence and to fend off threats to their interests. While there are challenging areas where interests diverge, President Trump's diplomatic engagements with President Xi have enabled progress on areas where mutual interests align. The IC assesses that China continues to rapidly modernize its military forces across all domains in pursuit of its goal to achieve world class status by mid century. This includes building a force with the aim of being capable of deterring U.S. and allied forces in the region and to achieve their stated objective of having the capability to seize Taiwan by force if necessary. However, the IC assesses that China likely prefers to set the conditions for an eventual peaceful reunification with Taiwan. Short of conflict, an increasingly confident North Korean regime remains a source of concern regionally and globally. Its weapons of mass destruction, conventional military capabilities, illicit cyber activities and demonstrated willingness to use asymmetric capabilities poses a threat to the US and its allies, particularly South Korea and Japan. North Korea's partnership with Russia is growing and in 2025 Kim took steps to improve ties with China, still North Korea's most important trading partner and economic benefactor. The IC assesses that North Korea's support for Russia in the war against Ukraine has increased North Korean capabilities as their forces have gained combat experience in 21st century warfare. Along with equipment, Pyongyang continues to develop and expand its strategic weapons programs, including missiles that can evade US and regional missile defenses. Russia retains the capability to selectively challenge US interests globally by military and non military means. The IC assesses that the most dangerous threat posed by Russia to the US Is an escalatory spiral in an ongoing conflict such as Ukraine or a new conflict that led to direct hostilities including the deployment of nuclear weapons. The IC assesses that Putin continues to invest in Russia's defense industrial base as well as novel capabilities that may pose a greater threat to the US homeland and forces abroad than conventional weapons. The ICSS's Russia has advanced systems, hypersonic missiles and undersea capabilities designed to negate US Military advantage. Russia is also building extensive counter space capabilities to contest US Space dominance. Its development of a nuclear counter space weapon poses the greatest single threat to the world's space architecture. During the past year, the IC assesses that Russia has maintained the upper hand in its war against Ukraine. Ongoing U S led negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv continue until such an agreement is met. If an agreement is found, Moscow is likely to continue fighting a slow war of attrition until they view their objectives have been achieved. In the Middle east, conflict and instability will shape security, political and economic dynamics in a variety of ways. The IC assesses that Operation Epic Fury is advancing fundamental change in the region that began with Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 continued with the 12 Day War last year, resulting in weakening Iran and its proxies. The IC assesses that the regime in Iran appears to be intact but largely largely degraded due to attacks by Israel and the US on its leadership and military capabilities. Its conventional military power projection capabilities have largely been destroyed, leaving limited options. Iran's strategic position has been significantly degraded. The U S led maximum pressure campaign and snapback of European sanctions added additional pressure to an already bleak Iranian economy resulting in mass protests earlier this year that Tehran suppressed by killing thousands of protesters. Even if the regime remains intact, internal tensions are likely to increase as Iran's economy worsens. Even so, Iran and its proxies continue to attack U.S. and allied interests in the Middle East. If a hostile regime survives, it will likely seek to begin a years long effort to rebuild its military missiles and UAV forces. Prior to Operation Epic Fury, the IC assesses Iran was trying to recover from the severe damage to its nuclear infrastructure sustained during the 12 Day War. Iran maintained the intention to rebuild its infrastructure and nuclear enrichment capability and continued to refuse to comply with its nuclear obligations with the iaea, refusing them access to to key facilities. The IC assesses that China, Russia and North Korea see the United States as a strategic competitor and potential adversary. Iran has long viewed the US as an adversary and has engaged in active conflict with the U.S. as of this writing, these four countries are likely to continue their selective cooperation with each other which could bolster their individual capabilities and threats to US interests More broadly. However, these current. Currently, these relationships are primarily bilateral on selective issues and depend on broader circumstances, divergent sovereign interests, and in some cases, concerns over directly confronting the US These factors are likely to constrain their relationships. Finally, conflicts on the continent of Africa are likely to persist through 2026 due to poor governance, economic demands and external support. Tensions continue between Ethiopia and Eritrea, which could rapidly accelerate to conflict. Contentious national and federal elections in Somalia could distract the federal government away from counterterrorism actions against Al Shabaab, which continues to conduct terror attacks, while providing funding and propaganda support to other elements of Al Qaeda and Yemen. The civil war in Sudan continues even as external negotiations occur. And ISIS in West Africa and the Sahel have increased the intensity of their attacks against local security forces, expanding their areas of operation and moving closer to cities. With the US Presence, African governments will use their wealth and critical minerals to seek partnerships that deliver them meaningful benefit. Concurrent conflicts and crises across the continent will continue to put US Citizens at risk and cause further instability. In closing, as leaders of the intelligence community, we remain committed to providing the President and policymakers with timely, unbiased, relevant intelligence to ensure the safety, security and freedom of the American people. Thank you.
- [71:22]
Chairman
Thank you for your comments, Director Gabbard. We appreciate that. We'll now move to member questions, five minute increments. With that, I recognize myself for five minutes, Director Patel. Our state and local officials are on the front lines of increasingly dangerous unrestricted warfare activities being undertaken by Chinese nationals, such as marijuana grow operations protected by armed militants, secret police stations engaged in transnational repression, Chinese operated SIM farm sites, crypto mining facilities, and land purchases near strategic locations. The CCP is exploiting legal gray areas and the lack of awareness at the state and local level to establish strategic footholds. Two states, in fact, New Hampshire and Florida, are now advancing legislation to establish Offices of Counterintelligence, which would bolster state's ability to confront foreign adversaries without relying on the federal government. Do you support that? What can be done to better support the states and local. Local officials?
- [72:17]
FBI Director Christopher Wray
Absolutely. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So we have infused funding into our entire entire program taking on the ccp. And while we are well versed in the fact that we have our capabilities with folks like CFIUS when it comes to the purchases of land around military bases that only extends one mile under the current law. So the FBI had to get creative. So what we did was directly engage with our state and local partners. And I'll give you two examples. A 400 acre farm in the state of Texas was owned by a CCP official, but because he was outside the reach of the CFIUS law, the FBI executed a unlawful possession of firearms, a criminal complaint and received it. We seized the land in its entirety. And that CCP national is back in mainland China and we are working to get them back here. In another example, off the coast of Louisiana, we worked with Governor Landry's team on drilling sites off the coast of Louisiana because again, they were outside the whole of CFIUS in the 1 mile radius. And with the intelligence we were able to provide, provider state and local authorities, they shut down that CCP drilling center, which we believed was actually used to provide and steal data and intelligence from American lives. So that's just a little bit of an example on the marijuana growhouses. We have six active ongoing investigations in six multiple jurisdictions for specifically taking down CCP affiliated growhouses from Maine to Georgia and across the country.
- [73:36]
Chairman
So it sounds like from your characterization of cfius, it's inadequate at this point. Maybe we could use something legislatively here in this body to provide some broader authority to address that challenge.
- [73:46]
FBI Director Christopher Wray
I would love that.
- [73:47]
Chairman
Okay, great. Excellent. Thank you. Director Ratcliffe, in January 2021, in your role at DNI as the director, you sent this committee a letter outlining your concerns about an intelligence community assessment in which, among other things, analysts tailored their analysis towards a preferred policy outcome. CIA management pressured analysts to withdraw their support from an alternative to viewpoint, and the full body of intelligence reporting wasn't considered. Now, in your role as CIA Director, you have retracted several reports for political bias and not meeting IC analytic standards, which. That's good progress. Retracting faulty reporting is a critical step, but I remain concerned about that. It maybe doesn't get to the root of the problem. How many analysts were involved in the products you recently retracted?
- [74:30]
Whimsound Smart Speaker Announcer
I don't know the specific number, Chairman.
- [74:35]
Chairman
What remediation actions have taken place as a result?
- [74:38]
Whimsound Smart Speaker Announcer
Well, I've made the focus of, as you pointed out, both as DNI and now as CIA Director, focused on the importance of analytic objectivity. As you pointed out, when I was the dni, when I saw conduct from Russia and China, the exact same conduct result in different assessments. That's not a good reflection on the analytic judgments. What you referenced. In my role as CIA director, withdrawing reports that we went back and looked that didn't reflect the analytic standards that we would expect, I retracted those judgments because they show bias and influence for political reasons or otherwise. So that has continued to be a focus and will be I think that that message has been received within our analytic community, within the CIA, and really across the CIA, because this administration has put a focus on taking politics out of our analytic judgments.
- [75:42]
Chairman
Excellent. Thank you, Director. Appreciate that. I want to. As I make clear my opening statement, I'm just trying to get this done in the little time that I have remaining. The intelligence community assessment on AHI is deeply flawed, and I've called for its recall immediately to start for a fresh start, similar to my question in last year's session. But I'd like to get a yes or no answer from each of you on whether you agree this ICA should be retracted. Director Gabbard. Yes, Director Ratcliffe,
- [76:13]
Whimsound Smart Speaker Announcer
say it again.
- [76:14]
Chairman
The ahi. Ica.
- [76:16]
Whimsound Smart Speaker Announcer
Yeah.
- [76:16]
So for the ica, I understand that Director Gabbard is. Is. Is reviewing that, and I've deferred all AHI investigations to. To her review. So if, in her judgment, that is something that should be retracted, then. Then. Then I would agree with that.
- [76:33]
Chairman
Yes. Okay. Director Patel.
- [76:36]
FBI Director Christopher Wray
Yes.
- [76:36]
Chairman
Thank you. General Hartman.
- [76:39]
Whimsound Smart Speaker Announcer
Yes.
- [76:40]
Chairman
And General Adams.
- [76:42]
Secretary of Defense Rubio
Yes, sir.
- [76:43]
Chairman
Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you all for your. For your responses. I'm going to recognize a ranking member for five minutes.
- [76:49]
Ranking Member Jim Jordan
Thank you, Chairman. Director Gabbard, as was well covered yesterday, in January, you were present at the execution of an FBI warrant at the Fulton County, Georgia, election office at the direction of the President, and to all appearances, in connection with the President's false claims about the 2020 election. The unsealed affidavit submitted by the FBI made zero reference to foreign powers or outside interference. I don't want to relitigate the reasons why you were there, but I do want to know whether, as a result of your visit, there is credible intelligence in your possession pointing to foreign interference in Georgia in the 2020 election.
- [77:28]
Director Avril Haines
Thank you for the question, Ranking member. As you know, over each of the previous elections, there is an ongoing effort by different foreign entities.
- [77:37]
Ranking Member Jim Jordan
Ma', am, it's a very specific. Is there intelligence in your possession relative to foreign interference in the 2020 elections? Very simple, straightforward question.
- [77:46]
Director Avril Haines
We are continuing to look at previous attempts to interfere in our elections and any ongoing threats that may exist for the upcoming elections.
- [77:53]
Ranking Member Jim Jordan
Okay, but can I assume that the answer to my question is no, that you have no specific intelligence related to foreign meddling in the Georgia election?
- [78:02]
Whimsound Smart Speaker Announcer
The.
- [78:03]
Director Avril Haines
The. We are continuing to look into this matter.
- [78:05]
Ranking Member Jim Jordan
Okay. Director, the ODNI has confirmed on the record that your office took custody of voting machines from Puerto Rico last May. I'm not aware of any previous DNI taking Similar actions. Did your office promptly notify the committee about taking custody of Puerto Rico's voting machines?
- [78:29]
Director Avril Haines
I don't believe we did. However, this was done at the request of the Puerto Rico AUSA attorney.
- [78:36]
Ranking Member Jim Jordan
It's a yes or no question. The answer, as you have acknowledged, is no. You did not inform the committee about the taking of a territory's voting machines. Is there a specific foreign threat? And I've read the reporting that you were looking for possible foreign threats. But is there a specific foreign threat that drove you to take this action?
- [78:53]
Director Avril Haines
There were questions about whether or not there were vulnerabilities that a threat could have taken advantage of. And that was the purpose for their requesting us to look into those vulnerabilities.
- [79:03]
Ranking Member Jim Jordan
Where are those voting machines now?
- [79:06]
Director Avril Haines
I believe they are held in a secure facility at odni.
- [79:10]
Ranking Member Jim Jordan
Have you or other ODNI officials taken any other state or territories voting equipment into custody?
- [79:17]
Director Avril Haines
Not to my knowledge.
- [79:19]
Ranking Member Jim Jordan
I want to turn in the subject of elections to a paradoxical thing. You will all be aware that the US Government is apparently going to grind to a halt. The President is going to sign no more bills. The Senate will spend two weeks apparently debating the SAVE Act. The SAVE act, of course, would make illegal foreigners voting in US elections, which is already illegal. So we are to do no more business because of apparently the existential threat to our democracy associated with foreigners voting in our elections. I am therefore puzzled by the fact that neither the unclassified nor the classified threat assessment makes any reference to risk or danger associated with foreigners voting in our elections. Director Patel, how many non citizens have been convicted of voting in US elections in the last 10 years?
- [80:11]
FBI Director Christopher Wray
The conviction stats were are with the Department of Justice. I defer to them on that.
- [80:16]
Ranking Member Jim Jordan
You are the Director of the FBI. Give me a guess how many convictions in the last one year, five year or 10 year ballpark?
- [80:25]
FBI Director Christopher Wray
I don't have that with me, sir. Again, it's with the department.
- [80:27]
Ranking Member Jim Jordan
You don't have that. Okay. Director Patel, how many active investigations does the FBI have into foreign individuals voting in US elections?
- [80:39]
FBI Director Christopher Wray
We have a number of investigations, generally speaking, ongoing, about individuals across the country.
- [80:48]
Ranking Member Jim Jordan
I'm asking for that number.
- [80:49]
FBI Director Christopher Wray
I don't have that number with me, but I have a number of them.
- [80:52]
Ranking Member Jim Jordan
You have a number of investigations? Okay. Is that number 10,000? Is it closer to 10,000 or closer to 10?
- [81:00]
FBI Director Christopher Wray
It's probably somewhere in between.
- [81:02]
Ranking Member Jim Jordan
Okay. Will you please provide the committee with that number?
- [81:05]
FBI Director Christopher Wray
Yes, sir.
- [81:06]
Ranking Member Jim Jordan
Okay. Director Patel, would it. Since you don't have the numbers, would it surprise you to Know that the Heritage foundation, which is not exactly the Columbia University faculty Lounge, found only 77 instances of non citizen voting in the 24 years between 1999 and 2023, each of which faced investigation by the appropriate authorities. So Heritage has a number of 77 examples in 24 years. Does that number surprise you?
- [81:38]
FBI Director Christopher Wray
No, because it's low.
- [81:41]
Ranking Member Jim Jordan
I don't. I don't understand your answer.
- [81:43]
FBI Director Christopher Wray
You asked me if I was.
- [81:44]
Ranking Member Jim Jordan
Are you disputing. Are you disputing that the number is in the range of 77 examples of non citizens voting in US elections in a 24 year period?
- [81:53]
FBI Director Christopher Wray
I just said that number is low.
- [81:54]
Ranking Member Jim Jordan
You think that number is low? Okay, so why, if this is a meaningful issue, do we have no, and I guess I direct this to Director Gabbard. Why is there no mention of this thing that will grind the American government to a halt for a two week period in the worldwide threats analysis?
- [82:11]
Director Avril Haines
This annual threat assessment was shaped around the national security strategies prioritization of threats to our nation and our nation's interests. There are multiple platforms and venues where there have been, and there will be reporting on threats to our foreign, threats to our elections.
- [82:30]
Secretary of Defense Rubio
Yield back, gentleman.
- [82:32]
Chairman
Yields. Vice Chairman Kelly, I'd first just like
- [82:35]
Vice Chairman Kelly
to say, Director Gabbard, you being in Georgia was a part of your duties as DNI to make sure that our elections remain safe, secure and free from every type of influence. That was why you were there. Is that correct?
- [82:52]
Director Avril Haines
Yes.
- [82:52]
John Solomon
Okay.
- [82:54]
Vice Chairman Kelly
I would argue, I want to talk about some of the points about the strikes on Iran, the current attacks, epic fury. And I would state that not only are there imminent threats from Iran, but there are actual threats. And I've been on the receiving end of those threats. I was in Iran, in Iraq in 2005, where Iranian based and manned and equipped units attacked American soldiers, including me, multiple times. I will also tell you I went back in 9 and 10 where EFPs developed by the Iranians struck my soldiers and our equipment. I will tell you the Houthis have continued to strike Saudi Arabia. I will tell you Hamas and Hezbollah has continued to strike throughout the Middle East. And although we're not in an armed services hearing, we had that yesterday. But I will tell you, because we took out their ballistic missiles and their ability to defend from the air, that Europe is no longer under threat from Iran, who showed they will strike everyone that they can by striking all of their Arab neighbors in Azerbaijan and in Turkey and everywhere else. With that being said, Director Ratcliffe, I think the CIA has had a great year in Providing intelligence, whether that's in Venezuela, the initial Midnight hammer strikes, or also the current strikes in Iran. Can you tell us kind of some of the things the CIA has done over the past year that you're proud of?
- [84:18]
Whimsound Smart Speaker Announcer
Congressman, good to see you again. Thank you for the question. Good to see all of you and be back in the House. I guess I'll start by saying I think you all know there was bipartisan concern when I took over the CIA that. That our human collection was in a downward spiral and had been for some period of time. And you all wanted a more aggressive CIA, one that was focused on core mission, one that was collecting the kind of intelligence and stealing secrets that would provide a decisive strategic advantage that can contribute to national security and foreign policy successes. I do think that the CIA, I agree with you, has had a great year, and that's a credit to our workforce. You talked about some of the very public successes like Operation Midnight Hammer and Operation Absolute Resolve, where our agency contributed to a frankly flawless intelligence picture that allowed for flawless military operations. And I want to credit everyone here. There's been bipartisan praise from this committee, even from those of you who may disagree with the underlying policies. But I think those successes are really emblematic of success that the agency's had across the board on all national security matters in all national security spaces. And it's not just an opinion. It's reflected in our statistics. So when we talk about stealing secrets, you need assets and sources on the ground around the world. We're up 25% in that regard. Just in the past year. Our foreign intelligence reporting, meaning the. The intelligence that really matters to you as decision makers and the President as Commander in Chief, that's up across the board, 25%. Other categories, specific targets and adversaries like China, it's up 100%. Areas like technology, it's up 100%. Issues like counternarcotics, our operations are up by 70% with regard to counterterrorism. Those are classified numbers that we'll get into in the classified portion, but those are triple digits. We've accomplished more on the counterterrorism front in the past year than in the prior four years combined. Again, really a credit to the CIA workforce. Morale at the agency is high because people are doing the work that they signed up to do, and this administration is calling on them to do more. I would say they are.
- [86:51]
Vice Chairman Kelly
If I can tire back. Final 45 seconds. I have one question for Director Patel. Director Patel, the current shutdown that is caused by us not funding TSA Border control, DHS and all those things. How hard has that made the job of counterintelligence FBI to protect us here in the homeland from threats that came through our borders or internally and already existing in the United States?
- [87:17]
FBI Director Christopher Wray
Director Patel, thank you for the question. When it comes specifically to the combination efforts between the Department of Homeland security and the FBI, we have 59 Homeland Security Task forces that we have stood up in every single state and then some that are co led by the FBI and hsi. And obviously having a stopgap in funding is hurting those abilities to go out there and fight crime and pick up violent offenders centers across the country. Even though the DHS workforce shows up every day, I think they've gone one month without a paycheck. Now we also have things like our Southern Border Intelligence center in Tucson, Arizona, that is our hub for intelligence collection operations on foreign terrorist organizations, specifically the. The narco traffickers down in Mexico.
- [87:58]
Vice Chairman Kelly
Thank you. My time's expired.
- [88:01]
Chairman
Mr. Carson is recognized.
- [88:03]
John Solomon
Thank you, Chairman. The Trump administration has justified this war with Iran as necessary to stop an imminent threat. But the administration has not provided this committee with any intelligence indicating Iran was preparing a nuclear weapon, planning a preemptive attack on the United States, or possess any immediate capability to strike the US Homeland. That raises very serious questions about what the analysis of the IC provided before the decision to go to war was made. Directors Gabbard and Radcliffe, is there any evidence that Iran intended to conduct a preemptive attack on the United States? And I ask this because 13 service members have been killed in Trump's war, including Captain Seth Koval, a husband and a dad from my state of Indiana. And my constituents want answers. So is there any evidence that Iran intended to conduct a preemptive attack on the US Prior to beginning this war? Yes or no,
- [89:01]
Director Avril Haines
Congressman, the answer to this question needs to be reserved for a closed hearing. I will say, however, the intelligence community does provide the assessments of the threats that exist to the president so that he can make that determination within the body of information and intelligence and activities within the region that ultimately he is responsible for what is an imminent threat. And if there is an imminent threat, what actions need to be taken?
- [89:33]
Whimsound Smart Speaker Announcer
Congressman, as the DNI said, there's a body of intelligence that we'll be able to cover in the. In the classified portion of this hearing that reflects that does reflect that in the likely event of a conflict between Iran and Israel, that the US Would be immediately attacked, regardless of whether the United States stayed out of that conflict.
- [89:56]
John Solomon
Shifting gears to ranking member Himes Point. Let me read to you from the 2025 Annual Threat Assessment under your watch last year, quote, moscow's maligned influence activities will continue for the foreseeable future and will almost certainly increase in sophistication volume. Moscow probably believes information operations efforts to influence US Elections are advantageous regardless of whether they affect election outcomes. By contrast, this year's threat assessment makes no mention of foreign threats to elections. Meanwhile, the IC has been publicly warning about foreign powers interfering in our elections for nearly a decade. So the omission is very striking. And to that point, sitting here today, I'm not aware of any intelligence products in the past year dedicated to foreign plans and intentions toward current and future U.S. elections. Director Gabbard, yes or no, ma'.
- [90:53]
Am.
- [90:53]
Have you directed or been directed to stop or limit dissemination of intelligence reports or finish intelligence reporting concerning foreign plans and intentions about upcoming U.S. elections or foreign threats to the midterms?
- [91:07]
Director Avril Haines
No.
- [91:08]
John Solomon
Director Patel, same question for the FBI. Sir, yes or no, sir.
- [91:12]
FBI Director Christopher Wray
No, sir.
- [91:13]
John Solomon
Director Ratcliffe, same question for the CIA. Sir, yes or no?
- [91:16]
Whimsound Smart Speaker Announcer
No.
- [91:17]
John Solomon
General Hartman, same question for nsa. Yes or no, sir.
- [91:20]
Whimsound Smart Speaker Announcer
No, sir.
- [91:21]
John Solomon
General Adams, same question for the dia. Yes or no, sir.
- [91:24]
Secretary of Defense Rubio
No, sir.
- [91:25]
John Solomon
I yield back.
- [91:26]
Congressman
Chairman.
- [91:27]
Chairman
Gentleman yields. Ms. Stefanik.
- [91:30]
Congressman
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Director Gabbard, when you began your testimony, you stated that your remarks do not represent your personal beliefs. That's the first time I've heard that at a committee hearing. Why did you say that? Or is there anything in the threat assessment that you personally disagree with?
- [91:50]
Director Avril Haines
With? Thank you for the question, Congresswoman. The reason I've said that is twofold. Number one is when I assumed this role as Director of National Intelligence, through the confirmation process and beyond, many members of Congress rightly said, your personal views and your politics in this role get checked at the door. And as Director of National Intelligence, my responsibility is to report the intelligence community's assessment objectively and to make sure that they are not politicized in any way, shape or form. Unfortunately, there are those who, for one reason or another, have tried to mischaracterize the intelligence community's assessments and saying, well, this is just a political view or trying to misdirect from what the intelligence community is reporting. So I took the opportunity to state that from the outset that this is the intelligence community's assessment. Assessments.
- [92:44]
Congressman
Thank you. I also wanted to ask this because this week there was a high profile resignation of Director of National Counterterrorism Center. Now, I want to be clear. From the outset, I've communicated directly with President Trump my support for Operation Epic Fury. And I was very, not only disappointed, but how inappropriate this letter was. And I want to read a statement that, and get your personal assessment whether you agree or disagree with that. And that's early in this administration, high ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America first platform and pro war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran. This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed no imminent threat to the United States and that you should strike now. There was a clear path to a swift victory. This was a lie and is the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into disastrous Iraq war. Now, I cannot say how much I disagree with that statement. Do you agree or disagree with what? This letter was put out by former Director Kent.
- [93:50]
Director Avril Haines
He said a lot of things in that letter. Ultimately, we have provided the President with the intelligence assessments and the President is elected by the American people and makes his own decisions based on the information that's available to him.
- [94:05]
Congressman
But do you agree with, does that statement he made blaming Israel concern you?
- [94:09]
Director Avril Haines
Yes.
- [94:11]
Congressman
My next question is, I want to touch on the rise of terrorist attacks on the homeland. In the month of March alone, there were multiple high profile Islamic terrorist attacks. You had Temple Israel Synagogue in Michigan. You had in Texas. You had an ISIS inspired attack where they threw an IED in New York City. What is your assessment as to the rise of Islamic terrorism on the homeland?
- [94:36]
Director Avril Haines
As you've pointed to, Congresswoman, this continues to be an extreme concern, not only because of the rise of these attacks, but the mechanisms which they're carried out and the challenges that the intelligence community has in being able to try to detect some of these threats and attacks in advance. I'd like to defer to the FBI Director on some of this because they have been very successful in many cases over the last year in detecting them and preventing these attacks. But due to the nature of the challenge in many of these attackers, not having contact with known foreign terrorist entities or individuals makes this a much more challenging threat to deal with.
- [95:23]
Congressman
And I want to turn to Director Patel. I think that's a good important segue to get your assessment. And I also want to add another aspect aspect of the question. We're working on a 911 Commission review, 25 year review. What other tools do you need to make sure that we are able to have the most robust, effective CT efforts?
- [95:41]
FBI Director Christopher Wray
Yeah, thank you, Congresswoman. Just real quick, so last year we had 2,300 arrests related to foreign terrorist organizations. We had 700 counterterrorism arrests and the FBI had 640 counterterrorism disruptions. Where we stopped attacks on the homeland, specifically in December, we stopped four in an 18 day span. What I need is specifically highlighted in the Norfolk attack. In Norfolk, an individual who is convicted of terrorism and sentence based upon that conviction should have still been in prison. The Department of Justice in the first Trump administration sought a sentence of 240 months. The judge in that case downward departed and gave a variance to nearly half that sentence. If that had not occurred, that individual would still be in prison and a member of our uniform military service would still be alive. I want to work with the legislature to figure out how to increase the sentencing for convicted terrorists and also work on the denaturalization process for someone who should not be in this country, who wants to attack and kill American citizens and American service members.
- [96:41]
Congressman
Thank you.
- [96:41]
Chairman
Yield back, gentleman yields Mr. Castro, thank you.
- [96:45]
Howie Mandel
Thank you, Chairman, and thank you for your time testimony today. I want to start with a question about Iran and discuss first how the war began. Secretary Rubio told us that Israel was going to strike Iran regardless and that doing so would have triggered Iranian retaliation against US Forces already in the region. And Director Ratliff, you seem to affirm that in comments just a few moments ago. So rather than tell Israel to stand down, the President joined the war. The Congress and the American people still don't know what the President's actual goals are, and yet we have lost 13 US service members. But here's what we do know. The president has said that he wants a deal. He said Iran wants to make a deal and that he's not ready because, quote, the terms aren't good enough yet. Yet they just killed Ali Laharijani, the de facto leader of Iran, who, while not a friend of the United States, would have been the person to negotiate any agreement with. The president explicitly said that the United States did not strike Iran's energy infrastructure because, in his words, having to rebuild it, quote, would take years. Yet this morning, Israel struck the South Pars Gas field, the world's largest natural gas reserve, triggering Iranian attacks on Qatari gas facilities. Oil prices are up 15% in the last 24 hours. In San Antonio, my hometown, where I represent the cost of gas has gone up nearly 40% in three weeks. Last night, the President said that the United States knew nothing about the attack and called on Israel to stop similar attacks on energy. Israel denies this and says that the attack was cleared by the United States. So my question is, what does the intelligence community assess Israel's goals in this war to be, and are those goals aligned with the goals of the United States?
- [98:50]
Director Avril Haines
I'm thinking carefully here about what can be said in this open setting versus a closed setting.
- [98:56]
Howie Mandel
Are the goals aligned?
- [98:59]
Director Avril Haines
The objectives that have been laid out by the President are different from the objectives that have been laid out by the Israeli government.
- [99:07]
Howie Mandel
And how do they differ?
- [99:10]
Director Avril Haines
We can see through the operations that the Israeli government has been focused on disabling the Iranian leadership and taking out several members, obviously beginning with the Ayatollah and the Supreme Leader, and they continue to focus on that effort.
- [99:28]
Howie Mandel
How does that differ from our goals?
- [99:30]
Director Avril Haines
The President has stated that his objectives are to destroy Iran's ballistic missile launching capability, their ballistic missile production capability, and their navy, the IRGC navy, and mine laying capability.
- [99:48]
Howie Mandel
So the death and destruction continues. The economic cost the United States to Israel, to the Gulf states and to the world continues to increase. So I want to ask you, to the best of your knowledge, do you know whether Israel is supportive of the President's call to make a deal with Iran?
- [100:07]
Director Avril Haines
I don't know the answer to that. I don't know Israel's position on that.
- [100:12]
Howie Mandel
And to what do you attribute Israel's decision to strike Iranian energy infrastructure despite President Trump's call to keep those facilities off limits?
- [100:23]
Director Avril Haines
I don't have an answer for that.
- [100:32]
Howie Mandel
So they ignored the president. Do you agree with that?
- [100:37]
Director Avril Haines
I'm not privy to any of their deliberations or what went into their calculus and launching this or other attacks. I'm not. We, we are, we are not involved with the, in the operational element of this. We're providing continuously, on a daily basis the intelligence assessments of the events that are occurring.
- [100:59]
Howie Mandel
And I guess I know the FBI can't because they're domestic, but can anybody else at the table provide any insight into that?
- [101:11]
Whimsound Smart Speaker Announcer
I guess I'm not sure what the question you're asking, Congressman Castro. I guess a couple of things. The goals that the President set out are clearly defined. The DNI related those. What was not included is a goal of the U.S. well, Director, let me start with this question.
- [101:31]
Howie Mandel
You asked what my question is, which, let me, let me reclaim my time, Director. Come on. Do you know why Israel decided to strike that infrastructure despite the fact that the President said it should be off limits?
- [101:43]
Whimsound Smart Speaker Announcer
I wouldn't, I wouldn't speak for Israel. And what do you guys know?
- [101:48]
Howie Mandel
We're at war. What do you guys know?
- [101:51]
Chairman
Let's take that for the record.
- [101:53]
Howie Mandel
Yes, let's take it for the record.
- [101:55]
Whimsound Smart Speaker Announcer
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to welcome the panelists here today. Today is March 19th. On April 19th, FISA goes dark, 702 goes dark. And, and it's been talked about many times, but up to 60% of the president's daily briefing is derived from FISA 702. And we look at the successes that we've had in protecting the homeland and also the conflicts the US has been involved with. The flawless operation in Venezuela, Operation Fury in Iran, troop protection, the successes we've had on the battlefield in Ukraine,
- [102:39]
Congressman
the
- [102:39]
Whimsound Smart Speaker Announcer
recovery and release of the Hamas hostages in the tunnels in Israel, all derived from FISA 702. There is not a military operation that we've been involved with where FISA 702 was not, as Director Ratcliffe has said, been indispensable to the United States in the protection of our country. Director Patel has also said FISA 702 is indispensable. We're 30 days away from it going dark. Director Radcliffe, can you clarify the President's position on an 18 month clean reauthorization and how that's going to proceed moving forward?
- [103:21]
Congressman, thank you. And thank you for highlighting this issue. So the President is in favor of an 18 month clean, reauthorized, clean reauthorization of FISA 702. And I would add to that. I'm heartened by the fact to hear that the Chairman of this committee and the Ranking Member are in agreement with that. And I know there's bipartisan support for that and there should be. And I know this is an important vote for you to take. But I would ask that you all consider when you do that, that when you look at the fact that former DNIs and former CIA directors and former FBI directors and DIA directors and NSA directors across Republican and Democrat administrations are in support of FISA 702 in its current form. These are the people that are making the decisions to keep Americans safe. And so I wish the reauthorization was longer than 18 months. Congressman, I think that this is something that I wish you all would consider for longer than that so that regardless of who the President is, who the President is in the future, he or she would have the benefit of, as you said, a tool that's indispensable across administrations provides more than half of the important actionable intelligence that the President and the Commander in Chief relies upon.
- [104:45]
Thank you for that. Director Gabbard, you're supportive of the 18 month extension the President seeking without a warrant requirement.
- [104:52]
Director Avril Haines
That is the President's position And that is the position of the intelligence community.
- [104:55]
Whimsound Smart Speaker Announcer
And you will be supporting that, correct?
- [104:57]
Director Avril Haines
I will support the President's decision to execute this.
- [105:00]
Whimsound Smart Speaker Announcer
Correct.
- [105:01]
Thank you. Director Gabbard. We implemented two years ago a number of reforms, actually 56 of them, that were part of the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America act, risa. And that was done in a bipartisan way. That was a reflection of what we thought were problems with FISA 702 going back during the first Trump administration and even before that. These reforms that have been input, put in place and that you have helped implement. And we wonder if you could talk specifically about those reforms on the cutting down of FBI agents having access to querying of FISA information, the fact that there are criminal penalties now for FBI agents that are engaged in inappropriate activity as it relates to fisa. Please tell us some of those reforms and how those have been implemented. Director Patel.
- [105:55]
FBI Director Christopher Wray
Sorry, I thought you were asking. Absolutely. So we've gone above and beyond what RISA requires since I became director 13 months ago. We not only require supervisory Special Agents to approve the query request of U.S. persons, we also require the General Counsel's office and lawyers to come in and agree with that request before we can proceed. Also, we have. We used to, before this had a default which allowed queries when we were using our system to say it automatically searches 702. You now have to actually opt in and select that box to make sure that you are intentionally doing so. On top of that, we've reduced the number of procedures personnel at the FBI from 6600 before I got there to 3500 that have access to it, not that use it, but that have access to it. And we've also gone above and beyond what Riser requires in terms of if you misuse it unintentionally or recklessly. If you use it, misuse it unintentionally, like you typed a name wrong in terms of spelling or whatnot. Your access is suspended and be retrained. If you recklessly use it, you're immediately terminated, your access forever.
- [107:04]
Chairman
Thank you, Mr. Crow.
- [107:08]
Congressman
Thank you, Chairman. Director Gabbard, it is your job and the job of your agency and department to assess the views of Iranian leadership, their policy beliefs and policy positions, correct?
- [107:21]
Director Avril Haines
Yes.
- [107:22]
Congressman
That includes now deceased Ali Khamenei of Iran, correct?
- [107:26]
Director Avril Haines
Yes.
- [107:26]
Congressman
And is now the NOW leader, his son, Mujtaba Khamenei, Correct?
- [107:30]
Director Avril Haines
Correct. Yes.
- [107:31]
Congressman
The son is considered more of a hardliner than his father, isn't that correct?
- [107:37]
Director Avril Haines
Yes.
- [107:38]
Congressman
So hardline that even some of Iran's leaders thought he was too aggressive, isn't that correct?
- [107:43]
Director Avril Haines
That is the intelligence community assessment, yes.
- [107:45]
Congressman
Mujtaba, the son is particularly close to the brutal Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and their most hardline commanders, correct?
- [107:52]
Director Avril Haines
That is the intelligence community assessment.
- [107:54]
Congressman
He was involved in ordering violent crackdowns on Iranian protesters, including their murder, correct?
- [107:59]
Director Avril Haines
Yes.
- [108:01]
Congressman
And we don't know if the son will continue his father's religious ban on developing nuclear weapons, is that correct?
- [108:05]
Director Avril Haines
That is unknown at this time.
- [108:07]
Congressman
You testified before this committee last year that the elder, now deceased, Khamenei, had in 2003, banned the nuclear weapons program or suspended it. Correct.
- [108:18]
Director Avril Haines
There was a fatwa in place that stated that.
- [108:21]
Congressman
And that fatwa remained in place last year when you testified before this committee? Correct?
- [108:25]
Director Avril Haines
Yes.
- [108:25]
David Brody
Yes.
- [108:26]
Congressman
And that fatwa remained in place recently? Correct.
- [108:30]
Director Avril Haines
As far as I know, it has not been lifted.
- [108:32]
Congressman
Yeah. You're aware of no information that would lift that fatwa?
- [108:36]
Director Avril Haines
I'm not aware of any intelligence reporting that states that. To be clear, on the Mojtaba, the son who has been named to replace him, it is unclear of his status or his involvement. He was injured very severely through one of the Israeli strikes. And so the decision making is unclear about what's happening in the Iranian leadership.
- [108:59]
Congressman
It's unclear. So we're less certain of the positions of Iranian leadership and their intentions than we were 60 days ago? Correct.
- [109:06]
Director Avril Haines
That's an accurate assessment.
- [109:09]
Congressman
One of your jobs is to create products assessing Iran and the threats it poses to the United States, correct?
- [109:17]
Director Avril Haines
Yes.
- [109:18]
Congressman
That includes potential outcomes for military action? Correct.
- [109:24]
Director Avril Haines
It includes potential outcomes of a variety
- [109:27]
Congressman
of scenarios and the likelihood of those outcomes?
- [109:31]
Director Avril Haines
Yes.
- [109:32]
Congressman
Generally, when you make assessments about threats facing the United States, you will look at, in Iran, in any instance, the likely scenarios that have come out of military action. Correct.
- [109:43]
Director Avril Haines
The intelligence community takes all of those factors into account when they create these assessments.
- [109:49]
Congressman
When you look at the threats posed by foreign countries, you also assess timelines to those threats. Correct.
- [109:57]
Director Avril Haines
What do you mean by timelines?
- [109:58]
Congressman
Like a breakout time, for example, for nuclear weapons, the development of ballistic missiles.
- [110:03]
Director Avril Haines
Yes. Based on the information available at any
- [110:05]
Congressman
given time in the timeline. Also for potential terrorist attacks? Correct.
- [110:12]
Director Avril Haines
Broadly, yes.
- [110:13]
Congressman
It is common matters for the IC to assess the timeline of all threats. Nuclear weapons development. Ballistic.
- [110:20]
FBI Director Christopher Wray
Right?
- [110:20]
Director Avril Haines
Yes.
- [110:21]
Congressman
Ballistic weapons development.
- [110:23]
Director Avril Haines
Based on the information available? Yes.
- [110:25]
Congressman
Terrorist attacks. Same applies cyber attacks, timelines for all of those.
- [110:32]
FBI Director Christopher Wray
Correct.
- [110:33]
Director Avril Haines
When there is information available that point to that. Yes.
- [110:36]
Congressman
In likelihood as well as the timeline? Correct.
- [110:40]
Director Avril Haines
Based on the information available.
- [110:42]
Congressman
Timing is important, is it not?
- [110:45]
Director Avril Haines
It is an important factor that goes into the assessment.
- [110:49]
Congressman
So it is your position sitting here today that you made no timeline determination as to threats that Iran had facing the United States? Correct.
- [111:02]
Director Avril Haines
That's a very broad statement. But where the.
- [111:09]
Congressman
Did you or the IC make any assessments as to the timing of potential threats facing the United States from Iran in the last 90 days?
- [111:20]
Director Avril Haines
I'm sure there was timelines factored into the intelligence assessments that were. That were delivered.
- [111:26]
Congressman
Did any of them show imminence?
- [111:29]
Director Avril Haines
The imminent nature of a threat is determined by the President based on a totality of the intelligence and information provided to him.
- [111:38]
Congressman
It didn't even show that there were attacks anticipated within the next, next 90 days from Iran.
- [111:44]
Director Avril Haines
It's too simplistic of a statement to say that because it depends on various scenarios occurring or not occurring.
- [111:50]
Congressman
Did those assessments show timelines for the threats that Iran posed to the United States?
- [111:57]
Director Avril Haines
The totality of threats? Yes, there were timelines involved where it applied and where that information was available. But again, to your question about the determination of imminence, the President makes that determination based on the totality of information and intelligence.
- [112:11]
Congressman
The bottom line is there was no imminent and you know that, and there's no product that shows that.
- [112:16]
Chairman
I yield back, Mr. Fitzpatrick.
- [112:19]
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for being here today. I want to expand on the questioning from my colleague Mr. LaHood, regarding FISA 702. Obviously, it is the imminent issue right before us, will expire in a month. Unequivocally the most critical national security tool our nation has to keep us safe from fentanyl, from foreign wars and everything in between, mainly to, you know, to Director Ratcliffe. But any of you can answer this. One of the most perplexing debates that I've been subject to in my time here is this debate over what warrants are and when they're needed. In the 250 year history of this country, and going back to the very origins of law enforcement, we have always had a warrant requirement, always had a warrant requirement on the collection of evidence. We have never had a warrant requirement on the querying of already lawfully collected data, which is why we don't require police officers to get warrants when they run license plates querying off of already lawfully collected DOT data. It's why we don't require police officers to get a warrant to enter the evidence locker in their police precincts which contains already lawfully collected data. It would literally shut down the system. And that's not a warrant requirement, that's a secondary warrant requirement. That's a warrant requirement on steroids. So, Director Radcliffe or any of you, I know you've been subject to these questions as well. Is it just a confusion over the difference between the collection of evidence versus the querying of our already lawfully collected data? Is it a lack of understanding of what incidental collection is, which is a fundamental precept of law enforcement? But if we have a warrant requirement on steroids, for now, the querying of already lawfully collected data just by the numbers, that would require an expansion of the federal judiciary by a factor of 100. It would literally shut down our law enforcement apparatus at perhaps the most dangerous time in our nation's history. So, Director Radcliffe, for any of you, if you could just walk me through your analysis that.
- [114:29]
Whimsound Smart Speaker Announcer
Well, I'll start. Congressman, thanks for the question. Again, thanks for highlighting this important issue. And as has been pointed out, reforms should be implemented where they're necessary. And I think, speaking for myself and I know Director Patel supported the reforms from two years ago to make improvements, and they did. And so some reforms should be considered. A warrant isn't one of them. And with respect to the reforms that have been implemented, we're talking about, when we talk about Fourth Amendment rights and privacy concerns, we're at a 99.9% compliance rate with respect to that. So I would start by saying, why are you trying to fix what's not broken with something that I can tell you from this seat, the fix would not work. And I go back to my comment before. DNIs, CIA directors, FBI directors, the people have been in all of these chairs before on a bipartisan basis, agree that a warrant won't work and don't advocate for it. Again, Congressman, you're correct. This is lawfully collected information. And we have these things come at you very fast. And you have to make decisions very quickly and sometimes in a matter of hours, you have to act on the information that you have lawfully, you know, that has been lawfully collected to interdict drug shipments or terrorist activities. And a warrant requiring you to go to the court to seek probable cause for information that has already been lawfully collected only prevents that from happening. I don't understand. I understand that it's well meaning for people that are proposing it. But again, I would defer to the people who sit in these chairs and make these decisions who would tell you that it doesn't work.
- [116:25]
Chairman
Anybody else want to comment on the warrant requirement?
- [116:28]
General Dan Kaine
So, Congressman, I'd love to comment.
- [116:30]
Whimsound Smart Speaker Announcer
Thanks.
- [116:30]
General Dan Kaine
Thanks for the question.
- [116:31]
Whimsound Smart Speaker Announcer
I do just want to add a couple of points agree with everything Director Radcliffe said. You know, not only is this already collected data on foreign personnel outside of the United States, but the data that is being queried has also already been analyzed to ensure that it contains foreign intelligence value, which I think is a very important part of this. And then when we query a US
- [116:57]
General Dan Kaine
Person term, we're not querying for US Person information.
- [117:01]
Whimsound Smart Speaker Announcer
We're querying for foreign intelligence that has already been evaluated at least once to contain foreign intelligence in the database that's being accessed. And then the final piece that I think is important is that both the fiscal and the Department of Justice have established robust legal and compliance rules that we adhere to, and that is audited by DOJ for every query that we make.
- [117:26]
Congressman
Thank you.
- [117:27]
Secretary of Defense Rubio
I yield back, Dr. Barra.
- [117:29]
Congressman
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Director Gabber, We've known each other for a long time. We were both elected to Congress in 2012 and served together for a while. I may not have always agreed with your positions, but I respected the consistency of some of your positions. Director Gabbard, following the January 3, 2020, drone strike that killed Qasem Soleimani, you gave a speech on the House floor six days later, on January 9, 2020. In the speech that is currently in the Congressional Record and available for anyone to view, you stated, quote, president Trump has committed an illegal and unconstitutional act of war, pushing our nation headlong into a war with Iraq without any authorization from Congress. War that would be so costly and devastating, it would make our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan look like a picnic. On February 28, 2026, the Trump administration, under which you are the President's principal intelligence advisor, launched an illegal and unconstitutional act of war, pushing our nation headlong into a war with Iran without any authorization from Congress.
- [118:37]
Whimsound Smart Speaker Announcer
Congress.
- [118:38]
Congressman
This war has already been costly and devastating. Thirteen American service members have lost their lives, including Chief Warrant Officer Robert Marzin from my home of Sacramento, California. Approximately 200 service members have been wounded. The Pentagon reported that the first six days of Operation Epic Fury cost $11.3 billion. That averages almost $2 billion per day. That was the first six days. And now we're in the 19th day of this war that's ballooned into a regional conflict, putting the lives of Americans and our allies throughout the Middle east in danger. Director Gabbard, do you still believe that strikes against Iran that don't have congressional authorization constitute an illegal and unconstitutional act of war?
- [119:25]
Director Avril Haines
Congressman, thank you for the question. The cost of war weighs very heavily upon me and my colleagues here, especially for those of us who have experienced and seen the cost of war firsthand. My own personal and political views. As I mentioned earlier, I was asked and required by Congress and by the President in this role as the Director of National Intelligence to check those views at the door to ensure that the intelligence assessments are not colored by my personal views. And that's exactly what I am responsible for.
- [120:02]
Congressman
War with Iran would be so costly and devastating that it would make our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan look like a picnic.
- [120:08]
Director Avril Haines
Once again, in this role, it is essential that I do not allow any of my personal views on any issues to color or bias the intelligence reporting that we deliver to you and to the President.
- [120:21]
Congressman
Director Gabbard, in this hearing one year ago, I asked some questions and I'll paraphrase my exact question. It's like we should keep politics out of this. Even if the President disagrees with a directive, if it goes against his personal wishes, if he's considering an order that potentially is unconstitutional or illegal or compromises our security, I want your word that we will. You will always provide and give the honest advice to the President, even if it will make him angry. I asked you that question. I'm going to read your answer and to your specific question. The answer is yes. I will inform the President of that accurate, timely, unbiased intelligence reporting, whether it is something that agrees with an assumption or review or an objective or not. That's my responsibility to him and to the American people. Director Gabbard, did you. There is no imminent threat of nuclear breakout. Did you deliver that assessment to the President?
- [121:24]
Director Avril Haines
I have delivered the intelligence community's assessments to the President.
- [121:29]
Congressman
There was no imminent nuclear threat to the United States. There was no evidence of imminence that Iran was going to attack American assets. That was different from anything they've done over four decades that was going to attack our homeland. There was no imminent threat. Imminent is defined in the dictionary as something that is about to happen. Not something that's been happening for four decades, not something that is going to happen three months from now, not something that's going to happen a year from now. Imminent said this is about to happen. Did you deliver that assessment to the President?
- [122:04]
Director Avril Haines
I delivered the intelligence community's objective analysis of the threats, the severity of those threats and the scope, along with assessments of the different scenarios and context that exists within the Middle East.
- [122:17]
Congressman
The President owes it to the American people to go on television to explain to the American people, to the service members who have died in action serving our country, why we are at war with Iran. He needs to go on television and explain that directly to the if you
- [122:32]
FBI Director Christopher Wray
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