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Interview with Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-PA): Trump Reposts Suggestion to "Hang Them" After Dem Lawmakers Urge Military to Disobey Any Illegal Orders They Receive; DOJ Investigating Handling of Adam Schiff Mortgage Fraud Probe. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired November 20, 2025 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

REP. CHRIS DELUZIO (D-PA): ... too long ago, all cases where I and so many other Democrats condemn the calls for violence. This is a moment where Republicans and others should be coming together to condemn the President's call for violence against me and other members of Congress.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: This is a video that you and your Democratic colleagues made that certainly, I think, gets attention. So I want to play some of this so that folks can see it. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right now, the threats to our Constitution aren't just coming from abroad --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- but from right here at home.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You can refuse illegal orders.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You must refuse illegal orders.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No one has to carry out orders that violate the law --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- or our Constitution.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We know this is hard, and that it's a difficult time to be a public servant.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But whether you're serving in the CIA --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- the Army --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- our Navy --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- the Air Force.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your vigilance is critical.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And know that we have your back.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because now, more than ever --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- the American people need you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We need you to stand up for our laws --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- our Constitution --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- and who we are as Americans. Don't give up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't give up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't give up.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Don't give up the ship

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: Why now is there a specific reason that you're putting this message out there?

DELUZIO: I think you train for the worst. These are lessons about following lawful orders and having no responsibility to follow illegal orders that you learn at basic training, at boot camp, plebe summer, you name it, when you first come in the military. You train for this.

And there's been plenty of reporting of people within the military service and otherwise worried about being placed in positions to use military force against their fellow citizens. We know Donald Trump in a room with Mark Milley and then his Secretary of Defense talked about shooting unarmed protesters and ordering troops to do it. And his response to us putting this video out was to call for our death and hanging.

It tells me he has no regard for the law. He has no regard for the Constitution.

KEILAR: But Democrats didn't put a video out like this then. So why now?

DELUZIO: I wasn't in Congress then. I can speak to what I did now.

KEILAR: But a lot of those folks were.

DELUZIO: You should ask -- you should ask those folks. But again, I think the basic --

KEILAR: OK, but let me -- OK, then let me ask you this. How do you see this playing out if there are members of the military or the intel community? How how would you envision that playing out?

DELUZIO: What playing out?

KEILAR: Disobeying what they see as an illegal.

DELUZIO: I want no one to be placed in any position where they're ever given an illegal order.

KEILAR: Well, certainly. But but you put out a video telling people what you told.

DELUZIO: Absolutely.

KEILAR: So how would you envision it playing out?

DELUZIO: Well, my hope is that no one's ever placed in that position. It is something you train for every day. You train for use of armed armed forces -- or use of military force.

You train for the rules of engagement. You train if you're placed in a position and ever or do something illegal and you know what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to ask questions, seek legal counsel if you can.

Generals and admirals have jags on staff. But the fundamental premise that we would never expect our troops to follow illegal orders is not a controversial one. It's one that I learned as a plebe at the Naval Academy.

It's one that I trained my sailors and soldiers --

KEILAR: I don't think the concept is controversial, but politicians making a video about it and saying it in this regard is something that is going to get a lot of attention.

DELUZIO: And I think that --

KEILAR: No, it's also controversial to call for punishing (INAUDIBLE) for sure.

DELUZIO: And I think the fact that the response of this president, the commander in chief --

KEILAR: Sure.

DELUZIO: -- who can issue lawful orders absolutely is to call for our death and hanging and arrest tells me that he is willing to stretch the law and break it.

KEILAR: An admiral overseeing U.S. Southern Command had stepped down after a very short tenure. That's quite uncharacteristic.

DELUZIO: Yes.

KEILAR: Overseeing Southern Command, which is in charge of these strikes on these alleged drug boats. And this video, of course, coming not long after that. Is there a connection between these two?

DELUZIO: We didn't point to any specific thing because I'm not saying there's been some illegal order given to anyone, but you prepare for the worst. And I think there is a willingness to disregard the law from Stephen Miller and Donald Trump on down. I've seen it in the calls for violence against us. And this is a time where you remind everyone and we have the best and smartest fighting force in the world. I used to be a part of it. I was darn proud of that.

My colleagues who are with me here are darn proud of their service. We know our responsibilities. They know their responsibilities.

This is a message to the president and people in his administration to understand, do not place our troops in that position.

KEILAR: Congressman Chris Diluzio, thank you for being with us. We do appreciate it.

DELUZIO: Thank you.

KEILAR: And we do have some breaking news. Sources telling CNN the Justice Department is investigating possible issues with the mortgage fraud investigation into Democratic Senator Adam Schiff in California -- Boris.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Yes, and Brianna, that investigation is being run by two Trump administration political appointees, Ed Martin and Bill Pulte. CNN crime and justice correspondent Katelyn Polantz joins us now with more. And Katelyn, this would not be the first case against a Trump critic that has some issues.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: We have seen a couple of cases run into some issues in the last 24 hours, but this is a case.

[14:35:00]

There's an investigation that we've known about before around Adam Schiff, the member of Congress. That investigation was out of Maryland.

But what we're hearing now is something a little bit different, a twist even, that the Justice Department is looking into the handling of that investigation. That there are people out of the Justice Department headquarters in Washington who are also involved in this. Now looking into the work of people who -- according to sources that are speaking to me and others on our team, Hannah Rabinowitz -- they are looking into the work of people who may have been dispatched or held themselves out as witnesses or held themselves out to witnesses as if they were federal officials. So that is --

SANCHEZ: Misrepresenting themselves.

POLANTZ: Misrepresenting the federal government, potentially even. We don't know, though, exactly what is being investigated here. This is still sort of some early reporting on this. This is what we know from sources that have been speaking to us.

However, Boris, there was a witness in the grand jury speaking to the grand jury this morning. She came out of the grand jury in Maryland and spoke to one of our reporters there, Devin Cole, and she told them that the investigators seemed more concerned about looking into whether there was a conspiracy or collusion between her and some very prominent Trump officials, Bill Pulte or Ed Martin. That is her quote.

So where this goes, big question.

SANCHEZ: Huge question. Katelyn Polantz, thank you so much for bringing us an update there.

Still to come, the Trump administration working on a new peace effort to end Russia's invasion of Ukraine. We're going to break down the 28 point plan that could include major concessions from Ukraine, concessions that ultimately could doom this deal.

Stay with us.

[14:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: The reported death toll in Gaza since the ceasefire took effect has now climbed above 3,000. Palestinian health officials -- 300, I should say. Palestinian health officials say the latest Israeli strikes killed at least 32 people.

Some of the deadliest attacks since the truce was agreed to last month. The Israeli military claims it targeted Hamas after IDF soldiers were fired upon in southern Gaza. Hamas denies Israel's account and condemned the attacks as a dangerous escalation.

CNN international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson is live in Jerusalem. And Nic, this spike in attacks coming just days after the U.N. Security Council endorsed President Trump's peace plan. What are you learning?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, some of the details we're getting make for troubling reading. The 32 people who were killed, 12 of them were children, we're told by Palestinian health officials. Eight of them were women.

And as you said there, the IDF said that this was precipitated by Hamas attack. Hamas denied that. We heard from a government spokesman today, an Israeli government spokesman putting more detail on this, saying that a group of terrorists crossed over the yellow line.

That's the yellow line that divides the IDF-controlled part of Gaza and the sort of Hamas-Palestinian-controlled part of Gaza. The IDF said those terrorists crossed over. They pose an imminent threat or immediate threat to the IDF soldiers there who neutralized them.

Then another incident around the town of Khan Younis, where another couple of terrorists, the government spokesman said, were in an area, came into an area where the IDF were operating. At that moment, she says, the government spokesman said, the IDF took the decision that they were going to precipitate these strikes that killed the 32 people. Interestingly -- and I find this very interesting at the moment,

pertinent to what you're saying about there being, you know, a U.N. Security Council resolution, supposed to be a sort of ceasefire in place -- government spokesman said that the IDF made the strikes without reference to any other government. And that perhaps is a reference here to the civilian-military combined coordination center that's sort of been established to oversee the ceasefire in Gaza.

Of course, what isn't there is an international stabilization force that's called for and a number of other bodies, the Board of Peace, for example, that's supposed to oversee the situation there as well. So this is, you know, a flashpoint between the IDF and Hamas, particularly around this so-called yellow line that exists.

And although these strikes are over, it seems that this type of incident could really happen again and quite quickly.

KEILAR: Now, Nic Robertson, thank you so much for that report -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: New today, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he has received a new U.S. peace proposal to end the war with Russia. A source familiar tells us that it includes plans for Kyiv to give up the eastern Donbas region and for Ukraine to limit the size of its military in the future. This of course would be in exchange for security guarantees from the U.S. But we should note, an American official says that this plan has not been finalized and any agreement would also require concessions from both sides, not just from Ukraine.

Let's discuss more with retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton. Colonel Leighton, thank you so much for joining us. So I found it interesting that in the details we're getting of this 28- point plan, there are some concessions for Ukraine to make related to land, including land that it currently controls.

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, that's exactly right, Boris. And one of the key things here is that it's going to be, these concessions would be in the Donbas region. So we've got the Donetsk Oblast right here, a region, and then the Luhansk area.

So most of Luhansk is basically controlled by the Russians right now. But the Donetsk area, that has about 12 percent of its territory, is under Ukrainian control. Basically what this plan is talking about is Ukraine giving up about 20,000 square miles.

That's a little bit less than the size of West Virginia. So that would be a significant amount of territory that Ukraine would be giving up, and it would be also part of that mineral rich and industrial region that is known right here as the Donbas region.

SANCHEZ: I wonder what it would mean for Ukraine's military to shrink.

[14:45:00]

LEIGHTON: So that's a great question because the other aspect of this particular peace plan actually calls the military, the Ukrainian military to be cut in half. So right now we have about 900,000 or so active duty Ukrainian troops. That would mean that that would be down to 450,000 troops.

That sounds like a large army, but when you're fighting a war over a region like this, and in details, you know, in this area right here where there's active fighting going on in places like Pokrovsk, in the area that headed toward Kramatorsk, basically this area is a line of fortifications. Ukraine will need every single soldier that it can get, and if it doesn't have those soldiers, then it risks losing all of this, and that would be, of course, a critical problem.

SANCHEZ: Meantime, Russia has not relented on its aggressiveness, and a recent attack required the scrambling of NATO jets. Tell us about that.

LEIGHTON: Yes, that's absolutely true. So there were several aspects to this. One of the things was that Romania actually saw that there were drones coming into their airspace, so they scrambled NATO jets there. And then also the same thing happened with Poland over this way, but one of the reasons that the Polish jets scrambled was also because of a strike on Ternopil, which is a city in western Ukraine, and this is basically what that strike looked like. And you can see major damage to an apartment building, and that, of course, is a direct strike on a civilian target, which is definitely not authorized by any of the laws of warfare.

SANCHEZ: And sadly, not the first time that we've seen that happen. I wonder, Colonel, if a part of the agreement is that the U.S. would have to secure Ukraine from further attack, what exactly does that look like? And to be clear, we don't actually have the language of that proposal, so we don't know what it entails, but I wonder if you can sort of flesh out for us what it might look like.

LEIGHTON: Right, so what that would basically look like is if you -- if we go back to the full map -- in essence, Ukraine has reconquered all of these areas, and it would basically be giving up areas right around here. So if it did that, then the U.S. would supposedly -- if this language is to be believed, this reporting is to be believed -- would supposedly guarantee this. Now, how do you do that if you don't put boots on the ground in Ukraine itself, and or provide them with a no-fly zone or something like that?

None of that seems to be the case. And another thing that's really interesting about this is that, you know, from a sociocultural aspect, the peace agreement apparently says that Russian should be designated an official language of Ukraine. What that means is that they are basically acquiescing to every single Russian demand that's out there.

And so I see President Zelenskyy of Ukraine rejecting every single aspect of this peace plan.

SANCHEZ: We only have about 20 seconds, so if that's the case, where does the war go from there?

LEIGHTON: So if this were to be the case, one of the things that would probably happen is, particularly in the Donbas region, you would have these areas right in here being directly impacted. And the likelihood of, you know, a major conflict in Pokrovsk is going to be key. The other thing is they're going to go into this area right here, and that would be dangerous for Ukraine, unless they get support from the West.

SANCHEZ: That is key. Colonel Cedric Leighton, thank you so much for walking us through that.

Still ahead, helping to empower and heal survivors of sexual abuse in the military, the changes many activists are pushing for as more and more women begin to speak up.

We'll be right back.

[14:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: On today's Homefront, the struggle by women to make their voices heard. On Monday, we told you about a new lawsuit exposing allegations of sexual misconduct committed by a gynecologist at the Army Medical Center at Fort Hood, Texas. This lawsuit alleges that Army investigators recovered thousands of photographs and videos from Dr. Blaine McGraw's cell phone, taken over the course of multiple years, depicting scores of female patients, many of whom remain unidentified, among other claims. It also alleges that Army leadership had received complaints about Dr. McGraw for years and did nothing.

CNN reached out to McGraw's defense attorney, who provided a statement saying, "Dr. McGraw is fully cooperative with the investigation. We have reason to believe, however, that Army special agents are providing members of the public with inaccurate and exaggerated information.

We can think of no other reason for inaccurate leaks than to influence the outcome of the case. We nonetheless remain cooperative."

The lawsuit is exposing the challenges that can face women in the military who try to report these types of accusations.

I'm joined now by Shannon Hough, CEO of Shield of Sisters, a group that supports women who have experienced military sexual trauma. Shannon, what are the challenges that are facing women in the military and connected to the military who want to report being the victim of this kind of trauma?

[14:55:00]

SHANNON HOUGH, FOUNDER AND CEO, SHIELD OF SISTERS: Well, first, thank you for having us and bringing light to this just incredible story that is unbelievable. One of our biggest hurdles is just being heard, being listened to and believed, and not having to have, especially in this situation, a spouse reporting the story before it's believed. So, our biggest hurdle is being heard, being believed.

And then actually, things changing, you know, this has been going on for decades and nothing has changed. So, we are constantly in a battle for our lives sometimes.

KEILAR: How are the challenges different than they would be for civilian women?

HOUGH: In the civilian world, you don't have to worry about rank. You don't have to worry about protocol, chains of command. The different justice system that we have in the military. There's so many different aspects that you have to worry about with reporting, with who you report to, and you know, when you're assaulted in the civilian world, you just go to the police, or you go to an officer, you know, or an attorney, or the hospital, and they just kind of take over.

Whereas in the military, you have to decide whether you're going to report, and you want to be known for your report, or if you don't want to be known, you're sent to all kinds of different services, and that's just not the way the civilian world does. So, there's a lot of different hurdles you have to go through just to even raise an allegation.

KEILAR: And the lawsuit in this case alleges that the Army had heard complaints about this particular doctor, that there were some red flags that should have been noted. What do you think about that allegation?

HOUGH: I fully believe that these women have reported Dr. McGraw all the way back to 2019, maybe even earlier, that they weren't heard, that they were laughed at. We have -- I've had numerous conversations with over 30 of the women that said that they were laughed at, they were told, that doesn't happen here, just utter disbelief of what was going on, and just lack of safety for the women that have been so abused and traumatized by Dr. McGraw.

KEILAR: I think there's this expectation by, obviously, patients in general, and then certainly in the military health system, that they are going to get care that certainly takes care of them, that isn't going to, you know, violate them in any way. And that's sort of the expectation going in. What needs to change in military life to make it easier for women to report these incidents and for the military to be able to recognize if there are patterns happening?

HOUGH: Well, first, when a woman or a man reports on anything, whether it's medical or just regular daily duty, it needs to be able to be anonymous, it needs to be heard and investigated immediately to ensure that it is or is not happening. We need to change the way the reporting is done and who does the investigations. Because there's been a lot of changes in the past few years, and people just don't know what they're able to do, not able to do. You know, the Vanessa Guillen law has changed a lot of reporting and investigative capabilities for the better, but they need to be listened to.

And it shouldn't have to take a spouse or another person standing beside you to be believed and to be heard. And so we have a lot of changes that need to be done. Our investigators, our ranks need to be more trauma-informed in how they treat survivors, victims of MST. And finally, they need to be given support through the whole process, through going to the hospital, you know, for testing and going to investigators. They need to have someone with them. And these investigators, you know, from what we're hearing with this case, are laughing at these women still. And so there needs to be some significant trauma care, trauma-informed care training.

KEILAR: I'm so glad you bring up the men. There is a higher percentage of women who are serving ...

END