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Interview with Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA): Intensifying Pressure to Strike Senate Deal to Fund DHS Before Recess; Trump Declares War has been Won Despite Sending More Troops; Houston's Bush Intercontinental Airport Warns of 4-Hour Wait; Oil Prices Down, But Gas Prices Still Rising in U.S.; American Held by Taliban in Afghanistan Arrives Back in U.S. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired March 25, 2026 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: What horrific testimony. Prosecutors say Koenig hit his wife on the head with a rock and tried to inject her with a needle. Her defense attorney says Dr. Koenig's wife attacked him first and it was self-defense.

All right, from the late show straight to the Shire. Stephen Colbert might be one of the biggest Lord of the Rings fans out there and now he'll get to adapt the next movie in the franchise as he's revealed in a new video with longtime Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson. It'll be based on the Fogs on the Barrow Downs, a chapter from the Fellowship of the Rings and he'll be working on the movie with a very special partner.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN COLBERT, COMEDIAN AND WRITER: I started talking it over with my son Peter who's also a screenwriter and we worked out what we thought would work, especially as a framing device for that story, and it took me a few years to scrape my courage into a pile to give you a call but about two years ago I did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: It will be a while before it comes out though. The next movie installment is The Hunt for Gollum which comes out late next year. My precious, I can't wait to see you.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

ERICA HILL, CNN HOST: Breaking overnight, new attacks by Israel on Iran as we learn of at least a thousand U.S. troops who are now on standby to deploy to the Middle East.

Deal or no deal. The pressure is growing on Congress to end the partial government shutdown as frustrated passengers stand for hours in massive TSA security lines at airports across the country and of course let's not forget those TSA agents aren't being paid.

United Airlines also saying it's going to offer a bit of first-class comfort in economy with a little something called relax row. We'll tell you how it works and perhaps most importantly how much it may cost you.

John and Kate are out today. I'm Erica Hill along with Sara Sidner. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

SIDNER: This morning the country watching what's going to happen there in airports with Congress running out of time and travelers running out of patience as well as TSA workers who aren't getting paid. Houston's Bush Intercontinental Airport reporting four hour wait times before 6 a.m. local time as TSA officers work without pay amid the partial government shutdown. Senate Republicans have a proposal to fund the DHS except for a small part of the immigration enforcement budget.

That funding would get pushed to a separate bill, but President Trump has now stopped short of offering his full support for the plan. And the top Democrat in the Senate Chuck Schumer has also signaled that it's just not enough and said his caucus is preparing a counter-offer but the clock is ticking as it has been for the last 40 something days. Friday there is supposed to be a two-week recess.

Joining me now is Democratic Congresswoman Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania. She serves on the House Armed Services and Intelligence Committees. First let's talk about this this shutdown fight. Look TSA workers have been working for way too long without getting paid.

The lines at some airports are impossible for riders and passengers to get to their to their destinations on time. Give us some sense of where this stands right now because there was something in place that Republicans at least were quite enthusiastic about and now that seems to be falling flat.

REP. CHRISSY HOULAHAN (D-PA): Sure and first of all thank you for having me. I will say that how you summed it up is about right. We are at a place where the Republicans in the Senate have put forward a proposal that Democrats in the Senate have said they will counter it.

The President has indicated a sort of tepid response, and we know that we need to have the President's support in order for anything to move forward. And so where we are right now is a place where I think we will end up with a resolution fairly shortly. It looks a lot like what happens in Washington when the temperature gets to this point where something has to give and something has to break and so I'm hopeful that a deal will be struck. I hope it looks a little bit like it already does which is carving out the ICE portions of the budget so that that can be managed through a reconciliation process by Republicans and Republicans alone.

But I'm also hopeful that it will include some of the reforms that the Democrats have asked for which are really reasonable. No masks, wearing body cameras, having warrants. Those things are not unreasonable and that's what the American people are asking for.

SIDNER: All right, we will wait and see what happens with that. I know you guys go to recess in a couple of weeks. Let's talk about what is sort of happened because of it. Are you concerned with the number of TSA workers in some airports that aren't showing up to work because they can't afford to? Are you concerned about the safety of flight right now?

The safety for passengers getting on those planes and the people who are running them.

[08:05:00]

HOULAHAN: Of course. I mean of course my heart goes out as well to the TSA workers and their families. This is not something that we as a government should be doing to them. But we are also in a place where the American people have asked us to stand strong on making sure that we're treating people with dignity and respect and the behavior of ICE has been anything but that and the idea that we then turn those ICE agents on to helping us through security is also nonsensical.

So I again hope that we can find some compromise. That's what we're here for and that's one of my more kind of large frustrations here in Congress is that no one ever seems to be willing to just sit down at the table and come to a compromise. It takes, as you mentioned, tens of days to do that rather than doing the right thing at the beginning.

SIDNER: All right, because of the committees that you sit on I do want to ask you about the war with Iran. We have new reporting that there will be about a thousand paratroopers that will be deployed to the Middle East that is on top of the Marines that are being deployed to the Middle East, and you know, the President has not ruled out putting boots on the ground. What is Congress's role in this?

Have you been briefed on these you know soldiers and air troopers going to the Middle East and what is your reaction to the fact this is happening?

HOULAHAN: By the Constitution our role is to authorize war, and this has every indicator of being a war. And when you're talking about sending in the 82nd Airborne everybody's ears should perk up and recognize what this is. I am really frustrated being on both the Intelligence and Armed Services Committee at the complete abdication of the leadership on the House and the leadership on the Senate both the Republican leadership in majority that we haven't been pressing for more answers. That we've just been allowing this to kind of unfold through the orders of the Commander-in-Chief. Where there was never an imminent war to begin with and yet here it is that we are looking like it we're evolving continuously into a war of choice that involves our men and women on the ground and that should be very, very chilling for everybody.

SIDNER: I do want to ask you about the President giving this sort of five-day timeline where he says, look I'm not going to go right now and kind of try to take over the Strait of Hormuz and start blowing up some of the electrical capability of Iran. But we are now marching into those five days and you're seeing these deployments. Do you think that indicates that indeed if that falls through and Iran does not come to some agreement with the United States, that you are going to see boots on the ground?

HOULAHAN: So all of those things are things that I worry about. I worry about as you mentioned the fact that the President is threatening taking out the grid, the infrastructure of Iran, which is actually a war crime, would that be something that he decides to do? That worries me.

I worry about the thousands of people who we are deploying and the vulnerability of them and the implications to their families. I do worry that I hope that there is real negotiation ongoing it's hard for me to suss out what's real and what isn't real in the in the President's communications in terms of negotiations. Because I very much want this to resolve in a peaceful way. I am hopeful that there are 15 items that they are negotiating on and they will result in a more peaceful world.

But I'm skeptical that this is the way that this goes because that history would demonstrate that that's not how this normally goes in this part of the world.

SIDNER: Congresswoman Chrissy Houlahan thank you for joining us on I know very tense time. There's a couple of things Americans are watching. One of them is the funding of TSA and the other one is the war with Iran.

There's a lot of work to do there in Congress before the break. Do appreciate it -- Erica.

HILL: Well coming up here a landmark ruling. A jury finds Meta liable for misleading users when it comes to child safety.

Plus, officers rushing into rescue a driver who's trapped in a burning car, and we have new details this morning on just what caused the crash.

[08:10:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HILL: This morning as tens of thousands of unpaid TSA workers anxiously wait to hear whether Congress can come to an agreement. Travelers in Houston are facing a four-hour wait to get through security.

Officials at Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport say they've now reassigned hundreds of airport employees from finance to IT to help manage and move the line. CNN's Ed Lavandera is at that airport in Houston.

Four hours -- that's exactly what you want to hear when you come for your flight. What do you see in there, Ed?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we thought we'd give you kind of an overhead vantage point of what it looks like just outside of Terminal E. This is, the lines are so long inside the terminal that they have set up these rows, which are essentially four lanes of traffic. This is an area that would normally be used for passenger drop-off, but it has been converted into a TSA security line.

And this is just a portion of this line, but I thought the visual, because if you look inside through the glass windows, it's all these people have to still make their way through there, wind and zigzag through various lines that are still set up there before they even get to the security checkpoints areas. So from here, we're probably looking at an hour, and a half left for at least for a lot of these people who are here this morning.

[08:15:00]

And this is because of the five terminals here at George Bush Intercontinental Airport. Only two of the terminals have open TSA security lines. And both of those are ranging between three and four hours at that time.

Yesterday, we saw that fluctuate but really stayed up around the four- hour mark throughout much of the day. It wasn't until later in the afternoon where things settled down. But Houston airport officials are describing and put out a statement kind of describing the challenges that they're under right now.

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JIM SZCZESNIAK, DIRECTOR OF AVIATION FOR HUSTON AIRPORTS: Here at George Bush Intercontinental Airport, we typically operate 37 TSA checkpoint lanes. At this point, TSA is only able to staff somewhere between a third to 50 percent of them. So that's 100 percent spring break loads going through the airport being processed through less than 50 percent of our TSA lanes.

That is not sustainable. Just yesterday, I watched an officer receive a gas card from one of our partners. They had tears in their eyes knowing that they could fill up their tank to get home and come back to work to help keep these lines moving.

That's the reality right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAVANDERA: And, you know, Erica, what we hear over and over from passengers is a great deal of frustration with politicians over all of this, a great deal of concern for TSA agents that are working without pay. And the callout right here at George Bush Intercontinental Airport over the last several days has been close to 40 percent. So you can understand the impact of why this airport is so severely impacted and leaving people in situations like this as they navigate these incredibly long lines.

And remember, at some point during the day, over the last three days, the lines have stretched all the way down into the basement subterranean level of this airport as well -- Erica.

HILL: Wow. It is really something, Ed. Really appreciate it. And quite the bird's eye view there. It really does set the scene. Thank you.

We are also closely following the price of gas for you as it just comes close to that $4 a gallon average, although where you are, of course, it could already be well over that. We have a closer look at when you may be able to expect some relief.

There are also new developments to tell you about this morning following a hate crime. Two people have been arrested for. Police say was clearly an anti-Semitic arson attack.

[08:20:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIDNER: New this morning, the national average of a gallon of gas just below $4 a gallon, although some states like California, Arizona, Washington are now well above that. CNN's David Goldman back with us. Look, we thought that it might go above -- to $4 a gallon. It's kind of hung out at 3.98, which, you know, what's the difference to us, right? It's only a couple of pennies. But why do you think that is that we've kind of hovered there?

DAVID GOLDMAN, CNN BUSINESS SENIOR REPORTER: Well, oil's been hovering. Right. So we had this enormous increase, about $30 to over $100.

And then it kind of sat there between $100 and $110. And that's the biggest component of gasoline. And so when oil is hovering around there, gas is going to hover around there.

But I got some bad news. There was just an explosion in a Valero plant in Port Arthur, Texas. Wholesale gasoline prices are up another 10 cents.

So this price could get a little bit higher pretty soon.

SIDNER: Wow. I remember we saw some of the video of that. And any time something happens to a refinery locally within the United States, you do see a ripple effect from that, correct?

GOLDMAN: That's right. So there's so many reasons why gas prices go higher. And one big reason is the refinery -- the refining can, you know, that's a huge component of all of this.

They got to get that onto the tankers. They got to get that to your gas station. So that's not great news.

SIDNER: We are seeing the numbers for the amount of money for oil go down significantly. I mean, it was at 110 and then it's dropped to, I think, something like $87 per gallon. Oh, now it's gone back up a little bit to 88.

I mean, it's like a roller coaster every day. How quickly will that translate?

GOLDMAN: Not quickly, unfortunately. So, I mean, first of all, we need to actually see some stabilization in the price of oil. And so certainly the market today is reacting to some enthusiasm that we might start to see the end of this war.

That would certainly be good news. But the Strait of Hormuz needs to reopen before any of that oil gets unlocked. And then that is going to start to creep lower in gas prices -- make those gas prices start to creep lower.

But this could be many, many weeks, if not months, before we start to see gas prices really meaningfully decline.

SIDNER: Yeah, they're watching to see because they're trying to hold on to what they have to see if the Strait of Hormuz opens and then there can be some relaxing of prices as well. David Goldman, it's appreciated. Thank you for coming in.

GOLDMAN: Thank you.

SIDNER: All right, coming up this morning. In the first interview since her mom disappeared, Savannah Guthrie is talking about it, her plea and what she said about the search for her mother. She has a conversation with Hoda Kotb.

And why the maker of ChatGPT is shutting down its video application just months after it launched.

[08:25:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIDNER: All right, this is just moments ago. You hear those cheers, that's the pictures of Dennis Coyle, who has been held captive by the Taliban for about a year now.

He's now back on U.S. soil, arriving moments ago there in San Antonio. Let's just let you see what happened as he's coming off of the plane. He was there as an academic.

He had been there on and off, spent nearly 20 years working in Afghanistan. And then he was captured by the Taliban. And let's listen a little bit to just the sights and sounds of him finally stepping down on American soil safe.

There he's hugging family members. You could hear them cheering. What a reunion, my goodness, the fear that these family members have felt over the past year for him in captivity by the Taliban. Now he has been set free.

There are, of course, other Americans, two other U.S. citizens who remain detained in Afghanistan. But today there is delight, there is happiness, there is relief by the family of Mr. Coyle.

This morning, CNN has learned more U.S. soldiers in another scenario, preparing to deploy ...

[08:30:00]