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CNN This Morning

Agreements with Iran; Concerns After LaGuardia Crash; John Pistole is Interviewed about ICE at Airports; Trump Tying DHS Deal to SAVE Act. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired March 24, 2026 - 06:30   ET

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

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[06:33:48]

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everybody. I'm Audie Cornish. I want to thank you for joining me on CNN THIS MORNING.

It is now 33 minutes past the hour. And here's what's happening right now.

Lines stretching hours long already this morning. Now, this video is from Atlanta. We are seeing the line stretch outside the airport in Houston. The wait time hitting more than four hours long. And throughout the hour at the bottom of the screen you can check your airport for the wait times or on the CNN app.

In the meantime, Senate Republicans say they have a plan to fund the Department of Homeland Security. And if accepted, it would fund everything from a small portion of the immigration -- except for a small portion of the immigration enforcement budget. And Republicans would then fund ICE through a separate mechanism called reconciliation.

And the department is getting a new secretary. Senator Markwayne Mullin will be sworn in later today.

Canadian and U.S. authorities investigating the fatal collision between an Air Canada flight and a fire truck on the runway at LaGuardia Airport. That happened Sunday night. And that crash killed two pilots and injured dozens of people. Now, as a result, hundreds of flights have been canceled. The runway involved in the accident will remain closed until 7:00 a.m. Friday.

[06:35:04]

And buildings and cars now burning across Tel Aviv after an Iranian missile attack. At least four impact sites were reported across the city, resulting in six injuries reported so far. Israeli police say bomb squads are also being deployed to deal with fallen explosives.

So, we want to talk about whether there is any sign the war with Iran might be ending. Is there a diplomatic off ramp? It depends on who you listen to. So, after backing away from a threat to bomb power plants, President Trump claims Iranian leaders have signed off on, quote, "major points of an agreement."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We are now having really good discussions. They started last night. A little bit the night before that. And I think they're, you know, I think they're very good. They want to -- they want peace. They've agreed they will not have a nuclear weapon, you know, et cetera, et cetera.

We'll see how that goes. And if it goes well, we're going to end up with settling this. Otherwise, we'll just keep bombing our little hearts out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Iran's foreign ministry denies dialog is happening between Washington and Tehran. The speaker of Iran's parliament went on social media and called those reports, quote, "fake news."

So, joining the group chat to talk about this is Peter Bergen, CNN national security analyst.

Peter, I wanted to talk to you because that foreign minister didn't just say it was fake news. In a social media post, he said that it's fake news "used to manipulate the financial and oil markets and escape the quagmire in which the U.S. and Israel are trapped."

Sort of an acknowledgment that all this talk of the Strait of Hormuz and oil markets, they think this is their leverage point.

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yes, I mean, it seems to be true in the sense that the dialog that may be happening, you know, through Pakistan potentially, which has not been involved in these kinds of indirect talks in the past. Trump is sort of a fan of the Pakistanis. You may recall, Audie, that they nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize --

CORNISH: Right.

BERGEN: Because he supposedly stopped the war between India and Pakistan that was brewing. So, he is -- he is -- yes, they have good relations. He's called the General Munir, who's effectively the guy who runs Pakistan, his favorite field marshal. And so -- and the Pakistanis have a large Shia population.

So, the Omanis have tried to negotiate in the past. The Qataris have tried to negotiate in the past. And one way or another, they must feel pretty burned. The Qataris had their major gas field basically blown up, taken offline for up to five years.

CORNISH: Burned, meaning while there are talks, there is an attack of one kind or another, when people are brought to the table?

BERGEN: Well, meaning that, I mean, the Qataris have negotiated for a long time, you know, on, you know, have been involved in negotiations. But Iran just did blow up their major gas field, which is 20 percent of global gas production.

The Omanis, you know, they were negotiating just before this war began with -- between the United States and Iran. So, here we have the Pakistanis as a potential new vector. So, I'm -- I think that's a real thing potentially, but it's a long way from direct negotiations. It's a long way from a 15-point agreement that everybody's agreed to, which is what the president has said.

And, oh, by the way, the Iranians want compensation for all the damage. They want American forces to be reduced in the region. And they want greater control of the Strait of Hormuz, including potentially charging $2 million a ship. I did some back of the envelope math. That would be at least $1 billion a week in additional revenue to the Iranians. And so, they've learned from this that they obviously control the strait, and they can actually make money out of this.

CORNISH: Is there an end scenario where the U.S., at least the U.S., I won't say the U.S. and Israel can say, look, we have diminished their nuclear capabilities. We've diminished long range missile capabilities, and we have control of the Strait of Hormuz. Let's get out of here. We're done. And then regime change -- all those other things that we were introduced to are no longer considered the benchmark for success.

BERGEN: We've been here before in a sense, Audie. You know, President Obama said, you know, we're pulling all troops out of Iraq in December 2011. Three years later, ISIS look over much of the country. Merely because the United States says the war is over doesn't mean conflict has ended and doesn't mean some worse regime could come down the pike.

So, you know, we may say, and I'm -- you know, at a certain point Trump surely will declare victory for all the obvious reasons, but that doesn't mean that, you know, the actual situation is over.

CORNISH: One other question. Are the U.S. and Israel aligned about those potential scenarios, or even where we are in this moment?

BERGEN: I don't think they're aligned at all. I mean Israel wants the state collapse. That's why they attacked that facility that produces 70 percent of Iran's energy. Our goal is not necessarily state collapse. Our goal appears to be to find somebody like Delcy Rodriguez, which I think is a kind of pipe dream --

CORNISH: Right.

BERGEN: Who would take over and be sort of somewhat compliant.

CORNISH: But we heard Trump say, like, to Israel, look, we don't want you attacking energy infrastructure.

BERGEN: Right.

CORNISH: That seems to be the thing the U.S. is not interested in, long term destruction of the energy infrastructure.

[06:40:03]

BERGEN: Agreed. Completely.

CORNISH: OK, Peter Bergen, thank you so much for being here.

BERGEN: Thank you.

CORNISH: We're going to continue to follow the story out of the airports, because there's been big impacts after that fatal collision at LaGuardia Airport. Now, air travel in this country, already impacted by the slowdowns. We're talking the TSA workers who haven't been paid. Which means, is air travel for Americans actually less safe right now?

Joining me to discuss, CNN's senior national security analyst Juliette Kayyem.

Juliette, you've been writing about this for "The Atlantic." When you talk about warning signs, specifically, give me one or two, and who was supposed to fix them?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: So, it varies depending on where we're talking about. And your previous guest from the FAA, you know, discuss how these aren't individual mistakes or aren't often individual mistakes, they're systems.

So, how are the systems under stress? Well, we're not paying TSA agents. That -- the impact of that after several weeks should have been known by DHS in terms of what was it going to be a surge capacity, how were they going to get these lines moving. Instead, nothing is done. You then have a crisis. And now we have the deployment of ICE, which is not appearing to be much of a solution at all.

Move over to the FAA. There were -- there have been a number of what, you know, of what, you know, close calls, right? It is -- it is -- these are flashing red lights for both the system, not just an individual, and that the fact that the system was telling us through these close calls across the United States that we needed to alleviate some of the stresses on the FAA. Part of that is, of course, the downsizing of the government. It may not have applied to air traffic controllers, but it certainly applied across the board to the FAA. So, that's what I'm looking at is, not can we blame an individual or an airport, how are these systems now under stress because, you know, governance is different than governing.

CORNISH: Yes.

KAYYEM: And we have to govern these systems.

CORNISH: And I want to say, systems are people.

KAYYEM: Yes.

CORNISH: So, if you look at the call-in rates at a Houston, at an Atlanta, you can see workers voting with their feet as they struggle through a second government shutdown.

This brings me to the solution. The president deciding that he's going to move ICE agents into some of these airports to help alleviate the stress. Homan said to do things like the security elements, maybe stand at doors, things like that.

Here is Trump on Monday talking about whose idea it was.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thank you very much.

REPORTER: Whose idea was that to put ICE at the airport?

TRUMP: We're dealing really --

REPORTER: Whose idea was it?

TRUMP: Mine. That was mine.

REPORTER: And can I ask, you said that there --

TRUMP: That was like the paper clip. You know the story of the paper clip? One hundred and eighty-two years ago, a man discovered the paper clip. It was so simple, and everybody that looked at it said, why didn't I think of that? ICE was my idea. I called -- the first person I called was Tom Homan. I said, what do you think? He said, I think it's great.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Now, Julliette, one more, because the other person who thinks this is great is Steve Bannon, who talked about it on his "War Room" podcast.

Here's his clip there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE BANNON, HOST, "WAR ROOM": I what the mainstream media's head to blow up today. We can use what's happening with these ICE helping out -- helping out at the airports, we can use this as a test run, as a test case to get -- really perfect ISIS involvement in the 2026 midterm elections, sir?

MIKE DAVIS, CONSERVATIVE LEGAL ACTIVIST: Yes, I think we should have ICE agents at the polling places because, if you're an illegal alien, you can't vote, right?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Can you talk about this?

KAYYEM: Yes. This has been a concern. The extent to which Donald Trump sort of uses ICE as the solution to the public policy problems that are engendered a lot of times by the White House. So, he pushes something to a crisis and then has ICE deployed to various areas. So, let's just do a reality check here.

The crises are created by essentially a White House or a governing system that is not paying attention to how these systems actually work. So, I don't -- I don't necessarily buy into the sort of crisis mentality going into 2026 and the election. And then, of course, the politics of this. ICE is not a benign federal law enforcement agency to many, many Americans. It is widely -- its tactics are widely disapproved of. We know certainly what happened with the killings of Americans. And its very existence at places where people are not in a position to either defend themselves or show an I.D., say a polling place, is one that people legitimately fear will curb behavior, whether it is the right to travel, but more importantly the right to vote.

[06:45:05]

So, I think it is a distressing --

CORNISH: Juliette, can I ask you one other thing.

KAYYEM: Yes.

CORNISH: You know, we are going to have a new leader in Markwayne Mullin. Greg Bovino has been retired. Kristi Noem is gone. So, this will be the first major ICE operation where we'll have a sense of what the new ICE looks like. But I can't help but remember when Greg Bovino pushed this idea of what he called consensual encounters. You strike up a conversation with someone in public and then you say, and what is your status as a citizen? I can't imagine this being deployed at the airport. Like, this seems like the last place you want to have this conversation. But is it going to be the place where we are going to have this conversation over the next few days?

KAYYEM: I worry about that only because we don't know what the rules of engagement are for ICE at these airports because Trump apparently makes a decision on his own one evening, and we are -- they're deployed about 36 hours later. So, I -- there is no standard operating procedure for ICE. They've just been deployed. We see plenty of pictures of them going up and down escalators. We don't know what they're doing. The numbers suggest that at least on day one there wasn't a significant impact in long lines for some of these major airports.

So, then they just become an, you know, armed officials at airports, which are supposed to be places in which people are just trying to move from point a to point b. I've talked to people in the airline industry. They do not like this. They want the lines moved, but this is going to intimidate people in terms of airline experiences. So, look, you can deploy whoever you want. That doesn't mean that they know what to do or what the rules are when they're there.

And I suspect over time -- look, loose rules of engagement will not -- will -- can be dangerous over time because they simply don't know what they're supposed to be doing. That's a lot of people. And looking at this picture, that's a lot of people walking around.

CORNISH: Yes. OK. Juliette, thank you so much for talking with us.

And next on CNN THIS MORNING, we're going to talk more about those ICE agents. We want to know whether it is helpful or whether, as Juliette said, it's a kind of security theater. We're going to hear from a former TSA administrator.

Plus, this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Make this one for Jesus, OK?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: OK, so pass the SAVE Act for Jesus. Will the president's pressure get more Republicans on board?

And oil prices are falling, but will the price of gas follow?

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[06:51:52]

CORNISH: All right, so as this shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, tied to immigration enforcement, creates travel chaos across the country, those same ICE officers, well, now they're patrolling some airports. The Trump administration deployed ICE to at least 14 airports across the country Monday. Their exact mission remains unclear since they are not trained in airport security. And this is putting some passengers on edge.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What kind of security are they going to provide? Is it the same type of security they're doing in Minneapolis, you know, where even U.S. citizens are going to be concerned about, you know, not having the right paperwork?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think that will be a very uncomfortable situation for everybody.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's definitely going to freak a lot of people out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We could fund TSA a lot less expensive than we can send ICE here and put them up in hotels and all the things that go along with that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Joining me now to talk about this, John Pistole, former TSA administrator.

Thank you for being here. I don't think I can say it better than the people at the airport where

they are wondering, are they going to see the same ICE tactics that they saw on TV, or if they are from some of these cities where they've seen it in action, only now in a place, like the airport, where, let's face it, you're a captive audience?

JOHN PISTOLE, FORMER TSA ADMINISTRATOR: Right. Right. Good questions, Audie. And those people that you interviewed, spot on in terms of what is the mission of those ICE officers at the airport? And at least in my 31 years in government and in leadership positions at TSA and the FBI, the question always became, you know, are -- what are we trying to do? What are the con-ops, the concept of operations, and are they smart goals or are they specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, timely? Are they smart? And I wonder if these ICE officers were interviewed, what would they say their job is to do other than they've been told to go there? They're clearly not helping out at the TSA security checkpoints, which is good because they're not trained to do that. But it doesn't seem like that's -- they are helping facilitate the movement of the people in a -- in an effective, efficient way. And I -- it seems like that's what the president was saying that's what they're there for to help get these lines down and help TSA. So --

CORNISH: Yes. But you've also had these call out rates, right, in places like New Orleans, Atlanta. The number of agents, TSA agents calling out and saying, I'm not coming in, it's clearing past 35 percent. So, what Homan had said was, look, sometimes you need someone to stand at an exit, and maybe that should be an ICE agent who has some security experience, versus a TSA agent, who theoretically can run the x-ray machine.

PISTOLE: Well, and that's right. And I agree with that. Look, TSA is at almost 435 airports around the country. And in some of those airports, TSA officers are assigned to be at the exit lanes where people can go out of the secure area. So, if ICE officers can sit there and free up those TSA officers, then that's a good thing.

[06:55:01]

The other thing I think is beneficial from one sense is, these long lines are a soft target for a putative terrorist, somebody who wants to come in and make a name for themselves, for their cause. And so if the -- somebody comes in, any one of these terminals around the country where we have these long lines, hundreds, thousands, perhaps, people just winding back and forth, and they see these armed officers, that may be a visible deterrent. So, that could be a good thing.

So, it's just a question, what is their assignment? What are their goals? And is it smart?

CORNISH: I think one of the things, reporting on this this week, and reporting on, let's say, the crash at LaGuardia, is from a layman's point of view, you see an air system under strain. You see air traffic control shortage not solved. You see every time lawmakers have a budget issue, it's like, the airport kind of ends up the pivot point because they know that's where it will cause complaints from us. And over time, do you basically undermine the structure itself? Meaning, who wants to do any of these jobs when you look at what happens?

PISTOLE: Well, I think that's exactly right, Audie. And as has been reported, there's been over 400 TSA officers resign since this shutdown began. Last fall there were over 1,100 over the 42 day shutdown who resigned. Now, TSA has about a seven percent attrition rate every year of TSOs, the officers. So, that's -- that's a fair number in and of itself if you think of 50,000 to 55,000 TSOs. So, that attrition is normal. But the question is, do we weaken the system and does some potential terrorists try to exploit what they see as a vulnerability right now? They're -- that's my concern as a security professional is, what are we doing to weaken the system, to your point? And so I think that's a spot-on --

CORNISH: Right. And we're showing Houston right now. We were showing some lines earlier that were out the door, right? Like, you're not in a secure place.

PISTOLE: No. No. Two hundred and forty -- yes, and that's so you don't even have to -- you know, a terrorist doesn't -- a bad person or somebody with a mental illness and a gun, which obviously is easy to get in this country, doesn't have to do much to make a name for themselves or their cause. And oh, by the way, we're at war with Iran. So, does that make any sense to be doing this at such a time as this? No, I don't think so.

CORNISH: Well, let me end there. John Pistole, thank you so much.

I want to turn to the panel because he has raised a good question. Does this make any sense? You've got Senate Republicans, you've got people trying to come up with a plan for a deal. They left a meeting on Monday night thinking that they had one, and the president came out and basically said, no, thank you.

Here he is in Tennessee on Monday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm tying Homeland Security into voter identification with picture and proof of citizenship in order to vote. And those two items are the most important thing having to do with Homeland Security. So, it's part -- it should be part of the Homeland Security bill.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: And then let's talk about why he wants to do this, which also came out over the course of this conversation.

Here he is again in Tennessee.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (December 10, 2025): I want to win. And winning the midterms is important.

TRUMP (January 6, 2026): You got to win the midterms. Because if we don't win the midterms, it's just going to be -- I mean they'll find a reason to impeach me.

Now I won't say cancel the election, they should cancel the election, because the fake news will say he wants the elections canceled. He's a dictator.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: And let me correct myself there, those are over the last couple of weeks.

This is the thing that is confusing me, tying your voter thing to your Homeland Security thing, to your ICE thing. It creates a legislative gordian knot that I don't understand.

DOUG HEYE, FORMER RNC COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: No. And look, that's what Donald Trump wants is to have the conversation centered where he wants it to be. And it's clearly on the SAVE Act. And for Senate Republicans, even House Republicans as well, this isn't necessarily what they want to be talking about. But the reality is, Donald Trump moves the political discourse to where he wants it. And we always follow where the bouncing ball goes.

CORNISH: Yes, here's Senator Kennedy, he was speaking, we mentioned this earlier. Here's how he talked about what's going on.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA): And that way we're out of the shutdown. And DHS is back open. We submitted that. Senator Thune submitted that to President Trump, as is his right. He said, no. No deals with the Democrats. So, we're back to square one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SABRINA RODRIGUEZ, POLITICS REPORTER, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": I mean seeing this conversation that's playing out, whether it's about the SAVE Act, whether it is about ICE, or whether it's about DHS funding, the thing that's concerning to me is having focused so much on voters and spending time out in America talking to folks is, this just sows further distrust in the government.

[07:00:02]

This just sows more chaos. This sows more -- for people who already are thinking, does the government work, does Congress work, do the systems in this country work? Seeing all of this, regardless of what side of the aisle you are or how politically engaged you are, there's more -- you're --

CORNISH: Yes. And we haven't played a clip from a voter at the airport that's like, what's going on? I don't understand. They're like, I blame Congress. I blame the White House.

RODRIGUEZ: Yes, this is just all confusing. Yes.

CORNISH: Yes. Well, sorry if you're still in the line. We've got more reporting coming up today, so hopefully we'll an update for you.

I'm Audie Cornish and the headlines are next.