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Markwayne Mullin One Step Closer To Becoming DHS Secretary; Democrats Walk Out On AG Bondi's Meeting With Oversight Committee; Back-To-Back Premiere Of "Standoff: The FBI, Power And Paranoia." Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired March 19, 2026 - 12:30   ET

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

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[12:30:33]

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: Senator Markwayne Mullin, President Trump's pick to take over the Department of Homeland Security, just cleared his first major hurdle to the nomination and confirmation.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In this vote, the yeas are eight, the nays are seven, and the motion to report the nominee is agreed to.

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BASH: That hurdle took the form of the GOP chair of the Homeland Security Committee, Rand Paul, voting against Mullin. He says he has concerns about Mullin's temperament and a history, he says, of violent rhetoric, but the two also have a personal history.

Mullin squeaked through, though, after Democratic Senator John Fetterman crossed party lines to vote for Mullin. The senator will now move on to a vote at some point in the near future, we assume, by the whole U.S. Senate.

My smart panel is back now. And Liz, let me just read what Senator Fetterman's reasoning was that he posted on social media this morning. "In January, I called on the president to fire Noem, and he did. I truly approached the confirmation of my colleague and friend, Senator Mullin, with an open mind. We need a leader at DHS. We must reopen DHS.

My eye is rooted in a strong, committed, constructive working relationship with Senator Mullin for our nation's security."

LIZ GOODWIN, NATIONAL POLITICS REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: So, you know, Senator Fetterman's a bit of an outlier among Democrats these days, to say the least. But I do think his reasoning there, I think there's other Democrats who feel the same way, even if they wouldn't vote for Mullin because of just how angry the base is about immigration enforcement right now. But there's a real hope among some Democrats that Senator Mullin will lead the agency in, you know, a more, in their view, humane way. And I think Fetterman's reasoning there that he's a little bit more bipartisan. They have relationships. I think it's sort of like the way some senators voted for Marco Rubio --

BASH: Yes.

GOODWIN: -- initially. They like having that relationship and being able to, you know, personally call the secretary if they have an issue. I don't know how many will be willing to actually, you know, go on the record with that, but it's not -- his reasoning isn't as much of an outlier as you would think.

BASH: Yes. Probably not many.

GOODWIN: Yes.

BASH: But maybe we can be surprised when the full Senate votes. And my understanding is, the argument that Senator Fetterman makes is that who are you going to get that's better? Or who are you going to get that would be appointed by a President Trump that we can work with in a more productive way than Senator Mullin right now? And obviously his answer is no one.

JASMINE WRIGHT, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: And in a record time, because Kristi Noem is only on the job until March 31st. Obviously, that's just happening next week. I think what has been interesting in watching that confirmation hearing yesterday is just how few people were defending Noem. It didn't feel like anybody was really going to miss her.

You saw Mullin make two distinctive changes among a couple others. One, that they would only use judicial warrants except for if they were pursuing somebody into a house. Obviously, there's been that fight with judicial warrants and administrative warrants. And then also that they -- he wouldn't have that $100,000 clearing rate that Kristi Noem had, basically saying it was micromanaging.

I talked to one administration official yesterday who basically said that those changes that, you know, Mullin said were blessed by the White House, and it should be seen in a way as -- that he is going to be leading the agency much differently than Kristi Noem who basically --

BASH: Which he basically said.

WRIGHT: Yes.

BASH: Mullin said.

WRIGHT: Who basically everybody had a problem with in D.C. and beyond. And so even though they're not ready to make concessions on the funding side, you know, this in and of itself is a bit of a concession. BASH: Can we just talk about Rand Paul for a minute? We played like a lot of that exchange on the show yesterday, shortly after it happened. But now that the vote has happened and Senator Paul voted no, which we expected, just like take a step back, Jeff Zeleny, on the idea that you have a Republican chairman of a pretty important committee saying, I am not voting for my colleague in the United States Senate because obviously they have a big personal beef.

But as part of that, Senator Paul says that he doesn't think that Mullin has the character or temperament for the job. I mean, this should not go unnoted. It is a big deal.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: It is a big deal, without a doubt, with a lot of layers to it. I mean, Rand Paul obviously is one of the Republicans who votes most consistently against the Trump administration, certainly in the Senate. His Kentucky colleague in the House, Thomas Massie, does it in the House.

[12:35:06]

But this is more than that. This is very personal. You saw the questions there from Senator Rand Paul yesterday morning. But talking to several Republicans yesterday, it also was just such a personal airing of grievances that took things well beyond the purview of the Department of Homeland Security.

For all the questions to ask about the next leader of the Homeland Security department, Senator Paul was focused on something that happened in the past. Obviously, he was using it to try and bring out his personal character, but it's extraordinary. It's one of those moments in Washington, there aren't that many, where there's intra- party tensions and bad blood, and this bad blood was clearly spilling out there.

But the -- I think it's clear that Senator Markwayne Mullin has a lot of actually more positive relationships --

BASH (?): Yes.

ZELENY: -- with most of the senators, including a lot of Democrats, who won't vote for him necessarily, but he will get through, there's no doubt.

BASH: Yes, I mean, Senator Paul was attacked by a neighbor. He was really, really injured, and he's --

ZELENY: For sure.

BASH: -- wanted Senator Mullin to say, I'm sorry for effectively saying, like, he asked for it --

ZELENY: He deserved it.

BASH: -- and he wouldn't do it. We have to talk for a second about what Mullin is going to be inheriting, and that is, at least right now, a department that's shut down because of differences over ICE and ICE tactics. That is not something that the senators there, at least the Democrats, said that they were going to let up on.

Let's listen to an exchange that happened late yesterday afternoon between Mullin and Elissa Slotkin.

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SEN. MARKWAYNE MULLIN (R), OKLAHOMA: I don't think there needs to be a wall to change that. I think I can work within what is there, but there's an approach that can happen, but we've got to have partners.

SEN. ELISSA SLOTKIN (D), MICHIGAN: Yes, I understand, I understand. But I -- I would just -- we're not going to agree to this here, but I would just say, the ability, you know, the trust is gone, and not just with Democrats. That's why we're here --

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BASH: Liz?

GOODWIN: Yes, I mean, they're so dug in on this issue. TSA agents have missed their paychecks, so we're kind of past the pain point when normally people are forced to solve these issues because, you know, the crisis has begun. We're there.

BASH: Yes.

GOODWIN: And it doesn't really feel like they've made a lot of headway at all. I think Senator Mullin said he was willing to, you know, ease up on this judicial warrant issue that was a big sticking point for Democrats, and he does seem to want to negotiate and try to get this fixed, but as of right now, there's a lot of bad blood, and it doesn't look great.

BASH: Yes. A lot of bad blood. We're not just talking about here in Washington. I mean, we have been reporting day in and day out on the increasing wait times and understandable frustration among the traveling public and, you know, among the people who are still working for TSA and are not getting a paycheck and are really, really struggling.

All right, everybody stand by. A quote here, "unmitigated circus." Attorney General Pam Bondi's meeting with lawmakers on Epstein, and that investigation goes off the rails. What happened? We'll tell you.

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BASH: Unmitigated circus. That's how one source described Attorney General Pam Bondi's voluntary meeting with Oversight Committee members on the Epstein investigation. Two things are certain. It was brief and messy. Democratic lawmakers who abruptly walked out put it this way.

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REP. ROBERT GARCIA (D), RANKING MEMBER, OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE: We just walked out of what has been, quite frankly, a complete disrespect of the process. We did not get to answer, ask any questions. This has been completely set up in a way that's been irresponsible, and quite frankly, we believe a way for the Attorney General to get out of her answering questions under oath and to the public, which we will not accept.

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BASH: That was the top Democrat on the committee, Robert Garcia. He says Bondi refused to commit to complying with a scheduled April 14th deposition under oath. This was Bondi's take.

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PAM BONDI, ATTORNEY GENERAL: I made it crystal clear, I will follow the law.

Next question.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But --

BONDI: We were there to answer questions. It's the evening. We came at their convenience. We gave them really as much time as they wanted, and one Congresswoman screamed C-SPAN wasn't in there. We sat there saying, anything you want to ask us, ask us anything you want to ask us, and they screamed C-SPAN wasn't there, one of them, and then they stormed out of the meeting.

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BASH: Our smart reporters are back here. Jasmine, this is notable for lots of reasons. Not the least of which is, you know, while the war in Iran is happening, so much is going on. The idea of what is really happening at the Justice Department with these Epstein files and the investigation, it is still a priority for Republicans and Democrats in the House. How they go about it and how this particular questioning of the Attorney General, that's where they diverge.

WRIGHT: Yes, great promo for C-SPAN there. But I would just say that, look, this administration has been concerned that even if they were to unveil all of the Epstein files, which we know they were then made to by the legislation, that that would not stop all the furor around this idea that people in elite places are being protected by government services that have potentially trafficked women, right? That's at the heart of this.

[12:45:23]

And I think that administration officials, in releasing it, had hoped that maybe it would tamp down some of that by being more transparent, of course, because of that law. But we're seeing that it's not just going away. Every month, every two months, it becomes another issue because people want to know more information.

BASH: That's right. WRIGHT: And I think that the administration largely has been -- I mean, we heard Susie Wiles in that Vanity Fair article, criticize how Pam Bondi has handled this issue. And again, she is now at the heart of another controversy, another scandal about whether or not the Department of Justice is actually being transparent, even if she believes that it's Democrats being political about it.

And so this is just another time in which this administration has to deal with this issue that a lot of Americans care about and feel that they are not getting answers, and perhaps, according to polling, feel that they may never get the amount of answers that they deserve.

BASH: Yes, because what Bondi did in this closed-door hearing is, to all of the questions that she was getting asked, the answer was, I will follow the law. And that was about it, apparently.

Part of what we heard when everything was sort of spilling out last night when this, as it was described, a circus happened, was that the chairman, Congressman Comer, told Summer Lee, a Democratic congresswoman, to stop bitching during the meeting. Summer Lee came on with Kaitlan last night, Kaitlan Collins. Here's what she said.

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REP. SUMMER LEE (D), PENNSYLVANIA: There's no reason for her to demur. There's no reason for her to tiptoe around it. The answer is, is I was legally subpoenaed by this committee and that I will be there. But the answer would have also been that because I was legally subpoenaed, I would have also released all of the files, and she hasn't done that yet either.

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BASH: Liz?

GOODWIN: Yes, I think you see here that Democrats really sense that Pam Bondi could be the next big target, right? Like, Kristi Noem is now out, and Bondi is another cabinet official who occasionally draws the ire of MAGA and of people in Trump's movement, and I think they sense that there's weakness there. There's already impeachment pushes happening on the Democratic side aimed at her, and I think this is kind of showing that she's their next sort of hope that they can get.

BASH: And remember, the only reason why this is even a thing, why any Epstein files were released at all, is because there were a handful of Republicans who joined with Democrats to say, let's release the files. I think we have a list of them that we can put up on the screen. There you see them.

After this meeting last night, two of the Republicans -- I want to play two of them, Tim Burchett and Lauren Boebert, were not happy with the Democrats that they united with initially to get these released.

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REP. TIM BURCHETT (R), TENNESSEE: Yes, I thought it was very disingenuous of the Democrats to walk out. That was all staged. Everybody knows that. She was there. They had an opportunity and they blew it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You still think she should respond to her subpoena?

BURCHETT: If she wants to.

SEN. LAUREN BOEBERT (R), COLORADO: It really makes me not want to force her to come and sit through four hours of that.

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ZELENY: I mean, look, it's possible that the coalition of Republicans that led us to this point may change or crack, but one thing has been consistent through the whole Epstein saga. Eventually people have to testify. Eventually there's enough of an uprising where the ultimate outcome is that the people come forward and testify.

So it would seem to me that that's where this ultimately will go, that she will have to be deposed in a public hearing. But look, the -- this issue isn't going away despite the war and everything else. This is still, as Jasmine was saying, of huge importance to a large swathe of people, so I think stay tuned.

BASH: Yes. And, you know, that is an open question, whether they're going to get her to come and testify under oath, whether that will happen at all. And I think you're exactly right, the Democrats smell blood in the water with Pam Bondi. Unclear how accurate they are about that, because she seems to definitely have the support of the president. But as we know, sometimes that changes very quickly.

Thank you all very much. Appreciate it. We'll be right back.

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[12:54:11]

BASH: The relationship between the FBI director and the president has always been complicated. CNN examines the complex dynamic in the brand new original series, "Standoff: The FBI, Power, and Paranoia." Here's a preview.

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JAMES COMEY, FBI DIRECTOR: I started on the plane to digest that this is the last time I'm ever going to do this. I intentionally broke an FBI rule that no longer applied to me. I opened a bottle of wine.

JOSH CAMPBELL, FORMER FBI SUPERVISORY SPECIAL AGENT: So he pours himself this cup of wine and he's seated there. And at some moment, I walked up to him and said, hey, you got any extra? And he said, I thought you'd never ask.

I said, You know, I'm not allowed as an FBI agent to be drinking on the job, but I don't work for you anymore. And he started laughing. I mean, that was the nature of the relationship, that even in the most tense times, you can still find levity.

[12:55:00]

COMEY: And then a sadness started to hit me. And then it really hit me when the pilots created a space for me to come and sit between them as they landed at National Airport. Because this would be my last flight ever.

So I went up there and they choked up and I started to get emotional. And then I could feel it starting to hit me as I sat between them.

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BASH: Be sure to tune in. The back-to-back premiere of the CNN original series, "Standoff: The FBI Power and Paranoia," airs Sunday at 9:00 and 10:00 p.m.

Also, please be sure to tune in tomorrow night. I am going to be moderating a CNN special town hall, "War with Iran." The conversation I'll be moderating is with U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz. Waltz, as well as a panel of experts, will be taking questions from a live studio audience, hearing directly from Americans about how the conflict is impacting them. That is Friday, tomorrow, 9:00 p.m. Eastern, only here on CNN.

Thanks so much for joining Inside Politics. CNN News Central starts after a quick break.