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State of the Union

Interview With Rep. Riley Moore (R-WV); Interview With Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ); Interview With Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK); Interview With Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN). Aired 9-10a ET

Aired November 30, 2025 - 09:00   ET

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

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(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANA BASH, CNN HOST (voice-over): Drums of war. President Trump signals a U.S. attack on Venezuela could come any day.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We will be starting to stop them by land also. That's going to start very soon.

BASH: What threat does Venezuela and its president pose to the American people? Senator Mark Kelly is my guest.

Plus: Illegal orders? An American missile killed injured survivors of a first strike on a boat the Trump administration says was trafficking drugs. Top lawmakers on both sides of the aisle say they will investigate. Senate Armed Services Committee member Markwayne Mullin is ahead.

And mass expulsions? After the tragic shooting of two National Guard members, the president makes his most aggressive deportation threats yet.

TRUMP: We must take all necessary measures. No country can tolerate such a risk to our very survival.

BASH: Senator Amy Klobuchar weighs in, and our political panel breaks it down.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: Hello. I'm Dana Bash in Washington, where the state of our union is thankful, but anxious.

We're watching the skies over Venezuela after President Trump posted this on TRUTH Social yesterday -- quote -- "Please consider the airspace above and surrounding Venezuela to be closed in its entirety."

The U.S. military has already amassed more than a dozen warships and 15,000 troops into the region. Back here in the United States, President Trump is ramping up his immigration crackdown after an Afghan national who came to the U.S. legally is in custody for shooting two National Guard members here in Washington.

One of them, 20-year-old Sarah Beckstrom, died from her injuries. The other, 24-year-old Andrew Wolfe, is still fighting for his life. The Trump administration is now promising to reexamine the status of many legal immigrants, including the ones from Afghanistan.

Democratic Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona is now here with me.

Thank you so much for being here.

I do want to start with the immigration plans. He said he wants to reexamine the status of people who are in this country legally, which may include naturalized citizens, blocking migration from -- quote -- "Third World countries," pausing all asylum decisions from any country, and calling for -- quote -- "reverse migration."

SEN. MARK KELLY (D-AZ): Well, I think this is consistent with what we have seen from this president to date, rounding up people in their community.

He said he was going to go after drug dealers, gang members, criminals. What we have seen so far is a little bit of that and a lot of just breaking up communities, going after people like Kelly Yu, who is in an ICE detention center in Phoenix, who I visited, who is a business owner. She's got 70 employees.

She fled China 20 years ago, fleeing communist China, came to this country. She is undocumented. Her mom's a U.S. citizen. Her kid's a U.S. citizen. Sister's a U.S. citizen. She has a deportation order. She is no threat to anybody.

There are hundreds, if not thousands or tens of thousands of these people.

BASH: But these are legal immigrants that he's talking about.

KELLY: He's kicked out legal immigrants already. This is kind of more of the same from this president.

When he says things like Third World countries, what is he really saying? I think what he's saying is, he doesn't want brown people in our country. And that is disturbing and it's un-American.

BASH: The Trump administration says the man accused of the shootings of the two National Guard members wasn't vetted.

Now, to be clear, CNN is told that that's not true. There were multiple rounds of extensive vettings. But, all told, there are about 190,000 Afghans in the United States who were allowed to come after the military withdrawal. Are you confident that the process was thorough, the vetting process?

KELLY: Well, I think what happened to Andrew Wolfe and Sarah Beckstrom, horrific. She died. I'm praying for her family. I'm praying for him to recover from his injuries. It is a really horrible thing.

There needs to be an investigation and find out, why did this guy do this? Was he radicalized in Afghanistan or here in the United States? And if it makes sense to change some things, I think we need to do that. I used to have a commanding officer in the Navy that used to say, if you're not changing something, it's getting worse.

BASH: So the vetting system doesn't...

(CROSSTALK)

[09:05:00]

KELLY: I think looking and changing processes is something the government should be doing in every government agency, like, all the time.

But this president has an immigration policy right now that is not helping our country, that is tearing communities apart. We need comprehensive immigration reform. He's kicking out people that came here legally that pose no threat to anybody.

But go after the criminals, the drug dealers, the gang members.

BASH: I just want to be clear on what you're saying. Are you saying that all 190,000 Afghans in America should be re-vetted, that the process...

(CROSSTALK)

KELLY: No, I am not saying that.

BASH: OK.

KELLY: These are individuals that were fleeing the Taliban. Many of them worked alongside U.S. service members and provided a valuable service to the United States of America and deserve an opportunity to resettle in our country.

We're a country of immigrants.

BASH: An opportunity, but with renewed vetting?

KELLY: Well, people should be vetted. Hey, if you identify a certain number of individuals that you have another question about, I think that's fine to do that.

But going after a large group of people, most of which I think are just trying to live their lives, raise their families, go to work every day, the U.S. government harassing them years later does not make a lot of sense to me.

BASH: I want to turn to new questions around the first U.S. military strike in September on a ship that the administration says was carrying drugs. Now, sources tell CNN, after the missile struck the boat, there were

survivors and that a second strike was launched to kill anyone who was left. Secretary Pete Hegseth is defending the move, saying it is lawful under both U.S. and international law. What do you think?

KELLY: Well, Dana, I hope it's not true what is being reported. That would be very disturbing. I think there needs to be an inspector general investigation.

Pete Hegseth, who is totally unqualified to be secretary of defense, he fired a bunch of the I.G.s within the department. That makes this more challenging. I don't have a lot of confidence that he's going to investigate that.

That's why, in the Armed Services Committee in the Senate and the House, we're going to have hearings. We will have public hearings. We will put people under oath. We need to get to the bottom of this.

Hey, the U.S. military is the most powerful and effective military in the world. And we have got to be precise, and we have to be operating in accordance with U.S. law and international law always.

BASH: Based on what you -- what CNN is reporting, what "The Washington Post" is reporting, do you believe, if there was a second strike to eliminate any survivors, that that constitutes a war crime?

KELLY: It seems to.

If that is true, if what has been reported is accurate, I have got serious concerns about anybody in that chain of command stepping over a line that they should never step over. We are not Russia. We're not Iraq. We hold ourselves to a very high standard of professionalism.

And this is where I'm really troubled about this, is because I have so much respect for people in the United States Navy. I served in the Navy for 25 years. And there is no organization more professional than Navy SEALs. And they should be revered. And that's why I say I hope what I have heard about this strike is not accurate.

BASH: You mentioned that you were a captain in the Navy. If you received that order, would you have carried it out?

KELLY: No. No.

BASH: Defied orders?

KELLY: And I'm a guy who -- I have sunk two ships. I have sunk an OSA II missile patrol boat in Kuwait Harbor, a Polnocny troop carrier in the Persian Gulf during the first Gulf War.

I never in that situation questioned whether those strikes were legal. We were given an order to do this. It was a time of war. These were Iraqi ships with Iraqi crew members who posed a threat to the United States, military in this case, who -- they invaded Kuwait. We were trying to kick them out of Kuwait. This was approved by Congress, all of that, right? So -- but if I was ever given an order for a second -- I have had

questions about the operation in general -- and I have been saying this for weeks. Putting service members, kind of like, are you stepping over a line here? Is this legal?

They have tied themselves in knots trying to explain to us on the Armed Services Committee how this is legal, not sharing all of the information either, which is really troubling.

But going after survivors in the water, that is clearly not lawful.

BASH: You mentioned that Pete Hegseth should be held responsible. You mentioned that you would not answer the call if you were ordered to do this.

[09:10:02]

That was the gist of the video that you and five other members of Congress who all served in various capacities in the military put out there. You said: "Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders."

That video, I don't need to tell you, sparked a lot of outrage from the administration.

KELLY: Got a little attention.

BASH: Yes.

They launched an FBI investigation. Has the FBI knocked on your door yet? Have they asked...

KELLY: Well, first, let me start by saying, we said something very simple and noncontroversial, and the president of the United States said, hang them, execute them, prosecute them.

In my case, Secretary Hegseth said, prosecute him under the Uniform Code of Military Justice for, by the way, reciting the Uniform Code of Military Justice. It's obviously ridiculous.

But this is an attempt to silence me, to get me to not hold this administration accountable. We have a president who doesn't understand the Constitution, who installed an unqualified secretary of defense.

I cannot think of a secretary of defense in the history of our country that is less qualified than Pete Hegseth. He should not be in this position. He should have been fired after Signalgate. And now he should be fired again for this, if this -- if this is accurate.

So he's not going to get me to back down. And what -- but what he is doing is sending a very chilling message across our entire nation, not only in the military, but the civilian work force. Who's going to speak up and say anything if they see something that's unlawful or see something, waste, fraud and abuse?

Why would anyone speak out if they can go and prosecute, try to prosecute a U.S. senator? BASH: Is it happening?

KELLY: Well, I don't know.

BASH: Like, have they contacted you?

KELLY: I mean, I was notified -- but I was notified about this through a tweet, the same tweet that you saw.

And that demonstrates how unserious this administration is. They care -- they care more about the publicity about this than the process or the law. I haven't been notified by the Navy.

BASH: By the Navy or the FBI? So, no court-martial, no...

KELLY: We got something about -- from the FBI. But the thing we receive from the FBI -- just like the president said -- saying, that we should be hanged, the thing we received from the FBI is more intimidation.

BASH: What did it say?

KELLY: Well, it just said -- there was no point of contact. It had some thing about coming in for an interview. And the question here should be, why -- did the FBI decide to do this?

Or do you think maybe the president told the FBI director to go after these six members of Congress? So, more bullying and intimidation, but, Dana, I'm not backing down. These guys don't scare me. They're not serious people. I mean the president of the United States and the secretary of defense, neither of them.

BASH: Senator Mark Kelly, thank you for being here. Appreciate it.

KELLY: Thank you.

BASH: And just how close is the U.S. to striking Venezuela? I will talk to Republican Markwayne Mullin, senator from Oklahoma, one of the Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's closest allies in Congress.

Plus: After President Trump launched a racist and offensive attack on two Minnesota lawmakers, I will get reaction from the state's senior senator, Amy Klobuchar, live.

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BASH: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION.

President Trump declared that the airspace above and around Venezuela should be considered closed just days after threatening land action in the country -- quote -- "very soon." Venezuelan officials were quick to push back, calling President Trump's comments a -- quote -- "colonialist threat that constitutes an extravagant, illegal and unjustified aggression against the people of Venezuela." I want to bring in Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma.

Thank you so much for being here, sir.

Is the president planning to attack Venezuela?

SEN. MARKWAYNE MULLIN (R-OK): No, he's made it very clear we're not going to put troops into Venezuela. What we're trying to do is protect our own shores.

We have made it very clear to Maduro and to the Venezuelan people, which they're not the ones doing this -- it's Maduro that's doing this -- that we're not going to allow them to continue to use Venezuela as a terrorist country to ship in tons of drugs into the United States and continue to kill our brothers or sisters, our friends and family on the streets of the United States.

And so President Trump has tried to do this through closing down international water. They continue to ship drugs out. Now they're starting to fly them into the United States through tail numbers that are being disguised as either commercial flights or private flights.

And so the president's made it very clear he's shutting down the airspace. And, by the way, we gave Maduro an opportunity to leave. We said he could leave and go to Russia or he could go to another country. And the Venezuelan people themselves have also spoken up and said they want a new leader and restore Venezuela as the country...

BASH: So...

MULLIN: ... they used to be, a very prosperous country, but Maduro has absolutely ruined that country.

BASH: Senator, I want to ask you about that, but you said no troops on the ground. What about military airstrikes inside Venezuela?

MULLIN: No, he has not committed that either. He's protected -- he has protected or protecting the United States by being very proactive.

This is what peace through strength looks like. We're not going to wait until you come to us. We're going to go to you if you threaten our country. You keep in mind, this drug war that has taken place that the Biden administration turned a complete blind eye to in 2024 killed more Americans on our streets than the entire Vietnam War has.

[09:20:11]

And so -- or did. And so we are being very proactive by stopping them before they threaten us and threaten our shores. And I support the president in what he's doing here.

BASH: Senator, I have to ask. He is clearly very concerned about Central and South American presidents allegedly trafficking drugs to the United States.

So, if that's the case, why is he planning to pardon the former Honduran president who was convicted by an American jury of drug trafficking, who allegedly said -- this is according to testimony from his trial -- he would -- quote -- "shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos" by flooding the United States with cocaine?

MULLIN: Well, the particular circumstances, that I'm not quite aware of.

However, I do know we're trying to build relationships with Honduras. We're trying to build relationships throughout South America and Central America, because China has greatly influenced those countries in a negative way.

And it's not alleged that South and Central America and Mexico is flooding our streets with drugs. We know that's where they're coming from. And so I think, by building new relationships, by allowing people to have a new beginning, he's showing good faith, saying, hey, we're going to work with you as long as you work with us.

The minute you want to come punch us in the face, you want to continue to send your illegal drugs to us, we're going to be very proactive against you, which...

BASH: I...

MULLIN: ... this is what peace through strength looks like.

BASH: Yes, I understand you don't have...

MULLIN: I'm excited that we finally have a president that's taking a strong approach.

BASH: OK, I understand that presidential power is pretty much absolute. And I get that.

But as an ally of the president, as a Senator, you I'm sure have an opinion. Is, on the one hand, threatening Venezuela and Maduro, while on the -- Maduro -- and on the other hand, saying that you're going to pardon a guy who was convicted in American justice system for doing exactly what you're saying, intentionally poisoning Americans with drugs, is that a good idea?

MULLIN: Well, I wasn't involved in the conversations that he had with the president of Honduras at the time. I believe there's probably a good faith that is being stretched forth here.

If you saw the TRUTH Social post he put out, there was a direct message. I guarantee you the president's foreign affairs approach is one that's being very effective around the world, a lot better than the Biden administration. That's why world leaders are coming in every single day wanting to visit with the president.

That's why the president is able to stop eight foreign wars and hopefully nine if we can hopefully negotiate a deal between Ukraine and Russia, because the world leaders respect him. And so what the president is doing is always calculated. And I haven't had a direct relationship or conversation with the president about it, but I do trust his natural reaction and his approach to foreign affairs, because we can see it's being very, very effective.

BASH: I want to turn to new details we're learning about the U.S. attacks on a suspected drug boat which have killed dozens of people.

Now, sources tell CNN that, in the first strike in September, one missile disabled the ship and killed many of the crew members, but when some survived that first strike, the military launched a second strike to kill anyone who was left.

And these individuals were apparently unarmed, already injured from the original attack. Are you comfortable with that?

MULLIN: Well, I don't know if I believe that at all, because we're doing alleged sources. Nothing has been verified by this.

We do know that a survivor that did survive in later attacks was picked up by the United States Coast Guard or Navy, I'm not for sure, and was sent back to his country. You guys reported on that. So I doubt very seriously that took place.

And unless there was more to the story, that the boat was enabled again and they were trying to run again, I don't know, but I don't think this story is accurate. And we keep talking about something that's alleged. It's alleged.

It's not -- nothing's been proven at all about this. No one's come out and said it was accurate. It's just somebody by alleged source that anybody can name or make up that this supposedly took place.

BASH: Well, the chairman, the Republican chairman of your committee, Armed Services, in the Senate and the Republican chair of the House Armed Services Committee have both taken enough -- seen enough credence in this that they say that they are investigating in a bipartisan way, which we haven't seen a lot of in this administration so far.

They're promising vigorous oversight, to be precise. If they find through the vigorous oversight that...

MULLIN: Well, they didn't.

BASH: Go ahead.

MULLIN: Well, I was going to say, they didn't specifically name this issue. They said of the whole operation that's going on in international waters against the -- these terrorist organizations trying to flood our streets.

BASH: Well, they -- yes, it came out after.

MULLIN: They said they're going to have oversight of it. They didn't specifically name this particular situation. [09:25:01]

BASH: OK, but as part of...

MULLIN: And so -- and, by the way, in the House, they did the same thing.

BASH: OK, as part of that broad oversight process, and if they do find that the defense secretary gave an order to eliminate people who were already injured on a boat, which a lot of legal experts say is illegal -- Mark Kelly was just here and he said it's potentially a war crime.

Should Pete Hegseth face consequences?

MULLIN: Listen, you're once again making assumptions that's not even kind of accurate, I don't believe.

All we're doing is talking about an assumption. This isn't been proven. It hasn't been said it was actually true. And far as Mark Kelly, what he says, Mark Kelly is saying the most ridiculous things I have ever heard right now.

He's encouraging men and women uniform to question the orders of superior officers. He just got done saying that the president was racist because he doesn't like brown people. Yet I sit in front of you as a Cherokee Indian, and I'm very close friends with the president.

It's ridiculous what Mark Kelly is saying. He's losing credibility every single day. And this particular situation you're talking about once again is alleged over an anonymous source, which the media is really good about always trying to name some anonymous source, but then they make a big deal about it as though this is true.

BASH: So you just -- you don't think it's true?

MULLIN: This is not true information.

As I said before...

BASH: Full stop, do you know that it's not true?

MULLIN: No.

(CROSSTALK)

MULLIN: Why would it be true? And then we know that the president -- we know that the Navy or the Coast Guard had picked up survivors already and sent them back to the country. So now we're saying that they did it once and they didn't do it again?

I don't believe this at all.

BASH: OK, could that be because a lawyer in the Pentagon said, you can't do that again and then they didn't -- then they actually listened the second time? Is that possible? MULLIN: No. No, I -- Dana, absolutely not. And I don't know why we're

spending so much time on this. The president and the secretary of war has been very clear they're going to use lethality against our enemies home and abroad.

This has been very clear what's going on right now, that the drug organization that is considered a tourist -- a terrorist organization that is flooding our streets with drugs, is killing Americans every single day, they're being proactive on it. Good on them.

Are we doubting that these drug dealers are actually drug dealers? We think they're out there fishing? Do we doubt that this is a terrorist organization that's killing thousands and thousands of people on our streets? What are we questioning here?

These individuals don't care about the lives of our friends and families. Why do we care if we take them out in international water? It is a war because they have declared war on our streets. And the president and Secretary Hegseth is doing exactly what we should be doing, being proactive against our enemies.

And that's what they're doing here. And I applaud them for doing something, because the past administration did absolutely nothing while thousands of Americans died on our streets.

BASH: Yes. And I just want to point out that, again, that it's the Republican chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Republican chair of the House Armed Services Committee who say that they want to look at the whole operation, which you just described.

Thank you very much.

MULLIN: The whole operation.

BASH: Yes, Senator, thank you.

MULLIN: Well, we have oversight.

BASH: Yes. Well...

MULLIN: That's our job.

BASH: It is.

MULLIN: We have oversight. And there's nothing wrong with oversight.

BASH: It's not always -- absolutely. It just hasn't always been carried out in recent -- in recent months.

Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

MULLIN: Thank you.

BASH: As President Trump further cracks down on immigration, we will talk to a senator who has been one of the biggest advocates for Afghan allies coming to the U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar will be here next.

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[09:32:55]

BASH: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION.

As President Trump ramped up his crackdown on immigration, he made this claim on TRUTH Social -- quote -- "Hundreds of thousands of refugees from Somalia are completely taking over the once great state of Minnesota. Somalian gangs are roving the streets looking for prey, as our wonderful people stay locked in their apartments and houses, hoping against hope that they will be left alone."

Well, joining me now is the senior senator from the great state of Minnesota, Amy Klobuchar.

Let's start with that.

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN): Thanks, Dana.

BASH: Does the president -- excuse me -- does Minnesota have a problem with gangs roving the streets?

KLOBUCHAR: Every state has a problem with crime.

But what the president has done here is taken a horrific crime that occurred in Washington, D.C., where one beloved Guard member is still struggling for his life, another was shot and killed, and the perpetrator, the murderer, is behind bars and being prosecuted.

He took that case, and then he went 2,400 miles away to Somalia and somehow indicted an entire group of people, 80,000 of them in my state, as well as later all naturalized citizens, 24 million people in the United States of America.

This is what he does. And he tries to stoke division and make people hate each other. And here are the facts. In the state of Minnesota, you have a state, which he also condemned our entire state, is in the top five for Fortune 500 companies per capita in the country.

It is a state with one of the best rates for unemployment, which, of course, we have been battled by the -- battered by the Trump tariffs and the like, but, in fact, we have a strong economy in our state, and our state has a good health care system, which we're also struggling with because Donald Trump won't do anything to help the people of this country.

BASH: Senator...

KLOBUCHAR: And then he decided to blame the Somalian population, 80,000 of which, by the way, work in our schools, work in our airports, help take care of our seniors, and are -- the vast majority of which are citizens of the United States of America. That's what he did. [09:35:09]

BASH: I do, before we move on, want to give you a chance to respond to something else that the president said. He said that Congresswoman Ilhan Omar probably came to the U.S. illegally, mocked the hijab that she wears, and he called your governor -- quote -- "retarded."

KLOBUCHAR: These words shouldn't even be repeated by anyone, much less a president of the United States.

Again, he goes after people because they look different than him. He goes after our governor and uses a slur that, by the way, has now led a legislator in Indiana who has a kid with disabilities to say that he's not going to vote with him on the redistricting vote in Indiana.

These are the kinds of things he does. And they -- yes, they try to tear people apart, but, as we saw from the midterm elections, it's not working. People look at their grocery bills. They know who to blame. They don't want to see the chaos. They don't want to see the corruption.

They mourn for the loss of this National Guard member, but they do not believe you should use it to turn away 24 million people who are already in this country who are naturalized citizens.

BASH: I do want to turn to specifically the vetting process for the 190,000 or so Afghans who were resettled in America after the military withdrawal. You have been very focused on this issue.

Just in August, you co-sponsored, along with another number of Republicans, the Fulfilling Promises to Afghan Allies Act. It would offer legal status for Afghans who were wartime allies, also enhancing how they were vetted.

So my question is, if you are calling for enhanced vetting, does that mean President Trump has a point that there wasn't enough vetting?

KLOBUCHAR: Thanks for bringing up that bill, Dana, because I do think it's one of the solutions here.

So the Afghans that came here, so many of them, and we know this, helped our troops, were translators for our troops, stood and saved their lives. And there are many of our veterans who feel very strongly about this. The bill is strongly supported by the American Legion, the VFW, many, many veterans groups.

And very conservative Republicans have supported versions of the bill in the past, including Senator Mullin was on a similar bill. Senator Lindsey Graham is on this bill. And we believe you need the widespread, across-the-board vetting.

And then that temporary status, as we have done with our Hmong allies in the past and our allies that helped us during the Vietnam War, can become -- have a permanent status. But the across-the-board vetting, which involves in-person interviews, gold standard, using biometrics, but also when you do it with the entire group of people that came over, you can collect more information.

That's why I hope this will actually be an impetus to pass our bill and put the resources into it that we need to do the vetting across the board.

But what the president's been talking about -- he says different things different days -- is taking 24 million naturalized citizens and looking at all of them or just deporting people with temporary -- legal temporary status who are Somalians, which he said last week.

BASH: Yes.

KLOBUCHAR: So this is very different. This would be a very meticulous, detailed across-the-board vetting of the people that came in.

BASH: Senator, before I let you go, in order to reopen the government last month -- I guess maybe it was still this month -- Democrats got a promise for a Senate vote to extend Obamacare premiums.

Is that vote going to happen, and will that actually pass?

KLOBUCHAR: That vote will happen. And whether it will pass is in the hands of Donald Trump and the Republicans. People are seeing their health insurance premiums double or triple.

We have a chance to do something. December 15 is the day, and then they're going to be doubled or tripled for next year if this doesn't pass. Either we're going to pass this by forcing this vote or we are going to get this on legislation, or we are going to march into the midterms and beat them despite their resistance.

If they don't want to do anything about people's costs and their grocery bills and their health care and pummel them with these punishing Trump tariffs, then we will simply have to beat them in the midterms. We have no other choice.

But I am hoping our Republican colleagues -- President Trump seemed open to this last week, and now he seems to have put it on hold -- will join us in voting to help people to afford their health insurance.

BASH: All right, Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, thank you so much for being here.

KLOBUCHAR: Thanks, Dana. It was great to be on.

BASH: And up next: why President Trump's weekend TRUTH Social post that so offended so many that we were just discussing could actually doom a redistricting push in a key state.

[09:40:02]

My panel weighs in next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.

(CHEERING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Remember that? Then-candidate Donald Trump in 2015 responding to the massacre in San Bernardino, California, carried out by a Pakistani-born woman and her Pakistani-American husband. And statements like that really helped propel Trump to the Republican nomination in 2016. And the rest is quite literally history.

[09:45:18]

My panel joins me now.

Before we get to that, we have Congressman Moore of West Virginia here.

Thank you so much for being here.

I do want to ask about Andrew Wolfe. He's one of the National Guard members. He's the one who's fighting for his life. He's a constituent of yours. What's the latest?

REP. RILEY MOORE (R-WV): Well, I have been speaking to Andy's family. I know Andy's dad. Andy lives about 20 minutes down the road from me. His father's a deputy sheriff in the county next to mine.

And he is hanging on. He is fighting for his life. His family wants everybody to know he's a fighter and he's hanging in here. I called them and tried to give them some hope. The wild thing was, they actually gave me hope when I talked to them. They said: "Please just continue to pray. It's working."

Everybody, just all the prayer warriors out there, please pray for Andy because it is working. And they're just -- they represent the best of West Virginia. They really do.

BASH: Good. I'm glad to hear that, yes. And everybody is definitely praying for Andy.

On an obviously related note, the president, after what happened, the tragedy, with allegedly an Afghan national, the president is starting a new round -- at least says he's going to start a new round of an immigration crackdown, not of illegal immigration, but legal immigration.

XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: That's right, legal immigration.

That is people who are here, who are documented, who have gone through a process, who have been vetted, all because the president has decided that one incident means that we need to deport as many immigrants and legal immigrants as possible.

Dana, I have been talking to a lot of people. I was in the Justice Department up until January. And a lot of national security experts who worked there are telling me that this is an intelligence failure. And the reason that it is that you never target a whole swathe of people, and especially by race or religion or anything like that, when a -- something like this happens.

What you do is, you have to take specific intelligence and ensure that nothing like this happens again. And I think what is even more surprising to a lot of people is, starting earlier this year, the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force moved from national security to doing immigration.

And that is something that has surprised a lot of national security experts, because that means that, yes, we are less safe. That means that we don't have our systems in place or the experts in place in order to prevent another attack.

And people have been terrified about this. And so I wonder what Congress will be -- if -- whether they will be asking questions, because people should be very alarmed.

MOORE: Yes, I mean, look, we had -- and you heard your last two guests -- 190,000 people piled into this country in a failed withdrawal out of Afghanistan that cost us, one, 13 lives at Abbey Gate. It now just cost us another life, this failed withdrawal and policy that was put in place by the Biden administration.

We have to re-vet these folks. This should have never happened. It should have never happened. And now we got one West Virginian dead. We got another one fighting for his life. This should have never happened. This person should have never been in this country to begin with, because the way it was done, in such a rushed manner, I think, has provided a lot of insecurity and questions about who is actually here, and do we have other terrorists in this country?

We might. We very well might. And so I think we do need to start re- vetting these folks.

KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Then I think we need to ask questions of the CIA, because this gentleman, as I understand it, was working with the CIA in Afghanistan, and he had been vetted by the CIA, who vouched for him, not to mention we had a number of our men and women in uniform -- I remember talking to some of the groups who were bringing folks here who were advocating, soldiers who said, you don't understand, this person saved my life.

So let's talk to them too. Let's talk to the same soldiers who may have also vouched for some of these individuals. But I think the point that you're raising down, Dana, about the -- this tendency of the president to do this broad brush -- and I looked through the order that the White House put out yesterday. And, as Senator Mark Kelly said, it's all black and brown countries, these Third World countries that are on the list. But it's OK for white Afrikaners to keep coming, because, somehow, while they're 7 percent of the population, they're the ones who are being targeted in South Africa.

So we know this game. This is about pitting Americans against each other. This is about stoking fear. This is about obfuscating. Rather than pointing a finger and saying, it's about Joe Biden, how about just about saying exactly what you just said? Let's make sure it doesn't happen again.

We don't have to blame this person or that person. Instead, we can say, we're going to...

[09:50:01]

MOORE: Are you saying they're not being targeted in South Africa?

FINNEY: I don't think that there's a white genocide going on in South Africa, no.

MOORE: Are you saying -- no, my question is, are you saying that...

FINNEY: I'm saying there's not a white genocide in South Africa.

MOORE: No, no, no, no. The question is, are they being targeted?

FINNEY: There's not a white genocide in South Africa.

MOORE: You don't want to answer that question.

FINNEY: They're not being targeted.

(CROSSTALK)

KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think that most Americans are of the mind...

FINNEY: More black South Africans are being killed.

SOLTIS ANDERSON: Most Americans are of the mind that we are a country that wants to be accepting and wants to be generous, but also believes that there have to be limits to that.

And Americans have felt their patience has been tested over the last decade. One of the big stories that "The New York Times" was reporting on this week was that there has been about a billion dollars of fraud in the state of Minnesota that was perpetuated by folks from the Somali immigrant community, which is not reflective of all of them, but that the politics in that statement, maybe we can't go after this because, oh, we don't want to be mean to an immigrant community.

And that's where Donald Trump, when he said those things in 2015 that you showed at the top of the segment, a lot of people said, that's outrageous. You can't say that. And a lot of voters said, I have felt my patience has been tested too far.

And that is why Donald Trump continues a decade later to do these sorts of things and find his voters still with him. They want America to be a nice and accepting country, but they feel like when incidents like this happen, it tests their patience.

FINNEY: But there's a way to do that without, again, the broad brush, without the racist statements. There's a way -- because I read the same story and said, that's horrible. And we know there was a lot of waste, fraud and abuse in the lot of those COVID payments.

So, yes, that should be investigated all over the country. That doesn't mean you say it's the Somalis, it's all the Somalis, because that's not the only community where that happened.

HINOJOSA: That's right.

And, also, I just, I agree with you on that in the sense that -- and I'm sure your polling also shows this -- is that people want order at the border, but they also want compassion in their system. And that's not what Trump's giving them.

BASH: We're going to, sadly, have to leave it there. Thank you so much.

We, again, are praying for your constituent, for Andy.

MOORE: Thank you.

BASH: Up next: Another Republican announces he won't run for reelection, but a really familiar face wants to replace him.

That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:56:08]

BASH: D.C. might soon be seeing double.

Yesterday, Texas Congressman Troy Nehls announced he won't seek reelection next year and will retire at the end of his term, but his constituents may end up with a very familiar face representing them, very familiar, because Troy Nehls' identical twin brother, Trever Nehls, quickly announced he's going to be running to replace his brother.

Trever promised to "carry on the tradition of America first leadership that our outgoing Congressman Troy Nehls set."

Now, if Trever wins the seat, it appears that the brothers would be the first set of twins to both serve in Congress. Their mother must be very proud.

Thank you so much for spending your Sunday morning with us.

Fareed Zakaria picks it up next.