From Washington: DHS Shutdown Persists as Domestic Threats Rise

That's pure automotive joy.

I'm Peter, the owner of Muscle Car Junior.

It started as a hobby, then I started posting about it.

Before I knew it, I built a business for storing muscle cars on Facebook Marketplace,

and the community of car lovers on Instagram.

Today, new customers send me what's that message is from all over.

Not bad for a hobby.

And how meta helps over 35 million American businesses, like Peter's Grow, at meta.com-slash-community.

In 2024, a truck crashed into Cannot in Morescu, where I work.

146 of our dogs needed homes fast.

We asked for help on Facebook.

Our story spread through WhatsApp messages and Instagram reposts.

Immediately, people stepped up.

And just six hours later, every dog was fostered.

I'll never forget how our community showed up for us.

Learn how over 3.5 billion people connect to what matters with meta, at meta.com-slash-community.

Saturday, March 7th, 2026, I'm Jessica Brosenthal.

President Trump fired his Homeland Security Secretary this week, as funding for that agency

remains on hold over Democrats demands for immigration reforms.

Republicans say war with Iran means resources need to be in place.

I think the department needs to be fully funded immediately, especially now with the movement

by the President, with Secretary known.

And downstream geopolitical impacts of U.S. strikes on Iran, how might hostilities impact

other global hot spots.

I think that ultimately, with the President's doing here, which is based on Iran as a threat

in its own right, is going to allow us to divert our attention to the paramount threat

of China in the long run.

This is the Fox News rundown from Washington.

This week, President Trump fired Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Nome, after she testified

at two congressional hearings.

Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer said, good riddance, but he wouldn't commit to the president's

next pick to run DHS, Oklahoma Senator Mark Wain Mullin, or move to fund the Department

of Homeland Security.

The agency's funding lapsed last month, and Schumer said it's up to Republicans to commit

to changes to immigration enforcement.

They've been stonewalling us on the most important issues, and those have to change,

and they have to change them.

We have to change them by legislation, because anyone person, I don't trust anyone person

being in charge of this agency, as long as Trump is President.

Given the policies he's espoused, given how ICE has been structured, the rot is deep.

But Republicans, like Senate Majority Leader John Thune, said a failure to fund the Department

of Homeland Security right now, especially during war with Iran, is irresponsible.

With enhanced terror threat from Iran and Iran-funded terrorist groups, it is vital that we

ensure the Department of Homeland Security is fully funded and fully functioning.

But Democratic Senators have said there's no linking the two.

Virginia Senator Tim Cain said there is no correlation between the funding fight and the

emerging war in Tehran.

Maine, independent Senator Angus King, asked one reporter, what does TSA have to do with

Iran, or FEMA?

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries echoed Schumer, though, while the House has voted

to fund DHS, he said ICE must be reformed, whether Christie Knome is out as Secretary

or not.

It's unfortunate that the Department and the American people have to go through this

right now.

Charles Marino was a senior adviser at the Department of Homeland Security during the Obama

Administration.

Given the importance of the threat environment right now, especially with the war against

Iran, but I think Secretary No, unfortunately, lost the confidence of the President due

to a series of unforced errors and distractions entirely caused by her.

It sounded like, according to Louisiana Senator John Kennedy, the thing that might have put

him over the top was this discussion during a Senate hearing this past week, in which

he questioned her about the millions of dollars spent on an advertising campaign, featuring

her, self-prominently, and she had told the committee that the President knew about

this ad campaign, and the President apparently called Senator Kennedy and said he did not

know about this.

When you look at the totality of things going on at DHS, what do you think were maybe

some of the other things that really stuck out that may have caused a problem the President

no longer was interested in dealing with?

Yeah, I think it goes further back than that, Jessica.

You know, the Secretary of Homeland Security, I think, is on a daily basis the hardest

cabinet position in any administration, and so typically you're going to get the opposite

parties that are constantly giving you grief, whether it's about the President's policies

on things like immigration or border security, but when you start to anger those in the

same party, that's where it becomes problematic, and where I think it started with Secretary

No, was, for some reason, really slowing down the process to get emergency disaster

relief in the hands of these local and state officials.

And I think this is where we saw the frustration come from Tom Tillis when he was talking about

FEMA aid getting to North Carolina more rapidly based on the disaster that they had, specifically

in Asheville, North Carolina as a result of the storms.

So when the White House's phones start ringing, and it's ringing from Republicans complaining,

that's where things start to get flagged very early on.

And I think it continued to get bad for the Secretary from there.

The selection of Senator Mark Wain Mullin from Oklahoma, he's going to be peppered with

questions at any confirmation hearing about making changes, of course, to ICE, Democrats

are demanding things like needing a judicial warrant to go after someone on private property,

no more masks, an ID number or name on an ICE uniform, are any of the demands of ICE

from Democrats non-starters?

Yeah, I think what you just named are non-starters because they either require action by Congress

with respect to things like administrative warrants, which ICE does have the authority

to utilize.

And then there's going to be some issues that related to the doxing of federal agents

and their use of masks.

The use of masks is not limited solely to ICE or federal law enforcement.

There are state and local law enforcement agencies, especially on teams that are engaged

with many of the same issues like drugs and gangs that also utilize masks.

So at some point in time, it's got to be spoken about in the context of being honest

and in the context of the safety and security of the officers and agents that are executing

the duties.

So Senator Mullin will have many of the same decisions to make that Secretary known

had to make.

What are your thoughts?

You've already referenced it.

The hostilities with Iran, what are your thoughts about the impacts of this shutdown over

DHS funding right now in light of our situation with Iran?

Well, it's tragic.

And I think the operating assumption here by everybody should be that the country was

allowed to be infiltrated with a wide variety of threats from around the world during the

Biden administration.

I don't think there's any disputing that based on the examples that we've seen, whether

it's at the criminal level or the interception of suspected terrorists or the arrest of

suspected terrorists within the interior of the United States.

And as a result, I think the department needs to be fully funded immediately, especially

now with the movement by the president with Secretary known.

I think now with Senator Mullin being designated as the incoming secretary with bipartisan

support, based on one, I think his approach to the job will be much more lower visibility,

as opposed to Secretary known that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.

We heard about that with this $220 million PR contract, which I think was the icing on

the cake for her removal.

But Senator Mullin really has a good shot at coming here, refocusing the department.

We still have operational personnel working at the department without pay.

And their morale and their focus is essential during this elevated threat environment.

You know, to that point, there are TSA, board of patrol, Coast Guard civilian employees

not being paid or experiencing partial pay, but also CISA, our cyber security force is

being impacted.

Apparently less than half the CISA force is working right now due to furloughs.

That sounds a big hacker.

How important is it that we are operating on next to empty when it comes to cyber security

force?

Yeah, that needs to be full speed for CISA, especially based on their statutory requirements

that they work closely with the private sector.

They are the private sector engagement from the entirety of the U.S. government when it

comes to thwarting cyber attacks and responding to them.

So I'm not happy.

And I think this also goes towards Secretary Nome's management and how that was questioned

by the White House internally, as far as externally internally.

I think there was a lot of decisions that were made, CISA being one of them, that the White

House wasn't exactly happy about once they heard related to the gutting of CISA and the

downsizing of it, given the role that cyber attacks are playing now in almost every

element of our society.

When you hear somebody like Independent Senator Angus King say we should fund everything

at DHS except ICE, but then at the same time he says, but what does TSA or FEMA have

to do with Iran?

What do you say to that?

Well, that's just naive and it tells me that he doesn't have a full understanding or grasp

of what it takes to protect the homeland and what's involved in that.

I mean, ICE was brought to the Department of Homeland Security in 2002 under the Homeland

Security Act because of what occurred on September 11, 2001.

So, no matter fact, every agency was brought over there because of that, including my old

agency, the Secret Service, regarding protection of officials and large events and the investigations

of financial crimes, which oftentimes are used to fund terrorists groups.

So, the Department of Homeland Security has a very important mission.

Now, do I think since 2002, the Department could stand a review to make sure that it's

operating effectively and efficiently as intended under the Homeland Security Act?

Yes, I think a review is due.

There is some streamlining that certainly can be done and you may want to revisit whether

a certain entity belongs under the Department or not.

We know police and Austin are still investigating whether the shooting this past weekend by a

man wearing a shirt that said property of Allah has a nexus to terrorism, but you referenced

this earlier.

What do we know about threats inside the homeland from Iran, especially given their threats

to our own officials like President Trump, Mike Pompeo, Iranian-American journalists and activists

over the years.

You referenced the border was wide open for a time.

I know I've heard references to likely cells, but do we have anything more concrete that

we're aware of?

Well, we have statistics in terms of the terrorists encounters, which is almost a thousand

of the Southwest border.

We have the metrics regarding other adversaries coming into the United States like Chinese

males ages 18 to 35 over 2000 percent under the Biden administration.

So when you start to talk about it by the numbers, you know that we have a problem.

In a quote, Donald Rumsfeld, we have a lot of unknown unknowns right now in the United

States, right?

We don't know the true number of illegal immigrants that came into the country.

We don't know the total honest number of Godaways.

We put it around two million.

So with the borders wide open, why would people go to the great extent and cost to evade

law enforcement as a Godaway?

You've got to ask that question.

Yeah.

That's if you don't, it's really important to know what you don't know, you need to be

prepared.

You have to assume the worst, right?

You have to assume, um, well, yeah, based on the way, based on the way we were set up.

Again, you know, people always ask Democrat Republicans on issues of immigration and you

and I have spoken about this before.

If you look throughout the history as I do in my book of Democrats and Republicans, they

were pretty close on their beliefs regarding the importance of border security and immigration

enforcement.

We are further to look than the Obama administration on the Democratic side and the Trump administration

now.

And so the anomaly in all of this throughout history was the Biden administration who decided

to completely walk away from both responsibilities of securing border and the immigration loss.

So that's the anomaly.

That's why we're in the position that we're in right now and that's why law enforcement

and intelligence agencies have to operate here within our own borders the way they are

now.

Um, finally, Charles Israeli officials have told Israelis around the world to conceal Jewish

symbols, avoid going through the UAE and exercise heightened caution around the world as Iranian

threats target Jewish sites in North America.

Jewish people are being told by Israel do not go to Habbad synagogues after some anti-Semitic

influencers slandered Habbad.

I'm not sure I've ever heard Israel issue such a global warning to Jewish people before.

How significant is that?

I mean, they reference North America.

Yeah.

No, neither of I, I agree.

There is a influx of anti-Semitic, not only rhetoric, but direct actions.

That we have seen that are overt and this really takes us to radicalization that used to

be external to the United States in the sense that to become radicalized, we always needed

to look for suspicious travel to a special interest location.

So the FBI was looking for the purchase of plane tickets, where were they going or cyber

activity, were they going to flag websites for radicalization.

Now, based again on the immigration and flux under the Biden administration, radicalization

now takes place each and every day within our own borders, whether it's a march supporting

Hezbollah and Hamas on Fifth Avenue in New York City, whether it's what we see in segregated

communities in places like Dearborn, Michigan and in Texas.

And this is a problem because what you have now is you now have the segregated cultures

that have no intention on, on acclimating and adapting U.S. culture and values.

And this is the shielded locations that radicalization is taking place.

And a lot of this, unfortunately, applies and is directed to the Jewish population around

the world.

Yeah.

Wow.

Thank you so much for joining us in those insights.

What's the name of the book again?

Terrace on the border and in our country.

Excellent.

Thank you again for joining us.

Appreciate it.

Thanks, Jessica.

This week, we spoke to the former chief of staff to the National Security Council during

the first Trump administration.

About the ways the war in Iran could impact other countries like Russia and China.

European countries have had mixed reaction while Spain has rejected U.S. requests to use

any Spanish military bases.

The UK said they'd be flying jets to protect Bahrain.

The German chancellor was in the Oval Office this past week saying he and President Trump

were on the same page when it came to Iran and he wanted to talk about Ukraine and Russia.

While Democrats demanded more explanation and justification from the Trump administration

about these strikes on Iran, several officials reminded that Iran's been attacking U.S.

assets and troops overseas along with allies while funding terrorism for decades.

I think it really started with the strike on Kossum Soleimani.

Alex Gray was the chief of staff to the National Security Council during the first Trump

administration.

When I had really the privilege of being with the president during that strike and watching

his leadership and what at the time was a pretty historic strike at Iran's air-sponsoring

regime and someone who had really been the mastermind of the murder and the maiming of thousands

of American soldiers in Iraq.

The president at the time made a very strategic calculation that contrary to the conventional

wisdom in Washington striking Kossum Soleimani, the head of the coups force of the Iranian Revolutionary

Guard Corps would actually be stabilizing for the Middle East.

It would not be destabilizing.

He would actually send the right message to Iran and deter future bad behavior.

That was obviously something.

Even people within his own administration argued vehemently against the president really

chose to take the decision that that was the right thing for the country and it worked

out.

It was a very important move for reestablishing deterrence in the region and now fast forward

to today, the president's essentially doing that, but on steroids.

The president is saying that we are going after the entire apparatus of terror that the

Iranian regime has propagated for 45 plus years and I think the same effect is going to

apply as what we saw with the Soleimani strike in 2019, where you're going to see the

president define conventional wisdom and resetting the global chess board in a profoundly impactful

way.

Before this operation, the president said about negotiations that Iran just wouldn't

utter the words, we will not develop a nuclear weapon.

I know some of the democratic side of the aisle say, well, Iran did say those words when

they signed that nuclear deal under President Obama, right, the JCPOA.

What do you say to that?

I would say that the JCPOA was a deal that was basically designed to look the other way

when Iran ultimately violated that agreement.

I mean, the JCPOA, if you have to understand and go back to 2014, 2015, what was the strategic

thinking by the Obama administration?

The strategic thinking was that Iran getting a nuclear weapon eventually really wasn't that

big of a deal.

That's why they allowed, they paid them these pallets of cash.

That's why the verification mechanisms were so loose.

That's why they were able to have civil nuclear programs that could very easily turn into

militarized nuclear programs.

Essentially, they were making a strategic gamble that a nuclear Iran actually wouldn't

be that destabilizing for the region.

Otherwise, the JCPOA would have been done in such a way as to be much tougher and more

difficult on Iran.

I would say to anyone who argues that the JCPOA was containing Iran's nuclear ambitions,

they obviously never looked at the same intelligence that President Trump and his team looked at

in the first term when we made the decision to get out of that agreement.

There's just no, in my view, there's no arguing that that JCPOA did anything to restrain

Iran's march toward a nuclear weapon.

Now, some of the commentary here, and I know you're seeing it, is this is about China.

The China relies on Iran for oil, and so this undercuts them as we, you know, in this race

for AI, was this about China or is the impact to China secondary?

Well, as someone who spent my whole career arguing that China is the paramount threat to

the United States, it pains me to say, you know, I do think this is probably secondarily

about China.

At the same time, I think that ultimately, what the President's doing here, which is based

on Iran as a threat in its own right, is going to allow us to divert our attention to the

paramount threat of China in the long run, by changing the strategic chessboard and taking

the Iranian theocracy off the table.

I mean, this is the thing I think we have to remember.

Hillary Clinton in 2010, Secretary of State, said we're pivoting to Asia.

And 16 years later, we still have not moved the preponderance of America's focus to Asia.

Why?

I would argue because of Iran.

Iran in various forms through its proxies, through its missile program, through its nuclear

program, has managed to ensnare us in the Middle East in various forms for 15 plus years.

Alex, what if it doesn't go the way you hope?

What if the Iranian people, it's up to them, as the President says?

What if this doesn't go the way the administration hopes?

Well, look, that's always the risk.

And the President was given the best military advice about the risk and reward.

And he chose, I think, very courageously to take the gamble.

The good news here is the President, I would call it now, the Venezuela model.

The President is not trying to do a nation built.

He's not trying to do a rock 2.0.

He's not trying to go around and do the rock thing where you hold up your purple finger

to show that you voted.

It's very admirable that we should ultimately want the Iranians to get a liberal democracy.

But the reality is, that's not the interest of the United States.

The interest of the United States is to get rid of the theocracy that was spreading terror

and killing Americans and destabilizing the region and whatever, as in Venezuela, whatever

follows, assuming that it's not the clerics, the red lines that we have about the type of

people that would follow the clerics.

As long as that's not crossed, I think the President is relatively agnostic about what

type of regime comes next.

He's not, you know, all the people who said he's an isolationist.

Donald Trump's the farthest thing from an isolationist.

But what he's doing is he's fixing the mistakes of the Iraq war where we overextended ourselves.

We were focused on this very aggressive and ambitious agenda for democracy.

Instead he's focused very narrowly on what are the core national interests of the United

States.

No nukes, no missiles, no proxies.

And as long as he keeps that very narrow focus, I think this will work out the way the

President's hoping.

I asked you about China.

Let's go to Russia.

Vladimir Putin has praised the Ayatollah, now deceased Ayatollah Hominay as being a personal

force in improving Iranian-Russian relations.

What does this situation mean for Russia's abilities in Ukraine, especially their drone

capabilities, if anything?

Well, that's only a slightly less falling tribute than the New York Times gave them.

But you know, look, the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, the North Koreans.

That make common cause for a long time.

And Iranians were certainly enabling Russia's war against the Ukrainians.

They've been enabling North Korea's pursuit of a nuclear weapon.

There's been a tremendous, you know, the axis of authoritarianism, I think, is a good

term.

Having the destruction of the theocracy benefits stability globally.

It benefits all who want peace and freedom.

And I think that, you know, Russia is finding itself increasingly isolated.

The collapse of the Iranian theocracy is just another example of that.

When the president says, and he said it Monday, everyone was behind us.

They just didn't have the courage to say so.

Given your role in international affairs and your interest in geopolitics and the contacts

you've made, what did you make of that comment?

What sort of reaction do you think he may be getting privately?

Well, it's often the case that when the United States does things, whether it's against

ISIS, whether it's against the Iranian theocracy, whether it's against the Houthis, you will

get broad support, whether it's in Western Europe, whether it's in East Asia, whether it's

in the Gulf Arab states, privately, I can tell you from my personal experience in government,

you will privately have senior officials from those types of countries calling and congratulating

their American counterparts on a job well done.

The reality is most of the people who operate at the elite level of foreign policy in these

countries share a similar worldview to the United States.

They want stability.

They don't want this type of bad actors like Iran, like North Korea.

And so, you know, whatever they may need to say in public for their domestic consumption,

privately, they're very much in most ways aligned with the United States.

And finally, France's president says they're increasing nuclear warheads, their stockpile.

This was apparently decided before the operation in Iran, but he also announced this week that

he will allow temporary deployment of nuclear armed aircraft to allied countries.

What is the impact of all of this on Europe?

I know that's a big question, but it's just I'm asking especially in light of the president

saying that Iran already has long range missiles that can reach Europe.

Look, I think that Europe is very conflicted on this and you look at Spain, which denied

America the right to use the bases that we've jointly operated on Spanish soil to conduct

this operation.

You look at Britain, which has been all over the map on this.

You look at France, again, which has been all over the map.

Western Europe is in an identity crisis domestically and they are in a strategic abyss.

They don't know where their loyalties lie.

They don't know where their future is headed.

They have extraordinary domestic and social problems.

The reality is Donald Trump and his national security strategy explained our relationship

with Europe exactly right.

Europe is in many ways Western Europe, particularly not Central Europe, not Hungary, not Poland,

but Western Europe is in many ways in significant cultural, political, and economic decline.

We have great historic relations with those countries.

They are increasingly moving in a direction that is not an alignment with American interests.

I hope that changes.

I hope they all get governments that are more aligned with US interests in the US way

of thinking about the world, but right now we need to accept the fact that the current

governments at least in countries like Spain, like France, like Germany, like the United

Kingdom are in so many ways they just don't look at the world and see what we see.

Alex Gray, former National Security Council Chief of Staff, thank you so much for joining

us.

Thanks for having me.

I hope you had handled your taxes and your stress.

Inhale on no surprise price of 149 or less.

Exhale paying more for complicated taxes.

You won't.

Inhale new tax law knowledge.

Exhale missing out on your biggest refund.

Certainly not.

Don't miss paying 149 or less.

Rest easy.

Jackson View it's culture taxes.

Guaranteed.

Limited time offer for new clients on the draw terms.

But it's waiting locations in May, turn the Jackson View dot com slash 149.

Stay up to date by subscribing to this podcast at Fox News Podcasts dot com.

Listen ad free on Fox News Podcasts plus on Apple Podcasts and prime members can listen

to the show ad free on Amazon Music and for up to the minute news go to Fox News dot

com.

Rinse knows that greatness takes time, but so does laundry.

So rinse will take your laundry and hand deliver it to your door, expertly cleaned.

And you can take the time pursuing your passions.

Time one spent sorting and waiting, folding and queuing, now spent challenging and innovating

and pushing your way to greatness.

So pick up the Irish flute or those calligraphy pens or that daunting beef Wellington recipe

card and leave the laundry to us.

It's time to be great.

It's time to be great.