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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 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.
This is the Fox News rundown from Washington.
This week President Trump fired Homeland Security Secretary Christy 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 Wayne 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 Christy Noem 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 Noem 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 herself,
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 Known
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 Weinmullen 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,
you know, related to the doxing of federal agents
and their use of masks.
You know, 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, you know, 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, Border Patrol, Coast Guard civilian employees
not being paid or experiencing partial pay,
but also CISA, our cybersecurity force is being impacted.
Apparently less than half the CISA force is working right now
due to furloughs.
Iran's a big hacker.
How important is it that we are operating, you know,
on next to empty when it comes to cybersecurity 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 knowns 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 11th, 2001.
As a matter of 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.
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 in 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.
I mean, you referenced the border was wide open for a time.
I haven't...
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 terrorist 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.
And the 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 Godwin?
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...
Well, yeah, based on the way...
Based on the way we were set up.
Again, you know, people always ask Democrat or 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.
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
where they going to flag websites for radicalization.
Now based again on the immigration influx
under the Biden administration,
radicalization now takes place each and every day
within our own borders.
Whether it's a march supporting
Hezbollah Abbas 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
as you now have these segregated cultures
that have no intention on
on acclimating and adapting US 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.
Charles Moreno, 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.
How can we help make stronger communities happen?
Well, at JP Morgan Chase,
we invest in what's working.
We invest in businesses that create more jobs
in hospitals delivering care where it's needed the most,
in workers building new buildings, bridges and roads,
connecting what we need to where we live.
Make the green grass grow all around all around.
Make the green grass grow all around.
Make momentum happen.
Learn more at JP Morgan Chase.com's Lash Impact.
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 US 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 US 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.
And 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 coup's force
of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps
would actually be stabilizing for the Middle East.
It would not be destabilizing.
It 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're 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 be 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 want,
but ultimately, the Iranians 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, you know,
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 nooks, 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 to cease
to Ayatollah Hamanay 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,
the common cause for a long time.
And the 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
and 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 interests in geopolitics and the context 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, 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.
He 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 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 in 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.
And while we have great historic relations with those countries,
they are increasingly moving in a direction that is not an alignment
with American interests.
And I hope that changes.
We have a lot of great governments that are more aligned with US interests
than 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.
Tomorrow on the Fox News rundown from Washington,
we speak with retired US Army officer Robert McGinnis about how AI
is transforming war.
The Pentagon stand off with anthropic and the debate over how artificial intelligence
should be used by the military.
I'm Jessica Rosenthal, and this is the Fox News rundown from Washington.
Prime members can listen to the show Add Free on Amazon Music.
And for up to the minute news, go to FoxNews.com.
The Fox News Rundown



