Trump stumped: Trump squirms as media presses for answers on Iran

There is obviously a lot going on right now, a lot.

I mean, it's day 25 of Donald Trump's war with Iran,

and it brought on some of the wildest,

the weirdest, the most headspinning comments

from the president to date.

Both from him, I should say,

and also not to forget Pete Hegseth.

And Senator Ruben Gallego is gonna be here in studio

to help us try and make sense of everything that happened.

If that is even possible,

but he is a good person to attempt to do that.

But I just have to start tonight

with that unbelievably delicious rebuke of Donald Trump

in his literal backyard.

I mean, yes, today was election day

and Florida's 87th state house district,

which includes, as I was just talking with Chris about,

Mar-a-Lago.

And just to give you a sense of how this district

has voted in the past,

because this was, there was no way

that this was gonna sail into a blue sea.

A Republican candidate won there by 19 points in 2024,

and Trump himself carried it

by about 11 points in the presidential election.

That was less than two years ago.

And tonight, a Democrat is projected to flip that seat.

The Associated Press projected that a small business owner,

I just, I just shouted her out,

but her name is Emily Gregory,

and she's going to win this race,

and she will become Donald Trump's next representative

in the Florida state house.

Now, Trump endorsed the Republican in this race.

Trump himself voted in this election

and voted by mail, which is extra hilarious,

given his relentless attacks on mail-in voting.

And also, he was literally in Florida at the time.

So the list of things that are amazing

about this Democratic flip is kind of,

it's kind of too long to go through right now,

but here's the big picture.

It appears that this Florida seat is going to be

the 29th legislative seat that Democrats have flipped

since Trump's second term began.

Republicans, I should note, have flipped zero,

nada, none, no seats since the 2024 election.

And all of those seats, Democrats have flipped.

All 29 of them, of all of them.

This one sure does hit a little different, though, doesn't it?

Joining me now, fresh off her unbelievable victory

tonight is Emily Gregory.

Well, first of all, congratulations.

I mean, I don't think I can repeat for viewers

who are tuning into this enough.

I mean, Trump won this district by 11 points

in the last election.

The Republican who formerly held the seat

before he resigned my caruso,

previously won it by 19 points.

You've just flipped the seat tonight.

How are you feeling?

Janet, it's a pretty wild night.

I, right when I started this nine months ago,

I obviously thought it was possible.

I think most people thought I was insane,

looking at the numbers, but I mean, I still,

I'm still like pretty shocked.

We did it, we did it.

What do you think about, there's so much to ask you about,

but what do you think about the fact that Donald Trump

is now one of your constituents?

I mean, I don't think all of that much about it,

right?

He's one of 115,000 registered voters in district 87.

My opponent made, you know, him forefront in his campaign,

and I focused more on the voters in district 87, you know,

what everybody needs, what all of us will do better

with lower property insurance, with expanded healthcare,

and with strong public schools.

So you answered part of my next question,

but let me ask you, I mean, do you sit when you started,

when you told friends, when you announced

you're running people thought you were insane,

I'm sure a lot of your friends and family said,

why are you doing this?

How are you going to win in this district?

Have you seen how Republican this district is?

But for people out there who are thinking about it

or who are doubting it, what, what, how did you win?

What would you tell them is your advice

about how to kind of flip a district like this?

Jen, I love that question, and I say, go for it.

I say, back yourself, you know, it only takes,

you get enough the sidelines to make a difference,

and if you want the world to look different,

then you have to go out and make a different.

I think we've learned over the last several years

that no one is coming to save us, we have to save ourselves.

So I might have done some crazy calculus to decide

that this was a flip opportunity, but it was,

and we did it.

So my math is, it feels like it's settling in for you,

and that is so understandable.

You're about to be a member of the state legislature

in Florida.

I'm sure tomorrow morning you're going to wake up

and pinch yourself again, which is, as you've deserved to do.

Now whoever wins, I mean, you are also going to be voting

on things, there are new congressional maps

that are going to be part of the special session in April.

You previously said that you would not support mid-decade

redistricting, is that still the case I should ask?

And if so, how do you plan on fighting for efforts

from the Republican majority in the Florida State House?

Because you're about to be a part of the legislature.

It's real now.

It's really happening.

I know, like you said, I think it will sink in tomorrow.

I'm having a fairly out-of-body experience right now.

But there's five representatives in the other room,

so I'm not huddled with them and figure out how we can fight this

because, yes, any efforts to redistrict

our direct call from the president

to redistrict and in favor of Republicans

before the midterms and vast majority,

overwhelming majority of Floridians

made that illegal in 2010 with the Fair District's amendment.

So we know the voters don't want this.

And I'm going to fight every day for Florida families

and for district 87.

This wasn't the only race in Florida tonight.

We were watching your race so closely,

because we've been talking to you about coming on to.

Do you have any sense of kind of how other races

are there other surprises that people should be looking out

for out there or other people whose friends told them,

this is crazy, don't run, who are going to surprise people?

I don't know about Florida.

My phone got taken away like 90 minutes ago.

But I will say to anyone that's thinking about it, just do it.

If we want different representation and you want people,

normies, as I call them, to represent you

and to be legislated on your behalf

and set the direction for your state or your local government

or whatever the case is, go do it.

I think it's so important that we have different voices

that are more representative of the average Floridian.

You won't know until you put yourself out there.

Emily Gregory, thank you for letting us be a part of your out

of body experience.

I thoroughly enjoyed seeing you process this.

Congratulations again, and we'll look

for seeing what to do.

Thanks again for joining us.

Thank you so much.

So again, as I mentioned at the top of the show,

there is so much to get to tonight.

And I wanted to start tonight also after talking

to Emily Gregory, of course, by also talking about the fact

that it is day 25 of Donald Trump's war of choice in Iran.

And what a day it was on that front.

Because today in the Oval Office,

when the President of the United States

was asked a very reasonable set of questions

by reporters in the room about the status of negotiating

with Iranians to bring an end to the war,

something everybody should want, he decided

it was the right moment to brag about an expensive gift.

They did something yesterday that was amazing, actually.

They gave us a present.

And the President arrived today.

It was a very big present, worth a tremendous amount of money.

And I'm not going to tell you what that present is,

but it was a very significant prize.

And they gave it to us.

And they said they were going to give it.

So that meant one thing to me would deal with the right people.

I'm sorry, what?

What's that?

So the Iranian regime gave Donald Trump a present.

He does love presents.

We know that.

A secret prize worth, quote, a tremendous amount of money.

And that gift makes the President of the United States

suddenly feel like he's talking to the right people.

I mean, these are people who give expensive gifts.

How could they be bad?

How could they be?

I should also know that we don't know who he's talking to

or what they're talking about

or how those conversations are bringing an end to the war.

He started.

And naturally, as they should,

the press had some follow-up questions.

What about the Singapore moves, who's going to be in control

about that?

That would be opened very soon, if this works.

How soon?

I mean, was there nuclear related?

No, I wasn't nuclear related.

It was oil and gas related.

Was it related to the strain of war moves and flow?

Yeah, it was related to the flow and to the strain, yeah.

Was it bigger than a bread box?

Was it smaller than a bread box?

I mean, Trump just decided to play a guessing game

with the press dropping enigmatic clues

about his Iranian mystery prize.

So if you're thinking to yourself,

the White House must have tried to clean up

or explain those comments later in the day.

I mean, believe me, that's a moment

where you're hiding under your pillow,

you're putting your jacket over your head,

you're hoping nobody asks you about,

of course, they're going to.

If you thought they were going to clean it up,

you would be mistaken.

The White House press office declined to answer

any follow-up questions when Politico tried to clarify

what the heck the president was talking about.

But they report Politico that is that, quote,

several people close to the White House said

they were baffled by the president's remarks.

No kidding.

Of course, they were baffled.

And this was not even the only baffling thing Trump has said

recently about these negotiations

with the Iranian government.

I mean, here he was just yesterday,

talking about efforts to reopen the straight-of-formos.

What about the straight-of-formos

who's going to be in control of that?

They will be opened very soon if this works.

How soon?

In the middle of it.

I mean, will the lines be able to control the flow?

Be jointly controlled.

By whom?

Maybe me.

Maybe me.

The United States will be in control.

Me and the Ayatollah, whoever the Ayatollah is,

whoever the next Ayatollah, look.

And they'll also be a very serious form of a regime change.

Now, in all fairness, everybody's been killed

from the regime.

They're really starting off.

There's automatically a regime change.

But we're dealing with some people

that I find to be very reasonable, very solid.

The people within know who they are.

OK, none of this is funny.

But Donald Trump's lack of understanding of all things

seems a bit funny.

I mean, he just two weeks ago was calling

for Iran's unconditional surrender.

Remember that?

Now he's musing about overseeing the Strait of Formos

in partnership with his new besties, the Ayatollah,

or a future Ayatollah, according to him.

That was what he said.

And again, he's negotiating with somebody

about all of this.

He wouldn't say who exactly.

But he says they're very reasonable.

And then there's what Trump's own secretary of defense

is saying about his role in these so-called negotiations.

We see ourselves as part of this negotiation as well.

We negotiate with bombs.

We negotiate with bombs.

I mean, that's what Pete Hexas said today in the Oval Office,

while standing right beside President Trump.

You could see him, which is even crazier,

given that just a few hours later,

we got this reporting from the New York Times,

which said, quote, the United States

has sent Iran a 15-point plan to end the war in the Middle East.

According to two officials briefed on the diplomacy,

reflecting the Trump administration's eagerness

to find an off-ramp from the conflict.

It was unclear how widely the plan had been shared

among Iranian officials.

And whether Iran was likely to accept it

as a basis for negotiations,

nor was it clear whether Israel,

which has been bombing Iran together with the United States,

was on board with the proposal,

which seems like a pretty key factor here.

So just to recap, Trump claims his secret negotiations

with secret Iranians are going so great

that we're winning extra double super secret expensive

crisis.

Meanwhile, the Secretary of Defense

has chested them thing about dropping more bombs on Iran

on the same day Trump is sending Iran a 15-point plan,

which we don't have any of the details about,

and nobody knows if the leaders of the country

that drag the United States into the mess

have even seen it.

There's that.

That's my summary.

All of this seems like a big, freaking hot mess.

And here's the thing,

Donald Trump himself seems to realize

it is a big, freaking hot mess.

Because in the most Trumpian move imaginable,

the president is now trying to pass the buck

for this war onto Pete Hegseth.

I call Pete.

I call General Kane.

I called a lot of our great people.

And Pete, I think you were the first one to speak up.

And you said, let's do it.

I said, Pete, in general, raising Kane,

I think this thing's going to be settled very soon.

Here they go, that's too bad.

Pete didn't want it to be settled.

This was all Pete's idea.

Pete wanted to go to war.

Pete didn't want it to be settled.

If this war drags on, if it's a big, hot mess, blame Pete.

Look, the chaos and confusion coming out of this white house

is maddening, it's scary, it's horrible.

And it's worth asking the question, though,

who benefits from all of this?

Who benefits from a president and a staff

contradicting themselves over and over whipsong

back and forth on major decisions

that affect the fate of the entire world?

And so many people in this country,

who benefits from Trump's random statements

about secret negotiations that are so hard to decipher?

Because somebody is benefiting from all of this.

And it's not you.

Trump first announced his supposed

and negotiations from Iran and a true social post

at 7.23 a.m. Eastern time yesterday morning, 7.23 a.m.,

remember that time?

But just 15 minutes before Trump's announcement,

there was an unusual spike in oil futures trading.

Traders placed bets worth more than half a billion dollars

right before the price of oil plunged.

Experts say it looks a whole lot like insider trading.

In other words, it appears that one or more people

likely knew that Trump was about to announce

his so-called negotiations with Iran

and made a ton of money off that knowledge.

And it's far from the only suspicious trading

we've seen take place around this war.

I mean, today, CNN reports that someone

using the betting website Polymarket

has made nearly a million dollars

by placing remarkably accurate bets predicting US

and Israeli military action in Iran.

Now, to be clear, we don't know for sure

that any of these transactions were illicit.

We cannot say for sure that this is insider trading.

But all of this is eye popping and certainly notable,

especially when you consider who has access

to this kind of information.

I mean, for all they're crowing about transparency,

the Trump administration has been incredibly guarded

about their decisions in this war.

Just today, the Pentagon imposed new restrictions on journalists

even after a judge on Friday ruled

that their previous limits on the Pentagon press corps

were unconstitutional.

And the New York Times reports today

that Republicans in Congress are deferring

to the Trump administration by refusing to hold

any public hearings with Trump officials about the war.

In other words, Trump wants to keep journalists

and the public you and me and your neighbors

and everybody from getting access

to consequential decisions about this war.

But at the same time, nobody in this administration

seems concerned about the possibility

that some mega-brow with a White House credential

could make a million dollars betting

on what's inside Trump's mystery prize box from Iran.

And I'm sure people are betting on that.

When Trump ran for president, he claimed remember,

he was standing up for everyday Americans

by opposing new foreign wars.

I didn't believe that, I doubt you did either.

But now that he is president,

he's launched a war that feels like it's almost exclusively

about indulging his own wins as well as the whims

of other rich and powerful people in his orbit.

Today, the New York Times reports

that the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia has had multiple calls

of Trump pushing him to continue his war with Iran.

And at the same time,

Reuters is now reporting that Trump's initial decision

to strike Iran came after Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu

told him they could get revenge for Iran's failed attempts

to assassinate Trump himself.

All of this is maddening for everyday, every American

who will bear the cost of this war.

And just imagine how it must feel to be one of the men

and women in uniform,

who are being asked to risk their lives for this.

One of the people who understands that sacrifice

is Senator Ruben Gallego.

Before joining Congress,

Senator Gallego served in Iraq as part of a Marine battalion.

He lost his best friend to combat operations during the war.

And yesterday, Senator Gallego held a town hall

with veterans in San Antonio, Texas,

where he talked about Trump's war of choice in Iran

with people who have actually served their country.

Here's a little look of what that looked like.

The most patriotic thing you can do,

the most patriotic thing you could do for veterans,

is to not send us to stupid wars.

Senator Ruben Gallego joins me here at the table

when we come back.

As promised joining me now is Marine Corveteran

and Democratic Senator from Arizona, Ruben Gallego.

Senator Gallego, I want to talk to you about this town hall

you did last night in Texas and the response you got.

Because I think it's so interesting,

but I just want to start with a couple of the news developments

given your background and the committees you're on to.

I mean, today we learn that Trump is planning

on sending an additional 3,000 troops to the Middle East.

And I think as you know well, as people watching know,

it's on top of the troops already there,

as well as the 5,000 Marines that Trump is also sending

to the region.

I just mentioned this earlier,

but you've spent time visiting with so many people

who have family members who've served, you served yourself.

What has been your reaction as you've seen this continue

to escalate with the number of troops

that are being sent to a run to fight a war

that nobody knows the purpose of?

Well, it tells you there's no plan.

Why are you bringing men and women this late in the stage?

You're pulling, you know, our remains from all over the world.

You're pulling in our capabilities to actually stop missiles

from South Korea, from Taiwan.

And you have, you know, a M.E.U.

that's actually moving from the Marine Expression Unit,

it's moving from the Indo-Pacific to here,

it's going to take, you know, to the Persian Gulf.

It's going to take two weeks.

You are doing this all this because you didn't plan for a victory.

You didn't plan for an exit.

You're actually hoping that while your initial actions

we're going to actually get you to a victory,

that's a very dangerous situation.

This president, and the people around him,

Marco Rubio, Pique Hexeth, are basically trying to stumble

onto a victory and onto an exit plan.

And when that happens, unfortunately,

that means men and women die.

That means that we start losing our national prestige

when it comes to our alliances from around the world

and it actually gives an advantage to our enemies

because they basically get to call the shots.

This president did not plan this out.

The basic, basic person has ever understood

anything about the Persian Gulf region,

about the Middle East, has always known,

has always known that Iran was going to do

exactly what they're doing right now.

This is the first president that is so freaking stupid

that he did not accept that that's exactly what's going to happen.

I don't know who lied to him or he lied to himself,

but he is screwing this up.

We should never have been in the first place,

but even now that we're in it, he's still screwing it up.

We talk about this here a lot.

You've been on the Armed Services Committee.

I've obviously sat in on meetings

where you map out all the things you just mentioned.

And people didn't map out all of the outcomes

that we've seen to your point.

Absolutely.

You were just in last night at this town hall,

vote vets town hall in San Antonio, Texas.

Texas is the state and the country

with the most veterans per population of any state.

More has been a more Republican state,

though, more conservative state.

Tell me about the population of people you saw there.

What maybe surprised you about some of the conversations

you had if anything did?

Well, look, it was a very big crowd.

I was happy to see that.

And it was a crowd that you don't normally see.

It was a lot of Latino veterans,

a lot of family members of Latino,

either veterans and or people that are in the military

that are worried what's happening both to the VA

but also what's happening to war.

Because there are a lot of Latino families

that send their kids to the front lines

of whatever service it is.

And they were very worried about what's happening right now.

Because they don't feel there's real leadership here.

They also remember what happened during the Iraq

Afghanistan war.

Actually, two guys that are served with during the Iraq war

actually showed up and I got to catch up with them.

But as I was talking to them on the rope line,

we were just talking about like,

this is just deja vu again, right?

And there are so many Latino families right now

that are seeing what's happening around.

They're doing it again.

They're going to sacrifice our kids

for a war that has no plan, no ending.

And we're going to end up paying more

both in terms of our blood, of our kids, of our family members,

and then of our taxes.

Because what's happening right now is they're going to fund this

by cutting Medicaid, by cutting food stamps,

at the end of the day,

who's going to end up bending from around this?

The ritual companies.

The people that are going to get the tax cuts

that they got earlier in the year.

But the people that are going to go fight are the kids

and the sons and daughters that I saw

at the San Antonio fair right now.

And imagine it's feeling very real for people.

Did you meet anybody who was like,

I voted for Trump and this is making me think again?

So this community of people that came out to me

with me, a lot of them were Trump supporters.

A lot of them were Vietnam veterans,

Iraq war veterans, Afghans veterans, Latinos,

that voted for Donald Trump in 2024.

And they voted for him believing two things.

Number one, they wanted to secure the border.

And they believed that he was going to keep them

out of these foreign wars.

And the first thing they said was,

Venezuela was a problem.

And number two, now what's happening in Iraq, in Iran,

is scaring them.

And this is what motivated them to come out.

The fact that they were willing to come out,

spent as much time as they did with us,

talking about their concerns, having their family members come up

and talk about their concerns about what's going to happen

if their kids overseas,

tells you that there is this understanding

that they cannot trust this president.

And if you look at what's actually happening now,

if you see what he's doing, it's exactly what I saw

during the Iraq war.

They don't know how to get out of this.

They had no real good reason of how to get

why we got into this.

And right now, all they're hoping is

there's somehow this solution just comes to them.

But the problem is, it's not Donald Trump that pays for it.

It's not his kids because they're not serving overseas.

It's people like a young Ruben Gallego,

who is serving as a corporal.

It's like all my friends, too many of them that died,

who went to serve their country.

But it's bad leadership than upkilling us.

And this president, Peahexit, and Marco Rubio

are just as much the problem as it was back in 2003 and 2005.

It's different reasons that have dragged us in.

But I know you've been vocal about some of the reasons

that are just, I mean, specifically,

the role of Prime Minister Netanyahu and his efforts

to convince presidents in the past.

In the past, yes.

To do something similar to what Donald Trump has done.

I don't know if you saw this reporting from Reuters.

You may have seen it about the conversation Netanyahu had with Trump

trying to convince him to move forward.

According to the reporting from Reuters, he pushed Trump to strike

when he did to avenge previous assassination attempts on Trump.

Which really sticks out to me because that makes it about Trump personally.

Yes.

And not what is happening with the country.

Right.

What do you make with that about that?

Well, how does it surprise you?

I don't think it does.

But, you know, and I actually said this yesterday,

he doesn't understand the idea of self-sacrifice.

He doesn't understand the idea of putting himself, you know,

putting the country first and then himself second.

And so will he actually put the American public in danger,

our security in danger, to him to avenge something?

Absolutely.

And we just saw this.

And we don't know what the full existence is going to be.

We know that there's already six dead.

We don't know how many injured.

We know that's already costing us billions and billions of dollars,

all because he got played.

And someone was able to play to his very small nature,

his very small mind.

The problem is this country is going to pay for it.

We're going to pay for it because this president is an idiot.

And we have to all be very clear about this,

because I think there's going to be a lot of different reasons

why they're going to come up.

They're always trying to make them look like a genius at the end.

But the reason we're here at this point is because there's two things,

there are two problems with this president.

Number one, he's an idiot.

Number two, he's selfish.

Those two combinations are the worst thing you could have in a president.

And when you're asking men and women to serve for a war,

you haven't explained to the country.

You can't go anywhere, don't go anywhere.

I will not.

You're attached to the chair, sort of.

Yes, sir.

We have to take a quick break.

But I want, there's so much happening today.

I want to talk to you more about what's happening with ice at airports and all of that.

Thank you.

Glad, yeah.

We are back as promised with Democratic Senator Rubin,

Diego of Arizona.

Okay, so everybody who's traveling out there is dealing with airport lines.

And certain people who are going to airports, certain airports in the country

are dealing also with ice at the airports.

And I just wanted to play something that Steve Bannon said about this

because sometimes they say the quiet part out loud

about what is all behind us.

So let's play that.

We'll talk about it on the other side.

One question.

I want the mainstream media's head to blow up today.

We can use what's happening with these ice helping out, helping out at the airports.

We can use this as a test run, as a test case to get really perfect.

Ice is involvement in the 2026 midterm election, sir.

Yeah, I think we should have ice agents at the polling places.

If you're an American citizen, you should be happy that ice is there

because you're not going to have illegal aliens canceling up the phone.

They say no ice agents can be at a polling station.

What's the trouble with that, Jessica?

What's the problem if illegals aren't voting?

Why can't ice agents be at a polling station?

I mean, again, you start to hear them circulate the same talking points over and over again.

Do you think that's what this is about?

I actually don't think they know what this is about.

They're literally just trying to look.

The president sent ice agents to our airport, but also to other airports,

because he saw somebody on Twitter that got picked up by Fox News.

This guy is doing policy by the seat of his pants.

Number two, why should we be worried?

Why should we be worried if ice is going to the polling place?

Number one, because they killed two Americans in two weeks in co-blood in front of our faces.

We know that they're arresting American citizens all the time.

They're racially profiling, especially Latinos all the time,

and making them prove their citizenship.

Imagine if they're at polling places and they decide to start doing that.

That's going to cause chaos.

It's going to cause people to start deciding whether or not to vote,

or to try to, just as important as they start mistrusting the government even more so and more so.

But they're just throwing out anything right now because they understand that one problem that's happening right now

is they're losing this issue.

The American public wants reform to ice.

They don't want people, they don't want federal law enforcement to enter your house without a warrant.

They don't want you to be able to be able to be pulled over because they think you're here in this country illegally

because we know who they're going to target when they do that.

We believe that you should act like all professional law enforcement and not wear a mask

and actually show your identification when someone asks you why are you arresting me and who are you

and what is your right to arrest me.

That is why they're in this situation right now.

They're just trying to cast anything they can to get out of it.

And I do expect that this is what they're planning in their minds even if they don't know how it will work.

I mean, one of the reasons they're obviously doing this or thinking about this

or all of the things they're doing on voting is because things aren't going very well.

Not at all.

The Democrats have flipped 29 state legislative seats.

Republicans have flipped zero since 2024.

One of the people who flipped the seat is Emily Gregory who I believe you know.

I believe you know.

You said you were texting her.

Yeah, we're texting her today and just, and just patient what was going to happen.

And she flipped a seat that Trump won by 11 points.

Right.

I mean, just less than two years ago, the Republican won by almost 20 points.

Right.

Less than two years ago.

What do you think that tells us?

And the whole trend tells us.

Well, I think the argument people are saying is that, oh, the Democrats are really energized.

You don't win districts like this without getting people to cross over and vote.

And, you know, in Arizona, we want to state, unfortunately, that Donald Trump won.

The reason we want is because there were Republicans and Independents that were able to convince to also vote for us.

Emily winning in where Mar-a-Lago, by the way, is.

Yeah.

Tell us your number one.

She's a great candidate.

Trump's new representative.

Yeah.

Number one, it tells you that she's a great candidate.

But number two, that she was able to convince Republicans and Independents to cross over.

And say, you know, this is not what I wanted.

This is not what I expect in my government.

And I want to support someone new that's going to bring a new perspective, a new, you know, vision in.

And that's happening everywhere.

This is not about just Democrats being excited.

There are Republicans that consider themselves patriots or realizing they need to put a check on these Republicans and on the White House.

And they're coming out and they're voting for Democrats.

They feel we'll do that.

It is, I think, an energizing for people to watch.

No question about it.

Of course it is.

We're supposed to nerds.

I know.

Everybody watching is being a nerd is a good thing.

Yes.

Let me ask you before I let you go because I think this is on the minds of a lot of people watching too.

I mean, Congress is still negotiating unless you tell me otherwise a deal negotiating ice reforms in DHS funding.

Earlier today, Trump said that it was unlikely he would agree to anything that the Democrats supported.

It seems a little stalled because of that.

Even though Democrats put forward a plan to fund TSA, what's the status of it?

Where do you think it happens from here?

Look, I think it's been very clear that this president wants to just continue the chaos that's been starting in the streets of Minnesota of Los Angeles.

And now he's willing to bring more chaos even to our airports.

You know, he introduces ice agents.

Does not actually take a solution that was given to him by Republican leadership and by Democrats that would have basically gotten us out of all this situation.

And let's also, let's remember, you know, the last shutdown, this president was able to find money for so many things he wanted.

For some reason, he cannot even find money to move to actually pay these TSA agents.

Because what he wants is us to rubber stamp, rubber stamp his efforts, his mass deportations, the racial profiling he is doing.

And he wants the Democrats to be part and parcel that without any restrictions, any restrictions on what's happening in our streets.

We want sane law enforcement.

That's what the American public wants, not what Democrats want, the American public wants.

And we can do that right now. And we can even still keep negotiating while we pay the TSA agents and everyone else.

But he wants it all. And that's not the American public wants.

And we're certainly not going to give in until we get what the American public wants.

Hello, everyone. We covered a lot.

We did it. Thank you so much for being here with me. I really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Okay, coming up, what is Pete Hexeth so afraid of? I mean, seriously, why is Pete Hexeth so afraid of media scrutiny?

He seems really freaked by it. He's even trying to still, still trying to restrict press access even after a judge told him not to.

I have the perfect person to ask all about that and what's happening, legendary Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr is standing by and she joins us next.

As I mentioned at the top of the show on Friday, a federal judge ruled that the restrictions that Trump's defense secretary Pete Hexeth put on the Pentagon press call last year, the restrictions that effectively barred journalists from publishing information that hadn't been explicitly approved by the Pentagon.

And that barred journalists from physically entering the Pentagon without a defense department escort on Friday, federal judge ruled that those restrictions were unconstitutional.

So yesterday in a normal world, which we're not living in, should have been the day that they started to figure out how the real actual journalists were going to be allowed back at the Pentagon.

It should have been the day they were given back their badges and left back in the building without any of those authoritarian feeling restrictions.

But instead of doing that, yesterday the Pentagon issued a whole new set of restrictions. The new restrictions force all journalists to be accompanied by a defense department escort whenever they are physically inside the Pentagon and they effectively barred journalists from publishing information that hasn't been explicitly approved by the Pentagon.

Now, if that sounds familiar to you, if you think I just told you the same thing twice, that's because it is almost exactly what the old restrictions were.

You know, the restrictions that a federal judge just ruled were unconstitutional just a few days ago.

The difference now is that the restrictions are worded differently. As the New York Times put it, put it instead of restricting how reporters could quote solicit information, the new restrictions replace the word solicitation with quote intentional inducement of unauthorized disclosure, both of which are incredible ways of saying asking questions.

Now, it's one thing to defy court orders like this, but it is another thing altogether to admit you were doing it.

Remember that the judges ruling on Friday came as the result of a lawsuit filed by the New York Times about the original set of restrictions, which is why it is so amazing that Trump's former personal lawyer, Tim Parlatore, who is now, of course, one of Hegs's advisors at the Pentagon said this to the New York Times in an on the record interview.

This is really, when asked about the new restrictions, Parlatore told the Times quote, we used more words to say the same thing. You sure did.

Tonight, that quote has already made its way into a legal filing by the New York Times, asking that same federal judge to intervene to step in and compel the Pentagon to stop playing around and just let their journalists back in the building of very reasonable ask joining me now as former CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara star.

It's great to see you, Barbara. First I want to just ask you about one of the genuinely, I guess, new rules, new rules, same as the old rules of the Pentagon's new set of restrictions.

It would move reporters from the offices they have traditionally used into some sort of off-campus annex. Now, there are many other concerning parts of this, but you have spent more time in that building, navigating it than almost anyone.

Can you just help give us a sense of the geography here? Is that important? What should people understand about that?

I think it's very important. I think that basically what the Pentagon is talking about is moving reporters to a building out in the parking lot.

Okay, they can do that, but it's not right. And it's not what the judge called for. The judge called, as you pointed out, Jen, for restoration of what had been going on for decades.

And that is that the Pentagon correspondents who are credited to the building had offices in workspace in an area called the correspondence corridor.

Why is this so important? It's not window dressing. It's not the convenience of having an office. This is something that I take to be very deep seated correspondents have been inside the Pentagon for decades.

And that is for one very significant reason. It is because the US military and secretaries of defense have wanted the mayor.

This is the only, shall we call it, ministry of defense in the world that allows journalists and full time to see what they're doing to report on this.

And it's international journalists, people from multiple countries around the world who come there every day, people from all kinds of publications, not just, you know, the legacy, old time media publications. New media is now accredited to the Pentagon.

So it comes back to what you started off by saying if he wants to end this decades long tradition that is so important of letting the world see what the US military is doing.

Why does he want to end it? What is he so afraid of? And it's hard to know the answer with him, you know.

It's so one of the many reasons I love talking to you is you just have been there for so many important moments in that building and just covering wars as a journalist and events in the Pentagon as a journalist.

You were CNN's lead Pentagon correspondent during the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria during so many other moments, I don't even have time to list.

How does the Pentagon's relationship with the press now compared to then? I wanted to talk to you about this because you were there for Democratic presidents, Republican presidents, all sorts of different secretaries of defense.

We talked about the annex. What else really sticks out to you that people should understand who are watching?

You know, I started off really full time back in the days of Donald Rumsfeld, I would say. And he was not overly fond of the press, but he embraced the notion that they had to be there and he thought they were performing a valuable service of informing the American public and every secretary of defense since has also embraced that concept.

They have all had their problems. They have reporters. They don't like they have stories. They don't like they have publications. They don't like just to like at the White House. No different.

But they understand that in this country of fundamental underpinning of American democracy is the first amendment and the free press and how important it is to communicate what the troops are doing.

I would share one anecdote, which is under Bob Gates, who was a pretty tough customer and did not suffer fools gladly. I think every reporter who covered him can attest to that.

Under Gates, he applauded the press corps because there were multiple cases of stories that emerged about things going on that he said he had no idea that they, you know, the treatment of the wounded at Walter Reed, the needs, the wine resistant vehicles in the war zone.

These were stories that came out that were heavily reported by the news media.

Gates was very glad to see those stories. He did not take a negative attitude towards that. He didn't say that reporting the bad news was reporters trying to make the president look bad.

I think one of really truly the saddest things that will go down in history is Pete Hickseth criticizing the news media for reporting on those troops who were killed in action in Kuwait.

It is so important for Americans to understand what their troops are called to do and how they may perish on the battlefield.

Hickseth likes to talk about the fact he's a veteran, so you would think he would understand this, but right now he is determined, hey, can I make one more quick point?

You know, they say that this is all because they have to have these restrictions because they have to monitor reporters to make sure they are not a security risk.

In the 30 years, I'll admit it here, 30 years, in covering the Pentagon in the news media, like every other reporter we all had to pass an FBI background check.

I think the White House is probably the same way. They have plenty of tools to monitor any security problems they may come across. Restricting the news media is not the way to do that.

I always think about how John Kerry, when I was traveling with him, used to say it helps reporters journalists understand the whole process.

It helps their reporting when something happens, right, by giving access and bringing them along on the journey, even if you don't love a restory. That's not the point.

Thank you so much, as always, for joining us.

Thanks, Jim.

We've got, take a very quick break. Lawrence has Senator Gary Peter standing by. He's, of course, a member of the Armed Services Committee and the Ranking Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, which means he is a great guest on a night like this.

Don't go any more. We'll be right back.

That does it for me tonight. You can catch the show Tuesday through Friday at 9 p.m. Eastern on MSNOW. And don't forget to follow the show on Blue Sky, Instagram, and TikTok.