Rep. Jim Himes accuses Trump of "flat-out lying" about negotiating with Iran

[0:00] We go now to the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Jim Himes, [0:03] who joins us from Greenwich, Connecticut. Good morning to you. [0:08] Good morning, Margaret. [0:09] So you just heard the boarders are, the White House representative here, make his argument. [0:16] Politically speaking, though, I mean, the shutdown was intended by Democrats to try to constrain [0:21] ICE and how it had been acting. But practically speaking, ICE is already funded. In fact, [0:29] it's one of the few DHS entities where people are getting paid because they had so much funding [0:34] from the president's last bill. And now their portfolio is expanding because they're in American [0:39] airports across the country. So what did Democrats get out of this standoff? [0:44] Yeah, well, Margaret, the standoff is not done yet, right? The president is illegally paying, [0:53] apparently, TSA agents. You had the Senate, as you pointed out with Mr. Homan, pass a bipartisan [1:00] bill unanimously in the United States. [1:02] Senate to say, look, let's fund everybody else and let's deal with this thorny issue [1:06] about ICE. And then you had the Republican House say, hell no, we're not doing that. And by the [1:11] way, mock their own Republican leaders in the Senate. So look, this thing is still very much [1:17] live for one very simple reason. We can talk about House, Senate changing law for one very simple [1:22] reason, which is that the vast majority of Americans look at the way ICE behaved with the [1:26] murder of two American citizens, with the constant knocking down of doors of American citizens [1:32] without warrant. [1:32] People dressed like they are, you know, airlifting into Fallujah to do the legitimate work of going [1:40] after illegal aliens in this country. And they say that is not OK. And that's our position. [1:45] Our position is very simply we want ICE to act like the police force that they are. And that [1:52] fight is not won yet. And look, I'm sorry it got tied up. I'm sorry that the Republicans on one [1:57] side of the Capitol said this was a good idea. And on the other side of the Capitol, they called it [2:00] a joke. [2:01] Yeah. [2:01] But we're ready to negotiate. [2:02] We're ready to negotiate around something that is not a radical demand. We just want ICE to act [2:06] like proper police officers. [2:08] So in the meantime, the president's redirecting existing funding to pay TSA agents. You said he was [2:14] illegally paying them. You believe that he is violating the law in this interpretation that the White [2:21] House says they have? [2:24] Well, it's not that I believe it. It's that I know it. Right. I mean, if there's one power that [2:28] Congress has, it is the power of the purse. Now, this president has, of course, consistently and [2:33] universally said that he, in fact, has the power. [2:35] He shouldn't be paid. [2:36] But any American that went through fourth grade civics, no, they should be paid. They should have [2:41] never been held hostage. And we had a deal come out unanimously from the Senate that if it had [2:46] passed, right now they would be getting paid. And we wouldn't be talking about the constitutional [2:50] power of the purse. But Mike Johnson, leader of the House of Representatives, said hell no to what [2:55] his Republicans in the Senate said yes to. [2:57] So there were three Democrats, though, who got on board with Speaker Johnson, the House version of [3:03] this bill. [3:04] Even without any new accountability measures in it. Congresswoman Glusenkamp-Perez says she did so [3:10] because she thinks it's wrong not to pay people for their work. And Democrats had set unattainable [3:16] goals. She says since the White House was agreeing to things like body cameras, doesn't she have a [3:23] point here that there is, as she put it, ideological purity that's getting in the way of working [3:28] people? [3:30] So this is not a question of ideological purity. And I agree with Marie on one point, which is that [3:35] people shouldn't be held hostage. [3:36] And we can come back to that. But this is not extreme demands by any stretch of the imagination. [3:42] Again, we're asking that guys not dress like Navy SEALs when they go into Minneapolis. We're asking [3:47] that they wear badges the way every other police officer does, that they have warrants when they [3:51] break down doors. [3:52] And some of those things have been agreed to. [3:53] This is not ideological purity. This is basic adherence to the law. Yeah, well, OK, so it's all [3:57] agreed to. Let's pass the law, which codifies it. Because you know what? We don't trust the [4:01] president when he says, OK, no masks, any more than we trust him when he says, oh, well, now I'm [4:06] negotiating with the Iranians when he's not. Right. So if this is so easy, fine, let's codify it [4:11] into law. But they're not, you know, they're not willing to do that. Now, where Marie is right, [4:15] and this is important, we have gotten too used to using shutdowns as a mechanism of getting what [4:23] we want legislatively. And what that implies is that people like TSA agents or folks that work in [4:28] the federal government for the Department of Agriculture or so don't get paid when one party [4:32] throws a tantrum. Right now, in this case, I happen to believe that the American people, [4:36] you know, are with the Democratic Party and saying you don't get to act like the like ICE [4:41] acted in Minneapolis. But we do need to get away from legislating through shutdown. That is not [4:46] consonant with the great country that we are. Well, and they just want their airports and [4:50] basic government to work. But on the point you raised, you said that the president's not really [4:55] negotiating with Iran. Is that because you haven't been briefed as a member of Congress [5:00] on the diplomacy or you think he's flat out lying? Oh, I think he's flat out lying. Last Sunday, [5:06] when he was told and by the way, we're in exactly the same time. [5:08] Same position today. You know, oil prices now $112 a barrel and, you know, futures in the stock [5:14] market down 2 percent. Last Sunday, he realized, oh, my God, I've got a financial cataclysm on [5:19] Monday. So he just made it up that they're in negotiations with the Iranians. Look, underneath [5:23] that statement, the Iranians have now realized that they have the reins. They are controlling [5:28] the Strait of Hormuz. Gasoline prices are up more than a dollar a gallon. And so the Iranians [5:33] realize, holy smokes, we've got a lot of leverage here. In Islamabad today, [5:38] there are a number of mediators who are in contact with the United States saying they're talking [5:43] about Iran. But neither the United States nor Iran are at that table at this moment in time. [5:48] But further on the Iran point, I know you care about what's happening in Ukraine. [5:54] Notably, President Zelensky of Ukraine has been in the Gulf in these past few days. [6:00] And he said yesterday that Russia is providing satellite imagery to Iran. And that imagery [6:09] consistently. [6:09] He also said Russia is giving signals intelligence and electronic intelligence to Iran. Do you know [6:20] of evidence that Russia is actively helping Iran in its war against the United States? [6:26] Well, I have to be a little careful about this, Margaret, because I do review the intelligence, [6:32] and I obviously can't speak about things that are classified. But boy, I would sure not argue [6:36] with President Zelensky on that point. And I would ask the American people to think about [6:39] what do you think Putin is doing right now? Over four years, [6:43] you've been, rightly in my estimation, helping the Ukrainians exact a terrible toll on the [6:49] Russians. So what do you think is happening? Meanwhile, as you know, we are letting the [6:54] Iranians, so now the Iranians are getting billions of dollars, sell their oil to the Chinese so that [6:59] they can buy drones from the Russians. We're letting the Russians sell oil so that they can [7:04] get dollars to attack the Ukrainians and use those dollars to help attack our troops. I mean, [7:10] you just couldn't make this stuff up. [7:13] HOLLYWOOD SCRIPT. [7:14] WELL, SECRETARY RUBIO WAS ASKED [7:16] ABOUT THE DEGREE OF AID RUSSIA [7:18] IS GIVING TO IRAN, AND HE [7:20] MINIMIZED IT. [7:21] HE SAYS IT'S NOT MAKING A [7:23] DIFFERENCE ON THE BATTLEFIELD. [7:24] I KNOW THE FRENCH, I KNOW THE [7:25] BRITISH HAVE SAID THAT RUSSIA [7:27] AND IRAN ARE HELPING EACH OTHER [7:28] ON DRONES HERE. [7:30] WHEN YOU HEARD SECRETARY [7:31] RUBIO'S STATEMENT, WHAT DID YOU [7:34] THINK HE MEANT? [7:38] I THINK IT IS VERY MUCH IN [7:39] MARCO RUBIO'S INTEREST AS ONE OF [7:42] THE CHIEF CHEERLEADERS OF THIS [7:44] WAR THAT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE [7:47] NOW COMING TO REALIZE IS A [7:48] CATASTROPHE, ANOTHER QUAGMIRE [7:51] FOR MARCO RUBIO TO SAY THINGS [7:53] LIKE, OH, THEY'RE NOT MAKING A [7:55] DIFFERENCE. [7:55] WELL, I DON'T AGREE WITH MARCO [7:57] RUBIO ON THAT POINT. [7:59] YOU KNOW, THE RUSSIANS HAVE [8:00] CAPABILITIES, THINGS LIKE USING [8:02] BASIC SATELLITE TECHNOLOGY, [8:03] WHICH YOU CAN DO COMMERCIALLY, [8:05] BY THE WAY, TO FIND OUR AIRCRAFT [8:07] CARRIERS. [8:07] OUR MILITARY BASES IN THE REGION, [8:09] MARGARET, RIGHT NOW ARE [8:10] SUPPOSEDLY UNINHABITABLE. [8:12] WHY DO YOU THINK THAT IS? [8:14] YEAH. [8:14] BEFORE I LET YOU GO, DEMOCRATS [8:16] HAVE BEEN MAKING CORRUPTION A [8:17] THEME IN THEIR CAMPAIGN AGAINST [8:20] THE PRESIDENT AND TO WIN BACK [8:22] CONTROL OF THE HOUSE. [8:23] YOUR FELLOW DEMOCRAT, SHEILA [8:25] SHERFULIS MCCORMICK OF FLORIDA [8:26] HAS BEEN FOUND GUILTY ON 25 [8:28] ETHICS CHARGES RELATED TO [8:30] STEALING MILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN [8:31] COVID RELIEF MONEY. [8:33] SHOULD SHE RESIGN? [8:34] SHOULD SHE BE EXPELLED? [8:36] YOU KNOW, IF SHE DOESN'T [8:39] RESIGN, THERE WILL BE A VOTE IN [8:42] THE HOUSE, AND, YOU KNOW, PEOPLE [8:44] WILL FIND REASONS TO SUPPORT [8:46] THEM. [8:46] IF SHE DOESN'T RESIGN, THERE WILL [8:48] BE A VOTE IN THE HOUSE. [8:50] I THINK IT'S IMPORTANT TO SUPPORT [8:52] THE CONGRESSWOMAN JUST AS [8:54] REPUBLICANS FOUND REASONS TO [8:55] SUPPORT GEORGE SANTOS. [8:56] SHOULD SHE RESIGN? [8:57] AT A TIME WHEN WE'RE AT [8:59] WAR, WHEN GAS PRICES ARE TOO HIGH, [9:00] THAT SHOULDN'T HAPPEN. [9:01] SO I WOULD HOPE THAT MY [9:03] COLLEAGUE MIGHT AVOID THAT [9:04] OUTCOME BY CHOOSING TO RESIGN. [9:06] BUT IT IS ALSO VERY IMPORTANT [9:08] THAT BOTH PARTIES BE CONSISTENT [9:10] IN PUNISHING ETHICAL LAPSES [9:12] INSIDE THEIR OWN TEAMS. [9:14] OKAY. [9:15] THANK YOU VERY MUCH.