The following is the transcript of the interview with Rep. Jim Himes, Democrat of Connecticut, that aired on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on March 29, 2026.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We go now to the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Jim Himes, who joins us from Greenwich, Connecticut. Good morning to you.
REP. JIM HIMES: Good morning, Margaret.
So you just heard the border czar, the White House representative here, make his argument. Politically speaking, though. I mean, the shutdown was intended by Democrats to try to constrain ICE and how it had been acting. But practically speaking, ICE is already funded. In fact, it’s one of the few DHS entities where people are getting paid because they had so much funding from the President’s last bill, and now their portfolio is expanding because they’re in American airports across the country. So what did Democrats get out of this standoff?
REP. HIMES: Yeah, well, Margaret, the standoff is not done yet, right? The President is illegally paying, apparently, TSA agents. You had the Senate, as you pointed out, with Mr. Honan- Homan, pass a bipartisan bill unanimously in the United States Senate to say, look, let’s fund everybody else, and let’s deal with this thorny issue about ICE. And then you had the Republican House say, hell no, we’re not doing that. And by the way, mock their own Republican leaders in the Senate. So look what- this thing is still very much live for one very simple reason. We can talk about House, Senate, changing law, for one very simple reason, which is that the vast majority of Americans look at the way ICE behaved with the murder of two American citizens, with the constant knocking down of doors of American citizens without warrants, people dressed like they are, you know, airlifting into Fallujah to do the legitimate work of going after illegal aliens in this country, and they say that is not okay, and that’s our position. Our position is very simply, we want ICE to act like the police force that they are, and that fight is not won yet. And look, I’m sorry it got tied up. I’m sorry that the Republicans on one side of the Capitol said this was a good idea, and on the other side of the Capitol. They called it a joke, but we’re ready to negotiate around something that is not a radical demand. We just want ICE to act like proper police officers.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So in the meantime, the president’s redirecting existing funding to pay TSA agents. You said he was illegally paying them. You believe that he is violating the law in this interpretation that the White House says they have?
REP. HIMES: Well, it’s not that I believe it, it’s that I know it, right? I mean, if there’s one power that Congress has, it is the power of the purse. Now this president has, of course, consistently and universally said that he in fact has that power–
MARGARET BRENNAN: –So they shouldn’t be paid?
REP. HIMES: –but any American that went through fourth grade civics- no, they should be paid. This- they should have never been held hostage. And we had a deal come out unanimously from the Senate, that if it had passed right now, they would be getting paid, and we wouldn’t be talking about the constitutional power of the purse. But Mike Johnson, leader of the House of Representatives, said hell no to what his Republicans in the Senate said yes to.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So there were three Democrats, though, who got on board with Speaker Johnson the House version of this bill, even without any new accountability measures in it, Congresswoman Glusenkamp Perez says she did so because she thinks it’s wrong not to pay people for their work, and Democrats had set unattainable goals. She says since the White House was agreeing to things like body cameras- doesn’t she have a point here that there is, as she put it, ‘ideological purity’ that’s getting in the way of working people?
REP. HIMES: So this is not a question of ideological purity. And I agree with Marie on one point, which is the people shouldn’t be held hostage. And we can come back to that. But this is not extreme demands by any stretch of the imagination. Again, we’re asking that guys not dress like Navy SEALs when they go into Minneapolis. We’re asking that they wear badges the way every other police officer does, that they have warrants when they break down doors.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And some of those things have been agreed to–
REP. HIMES: This is not ideological purity. This is basic adherence to the law- yeah, well, okay, so it’s all agreed to, let’s pass the law which codifies it. Because you know what, we don’t trust the president when he says, okay, no masks any more than we trust him when he says, oh, well, now I’m negotiating with the Iranians when he’s not, right? So if this is so easy, fine, let’s codify it into law. But they’re not, you know- they’re not willing to do that. Now, where Maria’s right, and this is important, we have gotten too used to using shutdowns as a mechanism of getting what we want legislatively. And what that implies is that people like TSA agents or folks that work in the federal government for the Department of Agriculture or- don’t get paid when one party throws a tantrum, right? Now, in this case, I happen to believe that the American people- you know are with the Democratic Party and saying you don’t get to act like ICE acted in Minneapolis, but we do need to get away from legislating through shutdown that is not consonant with the great country that we are.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, and they just want their airports and basic government to work. But on the point you raised, you said that the President’s not really negotiating with Iran is that because you haven’t been briefed as a member of Congress on the diplomacy. Or you think he’s flat out lying?
REP. HIMES: I think he’s flat out lying last Sunday, when he was told- and by the way, we’re in exactly the same position today, you know, oil prices now $112 a barrel. And you know futures in the stock market down 2%. Last Sunday, he realized, oh my God, I’ve got a financial cataclysm on Monday. So he just made it up that they’re in negotiations with the Iranians. Look underneath that statement, the Iranians have now realized that they have the reins. They are controlling the Strait of Hormuz. Gasoline prices are up more than $1 a gallon, and so the Iranians realize, holy smokes, we’ve got a lot of leverage here.
MARGARET BRENNAN: In Islamabad today, there are a number of mediators who are in contact with the United States saying they’re talking about Iran. But neither the United States nor Iran are at that table at this moment in time. But further on, the Iran point, I know you care about what’s happening in Ukraine. Notably, President Zelensky of Ukraine has been in the Gulf in these past few days, and he said yesterday that Russia is providing satellite imagery to Iran, and that imagery consists of U.S. military bases. He also said Russia is giving signals intelligence and electronic intelligence to Iran. Do you know of evidence that Russia is actively helping Iran in its war against the United States?
REP. HIMES: Well, I have to be a little careful about this Margaret, because I do review the intelligence, and I obviously can’t speak about things that are classified, but boy, I would sure not argue with President Zelensky on that point. And I would ask the American people to think about what do you think Putin is doing right now? Over four years, we have been, rightly, in my estimation, helping the Ukrainians exact a terrible toll on the Russians. So what do you think is happening? Meanwhile, as you know, we are letting the Iranians, so now the Iranians are getting billions of dollars sell their oil to the Chinese so that they can buy drones from the Russians. We’re letting the Russians sell oil so that they can get dollars to attack the Ukrainians and use those dollars to attack- to help attack our troops. I mean, you just couldn’t make this stuff up in a Hollywood script.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, Secretary Rubio was asked about the degree of aid Russia is giving to Iran, and he minimized it. He says it’s not making a difference on the battlefield. I know the French, I know the British have said that Russia and Iran are helping each other on drones here. When you heard Secretary Rubio’s statement, what did you think he meant?
REP. HIMES: I think it is very much in Marco Rubio’s interest as one of the chief cheerleaders of this war that the American people are now coming to realize is a catastrophe, another quagmire for Marco Rubio to say things like, oh, they’re not making a difference. Well, I don’t agree with Marco Rubio on that point. You know, the Russians have capabilities, things like using basic satellite technology, which you can do commercially, by the way, to find our aircraft carriers. Our military bases in the region, Margaret, right now are supposedly uninhabitable. Why do you think that is?
MARGARET BRENNAN: Before I let you go, Democrats have been making corruption a theme in their campaign against the President and to win back control of the house. Your fellow Democrat, Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick of Florida has been found guilty on 25 ethics charges related to stealing millions of dollars in COVID relief money. Should she resign? Should she be expelled?
REP. HIMES: You know, if she doesn’t resign, there will be a vote in the House, and you know, people will find reasons to support the congresswoman, just as Republicans found reasons to support George Santos–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Should she resign?
REP. HIMES: –at a time when we’re at war, when gas prices are too high, that shouldn’t happen. So I would hope that my colleague might avoid that outcome by choosing to resign. But it is also very important that both parties be consistent in punishing ethical lapses inside their own teams.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay, you hope she resigns. Thank you, congressman for all your insights today. We have to leave it there. We’ll be right back.