A New Approach To Addressing America's National Security Threats
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I'm Will Cain. I'm Dana Perino. I'm Greg Jarrett. And this is the Fox News Rundown.

Monday, March 24th, 2025. I'm Mike Emanuel. This week, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is holding a hearing looking at the worldwide threats to the national security of the United States.

The committee chairman offered this preview. I think one of our biggest threats to our national security and to our open society is our open society. And it's something that our adversaries know and they leverage against us. So they're good at manipulating our own free society and the institutions that we enjoy here. We're joined by House Intelligence Chairman Rick Crawford.

And Lisa Brady. After a massive declassified documents dump, will the JFK assassination debate finally end? Oh, I don't think it'll put a stop to conspiracy theories. I'm past the point of thinking anything actually will put a stop to conspiracy theories about the case. And I'm Mina Svart. I got the final word on the Fox News rundown. ♪

Over the weekend, President Trump attended the NCAA Wrestling Championships in Philadelphia, where he received a rock star welcome. Oklahoma Republican Senator Mark Wayne Mullen described the scene.

It was a huge moment. Just the fact that President Trump took the time to walk into that arena and just share the love of the sport that he truly cares about. There's a different kind of wrestling underway between President Trump's Justice Department and some federal judges. Federal Judge James Boasberg has been highly critical of the Justice Department for ignoring his order to turn around two deportation flights.

State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce says it is time to bring back the rule of law when it comes to the U.S. immigration and visa system. We have a right to decide who comes into our country. And that's what our passport system is about. It's about for Americans about coming and going. Other countries have their rules. And when you want to come in here, obviously, we love people around the world. This nation is the result of people wanting a better life.

And it continues to be. But what we don't want is to be taken advantage of in that regard. In Saudi Arabia, the United States is attempting to advance peace talks to end the war in Ukraine in separate discussions with the Ukrainians and the Russians. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff was asked about Russian President Vladimir Putin's ambitions. I just don't see that he wants to take all of Europe.

This is a much different situation than it was in World War II. In World War II, there was no NATO. So I just, you have countries that are armed there. To me, it just, I take him at his word in this sense. There's a lot at stake as President Trump has made it clear he wants the fighting in Ukraine to end with a lasting peace deal. I think what the administration is doing is the right thing to do. I mean, obviously, you've got to bring both parties to the table.

House Intelligence Chairman Rick Crawford. And I think where efforts like this have failed in the past is, you know, you've got more people involved, more intermediaries, and it tends to break down, you know, lost in translation type scenario. But I think direct address with both Zelensky and Putin involved, I think is helpful as opposed to trying to put this through some sort of a

you know, a board of mediators or some international group. So I think the Trump administration is on the right track to try and get this resolved quickly. Do you think Vladimir Putin is serious about peace in that conflict or do you worry that he might just be playing games?

Well, I mean, he has a history of playing games, and so you have to be really careful. And I think the Trump administration is clear-eyed about that. So that's good. And whatever deal is struck, and I hope there is one, that we come to a quick and peaceful resolution. In the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which you chair, you're holding a hearing on Wednesday examining the assessment of worldwide threats to the national security of the United States. What are your expectations, sir?

What we expect to hear are the things that we, some of the things we already know. I mean, you know, obviously what we just talked about with regard to Russia and Ukraine, but then there's, you

The continuing threat that we see with China, China's pervasive everywhere in the world is particularly true as we're seeing them carve out a strong niche in our hemisphere. That's something that's going to be a focus of mine in this Congress from the HPSI platform, has been for quite some time. We'll talk about that. We'll talk about the declaration of narcotics trafficking organizations as terrorist organizations, which I think was a good move. We'll get some greater detail on that.

We'll talk, I'm sure we'll hear about the Iran threat continues to be prevalent. And in North Korea, all the usual suspects and terrorism is still a thing. And so we've still got to be diligent in the counterterrorism space. In your view, what changes need to be made within the intelligence community to enhance the United States readiness for threats? The ability to address the growing influence of the Chinese Communist Party here in the Western Hemisphere?

I think one of our biggest threats to our national security and to our open society is our open society. And it's something that our adversaries know and they leverage against us. So they're good at manipulating our own free society and the institutions that we enjoy here. So that's going to be a challenge we have to maintain constantly.

America's constitutional rights and freedoms, and at the same time, still be diligent in protecting them against adversary threats that come from nation states and non-nation states that want to threaten us. And so it's a delicate balance, but it can be done. I think as we see countries like China continuing to try to carve out a niche in our hemisphere, not only in our neighborhood, but even here in our country, you've seen the

so the continuation of a purchase of farmland and intellectual property things of this nature what are we doing to blunt that are we are we actively postured from the counterintelligence perspective those are things that we have to deal with at home and then of course overseas what are we doing with our allies to make sure that we're maintaining good contact good relationships with various countries

that we do want to have good relationships with, and we're providing alternatives to Chinese aggression. I've traveled the Western Hemisphere fairly extensively, and those countries all say the same thing, that we're their preferred partner, and yet they turn around and engage with the Chinese. Well, that's largely because we haven't given them

Realistic alternatives. They want to be a partner with us, but we're not giving them the alternatives, the options that they need in order to exercise that option. How important are America's alliances with the growing threats of Iran, China and, of course, Russia?

Well, our alliances, they're all critical. And when you're talking about great power adversaries like China and the potential for Iran as they continue to try and develop nuclear capabilities, it's really, really important that we have good relationships with folks that we've historically had good relationships with. Sometimes these relationships can be a little bit strained for various reasons.

But in the end, what we've done over the years is really maintain good continuity. But we just need to shore that up and make sure that we're all sort of seen from the same hymnal, if you will, because countries like Iran don't just threaten the United States. They threaten stability in the Middle East region and even beyond because of their ability to engage proxies. And also, you see them playing a role even in Ukraine with regard to providing

providing drones for Russians to use against Ukraine.

Then we have the Indo-Pacific region maintaining good relationships there that blunts the effects of China in that region, but also North Korea. So good, solid relationship with Japan. That's really important. But also South Korea. And there's been some, you know, obviously some political turmoil there, but we just need to make sure that we retain a good proactive posture there and that we have a really good working relationship with countries like South Korea.

In your view, what is the greatest threat to America's national security? If we were talking about an adversary, it would certainly be China. There's no question about it, in my opinion. But I don't think we need to discount the history with Russia, their activity even in our hemisphere. And also, you know, Iran is pervasive. But I think we have to sort of put them in that order. China is pervasive.

economically belligerent, they're politically belligerent, military belligerent in some cases. But what's worse about it is that after 9/11, as we sort of repostured to aggressively fight the global war on terror, we sort of left our neighborhood and we left it unguarded. And that opened up opportunity for China first economically. But what happens economically is they use that as leverage.

You see, in the last few years, you've seen a particularly important oil development, natural gas development off the coast of Guyana and Suriname. China's playing aggressively there. They're trying to engage in infrastructure. Their Belt and Road Initiative is critical to them. And they get countries around the world to sign off and sign on to, rather, the Belt and Road Initiative. So that's something that we have to be diligent about.

In your sensitive role as chairman of the Intelligence Committee, is there something that keeps you up at night these days? You know, I won't comment on the particular information, but if there was one thing that worried me the most, and this is why I've made this a priority as chairman in this Congress, and that is China's aggression policy.

in the Western Hemisphere. That to me is one of the most pressing problems we have. And I don't just mean Latin America, I mean also right here in the United States. And so that means that we've got to really redouble our efforts on the counterintelligence side to make sure they're not stirring up things here at home. As I mentioned before at the beginning of the interview, our open society is really one of our great attributes. It's what separates us

America from a whole lot of other countries, but it's also a vulnerability and it's one that nations like China want to exploit. And so we have to be diligent to protect our own people. And they know this. They manipulate our immigration system. They manipulate our financial system, our markets. They're exploiting agriculture, intellectual property, all those things right here at home. But then it's so much easier for them to do that or at least more visibly to

In countries in, you know, further south of us in places like, you know, Central and South America, where they just flagrantly...

engage in political bribery and things of this nature to try and get their way. They promised the moon. They're using all kinds of infrastructure investment to try to leverage countries into ousting the Taiwanese diplomats because they find that to be a problem. They're trying to use the UN to their full advantage.

It's things like that that probably bother me the most. And then, you know, quite frankly, there are other things that they're working on from a military perspective where we need to really keep pace and not let them get the upper hand. And so we're engaged in a Cold War situation.

much like we were with the Soviets. But this one, I think, is a little bit higher stakes. And I think China has had the luxury of hindsight and being able to learn from the mistakes that the Soviet Union made and not repeating those mistakes. And so they do have, I think, a little bit of a better advantage than what the Soviets had by comparison.

Here in the first 100 days of a new administration, President Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency have kept his promise to cut government waste. There have been some cuts at the Department of Defense. Are you confident we have the personnel and resources to address these global threats?

Yeah, I think what's going on with Doge is just simply an understanding that we can do more with less. It doesn't necessarily mean that we have to make spending cuts, but we can leverage those resources to do more for us. That is to say, we're cash flowing a lot of overhead. We've got a lot of bureaucratic red tape. We've got a lot of costs associated with that.

And the whole point of those is Department of Government efficiency. It's not just going in slash and burn, but understanding that agencies do need to be more streamlined. They need to deliver greater value to the taxpayers who fund them.

And I think it's realistic to think that the Department of Defense can run in a much more streamlined fashion and therefore deliver better results and do it more cost effectively. It doesn't have to be just this pit of spending that doesn't yield the kind of results that we need.

I understand the point with Doge, and I think it's been sort of demagogued to a point that it's almost a bad thing. It's like, you know, who doesn't want their government to run more efficiently? I don't care what side of the aisle you're on. It seems to me like it's in all of our interest to have a government that runs more efficiently and delivers better for the taxpayers. And to me, that's a no-brainer. I don't know why people have turned this into such a negative.

The chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Congressman Rick Crawford of the great state of Arkansas. Really grateful for your time. Have a wonderful week, sir. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Can say to my new Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, hey, find a keto friendly restaurant nearby and text it to Beth and Steve. And it does without me lifting a finger. So I can get in more squats anywhere I can. One, two, three. Will that be cash or credit? Credit.

Hi,

I'm Benjamin Hall, Fox News senior correspondent and New York Times bestselling author. Join me every Monday on my podcast as I speak with silent but noteworthy heroes. Make sure you subscribe to my podcast, Searching for Heroes with Benjamin Hall, wherever you download podcasts and leave a rating and a review. This is Meena Svard with your Fox News commentary coming up.

This November will be 62 years since President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, shot in Dallas while riding in a motorcade. The shots believed to have been fired by Lee Harvey Oswald from a sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository. Oswald was arrested less than two hours later after a Dallas police officer was also shot and killed.

And just two days later, Oswald was dead, shot during a transfer from his jail cell. But his own words to investigators would fuel conspiracy theories, claiming he was a fall guy for the Kennedy assassination. The overwhelming problem from the outset was that it is always impossible analytically to prove a negative.

And here the task was to prove there was no conspiracy. Howard Willans was an assistant counsel for the Warren Commission, which issued its report on the Kennedy assassination in 1964. He wrote a book, History Will Prove Us Right, about the investigation. And during a forum at Southern Methodist University in 2013, said while the commission was aware of the various possible interests in assassinating the president,

they couldn't find evidence of any aid to Lee Harvey Oswald or his killer, Jack Ruby. That, of course, is a conclusion that one can never be absolutely certain about. And what the commission did in its findings was to say, we have found no credible evidence.

of a conspiracy. They did not say there was no conspiracy. He says they were mindful that more evidence could emerge over time, which brings us to the thousands of documents ordered declassified by President Trump and just recently released. The overview, the 30,000-foot view, is this is a major breakthrough in the JFK assassination story. Jefferson Morley, co-founder and author of JFK Facts, sees a pattern of misconduct.

He believes the CIA was not only surveilling Oswald for four years, but running him and then lying to investigators. That's why people are looking for answers because the government's story, one guy came out of nowhere and shot the president for no reason, that's not a credible story anymore. It's not a credible theory.

But that remains debatable, even with so much information made public. There's no headline news. Gerald Posner is an investigative journalist and author. He's written several updates to his 1993 book, Case Closed, Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK. There's nothing breaking that the average person on the street is going to say, oh my God, that changes my entire understanding of who killed Kennedy. That's not there yet, might not be there at all. But

what's being filled in is things that are interesting for those of us who have researched the case for a long time. We're finding more about how the CIA may have learned about Oswald, who was the accused assassin when he was in Mexico City six weeks before Kennedy was murdered, things like that. But it's all incremental information. And that's sort of what a lot of us expected from these files. I think people had an expectation that the secrets to the Kennedy assassination had been locked up under lock

and Key and this diabolical plot to kill him were somehow the last pieces of paper that would be made public. And it turns out to be a little bit less exciting than that. There are multiple curious things about Lee Harvey Oswald, right? Not only the time in Mexico City, the CIA surveillance of him, but also he spent time in the Soviet Union. And also in these files, there's a Kennedy aide who wrote a letter to the president, very critical of the CIA.

How significant is all of that? And are there dots to connect there? Yeah. So, you know, that's always been the question. And one of the things you mentioned something, Lisa, that was interesting, a lot of us who have studied the case say,

have been looking forward to the declassified fully available file of what you said was that jfk aid who had warned the president about the cia wrote in 1961 so the question is hey there was a portion of that 15-page memo and a page is blacked out so we're thinking hey maybe that aid one of kennedy's closest said to him by the way you can't trust the cia they're terrible undermining your administration you've got to be careful and then kennedy may have said afterwards

Gee, maybe I should disband the CIA. And the CIA said, no chance. We'll take care of you first. And they got involved in a plot to kill him. That's sort of how the thinking goes in an Oliver Stone way. So we've been waiting to see what that file said, because the rest of it is pretty critical of the CIA. And guess what? It's out. The full page is there. And it turns out to be about...

CIA staffing. It's a complaint. The aide says to Kennedy, by the way, I want you to know that I think they have too many personnel, spies, in the Paris embassy under diplomatic cover. They're overstaffing Paris.

It's crazy reason to have kept it secret. So people expected to have something big underneath, and it turned out not to be that. And that's all for the way a number of these files play out. Another persistent theory has been a mob hit on Kennedy, partly over access to Cuba and also the work of his brother Bobby as attorney general, who would also later be killed. Why doesn't the mob theory work?

Well, I used to believe in the mob theory before I wrote my book in the early 90s. I went into it thinking we all have sort of an inclination. You get a big subject. You're assigned to cover like the Epstein files or look into what happened with Snowden and his leaks or that. You have a feeling for what you think might happen. And then as a journalist, you go ahead and follow the evidence. So my thinking was that it could be the mob. And the reason I thought so was because

Two days after the person accused as the assassin, Oswald is arrested. He's killed in police custody by a guy who's a nightclub owner who looks like he's straight out of central casting for the mafia. So I thought, oh, that looks like a mob silencing. Then I followed the evidence and came to a conclusion. It was just Oswald. But there's good reasons to suspect the mob because you're right. Bobby Kennedy was not only JFK's brother, but it was an attorney general who's going after the mafia. He was trying to break them up.

So the theory goes, hey, the mob was sitting around and saying, you know what? That no good. There's no good Kennedys. Instead of killing the attorney general, why don't we go after a much tougher, higher security target? The president himself cut off the head of the snake and then that'll work. You know, as a theory, it sounds good, except after JFK was killed.

Who was Attorney General? It was RFK. He stayed in power, still going after the mafia. The Warren Commission said lone gunman after its formal investigation. But a House Select Committee later did its own probe in the 1970s and concluded a second gunman was probable and that a conspiracy did lead to the assassination.

Why the two different conclusions? Great question. The House Select Committee investigation in the late 70s got me interested in the case because I was going to law school at the time, 75 to 78 out in San Francisco, and I sort of followed it closely.

That select committee did some fantastic work investigating new leads, looking at new evidence. They debunked a whole bunch of conspiracy theories. And then at the very end of their investigation, somebody gave them a copy of a Dallas police dictabelt, which was recording all the scenes of what was happening, all the sound recordings of what was taking place on two police channels, one of those police channels in Dallas that day. And the select committee said, hey,

Maybe it recorded the sounds of the assassination and you listen to them and there's no sounds of gunfire or anything else. But they gave it to two sound experts from New York who said, hey, we see four supersonic like impulses. You can't really hear them, but we can see them when we look at them with this special machinery. We think those are gunshots. So four shots would be a conspiracy because Oswald only had time to get off three.

And as they ran out of money, they allowed that to be published as their conclusion. So there was a 95% certainty of a conspiracy. They were convinced that Oswald had made the three shots from behind, but there was another gunman at Didi Plaza who fired the shots.

And then four years later, it all fell apart. The National Academy of Sciences had this panel of all independent scientists. They came in. They judged the same stuff every way to Sunday. They found out the four impulses were not gunshots, and they were actually a minute away from where the president was killed. So everyone remembers the headline, 95% probability of a conspiracy. Nobody remembers what I call like the Section B, page 35 retraction in 1982. Right.

For your own research and your book, Case Closed, and I think everything you've already talked about kind of sheds light on what convinced you that it was only Oswald. But is it really about existing evidence or is it the absence of a different smoking gun that solidified it for you? You're right. I mean, I think you –

as a journalist hit both first, it's the evidence you follow. So all you can do as a journalist, as you know, is look at the credible evidence and then draw the conclusions that you believe that takes you to for what happened. I've always said that,

I'm convinced beyond any doubt that Oswald is the only shooter at Dealey Plaza that day on November 22nd, 1963, who fired shots that hit anybody. So he hit the president, killed him, hit the governor and missed on one shot. If there was another shooter at Dealey Plaza, that was the real magic bullet. They fired and didn't hit anybody.

But, you know, without evidence of that, he's the shooter that day. The tougher question always is with an assassin who then didn't go to trial because he never had his day in court. So the evidence was never presented. So that leaves that overhanging doubt that he was only 24 years old.

The harder question is to figure out whether he did it for himself and his own work motivations or he did it for a group. And people forget often who I think haven't looked at the case or haven't studied it. It's very understandable that just in April of that year, not a few months before he's shooting at Kennedy, he tried to assassinate a retired right wing army general who'd been kicked out of the army, Edwin Walker.

He had run to be the governor of Texas on a right-wing plank he lost, but Oswald was fixated on him and thought he might be the next Hitler. Tried to kill him, you know, went along a window frame and just missed Walker's head. So he was committed to making the change through gunfire, and people sometimes, I think, forget about that.

We now have 99% of all JFK files out, supposedly. You know, could we be missing something significant in the other 1%? And how likely do you think that this release finally puts a stop to conspiracy theories?

Oh, I don't think it'll put a stop to conspiracy theories. I'm past the point of thinking anything actually will put a stop to conspiracy theories about the case. And the best thing is I saw today there was a headline in the Daily Mail. And the Daily Mail does know how to do good headlines. And it said, you know, blockbuster, bombshell, JFK, how the files change everything. And their actual quote, Lisa, is my favorite quote.

quote the jfk files apparently say nothing and that says everything end quote so their view is well obviously the real news the real document the real evidence of the conspiracy of course we were silly to think it would be in the national archives it must be somewhere else so you know if you're rfk jr you think the cia killed your father and killed your uncle

You're not going to say after these files are reviewed and there's no bombshell on them, well, now I believe the official story. You're going to continue to hunt for that information somewhere else. And I do think that in the Kennedy case, there are reasons for people to be suspicious. You have Oswald being killed by Ruby.

He had been in Russia. It's a long range shot. Every TikTok video, you know, that's now out in 30 seconds tells you why there's another conspiracy in the case. So I think the conspiracies will live on with the Kennedy case for a very long time. Investigative journalist and author Gerald Posner, thank you very much for your time. Lisa, thanks so much. I appreciate it.

Here's a look at the week ahead. Tuesday, the Supreme Court hears two cases involving the Environmental Protection Agency, one from the state of Oklahoma on which courts can hear challenges to the federal agency, the other on whether small refineries are exempt from EPA rules on fuel blends.

Wednesday, it's Red Cross Giving Day. In its 11th year, it's an opportunity for local communities to help those who have been affected by a home fire or other disaster and who need Red Cross services to get back on their feet.

Thursday, it's a day centered around sports. It's traditional MLB opening day. Most baseball teams playing their first game of the season. On the hard court, it's the first day of the NCAA tournament's Sweet 16. Friday, be careful what you say to your Alexa. Starting today, every command spoken to the virtual assistant through an Echo device will be automatically processed by Amazon. And that's a look at your week ahead. I'm Tom Graham, Fox News.

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It's time for your Fox News commentary. What's on your mind? It's been three years since swimmer Leah Thomas won the gold medal in the 500-yard freestyle at the NCAA Division I Women's Championship. It wasn't until the release of President Trump's February 5th executive order, keeping men out of women's sports, that the U.S. government established a clear policy protecting the integrity of female athletics.

This step, while welcome, isn't enough. The official results of past competitions should be corrected to align with reality. Male competitors should be removed and the rank of affected women increased accordingly. This is personal. In 2019, when I was a sophomore at East Texas A&M University, I was assigned second place in the finals of the NCAA Division II Women's 400-meter hurdles. The video from that event shows me racing in lane 8.

In lane four is CeCe Telfer of Franklin Pierce University, who competed for that school's men's team in 2016 and 2017. Craig Telfer ranked 390th among NCAA Division II men. CeCe Telfer destroyed the women's field and crossed the finish line almost two seconds before me, becoming the first known transgender-identified athlete to win an NCAA title.

That made me the first collegiate woman to be told that her victory was worth less than a man's feelings. I cried a lot that day, not because I lost, but because of how I lost. I also knew I wasn't the only victim. Every time a male athlete enters a female competition, a woman gets cut from the roster to make room.

Men have enormous athletic advantages over women, which is why women's hurdles are nine inches shorter than the men's. Olympic gold medal winning times for men's 400-meter hurdlers are about five seconds faster than for women. That's a difference of about 10%, an eternity in this kind of sport. I'm a people pleaser, and I don't like to upset people, a stereotypical female quality that trans activists often exploit to suppress dissent.

It took me a year before I found the nerve to post my feelings about the race on Instagram. When Cece Telfer alerted her supporters to my post, I was denounced as a transphobe and a racist and received harassments and threats.

Cece Telfer went on to write a book and was profiled by the New York Times Magazine in a lengthy article titled For My People, A Transgender Woman Pursues an Olympic Dream. That dream collapsed in 2021 when he failed a testosterone test.

I don't expect I will ever be profiled in a fawning magazine feature, but I did accomplish one thing that will always fill me with pride. In 2019, I was the fastest female 400-meter hurdler at any NCAA Division II school. It's been five years since that honor was stolen from me, and I want it back. I am Mina Svard, former NCAA athlete. ♪ music playing ♪

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