A rush transcript of "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" airing on Sunday, March 16, 2025 on ABC News is below. This copy may not be in its final form, may be updated and may contain minor transcription errors. For previous show transcripts, visit the "This Week" transcript archive.

       MARTHA RADDATZ, ABC "THIS WEEK" CO-ANCHOR: Let’s turn now to President Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz.

       Good morning, Mr. Waltz.

       Let’s get right to this.

       We have seen strikes like this before under the Biden administration. The Houthis kept firing missiles. What’s different with this?

       Recent Stories from ABC News

       1/1 Skip Ad Continue watching after the ad Visit Advertiser website GO TO PAGE

       MIKE WALTZ, WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Well, thank you.

       And the difference is, these were not kind of pin prick, back and forth, what ultimately proved to be feckless attacks. This was an overwhelming response that actually targeted multiple Houthi leaders and took them out. And the difference here is, one, going after the Houthi leadership and, two, holding Iran responsible. It is Iran that has repeatedly funded, resourced, trained and helped the Houthis target not only U.S. warships, but global commerce, and has helped the Houthis shut down two of the world’s most strategic sea lanes.

       We have, Martha, 70 percent of global shipping is now diverting around southern Africa, adding to the cost of goods, disrupting global economies, adding to – or shutting off supplies to the United States. President Trump has found it unacceptable. What we inherited was – was a terrible situation. And this is one of what will be a sustained effort to right that wrong and to reopen global commerce.

       RADDATZ: And, Mr. Waltz, let me read from what President Trump said on Truth Social. He said, “to Iran, support for the Houthi terrorists must end immediately. Do not threaten the American people or worldwide shipping lanes. If you do, beware because America will hold you fully accountable.”

       Does that mean direct military action on Iran is possible?

       WALTZ: Well, all actions are always on the table with the president. But Iran needs to hear him loud and clear. It is completely unacceptable and it will be stopped. The level of support that they’ve been providing the Houthis, just like they have Hezbollah, just like they have the militias in Iraq, Hamas and others. The difference here is the Houthis have incredibly sophisticated air defenses, and they also have anti-shipping cruise missiles, drones, sea skimming types of attack drones and other ballistic missiles even. They’ve launched dozens of attacks on multiple war ships, dozens of attacks, over 175 on global commerce, sank multiple ships.

       I just think the American people need to understand what has happened here. The pervious administration had a series of feckless responses. President Trump is coming in –

       RADDATZ: So – so –

       WALTZ: With overwhelming force. We will take – we will hold not only the Houthis accountable, but we’re going to hold Iran, their backers, accountable as well. And if that means they’re targeting ships that they have put in to – to help their Iranian trainers, IRGC and others, that intelligence, other things that they have put in to help the Houthis attack the global economy, those – those targets will be on the table too.

       RADDATZ: And the president has said Iran will not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon, a week ago warning that Iran –something is going to happen very, very soon that will solve the problem if there is no peace deal and talking about nuclear weapons.

       So, what is he talking about? Is he talking about a possible strike on the nuclear facilities by Israel, and would the U.S. join in that?

       WALTZ: Well, what the president has completely – has repeatedly said is that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. All options are on the table to ensure it does not have one. And that’s all aspects of Iran's program. That’s the missiles, the weaponization, the enrichment. They can either hand it over and give it up in a way that is verifiable, or they can face a whole series of other consequences.

       But, either way, we cannot have a world with the ayatollahs with their finger on the nuclear button. We cannot have a situation that would result in an arms race across the Middle East in terms of nuclear proliferation. And President Trump is determined, one way or another. Iran has been offered a way out of this to make sure that we don’t have a world that can be threatened by a radical regime, not only our ally Israel, but the entire world that would be threated with a – with – by a radical regime that could destroy, not only Israel, but its neighbors, and have the capability to hit the United States.

       Martha, we cannot imagine a situation like that, and we’re not going to have it.

       RADDATZ: I want to turn to Ukraine now. You were in Saudi this week meeting with Ukraine – Ukrainians, crafting this so-called 30-day ceasefire. Vladimir Putin basically rejected that, saying he wants a long-term peace deal but this one didn’t work.

       So, what’s next and will there be a meeting between President Trump and Vladimir Putin soon?

       WALTZ: Well, I was in Jetta with our great secretary of state, Marco Rubio. And, you know, we walked through a number of – of aspects, a number of factors that have to be in place to achieve a permanent peace. You know, a fundamental aspect of the approach here from President Trump is that, you know, this has to be permanent. That’s what we continue to hear from the Ukrainians, that, you know, we cannot have a situation where this continues to break down.

       At the same time, we are engaging with the Russians. What we heard from President Putin was that he will absolutely consider a ceasefire. There are some other thing that he would like to see that President Trump’s national security team has – is considering over the coming days. So, this back and forth diplomacy is – is ongoing. As the NATO secretary general just said this week, only President Trump could have broken this log jam.

       Just think where we were a few months ago. I mean we were literally this far apart. And we are now driving both sides together to achieve a permanent peace, stop the killing, stop the bloodshed that is on the battlefield with thousands of people being lost a day.

       RADDATZ: Mr. Waltz –

       WALTZ: And what I find so interesting about the criticism is, essentially the criticism is, we should just continue open-ended warfare, which has devolved into trench warfare, a meat grinder of people, national treasure, munitions, with no end in sight.

       RADDATZ: Mr. Waltz –

       WALTZ: President Trump’s determined to end it, and we are – we’re having to deal with both sides to do that.

       RADDATZ: Sean Hannity from Fox – from Fox News laid out to you what he thought a deal would look like. He said, rare earth minerals deal, a component that keeps U.S. involvement and a presence in Ukraine, maybe European troops, Ukraine will not be part of NATO, and parts of Ukraine heavily populated by people from Russia, maybe the Donbas region, would go to Putin.

       You agreed with that, correct? Is that the plan?

       WALTZ: Well, those are the components of negotiations that have happened before in 2022. And even before then. This is going to be some type of territory for future security guarantees, the future status of – of Ukraine. We talked about, as – as secretary of defense has said at the NATO – the NATO defense ministerial that, you know, a pathway – a permanent pathway into NATO, or a permanent membership into NATO for Ukraine is incredibly unlikely. And that’s not just from the United States. That’s from a number of other –

       RADDATZ: But – but let me – we’re just running out of time here.

       WALTZ: That’s from a number of other countries as well. So, those are all the components, Martha. We know the components. There is a deal that will be had here. And we’re – we are – we are talking to both sides to figure out how we can get both sides to the table and shuttle diplomacy and stop the killing and stop this war.

       RADDATZ: So, quickly – quickly – Mr. Waltz, and I – I don’t mean to interrupt, but so Russia could be given the Donbas in addition to hanging onto Crimea, even though they invaded Ukraine. Quickly if you can, please.

       WALTZ: Martha, we have to ask ourselves, is it in our national interest? Is it realistic? We’ve talked to the Europeans about this, and the Ukrainians. Are we going to drive every Russian off of every inch of Ukrainian soil, including Crimea? And what the strategy of the Biden administration was, was, as long as it takes, as much as it takes, no matter what the timeline is, which is essentially endless warfare, in an environment that we are literally losing hundreds of thousands of people in a matter of months. And could escalate into World War III. So, we –

       RADDATZ: Mr. Waltz –

       WALTZ: We can talk about what’s right and wrong. And we also have to talk about the reality of the situation on the ground. And that’s what we are doing through diplomacy, through shuttle diplomacy, through proximity talks.

       RADDATZ: We’ve got to stop right there.

       WALTZ: And I – you know, it astounds me how that is criticized.

       RADDATZ: OK, thank you so much for joining us this morning. I appreciate it, Mr. Waltz.

       MARTHA RADDATZ, ABC “THIS WEEK” CO-ANCHOR: Our thanks to Jay O’Brien on Capitol Hill.

       I’m joined by Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, who voted against the funding bill.

       Good morning, Senator.

       You said Democrats were given no good road on funding the government, and said that was a choice between two MAGA options. What do you mean by that? And why did you vote no?

       SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE (D), RHODE ISLAND: Well, we in a normal world would have had three options. One would be shut down the government. One would be this really awful deformation, I would call it, of a C.R. And the third would be continue with a short-term clean C.R., conclude the nearly concluded agreement between Republicans and Democrats on appropriations numbers, and go back to regular order and bipartisan appropriations.

       That would ordinarily -- that third choice would have ordinarily been the way we went. But the Republicans refused to allow it because they wanted to force us to choose between the C.R. and the shutdown. And the key to the shutdown here is that in an ordinary world, the executive branch wants to get out of the shutdown, wants to go back into normal operations.

       With these MAGA extremists in charge, they don't necessarily want to come out of shutdown, and they have tools in shutdown contingencies and non-essentialness determinations and riffing and things like that, that they can use to destroy the government just like doggy (ph) -- DOGE is doing except with a veneer of legitimacy, with the authority of shutdown powers.

       So they were both extremely, extremely dangerous options. And my view is that as Democrats, we need to stop the intramural quarreling about who voted what way and get back to work saving our democracy.

       RADDATZ: So, of course, it was Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer's decision to support the bill that stunned and angered many Democrats coming just hours after he said he would block the bill. Your reaction to that and what do you think his strategy is? I mean, what do you think we would be doing right now sitting here if the government was shut down?

       WHITEHOUSE: Well, we'd be in real trouble. There's a guy over at the Office of Management and Budget named Russell Vought. He's got a little sidekick over there named Mark Paoletta who is one of the people in the portrait with Harlan Crow and Leonard Leo and Clarence Thomas. He's part of that court fixer operation.

       These are very extreme people and OMB gets wild powers during a shutdown. So what we'd be doing is probably voting first to bring the Department of Defense back out, then voting to bring Homeland Security back out, then voting to bring veterans back out -- while they went through other agencies of government they don't like so much and said that this -- this part of the agency that part of the agency is unessential and therefore, we're going to reduce in force all the employees. We're going to remove it, stop funding it, shut it down and then you get a very, very different government.

       Ultimately, we get to a point where they never bring the Department of Education, for instance, back out of shutdown.

       RADDATZ: Senator, I guess -- I guess my question is -- let let's talk about Senator Schumer. He did not want the government shut down because he felt that would not be good for Democrats either.

       So what is your reaction --

       WHITEHOUSE: Right.

       RADDATZ: -- to what he did and how would Democrats deal with that now?

       WHITEHOUSE: I think that he and the other nine colleagues of mine who made that decision made a very conscientious and principled decision after a lot of reflection. I’m not going to throw any of them under the bus for the choice that they made. When you understand how dangerous a shutdown is, it's even more, sort of, understandable why they would feel that way.

       And so I think what we need to do is stop the intramural fighting and bleeding as quickly as we can. We are in a fight for our democracy right now, and if we're having a fight in our dugout, we're not out on the field, and the other team is scoring runs.

       So everybody needs to have their say. Everybody needs to you know respond to their own passions and emotions. But as soon as we can, we got to get back on the field and fight Trump and Musk and MAGA.

       RADDATZ: You have supported Senator Schumer, but let me play again what House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said.

       (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

       REPORTER: Has Senator Schumer in your mind acquiesced Trump?

       REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): That’s a question that is best addressed by the Senate.

       REPORTER: Is it time for new leadership in the Senate?

       JEFFRIES: Next question.

       REPORTER: Have you lost confidence in him, the fact that you guys see this so differently?

       JEFFRIES: Next question.

       (END VIDEO CLIP)

       RADDATZ: Is it time for new leadership?

       WHITEHOUSE: That is not my agenda. That is not a helpful narrative right now. I think that, obviously, there is a lot of distress back and forth between the House and the Senate. That is not unheard of before.

       And one can read Leader Jeffries' answers as basically, look, move on, I’m not going to dwell on internal infighting among Democrats and not necessarily like I’m throwing Schumer under the bus.

       They've known each other a long time. They're experienced politicians. We need to pull this back together and get back to work.

       RADDATZ: Okay. Thanks so very much for joining us this morning, Senator. We appreciate it.

       Coming up, we're on the ground in Florida talking to farmers and business owners about the uncertainty sparked by President Trump's tariff tactics.

       Plus, top economist Diane Swonk on what most concerns her about the economy right now.

       We'll be right back.