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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
War Plans Mistakenly Sent To Reporter; Interview With Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ); Judge: Trump's Use Of Wartime Act For Deportation Flights "Unprecedented Territory"; Trump: Top Law Firms "Have To Behave Themselves"; Graydon Carter On His New Memoir; The "Disaster After The Disaster": CA Fire Victims Battle Insurance Companies To Cover Home Loss; WH: Second Lady Usha Vance To Travel To Greenland This Week To Watch The National Dogsled Race. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired March 24, 2025 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I feel like I'm at a space now where I feel very secure within myself and who I am and how I use cannabis.
Here, get up here, brush your teeth.
And if people want to judge me for that, or make an assumption that I'm a bad mom, then let them.
Put your dinosaurs in your room.
MEENA DUERSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's not something that's keeping you up at night. No, not at all. Absolutely not.
Aren't you going to say good night?
CHILDREN: Good night.
DUERSON: Meena Duerson, CNN, Saint Louis Missouri.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Amazing piece, it gets a lot of conversations going. Thanks so much for being with us, Anderson starts now.
[20:00:34]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER: 360": Tonight on 360, the Defense Secretary mistakenly sends military strike plans to a reporter and now he's attacking the reporter.
Also, a judge calls the deportations of alleged gang members to El Salvador unprecedented and says that Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act. We'll tell you what the Department of Justice said to that.
And later, why Second Lady Usha Vance and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz are going to Greenland, and why the Prime Minister is calling the trip highly aggressive.
Good evening, we begin tonight with breaking news involving a stunning breach of National Security. And it involves many of the top officials in the Trump administration dealing with their nation's top secrets. We're talking about Vice President J.D. Vance, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and the White House's Stephen Miller.
They were discussing a highly classified U.S. war plans for an attack that actually took place on Signal, a commercially available encrypted app that isn't authorized for discussing government secrets.
What's even more incredible is they mistakenly included another person in the chat, a journalist, Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of "The Atlantic" Magazine. And this wasn't just a hypothetical plan for a military operation. It was a group chat discussing and planning strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen, which started nine days ago and is still an ongoing operation.
So Goldberg revealed today he knew about the attack in advance, writing, the reason I knew this is that Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, had texted me the war plan at 11:44 A.M. The plan included precise information about weapons packages and targets and timing. Now, Goldberg went on to explain that four days before the attack on March 11th, he received a connection request on Signal from someone claiming to be Mike Waltz, President Trump's National Security Adviser.
Now, Goldberg wasn't sure it was the real Mike Waltz. In fact, he was pretty sure it he wasn't. But he accepted the invitation in the hopes that it might be. Two days later, inexplicably, he was added to a chat group called Houthi PC small group. PC stood for principles with all the people I named already.
The topic of discussion was a potential strike against the Houthi terror group in Yemen.
Goldberg writes that at this point, he doubted it was real. He said, I could not believe that the National Security leadership of the United States would communicate on Signal about imminent war plans. I also could not believe that the National Security adviser to the President would be so reckless as to include the editor-in-chief of "The Atlantic" in such discussions with senior U.S. officials, up to and including the Vice-President.
But that is apparently what happened. And according to Goldberg, a debate ensued amongst the participants on the timing of the operation and if it should move forward at all.
I'm going to show you what the "Atlantic" identified as actual screen grabs of a conversation between vice President J.D. Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Vance wrote @Pete Hegseth, if you think we should do it, let's go. I just hate bailing Europe out again.
Hegseth responds in part, I fully share your loathing of European freeloading. It's pathetic, he went on to say, I feel like now is as good a time as any given POTUS directive to reopen shipping lanes. I think we should go, but POTUS still retains 24 hours of decision space. The next morning, Hegseth gave a team update with what Goldberg says we're operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets weapons the U.S. would be deploying and attack sequencing.
Goldberg didn't reveal those details out of concern for U.S. National Security. The Trump administration has acknowledged the messages Goldberg saw appear to be authentic, and while they say they were reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain, they also said, and I quote, "The ongoing success of the Houthi operation demonstrates that there were no threats to troop or National Security."
Now, keeping them honest, we don't know the extent of the potential National Security damage here. Pentagon regulations, specifically state messaging apps like Signal, are not authorized to transmit nonpublic information, and state backed hackers have tried to access the Signal chats of officials.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth weighed in the last hour. He disparaged the reporter Jeffrey Goldberg and then went on to say this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: What are those details shared on Signal and how did you learn that a journalist was privy to the targets, the types of weapons used --
PETE HEGSETH, U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: I've heard -- I've heard it was characterized nobody was texting war plans. And that's all I have to say about that. Thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[20:05:03]
COOPER: Nobody was texting war plans, he said. Again, that's after Trump's National Security Council released a statement that said, quote, this appears to be an authentic message chain.
It's unclear what, if anything, the Trump administration is planning to do from here. A former DOJ official CNN spoke to said that normally the FBI would initiate an investigation, but some of the officials that might request that kind of investigation were actually some of the same people on that Signal chat. For more on all of this, Kaitlan Collins joins me. She's going to talk to Jeffrey Goldberg at the top of the hour on "The Source."
Kaitlan, in no surprise Pete Hegseth is disparaging Jeffrey Goldberg. What else is he going to do? He's, by the way, an excellent reporter. He went out of his way not to reveal any of what he could have about -- because he was concerned about operational security. Behind the scenes of the White House, are they saying this is no big deal, or are they taking this seriously?
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, it's also hard to say that he did not publish or that they weren't texting war plans, as the Secretary asserted there, because in his story, Jeffrey Goldberg says he is not quoting the message. The particular one that Hegseth posted because he said it could essentially, if it was read by an adversary of the United States, could put U.S. servicemembers at risk. And Jeffrey Goldberg says it contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen that included information about targets, weapons and attack sequencing.
I think it's pretty hard to argue that that does not account to war plans here about these strikes and exactly what that is going to look like. And as for the authenticity of this, that's not even really in dispute. No one in the White House, at least not to me today, was arguing that this isn't real or that they had doubts about it, or that it was manipulated.
Instead, a spokesperson for the National Security Council for Mike Waltz, the National Security adviser, said that it appeared to be authentic and that they were investigating how an inadvertent number was added to this, Jeffrey Goldberg's number during this message thread.
And so, the idea that it wasn't real is not even really something that's been in doubt from what we've been hearing at the White House today. Instead, there was a lot of shock. Yes, some defensiveness from people downplaying it, saying it wasn't that big of a deal. But I heard from a lot of people today, Anderson, who said, they really couldn't believe this, not only just that this was happening over Signal, that all of this discussion was taking place, but also Jeffrey Goldberg in particular. He is someone that Trump has a lot of disdain for. He has had that ever since past reporting that he has done on the President of the United States.
And so, it was kind of that moment that I heard from a lot of officials saying they couldn't believe that a reporter was added inadvertently to a group text this sensitive about what they were going to do in Yemen, but they also especially could not believe that it was Jeffrey Goldberg who was added to that group text.
COOPER: Well, let me ask you, President Trump, sort of, when he was asked about this today and it was kind of later in the day, said, oh, I haven't heard anything about it. He kind of he said, he didn't know anything about it, which is something we have heard him say about stuff in the past that he hasn't necessarily wanted to talk to. What would be the process? Do you think it's likely he had heard about it? I mean, wouldn't somebody have informed the President about this?
COLLINS: It would be pretty striking if he had not been briefed on it. I will say he was in that Cabinet meeting with Elon Musk and then went to this meeting where with the governor of Louisiana, top Hyundai officials at the White House, as this was all breaking this morning. But obviously, Jeffrey Goldberg reached out to these officials.
But when you listen to the Presidents response there, he seemed to know to a degree what the reporters were asking about, because as soon as they commented that it was about the strikes on the Houthis, he talked about how successful those strikes were when they were launched. And obviously, that is something that Jeffrey Goldberg talks about was confirmed in the in the back and forth in these messages.
They were celebrating with top administration officials like Steve Witkoff, the envoy to the Middle East, and Susie Wiles, the Chief-of- Staff was also in this group chat of 18 people. I will say the question that I've heard from people who were so shocked by this tonight is whether or not it will result in someone's firing. At least two people speculated to me that they believed that it would end up in the dismissal of one of their colleagues. The White House said tonight that the President still has confidence in his National Security team.
They specifically named Mike Waltz, not Secretary Rubio or Secretary Hegseth or anyone else. But obviously, it's something to keep an eye on because the President's perception of something is often shaped by the coverage of it -- Anderson.
COOPER: Yes, Kaitlan Collins, thanks very much. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is calling for a bipartisan investigation into how this happened. I spoke to combat veteran and Democratic Senator Mark Kelly. He sits on both the armed services and intelligence committees. I talked to him just before air time.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Senator Kelly, this wasn't a government communication system. No one apparently noticed Jeffrey Goldberg was in the group chat. Secretary Hegseth reportedly wrote at one point, were currently clean on OpSec, operational security. What do you make of this?
SEN. MARK KELLY (D-AZ): Well, it shows just how sloppy all of those individuals on this Signal chain were. And I think it's important, Anderson, to note that this was about a operational mission. And it's just incredibly sloppy. But it's also dangerous if information on a strike against Yemen would leak out ahead of time, let's just say they put somebody else on that chain. And the person decided to broadcast it widely at the -- at an inopportune time. That could put the pilots that were conducting these strikes at risk.
And I think it brings up a larger question about whether are they following the rules that the rest of us live by when we handle classified information? If this incident is any indication, it looks like they do not.
COOPER: What normally would be the way a group like this might communicate such highly sensitive information?
[20:10:30]
KELLY: Well, normally you would go into a SCIF and you would do it face-to-face, and if you couldn't access a SCIF, there are SCIFs around the country. Let's just say when I'm in Tucson, Arizona, I use the Border Patrol SCIF that is down the street from my house several miles away. If you can't do that, there are secure systems to make a secure phone call within the White House at the Defense Department. Anywhere where these individuals normally would be, including in their own homes.
When you're the Secretary of Defense or you're the National Security adviser or the Secretary of State, they'll often set up a secure facility for you in your house so you can have these kind of conversations. It should not be done on Signal. I don't know anybody on the Intelligence Committee here that I serve on that would have anything close to this kind of conversation.
COOPER: Speaker Johnson downplayed this. He said that they'll tighten up. It doesn't seem like there's much, publicly at least, outraged by your Republican colleagues. Obviously, if this was a Democratic administration and this had been Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or anybody else, it would have been a different tune. Do you expect any kind of hearings here?
KELLY: Well, Anderson, we have a hearing tomorrow, an open hearing about worldwide threats on the Senate Intelligence Committee. And I can guarantee you that this topic is going to come up tomorrow in an open hearing.
COOPER: The CIA director is supposed to be there, right?
KELLY: CIA director will be there. He was one of the individuals on this text chain. I think the other thing that I noticed is just the discussion that they were having over Signal. It was almost like they were deciding to order a pizza. And it's not the kind of conversation you would expect between the principals when they're deciding to commit troops to combat in a foreign country.
So, I was pretty shocked by, you know, how not only that, this was done on this platform on Signal, but also just shocked about the lack of depth in the discussion before sending our Navy pilots over the beach to drop bombs where there is a significant threat.
COOPER: President Trump reposted online tonight a comment from Elon Musk joking about this and downplaying the reach of "The Atlantic", essentially saying, you know, no one reads "The Atlantic." Do you think they are actually have no concern about this, or is this just like a, you know, a public face of, poo-poohing this?
KELLY: I would expect that they're not having a great day in the White House this afternoon. This is a big deal. This is a breach of the law. It's also a National Security that it is compromised. These individuals and these platforms who had access to their communication devices, their phones that they obviously have Signal on. Where were those phones over these days? You know, who can get into the rooms where they keep these devices and possibly see this stuff? There should be some form of an investigation here.
COOPER: Senator Mark Kelly, I appreciate your time. Thank you.
KELLY: Thank you.
COOPER: Joining me now, CNN senior political commentator, former senior adviser to President Obama, David Axelrod, and CNN global affairs analyst, Brett McGurk, who served under four Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden, and most recently, the White House, Middle East and North Africa coordinator at the National Security council during the Biden administration.
David, what do you make of how the White House and the Pentagon are handling this tonight, particularly Secretary Hegseth, who's now attacking Jeffrey Goldberg's credibility and denying any war plans were discussed?
DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, well, this is a well-worn pattern now in this operation, which is to deny, deny, deny. But look Senator Kelly spoke to a couple of serious things. Anybody who served in the White House at a senior level, anybody who served as Brett has served, understands the sensitivity of this kind of information. The fact that they say, well, the operation went forward and there was no damage done, it doesn't mean that the next time there won't be damage done and there should be great concern about that.
The fact that this was carried out on Signal is mind boggling. I think to most of us who've been around this, but there are a couple of other issues, Anderson.
[20:15:06]
The Secretary of Defense was apparently circulating, despite what he says, war plans on Signal. And it goes back to how he became Secretary of Defense. The way that you became -- the thing that Donald Trump searched for in his appointees were, first, absolute loyalty to Donald Trump. And secondly, how you perform on T.V. So, that's how you end up with a guy who was a weekend host on "Fox & Friends" as the Secretary of Defense.
Anybody at a senior level that I know in any administration, Republican or Democrat, would have known this is not right. This is not how I'm going to communicate this information. Secondly thank God, Jeffrey Goldberg was on this Zoom. And it just goes to why we need good aggressive reporting so we know what's going on, because there were troops that were jeopardized by this recklessness, and we wouldn't have known it if Jeff Goldberg had accidentally been on the call.
And then finally, where is accountability for this? The fact that the Congress will be muted, apparently, because Republican congressmen and senators are afraid of challenging the White House on this. That is really alarming and so from a public interest standpoint, there are a lot of questions here.
COOPER: Yes, I just want to point out it was a Signal chat. Not a Zoom. Brett, as a former National Security council official, how far outside the official process is arranging communications like this on a commercial app on Signal?
BRETT MCGURK, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, Anderson, I've helped coordinate strikes against the Houthis. I helped coordinate military operations. And on the one hand, I have to say the operation against the Houthis is extraordinarily complex.
COOPER: And its ongoing. I should point out.
MCGURK: As a military and intelligence matter and frankly, the campaign that they are executing now was actually developed in the last administration. It's something we handed over. They're executing on it. I think CENTCOM is carrying out this campaign from everything I can tell with extraordinary professionalism and skill and this is now just a massive distraction.
Look, I don't know exactly what happened here, but there is no excuse whatsoever to have the timing and the targets of a military operation two hours before the operation commences on an unclassified system that's just completely, almost unheard of.
COOPER: Normally, would you -- Brett, would you have to go into a SCIF for this? Is this something which could be done through other electronic means?
MCGURK: Yes, as a senior National Security official, you have the benefit of -- you can call the situation room and say, I need the following five people on a secure system or a secure line in ten minutes, and they'll do it. Within the hours before a military operation commencing, you're usually in your office, which is a SCIF, a secured compartmented facility. You have multiple systems on your desk to communicate. You're usually getting reports in from CENTCOM and the combatant commands in real time, and you're communicating on a secure system.
And then ultimately, once the operation has commenced and at the right time, you would have a press rollout and it would become -- some of the aspects would become unclassified. But before the operation commences, that is kind of like the most sensitive time in which you are extremely careful with information flow. That's just kind of the bread and butter of these types of operations.
I want to say our troops right now, probably tonight, are operating over Yemen. It is a dangerous mission. I think it's important. I support the operation. But this is a huge distraction and it just should never have happened.
COOPER: Yes, Brett McGurk, David Axelrod, I appreciate it. Thank you.
Coming up next, a judge criticizes the Trump administrations lack of due process in sending alleged Venezuelan gang members to prison in El Salvador pointing out that even suspected Nazis were given the right to defend themselves in America before being kicked out during World War II.
Also tonight, former "Vanity Fair" editor, Graydon Carter on his revealing new memoir and his contentious history with President Trump.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:23:29]
COOPER: President Trump continues to wage war on the judicial system both inside and outside of the courtroom. A D.C. appeals court judge today called the President's use of a sweeping wartime authority for deportation flights unprecedented territory. DOJ attorneys argued that the administration does not need to give notice to the people it seeks to deport under the Alien Enemies Act.
Now, the three-judge panel did not say when it would rule, but a ruling can come at any time. Judge Patricia Millett, an Obama appointee, appeared skeptical of the government's argument, pointing out that during World War II, which is the last time the Alien Enemies Act was used, even alleged Nazis in America were given the chance to argue their case before a hearing board, before being sent out of the country. The people loaded onto a plane and flown to El Salvador did not.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
PATRICIA MILLETT, US COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE D.C. CIRCUIT JUDGE: There were plane loads of people. There were no procedures in place to notify people. Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemy Act.
DREW ENSIGN, DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL: Well, your honor, we certainly dispute the Nazi analogy.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
COOPER: Justice attorney Drew Ensign saying we certainly dispute the Nazi analogy. In recent days, the President and his allies have attacked the U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, for initially placing a hold on the controversial move while the legal battle plays out. Boasberg declined in a separate proceeding today to wipe away his Temporary Restraining Order that remains. Trump has referred to Boasberg as conflicted and a constitutional disaster in social media posts, and obviously called for his impeachment.
We should point out that any effort to impeach a federal judge is unlikely to pass in the Senate, where two-thirds of the body would need to vote to convict.
Now, the public attacks on a federal judge, they're just one of the unprecedented tactics that the President is using right now to try to weaken any checks on his authority.
In recent weeks, he's also moved, as you may know, to strip the security clearances of top law firms who've represented people he doesn't like. He's also moved to scare away business from major firms and intimidate them from taking clients who might be suing the administration or being targeted by them.
[20:25:24]
Under pressure, last week, one of those major law firms made a deal with the White House. The President announced it in a social media post that the firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison agreed to dedicate the equivalent of $40 million in pro bono work for the administration, among other concessions.
Now, other top law firms are reportedly scrambling, worried about the President set by Paul, Weiss appearing to cut a deal to save their business. The President talked about it today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: That the law firms have to behave themselves, and we've proven that we have others that want to make a settlement, also. They -- having to do with the election and other things. They behaved very badly, very wrongly. And I appreciate the one, you know, these are the biggest firms and they all came back realizing that they did wrong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well, this all comes on the heels of another very open ended order by the President late Friday night, directing Attorney General Pam Bondi, to, "seek sanctions against attorneys and law firms who engage in frivolous, unreasonable and vexatious litigation against the United States or in matters before executive departments and agencies of the United States," which certainly leaves a lot of room there for the attorney general when it comes to going after the administration's perceived enemies.
Joining me now is former federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, Elie Honig, and former Obama White House Ethics Czar Norm Eisen, whose own security clearance was revoked by the President in a memo late Friday night alongside more than a dozen others, including former Vice-President Kamala Harris and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Elie, you were listening to the government's argument. Does it need to give migrants under this 18th century law notice?
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, so the most important thing I think that happened today is the government's lawyer, who you just saw the clip from, the excerpt from -- He even agreed that some level, some level of due process was due to these migrants.
COOPER: So that which runs counter to what they are actually doing.
HONIG: Yes, there's a big gulf here between, what you're hearing from some of the louder voices backing the administration and what the position actually is in court. That moment where the judge said the Nazis got better treatment here in the United States during World War II, that was not just some rhetorical hyperbole. She meant that literally. Nazis, last time we used this Alien Enemies Act were entitled to a hearing now --
COOPER: And by the way, that was after Pearl Harbor when The U.S. entered the war and the vitriol, understandably, against Nazis, was obviously, justifiably, very high. The U.S. even offered them a hearing before expelling them.
HONIG: Exactly right, that's the historical point that was being made. So, the Trump administration even acknowledges they are entitled to some due process. But the question today really became "How much?" and the Trump administration's position, if I can boil it down, is not much and maybe too late when they're already in El Salvador -- and it's really hard to vindicate those rights.
Whereas the attorney for the plaintiff is here, the challengers, was saying, no, they're entitled to at least what the Nazis got, which is a hearing of some sort, not a full criminal case, but a hearing to make sure they're the right person before they're shipped out of the country.
COOPER: Norm, what are the chances? I mean, what happens now?
NORM EISEN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, we'll have a determination by this three-judge panel. The swing vote is you had one on each side. It seemed from the discourse from the bench today, Anderson, and the swing vote was silent. Judge Henderson, we'll see where she lands. I think history, precedent, the constitution and human decency all point in one direction.
There's now, evidence, in fact, the lawyer for the ACLU, the very capable Lee Gelernt, pointed out, that many, perhaps most a majority of these people, the evidence indicates, are not gang members.
Anderson, what have we come to as a country if innocent people are being deported to a dark site in a foreign country without any due process whatsoever? I filed a brief on behalf of almost two dozen conservatives who said this is a violation of conservative ideas going back centuries, limiting government power.
So, hopefully the court will see it that way and in either event, it is headed for the Supreme Court.
COOPER: Elie, what do you make of the, you know, we've been covering the Trump targeting these law firms, trying to intimidate them, intimidate anybody from being able to bring a case against the administration by having law firms too scared to actually represent people.
Paul, Weiss prompt big, prominent law firm made this deal that, you know, they represent a lot of pro bono clients. They said they'll do pro bono work equivalent to about $40 million worth for the administration. Is that a reasonable accommodation?
EISEN: They bent the knee. Paul, Weiss bent the knee. I mean, I wish there was a nicer way to put it. And by the way, I ran this by several friends of mine who are in very senior positions at similar law firms to Paul, Weiss. I said, am I missing something? Am I oversimplifying? Every single person I talked to said they gave in.
Now look, the fault here does not start with Paul, Weiss. The fault here starts with the Trump administration. I mean, he just said were going after firms that engage in vexatious litigation. What does that even mean? Vexatious -- that could mean anything --
COOPER: By the way as somebody who knows one or two things about --
HONIG: Vexatious litigation.
COOPER: But like Trump has filed many a lawsuit.
HONIG: Yes, the initial order that Trump issued targeting these firms said, "Harmful activities." This is like Orwellian stuff. So, it's his fault but by giving in.
[20:30:41]
And, by the way, when Paul Weiss said they'll do $40 million worth of pro bono, everyone loves pro bono. That means free legal services, but it's of Trump's choosing. It's with things that Trump agrees with.
So if they want to represent pro-choice advocates, if they want to represent people on death row, they've now surrendered that to the administration. So law firms, and I'm interested in what Norm thinks --
COOPER: Yes.
HONIG: -- but law firms are apoplectic about this.
COOPER: Norm, I mean, the -- you're involved in litigation, as you said, against the administration. The President signaled you out by name Friday night in order revoking any security clearance you may have. What do you make of his claim today that law firms need to, quote, "behave"?
EISEN: Anderson, he's losing in court. There have been almost two dozen cases that my organization, the State Democracy Defenders Fund, has filed or worked on. We won an order protecting 6,000 FBI agents from targeting because they worked on January 6th.
We got another one locking Elon Musk out of the Treasury Department. 20,000 wrongly fired federal government employees.
COOPER: And Norm, were you scared at all?
EISEN: We were part of it all protecting them. I see it as Donald Trump being the one who's lashing out, Anderson, because he's losing. And let's not forget that Paul Weiss bent the knee, kissed the ring, crawled on their belly.
But Covington and Burling got an action. They got an EO. They did not bow down. Perkins Coie, they went to court.
COOPER: Yes.
EISEN: They got Williams and Connolly, one of the best firms in the country. They won court protections. And Anderson, I can tell you this. This is the third time Donald Trump has revoked my security clearance.
I think he turns it back on so he can take it away again because he's so angry. But you know what? I won't back down no matter what. I'll just file even more lawsuits.
COOPER: All right, Norm Eisen, Elie Honig, thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Coming up next, former Vanity Fair Editor Graydon Carter on "When the Going Was Good", the title of his new memoir. We'll talk about it and his long and contentious history of President Trump.
And homeowners who lost everything. The California wildfires now fighting their insurance companies to get what they see as a fair payout and rebuild.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:37:33]
COOPER: Welcome back. Graydon Carter is the legendary former editor of Vanity Fair, which he led for half -- quarter of a century. These days, he's an observer of American culture and politics with his online weekly Air Mail. His new memoir, "When the Going Was Good: An Editor's Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines" goes on sale tomorrow.
It is a fun and fascinating read. He joins me now.
I should start by acknowledging you are Canadian, given the times that that --
GRAYDON CARTER, AUTHOR, "WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD": Joint citizen.
COOPER: Joint --
CARTER: I mean, and an American.
COOPER: OK.
CARTER: But, yes, originally Canadian.
COOPER: The President has been unhappy with you for about 40 years.
CARTER: Yes, I was an early Canadian that he was angry with. Now he's angry with the entire country, 40 years.
COOPER: You did a profile of him before Vanity Fair --
CARTER: Yes.
COOPER: -- which you write about in the book
CARTER: Before Spy, actually.
COOPER: Before Spy --
CARTER: Yes.
COOPER: -- you know, Spy magazine, which was a whole other brilliant thing that you did. And you commented on his hands.
CARTER: Well, I spent three weeks with his first national exposure. And so he let me hang around with him. And I wrote that his cufflinks were too large and his hands were too small. That drove me crazy.
And then when we went to Spy, we had sort of funny epithets for people. And he was always a short-fingered vulgarian which --
COOPER: A short --
CARTER: A short-fingered vulgarian, which slightly drove him crazy over this.
COOPER: Yes.
CARTER: So --
COOPER: And yet he -- the hand thing, which ended up being in part of the presidential debate, he actually -- before I think he was running for president, he actually has not forgotten that and sent you a note with a photograph. Didn't he?
CARTER: He -- well, we had a -- he tried -- we tried to be friends for a period and that didn't work out. And on probably the summer before he announced, he sent me a note with a 20-year-old, 25-year-old ad for the art of the deal and has a photograph, I mean, he circles his hand in gold Sharpie says, see, quite large.
And then I stapled a card to it and sent it and said, actually quite small and had to hand deliver right back to his office.
COOPER: He did not.
CARTER: I did. I should have held on to it.
COOPER: Did you ever -- did you think about just letting -- you couldn't let it go?
CARTER: It's just too easy.
COOPER: Yes.
CARTER: I mean, it's like wiffle ball, you know.
COOPER: What do you make of the President's focus on Canada right now?
CARTER: Well, first of all, I think it's -- I mean, it's -- Canada, you cannot ask for a better neighbor. Canada is a loyal ally in times of war. It's a great trading partner.
COOPER: Canadian troops served, I mean, overseas and on peacekeeping missions in Boston --
[20:40:01]
CARTER: You know, in Omaha Beach, you know? So alongside the British and the Americans. And I'm not quite sure what he thinks the end game is here because it's not going to happen. Canadians do not want to be Americans.
And if he goes in in the winter, he may face the same problems that Hitler did when he went into Russia in the winter. Canadians are good on ice and they're tough.
COOPER: Do you think of a magazine like Vanity Fair, which was such -- I mean, when you led it, it was the magazine that covered Hollywood and politics and just an incredible mix. Has social media kind of destroyed the allure of celebrity in a way?
CARTER: Well, the movie star on the cover was simply to get it off the newsstand into the people's homes. And it was a global magazine. We were sold in every country in the world. And so you needed -- movie stars were the sort of the common currency of the world.
There aren't now so much as because television is such a major factor, but it -- and social media has chipped away at everything. But there are still some great magazines out there and there's great journalism being done.
COOPER: Well, and your Air Mail, which I read is, I think, a great online magazine. It covers sort of a wonderful mix of topics. I just want to throw out a couple of names and here --
CARTER: OK.
COOPER: -- you had interactions with pretty much everybody at some point or another. RFK Jr.?
CARTER: The sweetest man. And he gave me a poem that I didn't even know about, a poem that Dorothy Parker had written. And she worked at Vanity Fair in the 1930s. And this poem was called "I Hate My Office". And I didn't even know it existed. And nobody at Vanity Fair did either.
COOPER: Yes.
CARTER: And I thought he was a wonderful, elegant man.
COOPER: RFK Jr.?
CARTER: Yes. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm talking about --
COOPER: John FK -- JFK Jr.
CARTER: Oh RFK Jr.
COOPER: Yes.
CARTER: Whole other subject.
COOPER: Yes. OK.
CARTER: OK. We knew him back when he was sane and he worked with the NRDC, and my wife was involved in that. And I don't understand this man at all.
COOPER: Taylor Swift?
CARTER: I've met her twice.
COOPER: Justin Trudeau?
CARTER: Good customer at the Waverly Inn, though.
COOPER: Oh, at your restaurant?
CARTER: Yes, yes. Yes, yes.
COOPER: OK. OK. It's a great restaurant. Justin Trudeau?
CARTER: I knew his father and I knew the son and both really lovely men.
COOPER: Mick Jagger?
CARTER: Oh, Mick, I mean --
COOPER: You hangout (ph)?
CARTER: What is this? Like you make me sound like an idiot. I mean --
COOPER: You're not an idiot.
CARTER: OK. I know Mick.
COOPER: I like that you -- I mean, you -- the breadth of people you know from all sorts of --
CARTER: OK.
COOPER: -- and can converse with and --
CARTER: Right.
COOPER: -- have stories about.
CARTER: Right.
COOPER: Caitlyn Jenner? Was that your bestselling cover?
CARTER: No, strange numbers. But it was the -- one of the biggest things we did. And it was a -- it was about a six-month process. And it was the first time I think anybody, transgender person had been on a magazine cover like Vanity Fair.
COOPER: Yes.
CARTER: And it created quite a shock. But it was -- now it was -- because by the time the actual magazine came out, we released it online first. Yes, most people had seen the pictures, so the thrill was less. But it was really good for the magazine.
COOPER: You write in the book. You said, "Some mornings I just wish I'd properly retired, moved to Florida, become a Republican, worked on my golf game". You obviously have not done that. What keeps you interested? What are you interested in every day?
CARTER: I sort of like, you know, I love -- being an editor is something I've -- it's the only job I've really had my entire life. And I just love it. I love putting together an assembly of things that I think I can put, give it to you and you -- on a Saturday morning, you'll think -- I think it's like four or five stories in here and I really like that I didn't see in the American papers.
COOPER: Well, it's what I loved about the old Vanity Fair. And what I love about Air Mail is there's always something which I didn't know about and it's from a topic I don't know much about. But it's guaranteed (INAUDIBLE).
CARTER: Yes, no, because I read all the foreign papers and as does my partner, Alessandra. And so, yes, we just try to make it really pleasant --
COOPER: Yes.
CARTER: -- you know, on a Saturday morning.
COOPER: Well, the book is like the magazine, just such a great read. And I'm so glad you did it.
CARTER: Thank you so much.
COOPER: Thank you. It's really a pleasure.
CARTER: Great pleasure.
COOPER: Yes.
Graydon -- the book is, "When the Going Was Good: An Editor's Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines" and the expense accounts. You got to read about these expense accounts. It's crazy.
Coming up next, what's being called the disaster after the disaster. They lost their homes, everything inside during the wildfires. Now they're battling the state's largest insurer to get a payout and rebuild.
And later, Second Lady Usha Vance and the national security adviser heading to Greenland this week. Why is the prime minister there is not happy about it? We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:48:58]
COOPER: Some homeowners who lost everything in the Los Angeles area wildfires now say they're having to navigate an insurance obstacle course trying get their policies to pay out. CNN's Nick Watt, who did a remarkable job covering the fires, is now covering the aftermath for us.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): House after house destroyed. California's insurance commissioner has urged insurers to pay the full rebuild coverage up front. Some have, others have not.
JILL SPIVAK, HOME DESTROYED IN FIRE: They'll only give us --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
SPIVAK: -- 30 percent of personal property and 50 percent of dwelling.
WATT (voice-over): The Spivaks and others tell us the biggest insurer in California, State Farm, has paid them only half what they insured their homes for. It's legal, but compounding some pain.
MICHAEL CHILDRESS, DISASTER ATTORNEY, KABATECK LLP: You have to deal with your insurance company. We call it the disaster after the disaster.
WATT (voice-over): Michael Childress represents the people who wind up suing their carrier.
On the ground, countless conversations like this.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who do you have? Who's your carrier?
SPIVAK: State Farm.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Luckily for us, we had AIG and my mom has Chubb and they're on a -- seemingly on a different kind of caliber in terms of how they pay out their clients.
[20:50:09]
WATT (voice-over): And for some owners, that first payment might be all they ever get.
SPIVAK: Their whole goal is to exhaust you and to deplete you and to have you give up.
JEFFREY MAJOR, PRESIDENT, SKYLINE ADJUSTERS: Property owners are getting reports that say, thank you for working with our building consultant, which never happened. And based on the information you gave us, here is your report.
WATT: In the hope that the frazzled homeowner is just going to say, all right, I'll take it.
MAJOR: A lot of times they do.
CHILDRESS: There's all these soft, dishonest tactics that they use that they'll never be held accountable for. They rely on people's doubt and uncertainty and the fact that they're completely upside down after a disaster like that.
SPIVAK: I just like wanted to put my arms around those walls over there and just like apologize. And I have no idea like why I feel like I have to apologize to my house.
WATT (voice-over): Then there's an exhaustive list fire victims must compile of everything that was inside their house that just burned down.
WATT: Green plastic strainer, large mesh, sink strainer.
SPIVAK: Hot plate. And doing all of this, initially being told in 60 days. We have to do this in 60 days.
There was an urgency and a rush and a pressure to get through it quickly so that inevitably what I've been told is you miss things. You miss a ton of things. We've lived in our house for 25 years.
WATT (voice-over): State legislators are now writing a bill that would end the need for this now infamous list. Even if an insurer eventually does cough up more.
MAJOR: There's a benefit to an insurance company in delay.
WATT: Why?
MAJOR: There's -- they're making interest.
WATT (voice-over): $1 billion of investments at a say 6 percent return earns $60 million a year. State legislators just started debating a law that means homeowners at least get the interest once the money has reached their mortgage provider.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Giving them more money to rebuild their homes and their lives.
WATT (voice-over): Too late for the victims of these fires.
GARY SPIVAK, HOME DESTROYED IN FIRE: The idea that you pay insurance every month for 25 years for the rainy day and the rainy day came, please pay us what we're owed. We're not asking for anything more than that.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
WATT (on-camera): No reply from State Farm on why they're only paying half those rebuild costs. But, Anderson, on the contents, a spokesperson told us, listen, we go above and beyond the law in making our initial payments. And he said, you know, if we paid the full whack, the full policy limit up front, we might end up paying more than the cost of the actual loss.
And that, quote, "might lead to raising the price of insurance for all California customers". Worth noting that last year, State Farm's net worth rose to a little over $145 billion. Anderson?
COOPER: Nick Watt, thank you very much.
Coming up next, the second lady of the United States is heading to Greenland later this week, along with the national security adviser and Greenland's prime minister is speaking out against the trip. What he's saying now President Trump responded ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:57:48]
COOPER: Second Lady Usha Vance is traveling to Greenland this week. According to the White House, the wife of Vice President JD Vance will watch the national dog sled race and, quote, "celebrate Greenlandic culture in unity".
National Security Adviser Mike Waltz is also expected to visit the island this week. Greenland's prime minister has called the U.S. delegation's trip, quote, "highly aggressive" after President Trump has vowed to annex the Danish territory.
Here's what the President said at today's Cabinet meeting.
(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, not provocation. This is friendliness, not provocation. We're dealing with a lot of people from Greenland that would like to see something happen with respect to they're being properly protected and properly taken care of. They're calling us. We're not calling them.
(END VIDEOCLIP)
COOPER: CNN Senior Data Reporter Harry Enten joins us now with more. Do Americans, are they into this whole Greenland?
HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: This has got to be one of the most unpopular ideas I've ever heard. You know I look at the polling day in, day out. The percentage of Americans who are against this, we could throw up on the screen right now. We're looking at about 70 percent of Americans who say, no, the U.S. should not take over Greenland.
That is more Americans who were for the impeachment and removal of Richard Nixon by the end of his presidency. This is uniformly unpopular. Even only half of Republicans support it.
COOPER: And what do people in Greenland think?
ENTEN: Yes. What do people in Greenland think? Because I think this is sort of the big question, right? What do people in Greenland think? If you think the American people were against it, take a look at this.
We managed to get a poll of the people on the beautiful land of Greenland. And what do Greenlanders think? Look at this no percentage who are against this idea.
COOPER: Wow.
ENTEN: 85 percent, just 6 percent say yes. To give you an idea of how low 6 percent is, if you took a poll of Americans and say, do you believe we actually landed on the moon? About 10 percent of Americans think we fake the moon landing. So fewer Greenlanders are for the U.S. taking over Greenland than Americans who actually believe that we did not land on the moon.
COOPER: This is not the first time the U.S. has shown interest in purchasing Greenland.
ENTEN: No, this is kind of interesting to me. I kind of thought maybe Donald Trump came up with this idea out of nowhere. But, in fact, there have been numerous points in U.S. history where there's some idea that we might take over Greenland. Perhaps most recently back in the 40s, right?
Harry S. Truman, after World War II, there was an idea for strategic defense because we could fly the planes over the Polar Regions much easier to get over to Moscow. And what was interesting was the idea, OK, maybe we'd spend $1 billion to perhaps purchase Greenland from Denmark.
But even then, what you see is only 33 percent of Americans back then were in favor of it. The plurality, 38 percent. No, I have never seen a single poll in which the yeses on us purchasing Greenland was higher than the noes throughout American history.
COOPER: All right. Harry Enten, you'll keep your eye on it, though.
ENTEN: I am going to keep my eye on it. You know me. I'm a big fan of this story.
COOPER: Of course.
The news continues. The Source with Kaitlan Collins starts now. See you tomorrow.
