Return to Transcripts main page
CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt
Countdown To Artemis II Mission To Orbit The Moon; Exclusive CNN Poll Shows Growing Disapproval Of Iran War; Trump To Address Nation On Iran Amid Wide Public Disapproval Of War; Justices Skeptical Of Trump's Bid To End Birthright Citizenship. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired April 01, 2026 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:00:00]
ALLISON CHINCHAR, AMS METEOROLOGIST: But again, fingers crossed, everything stays clear at the time of the launch.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: All right. I mean, I can't handle this anticipation. Surely, the families and the astronauts can't. So, let's get this thing off the ground.
All right. Allison, thank you so much.
And THE ARENA begins right now.
(MUSIC)
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST: Breaking news, as we come on the air, we are following three major breaking stories today.
A historic mission to the moon, ready for liftoff for the first time in more than 50 years, humans will travel to the moon as Artemis II and its mission blasts off in about two hours. We're going to go live to the Kennedy Center in just moments.
At the very same time, though, we're following a story, a new CNN exclusive poll debuting right here, right now in THE ARENA. And it shows that public support for the U.S. military action in Iran is dropping, while opposition to sending ground troops is only growing.
And in just hours, President Trump is going to deliver a major address on this war after Iran's president released a new letter asking the American people, quote, "Is America first truly among the priorities of the United States government today?"
Plus, the Supreme Court has taken up a historic battle over birthright citizenship. And this morning, President Trump became the first sitting president to attend oral arguments at the nation's highest court. But a majority of justices appeared deeply skeptical of his signature policy to redefine who gets to be an American citizen. So we'll break down what we heard today in court and how the ruling could potentially impact millions of people across this country.
But first, I want to get straight to CNN anchor Boris Sanchez. He is live at the Kennedy Space Center down in Florida.
So, Boris, what is the mood like on the ground? Not to mention the weather, which is extremely important today.
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Very important. All eyes on the weather here, Abby. We've seen some light showers. It's been overcast for some of the day, but right now, we've got clear skies and hopefully that will be the weather that we see later as we get closer. We're now about two hours and 20 minutes from that launch window, opening the first hatch of the Orion space capsule, where these four crew members are going to travel into space, has been closed.
So, there's just a series of checks away from liftoff, and it is going to be historic. They are set to go further than any humans ever have before. To the dark side of the moon, faster than anyone has traveled in a spaceship before. Upwards of 17,000 miles an hour on what one retired astronaut told me today is a monster.
This SLS system, this shuttle, the Artemis II, is about the size of the Statue of Liberty. It has eight million pounds of thrust. So, they are going to be jettisoning out to outer space.
And this is going to be a historic mission, not only because of the technicalities and the science, but also who is on board. For the first time, the United States is returning to lunar orbit in 50-plus years. Reid Wiseman is the mission commander who is going to lead the way there.
You have Jeremy Hansen. He is actually the first Canadian who is going to head to deep space. He's never actually been to space before, so his first time going into orbit is going to be obviously very, very far away.
You also have Christina Koch. She's going to be the first woman ever to reach lunar orbit.
And then you have the pilot on this mission, Victor Glover. He is said to be the first African American to travel into lunar orbit. And as pilot, he has all kinds of responsibilities. It's not only getting his hands on the steering wheel, figuratively and commanding that ship through outer space. It's all sorts of stuff on board, including things as trivial as making sure the plumbing is working. Of course, you got to make sure the toilet works when you're that far away from planet Earth -- Abby.
PHILLIP: Yeah, that's definitely one of the things that comes straight to the front of the mind when you think about how long they're going to be waiting to, to take off. And then once they're up there, how long it will be before they are in out of outer space.
This is such a cool moment. I hope people plan to have their kids and their families in front of the TV tonight. It's a once in a lifetime experience for all of us.
Boris Sanchez at the Kennedy Space Center, thank you very much. We're going to have much more of this coverage ahead live from the
launch, including our own special coverage, which begins at 5:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN.
But more breaking news that we are following tonight. President Trump is now just hours away from addressing the nation about this ongoing war with Iran. Ahead of the speech, we have new CNN polling that is debuting right now showing how the country feels about this war.
Now, just a third of Americans approve of how the president is handling his role of commander in chief, as well as the war. Two thirds disapprove of the decision to take military action in Iran, and strong opposition has grown 12 points since the start of the war, 63 percent of Americans say that they believe it's likely that the war will turn into a long term military conflict, and nearly seven in 10 oppose sending U.S. ground troops into Iran.
[16:05:04]
That is something that the president and the administration have repeatedly refused to rule out.
Seventy-one percent say they don't want congress to authorize $200 billion for further military action in Iran.
A lot to take in there. My panel is here with us in THE ARENA, CNN political commentator and host of "The Off the Cupp" podcast, S.E. Cupp; CNN contributor to -- and "New York Times" journalist Lulu Garcia-Navarro; and former Democratic Congressman Max Rose; and CNN's senior political commentator Scott Jennings.
This poll is a lot of bad news for President Trump in terms of how the American people view this war, and it's also I think it shows that the president tonight is speaking maybe a little too late. Americans have -- they have calcified how they view on how they view this war. And in fact, it's getting worse for him.
S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think, you know, what's largely believed to be happening tonight is President Trump is going to use this opportunity to pressure NATO to help us out more. Right?
Where's our speech? Where's the speech to the American public? We are more than a month into this war now telling us what the mission is, what the plan is, why were there in the first place. He never did that.
And he talks a lot about this war, but he's talking to external audiences. When he talks, you can hear him. He's talking to the markets, right? Or maybe he's talking to project strength to our -- to our allies around the world and our enemies around the world.
It sounds like a lot of propaganda. It's not really speaking to us. And so, it doesn't sound like he cares that 70 percent of the American people don't want boots on the ground. It doesn't sound like he cares what public sentiment is over this this war. Now that is his right to not care and do what he wants. But I've never heard of a worse choice to make in an election year.
PHILLIP: And look, I mean, I think the American people understand that Iran is a bad actor, Scott, but the president has clearly not made the case to them that this particular action was necessary and warranted in this moment.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICALCOMMENTATOR: Well, the reality is we're in it. And the polling is somewhat irrelevant right now because we're already a month in and the president needs to tell the country tonight, and I expect he will tell the country tonight how he intends to wrap up large scale military operations and what he foresees beyond that. And I think ultimately, if we end this conflict, having met clear objectives, they're not going to have nuclear weapons, they're not going to have missiles. They're not going to have an aggressive navy, and they're not going to be an exporter of terrorism. And we don't wind up in some prolonged conflict.
And we do wind up in a situation where the other Gulf states and Israel are principally responsible for monitoring Iran over time, I think the American people will have judged that to be a good outcome.
I agree with you. Most people believe Iran is a bad actor. They've been a bad actor for 47 years. If we defang them and we bring some stability to the Middle East and the world by this action, I think over time the American people will think it was a good decision.
LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: LOL, sorry.
JENNINGS: I'm sorry. What does that mean?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I know, I know it's not your age group, but laugh out loud.
JENNINGS: I mean, is that a serious response to a serious answer?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: It is a serious response.
JENNINGS: Why? Are those -- are those not worthy objectives?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Can I finish, what was a serious answer, which is this -- the last thing that has been brought is stability to the Middle East. What we have seen in fact, is a chaotic incursion, misadventure into Iran, which has led the entire region to be inflamed with no end in sight, with the president actually now changing the goalpost saying that, well, we're just going to cut and run and let the Straits of Hormuz be sorted out by somebody else.
Listen, every single president had in their binder wargames, knowing that this was going to be the end result if you did what you did. President Trump chose to do this, and now he's changing what the metrics of success are. This is a disaster for the region, and it has been a disaster for the American people because they have had to pay for this war.
JENNINGS: LMAO. That's my response to that. We take away their missiles, we take away their navy, we take away their air force, and we take away their capability of getting nuclear weapons. They have missiles that can reach most of Europe, and if you want to leave them in place to do all that for another 47 years, that's a choice. That's a choice.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Are they still not in place? Are they still not in place, though?
JENNINGS: These things I just listed are not in place. They are not in place.
PHILLIP: Look, I think it's important. It's really an open question on the nukes and on the ability to export terror. Do we have any evidence that this operation has prevented Iran from ever doing that again?
MAX ROSE (D), FORMER U.S. CONGRESSMAN: Well, look, I don't have any acronyms, but here's what I do know, is that proper actions by a commander in chief align tactics, operations and strategy, and they associate them with an outcome. Now, the problem is here is of course, this war was started without any clear goal in sight.
[16:10:03]
One day it was terrorism, one day, it was missiles, one day was nuclear weapons. No one knew what was going on. One day it was regime change.
PHILLIP: Can I just point out that the four points that Scott mentioned, which the White House reiterated today, are the different four points than what Marco Rubio said three days ago, three days ago. So they've -- just in the last week, they have switched what four points were the objectives of this war.
ROSE: And, of course, but let's even just take Scott -- the four points that Scott laid out. And let's say that those are the objectives. There is zero evidence right now that we have achieved those for the long term.
Certainly, missile sites were destroyed. Certainly, naval assets were destroyed. Zero evidence that they will not be able to.
JENNINGS: How long does it take to build a ship? Zero. How long would it take to rebuild the Iranian navy?
ROSE: There is, look --
JENNINGS: Years, decades. There is plenty of evidence. We sunk all their boats.
PHILLIP: What about the nukes?
ROSE: Scott, again, six months prior to this campaign being launched, the Trump administration claimed that the nuclear arsenal, the nuclear program, had been effectively annihilated.
Six months later, they are now launching a new campaign to say this. You yourself just used the words that they were going to now stop funding terrorism overseas. At the same time that the 13 U.S. bases in the region have been effectively destroyed, or at least significantly reduced, the only point that I am making here is not that --
PHILLIP: You're saying we've had 13 bases effectively destroyed?
ROSE: I'm saying that we have had 13 bases in the region effectively and significantly reduced.
The point here, Scott. I'm just going to make just one small point here, and that is that if you are saying that Iran's long term capability to project power to include funding of terrorism has been permanently changed by this campaign, that has to involve the political ambitions of the Iranian regime changing otherwise known as regime change. That has not occurred.
PHILLIP: President Trump at all claimed this morning in a Truth Social post that Iran's new regime president not sure who he's talking about there, because the president of Iran today is the same one that was the president before, is -- he says, "is much less radicalized and far more intelligent than his predecessors. He has just asked the United States of America for a ceasefire. We will consider when the Strait of Hormuz is open, free and clear. Until then, we are blasting Iran into oblivion. Or as they say, back to the stone ages."
What is going on here with the president and these types of comments? Iran's denying it. I don't even know who he's referring to here. Is this just to manipulate public sentiment?
CUPP: The external -- an external audience and almost who knows what kind of games he's playing with this propaganda. And that's what it is.
But I just want to remind folks like the 30,000-foot view here is Iran is very prepared for a long war of attrition. They've been preparing for 20 years.
Let's pretend we did all the things that Scott laid out. And I think those are all great, great goals. I just want to remind you that back in 1980, during the Iran-Iraq war, eight days in Iraq asked for a ceasefire, Iran rejected it. It waited eight years, turned down six more ceasefire requests, some during Ramadan before it finally caved, before its weapons and economy were finally degraded enough and Iraq was threatening chemical weapons attacks.
It took eight years to get Iran to agree to a ceasefire. The president throws around ceasefire as if he can just wheel it into happening. That is not who we're dealing with.
And to Lulu's point, I don't know what he's read about -- about this bad actor, but there are plenty of people who know what Iran is capable of. And it's more than just what we're seeing now. And for they're ready for a much longer battle.
I don't know if Trump is aware of that, but they are ready.
PHILLIP: He has been saying that we've won. We're done.
CUPP: Right.
PHILLIP: We're, you know --
CUPP: Absurd.
PHILLIP: Regime change has happened. All that stuff.
If he runs a victory lap tonight, effectively, what is going to be the effect when you layer that on top of all the polling that we just told you about at the top of the show, that shows that the American people are deeply pessimistic about this war, how is that going to play?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Well, first of all, what I'll say, I mean, is that it does matter what the American people think about the war. Contrary to what Scott said, because in fact, the president represents the people and wars are fought in our name. And so therefore, what the American people think is important.
And if the president actually goes and says, were going to cut and run, I'm going to declare a pyrrhic victory, and this is all fine and somebody else has to deal with opening the Straits of Hormuz. I mean, essentially what you're saying is, first of all, it doesn't help the projection of American power. So already, that's off the table.
The second thing you're doing is leaving a huge economic global mess.
[16:15:00]
And let us not forget that oil prices are global. They're not just to do with the United States. And so that will still affect Americans' pocketbooks.
And third of all, and this is the most worrying thing about all of this -- it's not just about the ships. It's not just about the missiles. It is about what is the future stability of the region.
And this isn't something that is two weeks or three weeks. This is something that plays out to your point over many months and many years.
PHILLIP: And sometimes we don't know until much later what the actual ultimate effects of things like this end up being. But coming up for us in THE ARENA, we're going to go back to the Kennedy Space Center live and to the countdown to liftoff of Artemis II's moon mission.
But first, the president is getting a front row seat as the Supreme Court scrutinizes one of his signature policies of his second term. And the justices don't appear sold on what the administration is selling
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANTHONY ROMERO, ACLU NATIONAL EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: I was especially gratified that president Trump was sitting a mere six feet away from me, and I hope that he was schooled in the importance of birthright citizenship. I am confident that we will win this case, and that the future of this country will be determined by our Constitution, by our civil rights statutes, and not by the whim of a president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:20:44]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CECILIA WANG, NATIONAL LEGAL DIRECTOR, ACLU: I'm confident that the court is going to turn back this president's effort to radically rewrite our 14th Amendment rule of birthright citizenship.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: It was a historic morning at the Supreme Court. Not only did they hear a landmark case about who qualifies to be an American, but President Trump sat in on those arguments for the first half of the morning. The Trump administration is asking the court to reinterpret the 14th Amendment as it has been understood in this country for more than a century.
But from the start, both liberal and conservative justices voiced skepticism about the administration's case. Arguably the most troubling sign for the administration came in this exchange between Chief Justice John Roberts and Solicitor General John Sauer.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
D. JOHN SAUER, SOLICITOR GENERAL: We're in a new world now, as Justice Alito pointed out, to, where eight billion people are one plane ride away from having a child who's a U.S. citizen.
CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS, U.S. SUPREME COURT: Well, it's a new world. It's the same Constitution.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
PHILLIP: CNN's chief legal affairs correspondent, Paula Reid, is with us.
Paula, a lot went on today and I was just listening for the voices. Even if you can't distinguish the justices from each other, when you hear the men talking, those are the conservatives. And a lot of them were skeptical. What stood out to you?
PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, that's exactly what stood out to me today, Abby, was the overt skepticism from the majority of justices about President Trump's executive order on birthright citizenship. Now, we don't know exactly what the president hoped to achieve by attending these arguments, but it was clear his presence didn't make the justices more sympathetic to the administration's arguments. Even the three justices that he appointed did not appear to be buying the argument that his lawyer, John Sauer, was making.
Let's take a listen to some of those exchanges.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
JUSTICE NEIL GORSUCH, U.S. SUPREME COURT: Do you think Native Americans today are birthright citizens under your test and under your friend's test?
SAUER: I think so. I mean, obviously, they've been granted citizenship by statute.
JUSTICE AMY CONEY BARRETT, U.S. SUPREME COURT: I can imagine it being messy in some applications. What if you don't know who the parents are?
SAUER: I think there are marginal cases. That one I think has the benefit of being addressed in 1401(f) where it talks about --
BARRETT: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But what about the constitution?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not what you want to hear from a justice when you're making your oral argument.
Of course, the other Trump appointed justice, Justice Javanaugh. He didn't say too much during the Trump argument. He, like the other Trump justices, have fallen in and out of favor with the president, but he's currently in favor. The president recently called Kavanaugh, quote, his hero. But even Kavanaugh pressed the administration on the fact that they're asking them to not only overturn the court's interpretation of the 14th Amendment, but also the fact that Congress has twice interpreted the 14th Amendment to mean that if you're born here, you're a citizen.
Now, look, the other side got some tough questions. But at times, Abby, it seemed like the lawyers were almost asking how exactly they write the opinion instead of how they should rule.
Now, Trump with his -- those appointees -- appointees, he made this a conservative supermajority. As you know, he scored a lot of major victories before this court. But it appears that this is probably not going to go his way.
PHILLIP: All right. Paula Reid, thank you very much.
Also with us, CNN legal analyst Elliot Williams, who's here with us to join the panel.
Elliot, also to you -- I mean, I think that what stands out is there was a lot of pretzel making. And at one point, I think Justice Roberts called the arguments quirky that the government was making to try to justify this executive order. What -- how did you think that they did in terms of making this idea that this should only apply in the future? It should only apply to people who you can tell that their parent -- maybe their mom and their dad wanted to stay here and were here legally. How did they try to make logic of all of this?
ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: That was tough. And the central challenge that the administration had, and the problem with their argument was the gray area instances. Justice Coney Barrett really latched on this in a few different instances today, Abby. Number one, saying what to do with trafficking victims, people who were brought to the United States against their will and quite frankly, could receive some form of relief in a visa down the road. What do you do if they get pregnant?
[16:25:00]
What do you do with other individuals who you know, exist in other sorts of ambiguous circumstances?
And the administration attempted to have a broad brush rule here, but it was just not workable because of how really unambiguous the language of the 14th Amendment is, even including that subject to the jurisdiction of the United States language. They just had an uphill battle here. And quite frankly, I would even go further and say it just wasn't serious. A lot of the legal arguments they were making here.
So they had to win over at least three of justice -- between Justices Roberts, Kavanaugh, Coney Barrett and Gorsuch, it seemed pretty clear from listening today, they just did not.
PHILLIP: And the ACLU's attorney, Cecilia Wang, she took some questioning that I think was a little bit skeptical, including there was some exchanges about, one of the main, precedent rulings that is at issue here. And, and she even had, I think one of the liberal justices disagreeing with her on it. How do you think she did? And were there moments where you wondered whether the court might be trying to find some way to give maybe the government a little bit of a win in some areas, or was it just a bit of a flub in some areas?
WILLIAMS: I really don't think so. And Paula touched on this a little bit with indicating that what you see sometimes is justices number one, arguing through the -- through the witness, through the lawyer to each other, but also figuring out how they're going to craft their arguments and or craft whatever opinions they write if they're going to write a concurrence or whatever else.
And what I heard in that second half of the day were a number of the justices, particularly the liberal ones, really shaping what exactly they're going to write and how they're going to frame what they're going to say, but not really real skepticism about this on account of, number one, that Wong Kim Ark case we heard a lot about today from 1898. And number two, Congress legislating on this a few decades later. It's just hard to square everything the administration was saying today with the long legal history here and the justices really made that clear. Even justices quite conservative ones that might have even been predicted to rule in the administration's favor.
So I just don't really see it that even the liberal justices were expressing concern. PHILLIP: Yeah.
Bring it into the room here. I mean, the idea that the this has been a hobby horse of the presidents for a long time, is not new to Americans, but it seems pretty clear that the justices are not -- are deeply skeptical for so many reasons, but not the least of which is that it just simply defies the practice of this country for over 150 years. And they brought that up today.
You're basically telling us to throw 150 years away just because you want us to?
ROSE: This is cooked. I mean, there's no way that this lands on Donald Trump's side here. But what's equally shocking is how this fits into the broader narrative of how Donald Trump is abandoning what he said he would focus on during his campaign. He said he would laser in on affordability. He hasn't mentioned affordability in months. He said he would laser in on stopping future forever wars. We all see how that's playing out here.
So, I think that almost in many ways, him going into the Supreme Court in this unprecedented act was almost like a cry for help here, that please bail me out because I'm such not just an ineffective leader, but turn it into just a massive political loser. The same hand.
PHILLIP: The other thing is, if this is going to apply for the future, I mean, Justice Sotomayor had an exchange with John Sauer about why it's not retroactive. Let me just play that.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
JUSTICE SONIA SOTOMAYOR, U.S. SUPREME COURT: The logic of your position, if accepted, is that the next president, this president or the next president or a congress or someone else could decide that it shouldn't be prospective. There would be nothing limiting that, according to your theory.
SAUER: We believe the court should do what it did in Sessions against Morales Santana, where there was a such a ruling that would have deprived people who are already citizens -- of citizenship, and the court, said this applies prospectively only, and we think that's the appropriate course here.
SOTOMAYOR: But that's not what we did in Trin.
SAUER: We think the Sessions provides the proper course here, and that's what we're asking. We are not asking for any retroactive relief.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
PHILLIP: What's to stop -- what is to stop a future president from just writing an executive order that says all those other people, actually, they're not citizens either?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Let me actually be a little counterintuitive here, which is as follows -- I think it's important to have this discussion actually. And I say this because we are at a moment in America where we are deciding who gets to be an American and why. And I think it is important that the Supreme Court weigh in on this issue precisely for what Sotomayor says, that this needs to be settled law.
[16:30:05]
We need to understand what the rules of the road are and have the president and his people make the best case. And if that's their best case, then great. And then whatever comes down the pipe, let that be settled law. Because what we can't have and what we've had for too long is this idea that everything is conditional, that you are here, maybe if you were born out of the country, you can stay, maybe you can't, maybe if Biden gave you legal status that allows you to stay, maybe you -- maybe it doesn't. I mean, this is the problem we need to have, especially on this issue, settled law.
PHILLIP: And the idea -- the other thing that this puts on the table is this question, Scott, of whether the president unilaterally has the ability to just decide who gets to be a citizen and who doesn't in this country.
JENNINGS: Well, I think he put the executive order on the table to do exactly what you said, to have the debate and to get it to the Supreme Court. I actually agree with you. I think this is a debate that's worth having. And, you know, it's not a fringe position the president has.
PHILLIP: It is kind of a fringe position.
JENNINGS: Most Republicans and millions of Americans agree with him and --
PHILLIP: Seventy percent -- just on the facts, 70 percent in the latest -- the latest polling that we have on this Quinnipiac from December say that they should keep the 1989 ruling on birthright citizenship. Just 24 percent say they should reverse it.
This is a fringe position that only recently has become something that is now front of mind for some conservatives, but clearly it shows. Many conservatives do not agree.
JENNINGS: You just raised the critical point. Recent events have demanded that we have this debate. We had millions upon millions of people come into this country over several years. That changed, I think, the contours of our immigration debate generally.
We now have other emerging evidence that there are people in other countries, particularly China, that are taking advantage and defrauding our visa system to try to have this birthright tourism using some of our territories, like the Northern Mariana Islands, for instance, is like a birthright tourism maternity ward. These are debates worth having.
Are there people who are trying to take advantage of us and our good nature here as Americans, and be part of our country over a long period of time and have no allegiance or loyalty to the United States at all? It is a debate worth having. I don't know what the courts going to do. Most legal analysts say it's not going to go his way.
But I think this debate is worth having. We live. And one thing that was said, we're living in a world where a lot of people can get here, and a lot of people that don't like us and want to hurt our country can get here. And that's a conversation worth having.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: We should just say that nine -- we should just say that nine percent of children born in this country are born to people who are not legally here. So, it's actually a very small number.
PHILLIP: If it's a debate that we should have about birth tourism, which has been going on for a very long time, it's one that you have to address with the Constitution, not with an executive order.
Elliot Williams, thank you very much.
The rest of my panel, please stand by for us because we have much more coming up ahead in THE ARENA. We're going to go back to the live -- live to the Kennedy Space Center, where astronauts are doing their final preparations with less than two hours to go now, until that historic moon mission.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just extended our stay for two days. So, we'll get to take this in. Let's go. Artemis II.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:37:45]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you all for being out here. It's a great day for us. It's a great day for this team.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: That was earlier today as the Artemis II crew made their way to the launch pad. And right now, the door has been closed. They are strapped in and they've been going through their final checks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Commander OTC Orion, earth one.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OTC, as you loud and clear.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good comm. Welcome, sir.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: It will be NASA's first flight to the moon in over 50 years. And two of the astronauts are also making history.
Pilot Victor Glover will be the first African American to go to the moon, and mission specialist Christina Koch will be the first woman.
Joining us now is former NASA astronaut Mae Jemison. She's the first African American to travel -- woman to travel into space.
Mae, it's great to see you and great pleasure to talk to you on this particular day.
Now that the hatch is closed, the checks are underway. What is that feeling like when you're in that cabin on your way to space? What's going through their minds right now?
MAE JEMISON, FORMER NASA ASTRONAUT: I can only say, for me, I would think it's something like anticipation, focus, and also a big smile because you're doing something that you want to do. And I can guarantee you that each one of them, that this is really a pinnacle of -- of the things that we could accomplish in life.
And so, I think that that's part of it. And the focus is that you have a lot of work to do when you're in orbit. Yes, it's -- it's fun. It's what you want to be a part of, but you have a lot of work to do.
So, I'm sure they're going through the checks. They're paying attention to things. They're figuring out, you know, just sort of rehearsing what you do once you get on orbit and, and, and that smile, that excitement.
PHILLIP: Yeah, there are generations of Americans who've never seen this before. They don't really know why we would even go to the moon. What are we looking for? What are we trying to observe? Why is it important that we go back?
JEMISON: Well, I think -- I think what people sometimes don't realize because it's so commonplace, because so many people were born after we went to the moon that it seems commonplace, and we don't recognize how much we use that comes from that.
[16:40:13]
When we use GPS on our cell phones, that was really born of something that was about space, of being able to use space exploration in low earth orbit, which all of things happened as we were venturing further out, we were able to look back at the resources here on Earth.
Even our communications and telemedicine, a lot of that was born from being able to communicate over distances, materials. There's so many things that we don't realize.
And so that push to do something we don't know how to do so many times bring new revelations and innovations and things that are really important for life here on Earth.
PHILLIP: So --
JEMISON: I think there's also the part that we -- go ahead.
PHILLIP: No, you go ahead.
JEMISON: No, I think there's also the part where people say we explore, but I think it's we want to know things. I think also space is unified. It's part of who we are as creatures, as a species, as humans.
There's an Ashanti proverb that says, no one shows a child the sky. It's something that is just a part of us. And we've all wondered about whether we want to physically go or we just want to know what's there. It's very important to our evolution, to us moving further.
PHILLIP: Yeah. There's nothing that makes you realize all that we share as humankind more than the recognition that we're all here on this earth in the context of a broader space that is so much bigger than us. And when we go up there, it just shows just how small we are by comparison to what's out there.
I am curious, as you -- as we try to do this now, 50 years later, and your own journeys out to space, how does this mission compare to what you experienced? You know, do you have a sense of what might have changed? And then also, you know, I'm curious about what is the physical toll on the body as you're preparing to make a trip like this, to be in space for the time that they are going to be there about 10 or 11 days.
JEMISON: So, there are a bunch of things in that question, so I'm going to have to unpack it and pull it around. I think the first thing I want to do is, you know, what is the difference between 1992 and now? I think the people who are involved are different. We have a much more expansive group of people who are involved in space exploration, both as astronauts and also countries who are involved.
So, you said I was a first African American woman in space. I was, in fact, the first woman of color in the world in space, which was ridiculous for me as a child who grew up with Apollo, we should have done much more. That expansion has happened.
Victor Glover will be the first person of color to go to the moon. And Christina will be the first woman to go to the moon. It means that we are purposefully expanding. We have a Canadian there.
One of the things that I look at that's different back in 2022, I believe, there were three nations that had a space probe come, go to mars. The more perspectives that we have on what happens in space, the better we will do in terms of using this remarkable platform for innovation, for insight.
And the thing I can tell you about my space flight, and I'm going to take a little exception. When I looked at the earth and I looked at the stars, I didn't feel small. I felt bigger.
I think one of the things that we can learn is, yes, we're earthlings on this planet, but we're also a part of the greater universe. And that ought to -- that should make us feel bigger and able to deal with some of the issues we have here in a -- in a sense of we're all in this together. And so, we have to figure it out. And we have to give everyone opportunities to participate.
PHILLIP: That's a great perspective, an amazing perspective, and one that only someone like you could give us.
Mae Jemison, thank you very much for joining us.
And for everyone at home, be sure to stick around for CNN's special live coverage of the Artemis II launch coverage. It starts at 5:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN, or you can watch it on the CNN app.
And coming up for us, breaking news from Capitol Hill, the end of the DHS shutdown could soon be in sight. We'll tell you what has just happened and talk with the Democratic congressman, Jake Auchincloss, ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:49:10]
PHILLIP: There is now a plan to reopen the Department of Homeland Security and to end the agency's longest ever shutdown. Senate Majority Leader John Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson have now come together just days after a messy intraparty blowup to pursue an ambitious two-track plan that's going to fund ICE through what they call the reconciliation process. That's a move that will prevent them from needing any Democratic votes to do it. And this is something that Thune had actually previously proposed last week. Johnson opposed it, rejected it.
The president then endorsed the plan in a lengthy Truth Social post just this afternoon. And he says he wants this reconciliation bill done by June 1st.
Joining me now is Democratic congressman from Massachusetts. Jake Auchincloss.
Congressman, let me start by getting your reaction to this news.
I mean, the Republicans have finally gotten on the same page, but why do you think this wasn't done a week ago, when Senator Thune first proposed it?
REP. JAKE AUCHINCLOSS (D-MA): Abby, nice to be with you again.
The House GOP rejected, as you said, the unanimous Senate version of this, which was fund DHS minus ICE so that the agents who keep us safe at TSA, at the Coast Guard would be funded while we debate ICE.
Why Speaker Johnson decided to appease his hard right wing is the same question we could have asked for last year, over and over again, he has catered to his extremists and his caucus, as opposed to the median voter. But I think here, actually, the GOP is at a more fundamental fork in the road on immigration. If they go this party line path where they double down on ICE as a paramilitary, I think they are going to divorce themselves from mainstream America on immigration for a generation to come.
What they could do, what I invite them to do is instead to pass the bipartisan Dignity Act. This is a bill of which I am an original co- sponsor that secures the border. That rationalizes our visa and asylum system, and that provides a pathway to citizenship or legal certainty for those without documentation, provided that they pay a fine in back taxes.
It has broad bipartisan support, and Congress could surprise the American public right now. Imagine that. Imagine if Congress actually acted on immigration reform. We could do it. If Speaker Johnson would just so show some political courage.
PHILLIP: I want to pivot to Iran, because that's going to be the big topic tonight when President Trump addresses the nation, he is expected to reaffirm his intent to end this war within the next three weeks. Meanwhile, Iran is denying that it has offered a ceasefire, which is what president Trump had claimed earlier today. So, we're taking all of this into consideration, I mean, can Americans put any faith in the timeline that President Trump is laying out without assurances or confirmations that there really are direct talks happening between the United States and Iran?
AUCHINCLOSS: No. The American public should discount everything this president says tonight. One, because he lies. He lies on average five to eight times every single day for the last decade. And he'll lie again tonight.
And two, because he doesn't actually know his own strategy. His administration is discordant upon what the actual end game is here. Four different administration officials have given four different answers in the last 48 hours about whether the uranium is or is not in play, about whether the Strait of Hormuz is an objective or not, about what -- to what degree we have already degraded the Iranian military. Rubio, Hegseth, the president, the president's spokespeople, they just don't have any idea.
And this president has bungled this war so badly that he started a conflict with Iran and is ending it by fighting with NATO. That does not make America safer.
What this president should be putting forward, what congress really needs to put forward and take the steering wheel from him, is a proposal to end this war immediately, prevent a boots on the ground quagmire, and then to work with our Gulf allies, to work with Israel, to work with NATO on creating a defense and economic integration between India, the Middle East and Europe that can actually counter the power of China and Iran.
PHILLIP: Do you think that the president needs to actually demonstrate that this war has prevented Iran from ever having a nuclear weapon, which he says is one of the four goals that he had for launching it in the first place?
AUCHINCLOSS: Well, he says that at one point. He's now contradicted himself on that point. I think it's important to emphasize that a year ago, during the 12-Day War, when the United States dropped a bunker buster down a straw and buried Isfahan nuclear facility underneath the mountain, the United States had a well-scoped objective and accomplished it, and it made the world safer.
The challenge here is the president launched a war without a clear definition of the objective, and that includes the atlas enriched uranium. Iran was not at breakout speed for a nuclear weapon. It didn't have the capacity to take that enriched uranium and put it on a ballistic warhead. And now this war is likely to conclude with that uranium still at large and with a new terrorist hardline ayatollah, probably more intent on trying to weaponize it.
So, the president has really failed to either articulate or achieve the end game that he -- that the American public deserve.
PHILLIP: There are thousands of U.S. troops headed to the region as we speak. Some of them ground troops who are being positioned there, unknown why. If you could speak to any of them who are potentially on that trajectory and the possibility that they might be put on the ground. What would you tell them
AUCHINCLOSS: I'm trying to keep you on your boats right now. The marine expeditionary units are naval deployed, integrated air-ground task forces that are meant to be able to make war for 15 to 30 days at a time. They're the president's crisis response force.
Well, the president has a crisis of his own making, and I'm concerned that he is going to try to dial 911 and deploy these marines to bail him out. But all that does is open end -- is create an open ended potential quagmire with boots on the ground in the Strait of Hormuz, and Congress needs to prevent it.
PHILLIP: Congressman Jake Auchincloss, thank you very much for joining us in THE ARENA.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: And thank you very much to my panel. You can now stream THE ARENA live or catch up wherever you want, whenever you want in the CNN app. You can just scan that QR code below.
And CNN's special live coverage of the Artemis II mission to the moon, it starts right now.
