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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Sources Say, Trump Considering U.S. Military Strikes on Iran; New York Times Reports, Iran Prepping For Possible Retaliatory Strikes On U.S. Bases; GOP Hawks, MAGA Isolationalists Clash As Trump Weighs Strike; Tulsi Gabbard Says There No Daylight Between Her and President Trump When It Comes To Iran's Nuclear Capabilities; Trump Cancels Pause On Immigration Raids At Farms And Hotels. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired June 17, 2025 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST: Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York.
We begin with the breaking news. Donald Trump is on the verge of a presidency-defining decision. The no wars president is considering jumping into a very real war between Israel and Iran. Tonight, both nations are trading more fire, and Israel is now telling Iranians to evacuate Iran for their lives.
Meanwhile, the U.S. is closing its embassy in Jerusalem. However, the focus is on whether Trump will enter this conflict by striking Iran's nuclear facilities, specifically the sites that Israel cannot reach or destroy on its own. And we're told tonight that he's warming up to this idea of military action.
There's been a sudden change in Trump's tone and in his outlook in just the last 24 hours. Now, remember, he's been pretty consistent on this, that he is not looking for a fight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: We've had very good discussions with Iran.
Well, I hope there's going to be a deal. I think it's time for a deal, and we'll see what happens.
I think a deal will be signed or something will happen, but a deal will be signed.
So, I think Iran basically is at the negotiating tab where they want to make a deal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: But now it seems that all of that has changed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: They should have done the deal. I told them do the deal. So, I'm not too much in a mood to negotiate with them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: And online, he's been amping up the rhetoric as well, demanding that Iran unconditionally surrender. He also made a complete 180 on America's involvement in this war. On Sunday, Trump was clear that the U.S. had nothing to do with the attack on Iran by Israel. But today, he said, quote, we just -- we, not just Israel, have control of the sky using American made stuff. He also called Iran's supreme leader, an easy target and said the U.S. won't kill him for now.
Let's go live to Anderson Cooper, who is on the ground in Amman, Jordan. Anderson, it feels very much like the region is on the cusp of a major escalation here. Is that the sense that you're getting now that you're over there? And it's not just Iran and Israel, of course, all the regional partners are looking to see what ends up happening here.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Yes. I mean, I think everybody is waiting, as you said at the top of this broadcast, to see what President Trump decides to do. That is the next domino to fall here. I'm in Amman because the airspace over Israel is closed. You can't fly into or out of Israel. So, to get there, we have to go through Amman.
As we were coming here, you talked about regional partners here, other regional countries also involved in this fight. As we were driving into Amman hours ago, we saw what we believe were Jordanian air defenses firing interceptors into the air at what we believe were missiles coming from Iran. We couldn't see around the same time we did see in the skies over Tel Aviv and our correspondents on the ground saw interceptors going up skies over Tel Aviv, intercepting Iranian missiles as well. No reports of any injuries on the ground in Israel tonight, however.
But there are have been strikes in Tehran. As you know, Israel has air superiority says they have control of the airways over Tehran and much of Iran, which gives them a lot more time to pick out targets. But what Israeli officials won't come out directly and say is that they need the United States, they need the Trump administration to approve the use and to use those bunker busting bombs, if they want to eliminate the facility, nuclear capabilities at the one of the two top nuclear sites in Iran, the Fordow facility, which as you know is deeply embedded in that mountain. There's the Natanz facility as well that may have some level of damage, but it's unclear whether that's been knocked out totally. That could also be targeted by the U.S.
It remains to be seen though, and the decision obviously is up to President Trump about whether or not the U.S. will directly engage, which, as you said, would be a major escalation.
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, Anderson, talk a little more about that, what degree of escalation this would be or what it would signal to the rest of the world.
[22:05:02] I mean, the argument to President Trump right now is that he could make history by doing this. Do you get the sense that that is something that would fundamentally change the dynamics in the region if he were to make such a decision?
COOPER: You know, there's a lot of presidents who have made history by making a decision like this to have regime change in the Middle East, as you well know, oftentimes with unintended consequences. It's easy to talk about regime change. But what happens, we saw what happened in Iraq with the removal of Saddam Hussein, unexpected consequences occurred, which the U.S. was not necessarily prepared for, hadn't gamed out or really thought out when they overthrew him and eliminated the Ba'ath Party, or tried to have the de-Ba'athification campaign, which led to the to the insurgency, which led to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. So, it remains to be seen.
You know, if the US decided to get involved in a limited way with specific intent of trying to knock out the facilities, that's one thing. If the objective of Israel or the unstated objective of Israel is regime change in Iran, as some belief that is the objective of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that would be an entirely different set of considerations for the Trump administration. And, again, there's really no way to tell what the follow-on impact of that would be, who would follow the supreme leader, that's not clear.
PHILLIP: It certainly is not. Anderson, thank you very much and stay safe while you are over there. We'll stay close with you as this story progresses.
Back here in the studio, President Trump is caught between two factions of his party now, the MAGA isolationists and the Republican hawks. That divide was on full display just tonight between Tucker Carlson and Republican Senator Ted Cruz. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TUCKER CARLSON, HOST, THE TUCKER CARLSON SHOW: How many people live in, around, by the way?
SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): I don't know the population.
CARLSON: At all?
CRUZ: No, I don't know the population.
CARLSON: You don't know the population of the country you seek to topple?
CRUZ: How many people live in Iran, 92 million.
CARLSON: Okay.
CRUZ: Yes. I --
CARLSON: How could you not know that?
CRUZ: I don't sit around memorizing population tables.
CARLSON: Well, it's kind of relevant because you're calling for the overthrow of the government.
CRUZ: Why is it relevant, whether it's 90 million or 80 million or 100 million? Why is that relevant?
CARLSON: Well, because if you don't know anything about the country --
CRUZ: I didn't say, I don't know anything about that.
CARLSON: Okay. What's the ethnic mix of Iran?
CRUZ: They are Persians and predominantly Shia. Okay, this is --
CARLSON: No, it's not even -- you don't know anything about Iran. So, actually the country --
CRUZ: Okay. I am not the Tucker Carlson expert on Iran.
CARLSON: You're a senator who's calling the overthrow of the government. You don't know anything about the country.
CRUZ: No. You don't know anything about the country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: That's extraordinary for a bunch of different reasons. And, look, I have to say, not unfair on Tucker Carlson's part to say, hey, you're calling for regime change. You don't even know how many people live there. But I also think that what Tucker is asking of Republicans is like the one thing about Trump that the rank and file Republican Party, they haven't been willing to sort of go all the way on the isolationism, and that's what we're seeing here. They got all the other parts of Trump and they're fine with it, but this other part, they're not. And they're hoping that he makes a decision to take action here.
TIFFANY CROSS, AUTHOR, SAY IT LOUDER: Well, I think we have to remember that it's not his decision to make this is a co-equal branch of government and he cannot take this action without Congress. So, it is shocking to see that Senator Ted Cruz was unable to answer some pretty basic questions about Iran.
But I have to say to just ignore Beltway politics for a second, because I think we are on the eve of looking at a potential war right now, and that's a frightening thing. And I was here at this very network in 2003 during the lead up to the war in Iraq. And same thing, it was fought with, you know, this idea of, you know, sustaining their nuclear capabilities, but the background ambition was regime change. And I think we're seeing that same thing play out here. And like we saw in 2003, it turned into a bloody quagmire, and I think we could see that here now.
I don't know, based on what the IAEA is saying and all the reporting, I don't know that we can get to that nuclear site that's buried so deep in a mountain. It's like vibranium in Wakanda, like it is embedded deep in that mountain. I don't know that we would be able to destroy that facility. I don't know that it's a good idea for us to get involved. Iran and its proxies have certainly been weakened, but they can very much be a wounded animal. And if they're cornered, they have two options. They can escalate or they can negotiate. And I don't know what we're looking at right now. But I don't think Israel would've taken this action if they did not have certain assurances from the United States government that they would back them.
So, this seems like a very dangerous time.
PHILLIP: I mean, according to our reporting, Hagar, they were hoping that Trump would decide to join in. But, you know, Anderson was talking about unintended consequences, and I think that really should be on everyone's mind right now.
[22:10:04]
You don't want to plan for the things that you know are going to happen. You want to plan for the things that you don't know are going to happen. And I wonder what you think some of those un unintended consequences could be.
HAGAR CHEMALI, FORMER TREASURY SPOKESPERSON, TERRORISM AND FINANCIAL INTELLIGENCE: Sure. So, I see two dangers. I should be clear that I'm in favor of these strikes, by the way. And there are -- and I wouldn't have been favored before October 7th, so I can explain that a little bit. But there are still dangers. I don't want to undermine those dangers.
One of them is that you could see the unleashing of the paramilitaries and terrorist groups and militias that Iran has funded and armed across the region unleash themselves. I will say that right now, Hezbollah itself came out and said they weren't going to get involved, and the Iraqi militias right now have also restrained themselves. The reason for that is that they are too weak. After everything that has happened over the last year-and-a-half, they just want to survive. So, they're afraid to go and get themselves involved. And at the moment, they're restraining themselves.
Still, it's a danger. And you have Iranian elements, by the way, not just across the region. You have them around the world. We have had here in the United States multiple attempted assassinations and kidnapping attempts against, for example, Iranian women's rights activist Mahsi Alinejad, against President Trump by Iranian agents. And so --
ANA KASPARIAN, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER AND HOST, THE YOUNG TURKS: How do we know that? I love how that's just stated --
CHEMALI: This has been proven, by the way, by the Department of Justice. There was a trial.
KASPARIAN: We haven not seen --
CHEMELI: This was concluded in a trial and two people are. PHILLIP: No, I think we're talking about different things here. She's talking about earlier Iranian.
CHEMALI: I'm talking about Donald Trump. There is an Iranian agent that is seeking -- he's going on trial too, agents going on trial fair shortly --
KASPARIAN: Okay, that's fair.
PHILLIP: Go ahead.
CHEMALI: -- for the assassination -- for the attempted assassination of Trump.
PHILLIP: Yes.
CHEMALI: But that said, so you've got those dangers. And then the other dangers you have is, what does happen if the regime falls? I don't actually believe that the policy is as explicit as regime change. The conversation publicly turned to that very quickly because the regime is so weakened.
PHILLIP: Well, also because Netanyahu said so. I mean --
CHEMALI: He's hoping.
PHILLIP: Yes, I mean, he certainly is hoping for it.
CHEMALI: He's hoping for that.
PHILLIP: Yes.
CHEMALI: But this is driven by an effort to not have a nuclear weapon. And if they don't have their nuclear power, that undermines their very existence. That's the thing that has given them their confidence.
But if you don't have, the regime falls, it's not clear who follows, how a transition to democracy follows. You have an IRGC Army that is 300,000 strong and you haven't seen significant defections yet. So, there are -- while you have a minority in Iran, only 15 percent support the regime, you have a huge group who hate the regime and want to see its fall. These things don't tend to go very smoothly if it happens.
PHILLIP: Yes. And they -- I mean, they internally have a lot more influence and power than even the population than the polls suggest.
The Times had this interesting story talking about Trump over the weekend really changing his posture on this, wanting to get involved in part because, according to them, he realized that he saw all the wall-to-wall imagery of what was being portrayed as Israel's military genius while he was watching Fox News over the weekend. So, that is also playing a role, apparently, reportedly according to the Times.
KASPARIAN: Yes. It's pretty disturbing that all it takes is this like weird competitive spirit that Trump has to egg him on to essentially potentially engage in an offensive war against Iran, which I actually think would be absolutely disastrous. Let's just all remember the fact that the United States joined forces with the Saudis to try to defeat the Houthis in Yemen and failed in doing so.
The way that we discuss regime change wars in this country is absolutely ridiculous, especially when you're talking about a country like Iran, which has far more military capability than Iraq did. The terrain, the land mass of Iran is obviously a lot more challenging for the United States if we decide to make the mistake of engaging in this war. You also have to keep in mind that, you know, we fought in Afghanistan for 20 years straight. We've spent trillions of dollars on these regime change wars on behalf of Israel, by the way. And so many lives were lost.
CHEMALI: (INAUDIBLE) behalf of Israel. It was on behalf of us. You don't remember 9/11?
KASPARIAN: Right.
CHEMALI: Okay. I remember it very well.
KASPARIAN: Yes.
CHEMALI: And I remember I was in the U.S. government working --
KASPARIAN: I know. I mean, every regime change war that we do in the Middle East is because we are under threat here in the United States.
CHEMALI: But you can't compare. You're comparing the wrong wars.
KASPARIAN: Well, when you have Benjamin --
CHEMALI: Iraq and Afghanistan are not appropriate comparisons. I'm sorry.
KASPARIAN: Can I finish my point? Let me finish. The United States right now is dealing with $37 trillion in debt. We're spending a trillion dollars a year to service that debt. Israel had an economic surplus in 2021. We haven't had an economic surplus since 2001. These bunker buster bombs cost $3.5 million apiece. I'm with MAGA on this, the actual genuine America first crowd.
PHILLIP: She's sitting here arguing a MAGA case that, frankly, Donald Trump a couple months ago, when he was in the region, he gave a major speech where he said, regime change is not the policy. He said, it's been a disaster for the United States and for the world in the Middle East.
[22:15:02]
So, Trump was saying almost word for word, I have to say, what Ana just said. So, where has that gone?
JIM SCHULTZ, CNN LEGAL COMMENTATOR: So, he's always been bullish on eradicating nuclear weapons in Iran, or has always been bullish on that. We've just seen one of the most well-orchestrated military campaigns in recent history. We saw that Iran had no ability in terms of their air defense systems. We saw that their nuclear facilities have been significantly damaged. And I think he's looking at it at this point and saying, okay, we can probably finish this off and make sure that we don't have to worry about nuclear capabilities in Iran again.
And he's seeing the success that we've seen from Israel. And looking in that, making a determination, I think he's exhibited tremendous restraint. The fact that he's teasing this out is, you know, typical Donald Trump, but teasing this out as to what he's going to do, may or may not do.
PHILLIP: I'm not totally sold on this idea that Trump doing -- not doing something that would be an extraordinary step is necessarily restraint. I mean, I think that that is what a lot of presidents would decide to do, that Israel is going to do what they're going to do, and the United States is going to make a strategic determination based on what's in the best interest of the United States.
So, I mean --
SCHULTZ: Well, compared to prior Republican administration, this is a ton of restraint.
PHILLIP: Well, I mean, but tell me when did the prior Republican administrations bomb Iran's nuclear facilities and --
SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Not Iran, but we certainly went into Afghanistan, Iraq.
PHILLIP: Yes. But I think that this is important --
SINGLETON: Under false pretense.
PHILLIP: There's a reason that it hasn't happened, and there's a reason why everybody who wants him to do this is arguing that he should do it because all the other presidents haven't done it, except that Donald Trump ran on not doing this kind of thing.
SINGLETON: Well, I think that the risk here is you see the topping of the regime. And none of us know who in the hell would replace Ayatollah Khamenei. We have no idea. It could be a worst in faction. Is there an argument to make, to support Israel in some limited strikes? Sure. I would be open to that argument, but I don't think there's a single American out there, Republican or Democrat, who would agree that the United States should spend money, let alone put our troops in harm's way to cater to a war that we technically don't have anything to do with. So, I think the president has to be very judicious in whatever decision he ultimately makes here.
PHILLIP: Let me give you a couple seconds because we got to go, but a couple seconds on what is the argument, in your view, to actually do this and put perhaps American interest on the line here?
CHEMALI: So, let me sum it up down to two, is the first is that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. If Iran has a nuclear weapon, not only does it threaten the existential state of Israel, but also by extension by that the United States, because the U.S. would be then roped in if Iran had a nuclear weapon. It would also secondly cause a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, which is definitely not -- it would change the entire region and not something we need.
But the fact is, and this is why I said that before October 7th, or really frankly before last fall. I wouldn't have been saying that I was in favor of this is because last fall, when Iran pursued these drones and missiles against Israel and they were all intercepted, and Israel responded by taking out Iran's defense missile systems, which is why Trump says we own the air, why Israel has been able to pursue the strikes it's been able to pursue, it showed Iran as the emperor with no clothes, not only with no clothes, with no underwear. And so now it's then -- and then you have Hezbollah that can't respond. You have Hamas. It's been decimated. The Houthis are -- their J.V. team in Yemen.
PHILLIP: They're historically weakened --
CHEMALI: And so that's why suddenly you're seeing them take advantage of something that when I was at the White House back, this is 2010 and '11, Israel had been planning attacks back then. They've planned this for years and years.
KASPARIAN: It's a 33-year war in the making. I mean, Netanyahu has been saying that Iran is on the precipice of having a nuclear weapon like 33 years ago. That's what it is.
(CROSSTALKS)
KASPARIAN: It's not very clear. It's not very clear.
CHEMALI: The International Economic Energy Agency in May put out a report saying that while the negotiations of Trump were happening, Iran increased and surged its enrichment of nuclear weapons grade material by 50 percent and that it had enough to create ten nuclear weapons. That's the IAEA.
SCHULTZ: No doubt.
PHILLIP: All right, my friends --
CROSS: Israel cannot sustain this war in its home. Netanyahu had no business jumping out there. If he did that, then go finish the war on your own.
KASPARIAN: Thank you.
CROSS: To bring us into this war, it's irresponsible.
(CROSSTALKS)
KASPARIAN: Fight the wars on behalf of Israel always has us paying for it. American taxpayers are sick of it. We're sick of it.
PHILLIP: We got to hit pause there. KASPARIAN: They're sick of it.
PHILLIP: Hagar Chemali, thank you very much for all of that. I appreciate it.
Coming up next for us, more breaking news, we are getting word that Iran is preparing for possible retaliatory strikes against American bases.
Plus, what does a crisis of this magnitude mean for officials like Tulsi Gabbard and Pete Hegseth, who are inexperienced in their positions?
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: More now on our breaking news, Iran and Israel launching missiles at each other for the sixth straight day, and also The New York Times reports that Iran is preparing missiles and other military equipment for strikes on U.S. bases in the Middle East in case the U.S. does get involved.
Max Boot is joining us now. He's a senior fellow on the Council on Foreign Relations and a columnist at the Washington Post.
So, Max, a lot of the talk right now about the decision President Trump needs to make is whether to bring in U.S. assets to take out a specific facility that is in the mountains, the Fordow facility. Tell us why that facility is so important and what it would mean if the U.S. were to actually take that out.
MAX BOOT, SENIOR FELLOW, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Well, Fordo is really the linchpin of the Iranian nuclear program. You have roughly 3,000 centrifuges buried about 300 feet underground encased in very solid cement, and there is no way that Israel can bomb this site into oblivion.
[22:25:03]
They just do not have the munitions to do it. The only munitions that can do it are the 30,000-pound bunker busters, the mass of ordinance penetrators that can be carried by B-2 stealth bomber, and even those, it would take more than one of those to take down a site of this magnitude. It would probably take multiple 30,000-pound bombs.
And so the big question now is, is President Trump going to authorize that airstrike? Now, even if he doesn't do it, Israel has other options including the possibility of a commando raid because they now have complete air superiority over Iran. So, it's --
PHILLIP: You mean boots on the ground.
BOOT: I think Israel could put boots on the ground. Because, again, they control the skies above Iran, so that gives them tremendous freedom of action. But that would be risky, obviously, and the most surefire way to demolish the site would be to dispatch B-2 stealth bombers. And the question is, is President Trump going to do that or not?
PHILLIP: Yes. One of the other big questions here, and we alluded to it earlier in the show, is how close really is Iran to a nuclear bomb? There's some dispute between the Israeli intelligence assessment and the U.S. intelligence assessment, but I want to play for you, Max, this clip of just the history of this, of Israeli leaders talking about how close Iran is. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: The deadline for attaining this goal is getting extremely close.
And Iran, by the way, is also outpacing Iraq in the development of ballistic missile systems that they hope will reach the eastern seaboard of the United States within 15 years.
By next spring at most, by next summer, at current enrichment rates, they will have finished the medium enrichment and move on to the final stage. From there, it's only a few months, possibly a few weeks before they get enough enriched uranium for the first bomb.
The foremost sponsor of global terrorism could be weeks away from having enough enriched uranium for an entire arsenal of nuclear weapons.
That would place a militant Islamic terror regime weeks away from having the facile material for an entire arsenal of nuclear bombs.
If not stopped, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time. It could be a year, it could be within a few months, less than a year.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP: So, all the way back in 1996, it was weeks away, right? So, I mean, the United States' assessment seems to be that's not actually the case. Maybe it's years away. Two questions for you. Which one do you believe? And, secondly, if Israel doesn't take out Fordow, for example, has it really damaged Iran's nuclear program as much as it says that it wants to?
BOOT: Well, as that piece demonstrates, Prime Minister Netanyahu has been very alarmist for a long time about the Iranian nuclear program, and obviously in hindsight, a lot of that alarm was exaggerated.
But I think it is the case that the Iranian nuclear program has accelerated since President Trump's disastrous decision in 2018 to exit the Iranian nuclear court. At that point, we know that the Iranian breakout time, the amount of time they would take to have enough facile material for a bomb was over a year. Now, I think everybody agrees, including U.S. intelligence, it's down to a week or two.
I think the question mark is how long would it take them to actually weaponize that material? And that's, I think, where you have a dispute between the Israelis who are saying they could weaponize very quickly and the U.S. intelligence community, which is saying would take a longer period of time.
But I think you're onto a key point here, Abby, which is what happens if the Israelis do not or the U.S. or somebody does not take out the Fordow site. And the reality is the Iranian nuclear program will pretty much continue despite all the damage that the Iranians are suffering this Israeli air campaign.
So, that's why -- but even -- keep in mind, even if Fordow is taken out, that doesn't mean that Iran will never be able to get a nuclear weapon because the knowhow, probably a lot of the enriched uranium, all that stuff will remain still in Iranian hands. But, clearly, Fordow is a very big deal.
And I think what President Trump has to calculate is, is it worth going after Fordow given the risk that the Iranians who have so far been refraining from attacking U.S. bases or shipping in the region, given the risk that they will escalate.
And so, you know, you see all these U.S. bases, which are very close to Iran and in fact much closer than Israel. And so, you know, Israel is about a thousand miles from Iran. These spaces are much closer. So, Iran has a lot more missiles that they can shoot at them. They have drones. They also have the capability to fill mines in the Persian Gulf in the Red Sea. So, there's a lot more damage they can probably do even in their weakened state.
And so that's what I think President Trump has to balance here. Is it worth the risk of going after Fordow if it means getting the U.S. involved in the middle of these hostilities?
[22:30:01]
PHILLIP: All right. Max Boot, thank you very much for all of that, and thanks for joining us.
Up next for us, are Pete Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard ready for a potential crisis despite their inexperience? Why Donald Trump says he doesn't care what Gabby -- what Tulsi Gabbard said. Plus, another big reversal tonight, just days after saying undocumented farm and hotel workers should get a reprieve from ICE, Trump has now changed course again.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:35:05]
PHILLIP: Tulsi Gabbard says that there is no daylight between her and President Trump when it comes to Iran's nuclear capabilities. That comes after Trump said this about her testimony in Congress back in March. Watch. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TULSI GABBARD,DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: The I.C. continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon, and supreme leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003. The I.C. continues to monitor closely if Tehran decides to reauthorize its nuclear weapons program.
UNKNOWN: Tulsi Gabbard testified in March that -- that the Intelligence Community said Iran wasn't building a nuclear weapon.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I don't care what she said. I think they were very close to him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: And Gabbard responded to that earlier today, telling CNN that "President Trump was saying the same thing that I said in my annual threat assessment back in March in Congress. Unfortunately, too many people in the media don't care to actually read what I said. We are on the same page," she says.
Ana Navarro is at the table with us right now. Not quite. I mean, we played what she said, and, Trump seems to at least be -- be contemplating that there is something completely different happening here, that he needs to act in -- in an extraordinary way to stop Iran from having a nuclear bomb.
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: And I think it's very sobering, to realize that, you know, so many of these folks that Trump put in his cabinet in very important positions have no experience. And a lot of Republicans in Congress who was -- in the Senate -- who cared tremendously about foreign policy and about the military voted for them out of loyalty to Trump.
And now, we find ourselves moving, you know, Navy assets to the region and the Secretary of the Navy is an art collector with zero military experience. We find ourselves, in the brink of military action.
We find ourselves involved tangentially or directly in a war in The Middle East, and the Secretary of Defense is a guy who hangs out on Signal threads and who, you know, has no leadership experience, a Fox News host. You've got Tulsi Gabbard.
And so, you know, the -- I think the roosters have come to, the, you know, the home to roost and it's -- it's very concerning. It's very concerning as an American. I forget partisanship.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Shermichael, it was notable because there was a key meeting on this conflict that happened in -- at Camp David, and Tulsi Gabbard wasn't even invited to the meeting. There just different reasons being given for why that is, maybe a scheduling conflict, maybe something else. But it's both her inexperience and also the fact that there's actually
a lot of people in this White House who don't trust her, who think that she has poor judgment, who think that she, is sort of not, you know, not a MAGA conservative in terms of how she deals with foreign policy. And she is the top, figure in the White House who gives the President intelligence from the intelligence community. That's --
(CROSSTALK)
SHERMICHAL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think that point is moot now because we're -- we're potentially on the brink of launching missiles into a foreign country. And so, regardless of what you think about these individuals' experience, the people who are around them, those career individuals are going to have to advise the hell out of them to make the best decision to advise the President.
My hope is that the President doesn't make this decision. I don't think that this is going to end well for us because there is the opportunity for Iran to retaliate, and if they do that against the bases we have in the region, we will have no choice but to further this. And there's not a single American who wants to send their sons and daughters to another conflict in The Middle East, trillions of dollars potential of tax credit. We can't afford it.
UNKNOWN: Right.
CROSS: But Shermichael --
(CROSSTALK)
SINGLETON: So -- so, I think we can't go on that direction.
(CROSSTALK)
CROSS: The administration has not been on the same page about this. First of all, Marco Rubio came out and said, well, we had no idea what was going on. And then days later, Trump was like, oh, no. We knew everything that was going on. And now we have Tulsi Gabbard, who was an accused Assad asset, by the way. We shouldn't forget that. And we have to your point, Pete Hegseth.
Do you feel comfortable -- even, no matter what happens, do you feel comfortable with this administration and all their discord, and all their lies to overseeing a potential war that would have a massive impact on our geopolitics in that region and in other places, as well?
SINGLETON: I feel comfortable with hoping, Tiffany, that the administration makes the right decision to not get entangled in the Middle East again.
CROSS: Are they capable of making the right decision?
SINGLETON: I think so. I think so.
(CROSSTALK)
SINGLETON: I really think so.
KASPARIAN: I got to jump in on this because, look, I -- I think this is a problem regardless of what administration is in charge. We should not engage in this war. Look, there's a lot of saber rattling. There's a lot of fear mongering about Iran building nuclear weapons, even though the intel is obviously contradicting.
You know, you have Israel saying weeks ago, they shared their intel with The United States and the administration rejected it. Our intelligence community rejected it. They said Iran is not weeks away from building a nuclear weapon.
[22:40:00]
But you want to know something? There are two countries in this whole scenario that do have nuclear weapons. One of course is The United States of America. The other, they don't acknowledge it, is Israel. So, they act like, oh, we're -- we're just little lambs, and we're well, it's such a big threat. Okay. The whole thing about nuclear weapons, the reason why The United States can't allow Ukraine to do whatever it wants against Russia is because they're a nuclear power. It is a deterrent.
SINGLETON: But Ukraine had, you need to remember --
(CROSSTALK)
SINGLETON: -- tell them to get rid of it.
KASPARIAN: Israel does not want Iran to have a deterrent. Now, in a perfect world, neither of those countries would have nuclear weapons, but one of them does, and the one that does loves to cry about how it's always under threat while it's bombing Iranian embassies in places like Syria. While it's literally allowing its IDF soldiers to shoot at international diplomats as they're visiting Jenin. Like, are we ever going to at least address the belligerence of the current Israeli government?
CROSS: Also shooting --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Jim --
CROSS: -- at people in Gaza when you're trying to get aid.
(CROSSTALK)
KASPARIAN: I mean, that's --
(CROSSTALK)
KASPARIAN: -- to genocide.
CROSS: Yeah. Exactly. SCHULTZ: One thing, going back to Tulsi Gabbard. If you're not in the
room, you're not relevant, right? And she clearly wasn't in a room in Camp David. She clearly doesn't have the confidence of some of those people in the White House. Nobody's coming out to defend her. You know, the only person defending Tulsi Gabbard is Tulsi Gabbard at this point in time, right?
So, not in the room, not relevant. As it as it relates to Israel, I -- I think it's very hard, given what happened on October 7th to cut to -- to sit here and say, oh, they're just crying about what -- you know, crying about how --
(CROSSTALK)
KASPARIAN: Yeah, there was a superior intel from Israel when it came to --
SCHULTZ: No. I understand.
KASPARIAN: Yeah.
SCHULTZ: But you -- but you can't sit here today and say, say, what happened on October 7th is something that's not significant that didn't -- that isn't leading to all of these other issues, right? So, I -- I just -- I'm not buying the fact that we shouldn't stand with Israel. I mean, if anybody's sitting here saying we shouldn't stand with Israel as our true ally in that region, that's a real problem.
(CROSSTALK)
SINGLETON: I think you're right about that. But I think -- I think you're right about that. But the question becomes, and no one's -- we don't have an answer to this, what's the ultimate endgame? What is the endgame here? If the current regime topples, who in the world are we ever going to lead the line?
(CROSSTALK)
SHULTZ: No, I'm not indicating we're going -- think we're going buck busters, either.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: All right.
SINGLETON: We don't have an answer to that question yet.
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: I think the fact that you have a director of national intelligence who you're claiming is not --irrelevant, I'm claiming is not qualified, is incredibly concerning as we are at the brink of war. And I think, you know, him being surrounded by military experts running the DOD and in -- in high positions who could, at best, play battleship as part of their qualifications is very, very concerning.
PHILLIP: All right, we got to leave it there. Coming up next for us --
(CROSSTALK)
SCHULTZ: I think it's a little naive to say that he's not getting good intelligence.
PHILLIP: President Trump is now canceling that pause that he ordered on immigration raids at farms and hotels, and we'll debate what happens next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:47:23]
PHILLIP: Tonight, policy whiplash again. The Trump administration reverses its guidance on pausing immigration raids at farms, hotels, and restaurants. But just a few days ago, the President struck a completely different tone, essentially admitting that his deportation crackdown is hurting critical industries of The U.S. economy and its undocumented workers. And instead promising, quote, "Changes are coming."
So, it's hard to keep track because actually, Ana, you were here, what, yesterday or the day before and we were talking about this. And then literally within the hour, Trump changed his mind. Maybe because I guess the hypocrisy of it all was pointed out that you can't just immunize the industries that you care about because he's a hotelier and then, penalize everybody else for the same thing.
NAVARRO: I have a hard time thinking that hypocrisy would be a reason for Donald Trump to change his mind on anything. It's never stopped him before. I do think it's about the numbers. If they have a quota to reach of 3000 people deported, detained a day, there's no way they can do it if they don't go to places where there are industries where there are a lot of undocumented immigrants, and that is the agriculture industry. That is the hospitality industry.
Let's remember that when Donald Trump was running in 2016, there were undocumented immigrants that came forth that had been working in his own hotel and hospitality properties. And look, what's going to happen here is that we're going to find that milk gets a lot higher because I don't know if any of you have ever been in a dairy farm. It is God awful work.
We're going to see that groceries and vegetables are higher. We're going to see an effect in our economy because whether people like it or not, whether Americans acknowledge it or not, undocumented immigrants are an integral part of our society and our economy.
And we're going to have to get used to seeing the videos of U.S. citizens detained, of U.S. citizen children being ripped from the arms of their mothers and -- while they wail of, you know, dads and moms and business owners. Yeah. We're going to have to get used to that.
(CROSSTALK) PHILLIP: Well -- well, what she was just saying, I mean, we've -- we've seen this play out. There was a raid in Omaha, Nebraska at a meat packing plant. Today, the Hartman, the company's president said 30 percent of his workers came to work the next day after that raid.
The rest had either been detained or were too scared to return. The plant, which processes beef, pork, chicken for restaurant chains and grocery stores, now operating at 20 percent of capacity. So, there's the impact she was talking about.
[22:50:00]
SCHULTZ: Yeah. We're seeing conservatives in Pennsylvania, like, Representative Glenn Thompson coming out and saying, look, we got to protect our farms. And there's a reason for that, right? You -- you're not running a farm without undocumented immigrants. It's just not able to happen.
In states like Pennsylvania, it's going to a -- tremendously damage our farm industry there, and other states that rely upon farming. It's the single largest industry in a state like Pennsylvania that was also important to President Trump to win the election.
I think he saw that. He saw the farms who've been tremendously supportive of him. Brook Rollins did a good job advocating on behalf of the agriculture community. You have restaurants and taverns which he has a -- he has an affinity for, has an understanding of, so he lumps those together. But it was really about Brook Rollins advocating on behalf of the agriculture industry --
(CROSSTALK)
SCHULTZ: And there's a fight internally on that in the White House.
PHILLIP: I guess I'm really trying to understand. Why is it okay to say these undocumented immigrants have value and all the other ones who maybe they -- they don't work in a -- on a farm, but maybe they take care of someone's child, don't have value. Even though, similarly, they don't have criminal records.
UNKNOWN: Yeah.
(CROSSTALK)
SCHULTZ: And you have been hearing people from that and say, focus on the criminals first.
PHILLIP: So, I guess what - that's what I'm asking, like, how do you -- how do you square that?
(CROSSTALK)
KASPARIAN: All these people have value. All these people have value. I want to say that because it's really important. But I also find it incredibly problematic that we have whole industries in this country that literally rely not on immigrant labor, but on illegal immigrant labor. We have to ask ourselves why that is.
And I have a problem with these workers being exploited. They have no recourse. They know they can't go to the authorities if they're being mistreated at work. They know that they can get paid even lower than minimum wage with absolutely no recourse. That's a huge problem.
And I think the heart of this issue right now, even though, you know, Donald Trump does cruel things, I'll acknowledge that, but the heart of this problem, what led to this situation is the fact that Congress doesn't do anything. They don't legislate.
SCHULTZ: For decades.
KASPARIAN: For decades.
PHILLIP: That's true.
KASPARIAN: They don't legislate. They don't pass the desperately needed immigration reforms that we need. I want people to be protected. But I also don't want entire industries to basically increase their profitability by exploiting labor in this country, and that's what's been going on for a long time.
PHILLIP: And that largely happens because, like you said, Congress hasn't done anything, they haven't normalized immigration laws and modernized them. And as a result, you have this whole underclass of workers in this country who then get penalized while the employers don't.
SINGLETON: We -- we do have an immigration problem, but -- but I think immigration has to uniquely be tied to, deficits in our country. So, if there are industries and sectors that require additional workers where Americans -- we don't have enough people, for example, then you have to pull people obviously from -- from other places. And it's clear to me that the President is recognizing that as it pertains to agriculture and the service industry.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I mean, clearly, he's not because they -- they undid, I mean, they're going back to the raids, right? They are doing the raids.
(CROSSTALK)
SINGLETON: But why is he doing that?
(CROSSTALK)
SCHULTZ: It's inaction by Congress as to versus to why he starts, you know, thinking about it this way. You know, he has to almost legislate from the executive branch on this because no one's doing anything about it.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: He could also -- he could also -- (CROSSTALK)
SCHULTZ: Close the border.
PHILLIP: But, you know, he could also lead -- he could also lead and say, hey, Congress -- that my party controls and the House and the Senate. Put a bill together. Put something on the table because --
(CROSSTALK)
CROSS: He has a -- people loyal -- anyone of the people would have --
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: I don't think he'd get a bill passed. I don't think he would get a bill passed.
CROSS: I don't think it's even an effort to do that. But I just want to remind the viewers, his wife herself, a former nude model, got the Einstein visa to come over here, completely usurp the immigration system. What was her unique talent? I wonder that she was able to get that.
Furthermore, he's increasing these -- these deportations because he's trying to be competitive with his predecessor, who I'm ashamed to say, Obama, who they called deporter-in-chief because he deported so many people, 430 something thousand, I believe, was the height of the year 2013.
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: I also remember when --
(CROSSTALK)
CROSS: And can I just say, though -- Miller, listen --
(CROSSTALK)
SCHULTZ: But the last administration just --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Wait. Hold on.
CROSS: This entire immigration policy is the brainchild of Stephen Miller, a white nationalist according to all the reporting, very documented reporting. He's a white nationalist. Exactly. And that is the problem here. Ever since he was in high school, he -- he is actually regurgitating people that were actually --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I just want to say -- say one thing here, Ana.
NAVARRO: When George Herbert Walker, no, George W. Bush worked with John McCain and Ted Kennedy to craft. He led in crafting an immigration bill that got very close to passing and didn't. And George W. Bush had nowhere near the loyalty from Republicans that Donald Trump has from his party. So, if he wanted to actually come up with a solution, he would.
But listen, let's also remember that at the same time that he's kicking out all of these brown people, brown people are getting detained just because they're brown. Even U.S. citizen brown people, just because they speak like a -- with an accent like I do. At the same time that he's opening the doors for Afrikaners fleeing from a non-existent genocide, white Afrikaners fleeing from a --so, you know, at the same time that he is banning travel from black and brown countries.
PHILLIP: I mean, it has also been, I mean, what she's saying --
(CROSSTALK)
SINGLETON: -- about getting the bill passed.
PHILLIP: Listen. It is also true that this is a very potent political issue for Trump.
[22:55:00]
UNKNOWN: Sure.
PHILLIP: And if he were to resolve it as he has at the border, he's -- he's resolved the border which has created other problems for himself because he can't use the border as much as he used to. If he were to resolve it, it would take the political issue off the table and it doesn't seem like they are interested in doing it.
SINGLETON: I don't agree with Ana that the President could convince Congress to pass legislation where you would get enough Republicans in the House to actually agree with it. I -- I do not have --
(CROSSTALK)
SCHULTZ: Anybody who could --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: That's quite a statement about Trump's political power, guys.
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: -- news host as the Department of Defense --
PHILLIP: If that is true -- we got to go. If that is true, that is quite a statement about Trump's political power or lack thereof, Shermichael. Everyone else, thank you very much. Up next for us, it is just after sunrise in Israel and Iran. After Israel told people in parts of Tehran to flee ahead of strikes, much more on our breaking news just ahead.
