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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip

Explosion Near U.S. Embassy In Baghdad; Trump Criticizes Allies Rebuffing His Calls To Help In War; Trump Refers To Iran As Paper Tiger Amid His Calls For Help; Iran Ramps Up Strikes; Seizing Kharg Island?; Trump: "Taking Cuba"; Fundraising Email From Trump's PAC Contained An Official White House Photo From A Dignified Transfer; More than 300 TSA Employees Quit Amid DHS Shutdown. Aired 10-11p ET

Aired March 16, 2026 - 22:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[22:00:00]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST (voice over): Tonight, he's threatened them, tariffed them, insisted he doesn't need them, but now Donald Trump is calling on NATO allies to assist against Iran.

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: They should be jumping to help us because we've helped them for years to stay out of wars.

PHILLIP: Plus, from the price of oil to the price of battle, is the president underestimating the impact of this war?

TRUMP: This is a paper tiger that we're dealing with now.

And when this is over, oil prices are going to go down very, very rapidly.

PHILLIP: Also, the Trump PAC fundraises off a picture from the dignified transfer of fallen soldier and offers donors access to his private security briefings.

And --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: you're just trying to buy your time back, have a little piece of vacation from the Matrix and the Matrix still gets you.

PHILLIP: -- if the DHS shutdown is a Keanu Reeves movie, will it take a red or blue pill to end it, as airport lines get longer?

Live at the table, Van Jones, Brad Todd, Xochitl Hinojosa, Shermichael Singleton and Ana Navarro.

Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.

(END VIDEOTAPE) PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York.

Breaking News in the war tonight, there has been an explosion near the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Video that CNN has geo-located shows the moment that a projectile consistent with a drone hits the area around the embassy. Air defense rounds can also be seen in the sky. We are, of course, monitoring the situation and will bring you the latest updates as we get it.

But as this war continues, a new turn involving the White House's posture, President Trump has spent the better part of a year criticizing America's allies, tariffing them hurdling insults at their leaders, threatening to leave NATO and ultimately saying to the U.S. -- saying that the U.S. doesn't need them at all. But now he's requesting assistance to secure the Strait of Hormuz, and he's not happy with their response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We defend all these countries, and then can we have any minesweepers, and they say, well, would it be possible for us not to get involved. I've been saying it for a long time, this is the greatest thing to come out of this. We spend trillions and trillions of dollars on NATO to defend other countries, and I always said, but if it ever comes time to defend us, they're not going to be there. Many of them would not be there. And we're going to have to start thinking more wisely in this country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Sources tell CNN that U.S. officials spent the weekend trying to rally support from foreign allies, hoping that they could announce a coalition soon. But today, almost in the same breath of calling for help, Trump is insisting that he doesn't need anyone else to get the job done.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I don't do a hard sell on them because my attitude is we don't need anybody. We're the strongest nation in the world. We have the strongest military by far in the world. We don't need them. But it's interesting, I'm almost doing it, in some cases, not because we need them, but because I want to find out how they react.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Now, Trump says that some countries have told them that they are eager to help, but we still don't know which ones he's talking about. And many allies have actually publicly rebuffed the president, like Germany, for example. Their defense minister is asking, quote, what does Trump expect a handful or two handfuls of European frigates to do in the Strait of Hormuz that the powerful U.S. Navy cannot do? This is not our war. We have not started it.

It's hard to get more blunt than that, Ana. And the president is also doing this, at least according to recent American history, particularly the lead up to the Iraq war, without doing this in advance, he's trying to cobble together a coalition after the fact. You can say what you will about how the Bush administration handled the Iraq war, but they went to Congress and got an authorization for military force.

[22:05:03]

They went to the allies, put together a coalition of the willing, and then they went in.

ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: As did in Bush One, right, as you will remember in Desert Storm, there was a U.N.-backed international coalition.

Listen, Donald Trump hasn't made the case to the American people. We haven't so much as had an address to the American people about what he is doing in Iran. It's been all over the place. So, it's hard to imagine that he has given a coherent explanation or pitch to the allies that, as you point out, he has been crapping on for over a year.

You will remember how angry the Brits were earlier in the year when Trump called them a bunch of cowards and they said, well, wait, we actually died for you all. We sent soldiers that died fighting alongside the United States. So, it's no wonder that some of these international allies are looking at Trump and saying, you are on your own, buddy.

PHILLIP: And he criticized the Brits again today, and they did -- I mean, okay. He said -- he just said at that clip, they've never come to our aid, they don't come to our aid. They have come to our aid. The U.K. specifically came to our aid and lost almost 800 of their countrymen for us.

VAN JONES, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. Look, you know, free Iran is a good cause, but this war right now looks like a very bad strategy. And part of the thing is the reason that you try to be nice, the reason your parents raised you to be polite and be nice to people is because you never know who you're going to need to be your friend or when you're going to need a friend.

He has managed to chase off all the people that used to like the United States. You can't even go anywhere in the world right now without people looking at you sideways just because of him. And now he's baby, baby, please, baby, please come back. It's like, dude, you blew it. This is not -- you cannot go get somebody back when you treat them this badly.

PHILLIP: Carrot, stick, I mean, there's not much in the way of carrots these days.

BRAD TODD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think he actually is trying to shame Europe. He wants to show the Americans who don't like the way he's handled NATO and don't like the way he's pressed NATO. He's trying to expose the fact that Europe is not a reliable ally. Now, I think they are, have been a reliable ally, they should be again. They're spending more on NATO than they had before, and, of course, they should come with the United States when the president calls them. But I think, really, his best prospects are in Asia. South Korea currently gets 70 percent of their oil through the Strait of Hormuz. Japan gets 40 percent. We have 50,000 troops in Japan and 35,000 in South Korea. The Japanese prime minister today implied that perhaps they could come and help patrol the strait. I think that's really where our alliance will end up being on this project, and I think Europe's going to look really weak and irrelevant when they do.

PHILLIP: Will they? I mean, I actually -- again, I want to go back also to just the basic premise after the fact. We've already started the war. The strait is already closed. Iran is already bombing ships in the strait. We are now after the fact asking countries to come in and help us. And maybe Japan and maybe South Korea will, but the fact that they are being asked on the backend and some of them, are asking a basic question, how can they -- they are Democratic nations. How can they sell this to their people?

SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, I do think the president has to talk with our allies about what the long-term strategy here is. I think there is an argument to be made. I discussed this on your show two weeks ago about Iran terror proxy groups specifically focusing on China. 80 percent of their oil exports are purchased by China. That's a lot of cash in flowing into the Iranian regime to help terrorism continue. And so I think there's an argument that even our European allies will be open to if the president makes the case.

I think the good side here though is there's been a lot of criticism about the president and our European friends, and I think the president is beginning to recognize the importance of the systems at the United States, quite frankly, built after World War II, the economic systems, the military systems. And so to me, I think that is one positive aspect of this. And I think our allies are open to listening to the president make a strong case, if he can, about the possibility of potentially going to their elected bodies and saying, hey, let's help our long-term friends, the United States, with this issue.

PHILLIP: So, if I'm hearing you correctly, you're saying that Trump is learning more about the importance of our institutions?

SINGLETON: I think that's very evident now.

PHILLIP: Because he seems to be suggesting that this is evidence that he doesn't need to respect NATO anymore, that NATO is irrelevant.

SINGLETON: Yes, I'm not interpreting it that way. I think the reason he's coming to the conclusion that you want our British friends involved, you want our German friends involved. I think he said he spoke with Macron, he'll see what Macron has to say about this. To me, that's a recognition that when you have international conflicts, such as this, you want to have your allies engaged with you. And I think that's a positive aspect of learning for the president. JONES: He got quite a way of showing it.

[22:10:00]

XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. Well, listen, Trump has always thought that he could fix things alone. He has said in his convention speech, I alone can fix it. This is how he goes about things. He believes he doesn't need help from anyone else. He wants the credit, but now he is realizing, and it's -- I think he's realizing only because of political pressure, only because gas prices are going up, only because he's finally getting some sort of -- he's getting some heat from the Republican Party and Americans as a whole, that he actually needs help getting out of this conflict. He doesn't know how to get out of this conflict.

And if he actually cared about our allies, he wouldn't have gone after Greenland, he wouldn't have said that our allies were not in the frontlines in Afghanistan, he wouldn't have gone on Truth Social to kind of. Disparage any ally on any given day, and he would've actually consulted with them at the start of this versus at the end. And Abby brings up a very good point, it's after the fact.

And even then, it is very hard for him. It is not who he is to ask for help. It is an ego thing at this point. And even his back and forth and his rhetoric around this is very interesting. He understands in order to get out of this, he needs our allies. They're not willing to help him because this is not their war.

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PHILLIP: But let me give you an example. I mean, the Germans are pretty clear. They're saying. That the U.S. and Israel need to define when they consider the military aims of their deployment have been reached. We need more clarity here, he told reporters. Estonia's foreign minister said that no U.S. allies in -- that U.S. allies in Europe want to understand Trump's strategic goals. What will be the plan?

SINGLETON: That's a reasonable ask?

PHILLIP: That's reasonable to ask.

And, again, Trump -- there was one point today where Trump --

NAVARRO: I think Americans want to know too.

PHILLIP: Americans want to know too. At one point today, Trump was relaying a conversation that he had with a -- I believe it might've been at the U.K., where he was told basically, I'll get back to you. I have to go run this by, you know, my advisers run this by basically by people, and Trump's like, well, you don't have to do that. Well, actually, they do. I mean, these are countries where the United States has not been this unpopular in over a decade, at the very least, right?

SINGLETON: Well, the quotes -- PHILLIP: So, Trump is asking them to go defend the U.S. at a time when, as Van pointed out, Americans are not very popular and Trump in particular is deeply unpopular.

SINGLETON: Yes, sure. That's perfectly fine. I mean, you look at the recent history, international history, over the past 100 years, the United States have involved and engaged ourselves in many conflicts that we didn't necessarily start. The two quotes that you read, I didn't hear any of those leaders say, absolutely not, no, we're not going to engage ourselves. I heard a quest for more details and specificity on what the ultimate aims are. And to me, that's not an unreasonable asking. If I were advising the president, I would say, let's put together that strategic assessment. You can talk about the past, what we should have, could have done, let's focus on now moving forward.

JONES: Look, if he had that to give to the Europeans, and then he should also give that to the United States, as Ana just said.

Look, I mean, part of the problem here is that it's really a tragedy because the Iranian people have been suffering for 47 years. Their hopes got raised now twice that they might get freed. When they went out -- but we've been ready, fire, aim on one of the most important situations in the world, we pulled these economic levers to crash the economy and then have the protesters come out. That's when the protesters come out. We say, stay in the streets, we'll help you. They get murdered.

SINGLETON: 30,000, I believe.

JONES: 30,000 people murdered in two days. Our Armada is on the other side of the world messing with Nicaragua.

NAVARRO: It was actually Venezuela.

JONES: I'm sorry, yes, it was Venezuela.

NAVARRO: I wish it was Nicaragua.

JONES: Yes, exactly. Yes. So, look, my only point is it's this kind of ready, fire, aim stuff. So, there could have been a situation where you have the economic pressure, then the protests, then the military strikes, and you might actually have regime change. Now we've just -- we have the worst of all possible worlds and it's not clear to we get out (ph) of it.

TODD: I think 2013 when Barack Obama left the Green Revolution high and dry, much worse than this situation, when this -- at least this president has had the guts to do what seven presidents before him, including him in his first term, wouldn't do.

JONES: Because you like the military strikes, you wish that Obama had done it.

TODD: Correct.

JONES: But explain to me now how the military strikes can lead to the regime change that you want.

TODD: Well, I think, first off, taking the military capability from Iran off the table is of itself a value. It's enough of a value because their threat to our ally, Israel, our Gulf Allies, they're a threat to every nation around them. So, merely decapitating their military potential is worth it.

Secondly, if you can set a situation where the government can't terrorize their own people, you can enable anyone who might want to run a (INAUDIBLE).

PHILLIP: Let me let a quick response and we'll --

JONES: Yes. Look, everything you're saying sounds great. The only problem is that what you're more likely to get now is a hardened regime. It may have less power to -- less ability to project power out but it has the ability to hurt anybody within, and that's going to prevent you from getting what you want.

PHILLIP: All right. We're going to pause there.

Next for us, Trump's dismissed Iran as a paper tiger today.

[22:15:03]

Is he underestimating the impact of this war?

Plus, the president's political action committee sends a fundraising email with a picture from the dignified transfer and promises donors access to his private security briefings. We'll discuss.

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PHILLIP: Did President Trump underestimate Iran and the impact of this war? Well, today, while encouraging allies to join the U.S. to secure the Strait of Hormuz, this is how he described Iran.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We strongly encourage the other nations to get involved with us and get involved quickly and with great enthusiasm.

[22:20:05]

I have that from a number of them and I'd like to say their names. But frankly, I don't know if they would want me to or not because maybe they don't want to be targeted. But I say, it wouldn't matter if you targeted or not because this is a paper tiger that we're dealing with now. It wasn't a paper tiger two weeks ago. It's a paper tiger now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: He even acknowledged that Iran's retaliation against neighboring countries took him by surprise.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: Look what happened. In the last two weeks, they weren't supposed to go after all these other countries in the Middle East. Those missiles were set to go after them. So, they hit Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait. Nobody expected that. We were shocked.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: To that point, earlier tonight, the United Arab Emirates temporarily closed its airspace due to continued Iranian attacks and the attacks continue. We were just talking earlier in the show about what's happening in Baghdad.

And, look, Iran is definitely weakened, but as we've been talking about, it seemed like they underestimated Iran. Trump just admitted it today, and that underestimation seems to be at the heart of why we're still in this and how this potentially ends.

TODD: I didn't hear underestimation there. I hear musing. And I wish the president would muse a little bit less than he does I think maybe three times a week instead of four, five times a day.

PHILLIP: I don't know if we were watching the same clip, Brad.

TODD: But I think that the president knew that he could go in and take out Iran's military capability. That's the foremost objective. He's doing that. The Israelis may have longer game ambitions than we do here. He may have fewer ambitions than I might have there. But I think the main play for America's strategic interest is to take him Iran's military capability out of play.

JONES: Look, he says, paper tiger. I think they cut the head off of the serpent and out flew the hornets. And this asymmetric war that we're in now is not one that we can fight easily and well. Yes, we are wiping the floor with them on when it comes to everything conventional. I mean, it's embarrassing and they're just getting their butts kicked there. But they're not going to surrender because they can take a little cheap drone and knock out a tanker. They can take a little cheap drone and knock out targets that are softer than we can easily defend.

The economics are starting to be pretty bad because it takes so much -- it's so expensive to defend against all these drones and all these strikes. And so I do think that there was an underestimation here. I think he thought that he, that because we can beat them conventionally, they would give up or they would come to the table. They're not coming to the table. They're moving into unconventional warfare. And I think the only way out of this is for us to get some leverage that we don't have right now and try to get to terms with Iran.

NAVARRO: I think he thought he could replicate this Venezuela model. Trump has what a friend of mine calls Venezuela derangement syndrome. He thinks he could do that in Venezuela, regime change there, which he hasn't. The regime was intact, but for Maduro, who was on the head of it. He is negotiating with them. He thought he could get the same result out of Iran. He thinks he can get the same result out of Cuba now. It is very disconcerting.

And my heart goes out to each one those communities in each one of those nations. As somebody who fled communism, I know the Venezuelans have been trying for 25 years to get rid of Maduro. They haven't been able to. The Iranians have been trying for 47 year. The Cubans have been trying for 67 years, almost 70 years.

But Trump seems to be starting something without having finished what he started before. I want to know what the end game is in Venezuela. Because keeping Maduro's vice president there and the guy who was executing and torturing Venezuelans, Diosdado Cabello, to me, is not an acceptable result. Keeping the Cuban regime, who's got political prisoners, who has been executing people for 67 years is not an acceptable result.

So, just to him, what he just thinks is, okay, I'll make them cry, uncle. I will keep these communists or these people there, they will negotiate with me. I will, you know, be able to bully them and get whatever I want, and then everything will be fine.

PHILLIP: Well, he basically said as much today. Here's what he said about Cuba when he was asked about whether Cuba is next.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I do believe I'll be the honor of having the honor of taking Cuba. That'd be a good honor. That's a big honor.

[22:25:00]

REPORTER: Taking Cuba?

TRUMP: Taking Cuba in some form, yes, taking Cuba. I mean, whether I free it, take it, I think I could do anything I want with it, if you want to know the truth. They're a very weakened nation right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HINOJOSA: They are taking Cuba --

PHILLIP: Yes, I mean nobody is -- very few people, I shouldn't say nobody, because there are some people out there who are crying for the former Castro regime, but very few people are. And everybody wants to see a free prosperous Cuba, Venezuela, Iran. But I also wonder broadly about Trump's view of the world and what he can just take, what he can just invade, who he can topple, and where does that end?

HINOJOSA: Yes. And it sounds like what Trump wants is he wants these quick wins. He wants to be able to celebrate, and he wants people to praise him for some wins, what he will call regime change, and then he doesn't follow through on them. And the reality that we're seeing now is that he keeps on talking about how he has obliterated their nuclear capabilities. We don't want them to have nuclear weapons.

And the reality is though that the regime is still intact and they will rebuild and they are angrier than ever and they have every, you know, reason. And they will try as much as they can to come back from what has already happened.

And so these quick wins, while they might be great headlines for the time being, he doesn't have real plans to get out of these places or to actually have regime change in these places, and he hasn't presented those plans to Congress, to the American people, to our allies overall,

PHILLIP: And whatever happened to not being the policemen of the world? There are a lot of problems in the world.

SINGLETON: There are.

PHILLIP: A lot of them, we can't solve them all.

SINGLETON: I mean, this is a very fascinating sort of development with the president. Traditionally, this is almost like an old school Republican position of the role of the United States and our pro- democracy spreading freedom and peace around the globe.

Now, a lot of MAGA folks would criticize some of that old school orthodoxy, but I'm happy to see this. I agree with Ana's point about Venezuela. I wanted to see more. In Iran, for example I don't think it's enough to have operational successes. Our military certainly has been successful in that regard. But the next phase of the strategy, in my opinion, has to be to remove the regime. The people there are suffering. We have an obligation as the powerfullest country in the world to do that, to spread that freedom. The alternative is a vacuum that's created when we withdraw, that I can promise you will be filled by the Chinese.

And so I think there's some long-term strategies here that I believe that the president is starting to recognize the importance of these things.

Now, can you be all over the place spreading our military too far? Absolutely not. You got to pick a place, you got to be prepared for the long game. But I think there are some things that are absolutely necessary, Abby, to maintain the current world order that exists, that is under grave threat by a lot of developments that we're seeing from the Chinese that we don't talk enough about.

PHILLIP: Well, it sound -- I mean, I think that all sounds good in theory, but when we create a bunch of conflicts around the world, it seems -- and we don't have the ability to see them all the way through, that seems to me exactly the kind of --back

NAVARRO: Well, I don't know that I would say that a in Cuba, it's created by Trump. The people who have the most blame for what's happening in Cuba is the Cuban government, that, for 67 years, has been corrupt and getting rich while the people are suffering.

PHILLIP: I think it's a question of if Trump were to use U.S. military force or pressure to decapitate the government in Cuba, and we are not in a position to see through a full political transition, what happens then? NAVARRO: What he's doing now is using U.S. military pressure to basically starve them and have them in an incredible suffering. What's happening in Cuba is unsustainable. And we do have some responsibility because we are responsible for having cut off their supplies of oil there. Right now, they have zero electricity. They can't get food. Tourism is at zero. I mean, there is great suffering, a humanitarian crisis going on there. And whatever we're going to do there, we got to do it quick because people are going to die.

PHILLIP: All right. Next for us, a fundraising appeal from Trump's political action committee with a provocative pitch, using an image from a dignified transfer of U.S. fallen and soldiers. It also promises access to the president's private national security briefings. We'll debate that next.

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[22:30:00]

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PHILLIP: Tonight, an email from Donald Trump's political action committee uses an official White House photo of the President from the dignified transfer of six fallen U.S. servicemembers who were killed in the war with Iran. The email to supporters promises access to the President's private national security briefings and features multiple links to donate.

"You'll get the inside scoop direct from me," President Trump says in the message, "I'm the strong commander who stares down tyrants, obliterates terrorists, and never backs down."

Now, 13 American service members have died thus far in this conflict with Iran.

[22:35:03]

And this email is one of a number of pitches by Trump-affiliated PACs using the war in Iran to raise money. It's interesting, controversial, you name it. I mean, Xochitl, you've worked in administrations before. How unusual is this?

XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Very unusual. It is, first of all, to fundraise off of the lives of 13 Americans, and they just released that 200 have been injured in this conflict. It is just devastating and I don't think I've ever seen anything like this before.

I think also trying to make money off of gaining some sort of access to sensitive military information and national security information is also something that is extremely disturbing.

You can get it for free if you go on Hegseth's Signal gate.

I mean, people are probably, other countries are probably getting it for free from his Signal and other means. But it's something that is not heard of, and it's just disgusting. And, I mean, at the end of the day, the way that this administration has acted throughout this conflict, whether it is their social media posts, it is almost like there is a disregard for human life.

PHILLIP: Well, President Trump has had an interesting reaction. He's been asked a number of times about the casualties in this war, and I'm just going to play you some of what he's been saying.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We may have casualties. That often happens in war. We pray for the full recovery of the wounded and send our immense love and eternal gratitude to the families of the fallen. And sadly, there will likely be more.

Before it ends, that's the way it is. Likely be more.

REPORTER: Are you worried you're going to end up coming back to New York for more of these such dignified transfers?

TRUMP: Sure, I hate to do it, but it's a part of war. Isn't it?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Kind of, that's the way it is. And even this week, he was asked about the six fallen soldiers and he lashed out at the reporter for asking for whatever reason. It's a narrative that I think it seems--

VAN JONES, CNN SR. POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I feel very sorry for those families. They're still trying to deal with the shock that they sent their child to defend our country and they're never coming home, that's a lot to deal with. And then the idea that somebody's raising money off of it, anybody's raising money off it, let alone the President of the United States.

I just think that it's just in such poor form. It's so tacky. It's so undignified and so unfair to those families and I don't know who around him thinks it's a good idea, but it's the kind of thing that he should really pull back away from.

We're going to have, I think, because of what it will take to end this war, I think we are going to lose more people. And it's a horrible thing.

It's a horrible thing. And when you're the commander-in-chief and you communicate about that, the horror needs to be present for you. And it was not.

ANA NAVARRO, CNN SR. POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: And listen, you know what we saw in that has to be, I think, widely condemned, regardless of partisanship, because it's just wrong in every way. And the way he answered the reporter berated the reporter who asked him about it on Air Force One.

And what he said was that he hadn't seen it, which is the same answer he gave about the meme posted by him about the Obamas portraying them as apes. And so, first, he should have seen it. When something like that goes out, there should be a lot of eyes that approve it before it goes out, either the meme or the email, the fundraising email.

And if he didn't see it, then he should identify the person that sent it out. They lack judgment. He should be fired, it should be condemned, he should apologize and he who should talk about how badly he feels for each and every single U.S. life that has been lost because of his decision to go to war.

TODD: Well, I agree, Van, Xochitl, that you should this photo shouldn't be in an email solicitation. And the President said he didn't see it. They should find out who did it and apologize for it, I think we can agree on that.

But let's not forget, Joe Biden let 13 American soldiers die at the Abbey Gate, and the White House was essentially silent after their remains came home. And this is the President of the United States trying to save American lives.

The Iranians have been killing American servicemen going all the way back to the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in the mid-'80s, at Tanzania and Kenya at our embassies two administrations ago, in Jordan last year.

[22:40:01]

This is the President deploying the American military to try to save American lives in the future. And no other President since 1979 has been willing to take on Iran in this way.

PHILLIP: It's not just the solicitation email. I mean, last week we were talking about the video game analogies that they were making on social media about this war. And there's a kind of flippant nature to some of this. I mean, it was -- this is striking to me, the President took a phone call today from a reporter because apparently everybody in Washington has his personal cell phone number.

And according to Liz Landers, Trump said that he was literally in and very important meeting about the Iran war. And he picks up his phone to talk to a journalist. Again, that's something that is stunning for me to even read as a journalist, because usually you can't even bring a phone into those spaces.

But there's a lot that the President's doing that makes this, everything is in service of making the point that he's being tough and not dealing with the tough consequences.

SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: On the email point, I want to just address this because the general public is probably not aware that I looked into how this committee was actually structured. It's a 527 independent expenditure committee. So when we're saying that this President or hell, any President for that matter is cooperating or working directly with whomever is running that organization, structurally that's not correct.

I mean, obviously the photo is just abhorrent and I think everybody was right to call it out as they should have. But the structure--

PHILLIP: I didn't say that he was working with them or not.

SINGLETON: But I'm just adding clarity. I was just looking at the Chiron and it was in the Trump committee. And that's structurally not correct. And people who don't work in politics probably wouldn't know this in terms of writing copy, I also make this point. I mean, I've written copies for many campaigns I've worked on in the past, you're not working with the White House typically on that copy.

And so I think I would probably --

HINOJOSA: He never condemned it.

SINGLETON: I was going to get to that point.

HINOJOSA: Sorry.

SINGLETON: So I think in that regard, the White House would be correct in saying, look, we don't know who's operating or running this committee. We condemn this, we want to make sure all committees that are functioning in the President's name are functioning properly, specifically as it pertains to our troops who've lost their lives. But again, just adding that clarity point in terms of the structure.

PHILLIP: They would be right to do that. They didn't do it. And I think that's part of the problem.

NAVARRO: What you're saying about the presidency is true, I mean, you know, he's playing golf. He's attending Mar-a-Lago parties, he's wearing a hat during a dignified transfer. The whole thing is just such not a good look.

PHILLIP: All right. Next for us, TSA agents are threatening to quit and airline passengers say they have had it. Are lawmakers any closer to reaching a deal on this ongoing partial government shutdown?

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[22:45:00]

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PHILLIP: Tonight lawmakers appear no closer to ending the partial government shutdown. The funding lapse reached the one month mark this weekend. And as airport lines get longer and terror alerts get higher, lawmakers aren't optimistic about reaching an agreement as a fierce debate over immigration enforcement continues.

About 50,000 TSA officers have been working without pay since February 14th and missed their first full paycheck on Friday. More than 300 officers have already left their jobs in that period, according to DHS.

This is starting to affect people.

JONES: Yes.

PHILLIP: Van, you were saying you were in Austin this weekend.

JONES: It's horrible.

PHILLIP: Is it time for Democrats to--

JONES: No, I think Democrats have to stick to their guns because it's inconvenient. It's an airport. It's a lot more inconvenient to have ICE agents doing all kinds of terrible stuff, and they should be put back in a box.

However, I was in Austin trying to leave South by Southwest. I had a 6:00 a.m. flight, I got there at 3:00 a.m. There were people literally outside wrapped around.

It was complete, I mean, unbelievable lines. I had pre-checked and clear. I barely made my flight. And then they pull the plane out because it's time to go, but the plane's only half full and the bags are there. So we literally had to sit on the tarmac for an hour and then come back to rebalance the plane.

Meanwhile, the people who could have made the plane balance were stuck. The whole thing was so nutty.

PHILLIP: But to what end, I think, is the question at this point. I mean, if ICE is funded, if there are no conversations happening? Because as far as I know, there are no conversations happening.

What are Democrats getting out of this at this point?

TODD: Well, wait a minute. There was a vote. There don't need to be conversations, there needs to be a vote. And last Thursday, we had a vote.

And of 47 Democrats in the United States Senate, only one of them voted to reopen this government, John Fetterman. Now, we've had four terrorist attacks on the homeland in the last two and a half weeks. Now, airport lines are an inconvenience, airport security that's tired and understaffed at a time when we've got an attack going on in the homeland, that's just unconscionable.

Democrats are playing with your security. And if you go to the airport over spring break and you see that long line and you're worried that those people are too tired to stop a hijacker or a terrorist, you can blame the Democrats.

HINOJOSA: Let me just tell you those four terrorist attacks should have actually been stopped by the FBI, who actually fired people who were doing the work to ensure that there are Iranian threats.

[22:50:04]

Let me just tell you, as someone who worked at DOJ, that was their job. And their job was actually to notify state and local law enforcement about the threats that are happening all around the country. And they pulled that bulletin back to state and local law enforcement.

Why? Because they don't want to admit to the American people that their war is actually causing a threat at home.

TODD: No, the war does not cause a threat at home.

HONOJOSA: The war is causing a threat at home.

TODD: No, Xochitl, Mohammed Jalal was released early from prison by the Biden administration.

HINOJOSA: Yes, but--

TODD: He should still be in prison.

PHILLIP: Hold on. He was released under the Biden administration. That was not a decision the Biden administration made. That's the first thing.

But the second thing is, how is it?

TODD: Yes, it was.

PHILLIP: How is it?

TODD: It completed a substance abuse remediation program. But getting off drugs does not get you off the positive.

PHILLIP: Yes, but that's not, the Biden administration didn't say let this guy out free. His lawyers made a motion that if he completed this program, it was approved by a judge. You know that's how the process works.

TODD: The Department of Corrections Union slowed down the process that would have let him stay in because Joe Biden wouldn't fire the Corrections Union, Donald Trump did.

PHILLIP: But hold on. He is out.

The FBI is responsible for monitoring known threats. He is a known threat. How is he not monitored?

That's not just me saying that.

SINGLETON: Can I just say something?

PHILLIP: He is a known, it is a simple thing. He's a known threat. The FBI, the current FBI knows that we are in a high threat state.

That person who was just released from prison 18 months ago should have been at the top of the list. Why wasn't he?

SINGLETON: Abby, I don't want to get into what Biden did or didn't do.

TODD: Ken Chapman sold him the gun. He was a gun runner, but the Biden administration chose not to prosecute his daughter. HINOJOSA: Can I actually weigh in on that?

This is actually going to like, I was at DOJ and the Biden administration. There were plenty of terrorists. Let me just tell you, there were plenty of terrorists that were let out and actually that were out in the Trump administration. Am I blaming the Trump administration for that?

No, but you know what I will say is different from the Biden administration to the Trump administration is the people that were monitoring the threats, the career law enforcement officials who work every single day to make sure they're getting off our streets are fired.

You know why they were fired? They were fired because they were assigned cases to work on the classified docs case because Trump had mishandled classified docs information to please the President's ego. They weren't fired because they did something bad to put the American people at risk, they were fired because of the President's ego.

That is why we are lucky.

SINGLETON: Can I talk about the now, Jesus Christ. We can all complain about what now happened with the last administration or with this administration several months ago. The point is this: We need to fund these organizations.

Democrats, I believe, should try to go to Senator Thune and figure out a way to negotiate this. This is serious. These organizations don't operate in silos in terms of sharing intelligence information to keep the American people safe, including passengers who are flying all over the place every single day.

You may have your issues with ICE. Let's figure that out. But to not fund them so that people aren't going to work because they're not getting paid, that could potentially have real ramifications. And that should be an issue for all Americans, Democrats, Republicans alike.

Go to Republicans. Let's compromise on this. We're willing to do that.

PHILLIP: All right, we do have to go here, everyone. Thank you very much.

Coming up, Iran's skeptical voice on military engagement overseas now backing Trump's actions on Iran. What a federal Republican thinks it might mean for J.D. Vance's future. That's next.

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[22:55:00]

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PHILLIP: Today, the Vice President defended Trump's decision to go to war.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I think that I know what you're trying to do, Phil. You're trying to drive a wedge between members of the administration, between me and the President. What the President said consistently, going back to 2015, and I agreed with him, is that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon.

We have taken this military action under the President's leadership. I think all of us, whether you're a Democrat or Republican, should pray for success and pray for the safety of our troops. That's the approach that I've taken. Make it as successful as possible.

REPORTER: Given your skepticism of war adventurism, you were a critic of the global war on terror previously.

VANCE: Well, I think one big difference, Phil, is that we have a smart President, whereas in the past we've had dumb Presidents. And I trust President Trump to get the job done, to do a good job for the American people, and to make sure that the mistakes of the past aren't repeated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

During his time in the Senate, Vance, a Marine veteran, was skeptical about military engagement overseas. Here he is right before the 2024 election.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, THEN-SENATOR: Our interest, I think, very much is in not going to war with Iran. Right. It would be a huge distraction of resources. It would be massively expensive to our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: One critic of the war in Iran is former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. She says that it's against the President's campaign promise of America first. She also says that the war threatens Vance's chances in succeeding Trump in the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAMELA BROWN, "THE SITUATION ROOM" CO-ANCHOR: Do you think this hurts, this war hurts Vice President Vance's chances of becoming President Trump's successor in 2028?

[23:00:04]

REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): The longer it goes on, it definitely does hurt J.D. Vance, and that's someone that I campaigned for aggressively.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Thank you very much for watching "NewsNight." "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.