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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Top Intelligence Official Resigns In Protest Of Iran War; Trump Rejects NATO's Help After He Says They Rejected Him; Iran's Message To Donald Trump Is Putting The Boots On The Ground And Expecting Vietnam War 2.0; White House Dismissed Concerns On The Impact Of War On Consumers. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired March 17, 2026 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, a top Trump official quits in protest over the Iran war --
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I always thought he was weak on security.
PHILLIP: -- suggesting the president was duped.
Plus, Donald Trump asked for NATO's help. Now he rejects their help after allies rejected him.
TRUMP: We don't need him, but they should have been there.
PHILLIP: Also, Iran has a message for America, put boots on the ground and expect Vietnam 2.0.
TRUMP: No, I'm not afraid of -- I'm really not afraid of anything,
PHILLIP: And the White House acknowledges the potential for a longer war while dismissing the economic toll.
KEVIN HASSETT, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: That's like really the last of our concerns right now because we're very confident that this thing is going ahead of schedule.
PHILLIP: Live at the table, Charles Blow, Jason Rantz, Ameshia Cross, Peter Meijer and Jamil Jaffer.
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.
As the U.S. remains at war with Iran, the White House is dealing with a major breakup. Tonight, President Trump's director of National Counterterrorism Center broke ranks over this conflict and he quit his job today. Joe Kent posted his resignation letter on social media, he wrote that he could not support the ongoing war with Iran and that Iran posed no imminent threat. He also added that the war started due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.
The Senate confirmed Kent to his position last year despite Democrats' concerns over his ties to a Nazi sympathizer and a Holocaust denier. Kent also previously promoted conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, and yet President Trump nominated him, citing his experience as a Green Beret and a former CIA officer.
But here's how the president described Kent today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I always thought he was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security, very weak on security.
When somebody is working with us that says they didn't think Iran was a threat, we don't want those people because -- and there are some people, I guess I would say that, but they're not smart people or they're not savvy people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Now, on the one hand, Jamil, a resignation like this is going to get headlines. It's a big deal that a senior Trump administration official is quitting explicitly in opposition to the war. On the other hand, the content of the letter is what gave a lot of people pause. I'm curious what you've made of it.
JAMIL JAFFER, FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL SECURITY INSTITUTE: I think that's exactly right. I mean, obviously you should be concerned when the director of the National Counterterrorism Center quits over a war that you're in the middle of from the largest state sponsored terrorism in the world.
At the same time, you know, the things he said, the idea that we had -- that Israel stoked this war, that we had gotten into this war because Israel pushed us into it, I mean, Donald Trump is not the kind of guy to get pushed into a war. He may be a lot of things that is not what he is.
Beyond that, he also had this underlying sentiment. He talked about his wife who had been killed in the Iraq war, suggested that Israel pulled us into that war either. There's no evidence for that whatsoever. I think this underlying some of the ties that Joe Kent had to other people and some of his underlying views that are animating why he quit.
Also notable Tulsi Gabbard, the director of National Intelligence, very careful about how she positioned herself endorsing the war, but saying it's because the president gets to decide what an imminent threat is, not endorsing it herself though.
PHILLIP: She says, as our commander-in-chief, he, Trump is responsible for determining what is and is not an imminent threat. President Trump concluded that the terrorist Islamic regime in Iran posed an imminent threat and he took action based on that conclusion. What's is very notable also, she does not say that she supports the war. She just said it was Trump's decision.
CHARLES BLOW, LANGSTON HUGHES FELLOW, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: Right. But, you know, this is a very complicated thing. This guy has said some anti-Semitic things. At the very same time -- which is problematic, like no, full stop. At the very same time, soon after the war started, Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, said that the imminent threat was that we knew that Iran was -- that if Iran was attacked and we believe that it would be attacked by Israel, that they would immediately come after us, and that was the immediate threat that they used as a rationale for the war.
[22:05:00]
So, both things are operating at the same time.
This guy is very problematic because he has anti-Semitic sentiments. At the very same time, the administration, that was their first rationale for the war, was that they thought that Israel was going to strike verse that Iran was strike back and they would strike us when they struck back, and then that will precipitate a wider conflict and we would have consequences from that.
JASON RANTZ, SEATTLE RED RADIO HOST: There's one point that I think is important in that. Marco Rubio was part of all of the intelligence briefings on this, and Joe Kent was not. So, Marco Rubio had access to everything that Joe Kent did not have access to.
What was also left out of that letter was Joe Kent's plans now, I suppose, to be part of this resistance, go on podcasts that have been very critical of Israel. This is someone who, over the course of the next few days. You'll see more reporting on how he was seen as a chief leaker in this White House. And that goes to some of the problems I have with some folks who are now amplifying Joe Kent as if they agree with him or as if they suddenly believe that he is someone to be trusted on the issue.
BLOW: Donald Trump amplified Joe Kent because he put him in charge of the National Counterterrorism Center.
(CROSSTALKS)
BLOW: And in addition to that, he ran for --
PHILLIP: And if he was bad on national security, why leave somebody in a sensitive, important job like that if you thought that he was disloyal, leaking and he was bad on the substance of the thing that he was in charge of?
PETER MEIJER, CO-FOUNDER AND HEAD OF STRATEGY, THE NEW INDUSTRIAL CORPORATION: We're assuming that the office of the director of national Intelligence is an important job. I mean, it's kind of a bureaucratic, you know, nowheresville. Yes I'm torn on Joe Kent because on the one hand he did primary and defeat a colleague and friend of mine, Jamie Herrera Beutler, in 2022. On the other hand, he has a decorated career as a Green Beret, as a CIA paramilitary officer. He lost his wife, Shannon, in 2019 in Syria. He's a gold star husband.
And, you know, I give him the benefit of the doubt on the reasons for his resignation in this case. I think the question of whether or not a resignation, you know, should have been public is one thing. I think it is right and appropriate if you do not feel you can, you know, faithfully execute and support the policies of administration you're working for, you should resign. That is the appropriate thing to do in the natural course.
I have more questions about the statement that Tulsi Gabbard put out because, on the one hand, it was a master class in saying something without saying anything at all. On the other hand, you're going before Congress tomorrow.
PHILLIP: She has not been seen or heard of in months probably for this exact reason because we are at war with Iran. And she has explicitly said she did not believe that we should be at war with Iran.
AMESHIA CROSS, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: And has been on record saying it for years. So, let's not act as though this is a new thing with this administration. She has been on record for quite some time through multiple administrations voicing her opinion against going to war with Iran for the exact same reasons that many of the individuals who the Trump administration fired regarding Iranian intelligence. Those individuals were against it as well.
I think that with Kent, it's important to recognize, and it's a good point that I believe Charles made earlier, this is a guy who's looking at his career path after this. He's also somebody who understands the MAGA fissures. And at the end of the day, there are a lot of people who aligned around Trump in 2016 and 2020 and in 2024 who did it almost solely because this man talked about no more endless wars.
These are individuals who watch what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan. These are individuals who trusted that he was going to put America first, meaning we're not going and creating wars and chaos in other places, and recognized fully that their young men and women in the armed forces may be up next. As we can recall just a week ago, his press secretary did not leave it off the table that a possibility of a draft could happen, which, wild, by the way.
This is a president who has not stood by the very thing that he ran on, and many people are seeing this as problematic but are also questioning the allegiance with Israel because it does seem that there is some puppeteering going on backstage. And that's not anti-Semitic. That is just a question that they have because they also --
RANTZ: But usually when you bring up Israel -- and I don't think your intention was that, but usually when people talk about puppeteering and Jews, they're -- it's clear anti-Semitic trope.
PHILLIP: But let me ask -- I mean, what she's raising is, can there be substance to a criticism that Netanyahu, as he has said himself, pushed Trump personally to engage in this operation and that that might not be in the best interest of the United States? I mean, is that not a valid thing?
RANTZ: Oh, I think it's a valid conversation. I view, I guess, that as someone making the case and the president looked at it and said, yes, based on the case that you're making and what we're seeing on the ground in our intel, I believe that this is the right move. I mean, he could have made the exact same argument and said, no, I disagree. I mean, that is normal. That's what happens in healthy relationships with allies.
PHILLIP: And how do you square it with what Marco Rubio said, which is, you know, to Charles' point, that was the first thing that Marco Rubio said when he was explaining why we were at war in the first place?
[22:10:02]
JAFFER: But this idea that Israel just attacks without checking with the U.S. and makes decisions without checking with the U.S., we are their strongest ally. They don't move without checking with us first. This idea they were going to attack without checking with the president and then that we were going to be drawn in, by the way --
PHILLIP: Hey, I didn't say that. That was Marco Rubio who said that. That's the whole thing. It came from inside the administration. So, the people who made the suggestion that Israel was going to go no matter what, that was this administration.
JAFFER: That may be the case. But the point remains that we watched this thing play out. Israel had attacked Iran before. They attacked Iran before we ran an Operation Midnight Hammer. Iran attacked back. They did not come after us. We then decided to go in Operation Midnight Hammer. This is war that the president of the United States chose to go into. That's his decision, his call. He could listen to allies or not, but this idea somehow that Israel drew us into that, they drew us into Syria, we were in Syria because of ISIS, okay? Because of the comment of that war, it had nothing to do with Israel.
Joe Kent's theory of the case is clear in his resignation letter. This is not about him quitting because he's got some big dispute with this Iran war. By the way, if he'd wanted to quit because of the Iran war, he could have cut three weeks ago. He waited a long time. Joe Kent, I predict, is running for office again. He's going to go on Tucker Carlson's show tomorrow, the same show or this next week, the same show that put Nick Fuentes on the air. He's expressed those same views. And he's going to get support from that toxic part of the Republican Party that is both anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim and spouts all the kind of rhetoric that we as Americans should be disgust with.
PHILLIP: What about this idea that there was no imminent threat?
MEIJER: No. And I think that's something wherein Tulsi Gabbard's statement, she failed -- she left a lot of room for ambiguity on that, whether or not she agreed with the Trump administration's decision. And imminent threat can be interpreted in a number of ways, right? This is what is being used to just give the legal authority under the Article 2 commander-in-chief self-defense provisions, right? So, this is where, you know, the legal statute, the legal kind of basis comes. And it can mean Tulsa Gabbard is not wrong. It can mean whatever the president wants to.
PHILLIP: Yes. But can it mean --
BLOW: No, it can't. It actually can't.
PHILLIP: Well, can it mean because I feel like it, because, I mean, that's effectively the explanation from Trump is I felt like it? So, there was an imminent threat because I felt in my gut that it was going to happen. Is that really the standard, the legal standard for --
MEIJER: I mean, in this case, it not only matters. The Article 2 self- defense provisions have a very wide latitude.
PHILLIP: Okay.
MEIJER: The Supreme Court has been willing to grant a lot of latitude to the president.
PHILLIP: So, the president --
MEIJER: Congress can check that, but they'll keep passing --
PHILLIP: So, the president basically saying, I've seen no actual evidence, but I just felt it. The president could theoretically say that about nation anywhere in the world.
MEIJER: But at least in Iran case, the --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: At least, you know, back in when they were, the Bush administration was making the case to go to war in Iraq, right, they presented evidence. It was flawed but they presented something. They went to the United Nations and they said, look at this stuff. Look at these images. Look at this intelligence. We have seen zero, zip, nothing.
JAFFER: But, Abby, that's more about what this president believes he can get away with, with Congress and with the American public, right? The president believes that he can put a case out to the American public and say, I want to go to war with Iran. They presented him a threat. He doesn't need to array the evidence, right? And, in fact, as it turns out, Congress hasn't done anything about it, right?
MEIJER: Okay.
CROSS: Congress hasn't done anything about half the stuff he's done.
JAFFER: That's right. That's right. And Congress --
CROSS: The American public is pissed. JAFFER: And Congress -- this is a good way to think about it. The American public may be pissed, but this war is actually polling pretty well amongst Republicans. Even with the MAGA base being upset -- and I think you're right, the MAGA base is very upset with President Trump and what he's done here. I think Joe Kent is tapping into that. I think all other folks like Tucker Carlson have tapped into that, but there's a different strain going on there. There's a movement in the Republican Party that is very problematic and very toxic, and that's where this is coming from.
And let's be honest --
BLOW: But what is this? What is this coming from? What do you mean?
JAFFER: The kind of --
BLOW: The war itself?
JAFFER: No, the tone in Joe Kent's letter. Joe Kent -- first of all, Joe Kent doesn't have to defend the Iran war.
BLOW: We've established Joe Kent's the problem. I think we need to establish whether or not there was an imminent threat. I don't think that the words imminent threat having as much elasticity as you believe that they have. I believe that they have a definition, and that there was no imminent threat and that they have yet never outlined an imminent threat. And what conservatives often do, I've seen this over and over and over, is they switch from imminent threat to Iran's a bad guy, a bad country.
We all -- I'm sorry. We all can agree with that. We can all agree that they have where they have been the mastermind behind a lot of terror in the world. All of that's true. The problem though is whether or not there was an imminent threat that dictated that war was necessary at this moment.
RANTZ: But, Charles, that --
BLOW: And that has never been made clear, not just to me, but to the American people.
JAFFER: But, Charles, I think that there is an imminent threat. There's a lot of reasons why. One, we know Iran has been pursuing nuclear weapon for a long time. We know that Iran has killed hundreds and hundreds of Americans on the battlefield in Iraq with improvised explosive devices.
[22:15:05]
They gave --
BLOW: How long that we had war in Iraq?
JAFFER: Whatever.
BLOW: No, don't whatever. Don't do that. You know the answer or you don't.
JAFFER: A good long time, we were in a war in Afghanistan a good long time. It doesn't change the fact that Iran killed tons of Americans. That --
BLOW: And so that is, again, you're doing what I was just saying that other people do. You're trying to make elastic the idea of imminent. Imminent is not that. Imminent is not this is the whole case of the history of this country and how badly they have behaved. You cannot convince that into the word imminent. It does not work. It does not work. It does not work.
JAFFER: Hold on. You can call it --
CROSS: Was there are no diplomatic option before we got here?
(CROSSTALKS)
MEIJER: But are we talking about the legal standard for war powers that has been set in precedent or are we talking about our feelings and rhetorical and what things should be?
RANTZ: Legal versus the political --
MEIJER: Because we're right now -- yes, the war powers resolution, which many presidents say, doesn't really exist, and they don't believe it's constitutional. Trump still notified Congress.
JAFFER: Every president since we've passed it.
MEIJER: Yes.
JAFFER: Democrat and Republican.
MEIJER: Trump still notified Congress and said, hey, yes, the clock starts now. Whether or not he'll obey that, I mean, we could go back to Libya model back in 2013 under Obama, like the war powers have been a problem with every president.
BLOW: But you can't even invoke the Libya model because it doesn't work here.
MEIJER: Until Congress --
BLOW: That was NATO-led operation. There was a NATO-led operation. It was not just us renegading.
(CROSSTALKS)
BLOW: They were enforcing a U.N. resolution.
MEIJER: That's rhetorical, not legal.
BLOW: this was not renegading like this. Also, it was far less expensive. Can we just also talk about how crazy expensive this war is? That was like about $9 million a day. This is like $9 billion a day we're spending on this way. It's just crazy.
PHILLIP: $11 billion for six days. It's still a lot of billions of dollars, but, yes, a very expensive war with you and inside guys.
BLOW: Yes, right, a billion dollars a day.
PHILLIP: Much more ahead. Next for us, a stark rejection by America's allies. After asking for their help, Donald Trump, he says he doesn't need NATO's assistant or wanted in this war.
Plus, is the definition of boots on the ground suddenly changing? We've got one Republican's response as Iran warns that if the U.S. sends troops, Trump will face another Vietnam. We will debate.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, President Trump tries to set the record straight. Despite asking allies to assist in securing the Strait of Hormuz, Trump posted on Truth Social that because of military successes, the U.S. no longer needs or desires NATO countries' help. In all caps, he wrote, we never did, and we don't need the help of anyone. Well, for context, many allies actually declined his request and Trump elaborated on this in the Oval Office.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: And all of the NATO allies agreed with us. And -- but they don't want to -- you know, despite the fact that we helped them so much, we have thousands of soldiers in different countries all over the world, and they don't want to help us, which is amazing.
I think NATO's making a very foolish mistake. And I've long said that, you know, I wonder whether or not NATO would ever be there for us. So, this was a great test because we don't need him, but they should have been there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: He's like a lover scorned, I never wanted you anyway.
BLOW: Yes you can't rummage the world like a pirate and then get mad when people won't join in on your piracy. He -- this idea that NATO won't be there for us, NATO came to our defense after 9/11, when Trump was lying about people celebrating. NATO came to our defense. NATO came to our defense. NATO is the strongest, most positive thing that we are part of in the world, in the defensive realm. And he wants to be, you know, an isolationist and talk about them and disparage them all the time. And then when we get run into a roadblock, he wants to all of a sudden be a coalitionist. It just doesn't work that way.
PHILLIP: It's backwards. It seems backwards also. I mean, the right thing to do would be to get the coalition together beforehand and then go in on the war. RANTZ: Look, I think that's a fair point, but I also think his point is extremely valid. The countries that he was hoping would help, you know, on the expense side certainly, but also on the military side, will benefit from the Strait of Hormuz that isn't under the control of an evil regime. Everyone would benefit. And so his point is, why are we spending all of the money? Why are we putting the military assets into this when it actually helps everyone? You could look specifically at Ukraine versus Russia, and the same argument was there.
PHILLIP: Why would they get into it after we'd already started? I mean, to quote the German defense minister, we didn't start this war. And don't you think it's fair for those allies to say, hey, we will have your back, but we need to be in on it on the front end, not on the back end? Isn't that a fair thing to say?
CROSS: Yes.
RANTZ: No, I mean, not really.
PHILLIP: No?
MEIJER: We have the same --
PHILLIP: I mean --
MEIJER: 18 months ago to 24 months ago, we had the Houthis closing down parts of the Red Sea, right, Dar Labab (ph). That -- we had NATO allies, and I'm not going to name whom, but we had NATO allies who had to turn their naval ships around because they couldn't even defend themselves from the Houthis missiles, right.
There was eventually a NATO coalition that was put together. They did some good work escorting some ships. That was also not their fight, but they recognized the importance of maintaining open sea lanes. This is a very similar situation.
PHILLIP: But why do you think it's -- but why is it different though?
[22:25:01]
I mean, it's clearly different. They're clearly approaching it differently. Why do you think that is?
MEIJER: I mean, part of the reason they're approaching it differently is because Joe Biden was president then and Donald Trump is president.
BLOW: No, that's not it.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Well, look, I mean there may be some truth to that, and, I mean, Charles, you may not actually disagree with this because the point that you're making is that Trump is a different animal, and that is true because Trump has attacked, criticized, you know, he has strong-armed our allies. He has isolated himself from our allies. When you look at polling of Europe, the approval rating of U.S. leadership among NATO allies, 21 percent right now in 2025. That's compared to 41 percent back in 2021.
It is a world of difference. That's a real thing. These guys are -- they're democracies. They got to go home to their people. They can't just send us to war for a leader that their people despise.
CROSS: Well, part of this is because Trump has called NATO everything but a child of God since 2016. The other part is he has argued for dismantling NATO. He has pushed them to the brink. This is a guy who felt like he could go it alone and then found out real quickly that he cannot. So, he went back to them hat in hand, sort of tried to pull them in for support, and at the end of the day, he didn't follow the protocol.
They don't want to jump into a war that they know is not going to last three days, ten days, three months. They know that this is a more protracted war. And this is a president who did not take into account why the four presidents before him, who were all asked by the Israeli government to go into this type of incursion, did not. He did not listen.
And I feel like at the end of the day he is absolutely fine now trying to showcase and throw NATO under the bus and they rightfully are pulling back because this is not something that they had any awareness of. He did not talk to them first, and, quite frankly, they still have to deal with the aftermath regardless of the legacy that he's trying to build.
RANTZ: But the other issue that I think is kind of important on this is that because of Israel's involvement, it becomes more political for the leaders in those other countries and they have substantial bases for the people who are in power who hold virulently sometimes anti- Semitic views and anti-Israel views.
And I imagine that the president wanted to try to avoid some of that. And I think perhaps you can argue, and I think that this is a valid argument or criticism, that he expected that they would understand the importance of this particular war and this particular part of that, and they would step forward and actually do the right thing.
BLOW: But you can't ask these countries to follow him into battle he doesn't know what.
RANTZ: And so what's being --
BLOW: Wait, one second, one second. He's literally asking him to send warships. But what I'm saying is that he -- you can't expect that he has no idea how this is going to end, doesn't seem to really understand the mechanics of how the Middle East is going to work. He was in the Oval Office the other day, I think it was yesterday, saying that he was surprised and that the experts had not told him that Iran would likely bomb its neighbors in the way that it happened --
MEIJER: Which is totally (INAUDIBLE).
BLOW: Well, he said this.
CROSS: He fired the Iranian experts.
(CROSSTALKS)
BLOW: You said it. So, you saying he's lying?
MEIJER: No, I'm saying it's totally B.S. the fact that NATO allies were actually attacked.
BLOW: No. He was saying specifically that its neighbors in the region --
PHILLIP: The regional, Saudi --
BLOW: The neighbors in the region that Iran has bombed --
PHILLIP: The Gulf states.
BLOW: -- the Gulf states, Trump was saying that he was -- his experts had not told him that this was going to happen. He was kind of surprised that this had happened. This was the Fox News reporter asked him that question. How he -- are you expecting the other countries in NATO to follow this man into war when he is not even figuring out --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Let me let Jamil have a word.
JAFFER: You know who else was surprised. The president of Iran who went on T.V. a week or two later and said, I'm sorry, we bombed you.
BLOW: You can't go on to a week or two later than last night. So, what are you talking about?
JAFFER: Well, no, what I'm saying is that president Iran said that he himself is sorry --
BLOW: No. I'm talking about surprise from yesterday. I'm talking about the surprise from yesterday. The president of the United States said that he was surprised.
PHILLIP: Let me let Jamil finish his statement. Let's understand what he's saying.
JAFFER: I think part of what's going on here is that the Europeans are -- I think you're right, Abby. The Europeans are very unhappy about how President Trump has treated them in this last year and a half. We saw what happened in Munich with J.D. Vance's speech. We saw it again this year a little bit better with Marco Rubio's speech. I was there at both. The Europeans are very concerned about the U.S.'s role in the world where the U.S. will be there and NATO for them. I think that's absolutely true, which might make them more leery of coming into this conflict.
That being said, it is crazy to not defend the Straits of Hormuz. It is a critical sea lane for everyone around the globe. It is important that sea remain open. If Iran tries to close it, everyone should come on board. Regardless of what you think about Donald Trump, regardless of what you think about this war, keeping the Straits of Hormuz --
BLOW: Was it closed before the war?
JAFFER: What's that?
BLOW: Was it closed before the war?
JAFFER: Iran has tried to close it a number of times.
BLOW: But was it closed before?
JAFFER: It was under the threat every single time.
BLOW: Was it closed before the war?
[22:30:00]
That's a yes or no question.
JAFFER: Every time --
BLOW: That's a yes or no question.
JAFFER: Every time Iran --
BLOW: That's a yes or no question.
JAFFER: They threatened to close the strait --
BLOW: You don't want to answer that question.
JAFFER: They threaten America.
RANTZ: I'm sorry, Iran-- This is indisputable that Iran had control of military threat over the Strait of Hormuz. That is part of an imminent threat.
CROSS: But they didn't close it.
RANTZ: Because they chose not to, but they could at any point. And that's what the heart of this conversation that you're ignoring intentionally.
BLOW: You're saying it wasn't closed.
RANTZ: No, what I'm saying is that what they were doing was threatening. No, because you're not being honest in this conversation. There was an actual threat there.
That was not --
CROSS: For decades, that never actually happened. And so we were planning this.
PHILLIP: Let me -- One last thing, I mean, on this. Look, we're talking about this as if all these countries coming into this conflict is not without cost.
One of the reasons they may not want to do this is because it is dangerous to ask what they are being asked to do. They could take on casualties. That seems like a fair reason to say, hang on a second before we say yes.
Let's figure out what the game plan is. Let's make sure that this is something that we can do without sustaining casualties that we haven't gone to our people on. That seems fair.
JAFFER: But they haven't --
They're not asking, right, what are the casualties going to be. They aren't asking what's the plan. They're simply saying no.
PHILLIP: They are asking that.
JAFFER: But they're saying no.
PHILLIP: No, they're asking that. I mean, the foreign ministers of several of these countries have specifically asked, we need to know more about the strategy, we need to know more about the endgame, we need to know more about the objectives.
Because as the President has said, there are multiple objectives here. Israel is doing one thing, the United States is doing another. It seems like all those are legitimate questions.
JAFFER: I don't doubt they're legitimate questions. But I don't think that's what the Europeans are asking. I think what the Europeans are saying--
BLOW: The European Union's top diplomat said nobody is ready to put their people in harm's way in the Straits of Hormuz. Why do you keep saying that it's not true when it is on paper that it's true?
JAFFER: That's not saying what is the plan. It's simply saying no.
BLOW: You literally just said. We're not risking the lives of our people. The people are saying they didn't want to put their people in harm's way.
The head of the European Union's diplomat said precisely that. And then you say that that was not true.
Wait. That's not what they said?
[22:30:04]
JAFFER: No, correct. Because you're not giving the actual context that he's speaking to. Hold on.
The Europeans said they don't want to put their people at risk. But not because there's no strategy. They just don't want to put their people at risk. They don't think it's worth it, they don't think the Straits of Hormuz is worth it. PHILLIP: We're going to pull the quotes. We had them yesterday. We'll
pull the quotes where they were asking about strategy.
Those do exist. Some of them are. Look, they're not all the same.
Every country has a different objective. But some of these countries are asking for more information.
Because so far, I think most people would agree here, we're conducting this war according to Donald Trump's gut. And for many of those countries, that is not enough for them to send their blood and treasure into the Middle East again.
Next for us. President Trump brushing off a warning from Iran that the U.S. troops on the ground would turn into another Vietnam. We'll discuss that.
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[22:35:00]
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PHILLIP: Tonight, as Iran has a message for America, put boots on the ground and expect Vietnam 2.0. In an interview with Sky News following the U.S. military strikes on Iran's Karg Island and reports that the U.S. is sending 2500 Marines and sailors to the region for undisclosed reasons, Iran's foreign minister is warning that Trump should think twice before he plans to do so.
Asked about the possibility of a quagmire in Iran, Donald Trump had this to say about that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I'm not afraid of-- I'm really not afraid of anything.
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PHILLIP: He's not afraid of anything. But boots on the ground in Karg Island, are they boots on the ground or something else?
MEIJER: I mean, 40 years ago, Trump said the same thing in an interview about what the U.S. should do if the Iranians started getting more feisty in the region. He said, oh, we should seize Karg Island.
So getting back to the point on the puppeteering and Netanyahu, Trump has been remarkably consistent on Iran and tariffs. Those are the two things that he has held firm for the past four decades.
I think if I'm in the President's shoes, I'm trying to think what is the next step that I want to take? What is the next step that could force the political resolution that will get us to a point where the military operations can cease? And that is a possibility I put on the table. I think there's a very
big difference, though, between, you know, and this could be the same thing if the Emiratis take back some of the islands that the Iranians took from them in the strait in the 1970s.
Very big difference between something limited in an area that can be, you know, confined versus getting on to the Iranian mainland and then all of the complications.
PHILLIP: So let me play. This is Pete Sessions, a Republican congressman. He was asked about this today on CNN.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. PETE SESSIONS (R-TX): I believe that what these 2500 Marines of the Marine Expeditionary Force would be would be to probably secure the island. The island is not, in my opinion, boots on the ground.
PAMELA BROWN, "THE SITUATION ROOM" CO-ANCHOR: Also, it is a territory, it is Iran.
SESSIONS: Well, I'm not going to argue that point. As a matter of fact, you're right. But what I would say is the President's chosen not to obliterate the ability to get oil.
[22:40:08]
And I think he wants to go secure that to make sure the Iranians don't do themselves in. So I think it's probably wisdom.
Is that boots on the ground? No, not like inside Iran where they're in the cities.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I'm just not sure that's going to fly with the American people.
CROSS: You're playing some very interesting semantics games. Boots on the ground or boots on the ground. You cannot transfer that to mean anything else, this is still a territory in Iran.
At the end of the day, it requires, at this point, a level of American intervention that includes boots on the ground. They want to try to PR message this however they can to lessen the blow because they know that the American public, left, right, blue, red, purple, does not agree with it.
They do not want to see boots on the ground intervention in Iran. They have made that definitely clear this entire time.
And this is a President who is trying to turn himself into a pretzel to make boots on the ground not mean boots on the ground. I think Americans absolutely know what that means. They've seen it in Vietnam, they've seen it in the Middle East before multiple times over, they are over it. There is nothing this President can tell them to want to send their sons and daughters to Iran in boots on the ground. There just isn't.
RANTZ: I think that was the congressman's point is not to confuse this with sending them into mainland Iran and getting into combat that's going to be much more than what we think is going to be the case here if they go ahead and do that, which is a combination of force projection but also securing the facilities there.
There's a difference on the security side of things versus sending people into that.
BLOW: That's an old school definition of war. That is an old school definition of war.
If the Iranian drones can fly to other countries, they can certainly fly to islands right off their coast. That means that putting troops on the ground on that island put them in the arena of war. Those drones can drop onto that island just as easily as they can drop anywhere else.
Those are people on the ground. We cannot argue the definition of what a ground is and what boots are.
PHILLIP: I don't think that any Republican congressman or really anybody just telling Americans this is not what you think it is really going to work here.
To be clear, they have not ruled out boots on the ground, which might be problematic enough. This is already a very unpopular war. But if they don't want to do that and they don't explicitly go to the American people and say this is what they are doing, and then they do it anyway, that seems like an extremely risky political thing to do.
Call it whatever you want to call it.
JAFFER: I think that's exactly right. I think it's extremely dangerous.
Now look, there are interventions on the ground that you could imagine, special forces at a limited rate like we saw in Venezuela, that the President probably could get away with. A long-term deployment of U.S. Marines on Karg Island or Bandar Abbas to free up the Straits of Hormuz, very dangerous, very likely to get us into trouble, very likely to get Americans killed.
The President will have to be ready to sustain that political fight at home if he's going to go down this road. He should probably make the case to the American people first if he's going to do it, or simultaneously doing it.
Waiting until after somebody gets killed is probably a bad move. I do, on the drones point though, what they'll probably do is station those Marines around the oil facilities. They do go up to Karg Island, and Iran will be leery about attacking those facilities.
Trump is not out of his mind. He knows what he's doing, he's going to play the smart. It's still a very dangerous move.
PHILLIP: To use U.S. military service members essentially as a shield, again, that just screams risk.
There is inherent danger there. There is danger there.
There's no free lunch, it's a war.
MEIJER: I do think an important point to make here is what is Karg Island? It is their oil export facilities. Just last week there were all these complaints that the Iranians are shipping more oil through the Straits than ever before, and we're letting them. There's a different game being played here.
There are threats of turning off that last little remaining element that is currently, I would assume, being used to try to incentivize, cultivate, get parts of the Iranian regime, including high-ranking leadership in the IRGC that has not yet been killed, to say, hey, there is a way that we can end this, but we can also make it even more painful, not just from a physical threat standpoint, but from a monetary and financial standpoint, too.
PHILLIP: Well, they are hearing the threat, and they are ratcheting up the retaliatory rhetoric. So that's the reality of where we are, at least right now. So we'll see what happens.
Next, for us, Americans are worried about the economic toll of a long war, but the White House sees it very differently. We'll debate.
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[22:45:00]
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PHILLIP: Tonight, the White House is acknowledging the potential for a longer war while also dismissing the economic toll. As prices rise for everything from gas to fertilizer, today Trump's economic adviser downplayed consumer concerns over an extended conflict.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KEVIN HASSETT, NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL DIRECTOR: The fact is that the U.S. economy is fundamentally sound, and that if it were to be extended, it wouldn't really disrupt the U.S. economy very much at all. It would hurt consumers, and we'd have to think about, you know, if that continued, what we would have to do about that. But that's really the last of our concerns right now, because we're very confident that this thing is going ahead of schedule.
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[22:50:00]
PHILLIP: Jason? RANTZ: Yes, I think he did what he was supposed to do, which is to
calm the markets, calm the American people who have economic concerns, which are, I think, valid, but his point is that the economy is strong enough to withhold what is not going to be a forever war.
If anything, I think those comments actually make the point that they believe that this is going to be over soon. They're not going to say it's going to be over on this specific date, because that's not how you wage any kind of military intervention.
But the President and his team have been pretty consistent that this is going to be over in a matter of weeks, not in a matter of months or years. And I think that was messaging that made that point.
I think there's a political issue with--
PHILLIP: Using the terminology, it's the least of our concerns.
RANTZ: In the context -- hold on, come on. He said it in the context of whether or not the economy can handle it, I agree that it's a political mistake.
PHILLIP: It's not.
It's not the least of anybody's concerns. It is actually not also the White House's. It's not the least of the White House's concern because they are concerned about the cost of gas.
RANTZ: But he was talking about the strength of the economy.
CROSS: The cost of being able to get goods to this country. All of that goes up.
Trump has been consistent on one thing, that he doesn't give two dams about affordability. He says it's the Democratic hopes. The world was made up by Democrats, even though Americans are saying we can't afford to live.
We can't afford rent, we can't afford groceries, we can't afford child care. You name it, they're in trouble.
We have the highest credit card debt the nation has ever seen. Americans cannot buy homes. So at the end of the day, this is a President who has shown time and time again that the strain that Americans feel is no concern of his.
And one of the primary reasons why Americans went to the polls in the last presidential election cycle was because he promised to make their lives better. He was somebody who they heard when it came to their personal economies.
I'm not talking about the Dow Jones Industrial Average. I'm talking about the take-home pay and what people can do with it.
RANTZ: But that interview was on CNBC, and they were talking specifically about the markets. That's the difference. But I'm saying you're taking it out of context.
CROSS: The context is very clear.
RANTZ: The context of that interview was not what you're suggesting, though.
PHILLIP: The price of gas is up $0.87 in a month, and it's not just gas. The Strait of Hormuz being closed and the price of gas going up, food, helium, aluminum, plastics and chemicals, pharmaceuticals, food in part because of fertilizer, which comes through that area.
So it matters. I'm sorry, it matters.
BLOW: I think politically it's a disaster here. I think the economy does have some resilience in it.
However, politically, it is just my table, my pocketbook. Can I make the rent this month?
And with the shutdown over that other battle that's not really necessarily about Iran but is about Trump and about his policies, now that's reaching into another strata of people.
These are the business travelers. They don't want to wait three hours to get to the meeting. They can't afford to wait three hours to get to the meeting, and that's what they're having to do.
I was just in an airport, like, it's insanity. I think that he's just losing the mojo that allowed him to woo so many people who other Republicans were not able to woo.
He was literally talking to them about kitchen table issues. I will make your life better. There will be less stress, there will be less people coming in to take your job.
All the things that were magic to them, he's now turning his back on that. He said he was not going to go to war, we're constantly at war.
The prices are going up. It's a real problem.
JAFFER: I think Charles is exactly right. I was in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina during the primaries of the 2020 elections, and I will tell you that is what Republican voters were saying. They were saying we believe Donald Trump is going to do these things for us and solve these problems, the price of gas, the price of oil, the price of eggs.
That's not happening. It's going the other direction. It's going to be politically very problematic for him.
That being said, I do think it's a national security matter. The point that was being made is that we should not have to think about the economics. It should be our first concern.
Our first concern should be to figure out how to win this war and get it completed. But you're right. Politically, it could be a disaster for the President.
PHILLIP: Everybody, we've got to leave it there. Thank you very much for being here.
Breaking news. The Attorney General, Pam Bondi, is being subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee for a deposition in their Jeffrey Epstein probe. That's coming up on CNN.
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[22:55:00]
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PHILLIP: Breaking election news. The matchup to be the next senator in Illinois is set.
CNN is projecting Illinois' lieutenant governor, Julius Stratton, will be on the ballot in November for the Democrats. Stratton is hoping to become just the sixth black woman to serve in the United States Senate. She'll be facing Don Tracy, the former chairman of the state's Republican Party.
And for the governor's race, CNN is projecting a 2022 rematch, former state senator Darren Bailey winning the Republican primary tonight, and will face off against Governor J.B. Pritzker, who is seeking his third term in office. Pritzker ran unopposed in the Democratic primary. He celebrated his renomination tonight by going after one of his favorite targets.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. J.B. PRITZKER (D-IL): The Carnival Barker-in-Chief, sorry, I meant the Commander-in-Thief, says there's no federal money for health care and food assistance for families in need.
[23:00:06]
But he had no trouble finding tens of millions of dollars to send masked troops with assault weapons onto the streets of Illinois to terrorize Americans.
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PHILLIP: That's all for us. Thank you very much for watching "NewsNight." "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
