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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Reuters Reports, U.S. Weighs Sending Thousands of Troops in War's Next Phase; Trump Official Who Quit in Protest Says, Iran Posed No Imminent Threat; Gabbard Defers to Trump on Whether Iran Posed Imminent Threat. Gabbard Refuses To Answer Whether Iran Posed A Threat Or Not; Trump Criticizes Israel Over An Attack Against A Gas Site In Iran; Vance Calls The Rise In Gas Prices A Temporary Blip. Aired 10- 11p ET
Aired March 18, 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, the intel official who quit in protest over Iran explains his claims.
JOE KENT, FORMER DIRECTOR, NATIONAL COUNTERTERRORISM CENTER: There was no intelligence that said, hey, on whatever day it was March 1st, the Iranians are going to launch this big sneak attack,
PHILLIP: Plus, Donald Trump's justification for going to war under scrutiny in the spotlight.
TULSI GABBARD, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: The only person who can determine and what is and is not an imminent threat is the president.
SEN. JON OSSOFF (D-GA): False.
PHILLIP: Also --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Comes in hot.
PHILLIP: -- inflation worse than expected. Gas prices worse in three years. But the administration promises it's not for long.
J.D. VANCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: This is a temporary blip.
PHILLIP: And --
SEN. MARKWAYNE MULLIN (R-OK): My goal in six months is that we're not in the lead story every single day.
PHILLIP: -- Donald Trump's pick to replace Kristi Noem promises changes, but one of his Republican colleagues isn't buying it.
SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): You supported the felonious violent attack on me from behind. MULLIN: I did not say I supported it. I said I understood it.
PHILLIP: Live at the table, Ana Navarro, Jason Rantz. Ashley Allison, Bill Stepien, and Bobby Ghosh.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening. I'm Abby Philip in New York.
We begin with breaking news. Reuters is reporting tonight that the Trump administration is considering deploying thousands of troops to the Middle East as the U.S. prepares for the next steps in this war. That includes the potential for troops on Iran's shoreline to help secure the Strait of Hormuz.
Now, this comes as the administration contradicts itself over why the United States launched the war in the first place. And just a short time ago, the intelligence official who quit in protest this week over the war is speaking out on camera.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TUCKER CARLSON, HOST, THE TUCKER CARLSON SHOW: Was Iran on the verge of getting a nuclear weapon?
KENT: No, they weren't. You know, three weeks ago when this started, and they weren't in June either. I mean, the Iranians have had a religious ruling of fatwa against actually developing a nuclear weapon since 2004. That's been in place since 2004. That's available in the public sphere. But then also we had no intelligence to indicate that that fatwa was being disobeyed or it was on the cusp of being lifted.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Joe Kent went further saying that there was zero intelligence that Iran was preparing to launch a large scale attack.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KENT: There was no intelligence that said, hey, on whatever day it was, March 1st, the Iranians are going to launch this big sneak attack. They're going to do some kind of a 9/11, Pearl Harbor, et cetera, they're going to attack one of our bases, there was none of that intelligence.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: The claims raise even more questions the administration has long struggled to answer and it contradicts some of their justifications for the war.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVE WITKOFF, SPECIAL ENVOY TO THE MIDDLE EAST: They're probably a week away from having industrial grade bomb-making material.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime.
MARCO RUBIO, SECRETARY OF STATE: There absolutely was an imminent threat, and the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked, and we believe they would be attacked, that they would immediately come after us.
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): The president felt that he had to strike first to prevent those mass casualties.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, on a very basic level, Bobby, I think one of the questions that I have this week, as we've been now discussing this for three weeks, is if there was evidence of an imminent attack, why haven't they provided any inkling of it yet?
BOBBY GHOSH, COLUMNIST AND GEOPOLITICS ANALYST: Yes, it should be at this stage of the conflict, they should be able to make that evidence available, not just to the American public. They should be able to make it available to our allies in the region who are suffering the consequences of the war. They should be able to make it available to the wider world, which is also paying a price because of the increased prices of gas and other and other materials that come from that part of the world, that if the evidence is there, it shouldn't be so hard to produce it.
[22:05:08]
And the fact that there have been so many different explanations makes it natural for people everywhere, not just here in the United States and not just in the Democratic -- the opposition party here, but all over the world, people are skeptical. We are hearing the skepticism from across the board, across the political spectrum from all over the world.
And you would think that by this point it would behoove the administration to produce the evidence. I'm reminded of the last time we went into war, into the region where they produced a lot of evidence ahead of the war, which later turned out not to be true. Now, they're saying without producing any evidence at all that there was an imminent threat.
They did this before. This -- the Trump administration version one, remember when they killed Qassem Soleimani, the president at that time came out and said there was an imminent threat. Within days, his own attorney general and his own secretary of state contradicted him saying, actually, there's no eminent threat, but there is a threat.
So, there's a pattern here, the world remembers this pattern and there's a reason -- there's a just reason for all of us to be skeptical.
PHILLIP: And we'll get to Tulsi Gabbard's testimony later in the show, but I just wanted to point out one thing, is that one thing we did not hear her say was that the intelligence community believed there was an imminent threat. She just didn't say it.
And so to the Joe Kent of it all he is suggesting that the president was receiving incomplete information, that he was not being advised with an array of viewpoints. And even if you don't like that he came out and did this, even if you think that he has a very checkered past, which he does, that is an accusation that seems to deserve some scrutiny, whether the president was getting the right information from the right people.
BILL STEPIEN, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Keep in mind, I think every Democrat voted against his nomination. During his hearing, they called him a white supremacist, a Nazi sympathizer, a white nationalist, all the things. But now he's being held up as a beacon for truth. That just strikes me as a little strange. He's changed over the years, right? He was a Democrat, he's a libertarian. He wanted run for Congress, became a Republican, sought Trump's endorsement. So, he has been all over the map.
Donald Trump has been really resolute. If the White House issued a statement or a fact sheet earlier in the month, 74 times Donald Trump has said he opposes Iran getting a nuclear weapon. He has been resolute and consistent. Joe Kent has been all over the map.
PHILLIP: But Donald Trump a couple years ago was saying that the Democrats would get us in a war with Iran. He was also -- I mean, I don't think you can call that consistency, because, literally, two years ago, he was saying Kamala Harris was going to be the one to get us into a war with Iran.
JASON RANTZ, SEATTLE RED RADIO HOST: But I think it's fair to say that everyone at this table has had the same access to the intel as Joe Kent, who was not briefed on this at all, right? He was removed from this over concerns.
PHILLIP: But why would that be the case if he's the head of the Counterterrorism Center? I mean, why not remove him from his job, that he's a threat to national security risk?
RANTZ: I think that was the intent coming up. Now, we'll find out more details in the next few days.
PHILLIP: Is that why when he was going to resign, they were -- they -- rather than saying, well, you're a leaker anyway, please get out, they said, actually, why don't you go meet with the vice president? Actually, why don't you go meet with the president? He went out, and I think we have some reporting on this, he says Kent met with JD Vance on Monday laying out why he intended to step down over his concerns. The person familiar with the meeting said Vance and Tulsi Gabbard were in the room as Kent laid out his reasoning and the White House officials said Vance encouraged Kent to speak with Susie Wiles, Trump's chief of staff, before formally submitting his resignation. One of the officials said he ultimately did so before making his statement public. So, they weren't treating him like persona non-grata. They invited him to speak with the highest levels of the White House. I'm only making that point to say that the position that you all are taking about Joe Kent is not the position the White House apparently has been taken. They haven't disavowed his ties to neo-Nazis. They haven't called him a white supremacist. They haven't said that his comments were anti- Semitic. They invited him to meet with the vice president. They have a different approach to this.
RANTZ: They do. And I think that has more to do with controlling the narrative. When you have Joe can stepping aside, it then becomes an obvious big news story, right, that people will jump on and they'll point to the --
PHILLIP: Yes. So, you recognize that it's --
(CROSSTALKS)
RANTZ: when you have any, you know, member of the administration resigning in this way, playing into some of the talking points that are frankly coming from the fringe right and left on this, it's obviously going to be a distraction.
[22:10:04]
That is regardless of who the president is.
ASHLEY ALLISON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think two things can be true at the same time. I think Joe Kent could say terrible things and he could be telling the truth in this moment, right? I think those two things can actually exist in the world that we live in. I think we can agree that we don't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon. And we could also say there might not have been an imminent threat. Those two truths can also live in the same world.
I think we can say that this administration is saying one thing and what they are saying was not the reality of what is, and that Joe Kent now is coming out and saying it, and now they are trying to do self- correction. Those two truths could live in the same --
(CROSSTALKS)
ALLISON: But the problem though is that if this was the only time this administration was saying two things that were conflicting, we might believe them. But this is the pattern of this administration and 1.0, whether you're talking about war, weapons, women, water, whatever, this is what they do.
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: First thing, you say he's been all over the place. You say he's a leaker. The problem is that the president who says he appoints the best people, appointed him to this very sensitive role that he was not qualified for. So, that's one. Two is, this is not happening in a vacuum. If this was the only thing that was off-message regarding this war, then I think it would be being treated differently. But we have a war that, from the very start, we've had conflicting messages. We've had Marco Rubio saying, we went in as we just saw the clip because Israel was going to strike and then we were going to strike preemptively. We heard Donald Trump initially say it was about regime change. Then he changed his mind on that. He said that it's going to be very short-lived. Now, we're talking about possibly boots on the ground. I mean, there has been so many different messages, there's been no messaging to our allies in NATO or Europe, which is why they are now saying, it's on you, buddy. Don't count on us.
So, then on top of that, you've got this guy resigning on the same week that you've got Tulsi Gabbard, who I know we're going to talk about later, not saying as well, not reading the part in her testimony saying that there was no imminent thread, that they weren't going to have capabilities within the next ten years. So, yes, when you put it all together, it's a really bad look for an administration that's never given an explanation to the American people.
GHOSH: It's a very interesting moment to talk about the White House talking about people leaking. A year ago, Dan Caldwell, senior Pentagon adviser to Pete Hegseth, was fired for leaking. We were never told why he was leaking. Yesterday, he was reappointed as an adviser to the DNI, to Tulsi Gabbard. This is what happens when the administration says someone's leaking a year later without explaining what he was supposed to be leaking, they hire him back. Now, they're telling, saying to us that this guy is leaking. You know, I'm sorry, there is a credibility --
(CROSSTALKS)
RANTZ: I think the problem here is that we are -- some are assigning legitimacy to one point that Joe Kent made in his resignation letter. So, for the folks who are doing that, then I would also point to the fact that he's blaming Israel for Iraq. Are we assigning any legitimacy to that? No, of course not. We would say that is a crank position. It is a fringe insane conspiracy theory rooted in anti- Semitism.
NAVARRO: But he is blaming Israel for what?
RANTZ: For Iraq. He's putting that -- bringing us into the Iraq war. And we would all immediately reject that because we're normal human beings who aren't anti-Semite.
(CROSSTALKS)
GHOSH: The Jewish press in this country have declared Dan Caldwell as somebody who's anti-ISIS Israel.
RANTZ: This doesn't have to do anything with Dan Caldwell.
GHOSH: They just appointed him to the senior position in the intelligence community.
PHILLIP: I do think that it is extremely notable to me that even in light of what you're saying, this is an administration who appointed Joe Kent despite the concerns that he was associating and playing footsy with neo-Nazis.
NAVARRO: Which were raised in his Congressional hearings.
PHILLIP: And even to this day, J.D. Vance today says, I like Joe Kent. He's still aligning with him. This is the same person that you described as a conspiracy theorist, anti-Semitic crank. This administration is not distancing themselves.
RANTZ: He's leaning into anti-Semitism. There's no doubt about that.
PHILLIP: This administration not distancing themselves from him at all, except to the degree that he disagrees with President Trump.
ALLISON: Yes. On this issue, and it's not good for their narrative, I actually -- I know the news of the day is Joe Kent. That's not why we're actually questioning the war on Iraq. We're questioning the war on Iraq because we have brains in between our ears, and we're saying this is not adding up why we keep hearing a different story. Joe Kent is just another data point to make us realize we're not nuts.
[22:15:00]
PHILLIP: More ahead. We'll get to that Tulsi Gabbard testimony. She testified that the only person who can define what an imminent threat is is Donald Trump. We'll discuss her contentious hearing today.
Plus, the vice president calls the economic shock from the war a temporary blip, but there are some new indications and new warnings that contradict that outlook.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight, is it the job of the director of National Intelligence to determine what is and what is not an imminent threat to the United States? She says, no. Listen.
[22:20:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OSSOFF: Was it the assessment of the intelligence community that there was a, quote, imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime, yes or no?
GABBARD: Senator, the only person who can determine what is and is not an imminent threat is the president.
OSSOFF: False.
Was it the intelligence community's assessment that nevertheless, despite this obliteration, there was a, quote, imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime, yes or no?
GABBARD: It is not the intelligence community's responsibility to determine what is and is not an imminent threat.
OSSOFF: Okay.
GABBARD: That is up to the president based on a volume of information --
OSSOFF: No, it is precisely -- it is precisely your responsibility to determine what constitutes a threat to the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: On March 1st in the White House, they put out a statement saying that the initial strike was, quote, to eliminate the imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime. So, according to Tulsi Gabbard's suggestion, that would mean that the initial assessment was Trump's and not the intelligence communities.
Perhaps a factor in Gabbard punting on that question is her past opposition to any war with Iran and her past denials that an Iran threat was imminent. Back in 2020, she criticized the then-secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, for saying an attack from Iran was imminent without giving details of a time and a location. Gabbard wrote, quote, if you don't know when and if you don't know where, that is not imminent. But former FBI Director Andrew McCabe says, Gabbard is confused as to what her role as DNI is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: It's absolutely her job.
The director of National Intelligence tells the president what the threats are, and then, of course, it's the president's obligation to decide how to execute national security policy. But for the DNI to say publicly that it's the president's role to determine what the threats are, and that she has no significance, no role to play in that process, it's confounding. It really makes you wonder like what sort of leadership do we have over the intelligence community in this day and age.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: It seems like a fair question to ask. I mean, is the president supposed to come up with this information about what's an imminent threat based off of just out of thin air based off of his imagination or in what he feels in his gut, or is it her job to tell him, Mr. President, here are what the threats are, here are how urgent these threats are, okay? And urgent is another way of describing what imminent might mean. Imminent is a type of urgency, right?
RANTZ: Yes.
PHILLIP: And then the president decides what's actionable.
So, to Andrew McCabe's point, I mean, is it just that Trump just gets to decide based on his gut, that's a threat, that's a threat, in which case, what are -- are we in a world of fact or in a world of feeling? RANTZ: No, we're in a world of fact. I think Andrew McCabe's characterization of her answer goes very far from what she actually said. The question of whether or not something is imminent to the point where you're going to order military strikes is separate, and is the decision -- the sole decision-maker there is the president. It's based on the intelligence that they're getting. And Tulsi Gabbard's point was we present the probabilities of what is a potential threat, and the president gets to decide with counsel whether or not he believes that it qualifies as imminent.
To the point of what imminent means, it's not the same as what we all use this term. It started with the Bush Doctrine. It expanded greatly under Obama. And they're basically arguing three main points, I think, for what imminent threat actually can be in this role. Whether or not you have a window of opportunity, and they had obviously a window of opportunity in this case, most of the people in Iran leadership are no longer alive, the ability to go after someone who is in fact, or an organization, a regime, is a potential threat, do they have the capabilities to threaten us?
And the argument from the beginning wasn't solely about tomorrow they can have nuclear capabilities. It was whether or not they were going to have the ballistic missile coverage to ensure that they can in fact cover their nuclear capability.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: This is a lot of mission creep here and also moving of the goalposts because neither of those things that you pointed out deal with the imminence of the threat itself. Do they have the capabilities?
RANTZ: That's what imminent is in this context.
PHILLIP: Let's talk about the main thing. Do they have the capabilities, okay? Let me play what Tulsi Gabbard said about her written testimony on that front. Does Iran have the capability to rebuild its nuclear program? Here's what she said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MARK WARNER (D-VA): In your printed testimony today on page six and your last paragraph on page six, as a result of Operation Midnight Hammer, Iran's nuclear enrichment program was obliterated, there's been no efforts to try to rebuild their enrichment capability, you omitted that paragraph from your oral opening.
[22:25:09]
Was that because the president had said there was an imminent threat two weeks?
GABBARD: No, sir. I recognized that the time was running long and I skipped through some of the portions.
OSSOFF: In the opening statement you submitted to the committee last night also stated, quote, there has been no effort since then to try to rebuild their enrichment capability, end quote, correct?
GABBARD: That's right.
OSSOFF: And that's the assessment of the intelligence community?
GABBARD: Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Okay. So, it's as plain as day. They destroyed their nuclear capabilities last year. They told us it was obliterated. She just confirmed they had made no efforts to reconstitute that program. How was that not significant?
GHOSH: It is hugely significant. And for her to say that she skipped that part because she was running long, there were other parts she could have skipped. That is a very crucial part. I'm a journalist and a former magazine editor. That's the lead. You lead with that. That's not what you leave out in the cutting room floor.
So, you know, people are playing a little fast and loose here, that the fact that our own intelligence assessment said that the Iranians had not -- had indeed -- that their nuclear program had indeed been obliterated and that they were not rebuilding that capacity is crucial because we started -- well, one of the crucial pieces of -- one of the crucial explanations from the Trump administration was that they had -- they were building back their nuclear threat and that they were using their missile threat to protect their nuclear program. If the nuclear program doesn't exist, then this is a whole different argument. The administration has to present a very different case for the war and they haven't done that.
NAVARRO: And when she --
STEPIEN: Then why did Iran tell her diplomats last month that they had the capability to produce 11.
PHILLIP: Did they?
GHOSH: Did they?
STEPIEN: They have not --
PHILLIP: Did they?
STEPIEN: They have not disputed the characterization. They have not walked back.
PHILLIP: That's a serious question. Did they say that or not? The only person who said that is one person, Steve Witkoff, who is not, by the way, in a Senate confirmed position, he's not accountable to anyone but the president. The DNI was just there, okay? She never said that. And, in fact, she said quite the opposite, that they had not rebuilt, they had not made any attempts to rebuild, that they were not in a position to have done it.
So, I think it's worth questioning, is that actually a true assessment of where Iran was as it relates to their nuclear capabilities?
STEPIEN: Don't you think Iran would be walking back saying as hell reigns upon their country, whoa, what's going on here?
(CROSSTALKS)
GHOSH: They have said over and over again, we are not building nukes. They claim -- you know, they claim that they have a fatwa going back to Khomeini's time prohibiting the -- I'm skeptical about that myself. But the fact is that they have said over and over again that they're not building a weapon. We only have Steve Witkoff's word, and, by the way --
(CROSSTALKS)
GHOSH: -- threatening -- making those kinds of threats is not atypical of a smaller power in a contest like this.
(CROSSTALKS)
NAVARRO: Let me offer this. We are talking about Tulsi Gabbard, as if she was a normal and qualified DNI. It was reported just a few months ago that she was on very thin ice with Trump. That's probably why she showed up in costume in Fulton County, Georgia, to try to buy herself a few more months and curry his favor.
I am willing to bet a pair of Florsheim Shoes as somebody that has known Marco Rubio my entire adult life that there is no way that Tulsi Gabbard is trusted by Trump or his inner circle, or that she is part of any decision-making.
It is scary to me that at a moment when we are in war, the person who is the DNI, the director of National Intelligence, is this woman who is not trusted even by people inside the White House. This is the same woman who, before she was appointed to this role, had a website where she was selling -- she was literally selling T-shirts that read, no war with Iran.
So, if you think she was part of this decision and is in a position to give intelligence briefings to Donald Trump, I have a bridge to sell you somewhere.
ALLISON: I think the other -- I think what is happening right now in our country is that whether you voted for Donald Trump or not, I think there is a lot of skepticism what our leadership is doing. And it's not because we're playing, you know, with toy soldiers on a table at night. It's because they're real lives that are at stake. And it's not just the lives of soldiers, but there are people who can't put food on the table because the gas prices are -- there are so many collateral consequences because of this action. And it just doesn't feel like our leaders are being honest with us.
[22:30:04]
Now, if the endgame in this is that you are fine with going to war with Iran, regardless, whether they had nukes or not, I think the American people would actually appreciate that honesty.
Like we don't want them to have any power and we are going to take them out with our allies in Israel. If that's your truth, say it. But don't lie to us and make us believe that we're stupid when we can also --we watch the same news, we read the same thing and the inconsistencies are there.
And so, what is really under all of this, why this testimony is so troubling is that, why would you leave that paragraph out conveniently because they run over the clock every day in Congress. So today, we're going to play by the rules. She was imminent. Was Fulton County imminent?
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: She was hardly able to keep a straight face as she pretended that it was a sign.
(CROSSTALK)
JASON RANTZ, RADIO HOST, SEATTLE RED: I think that's a really good point. It's a question though of whether or not you agree with the tactics versus whether or not you agree with the underlying issue. I you know --
ALLISON: No, it's also whether you agree with the outcome.
RANTZ: Hold on, hold on. But point to a president who hasn't said they don't want to see Iran have power in the Middle East and they don't want them to have access to nukes. Like every presidency has taken that position. So, the tactics are different and I think that that's a fair, obvious conversation to have and a debate to have.
I think we should always be skeptical, regardless of who the president is in power, which party they're from, when we strike militarily. I think that that is a completely healthy conversation. But it is clear the end goal is the same for absolutely every president, at least in modern history, that Iran cannot obtain nuclear weapons.
ALLISON: But is the end goal of the regime changed? Or is it not? I mean, that's --
(CROSSTALK)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: You know, I do think that you guys are circling on actually the same similar points. But I think the point that Ashley is making is an important one, which is that, to your point, every president has had the same disposition about Iran. This president chose to act on it and use the justification of an imminent attack on the United States. And if that justification is not accurate, that would be misleading.
Whereas there was another path that they could have chosen. They could have said, these are our objectives as a nation. We believe that this needs to be dealt with now and not later. Let's build a coalition. Let's go to Congress. Let's do it a particular way. Let's put it all on the table. And they could have done it that way. They did not. And so, there is an accountability for the justification because it does matter. In a democracy, it does matter.
ALLISON: And if they're lying to the American people. We don't want -- we know leaders have to make tough decisions and people can't know all the intelligence before the strike happens. You can't sometimes win in that way. But you should not be lying to the American people, especially when soldiers die because of it.
PHILLIP: We have to get to some breaking news that is just in. The President is criticizing Israel tonight over an attack against a gas site in Iran and is delivering a strongly worded warning to both the Israelis and the Iranians. We'll have more on that in just a moment. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:37:51]
PHILLIP: Breaking news tonight, the President is warning Iran against any more retaliatory strikes after an Israeli strike against a gas site. And before I read this Truth Social Post subcontext, Iran fired missiles at Qatar after a major gas field in Iran was struck by the Israelis.
Here's what he wrote, "Israel, out of anger for what has taken place in the Middle East, has violently lashed out at a major facility known as South Pars gas field in Iran, a relatively small section of the whole has been hit. The United States knew nothing about this particular attack and the country of Qatar was in no way, shape or form involved with it, nor did it have any idea that it was going to happen.
Unfortunately, Iran did not know this or any of the pertinent facts pertaining to the South Pars attack and unjustifiably and unfairly attacked a portion of Qatar's liquid natural gas facility.
No more attacks will be made by Israel," the President says, "-- pertaining to this extremely important and valuable South Pars field unless Iran unwisely decides to attack a very innocent, in this case, Qatar, in which instance the United States of America, with or without the help or consent of Israel, will massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars gas field at an amount of strength and power that Iran has never seen or witnessed before."
I do not want to authorize this level of violence and destruction because of the long-term implications that it will have on the future of Iran, but if Qatar's LNG is attacked again, I will not hesitate to do so. Thank you for your attention to this matter."
So Bobby, just to take a step back, this attack on Qatar's liquid natural gas field was a massive thing that happened today, and it's going to have longstanding implications for the price of gas. And what do you make of Trump essentially warning Iran and maybe having a message to Israel, too, about the appropriateness of this kind of attack, but warning Iran not to retaliate like this again.
[22:40:01] BOBBY GHOSH, COLUMNIST AND GEOPOLITICS ANALYST: So, he's doing two things there. One, he's saying that we were not involved. The U.S. didn't know that this field was going to be attacked by the Israelis. And he's saying that if the Iranians now overreact to it, that's the way he's characterizing it, overreacting by attacking Qatar, then the U.S. will go in and complete the job that the Israelis didn't do.
Now earlier today, the administration did issue a statement saying that whereas the United States was not involved in the Israeli attacks, it was kept informed. Now, the President seems to be saying it was not even informed. So, that's different from what his administration was saying earlier. But this is not a threat to -- this is not a warning to Israel. It's clearly a warning to Iran.
And what he's saying to Iran is that if you attack Qatar, and Qatar is one of the world's largest exporters of LNG, and it's LNG -- LNG is a gas that has to be liquefied before it can be exported. Because Hormuz is closed, the liquefaction factories have all been shut down, because they're not able to export.
That has enormous consequences for the price of LNG around the world. So, the President is saying, you attack Qatar's facilities again, and we come after you with everything we've got. So, the threat is very much directed at Tehran.
PHILLIP: So, this is what I think people worry about with a war like this, which is that, yes, there are objectives as it relates to Iran. But the escalation is happening around infrastructure, around energy, around water.
And you're already seeing, France, as result of what happened today with Qatar, basically saying, we need to put a stop to energy attacks and to civilian infrastructure attacks, specifically water treatment plants, right? And the fact that Israel did that, knowing that it would cause an escalation, seems to me to be a problem in this particular moment.
BILL STEPIEN, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE POLITICAL DIRECTOR: It reminds me of when my kids are fighting in the other room and I have to go in and play referee. We're trying to play referee from eight hours away and it's really, really difficult and tricky and dangerous. These are skirmishes between important ones and big ones. But boy, this is tough to play referee from half a world away.
NAVARRO: I don't think we're playing referee. I think we are supposed to be and I've been told that we are in lockstep with Israel, right? That we acted, in fact, Marco Rubio said that we acted because we knew Israel was going to attack and we acted pre-emptively so that Iran's backlash --
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: Well, I'm having a very hard time believing, and if it's true, it's even worse than we think, that Israel would take an action like this without telling the United States, informing the United States, and letting them know of what the consequences is. If that's what Israel is doing, then we have a bigger problem because they're out of control.
PHILLIP: How do we explain -- that's a good question. I mean, how do we explain -- Israel taking this stuff is clearly escalatory. It's to the point where the President now has to say, stop the escalation. So, if he didn't want that to happen in the first place, how does it happen if we are the ones in the Israel-United States relationship holding the cards?
RANTZ: So, I didn't read the statement as the President feeling like we weren't told. I didn't get that from this particular statement.
NAVARRO: He says it in a statement. It's in the first line.
PHILLIP: Well, let me just --
RANTZ: He's saying two somewhat different things.
PHILLIP: Let me just say for the purpose of clarity, I'll just read that part again. "The United States knew nothing about this particular attack and the country of Qatar was in no way shape or form involved with it nor did it have any idea that it was going to happen." That is the part I think Bobby was --
(CROSSTALK)
RANTZ: Yes, no, and I am not saying that it is false. I'm saying it feels like in the context of the full statement, it's a little bit unclear in the context of not having anything to do with specifically--
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: "The United States knew nothing" is unclear to you?
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Are you trying to say, Jason, you don't think that that's true? Because there's a difference between what he wrote and what you think is true. I mean, do you think that --
(CROSSTALK)
RANTZ: It's a little bit of both. I'm simply saying I think what that the context means is that we didn't have anything to do specifically with it, didn't provide any intel on it. We -- but I don't believe that they didn't know about what Israel was doing.
PHILLIP: But do you think that if we thought it was a bad idea that we would simply allow Israel to do it? That's the question that I have because I think that s relevant.
(CROSSTALK)
RANTZ: Well, it's -- I guess I don't look at this as a -- yes, I don't -- I don't know if it's fair to say that we would have full control over how Israel responds to a different threat from Iran as, you know, clearly doesn't want Israel to exist, has been key in funding terrorist proxy groups that also do not want Israel to exist. They have somewhat different goals than we do. There's going to be mostly alignment here, but not always. And so, sometimes, Israel is going to act within their own self-interest the same way we would.
ALLISON: I have -- okay. Can I --
NAVARRO: Without telling the United States?
RANTZ: I don't think they didn't tell the United States.
NAVARRO: I don't buy it for a minute.
RANTZ: I agree with --
(CROSSTALK)
ALLISON: Right. So then, that first line is not true -- from our president -- which is a problem. Well, I mean, it's not. I mean, he wrote it.
(CROSSTALK)
STEPIEN: -- no idea, right? Let's be clear.
[22:45:01]
ALLISON: Well, that's part of the problem.
(CROSSTALK)
ALLISON: No. That is the point. We don't have any idea, which is half of the issue right now. My question is, to the point I made earlier, what is the end game? Is it that we do not want Iran to have nukes? And do we feel like at this point they do not have nukes?
And if we do, then what is our plan to de-escalate this so that there is not utter destruction of things that will have massive implications for years to the citizens of America that may never even go to the Middle East or have to be the boots on the ground if there never is.
That is a thing we really need to get clear on because what it feels like is that if we are -- to your point earlier, I don't think Iran will stop fighting as long as we want to fight. Like that's what people -- when you're in fight, when you play a game, the referee doesn't stop the clock completely. We wait till the --goes zero, zero. Iran will run the clock out here and if they do, does that mean
PHILLIP: And they --
(CROSSTALK)
RANTZ: Well, they have limited ability to do that.
(CROSSTALK)
ALLISON: But what destruction happens until the clock goes zero?
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: They warned from the beginning that they would retaliate in exactly this way if their energy infrastructure was attacked. So, this is a known known. We have known from the beginning because of what they have said that they would do this. So, I'm just curious, , I mean what is the Israeli rationale for kicking us the escalation ladder in this particular way?
GHOSH: Well, we have not heard the Israeli explanation for why they made, presumably now that Trump has put it out there, we'll hear an explanation tomorrow from the Israelis. The Israelis, I suspect what they'll say is that the escalation is coming from the Iranian side. They have launched multiple missiles at Israel. Israeli -- some Israeli civilians have been killed.
Foreign workers working in Israel have been killed. Actually, Palestinians have been killed. Some of those missiles have landed in the West Bank. So, people are being killed in Israel and therefore Israel feels that it needs -- that what it has done so far clearly was not enough to stop the Israelis -- Iranians, and therefore they need to escalate.
I suspect that some variation of what I've just said will be the Israeli explanation. But as we all seem to agree here, I don't believe for a moment that the Israelis did this, attacked that gas field with the United States not knowing about it. That just seems so ungrateful.
ALLISON: Like the Iranians aren't going to stop. When does the clock run out is my question.
GHOSH: Exactly.
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: This is a statement to appease Qatar.
PHILLIP: All right, guys. Next for us, the White House uses a new phrase to describe the economic shock of this war. A temporary blip. We'll debate, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:52:18]
J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I will say, the President said this and I certainly agree with it. This is a temporary blip, okay? What happened under the Biden administration is the gas prices were high for four years. Gas prices are higher right now. And frankly, they're not even as high as they were during certain parts of the Biden administration. Because of what's going on in the Middle East, it's not going to last forever. We're going to take care of business.
(END VIDEO CLIP) PHILLIP: Not going to last forever. That's probably true, but also not the full picture of what's happening in the American economy right now.
NAVARRO: Yes, and listen. There's practically nothing that you can buy or you can do that hasn't gone up in price as a result of this war because of the transportation costs for food, for absolutely everything. Any delivery that you're getting for everything. And so, this comes at a time when there's so many Americans who can't afford health care. There's so many Americans who see their dollar going less and less far at the grocery store.
And you are hearing that this administration is going to go and ask for a $200-billion with a B, supplement for the Iran war and is spending a billion a day on this war, and they're making our gas more expensive and thus everything else more expensive? I don't know how much patience the American people, or the people around the world. Because it's not just America that it's affecting are going to --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: -- quick data points. Almost zero job growth in all of 2025. That was before the war. GDP growth year over year was 2.1 percent. That's lower than the last year of the Biden administration. Trump was elected to make all of those things not happen that you just see on your screen there. So what's he going to do now?
STEPIEN: Well, he is right about gas prices 501 under Biden, June 2022, 384 today. Yes, I was on the AAA website. But to me, there was a major disconnect between --
PHILLIP: Yes, but also, let's note, 90 cents more today than a month ago.
STEPIEN: Than the last month. No doubt, no doubt. But to me the biggest problem with affordability, which Republicans don't like to talk about, is the lack of feeling your pain. Like the admittance that there's a problem, that there's some action being taken by this administration. I'm applauding because that's a big deal. The first step is acknowledgement.
ALLISON: But a blip is dismissive. If you're used to that, like, the quarter tank of gas in your car to get to that rally and you're like, how do I get home? And you're like, it's a blip. Well, blip me home because I don't got it. I don't have it, right?
RANTZ: He did show up to the rally to support the vice president. Had he come out and just simply said, there's no problem whatsoever, we would criticize him for not being honest and he's being honest about what's happening.
ALLISON: There's a softer way to deliver that, I would say.
GHOSH: I think a temporary blip is like when the President said this was just an excursion. It's the same kind of language.
[22:55:00]
PHILLIP: Or that inflation was transitory. Remember when Biden said that? That was also --
NAVARRO: That affordability is made up.
PHILLIP: Everyone, thank you very much for being here. We'll be back in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:59:16]
PHILLIP: This Sunday, the relationship between the FBI director and the president has always been complicated. Unravel the complex dynamic in the CNN original series, "Standoff, The FBI Power and Paranoia." Here is a preview.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: Perhaps it was natural that they would gravitate to each other.
BEVERLY GAGE, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, YALE UNIVERSITY: Hoover and Nixon really had a lot in common. They were sons of the middle class who had to fight their way into the Washington establishment, and they both had some resentments about that.
LERONE A. MARTIN, PROFESSOR OF RELIGIOUS STUDIES: Before he starts his political career, Nixon wants to be (inaudible).
[23:00:00]
UNKNOWN: You can see why that would appeal to him. He was a young lawyer, and the FBI was this kind of star celebrity agency during those years.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: More this Sunday at 9 P.M. on CNN and the next day on the CNN app. Thank you very much for watching "NewsNight." "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
