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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
President Trump Fires Pam Bondi as Attorney General; Todd Blanche Promoted to Acting Attorney General After Bondi Fired; Sources Say, U.S. Intel Says Half of Iran's Missile Launchers Intact. Trump Extends War Timeline, Says It Could End In Two Or Three Weeks; Trump Says U.S. Can't Afford To Pay For Daycare And Medicare; Trump: "We're Fighting Wars. Can't Take Care Of Day Care". Aired 10-11p ET
Aired April 02, 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, after performances like this --
PAM BONDI, ATTORNEY GENERAL: Excuse me, I'm going to answer the question.
REP. JERRY NADLER (D-NY): Answer my question.
BONDI: No, I'm going to answer the question the way I want to answer the question. Your theatrics are ridiculous.
PHILLIP: -- Attorney General Pam Bondi ousted. What does this mean for pending DOJ cases and Trump's retribution tour?
Plus --
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: We're going to bring them back to the stone ages where they belong.
PHILLIP: -- a key bridge in Iran targeted by the U.S. and Israeli militaries. Is this a sign of things to come?
And a rant from the president at an Easter event in the White House?
TRUMP: We can't take care of daycare.
PHILLIP: What Trump sees as worth paying for and what he doesn't. But how does it sound to American voters?
Live at the table, Adam Mockler, Jamal Simmons, Lydia Moynihan, Jason Rantz and Peter Meijer.
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.
And tonight, another Trump cabinet official is fired in less than a month. This time it's Pam Bondi who is officially out as attorney general. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche will now take over as acting A.G. Trump made that announcement on Truth Social this morning calling Bondi a great American patriot and a loyal friend. He says she'll be taking over a private sector job soon. Bondi called her tenure the honor of a lifetime at the most consequential first year of the DOJ in American history.
But sources tell CNN that Trump had grown frustrated on multiple fronts, one of them being that she hadn't investigated or prosecuted enough of his political opponent. But it wasn't for lack of trying. Trump had called for prosecutions into Letitia James, Adam Schiff, James Comey. All of those efforts have so far fallen flat. And the department had also opened investigations into a number of Trump's other political opponents, including Bill Clinton, former CIA Director John Brennan, and Fed Chair Jerome Powell, the Democratic lawmaker who is -- who told service members not to follow illegal orders and all of that with the blessing of President Trump.
Now, that was said -- that was all after Bondi said this in her confirmation hearing, and she was up for the job.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BONDI: I will not politicize that office. I will not target people simply because of their political affiliation. Justice will be administered even handedly throughout this country.
No one will be prosecuted, investigated because they are a political opponent.
There will never be an enemies list within the Department of Justice.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Our sources also say that Trump had grown frustrated with Bondi's handling of the Epstein files. Here's a recap of how that went over the last year.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN ROBERTS, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: The DOJ may be releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients, will that really happen?
BONDI: It's sitting on my desk right now to review. That's been a directive by President Trump.
You're grilling me on President Trump and some photograph with Epstein? Come on.
The FBI, along with U.S. Attorney Pirro and all of our prosecutors, have worked tirelessly for months, sifting through evidence that had been sitting at the FBI with the Biden administration for four long years.
None of them asked Merrick Garland over the last four years one word about Jeffrey Epstein. How ironic is that? You know why? Because Donald Trump -- the Dow -- the Dow right now is over -- the Dow is over 50,000. I don't know why you're laughing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Elie Honig is here with us in our fifth seat, former federal prosecutor, in his own right.
Elie she's in enviable position of being hated by a lot of people for a lot of different reasons. What do you think is the real reason that she shouldn't have a job right now?
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, the reason she shouldn't have a job or the reason she doesn't have a job, the reason she shouldn't have a job is because she carried out Donald Trump's overtly political agenda to prosecute people who wronged him politically.
[22:05:05]
The reason she doesn't have a job is because she wasn't good enough at it.
And I do think Pam Bondi can perhaps be a source of cross ideological agreement. So, we have Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives. Does anyone at this table think that Pam Bondi was a good attorney General? Speak now.
JASON RANTZ, SEATTLE RED RADIO HOST: Yes. I think in some cases, she was effective, in others she wasn't. And I think the handling of the Epstein files undoubtedly was botched from the beginning.
HONIG: Donald Trump disagrees with you because he just fired her, so he doesn't think she was any good.
RANTZ: No, he's not saying that she had a failed first year, clearly.
HONIG: Oh, it's a ringing endorsement.
RANTZ: (INAUDIBLE) done it a long time ago. I mean, clearly, she didn't do what he wanted to get done in that particular position over the course of the year. But that doesn't mean that there were any successes.
HONIG: What's the best thing she did?
RANTZ: Specifically at crime, crime is down. She's been making a point to go after actual criminals, including cartel-tied cells in this country. She also was the head of the A.G.'s office as we actually went after the Antifa groups that people pretend it didn't exist for about six years.
HONIG: These are great talking points. Let me give you some stats.
RANTZ: There's truth there.
HONIG: Crime is down across the country. That's a great thing. That's a good thing. Pam Bondi presided over the dismissal and closing out of 23,000 criminal cases, federal cases, gun cases, drug cases, violence cases, more than any DOJ since 2004. She got rid of those cases. Why? So, they could do more immigration prosecutions.
So, yes, crime rates fell. You can attribute that to a whole lot of factors. Never believe anyone who tells you --
PHILLIP: And they were falling long before Trump came into office.
HONIG: They were falling, but the fact is --
RANTZ: Immigration cases in DOJ --
PHILLIP: Well, no crime --
HONIG: Would you rather prosecute an immigration case or organic case?
PHILLIP: Crime was falling at historic rates before Trump came into office. That's also true.
But I want to get to why she was fired, because I think this is important. She was fired because she didn't go after Trump's political opponents. Now, Trump has put in somebody, his former personal attorney, who I presume he thinks, at least on a temporary basis, will do that. Is this where we're at right now in this country where it's just like one attorney general after another until he gets the prosecutions that he wants?
LYDIA MOYNIHAN, CORRESPONDENT, NEW YORK POST: Well, I think that's a certain conclusion that you could jump to. I mean, yes, this is the second cabinet figure in a few weeks who's been fired.
I think most Republicans would look at that though and say, look, Trump is eager to find somebody who is competent. And when you look at the things that a lot of Republicans are eager for the attorney general to do, I don't think the lawfare is -- and I think as Jason mentioned, a lot of it's going after Antifa. That's a big part of it. A lot of it's going after some of the foreign money that's funding Code Pink and some of the protests.
PHILLIP: But he wants to lawfare. I mean, is that appropriate?
RANTZ: Well, so you're -- so, no, but I wouldn't frame it that way, the same way that you guys didn't frame it when Steve Bannon was targeted when --
ADAM MOCKLER, COMMENTATOR, MEIDASTOUCH NETWORK: No Democrat sent out a tweet asking to prosecute three specific people.
RANTZ: You had people who said that you wanted to throw Donald Trump in jail and you wanted to take him off of a ballot so he could --
MOCKLER: Who are these people?
RANTZ: The entire state of Colorado and the Democratic Party.
MOCKLER: Okay. So --
RANTZ: So, clearly, this idea, the framing, I think your point is a valid one when it comes to --
PHILLIP: But you understand that that is very different from the president directing his attorney general in public, mind you, as he did, Pam, I've reviewed the 30 statements. What about Comey? Adam Schiff, Letitia, he publicly, right? He's doing this. It's very different from a state doing whatever they're doing from a local, you know, district attorney prosecuting a case. That is different when the president says, why are you not prosecuting these people who I hate.
RANTZ: Who he believes broke law? Now, you can disagree as to whether or not they broke any laws and you can have a fair argument, I think, about the appropriateness of the president doing it, but I do think that the framing is important --
PHILLIP: So, you're defending it then?
RANTZ: I'm defending the president saying someone in his view broke the law and we should be targeting that person the same exact way Democrats said that about Donald Trump. And it wasn't framed, as Donald Trump is being targeted as a political adversary.
PHILLIP: Jason, you're making that sound as if it's reasonable and it's not, okay? The president making a unilateral determination in his own mind that somebody has broken the law without providing, by the way, any proof of that, and then directing an investigation into that person is -- that is not appropriate, okay? I'm sorry, if you don't like, you know, partisan prosecutions, you should also not like that.
HONIG: Even if we take it as a given that there was prosecutorial overkill against Donald Trump, and I've said publicly that I believe there was, especially from the state actors and even to an extent from some of the federal prosecutions, from Jack Smith, that does not justify going out and charging Letitia James for mortgage fraud. And that was rejected by a judge and a grand jury. It does not justify charging Jim Comey, I'm no fan of Jim Comey, with an age old flimsy perjury charges. It does not justify trying to charge Mark Kelly and Elissa Slotkin for something that is simply not a crime.
And if this is going to be the way things go, you did it to me, I'm going to do it to you, are you okay with -- let's say there's a Democrat -- hold on.
[22:10:06]
Let's say there's a Democratic -- there will be a Democratic president at some point in this country's future. Are you okay with them saying, this is the game now, we're going to go seek out everyone on the other side who disagree with us?
MOYNIHAN: That's already a talking point. J.B. Pritzker is already talking about project 2029 and trying to put Trump officials in jail.
HONIG: I'm not okay with that.
MOYNIHAN: Unfortunately, this seems to be a sort of tit-for-tat thing. And I guess, to your point, I mean, the system is working, right? So, there was evidence that Letitia James may have committed some mortgage fraud. That was looked into, and ultimately a jury of her peers decided that wasn't legitimate. So, I think there was --
MOCKLER: True grand juries. I'm glad the system is working against the person who's actively trying to destroy it. I mean, the beautiful part of America is that we have institutions and checks and balances that are separate from the president. You can see time and time again Donald Trump is trying to bully other institutions in under his wing.
So, we can look at Jerome Powell at the Federal Reserve. If you look at countries where the president is able to control monetary policy, these are some of the -- these are some of the worst countries in the world, right? You do not want the president controlling monetary policy. This is happening in countries like Venezuela.
Let's take this over to the DOJ. You do not want the president directing the DOJ to prosecute people, to indict people, and that is exactly what we saw. We just watched a clip of Pam Bondi saying, there will never be an enemies list at the DOJ. Well, Abby, just read off an enemies list that Donald Trump quite literally sent out.
Has any Democrat -- did Joe Biden do that? Is there any example of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, or any of them having an enemies list?
MOYNIHAN: Letitia James and Alvin Bragg, people literally ran on putting Donald Trump in jail. I think we can all agree that there was politicization against --
PHILLIP: But in answer to his question, which is important, is there an example that you all can cite of the president directing the investigation or the prosecution into anyone.
RANTZ: No, they didn't put it out there in public.
PHILLIP: That's good. I'm that we're in agreement on that.
RANTZ: No, there's agreement on that talk. The president is more public about this. And I don't think that is a smart move from his --
PHILLIP: It's not that he's more public about it. It's that he's doing it when there is zero evidence that it was done by the people that he claims did it to him. You guys are attributing investigations in Georgia and investigations in New York to Joe Biden with no proof. That doesn't make any sense. I'm sorry, it does not make sense.
JAMAL SIMMONS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: There was a tradition that the president of the United States, the White House, did not talk to the Department of Justice. When I was at the White House, literally, you couldn't call the Department of Justice and ask about a press release without talking to the council's office first and getting clearance.
This idea that the president of the United States can direct the attorney general to go after his individual enemies is going to corrupt the entire system. And it will go when it starts to be a Democratic president doing this, people on the table will howl when they see it.
But I'll say this about Donald Trump. Nobody can program the news better than this guy. He flailed last night. Last night, he gave a horrible speech. He's bad at doing it. I understand why he doesn't do it, because he wasn't very good at it. He didn't give us any headline about the war. And this morning, he dropped -- today, he dropped this news about Pam Bondi, and now the headline of the news is about Pam Bondi. And we're not talking about that bad speech again about last night.
PHILLIP: Well, don't worry. We'll be talking about the war coming up.
Let me play -- this is Todd Blanche at CPAC a couple of days ago, just to give you a sense of what kind of positioning he is in going into this new role.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TODD BLANCHE DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: There is not a single man or woman at the Department of Justice who had anything to do with those prosecutions.
Director Patel has cleaned house there too. There isn't a single man or woman with a gun, federal agent still in that organization that had anything to do with the prosecution of President Trump.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, Elie, I mean, there are a lot of problems with that, including that many of the people that they're talking about are just regular civil servants doing their jobs, people who are asked to work on cases and who did them, and they were purged.
HONIG: You know what galls me about that? So, Todd Bunch and I were at the SDNY together, we were contemporaries. We started within a year or two of each other. And he is talking about and ginning up cheers for the fact that they fire people just like what he once was. Third year, fourth year, fifth year line AUSAs, federal prosecutors doing their job faithfully. I had problems with some of the things Jack Smith did, but to fire the paralegals and the support staff and the FBI agents and the kid on a detail from the Eastern District of Missouri, who's in his third year, that's exactly what Todd used to be himself.
And to go in front of that crowd -- it's a different person. I don't recognize him now. And I've defended Todd Blanche publicly. When he was representing Donald Trump in the hush money case, I publicly said the criticism of Todd Blanche for defending Donald Trump is ridiculous and unfounded, but he knows what he's doing now is dead wrong. And to Jamal's point, the fundamental line that's been breached here can argue about who did it, but it's getting worse now, is crossing over prosecution with politics. That's a dangerous mix no matter who's doing it.
[22:15:00]
PHILLIP: Yes, I mean, and look, the one of the investigations was into Trump's role in January 6th. And if I'm old enough to remember, Republicans said that that was the way that Donald Trump needed to be punished for what he did on that day. And now all of a sudden it's some kind of partisan prosecution.
Mitch McConnell was on the Senate floor saying that that is the methodology, not impeachment. Take him to court. Charge him with a crime. And so that's how the system worked. And now all of those people have lost their jobs because the DOJ is a very different place today than it has been in recent years.
Elie Honig, thank you. We appreciate you.
Coming up next, new CNN reporting finds Iran has maintained significant missile launching capabilities, which is much more nuanced than what the administration has been saying.
Plus, the president says that the federal government can't pay for daycare because it's busy fighting wars. How Democrats are responding to that ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: Exclusive new CNN reporting tonight, U.S. intelligence assessments are painting a more nuanced picture of Iran's missile launching capabilities than what the Trump administration had said since the start of the war. The intel and sources reveal that roughly half of Iran's missile launchers are still intact and thousands of drones remain in its arsenal. That's just by weeks of daily U.S.- Israeli strikes on Iranian military targets.
Now, compare that to what the president said just last night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Their ability to launch missiles and drones is dramatically curtailed and their weapons, factories, and rocket launches are being blown to pieces, very few of them left.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Trump meanwhile appears to be growing increasingly frustrated as the war drags on with no real diplomatic pros progress. Today, he hailed a deadly U.S.-Israeli attack on a key civilian bridge outside of Tehran, and then he warned there will be more to come if Iran doesn't make a deal. It follows this threat from Trump just last night as well.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We're going to bring them back to the stone ages where they belong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Iran's foreign minister responded defiantly saying, attacks on Iran's civilian infrastructure will not compel Iranians to surrender.
Former Congressman Peter Meijer has joined us at the table. So, Peter, this picture of Iran's missile capabilities seems to suggest that there is actually a lot more work to be done, and that might also explain why Israel tonight and yesterday has been, since the start of this war, 30 days-plus now, under intense fire. So, what are they going to do about that?
FMR. REP. PETER MEIJER (D-MI): What the president said in his remarks about the degraded capability is absolutely right. The challenge is the Iranians dispersed a lot of those one-way attack drones. Those don't require sophisticated launchers in order to, you know, cause a threat and to take off. And the ballistic missiles have obviously decreased significantly since the beginning, because that is a little bit easier to identify where those are going to be launched from. You might be able to hide it in a shipping container but it's not something that can be thrown out of the back of a pickup truck in the way that some of these Shahed drones can be launched.
So, that residual threat is ongoing, to your point. I mean, that's one of the reasons why we're still not only seeing attacks against Israel and the Gulf states coming from Iran, but also coming from the Houthis in Yemen as well. But this is the last and only card, apart from the Strait of Hormuz, that the Iranians have within their capability.
And I think when the president is saying two or three weeks, that is giving that opening to say, hey, there's a window for negotiations. We are trying to have those negotiations. The Omanis and the Iranians are talking. They're talking now about reopening the strait. But if the Iranian regime and the remnants thereof aren't willing to come to the table on something enduring, it will look very different two or three weeks from now.
PHILLIP: What incentive do they have to do that if they, after a month of war, have retained half of their capabilities and perhaps more on the drone side?
RANTZ: Well, I mean, keep in mind the reporting suggests when we're talking about the half, a lot of that is under rubble, that it's inaccessible. And that matters too because we're going after the infrastructure. And if you're not actually capable of reaching any of the weaponry or use some of the infrastructure at all, that obviously degrades the problem and it's not as much of a threat. PHILLIP: That's not right now. Because, I mean, I think part of the issue is that this war isn't just about what's happening right now. Presumptively, our desire to degrade Iran is about preventing them from doing things in the future. So, it's sort of like the nukes and the nuclear material. It's under rubble now, but if we don't get it out, it's still there.
RANTZ: But we know where the rubble is, and I think that's part of the two to three weeks.
The other piece about this story that I think is actually really important is that the president and Marco Rubio and everybody else, they made the case as to why they needed to go to war. And this actually backs up that story, this idea that they didn't pose a real threat, that there wasn't anything sort of imminent. This actually cuts right to that and shows it was in fact imminent, it was a real threat. And this is what they were talking about. And now we're getting some more of that intel.
The reason why I didn't come out early on was obvious. You don't just throw out all of your intel right at the beginning when you're starting this kind of military war.
MOCKLER: I think this directly contradicts almost everything the administration has said over the past few weeks. It absolutely has. Donald Trump has declared total victory multiple times. He has declared victory, right? Can you say yes or no? Wait, has Donald Trump declared victory? As he said, we won a week ago. Okay, your answer --
RANTZ: He's saying that we're winning.
[22:25:00]
MOCKLER: No, he said that we won this war. The reality is every weapon system that was actually a threat to us is still intact. We just proved that.
RANTZ: But that's not true.
MOCKLER: That is absolutely true. Why are the ballistic missiles still firing? Why is the Strait of Hormuz closed? Why can't we get a single ship through it? Because all of the weapons that are still a threat are still intact. They still have the enriched uranium. We haven't removed that. They have the IRGC navy still intact. Just because we destroyed a 55-year-old navy --
RANTZ: Everything you just said is not true.
MOCKLER: Wait, if the IRGC navy is not intact, why is the Strait of Hormuz closed?
RANTZ: You're conflating two separate things.
MOCKLER: What.
RANTZ: Weakening the infrastructure and their capabilities versus completely eradicating it. They have not -- no one has said that they completely eradicated every single missile that's coming from Iran. That's obviously -- no.
MOCKLER: Did he say, we won?
RANTZ: Of course.
SIMMONS: I don't know about you guys. I'm not surprised that the Iranians still have capabilities because these are very -- you know, it's a strategic organ country. They have been at this for a long time. They've expected the United States to attack them for a long time. Why wouldn't they have redundancies? Why wouldn't they have things stored away?
The question for me is, if you're the president of the United States and you're going to go to war against a country like Iran, why aren't you building a coalition to go in there and to deal with some of this stuff that you think may be happening? Why aren't you securing the Straits of Hormuz first and make sure that is going to be a place that you can hold onto, because it's a lot harder to get it back than it is to hold it in the first place?
I think that the administration has a lot of explaining to do about the planning that went into this effort. And if we are all supposed to be in favor of it, then maybe we all should be, but the president's got to do a better job of doing it.
I got to tell you last night, I don't think that he made a lot of headway convincing the 70 percent of Americans who have trouble --
PHILLIP: So, let me play it. France's Emmanuel Macon weighed in on the Strait of Hormuz issue and whether he thinks force is what's going to cause it to reopen. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EMMANUEL MACRON, FRENCH PRESIDENT: Some people defend the idea of freeing the Strait of Hormuz by force, via a military operation, a position sometimes expressed by the United States.
This was never the option we have supported because it is unrealistic. It is unrealistic because it would take forever and would expose all those who go through the strait to risks from the Revolutionary Guards but also ballistic missiles.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, look, I mean, there's been a lot said about Europe and what they will and will not do, but you can't -- I mean, you can't argue that that's not a reasonable argument to make on the other side of, first of all, if force were enough, we would've done it. And, secondly, is it a long-term solution? Is it so something that even could reopen strait soon? He seems to think no.
MEIJER: And today at the United Nations Security Council, France voted with Russia and China to torpedo a resolution by the Emirates. You want to talk about the allies? The allies have been formed thanks to Iran's reckless actions throughout those regions. France joined with China and Russia to oppose a move to say that over reopening the Strait of Hormuz is a legitimate defensive maneuver for countries like the Emirates.
PHILLIP: But what about what he's saying, Peter? I mean, what about what he's saying? He is basically saying, look, it does not make sense to say that we are going to force ships through under fire in order to reopen the strait. What's the argument on the other side of that?
MEIJER: The counterargument is we do nothing is, I think, the European position.
PHILLIP: No. The counterargument, his argument claim is -- his argument is that the real solution to this war and literally every other war is a diplomatic end. That is the argument.
MEIJER: Which is also what Donald Trump has said literally from the beginning here.
SIMMONS: The mullahs and the ayatollah are still in charge. The Iranians still have --
MEIJER: A lot of them are dead if you look at --
SIMMONS: Sure. But the regime is still in charge.
MEIJER: In tatters, but they still tweak.
SIMMONS: Ask people who are living in Iran whether or not -- ask the people who living Iran whether or not the mullahs are still in charge. The enrichment -- the Iranians still control uranium enrichment. The Iranians control the Straits of Hormuz.
MEIJER: They control the rubble underneath which the uranium -- the highly enriched uranium is.
SIMMON: Sure. But we don't control it. We don't control it. So, what we said was we were going to go in there and sort of get rid of their ability to have the -- to mount a nuclear offense against us. We haven't been able to do that.
The question is, what is the strategic purpose of the last few weeks different than if we had negotiations to get to this very point?
PHILLIP: Lydia?
MOYNIHAN: I think -- I would just like to address Trump's speech as well. I think what struck me last night, everyone here is very critical of it, Trump made the case to the average American who maybe hasn't been paying attention to the war. And I think he did a very good job of that. And the other thing that struck me yesterday as well is even before he spoke, Kamala Harris preemptively posted a video saying that Trump is terrible and we're losing the war, and isn't it horrible? And I think that kind of encapsulated this divide that we're seeing right now, that you have a political class that seems eager for us to fail. It's the Democrats, like Kamala Harris.
[22:30:00]
And you have the president making his case to the American people. I don't know what the polling is like since he gave that speech, but he made a good case about the dangers of Iran. And the fact that we are facing this challenge now. Imagine how much worse it would be in six months or a year.
I mean, the fact that they are powerful and able to attack us in this way is kind of a clear indication that this is a threat we need to take out.
JAMAL SIMMONS, FORMER COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR FOR VP HARRIS: Most strategists will tell you that you are at your maximum power before you attack someone. We had -- were in negotiations. The British said that were. That they were putting things on the table that were going to help alleviate the nuclear threat. We should have kept that going to see where it was headed.
0:00:39 UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've been negotiating like that for decades. That's the reality. And finally --
SIMMONS: Yes. And Barack Obama had a deal that was going to keep them from becoming a nuclear.
0:00:43 UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Except that.
MOYNIHAN: Except talents attached to them --
PETER MEIJER (R) FORMER U.S. CONGRESSMAN, MICHIGAN: Are you going to deal with that -- that problem -- that problem next?
SIMMONS: It was the nuclear one is -- the one that we're worrying about that come after us. That's the (inaudible).
MEIJER: The best speech, that was the best speech that was ever given making the case of this war was in 2015 by then Senator Marco Rubio, where he laid out all the deficiencies of the JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal, including the continuation of the funding for the proxies for Iran's proxies in the region, which since that speech, Iran continued to kill over 100 American soldiers. And also laid out the threat that the ballistic missile program, which continued unimpeded with the cash that President Obama sent them, that we released due to the sanctions, those ballistic missiles we now know were capable of reaching Europe.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Well, look, the one thing I'll say about that, I think there's a lot of. There's a valid debate about the JCPOA. But if this war ends with virtually the same outcome, Iran has $14 billion of sanctions relief, plus more oil money than they've ever been able to get. Plus we haven't really stopped them from funding or encouraging their proxies. Plus, they still have their ballistic missile program. Then what are we really talking about here? And they have the nuclear materials because we can't get it out. What
are we really talking about here? That's what the debate is about. It's not just, was the JCPOA bad, it's also about is this war actually rectifying the problems that even might they even have.
MEIJER: Where the proxies were? And granted, it's not just this conflict. I mean, it's going back to the entire post October 7th moment when Bashar al-Assad still had Syria. When Hezbollah was still an incredibly credible threat in Lebanon. The Houthis have largely remained unchanged, granted, but Iran's ability to project negative influence throughout that region and violence and wreak destruction. They're doing it in the death throes of their current regime.
ADAM MOCKLER, COMMENTATOR, MEIDASTOUCH NETWORK: We've seen revenue stream by allowing them to perpetually told the Strait of Hormuz and now they're going to make billions of dollars with this --
MEIJER: You're right. It'd be easier on our Democratic administration sending pallets of cash.
PHILLIP: It's just honestly -- honestly, Peter, it's a lot more money right now that we're talking about. Okay, next for us, the president draws criticism after suggesting a choice between war spending and funding childcare in America. We'll discuss that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:37:33]
PHILLIP: Last night, Donald Trump tried to sell the American people on his war in Iran in a primetime address to the nation. But comments that he made in a closed-door event just hours earlier epitomize his struggle to make the case.
In remarks that were briefly posted and then taken down by the White House yesterday, Trump said that the federal government ought to focus on certain priorities.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: The United States can't take care of daycare. That has to be up to a state. We can't take care of daycare. We're a big country. We have 50 states. We have all these other people. We're fighting wars. We can't take care of daycare.
You got to let a state take care of daycare. And they should pay for it, too. They should pay. They have to raise their taxes, but they should pay for it. And we could lower our taxes a little bit to them to make up. But it's not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things. They can do it on a state basis. You can't do it on a federal.
We have to take care of one thing. Military protection.
(END VIDEOTAPE) PHILLIP: In an attempt to clarify those remarks, the White House press
secretary, Caroline Levitt, claimed that Trump was being taken out of context and that he was talking about the importance of rooting out fraud in Democratic states. Levitt wrote, "The Trump economic agenda will continue to lower costs for hardworking American families."
President Trump saying that after he used to say things like this back in 2016 on the campaign trail is also what makes this surprising. Listen.
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TRUMP: The people opposing us are the same people who we've -- and think of this, who've wasted $6 trillion on wars in the Middle East. We could have rebuilt our country twice. That have produced only more terrorism, more death, more suffering. Imagine if that money had been spent right here in our home. We've totally destabilized the Middle East. And if you think about it, $6 trillion, and it was far better 15 years ago.
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PHILLIP: What happened to that Donald Trump, Lydia?
MOYNIHAN: Well, I would like to point out, since a lot of people don't seem to know. The vast majority of the federal budget does go to entitlements, and the role of the government is to protect and defend its citizens. I don't know, maybe I missed a founding document where it said everyone should get free daycare, but I don't think it is in the Constitution. And to Caroline Levitt's point, I do think this hits home because the fact of the matter is we are seeing states, whether it's fraudulent or not, are spending a fortune on some of these government programs in New York and California, we're spending more than 100K on each homeless person with literally nothing to show for it.
[22:40:17]
In states where we spend 30,000 on education, they have some of the worst scores. D.C., whereas you look at Texas, is spending 10K per student and actually performs much better. So I don't think money is the answer. If you look at how we've spent it doesn't really seemed to me solving the problems.
PHILLIP: Trump didn't so. Ten years ago, Donald Trump did not think that was the case.
MOYNIHAN: Well, I do think it's important to know.
PHILLIP: He was arguing. He was arguing that we shouldn't be spending money on regime change wars overseas, and we should spend that money on our people here at home. That was a common refrain when he was running for president. That's one of the things that differentiated him from his competitors in that.
JASON RANTZ, AUTHOR, "WHAT'S KILLING AMERICA": Yes, but the context of that original statement was about wars that he did not believe were in our best interests. He's obviously making a different case.
MOCKLER: Who defines our best interest?
RANTZ: Yes. The president of the United States and the people who represent us. They're part of the whole process.
SIMMONS: So Barack Obama defined our best interest at times. So we're (inaudible) before.
RANTZ: Yes, and we can -- I'm not saying it's illegitimate.
MOCKLER: No, you said they weren't in our best interest, but those were in our best interest by your own definition, because the president said they were in our best interest.
RANTZ: Well, I don't know what conversation you're listening to. A president is able to say, I believe this is in our best interest. We all get to disagree with that.
MOCKLER: That's what Bush said.
RANTZ: 100 percent of the time, if we so choose, or --
SIMMONS: For now.
RANTZ: -- wait for it. We can actually agree with it. The statement that he made yesterday, if you rewind like 20 seconds before the segment, he was talking about Minnesota and he was talking specifically about fraud. That's literally what he was saying going into that.
If you go over a little bit more, and I'm glad we included the clip at the end where he's talking about the defense. That was the context of the statement. So, there are completely different things valid to disagree with either of them. But that's actually what he said.
MOCKLER: Even with the context of the statement, it makes no sense.
RANTZ: It makes plenty of sense.
MOCKLER: So we're going to kick Medicaid back to the states. Listen --
RANTZ: That's not what he said.
MOCKLER: We're going to kick Medicaid back to the states, and we're going to raise taxes on a state level, but then maybe lower it on a federal level to equalize it. This makes no sense whatsoever. And how do you think this is going to play for the American people come the midterms? We're saying we're going to have to sacrifice Medicaid.
RANTZ: No, I think -- I think taking him out of context --
MOCKLER: Sacrifice Medicare.
RANTZ: -- context is a really smart strategy in that ad. I mean I don't disagree with that. MOCKLER: Is he out of context 24/7 because everything he says gets to his best interest.
RANTZ: No, that was completely out of context.
MOCKLER: It was not.
RANTZ: And you're taking them out of context eventually.
MOCKLER: Are you okay with throwing Medicaid back to the states?
RANTZ: I'm okay with states taking way more of a role in all of this. That is a key piece of what conservatives.
MOCKLER: Are you okay with cutting?
RANTZ: I don't want large federal government.
MOCKLER: Cutting daycare?
RANTZ: We're not cutting daycare.
MOCKLER: Are you okay with cutting Medicaid in order to fund the military?
RANTZ: I'm okay with cutting out the fraud, waste, and abuse which precisely what he talked about.
MOCKLER: That is not what you said.
RANTZ: Go listen to how many people --
MOCKLER: How many people have been arrested?
RANTZ: Listen to the full speech.
MOCKLER: How many people have been arrested (inaudible) early?
RANTZ: Did you listen to the full story.
MOCKLER: Yes, I did. It was a lunch -- it was lunch. Yes.
RANTZ: So you're arguing. You listen to full speech, and you're saying that he wasn't talking about Minnesota fraud.
MOCKLER: Okay. How many people in Minnesota have they prosecuted do to Nick Shirley's video? How many people have they prosecuted due to Nick Shirley?
RANTZ: I don't know.
MOCKLER: Zero. Zero. If this is a video --
RANTZ: This video just came out not long ago -- yes. I'm sure of it.
MOCKLER: In November. Zero prosecution. Zero (inaudible). RANTZ: We're back to the -- there's no fraud in Minnesota.
MOCKLER: I mean, why would they --
PHILLIP: Okay. All right, look. All right, the Democrats, regardless of this whole debate, are going to run on this, okay? As you know, Chris Murphy says this is what we run on the fall. Also, the corruption. Ro Khanna says Trump says, "We can pay for a war with Iran, but we can't afford child care." House Democrats said, "Trump says there's no money for daycare or health care, but plenty for his war with Iran."
It doesn't help that the bill for the war is believed to be about a billion dollars per day. The Trump administration is considering a $200 billion supplemental. There is real money that is being thrown at this war at a time when the House Republicans are saying we can't fund subsidies for health care, we can't fund really anything. We've got to cut, cut, cut.
I mean, I think that is going to, regardless of the context of that statement, the fact of the situation is going to be a midterm issue.
MEIJER: 100 percent. And I think one of the challenges that you have in government is nobody wants to pay an ounce for prevention. But ex post, once that attack happens, once that war is on, money will come in. But I would much rather spend, you know, the ounce today than have to deal with the pound later. And this is where, with the Trump administration on the defense side of the House, they're trying to get closer to a 5 percent of GDP defense budget which I think is right and appropriate. That's getting us back to Cold War levels because above all else they are fearful, and they are right to do so and it is appropriate for them to do everything in their power to forestall a great power conflict between the U.S. and China that would cost at a minimum $10 trillion.
Hundreds if not thousands, if not tens of thousands, of American lives in that conflict would wreak havoc on the global economy and be a true world war. So if spending over the next few years an incremental trillion dollars in order to forestall that is a wise investment.
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SIMMONS: So I'm going to piggyback on what Peter just said, which is that an ounce of prevention is going to be better than what happens later, and paying for it if we get childcare and education and services for kids, that means there's going to be fewer kids going into the prison system later. No, no, wait a minute. No, let me finish my point. Let me finish my point. Let me finish my point.
So, so at the end of the day, so we are not every battle that we are fighting is kinetic. Some of these battles and competitions are fighter and we're fighting with countries like China. You worry about the international competition. I am worried about that too.
And the question for me is, are we going to have children in America prepared to take on the fight they're going to have? Are we going to have -- are we going to have entrepreneurs who are going to be. Are we going to have entrepreneurs who are going to prepare to build companies to be able to battle that?
MOYNIHAN: If you think that spending more money actually creates better results.
MEIJER: If we have school choice in the Mississippi model. Yes.
MOYNIHAN: Do you think spending billions of dollars? You think we're going to get better results.
SIMMONS: I think it's better -- let me tell -- let me tell you this. I met a woman who was an entrepreneur who said that she was building a company and she had to stop building her company every day at 3:00 o'clock because she had to get her kid out of school. If we gave her childcare, she would be able to have two more hours of taking care of her company and building that. Workers who can't work extra shifts because they can't afford to get childcare.
We can have a more competitive economic country and we can take -
MOYNIHAN: We spend 180 billion (inaudible).
PHILLIP: Okay, guys. That's got to be the last. That's got to be the last word. That's got to be the last word there.
Coming up next, the president versus the Boss, Trump takes aim at Bruce Springsteen again as he kicks off a politically charged tour. We'll discuss.
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[22:51:07]
PHILLIP: Tonight, the president tries to tell Bruce Springsteen who's the Boss? In a Truth Social post, Trump slammed the rock icon as a very bad, a bad and very boring singer and says that he looks a dried up prune who had bad plastic surgery. He then called on MAGA to boycott Springsteen's concerts.
This post comes days after Springsteen opened his new tour in Minneapolis, one that he has said will be political. At that first concert Springsteen attacked, Trump called him, "A snowflake who can't handle the truth and is destroying the country's reputation." He also accused the White House of corruption unmatched in American history.
And I guess Trump kind of just fell for it hook, line, and sinker. Not surprising that Springsteen is getting under his skin, but the president seems to be, I don't know, really moved by this always.
MOCKLER: I'm just so sick of the -- I'm so sick of the president of the United States spending valuable time attacking random celebrities. He danced on Rob Reiner's grave. When Mueller died, he celebrated it.
He's honestly morally inferior with the way he celebrates these deaths. He is just -- it's just awful to see. I'm a young dude who's always looking for moral clarity from our leadership. I want to look up to our leaders and be able to learn lessons from them. What lessons do you think I learned from Donald Trump?
MOYNIHAN: Don't look to DC for moral clarity. Not the advice I think anyway can give you.
MOCKLER: Well, Obama, I could have looked up to Obama and actually learned patience. I could have looked up to Obama and learned gratitude. I look up to, or if I look at the Trump, I'm just like, I don't even know what I learned from that. Bully everyone around you. Isolate your allies. Be an absolute asshole to anyone who interacts with you.
What's the lesson that I'm supposed to take from this guy?
PHILLIP: If Springsteen called him thin-skinned. Trump seems to be --
SIMMONS: Living it.
PHILLIP: -- living up to that.
MEIJER: We're just getting back to the classics. I mean, I think Donald Trump having a feud with a celebrity, you know, it is 2015 all over again. It's a kindler, gentler age. I think he's just -- he's reverting back to what he knows best. And by the way, his cultural commentary, I mean, when he used to talk about, you know, the stage setup during a Super Bowl ad like that is playing to the strengths.
MOCKLER: Just to revert back to doing his military briefings so he can actually focus on this war. Like, I'm just, I don't care about Bruce Springsteen. I don't --
SIMMONS: The one thing that is probably under his skin on this is Springsteen has always been sort of a working-class hero and he's speaking to a lot of the same people that Donald Trump is purporting to represent. And if he's able to culturally speak to people who feel left out of the American elite society, he's going to actually touch something that Trump wants to hold.
PHILLIP: Is there still any Trump crossover? I mean, Trump seems to think that there is.
RANTZ: To the degree that there is, like most conservatives, we kind of just ignore the political stuff and if we like the music, we like the acting, we like the acting and we push everything else aside. I do like this idea that he's Mr. Blue Collar American, and $1,000 for a VIP ticket, that's definitely the way to get to them.
MOYNIHAN: I don't think the MAGA base is concerned about this. I think they're worried about the fact that there are still illegal aliens who are killing people. Like Sheridan Gorman in Chicago or an 83-year-old veteran, Richard Williams was pushed onto the subway tracks. I think that's what they are laser-focused on and this --
MEIJER: Trump isn't focused on that. He's focused on Bruce Springsteen. MOCKLER: No.
MOYNIHAN: No, he sent -- put two seconds.
SIMMONS: Springsteen (inaudible) $4 a gallon that I know.
MOCKLER: Putting out one suite, he sent out like a dozen. He's sent out so many tweets about Bruce Springsteen. At one time, I reverse searched like Comey's name on Truth Social, and he had tweeted about Comey like 700 times more than inflation. He tweeted about Comey more than inflation.
MOYNIHAN: Elon Musk also tweets a lot. I do wonder it's so effective.
PHILLIP: Why are you doing that kind of research? Well, yeah, I mean, it's one question or the other. Why is he doing that research, and why, if that is true, why is the President so obsessed with the people that don't like him? I mean, he's the president. He can't let this go.
SIMMONS: Listen, I think this is Donald Trump's. I think you're right. It's the classics.
PHILLIP: Yes.
MOYNIHAN: He was right about Kristen Stewart and Rob Pattinson, right? That was one of the OGs.
PHILLIP: Oh, God. All right, guys. Coming up next, the Artemis crew has hit a major milestone in their journey over to the moon. The Orion spacecraft is officially heading to the moon. We'll be right back.
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PHILLIP: A special programming note this weekend on CNN, there's competition on the court and an entirely different game on the sidelines. Money Madness. College Basketball at a Crossroads airs Sunday at 8:00 p.m. on CNN. Or you can watch it on the CNN app.
And thank you very much for watching Newsnight. You can catch --
