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Trump Gives Iran 48-Hour Ultimatum To Reopen Strait Of Hormuz; Today: Talks Intensify As Trump Threatens To Send ICE To Airports; Interview with Maine Senate Candidate Graham Platner; Midterm Madness: What Will Democrats Take Away from This Week?; Could Iran War Cause U.S. to Lose Some World Cup Soccer Games? Aired 8-9a ET

Aired March 22, 2026 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:29]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(MUSIC)

MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Winding down?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't want to do a ceasefire.

RAJU: The president threatens to obliterate Iran's power plants if it does not open the Strait of Hormuz by tomorrow. Are widening GOP cracks forcing Trump's hand?

And urgent talks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The line was insane.

RAJU: Massive lines forced both sides to the table.

But as Trump warns, he'll send ICE to airports, can they finally end the shutdown?

Plus, primary punches. David Axelrod breaks down a set of feisty Democratic races, while I go one on one with progressive Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner.

GRAHAM PLATNER (D), MAINE SENATE CANDIDATE: It's disappointing that this is where we lined up.

INSIDE POLITICS, the best reporting from inside the corridors of power, starts now.

(MUSIC)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RAJU (on camera): Good morning. And welcome to INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY. I'm Manu Raju. The war in Iran now entering its fourth week facing perhaps its most

dangerous and inconsequential moment yet. Last night, President Trump, furious at Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz and unable to fully win over allies to help secure the critical passageway, threatened to, quote, obliterate Iran's power plants, quote, starting with the biggest one. First, if Iran doesn't reopen the strait by Monday.

Now, Iran does operate a nuclear power plant, and Trump's new threats come as he is weighing some profound decisions, including whether to send in American ground troops and whether to request as much as $200 billion to pay for it all, all as new cracks are forming within the GOP amid growing concerns of the economic pain the war is causing for Americans.

But Trump so far is signaling he's not yet ready to cut a deal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I don't want to do a ceasefire. You know, you don't do a ceasefire when you're literally obliterating the other side.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: All right. Let's break this all down with my excellent panel of reporters this morning. "Bloomberg's" Jeff Mason, Margaret Talev of "Axios", and CNN's Aaron Blake.

Good morning to you all.

Jeff, you cover the White House. And can you make sense of this messaging? Because Friday, Trump was saying this is winding down and he's been saying we won. The war is basically over. And now there's the Truth Social post from Friday, we consider winding down our great military efforts in the Middle East. And then this post last night.

What are you hearing from your sources about what his plan is? Where the will they actually go after nuclear power plant in Iran, which would have obviously massive environmental ramifications and could threaten the entire region? Or is this a threat just saber-rattling?

What are you hearing from your sources about what exactly Trump is planning?

JEFF MASON, BLOOMBERG WHITE HOUSE & WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, number one, the president has given mixed signals about this from the very start, from the opening video that came out as soon as he announced the start of the war, up until now. And that has happened because of some of the ramifications of the war that he hasn't liked, including the energy price spike, the impact on oil prices and gasoline prices. That, of course, creates a lot of political risk for the president.

So, occasionally, he has said, yeah, we're going to end quickly. We're going to end soon. Just to get a little bit of a bit of relief in oil prices. And then he comes out and sees something that's going on in Iran that

he doesn't want and that he doesn't like. And this is a man, as we all know, who cares very much about not being associated with being a loser. And so he's got to be able to not just say face, but be able to say, I got I achieved the objectives that I wanted to achieve. He didn't actually lay out those objectives very clearly. At the beginning of the war.

The White House since then has laid out more and more. But one of them right now is to get that straight open, and that's not happening.

RAJU: I mean, this is a red line. He's basically drawing a red line over blowing up the power plants, as he says, obliterating them. Because if Iran doesn't listen, he essentially has to carry through, otherwise he'll look like he's just talking the talk here.

MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think there is a psychological element to all of this. And I think the -- as time goes on, were seeing that the presidents original bet and calculation was this -- was that Iran would fold faster or at all. And so, I think every evolution we've seen in the last couple of weeks since then, is the administration needing to recalibrate a little bit when Iran doesn't behave the way they were betting that Iran would behave.

The challenge for the president is that this foreign policy action has immediate domestic repercussions in a year when obviously control of the House and Senate are on the line.

[08:05:14]

And if Republicans lose power of -- lose control of either chamber, will have massive implications for his ability to prosecute his policies for the rest of his term. And so, gas prices -- but it's not just gas prices, but if you look at gas prices.

RAJU: Yeah, just look at as you mentioned it, here's the national gas prices just from this morning. Current, $3.94. Last month, $2.93 -- a dollar in a month. And that's only going up.

TALEV: I take $3.94 actually.

RAJU: Yeah, exactly, because living in Washington, D.C.

TALEV: It was $4.50 yesterday when -- when I went to the pump.

And so, his, it's really outsized impacts his own base because like, look, if you're making $50,000 a year, $4 gas, you feel it every time you fill up the tank. So he's -- he's juggling a lot of contrasting instincts and policies here. It's every step he takes toward deeper engagement, costs him more politically at home.

RAJU: And speaking of politics, because the numbers are not good for him, even within his own party. Kind of soft support, if that if you want to call it that.

And just before you jump in, Aaron, this is the Reuters/Ipsos poll. Do they support sending U.S. ground troops in Iran? The question was asked of among independents. No, 58 percent say no. That's a pretty significant number there.

And then about the Republican support is not locked and loaded here, Aaron. Look at the Yahoo/YouGov poll about strong support of Trump's handling of Iran. This is strong support, just 49 percent of Republicans. And that's 47 percent of Trump 2024 voters, typically on any number of issues, that number is much higher for Trump.

AARON BLAKE, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Yeah, I think there's been this narrative that MAGA is very much on board with what the presidents doing right now. You know, there was this talk ahead of the war and after it got launched about like, well, Trump has been talking about being anti-war for so long. Will some of these people who really bought into that turn against this war once it starts?

And we didn't necessarily see that happen, but what we have seen is a small but significant portion of the Republican Party and of people who voted for Donald Trump around one in five, or one in four, depending on what poll you look at, actually oppose what's happening right now. Some of them pretty strongly.

And then a lot of the rest about half in total, are either against the war or they don't support it very strongly. And so that creates a situation where the question is really, how on board are people with this? If things go wrong, if we see more casualties, if this lingers, if the gas prices keep going up, are those people going to stay on board? And maybe it will take a while for them to get to that point, but it's very much an open question how long those people will be on board.

RAJU: And the question too is how Trump decides some of the next steps here, namely, the significant amount of money that they're talking about asking Congress to approve, upwards of $200 billion, which is obviously a huge, huge amount of money. It would have a difficult time passing Congress. And also, was he going to do about ground troops. And whether or not if he does actually move ahead with ground troops U.S. ground troops, will he actually come to Congress and try to get some sort of formal declaration about this?

Those are questions that I put to Republicans on the Hill. One, will they support this $200 billion. And two, what happens if ground troops come in. And the biggest cracks are emerging on the far-right flank of the House GOP.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. LAUREN BOEBERT (R-CO): I will not vote for a war supplemental. No, I am a no. I have already told leadership, I am a no on any war supplementals.

I am so tired of spending money elsewhere. I am tired of the industrial war complex getting all of our hard-earned tax dollars. I have folks in Colorado who can't afford to live. We need America first policies right now and that -- I'm not doing that first.

REP. ERIC BURLISON (R-MO): First, I want to see them pass an audit.

RAJU: So, if they don't do that, could you support something like that?

BURLISON: Probably not. No.

REP. WARREN DAVIDSON (R-OH): And I think they need to come to Congress for all wars of choice. That's why I voted the way I did.

RAJU: And if they don't.

DAVIDSON: Then you have a constitutional crisis.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: So, he's saying a constitutional crisis, Warren Davidson, if they do not come to congress first on ground troops. Do -- what is the president planning to do, both on the money and on ground troops?

MASON: All right. So quick, Constitution 101. One thing that we all know is that the Congress controls the purse. So, the president may have found a way to circumvent Congress when starting this conflict, which some Republicans are now calling a war. But he has called a war. He's not going to be able to get around Congress when he wants the money.

And so that's -- that's what they're -- that's the challenge that they have right now is going to Congress and asking for $200 billion, maybe more at some point to a body of legislators who didn't get to say yay or nay on this war, he's going to do it. And he addressed that a little bit without confirming the number this last week, saying, we need the money and the Pentagon -- and the Pentagon said the same thing.

This is a war that's costing right now more than $1 billion a day. And this is a party that cares about cutting debt and deficits. There's a conflict.

RAJU: And, look, there has not actually not even been a public hearing yet in Congress with cabinet level officials testifying about the objectives of the plan for the war. And they're already talking about $200 billion, while Trump is saying this is already over, and we already completed the objective here.

TALEV: Yeah, we just woke up one morning and we were in a war, basically what happened? So there's two kind of groups that the administration did not spend a lot of time courting on the front end. And one is members of Congress, including inside their own party. Other than a quick notification like, hey, were about to go and allies.

And so, what you've seen with the presidents calls on allies both in Europe and in Asia to join with engaging to keep the Straits of Hormuz open, seem to be really surprised when everyone's like, what? You know, so yeah, now trying to sort of play catch up on both fronts, but it's actually quite difficult when, you know, people bring people in on your plans on the front end.

RAJU: Yeah. They're learning that the hard way.

All right. Coming up, I speak with Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner. What he says about the new line of attack he's facing from a fellow Democrat in that critical race.

But first this morning, some airport lines are already over 2-1/2 hours long. And all that putting pressure on senators to reopen a key federal agency. I have new details on the talks ahead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That line was insane.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was bad.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:16:01]

RAJU: Is there an end in sight to the bitter standoff over the Department of Homeland Security? Well, for the first time in the 37- day shutdown of DHS, there are fast moving talks in serious offers being traded between Senate Democrats and the White House. Perhaps it's no coincidence, because Americans are absolutely fed up, dealing with nightmare travel conditions and airports nationwide.

And just this morning, the wait time at Atlanta's Hartsfield Jackson international airport was more than 2.5 hours long.

Now, as unpaid TSA workers call in sick, Trump issuing a new threat to Democrats, saying he deploy ICE agents to airports, posting, quote, "I look forward to moving ICE in on Monday."

My panel is back.

Now, I was talking to a source this morning. Talks are happening. We expect -- we're expecting Democrats to propose some sort of counteroffer as soon as today, and then we'll see if they can actually get to a deal. The hope is to try to get a deal, get this done before next week because it's recess next week. And with that, lots of deals on Capitol Hill. They're trying to get this done before recess, before easter.

So, these trade negotiations are happening. They seem to be happening finally in good faith. Now Trump is threatening to send ICE in.

One, is he serious about that? And does that upend the talks in any way?

MASON: Well, you never really know with how serious he is, but --

RAJU: Because of what is ICE going to do? They don't have -- they're not trained to look into luggage and screening.

MASON: Right. Although it says that they would be doing extraordinary security like no one has seen before. But that is his standard phrase.

RAJU: Right.

MASON: But I don't think we should under club what a big threat that is. And it's also it would also be a massive expansion of ICE's remit if he's able to do that or if he does do that at a time when that's the rub with Democrats, is that ICE has been going way past its remit on immigration.

But it also shows, and I've been saying this a lot in the last week, how much pressure the president is feeling right now. He starts lashing out when he feels under pressure. Everything is not going perfectly with the war. Certainly, this is not going perfectly, but it's not going perfectly for Democrats either. They have felt that they had leverage, and that's one reason why the department is closed. But it's still closed. And you've got these long lines that's not politically great for them.

RAJU: Yeah, exactly. Because the Democrats chief demands there are several of them. But really the big sticking points are whether they require ICE agents to take off masks and also judicial warrants before engaging in a enforcement action on private property. They want that written into the legislation.

But I wonder, Margaret, do you think, you know, the longer we are removed from those terrible shootings in Minneapolis, does the public associate the fight over ice with waiting in airport lines for two hours?

TALEV: I mean, that has been Republicans bet up until now, right? Is that it's a law of diminishing returns for Democrats that this may have worked for Democrats for a few weeks, but over time, people will just get mad at Democrats if they have waits in line.

I think the reality is fliers are going to get mad at everyone in government because this is insane and Congress is not supposed to stand in the way of convenient airport security, which people use for business and transit and all of that.

But there are some real questions in addition to whether it's actually like appropriate for ice to be doing this. The first thing I thought was, well, everyone at an airport has documentation like, so what is the role of ice here? Right? And also, are ice going to wear masks and no name tags at the TSA lines? Or are they going to be like unmasked and wearing like a badge that says Taylor or whatever their last name is, right?

So, but right now, there are millions and tens of millions of Americans who are not just have negative impressions of ICE, but who are scared of being in proximity to ICE agents. And when you take ICE agents off of immigration programs and put them into managing security lines, I think that's again, a big like the big thing to ask Americans just to absorb. [08:20:01]

RAJU: Yeah.

TALEV: So, I don't really know what's going to happen. It will certainly take people out of position from their traditional roles and move them into a different role.

RAJU: I want you to listen to the Democratic divide, because there is a Democratic divide about how far to go. Generally, on the same page about wanting changes to ICE. But one Democrat in particular stands out, Senator John Fetterman.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN FETTERMAN (D-PA): We used to be all Democrats, never shut our government down. I travel every week. I ask, you know, agents like, hey, what's it like?

They make around $50,000. You know, like pay -- pay these people, you know, so like, definitely their paycheck situation likely. No, that's Democrats. Those are -- that's our people. Those are the kind of people we should fight for and not, not stop paying them.

SEN. JACKY ROSEN (D-NV): The red line for me is this as long as we live in a democratic United States of America, I say our as a democracy, not Democrat and Republican, we will not have a roving band of thugs that are unaccountable, that act like they are above the law, that stop people in the streets and throw them to the ground that everyone asked for their papers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: So, Aaron, that Senator Jacky Rosen, she was one of the one Democrats who voted to end the government shutdown. But you're hearing the hard line she's taking there, much different than John Fetterman.

BLAKE: You know, it's been really interesting. If you talk to Mitch McConnell a decade ago, his standard line was shutdowns never work. You never get anything out of them. Democrats got at least some political momentum out of the full government shutdown that we saw last year. They didn't get the Obamacare subsidies extension. And it's looking like with this DHS shutdown, they could at least get some kind of concessions. At least were seeing the White House and Republicans talk about those concessions. So, we might be seeing a little bit of a shift in the nature of shutdown politics and whether they actually can be seen to achieve certain things.

RAJU: Yeah. You know, even though Americans are the ones who get hurt out of all this, I mean, maybe they get some sort of policy win or perhaps some vote on something or maybe a political win.

But we see those lines there. People are not thinking about the victory in the one party may achieve here. So, we'll see possible deal. We'll see if a deal can be reached this week. A lot of Americans hoping Congress can act. All right. Next, it's one of the most consequential primary fights in

the country. The Democratic battle to take on Susan Collins in Maine. The battle is getting nastier. What Graham Platner said to me about the race and about impeaching Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PLATNER: I do think that if we can get to a place where we can impeach, then we absolutely should. I mean, the president has broken the law.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:27:04]

RAJU: It was only a matter of time before Graham Platner's history of controversial social media posts became fodder of attack ads in that critical Maine Senate race. Since his post first surfaced last fall, the novice Democratic candidate said it was a different time in his life when he returned from serving in combat, and polls had shown him leading in the fight to take on Republican Susan Collins.

But this week, his opponent in the primary, Governor Janet Mills, spotlighted one of his more inflammatory posts from 2013, where he minimized sexual assault.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AD NARRATOR: Platner wrote, to avoid rape, women should, quote.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Act like an adult for (EXPLETIVE DELETED) sake.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Graham Platner.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Seriously.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We blame the victim.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's a horrible thing to say.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Now. I caught up with Platner this week as he was meeting with senators on Capitol Hill, and I asked him about the ramifications of this ad.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PLATNER: The people of Maine are very sick and tired of politics as usual, a politics that is not focused on policy, that is not focused on, frankly, the material reality that everybody's living in. And I think it is -- I mean, it's disappointing that this is where we wind up. RAJU: I wonder, though, if you think how damaging this might be

politically, because, you know, I read those posts and, you know, they're -- they're bad. Those posts are terrible.

PLATNER: Yeah. But people, we talked about this in October. I have -- I have really, I think done a great and not, not done a great job, but I've gone all over the state of Maine and allowed people to ask me about it all directly for months now. And it is, I think, for a lot of folks in the state to see this get kind of dragged back up months and months after we'd already talked about it.

I will just say, the feedback we have received statewide is that people find all of this to be everything they hate about politics. And I think that that's politically in the state of Maine, that is more damaging than the fact that people can understand that I, as a person, have transformed over time and changed, which actually, I think a lot of folks can identify with.

RAJU: So, you regret those past posts?

PLATNER: Oh, of course. I mean, I've said, I don't know how many. Yes, deeply. But in them, you know, they're, -- they're -- they were a, I was at a time in my life where I was really struggling after I'd come back from -- from my combat deployments, I was very isolated, very alone, very disillusioned, very angry.

And I think like a lot of people, I went on the Internet to find some form of community or serotonin boost, getting in fights on the internet was, you know, it's a -- it was something that I did then and then. After many years of kind of being back in society, reconnecting with my community, reconnecting with, frankly, like the great state of Maine that has allowed me to really become the person I am today, which I'm very proud of.

But I don't get to be who I am today --

RAJU: Yeah.

PLATNER: -- without the struggles that I had to go through.

[08:30:00]

RAJU: I mean, you said you've explained this. But now you're facing a paid media campaign and this is probably going to happen. I'm sure you're going to see each one of these posts become its own attack ad. Can you sustain that politically?

PLATNER: Yes, of course. I mean, look, in in the state of Maine, we -- we go everywhere and we talk to everybody.

Maine's a small state. It's a two-degree of separation state. Literally everyone knows everyone. And I am lucky enough to be able to go all over the state and connect with people directly.

And I -- it is -- the harder that the establishment comes after me, the more the people of Maine, I am fully convinced, are going to recognize that I am not part of it.

And right now, not being part of the establishment is what we're all looking for, because it's the establishment that's brought us to this position that we're in.

RAJU: Let's talk about the war. You mentioned up here, There's probably going to be a vote sometime soon to -- whether to continue to fund this --

PLATNER: Yes.

RAJU: -- operation. If you were a senator up here, would you vote to defund -- to defund this Iran war?

PLATNER: Yes. Of course. Look, I fought in Iraq. I did two deployments to Fallujah and Ramadi -- in the infantry. I've been very close to the realities of wars, and that was a war that never should have happened.

And that we find ourselves here with another war that should not be happening, that is resulting in destruction and horror, all frankly, on the taxpayers dime. That is money that should be spent here in the United States, on schools, on hospitals, on infrastructure.

RAJU: Won't that leave troops in harm's way if you vote to defund this operation?

PLATNER: No, because the troops should just not be in harm's way. End the war, bring people home, stop bombing.

This is -- we started this thing. We can end it. It is, you know, I'm -- and I'm sorry, man. I fought in Iraq in 2005 and 2006, several years after I was told we won that war. And at that time, people were still pulling the whole, oh, well, how could we pull out? Wouldn't that be -- look, I was -- I was in the combat infantry.

I could tell you that my life would be better if I had not had to fight in Ramadi in 2006. I do not think that we should fund a war that is illegal and not remotely in the interests of the American people.

It's only in the interests of a political class that's trying to protect their hide. Whether it's Donald Trump trying to get us all to not pay attention to him being in the Epstein files, or --

RAJU: You think that's why he launched this war?

PLATNER: I think it's a mix of that. And Benjamin Netanyahu finally found a president that was sucker enough to launch the war that he's been pushing for for 30 years. But yes, that's -- those are the reasons why.

RAJU: And speaking of Israel, do you think that the U.S. should stop aiding Israel, should pull back on aid to Israel?

PLATNER: Yes. I mean, I fundamentally believe that a nation that is committing a genocide should not be a place that we are putting money. We should be leveraging the fact that we have a lot of power in this relationship due to our funding. We should be leveraging that to, frankly, get the Israeli government to stop behaving in such an utterly atrocious fashion.

So, yes -- no, I do think that. Look, we need to be spending money here at home.

RAJU: So you're also here during the Department of Homeland Security shut down. We're seeing these lines, airport lines all across the country. You were advocating the hardline strategy to block funding for DHF.

PLATNER: Yes.

RAJU: Are you rethinking that strategy in any way, given what we're seeing in the airports nationwide?

PLATNER: No, the people need to rethink it, or the Republicans, trying to give money to an agency that's been murdering American citizens and kidnaping people in the streets and detaining them illegally and unconstitutionally?

But they're the ones who have brought this upon us, not funding an agency that breaks the law and kills American citizens, frankly, seems like the rather normal thing to do.

RAJU: You're up here talking to senators. A lot of them don't think that you're the best candidate. Actually, most of them probably don't think you're the best candidate, including the Democratic leaders think that Janet Mills will be -- is battle tested and she could win. What do you say to them?

PLATNER: They should read the polls, and they should come to Maine and talk to people, because clearly they've done neither, so.

RAJU: Are you going to meet with Chuck Schumer when you're here?

PLATNER: No.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RAJU: My panel is back. Chuck Schumer, of course, endorsing Janet Mills, the governor here.

[08:34:47]

RAJU: Aaron, what do you make of his claim -- that these posts, these past social media posts are baked-in of sorts among the electorate? It's not going to make a difference, even if there's this paid media campaign, and it will backfire against the governor. Is he right?

BLAKE: You know, I'm sure it's news to some people in Maine at this point when Janet Mills comes out with that ad that has those old Reddit posts.

But I think Platner benefited in certain ways by having a lot of this stuff come out during the off year in late 2025, when people were kind of half paying attention, half not paying attention.

It really got a thorough airing, a lot of this stuff. And now he can come out and say, you know, as we kind of ramp things up towards the actual primary, that this is old news, that he's dealt with it, that he's talked to people in Maine about it.

And he's right. The polling that we have seen and, you know, it's difficult to poll a primary, we should caveat that especially in Maine. The polling that we have seen suggests that at least the Democratic primary voters in Maine don't seem to care a whole lot about this. They don't view it as disqualifying because pretty much every poll shows him continuing to lead Governor Janet Mills in that primary.

RAJU: And the Mills campaign had a conference call after that ad came out. And then one of her supporters said, so many people have reached out to me in the last day to let me know that they didn't know about these comments, and now they do. So their calculation is that people have not heard these yet.

MARGARET TALEV, AXIOS SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR: Ok, but you know who endorsed Platner this week is Senator Elizabeth Warren, who, you know.

RAJU: As you say that, let's listen to what Elizabeth Warren said about those posts.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA): He's apologized. He's given an opportunity to talk to the people of Maine. And that's what he's doing. They want to see somebody who's going to fight on their behalf.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TALEV: That is a permission structure for women to vote for him. Most important thing I heard him say in that interview is that not being part of the establishment is what people are looking for. That's his big bet, both in the primary and in the general election.

RAJU: And Jeffries (ph) says he wants a fighter. I mean, he talked about Iran -- defunding Iran, getting rid of aid from Israel, going a lot further than a lot of Democrats, including his primary foe.

JEFF MASON, BLOOMBERG WHITE HOUSE AND WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: The question is, is that what Maine wants over Susan Collins? Susan Collins is the giant that the Democrats are trying to slay. Does a progressive or a more moderate candidate make that happen?

RAJU: Yes. All right. We'll see.

It's a huge, huge race and not, you know, the primary's coming up. We are in primary season.

Speaking of which, there's been midterm madness this march and Chicago's very own David Axelrod is standing by to break down this week's primary results and what it all means for the Democratic Party. [08:37:18]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RAJU: Illinois had its fair share of surprises when voters went to the polls on Tuesday, including in the Democratic primary to fill the seat of the retiring Senator Dick Durbin. Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi had been leading in the polls and had spent far more money. But a late surge by the Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton helped push her to a decisive victory. She was buoyed by the support of Governor JB Pritzker and messaging like this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JULIANA STRATTON (D-IL), SENATE CANDIDATE: I'm Juliana Stratton and this is what I'll do with Trump's playbook, because I know you don't stop a dictator by negotiating. You abolish ICE and end their violent raids.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (EXPLETIVE DELETED) Trump. Vote Juliana.

STRATTON: They said it, not me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: All right. Here to talk about what this means and what it means for the Democratic Party is none other than a fellow Chicagoan, and also, of course, CNN's chief political analyst, David Axelrod.

Axe, great to see you this morning. Thanks for being here.

DAVID AXELROD, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Good to see you. Thanks.

RAJU: And when you look at the map of Illinois, the lieutenant governor really performed well in Chicago, but not as well as in the suburbs. Now, some of that has to do with Krishnamurthy's base of supporters, congressional district and the like.

But I'm wondering what this tells you about the kind of messaging and campaigning that plays well and doesn't play well in Democratic primaries.

AXELROD: Yes. Look, I think it's a little more complicated than that, Manu. She also -- she did surprisingly well in downstate Illinois and actually carried downstate Illinois, which was a surprise to everyone because she wasn't even advertising down there, though I think her super PAC may have.

Look, he was the front runner because he had a six-month head start on television. He raised a lot of money and he had a head start on TV.

And she had a very simple playbook. She got on the air and she said the three things that you said there. She said she'll hold Trump -- Trump accountable. She'll abolish ICE. She also campaigned on a $25 an hour minimum wage. And she established herself as the fighter, as the person who will stand up to Trump. And, you know, there's a constituency for that in the Democratic Party.

She also did better in the city than -- she won 2 to 1 in the city, partly because there were four congressional races for open seats that brought out a big turnout in the city and she dominated there. And that's a third of the vote.

So you put that all together, tie in the suburbs, which is basically what they fought to, and a victory downstate and a big victory in Chicago and she won.

But she was 20 points behind in January, Manu. And she was ten points behind when she got, you know, in a couple of weeks before the election.

This anti-Trump sentiment is -- is a -- is a winning thing, especially in a, in a primary where you had other candidates.

[08:44:50]

AXELROD: So she didn't need to win a majority, but there were a solid 40 percent that really responded to that message.

RAJU: Yes. I want to ask you about the outside money that was spent in this primary. We've seen this in some of the other races around the country as well, including by an AIPAC-aligned super PAC, which almost spent nearly $22 million in the state, but they only had two of their candidates win, really were going two for two.

I'm wondering is this message about this -- is this a message that voters are sick of third-party special interest groups? Or is this more AIPAC specific?

What do you think? Is there a backlash within the Democratic Party over this kind of spending?

AXELROD: Yes. Well, we should point out that it wasn't just AIPAC, but crypto spent a lot of money in the state as well. There were -- there were $50 million in outside money spent in this election.

Yes, AIPAC spent $21 million, $22 million, not just from one PAC, but from five that they created. I'm looking at the list here.

If you wondered what a Chicago Women and the Affordable Now -- Chicago now PACs were, that was AIPAC. They created them because they didn't want to run under their own banner. And in some of these districts, they ended up spending millions of dollars, against the frontrunners in those races, only to have the front runners win anyway.

So they spent a lot of money to antagonize the people who will now be in office. In other districts, they won. Very mixed results.

But the issue of outside money, I think, is going to continue to grow here because you have huge amounts of money being thrown around. Maybe not to great success, but nonetheless, it's out there.

In the Senate race, the crypto folks spent $10 million to beat Juliana Stratton. Now the governor of the state had his own PAC. He's quite popular.

JB Pritzker, her association with him had a lot to do with her victory. And he spent 10, I think his PAC spent $15 million.

RAJU: Yes. So that that was some of the outside money as well.

RAJU: Let me ask you about Pritzker because, you know, he was not on the ballot, of course, but at least not in the Senate race. But it was a big win for him.

He said at the Gridiron last night. He said, quote, "As far as my own plans for 2028, here's what I'll say right now. I'm 100 percent focused on the people of Illinois."

Quote, "That's not just me talking. That's also a 2006 quote from Barack Obama."

That what Pritzker said last night. What do you -- I mean, he's 100 percent running in 2028, don't you think?

AXELROD: Yes, I think so. And you're running some old photographs of him there. Now, if you saw him now he's he -- the sure sign of a candidate who's running for president is the person who's lost a lot of weight. He actually joked about it last night at the Gridiron dinner.

Look, I think he's clearly focused on that. And he showed a lot of political chops in this election. He not only elected the lieutenant governor, really created her politically and then elected her. He also had another statewide race in which he took someone who was relatively unknown and got her elected to another statewide office.

And he's shown a lot of political -- a lot of political chops and he has the resources obviously to run.

I think he's clearly focused on that. And I'd be shocked if we didn't see him in that race.

RAJU: Yes, no question about it.

All right. David Axelrod, fellow Chicagoan, go Cubs. Thanks for coming on. Sharing your expertise --

AXELROD: Go Cubs. Ok.

Good to see you, Manu.

RAJU: Likewise.

All right. President Trump has sent mixed signals about whether Iran can play in this summer's World Cup in the U.S. So will they or wont they. My new reporting on the massive impact it could have on two major American cities. That's next.

[08:48:34]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RAJU: In just 81 days, the world's biggest sporting event will take place in the U.S., Mexico and in Canada -- the World Cup. With war now raging in the Middle East, what will happen to the Iranian national team, which is scheduled to play two matches in L.A. and one in Seattle?

Now, Iranian officials want to boycott the games in the United States and play elsewhere, but FIFA has yet to agree. And with so much money at stake and amid extensive preparations, officials here in the U.S. are getting, well, a bit antsy.

Rick Larsen, a Democrat who co-chairs the Congressional Soccer Caucus, also represents a district in Washington State. He says if Iran pulls out and another game isn't played there, it would be disastrous for his state's economy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. RICK LARSEN (D-WA), CO-CHAIR, CONGRESSIONAL SOCCER CAUCUS: Well, FIFA has the bylaws and the responsibility to make decisions about any team for any reason is unable either to play in the games they've earned the right to play in or to play somewhere else. That's all in FIFA's hands.

If we lose a game, I want a make-up game. Not later, I want a World Cup game to replace the one that Seattle will lose.

RAJU: Because there's a lot of people who come to that and spend a lot of money to go to that game.

LARSEN: There right now, King County, where Seattle is located, is estimating for all games to be played, generate nearly $1 billion of extra additional revenue. And that's just in King County.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: President Trump, who just a few months ago was awarded the first ever so-called FIFA peace prize, has only added to the uncertainty.

[08:54:46]

RAJU: Writing that Iran is, quote, "Welcome to the World Cup," but adding, quote, "I really don't believe it is appropriate that they be there for their own life and safety."

Now, in recent weeks, the Iranian women's soccer team has also been the focus of controversy, with several players refusing to sing the Iranian national anthem during their first game at the Asian Cup in Australia.

Fearing for their safety back home, some had sought asylum to stay in Australia. But after the team was eliminated from the tournament, the players returned back to Iran this past week, though two stayed behind to train in the Land Down Under. That's it for INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY. You can follow me on X @mkraju, follow the show @INSIDEPOLITICS. You can also find me on TikTok and on Instagram.

And remember, in the United States, you can now stream INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY live or catch up later on the CNN app.

Up next, "STATE OF THE UNION WITH JAKE TAPPER AND DANA BASH". Dana's guests include House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, White House border czar Tom Homan and Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Michael Leiter.

Thanks again for sharing your Sunday morning with us. We'll see you next time.

[08:55:50]

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