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Laura Coates Live
Democrats In Bitter Feud Over Strategy To Take On Trump. Trump Airs Grievances In Political Speech At DOJ. DOJ Eyes Terrorism Charges For Columbia Protesters. SpaceX Mission Is Underway To Replace Astronauts Butch And Suni. Aired 11p-12a ET
Aired March 14, 2025 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[23:00:00]
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR AND SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: You can catch an all-new episode tomorrow at 9 p.m. on CNN.
Thank you very much for watching "NewsNight." We'll see you tomorrow morning 10 a.m. with our conversation show "Table for Five" and you can catch me any time on your favorite social media platforms X, Instagram and TikTok.
"Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
LAURA COATES, CNN HOST AND SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, tonight, F- bombs fly as Democrats go from mad to now apoplectic. The party melting down and divided over the move to help Republicans keep the government open. Was the wrong call or the right one? Plus, President Trump delivers a campaign speech. The thing is it was in the halls of the Justice Department, in a display that historians say crossed the line, even for him. And SpaceX blasts off to the ISS to bring NASA astronauts back to Earth. Neil deGrasse Tyson is my guest tonight on "Laura Coates Live."
All right, so on this Friday night, Democrats are locked in a grudge match that could rival a pay per view fight card. You know that shutdown that was slated to hit in, what, about an hour? It's not happening. But here's why. Ten Democrats crossed party lines to join Republicans in pushing through the GOP plan to fund the government.
It's deepening a fissure that has been growing ever since the day after the election. On one side, you've got Democrat who wanted to stick it to President Trump and also to Elon Musk. They believe that shutting down the government was the way to do it. And now, they're furious.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): I think there is a deep sense of outrage and betrayal. And this is not just about progressive Democrats, this is across the board, the entire party. What voting for the C.R. does is that it codifies the chaos and the reckless cuts that Elon Musk has been pursuing.
(END VIDEO CLIP) COATES: And then on the other side, well, there's this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN FETTERMAN (D-PA): I'll be the only Democrat that's going to tell America the truth about shutting the government down, and that would be a (bleep) disaster. What leverage do we have? Democrats keep showing up at every night fight with a casserole, you know. And they have these cheesy paddles. And then, you know, pick your fighter cheese ball stuff.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: A night fight with a casserole. Senator Fetterman says a shutdown would have given Trump and Musk carte blanche to pick apart the government even more.
Now you might think the Democrats have the biggest bone to pick with Fetterman because, you know, the cheese and the casserole stuff. Nope. It's actually Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. CNN's Van Jones says he has never seen more anger directed at a Democrat ever.
And when looking at the House of Representatives, maybe it's not hard to see why. Every House Democrats except one voted against the GOP funding plan. They say they stuck their necks out only to have Schumer pull the rug out from under them. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries got asked today if he still supports him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN (voice-over): Is it time for new leadership in the Senate?
REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): Next question.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: Hmmm. Less than 10 minutes later, same question.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN (voice-over): Have you lost confidence in him? The fact that you guys see this so differently.
JEFFRIES: Next question.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: The next question, double whammy. But Schumer is defending his decision. And he is suggesting the Democrats upset with him -- I'm missing the forest for the trees.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCHUMER: Within two, three weeks, we would have had the whole country and all -- so many of the Democrats complaining. Why were they cutting this? Why were they cutting that? I think it was an act of strength, of courage. And I knew that most people wouldn't agree with me. But I'm confident I did the right thing, and I think history will vindicate that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: You're not supposed to call your own actions an action of courage, but it's fine. It was already going to be tough to fend off anger from a growing chunk of the Democratic Party that thinks not enough is being done to take on Trump.
Democratic Senator Michael Bennet even erupted during a private meeting, accusing leadership of having -- quote -- "no strategy, no plan, and no message."
And this certainly does not make Schumer's position any easier.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I have great respect, by the way, for what Schumer did today. He went out, and he said that they have to vote with the Republicans because it's the right thing to do. I couldn't believe what I heard. But, you know, I think he's going to get some credit for it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: Hmmm. With me now, Bill de Blasio, former mayor of New York City, and Tom Malinowski, former New Jersey Democratic congressman. Glad to have you both here. Tom, let me begin with you because the party, they had weeks to prepare for this moment and to have a cohesive message. What happened?
TOM MALINOWSKI, FORMER NEW JERSEY REPRESENTATIVE: Well, before we talk about my party, let's just remind everyone the reason why the country is in this mess.
[23:04:55]
It is that Republicans in Congress have completely abdicated their constitutional responsibilities and -- and really surrendered their dignity, surrendering the power to set tariffs to the president, surrendering the power to decide what the government spends or doesn't spend to the president. And that put the Democrats, who are in a minority, in this incredibly difficult position.
With that, I do think that Chuck Schumer made a very significant mistake today. He should have, a month ago, said very, very clearly that if the Republicans try to pass a funding bill that doesn't create guardrails, that allows this lawlessness to continue, a funding bill that Donald Trump is just going to ignore, the Democrats are just not going to help. So, don't bother to do it. Don't waste our time with that.
Instead, he exuded fear of a shutdown, and the Republicans smelled that fear all over Washington, D.C. And, obviously, they were not going to give an inch when they could sense that Schumer was going to back down.
COATES: Mayor, on that point --
MALINOWSKI: I think that was a significant mistake. I would have done something different.
COATES: Well, mayor, on that point, one, do you agree that this was a significant mistake? And if so, what do you think they could have done knowing the things that Schumer suggested would be the consequences of a government shutting down?
BILL DE BLASIO, FORMER NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: You know, Laura, I think there's sort of two parts to this. The first, I agree with Senator Bennet, that quote earlier. There just was no plan, there was no message, and this is something Democrats have to fix and have to fix soon. So, the lead up, I think, was off.
The decision ultimately under these conditions, I have to say, I think Senator Schumer is right on the point that had Democrats not done this, had there been a shutdown, the danger that would have created, for example, our court system ceasing to function as one of the only checks and balances on Trump, the fact a lot of people would have lost their jobs, a lot of Americans wouldn't have gotten the services they need. Those are real considerations.
I see this as a very really, really horrible choice and it's kind of a live to fight another day. No one should feel good about it. But now the big question, Laura, are we going to get a plan now? Are we going to train our energy and our fire on Elon Musk, who Americans are more and more disappointed with and distrustful of? Are we going to set the next plan right instead of seeming like we're always falling back? That to me is the relevant question right now.
COATES: Well, Tom, if that's a relevant question, many voters would say, why are you just now asking it, Democrats?
MALINOWSKI: Yeah. Look, just a little fact-check there. Courts don't shut down and stop work when there's an interruption in funding. But, look, I think one of the mistakes that Senator Schumer made here is that he believed that Democrats were going into this showdown, which is what it would have been, from a position of weakness.
And, okay, yes, we're in the minority in the Senate and the House, but in one very important respect, Democrats are in a position of strength, and that is that most Americans do not like what they are seeing right now. They do not like tariffs that are about to tank the economy. They do not like watching this weirdo billionaire dancing up and down on a stage with a chainsaw mocking the veterans in VA centers who he is firing. They do not like the chaos that's in what they voted for.
And I think had it come to the showdown that Schumer backed away from, that we would have been able to focus the attention of the American people on that with Democrats taking the popular position. It would have been an argument about stopping Musk, about stopping him from dismantling institutions that Americans have spent generations building. I think --
COATES: Now, wait. Is this -- hold on -- is this -- is this mistake that you're calling significant enough to get him primaried?
MALINOWSKI: Well, that's -- I'm not -- I'm not New York, so that's above my pay grade.
COATES: I'll ask the former mayor.
MALINOWSKI: But, look, I do think --
COATES: Mayor of New York, what do you think?
MALINOWSKI: Yeah.
DE BLASIO: I think it's a while until he has an election, if my memory serves. And I think the bigger point here -- look, I respect what Tom is saying, but I don't think we should have the illusion that if we were feeling all pure and good about ourselves that, you know, we stood firm. And then there was a shutdown, something historically Democrats have tried to avoid, by the way.
The shoe has usually been on the other foot, whereas Republicans tried to disrupt Democrats and cause Democratic administrations to have a shutdown.
And generally speaking, our message to the American people is we actually believe that the jobs that federal workers do are important and the services they provide and the everyday working people depend on them, that that really matters.
So, I just want to respectfully say I don't think we'd be feeling great right now. The government was shutting down. Donald Trump with his bully pulpit was saying the Democrats did it. And the momentum was shifting away from us. Right now, what's happening is Donald Trump owns the whole government. Every single mistake, the tariffs, everything going wrong with the economy coming up, with the stock market, it's all on Donald Trump.
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There's a chance for us to fight back now. I say Democrats need to get in the room and get on one message, which is a message about support for working people, stick to economic issues, health care issues, kitchen table issues, and start fighting back now. But we're in the middle of shutdown, I actually think our message would be obscured.
COATES: Well, Tom, who's the leader to fight for that?
MALINOWSKI: Well, I -- look, I don't think Democrats can just fight with a message. Two years ago, four years ago, eight years ago, if we had a Republican president doing things we didn't like, our strategy would be to explain to the American people why that's bad, wait two years, win another election.
COATES: Hmmm. MALINOWSKI: Those employees that -- that Mayor de Blasio wants to defend, he doesn't want their jobs to be taken away, they're going to be fired in two weeks because of what just happened, because we just surrendered the power of the purse from the United States Congress and gave it to the president of the United States.
We don't have two years to wait to save these institutions, to save these workers, to save Social Security and Medicaid and Medicare and veteran services. These things are going away now if this doesn't change.
And so, the strategy can't just be a message. It has to be about using the powers that Democrats have in the states and, yes, in the United States Congress to try to stop this.
Now, there will be more opportunities. There's going to be a similar debate about raising the debt ceiling in which Democrats are going to have a little bit of power.
There's going to be -- there -- there's going to be a debate, I hope, in the United States Senate about these tariffs because we still have Democrats in the Senate, the ability to force a vote on trying to take down these tariffs that are tanking the economy.
The Democrats I know in New Jersey don't give a damn about Democrats winning an argument in two years. I mean, they care about it, but they also want to see leaders who do more than just complain today. They want leaders who are going to act.
COATES: Bill de Blasio, Tom Malinowski, thank you both.
Well, one leader did act today, it was the president of the United States, in a kind of campaign rally, and I'm using the word "kind of" generously. It was a speech at the DOJ headquarters today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We must be honest about the lies and abuses that have occurred within these walls. They weaponized the vast powers of our intelligence and law enforcement agencies to try and thwart the will of the American people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: In what was billed, by the way, as a law and order speech, the president went off on his perceived enemies and how they weaponized the DOJ against him and his family, only to detail his own plan to then punish supposed political opponents, including the news media.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We will expel the rogue actors and corrupt forces from our government. We will expose and very much expose their egregious crimes and severe misconduct. And I believe that CNN and MSDNC, who literally write 97.6% bad about me, are political arms of the Democrat Party. And in my opinion, they're really corrupt, and they're illegal. What they do is illegal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: Well, joining me now is CNN senior political commentator Scott Jennings as well as justice and FBI reporter for "The New York Times," Devlin Barrett.
Let me begin with you, Devlin. We have seen a president speak to DOJ before. It's not unheard of to have a conversation between, say, the political appointee and the president of the United States. But not like that. Not in front of the DOJ and purportedly civilians and, you know, career officials who are being told that they were somehow criminals.
DEVLIN BARRETT, JUSTICE AND FBI REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Yeah. I mean, remember, the motivation for so much of what Trump wants to say about the Justice Department is that the Justice Department indicted him. And time and time again in that speech, he came back to his anger, his bitterness over what he says was his mistreatment, and his demand and desire to end what he calls weaponization of the department, and what he means by that is against him.
But what he also talked about over and over and over again in the speech is all the people and things that he thought either was criminal or should be criminal that was done to him.
You know, one of the strangest parts of the speech for me was where he talked about people who criticize judges or pressure judges should -- that's a crime, and they should be -- they should be punished for that crime. There are few people in the country who criticize judges more than Donald Trump --
COATES: I want to play that sound because I think it bears repeating for your point. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: A lot of the judges that I had, if you look at them, they take tremendous abuse. And it's truly interference, in my opinion. And it should be illegal, and it probably is illegal in some form.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: He has criticized many a judge, and so has Elon Musk and many others, frankly.
BARRETT: He has spent years attacking judges.
COATES: Uh-hmm.
BARRETT: Before he was indicted, he was attacking judges.
[23:15:00] It just speaks to his -- what he is constantly arguing, which is essentially that the things I dislike, distrust and that dislike and distrust me are wrong, sometimes criminal in his mind --
COATES: Uh-hmm.
BARRETT: -- and the things that I like and trust are good.
COATES: Scott, is this serving him to have a myopic view of the DOJ as relates to just him? I mean, there are a whole host of things DOJ does that really are nonpartisan, aren't viewed politically even through a very cynical lens. Why continue to talk about the Justice Department that he now, as part of the branch, in part controls, I mean, his political appointee does, and talk only really about himself?
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, FORMER SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO PRESIDNET TO PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Well, I don't agree that that's all he talked about today. I watched it and --
COATES: The bulk of it was.
JENNINGS: -- I've looked at the news coverage of it. He thanked the men and women of law enforcement in that room today. He said something like, you know, you don't often hear it, but I want to thank you for what you do. You have my respect.
He also talked -- he had people with him today who were victims of fentanyl. You know, there's a mother up there whose son had died of fentanyl. He had people up there who'd been victims of the MS-13 -- MS-13 gangs. So, he actually talked a lot about the law enforcement functions of DOJ. If you think you're --
COATES: But the balance of his conversation, you agree, was not about the things you listed.
JENNINGS: I didn't -- I didn't -- I didn't time it, but I'm just -- I hate to report to you both. If you think you're going to get Donald Trump to stop talking about how he believes he has been unfairly treated by the justice system, you're never going to do it. And -- and let me just say, the guy has got legitimate beefs. He's got some legitimate beefs. He's never going to stop talking about it because that's how he feels.
COATES: But does it politically serve him, is the question I'm asking.
JENNINGS: I mean, he has been talking about it for years. I -- and he got reelected president of the United States. You tell me.
COATES: Well, when I ask you, think about this, Devlin, I mean, obviously, there's supposed to be this wall between the DOJ and the president. In fact, one of the things he has spoken about and why he believes he's successful as the president-elect was because he talked about what he thought was, you know, the elbow rubbing and a weaponized DOJ because of too close contact.
But now, he called himself the chief law enforcement officer of our country. That is the description for the attorney general.
BARRETT: It is.
COATES: That really undermines the message he thinks he won because of.
BARRETT: Look, I -- I think Democrats and Republicans have wanted the Justice Department to be something other than the Justice Department was built to be. You know, for -- for many years, we heard Democrats talk about the Justice Department as being sort of, like, not just a shield, but a sword to protect the rule of law above all else.
I don't think the political system actually believes that. I think the political system has become to feel threatened by the Justice Department and is now, what you saw in this speech today, was largely President Trump saying, you will do what I tell you, and you will never do what you did in the last four years.
COATES: Did that give you pause?
JENNINGS: Well --
COATES: I mean, because that could be used otherwise.
JENNINGS: I mean, I believe that the president is the head of the executive branch and the Department of Justice falling under that. He does have oversight. I -- I don't really fundamentally agree with this idea that there's a wall between the president of the United States and any of the cabinets, including the Department of Justice. And I do think all the Cabinets, including the DOJ, should execute on the president's priorities.
The policy priorities I heard him lay out today had to do with fentanyl and illegal gangs, illegal immigration gangs. And so, that's what I heard him talk about.
COATES: But do you think that --
JENNINGS: None of the -- none of the personal stuff that he talked about today is new. This is all things that he has believed, talked about on the campaign trail, talked about since he got elected.
COATES: But he has gone after law firms, Scott. He has gone after -- he's -- he's talking about FBI agents, which I know Kash Patel has spoken about. You don't see an issue with a president, even though the org chart does say that DOJ is, you know, under the executive branch, taking control of the Justice Department or ordering prosecutions? You have said that you've had an issue with that for the past several years and the belief that Biden did that.
JENNINGS: Well, I -- look, I think when we elect a president, we elect him to run the executive branch. Certainly, Joe Biden did that. And at times, he was frustrated with Merrick Garland. We've had numerous credible reports of his frustrations with Garland for not doing what he wanted him to do. But fundamentally, the president has had a viewpoint that the FBI has been weaponized, politicized. He also had a viewpoint that it hasn't done enough on fentanyl and had a viewpoint that it hasn't done enough on cracking down on illegal immigration. That's government as a whole.
Those were the issues he talked about today, and those were the issues he talked about during the campaign, and the American people elected him to do it. So, I -- I heard him talking today about the priorities that he has had for months and months and months and months.
COATES: I need to have that selective hearing because I heard a lot more than just what you're talking about. And, yes, he did touch on those issues, but, Devlin, just the idea, the optics of it. I mean, I'm -- this is me as a former career prosecutor.
[23:19:57]
To have somebody essentially come into your home and serve you poisoned food would be something to behold. I mean, the morale would not be there. The idea of being told in the American public that what they're working on was simply on his sort of cases and persecution as opposed to the gamut of things that were actually done. How does that bode well?
BARRETT: I mean, look, in many ways, the Justice Department is almost a kind of temple of a -- of a particular world view that the law is the bedrock principle of everything that happens in a democracy.
For people who believe in that priesthood, in that -- in that almost religious fervor about the importance of the rule of law, today was a very dark day because they viewed it as essentially, you know, the temple has been overrun.
Now, at the end of the day --
JENNINGS: Overrun by who?
BARRETT: The political leadership of the country.
JENNINGS: I mean, we had an election.
BARRETT: We did. We absolutely did.
JENNINGS: The Justice Department does not exist in a plane of reality outside of the rest of the government. And I feel like --
BARRETT: And that's fair, but that is -- but that is something that a lot of people have believed for a long time.
JENNINGS: Why do they believe it?
BARRETT: Right? We are wrong --
JENNINGS: Because that's what they've been told that it should be, but it's not the way it works. And so, you can throw out politicians if they don't have the right priorities for the Justice Department. You can -- you can throw out political parties. I mean, heck, maybe the voters of the country last year threw out the Democrats in part because they didn't like the way justice was being administered by Biden and Harris.
But the idea that we should have executive branch agencies operating independently of the political oversight of the people who just got elected, I -- I just don't agree with that. I -- I do agree with you that that's what people have come to believe. I just think it's wrong.
COATES: We'll continue that thread for a second. Is there an -- an endpoint? Should a president of the United States be able to order the attorney general to pursue specific prosecution against his political enemies?
JENNINGS: I think he should be able to tell the attorney general to investigate situations that they think are problems. And if crimes have been committed, to follow the laws and procedures to the ends that exist. I mean, you know, you have to go to grand juries. You have to, you know, produce evidence and all that.
But I think if the president has a law enforcement priority, say, let's root out corruption, let's go after the fentanyl, let's stop MS- 13, I think he ought to be able to communicate those law enforcement priorities to the people he has appointed just like he communicates his priorities in every other agency.
COATES: And the political enemy portion of it doesn't give you pause? I mean, it's one thing to talk about. And I hear your point about the serving at the pleasure of the president and laying out the priorities across the different political appointments. But the idea of going after the political enemies is what I talked about. That does not give you pause as to an abuse of power, potentially?
JENNINGS: Being someone's political enemy is not a crime. But if you have committed an act of corruption or you've broken some law, that doesn't make you immune from being investigated for it just because you happen to be a political opponent of the sitting president.
I think his message has always been, if you've gone outside the bounds of the law and committed some kind of corruption or abused your position of public trust, I want to look into that. But you can't indict people and prosecute people if they haven't been doing that.
But that doesn't -- but again, investigations -- I mean, Lord knows, Republicans have been investigated, Democrats have been investigated before. I just hear him saying, if there are people who abuse their position, why aren't we looking into that? I don't know that the American people would be rejectful of that.
COATES: Well, I wonder how that comment is going to age. But you know what? If I could just page -- paging John Dean. I'm going to ask him about that. I'm going to have him to talk about this. Like, I'm curious what his thought would be on all of this. Scott Jennings, Devlin Barrett, thank you both so much.
Because some of Trump's critics are aghast at the speech he gave at DOJ, historian Larry Sabato posting, "Trump has given many outrageous speeches, but the one he's delivering at the Justice Department now ranks right up there. The ghost of Nixon, John Mitchell, and Watergate are quite visible."
I told you I was paging him. We'll ask Nixon's former White House counsel, John Dean, all about it next.
And later, the Trump DOJ escalates its crackdown at Columbia as the department now considers terrorism charges against pro-Palestinian protesters.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): But amazingly, we now have a president in the 21st century who believes he's a king, and he believes that the king is the law once again.
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COATES: Congressman Jamie Raskin leading a protest at the steps of DOJ headquarters shortly after President Trump's speech tonight.
Joining me now is CNN contributor John Dean. He's a former Nixon White House counsel and former associate deputy attorney general. I can't think of a better person to unpack your impression of President Trump's speech today. What did you think?
JOHN DEAN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR, FORMER NIXON WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL, FORMER ASSOCIATE DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: I thought it was pretty shattering. I actually didn't watch it. I was on CNN to sort of set it up before it happened.
I listened to Evan Perez who has covered the Department of Justice for years, and he said the crowd were not anybody from the really the Department of Justice. As you know, Laura, that's a rather small venue, the Great Hall. It holds maybe 400 people at maximum. So, it was -- you -- you called it right, it was a campaign rally.
COATES: For the viewers at home who might not have fully grasped what some people were finding so distressing about this speech, I mean, he talked about at one point criticizing not only the FBI, criticizing the former president, talking about Merrick Garland. He talked about, almost intimating, if not outright saying it, that members of the Justice Department were criminals and that they were weaponizing the DOJ. This is stunning and striking even for someone who campaigned on this.
[23:30:00]
DEAN: Very much so. It's really kind -- it was very unpresidential. I think it'll go down in the annals of the Department of Justice as a measuring and a mark to see what this attorney general and her staff does. As you know, the department is about 4,000 political appointees and about 100,000 plus employees. A lot of those are lawyers, tens of thousands. They're all over the country.
I think this was probably pretty disheartening, to hear him give instructions, if you will, as to who he wanted prosecuted, what he thought was illegal. And it is really not the sort of judgment that's made in advance. You wait to see what the law is and what the facts are before you start calling these things illegal and improper.
COATES: What do you say to the argument, we're just talking about this in the segment before you, that a president could instruct an attorney general to go after his political opponents because they fall under the executive branch as the attorney general? That would suggest that Nixon should be a choir boy, according to Larry Sabato.
DEAN: I think I think Larry has got it right, actually. That isn't the norm. What happened post-Watergate was that the -- there was a distance put between the Department of Justice and the White House. Presidents have always talked to their attorneys general, their members of their cabinet. There has never been a prohibition against that. Some presidents choose not to talk to their attorney general about any substantive matters other than the general policy of the department.
So, it's very rare when anybody called -- when any president calls an attorney general and gives him specific directions. Nixon did it in in a very unique area of antitrust. He didn't like the way the department was handling of antitrust.
He also -- the reason that the post-Watergate rules evolved is he called the head of the criminal division during Watergate, had him come over to the White House, and find out what the hell I was doing because I had broken rank.
And that was where the evolution of the distancing between the department and the president started, was capped off, and really became the norm and the standard with the firing of the special prosecutor by Nixon, Archibald Cox. That was the main theme.
Those two things came up in the impeachment proceeding, both of them, and that's when Gerald Ford's attorney general started giving speeches, though they evolved into memos, and the memos became regulations. Interestingly, Pam Bondi has not changed the regulations of her predecessor.
COATES: Well, it suggests that that norm that evolved in the post- Watergate era probably should hold. John Dean, thank you so much.
DEAN: Thank you.
COATES: Up next, the moment that pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil was arrested. We'll show you the video as the administration's crack out against him and now others now take a major new turn. And later, a sight for sore eyes if you're those two astronauts who've been up in space for nine months now. We'll take you inside the SpaceX mission currently underway to help get them home.
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[23:35:00]
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COATES: Well, for the first time, we're seeing the moment Columbia student and Palestinian activist, Mahmoud Khalil, was arrested by federal agents.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: What? You're going to be under arrest. So, turn around. Turn around. Turn around. Turn around.
UNKNOWN: Okay, let's not -- Okay, he's not resisting. He's giving me his phone, okay? He's not -- I -- I understand --
COATES: The ACLU posted this video and says Khalil's wife filmed it. Federal agents in plain clothes arrested Khalil. He's now being held at a federal detention center.
As Khalil's lawyers fight --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
-- the administration's effort to deport him for his role in the pro- Palestinian protests at Columbia, ICE is targeting more Columbia students for deportations. Agents arrested a Palestinian student from the West Bank who they say overstayed her visa. Another student self- deported. And there's more.
Columbia is now facing a new ultimatum from the -- from the federal government to overhaul some classes, reform its admissions process, adopt the Trump administration's definition of antisemitism, and change some disciplinary actions. The administration warning it may permanently end federal funding if Columbia does not comply.
And wait. Did I say this already? There's even more. The DOJ is threatening new investigations against the university and it's looking into whether protesting students violated federal terror laws.
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TODD BLANCE, DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: We are also looking at whether Columbia's handling of earlier incidents violated civil rights laws and included terrorism crimes.
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COATES: Joining me now, Josh Gerstein, senior legal affairs reporter for Politico. Josh, let's get right into it because how would those charges work? I mean, potential terror charges?
JOSH GERSTEIN, SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS REPORTER, POLITICO: I mean, it's a possibility. We'll have to see what the Justice Department decides to do. But I think they would be trying to look for any possible links between events that happened at Columbia over the last year, year and a half, and maybe groups outside the country.
[23:40:00]
You've had officials talking about people who barricaded themselves in buildings and so forth.
So, it would be a major, major escalation, though, to have a sort of a campus unrest situation result in some sort of federal charges. That's not something that I've heard about for maybe half a century or so.
COATES: And the idea of differentiating between those who are engaged in this alleged terror acts and those who may have been protesting on humanitarian grounds, how would they distinguish?
GERSTEIN: I think it'd be difficult. And, also, you have the question of, are you really going to treat people that are here on student visas or on green cards differently from U.S. citizens? A lot of students, probably most of the students there are U.S. citizens. And so, their speech, their protests would result in criminal charges or not. These are the questions that are being raised by the way this has been handled or at least the statements have been made over the last few days.
COATES: You heard me list some -- some of the things that the administration is demanding about changes academically. Does the government have the power to compel the university to actually do any of these changes?
GERSTEIN: I mean, maybe it can compel some of them, but I'm doubtful that it can compel all of them. But, you know, it has this funding hammer that it's holding over Columbia, talking about withholding $400, $450 million worth of federal funding. You've got universities across the country announcing hiring freezes and layoffs as a result of just the general cutbacks, not even a specific targeting of a specific school. So, there's a real tug of war going here.
And so far, I think Columbia has been pretty compliant. They've been trying to really reverse course after the difficulties they and other schools had last year with the testimony on Capitol Hill.
COATES: Uh-hmm.
GERSTEIN: They tried to sound like they were really, you know, cracking down on antisemitism. But a lot of these requests, like you said, changing the academic structure of certain classes, the content, that would be very, very unusual thing for the federal government to get into, and you would think that at some point, Columbia will probably begin to resist that.
COATES: If not this school, maybe others impacted. But what's next for Mahmoud Khalil? He, obviously, is the face of this particular effort.
GERSTEIN: Well, so, his lawyers are asking for bail. I think tonight, they're actually supposed to file a motion, asking that he be released from this detention center, immigration detention center he's at in Louisiana.
The government thinks that the legal action that his lawyers have brought in Manhattan is in the wrong place. Because he has been moved to Louisiana, they think the whole matter should be transferred down there to Louisiana where they might get a judge that I think some would think might be friendlier to the Trump administration compared to the judges that are up in Manhattan.
And so, that's the struggle. It's going back and forth. And a judge in Manhattan will have to make decision probably in the next few days. Does the case stay up there or does it get sent to Louisiana? Small chance it could also be sent to New Jersey, which was sort of the way station that he was kept at overnight right after he was arrested.
COATES: Or may find its way before nine Supreme Court justices one day as well. Josh, thank you so much. Nice to see you.
GERSTEIN: Happy to do it.
COATES: Right now, four astronauts are headed to the International Space Station in a mission that has been, well, months in the making. The first part, a success. And now, we wait for the high stakes arrival that'll let astronauts Butch and Suni finally come home. Neil deGrasse Tyson live with me to talk about all of it next.
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[23:45:00]
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UNKNOWN: Three, two, one. Ignition and lift off. Go SpaceX, go NASA crew 10.
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COATES: SpaceX successfully launching a new crew of astronauts into space tonight. The four-person crew includes two NASA astronauts, along with Russian and Japanese astronauts.
Their mission, over 200 experiments on the International Space Station and possibly, maybe more importantly, sending home NASA's Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, the two astronauts from a couple -- whose mission went from a couple days in space to nine months in space after the Boeing capsule they took into orbit malfunctioned.
Their trip has become increasingly politicized with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and President Trump claiming the Biden administration abandoned the duo, something both NASA and the astronauts themselves have denied.
If all goes according to plan, though, Suni and Butch will head back to Earth this coming Wednesday.
Here with me now is astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. He's the author of the book "Merlin's Tour of the Universe." Glad you are with us today. Look, they're not going to dock into the International Space Station until tomorrow night, I believe. Walk us through what the astronauts are doing on their way up.
NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON, ASTROPHYSICIST: Well, it only takes about eight minutes to reach orbit. And that -- in those eight minutes, those rockets that you see firing there not only lifted above Earth, but it also sends it downrange at very high speeds. And that's how you achieve an orbit. It's not, let's go up high in the sky, and then all of a sudden, you're weightless.
What happens is the spaceship, all of them, that have -- certainly the ones that have people on, the spy launches that might have different trajectories, that launch spy satellites. But when you're launching humans, you launch them east. And then you launch them so fast that when you turn off the engines, as they fall back to Earth, they're going sideways so fast that the curvature of the Earth curves away from them at the same rate that they're falling towards the Earth. That's the definition of orbit. And that -- at that point, they're going 17,500 miles an hour sideways over Earth's surface.
And so that's -- so, they're already in orbit. But now, they have to match orbits with the space station. And, generally, you do that from coming in from underneath. You -- you inch your way upwards as you approach the space station from below.
[23:50:00]
And that's why it takes a whole day to -- to accomplish that.
COATES: The complexity of that is absolutely fascinating. And the technology would be able to, in fact, do that and the studies behind it. So, do you anticipate --
TYSON: As a matter of fact -- as a matter of fact, it is rocket science.
(LAUGHTER)
COATES: I walked right into that. You're right. You got me on there right now.
TYSON: You did, you did.
COATES: I want to ask you, are there any further issues that might come up that might prolong their stay on that space station? Are they going to do some research? But there are two astronauts who said, I only packed for a week.
TYSON: Yeah, they only packed for a week. But there's plenty of food there. There's plenty of water although the water is recycled from their pee and other --
COATES: Oh.
TYSON: -- and their sweat and things.
COATES: Well, that's not rocket science.
TYSON: But it is properly done.
(LAUGHTER)
And -- and just to be clear, any images we've ever seen of Butch and Suni, they've been smiling. So, a lot of the media reports that they're stranded and abandoned, this is -- they got a whole place to live in. And when they first got there, there was a half-dozen other astronauts to hang out with. So, that's not my definition of stranded in this world.
COATES: Not at all, although, I am curious as to whether they still get along when they come back after not having been after this long. I'm an -- I'm an optimist, but then, again, I also do love a good "Real Housewives" episode. So, maybe there's a whole story behind this.
There was a really cool moment as well of the launch today, and that was when the rocket that propels the vehicle into space landed back on Earth. It was able to land on its own legs. This is a huge development for the space program. Right?
TYSON: Yes, it is. And this was -- this was pioneered by SpaceX. So, what happens is the booster rockets, these are -- these are basically the first stage that takes it up to the next stage, that kicks in, that puts it into orbit, those have -- they retain a certain amount of fuel, and then navigate back to the launch pad. And the fray -- the favorite phrase to describe that is to stick the landing.
And what this does is it -- it makes the space enterprise a reusable thing. That's kind of what you want to do with that. Think about it. If you flew at Boeing 747 to Europe, and when you got off, they just shoved it off the cliff and brought out a brand-new one, it would be really expensive to get to Europe.
COATES: Uh-hmm.
TYSON: So, in space, what SpaceX has pioneered is the reusability of spacecraft, which ultimately brings the price down so that it becomes accessible to more people than just the elite or just the select few.
COATES: So important to think about that, sort of democratization of this accessibility, and I do think that's really important. And yet, as you mentioned, are you concerned at all that the space program could become politicized considering Elon Musk's role in SpaceX and what has been going on with him and President Trump?
TYSON: Well, you know, it seems like everything is politicized these days. And whatever politicization has swirled around this mission or SpaceX or Boeing or Biden and Trump, that's a low level of political jockeying relative to, by my read, relative to everything else that's going on.
So, space has remarkably been politically insulated from so much that has gone on in this country. Consider that NASA has 10 centers, eight of which -- 10 centers across eight states. And those eight states variously vote four red, four blue, five red, three blue, three red, five blue. So, there's -- there's very good distribution of NASA resources into the United States Of America and the political variance that's there. So, while you can have some fluctuations in political support, generally, NASA programs remain.
Consider that Trump said, let's go back to the moon, did that in 02/2017, and that smoothly passed into the Biden administration. Right? It wasn't, let me get rid of everything Trump said. No, it's space. It's a different thing going on. Space is above our heads, not below our feet.
COATES: Neil deGrasse Tyson, I like the way you phrase things. Thank you so much for joining.
TYSON: And today is pie day, by the way. Don't forget that, 3.14.
COATES: I did 3.14. Are we best friends now? I think we are. Okay, great.
(LAUGHTER)
Thank you. Take care.
Up next, a sneak peek at the CNN Original Series "United States of Scandal" that looks at the collapse of one very infamous American company.
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COATES: Before we go tonight, don't miss an all-new episode of the CNN Original Series "United States of Scandal with Jake Tapper." In this week's episode, Jake explores the infamous fall of Enron back in 2001. Here's a preview.
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JAKE TAPPER, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Americans love a visionary. Someone bold and maybe kind of quirky, unafraid to challenge the status quo and launch us into the future. But over the past few decades, we've learned that just because someone appears prescient, doesn't mean you should give them all your trust and all of your money.
[00:00:00]
In the 90s, Enron brought us the ultimate visionary, Jeffrey Skilling.
Before 2001, the energy company stock seemed unstoppable until the company went bust, and the world learned that its top executives were as crooked as Enron's logo.
But when I was covering this story, what made my jaw drop was how hardly anyone understood how the company actually made money. Enron was only able to implode because so few people publicly questioned the sky-high financial returns, even when the math clearly didn't add up.
At what point does our faith in a visionary devolve into groupthink and cost us everything?
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COATES: The new episode of "United States of Scandal" airs Sunday night at 9, only on CNN.
Hey, thanks for watching, everyone. "Erin Burnett OutFront" is next.
