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Laura Coates Live

Case Closed For Mangione?; Trump Dismisses Concerns About The Embattled USS Lincoln And Economic Conditions At Home; Laura Coates Interviews Actor Jeff Daniels. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired August 14, 2026 - 23:00   ET

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

[23:00:00]

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Alice -- Alice Coe, really quick, what do you got?

ALICE COE, ELIE HONIG'S STUDENT AT RUTGERS, THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW JERSEY: Yes, you taught three classes at Rutgers, two of which I took. Which one of your classes should all your panelists take? And what grade would you give them?

HONIG: All my classes are equal. I'm a notoriously easy grader. But you guys all deserve your grades. So, thank you guys for being here. It's great to see you all. Thank you to our panelists. That was a wonderful conversation. Catch Saturday morning "Table for Five" tomorrow at 10 a.m. Eastern with our special guest host, Kara Swisher. Meanwhile, stay tuned. "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.

LAURA COATES, CNN HOST AND SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Tonight, Luigi Mangione says he did it, a carefully worded confession in federal court that might now see him dodge his murder trial in state court. Plus, the down player in chief? President Trump dismisses concerns about the embattled USS Lincoln and the economic conditions right here at home. And later, actor Jeff Daniels transforms into President Ronald Reagan. How do you do it? We're going to ask him that and much more tonight on "Laura Coates Live."

Well, my opening statement tonight, Luigi Mangione has come to represent a lot of things to a lot of people. He is the man accused of murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in cold blood. The person who led police on a five-day manhunt from Manhattan to Pennsylvania. And yes, to some, the face of the anger at the health insurance industry.

But today, one word cut through all of that, his own word, guilty. That's the plea he entered in his federal case. He was facing two charges of stalking that resulted in Thompson's death. Mangione told the court, "I shot Mr. Thompson in Manhattan and he died. I knew what I was doing was illegal."

And we learned this new detail. He said he emailed UnitedHealthcare posing as an investor in order to get information about the conference happening in New York. But notice what else he said. He claimed that unlike his previous interactions with insurers, he got a response within an hour. He mentioned years of enduring severe pain from a broken back and navigating the obstacles of the health insurance system. If it was an admission of guilt, it was also his explanation for why he did it.

He pointed to his frustration with the health insurance system, a grievance that made him a controversial symbol, even a kind of folk hero, dare I say, to some of his supporters. It is something that his lawyers leaned into quite heavily after the hearing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAREN FRIEDMAN AGNIFILO, LUIGI MANGIONE'S DEFENSE ATTORNEY: He believed that the system had failed him and destroyed his life. Despite this being a single isolated event, Mr. Mangione has been unfairly treated since the outset in every way and has successfully fought off terrorism charges and the death penalty while also fighting at the same time two simultaneous prosecutions in two jurisdictions who are trying to punish him twice for the exact conduct.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: It's almost like they're calling him a victim. Brian Thompson was the man who was killed, though, in Manhattan, just so we're clear. But they're arguing the state can't prosecute Mangione for the same killing he just admitted to. They say double jeopardy.

And they filed a motion to dismiss the state murder and weapons charges, but that doesn't mean those charges just disappear automatically. That actually is going to be a whole separate battle. It's going to depend on the state judge and whether that judge thinks that New York's double jeopardy law prevents the state from prosecuting him because of today's federal guilty plea. So, I can tell you, this won't be the last we hear about Luigi Mangione.

Now, the lawyer is telling you that's the legal fight. But let's look at the other argument his legal team is making, about how they want you to see Mangione, that the system failed him. Mangione can tell the court about his pain. His lawyers can try to portray him as a victim of the health care system. But here is the line, that grievance can never become an excuse for murder. Full stop. And in the eyes of the law, Mangione is no victim. Brian Thompson, I repeat, is the victim.

Mangione has now admitted under oath what he did to Brian Thompson. He admits that he came to New York with the intent to shoot him. He admits he shot him. And today, he's said guilty. Notice that Brian's back is to that gun.

[23:05:00]

So, Mangione and his supporters may see him as a symbol of something bigger. But if you do want to change policy, you could use your words, your legislation, you could argue for it. If you can't stay in the system, you could work to change it, but you can't take a life to make your point. And that's the message this very federal judge will now have to weigh when she sentences Mangione later this year in December.

I want to unpack it all tonight with our great guests. We've got former prosecutor at the Manhattan D.A.'s office, Mark Bederow, former state attorney for Palm Beach County, Dave Aronberg, and New York Post columnist Rikki Schlott, who has analyzed the culture around Mangione's fan club. And I've got to tell you, it feels ick every time I say Mangione's fan club. But indeed, if you go to the courthouse, you see people, what they're wearing, and the effusive, almost praise for him. That's the phrase I'm using, the fan club.

I want to begin with you, Mark, because everyone wants to know, can your old office actually take Mangione to court now on the state charges because the defense is claiming that it can't because New York is quite specific, that although the feds and the states are separate sovereigns, if the actual crime is overlapping between what the feds are arguing and the states are arguing, that's double jeopardy. So, what goes now?

MARK BEDEROW, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: I think the murder case is on life support. New York has very double jeopardy statutory laws that are much more protective of defendants than the U.S. Constitution. And they have protections in place which say you can't try him, even from a different sovereignty, if there already was a prosecution.

And in this case, the argument is that he pled guilty to possessing a firearm and using it with the intent to kill Thompson, which he admitted doing, and which is clearly the murder charge in New York. And the defense is going to argue, and I think very credibly so, that it's the same incident, it's the same criminal transaction that they're trying to charge him for.

And in order to get by that statutory double jeopardy protection in place in New York, the D.A. would have to argue that the statutes at play, the state murder statute on one hand and the federal stalking statute on the other, address very different harms, and that they have to be very different evils that the statutes try to address, and the murder statute clearly seeks to punish somebody --

COATES: Yes.

BEDEROW: -- for taking a life in an unlawful manner. But in the stalking case, there is specific language about stalking with the intent to kill, and he did kill. And the sentencing statute is almost written into the substantive statute, and it says if you do cause death in the course of stalking with the intent to kill, that you could get up to life in prison which is, of course, very similar to the New York State murder statute.

COATES: Yes.

BEDEROW: So, I think there is a very good chance the state murder case is going to be gone.

COATES: You know, I've been a federal prosecutor, Dave, and one thing the states don't like is when you try to bigfoot them because a murder charge only goes to a state, but the feds have gone in here. And this is a certainty now, that he has pled guilty. You don't have to try the case and potentially have jury notification or something other than that. But he said in his plea that his severe back pain left him frustrated with the entire health care system. Now, he didn't go as far to say -- and that's why I believe this person deserved to die. By the way, the widow was inside the courtroom watching all this unfold. Unbelievable. But the idea that he is talking about that severe pain, can you give me insight as to why you think he was saying that? Because every statement that is made, carefully crafted, is trying to look ahead to a different issue. Is it something with the sentencing or a claim of emotional disturbance of some type?

DAVE ARONBERG, FORMER STATE ATTORNEY, PALM BEACH COUNTY: I wonder if it was for the court of public opinion. He's got all these fans out there who are disappointed in him for letting him down because they're saying Luigi is innocent. Now, he would have to differ because he just pled guilty. But at least he gave them that it was justified, and that, I think, will hurt him, though, when it comes to sentencing. I didn't hear a lot of remorse there.

COATES: No

ARONBERG: I heard a bunch of excuses. And the judge, when she gives her sentence, can go above the sentencing guidelines if he shows a lack of remorse. And what I saw today was a lack of remorse. So, I've got to believe that perhaps there was a pushback here, a back and forth between his lawyers, who would want him to say, apologize, throw yourself on the mercy of the court, and Luigi, who wants still to be this Robin Hood amongst his dedicated fan base, a fan base that really needs to check themselves and look inward to find out where they went wrong in this world.

COATES: I mean, Rikki, there are people, to this very moment, and to David's point, who wanted him to have his day in court so that he could use it as a soapbox to continue to criticize the health care industry.

[23:10:02]

And I had a guest on just last night who called what he was doing a form of justified tyrannicide, was his notion of this. Now, obviously, I do not agree with that notion. But you have been observing the rabid fan base of Luigi Mangione. What has been the reaction that you've been seeing?

RIKKI SCHLOTT, COLUMNIST, NEW YORK POST: Yeah, I mean, I think that these are very online people who've learned to see the world through a screen and through symbols, and Brian Thompson became a symbol for a much larger system that he was just a tiny part of.

But on top of that, I also think that, you know, it's hard to look past this generational change in terms of how young people see our liberal system and what it means to reform through persuasion or through legislation. There is now a third of Gen Z who believe that violence is an appropriate way to achieve political ends, which is completely unacceptable, but this is kind of the ultimate expression of that generational shift. And so, you have more and more young people who are seduced by the optics of this young man who went to UPenn, who had his future ahead of him and dedicated it to their cause and completely sacrificed his future. And if you're a kind of lonely ghoul, then that's kind of sexy and romantic, unfortunately.

COATES: Oh, my goodness. And, you know, this is -- you have people, Mark, who were outside the courtroom, I remember, for every different appearance. You'd have people who were in, you know, the Mario Brothers Luigi costumes. You actually saw this, the overalls, the green. They were wearing symbols of green. They were showing their support. There were people who were lining up to try to get seat sitters and line holders at the time just to get a glimpse of, they were saying, the eyebrows. I mean, it was unbelievable to see this all play out.

And then in court, he admitted his actions were illegal, important word. He never said they were wrong. He did not offer a single apology. And the judge will consider all of these things, especially later in December, but there is going to be an in-between period, right, where the judge can consider the pre-sentencing report, any interviews he might do. He might very well in December come back and offer something different that looks more like remorse. There's a lot that will take place between now and then.

BEDEROW: There is. And he can offer remorse at sentencing and, you know, he'll get a couple points off his sentencing guidelines score. But, you know, his fans need to realize he's going away for decades. The guideline range, the parties have already agreed, amounts out at the bottom end to about 24 years and many more beyond that. And, of course, the maximum sentence calls for life. So, the judge already can give a presumptively valid sentence of anywhere from 24 to 30- something years, and there's going to be no basis to appeal that just based on what has already happened.

But when you factor in all the aggravating circumstances here, you mentioned it earlier, I mean, this was a cold-blooded killing with stalking and predatory behavior, it was a cowardly act, he shot a father in the back and simply because, you know, he was the CEO of a controversial health care company, doesn't afford someone the right to shoot someone in the back.

And, you know, there is a public segment that has sympathy for him, dresses silly outside, says these terrible things about Brian Thompson and his family, but none of that is going to persuade the federal judge to do him any favors.

The real interesting thing here on sentencing will be how high up does he get because if he does get 24 or something lower and he ends up getting the state case wiped out, then this was a brilliant move. If he ends up getting life in prison or something close to it, which would be more than the 25 to life he would probably have gotten after trial in state court, then there might be some questions. But if he ends up with what amounts to less time or similar and in federal prison rather than state prison which is a win, that is a big win to be in a federal prison instead of Dannemora and Attica and Sing Sing and all these horrible places in New York. So, it will be very interesting to see how the federal judge weighs all of that.

COATES: And the judge is obviously aware, I want to thank you all for being here, that deterrence is a very big aspect of sentencing as well. Thank you, guys.

Hey, a programming reminder, that this Monday, I'll be covering "The Tupac Murder Trial" for CNN All Access. It's also available on Amazon Prime and HLN and, of course, nightly updates right here on "Laura Coates Live." Up next, the conditions on the USS Abraham Lincoln, much to do about nothing if you ask the president. In fact, he suggests that the record-setting deployment wasn't long enough. Aaron Parnas has been in touch with sailors and their families, and he's here to share their response. And later, actor Jeff Daniels will be my star witness for a very, very special conversation on this Friday night.

[23:15:01]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COATES: President Trump just made his first comment on the conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln after multiple reports of sailors jumping overboard and worsening mental health and a lack of even the most basic necessities. And his response? It's not sitting well with the families of the 5,000 service members aboard that ship.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN: Family members of U.S. service members are concerned about the conditions onboard the USS Lincoln.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Well, no, that ship is moving. No, they're not. That ship is moving right now or very shortly.

[23:20:00]

And it's being replaced with another very similar ship.

UNKNOWN: Has the deployment gone on too long? Are you worried about the mental health concerns?

TRUMP: No, no, no. Not nearly long enough.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: What? I want to hear the question because that could not possibly have been the answer. Well, my next guest has been watching this story very closely. Independent journalist Aaron Parnas joins me now. I mean, the accounts are being told horrific. I mean, they are talking about the deprivation that some of them are feeling, the mental health issues that are happening, people jumping overboard. And you've spoken to families of the service members. What are they telling you?

AARON PARNAS, INDEPENDENT JOURNALIST: Well, I mean, I think it's not just one account, right?

COATES: Yes.

PARNAS: It's consistent across the board. And it's not on just one ship. Service members across the region right now are suffering. They have lack of hygiene products. They have lack of fresh food. I mean, I was a lawyer before doing this work, and I saw prison inmates having better meals than some of these service members are having aboard some of these aircraft carriers right now. It is very bad.

And I think the worst part about it all is that their mental health is suffering. A lot of these service members have been away from their families for a very long time. That is what they signed up for in a way, but, for example, with the USS Abraham Lincoln, it's now the deployment was supposed to end in May, we're now in August, and it still hasn't ended, even though a new ship is supposedly coming soon. And so, these service members are really struggling, and their families at home are really struggling as well.

COATES: And I can imagine the ship that is supposed to come to replace, they surely have heard about this, and they're going to wonder if the same fate will be for them, in an endless war at this point in time without really understanding the length of their next deployment. And the families have now heard the commander-in-chief. The commander-in-chief react and say, no, they haven't, it's not really long enough.

PARNAS: Yes. And it's not just the commander-in-chief, it's the secretary of defense yesterday coming out and saying that the reports are misrepresenting what's actually happening on the ship. And these families are telling me, we're not misrepresenting it. It's not a political issue to them. It's their sons, their daughters, their livelihoods at issue. Some of them voted for this president, right?

COATES: Yes.

PARNAS: The service members are not Republican or Democrat. They just serve the United States Armed Forces. And at the end of the day, they are terrified of what they're seeing from the commander-in-chief and from the secretary of defense.

COATES: Is there a sense of a timeline? I mean, it has already been over 250 days. That's a record, apparently, as well. And mind you, they have not set foot on shore in that amount of time. There are 5,000 of them on this aircraft carrier, this one alone. Is there an update that they've gotten on any timelines?

PARNAS: No, not really. And if you heard what Pete Hegseth said over the past 24 hours, we could have a naval blockade in Iran indefinitely is what he said. And so, we could just keep swapping aircraft carriers over the next two-plus years. And there is no timeline. The USS Abraham Lincoln is theoretically being swapped out in the next month or so, but who knows?

COATES: And I know that we don't have this active draft, so they always think about retention and recruitment. This can't possibly be helping.

PARNAS: No, not at all. I think any young person in the United States of America today seeing these images, hearing these stories, why would they want to enlist? I mean, you just don't want that, and you're going to have recruitment numbers likely come down in the next several months as this war prolongs.

COATES: Aaron Parnas, thank you so much. Shocking.

PARNAS: Thank you for having me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I mean, it's -- I'm not -- I'm not -- I'll never apologize. I did the right thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: High gas prices be damned. The president digs in and tells Americans his war with Iran, worth it. And the need to suck it up, how's that going to go over? My panel is live with me to debate it, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:25:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COATES: President Trump has a new message for anyone feeling the pain of filling up their gas tanks as they go to work or school. Don't look for apologies from him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: For you to pay a tiny little bit more for your gasoline, just remember, you're doing it so that a very evil country cannot have -- a country -- really, it's the number one state sponsor of terror in the world. We don't want to have them have a nuclear weapon. So, remember that when you have to pay a little bit more, you're at $4, it's OK. I mean, it's -- I'm not -- I'm not -- I will never apologize. I did the right thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: Gas prices are showing no signs of dropping before the midterms. Prices are up more than a dollar compared to the start of the war. But for months, Trump and his team have been promising that gas prices will fall below $4.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARIA BARTIROMO, FOX BUSINESS CHANNEL HOST: Do you think gas prices will be lower before the midterm elections?

TRUMP: I think they'll be much lower before midterm. Much lower. (END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT BESSENT, UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY: I'm optimistic that sometime between June 20th and September 20th, that we can have $3 a gas again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN LEAD WASHINGTON ANCHOR: When do you think it's realistic for Americans to expect that gas will go back to under $3 a gallon?

CHRIS WRIGHT, UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF ENERGY: I don't know. That could happen later this year. That might not happen until next year. But prices have likely peaked, and they'll start going down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: Let's talk about it. I've got Democratic strategist Michael Nellis and former deputy communications director for the Trump 2024 campaign, Caroline Sunshine. Good to have both of you here. I'll start with you, Caroline because there's a recent CNN poll, and it found that 79 percent of people disapprove of how the president is handling gas prices specifically. Taking a chunk out of people's budgets, I mean, they've got to make sacrifices to make ends meet, not just the gas prices, what it represents for the rest of their budget. So, shouldn't the president contemplate that and at least exude more sympathy?

[23:30:00]

CAROLINE SUNSHINE, FORMER DEPUTY COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, TRUMP 2024 CAMPAIGN: It's quite possible that it's going to have an effect in the midterms. The good news is that the president could leave this war tomorrow, things would rebound, and the American public would love it. That's what Ronald Reagan did in 1983 after the Beirut bombing attacks. He just left.

As the president has said multiple times, he has won the war. So, if we run, we can leave, and I think that would be a great decision that a lot of Americans would support.

But in the meantime, he can keep focusing on other ways that life is expensive for Americans. And you saw him talk about today that prescription drug prices, for example, are down 60 percent, lowest they've been in a long time, also crime.

You know, it's a good chance that the midterms are going to be about the cost of living, the economy. Most elections always are. But elections are also about other bread-and-butter issues like law and order. And you see some of these candidates who are running, particularly in Michigan, who are, you know, running away from their past stances like defund the police. That's not going to be too popular with voters.

COATES: Well, I want you to focus for a second -- I hear you. I want you to focus on the president of the United States and the war with Iran and gas prices specifically because when you talk about if we've won our way, the president could leave. Well, we haven't won this war. The president is still there. He knows that, of course. And you have members of the military who are waiting almost indefinitely to figure out what the next steps are.

So, my question again, though, really is, shouldn't the president be expressing that? I mean, you could have all the things you said about his other platform priorities but, at the very least, doesn't it go much better with voters to have the buy-in that they really -- he hears them, he sees what they're thinking about?

SUNSHINE: Yeah, I've said this in the past. The administration was using a line of short-term gain for -- short-term pain for long-term gain. I didn't think that that messaging was going to go over too well with voters. I mean, Kamala Harris certainly paid a price for that in 2024.

And when I say, you know, we won, the president has said that in his own words. And so, to me, that gives the president pretext to say, well, fantastic, America. You know, let's go home. And that is still an option that the president has in front of him, and I hope it's an option that he pursues, and I think voters will reward him for that.

COATES: Well, Mike, he hasn't pursued it, and they do think that pretext and the president's name go hand-in-hand because they believe that this is all pretextual. And there are many people who are frustrated about the existence of the war, given his statements at the campaign that he would not pursue something like this.

But Democrats, they're going to hammer all of this home, as you can imagine. We get comments from viewers, though, all the time, who want to hear more than just complaints about Trump's handling of the war, whether justified or not. How do you convince those voters, that Democrats have a plan, not just a critique?

MIKE NELLIS, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Yes. Well, I think the first thing you've got to do is make people understand that we feel the pain that they're experiencing right now which, frankly, the Biden-Harris ticket did not do in 2024 and certainly Donald Trump isn't doing right now, trying to gaslight the American people into believing that the economy is strong when it's not. He keeps calling it the golden age of America.

He's saying that we're winning this war in Iran. I don't think anybody really believes that we're winning. It certainly feels like we're being pushed around by the government of Iran right now. They're saying they're not going to open the Strait of Hormuz. Even if they open it tomorrow, I want to push back on something Caroline said, if they open it tomorrow and ended the war, it will take years for gas prices to go back down where they were because this created such a global calamity in the market right now. So, for Democrats, it's, one, you've got to squarely identify what the issue is. You've got to be talking to people and then presenting a positive forward-looking agenda for how you're going to deal with affordability. That's going to include hitting Trump on some stuff and talking about what we're going to end, which is the war in Iraq. We're going to end these tariffs. There was a new report out today that Donald Trump's tariffs --

COATES: Iran.

NELLIS: -- are making it significantly harder to build -- excuse me. Sorry. What did I say?

COATES: You said Iraq. You meant Iran. I got it. Keep going.

NELLIS: Iran. Oh, I'm sorry. OK. Sorry, there's a delay, so it gets a little confusing. But right now, lumber prices are 25 percent more expensive, making it significantly harder to build new housing. People are frustrated. So, we've got to talk about how we're going to create new jobs, how we're going to create new housing, get back to work for the American people, and make them feel that pain because nobody believes any politician actually gives a damn about them.

COATES: And speaking of Iran war, I mean, Trump also made this claim, that the U.S. would own the Strait of Hormuz once the war ends. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Pretty soon, I'll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States.

(APPLAUSE)

Essentially, that's what it is. We have the blockade. No ships get through unless we want them to.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: This doesn't seem to be a realistic proposal at all, Caroline. So, I wonder when he makes statements like this, as a strategist and thinking about how this would unfold, does it undercut his larger messages when we're this close to November and we have the critiques about what's going on with the military right now?

SUNSHINE: Well, the war is front and center in Americans' mind.

[23:34:58]

And, you know, I love -- there are many people I know who love the president, who hate this war. And it's multiple times. It doesn't have a military solution. The good military solutions have been tried. You know, Iran may get a nuclear weapon, but I don't think they're very interested in that because they've learned that the Strait of Hormuz is far better than a nuclear weapon. And so, again, the best strategic advice I could give is deprive Iran of the new asset that they have found in the Strait of Hormuz and just leave. And whether it becomes a territory or not after the war is semantics. The fact is it was open before the war. If we leave, we can get it open again, get trade flowing, get oil flowing. And I think Americans will forgive the president. They forgive most presidents who just get out of the Middle East.

COATES: Mike, quick last word.

NELLIS: They're not going to forgive the president for this. People aren't going to get their money back. They're not getting their money back for the tariffs. They're not getting their money back in any of the other ways that Donald Trump has taken it from them. He has increased his net worth. You're struggling right now. That's going to be what the midterms are about.

COATES: We'll see how it all unfolds. The good news, bad news, not that long to wait until November. We'll see what the American people really believe. Mike, Caroline, thank you both.

Up next, my star witness on this Friday night, award-winning actor Jeff Daniels on his new role as President Ronald Reagan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF DANIELS, ACTOR: I offered him the deal of the century, of human history, and he's walking away over one word, a single word. Never should have trusted him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANIELS: You know, Lloyd, just when I think you couldn't possibly be any dumber, you go and do something like this and totally redeem yourself!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(LAUGHTER)

COATES: If there's one word that comes to mind when you think of actor Jeff Daniels, it's range. I mean, the man can play just about anybody, whether it's downright hilarious turn as Harry Dunne in "Dumb and Dumber" or his commanding performance as T.V. anchor Will McAvoy in the hit show "The Newsroom," a role that earned him his first Emmy for Best Actor.

But now, Daniels is taking on one of the most well-known figures in American history, President Ronald Reagan. His new movie, "The Brink of War," hit theaters this weekend, and it focuses on the high-stakes talks between Reagan and Gorbachev in 1986, talks that would either bring the world a step closer to peace or outright disaster. Here's a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN: Ask him to come to Washington.

DANIELS: For what? More talk that leads to nothing? Maybe this place is haunted.

UNKNOWN: Ask him anyway, sir. Please, in spite of it all, we have maybe a minute left until he comes out that door, gets in that car, and he is gone. Do not let what happened in that house, in that room, over the last 30 hours, destroy our entire future.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: My star witness tonight is Jeff Daniels. Jeff, it's so good to see you. I've been a fan forever, as everyone is, and here you are in this new role. What drew you to play Ronald Reagan in this particular moment in history?

DANIELS: I didn't know how to do him. And so, at this point in my career, you risk failure. Fear of failure is a great motivator at this point. And I said yes, and then tried to figure it out. Then, as you dive into it, you find out how important that weekend was in October of 1986 in Reykjavik Island, in Reykjavik on Iceland, the country of Iceland. And how dangerous the world was at that point, I had no idea. I wasn't that aware of it. And how important that meeting was at a time when the world was in a very, very precarious place.

COATES: In many ways, people are watching this today and thinking, it feels like we're in a constant state of precarious states. And yet, here you are, reflecting back and bringing your artistry. And I have to wonder, I mean, so many people know Reagan's voice. He is a figure that people have done impersonations on forever. He's so well-known. Whether it's Reagan or Elvis, people try to mimic them and do impersonations. You decided to approach this differently. Tell us how you feel about it.

DANIELS: You can make fun and have a great parody on it, whether it's SNL or Rich Little or whomever might be doing it. That's a different thing. This is a very serious movie. It's an important movie. You can't -- we're not going for jokes. So, what you try to do is suggest it.

And you find enough of the voice, enough of the mannerisms. You know, one of the keys for me was the word "well." He would say it a lot, well. He would do that. Or the word "no." He came around the oh.

So, once you find some of those things and you locate it in the chest, which is where he kind of spoke from, you put the hair on, the mannerisms, and then you find the kind of melody of the way he would speak, the intonations, his comic timing. [23:44:55]

He used his ability to tell jokes to kind of help break Gorbachev down and maybe get the negotiations heading in a more friendlier place. It was all kind of using all of that to kind of suggest him so that the audience isn't necessarily watching an impression, which pushes them away. It's pulling them in so you can figure out what Reagan is thinking, what he's feeling so that you're feeling it, too.

COATES: I mean, well, you have mastered the art of suggestion and bringing the audience close to you. I mean, talk about range and being able to infuse this role with all the things that I think you are as an artist and actor. In so many of your roles, they speak to a particular moment in this country's politics, whether it's this movie or your work in the newsroom or Atticus Finch in the stage version "To Kill a Mockingbird" or James Comey in the Comey role. I mean, there are so many things to draw from.

Is there a lesson that you think today's leaders could learn from Reagan and Gorbachev 40 years ago, knowing people are looking at what's happening now through a very current lens?

DANIELS: As divided as the country is, as the world is, it was that dangerous and that divided back then. We just weren't as aware of it back then. We didn't have a CNN. We didn't have social media telling us everything that's going on. I was not that aware of the meeting in '86, but there were 70,000 warheads pointed at each other, and there was no defense shield. "Star Wars" was just an idea on a piece of paper.

So, it was a very dangerous time, and this is what two leaders did at a time when these two superpowers were as divided as countries are now. They got together in a room, and they tried to find a way to find some common ground, to find a way to get the world into a safer place for everyone.

If the leaders of today all around the world were to do that versus ratcheting up the nuclear weapons in as many countries as possible to get them, then, you know, if these two guys could do it, it's not out of the question that the leaders of today could do it. So, you have to hope for that. I don't give up on that.

COATES: How do you choose your roles? Because I know that you are somebody who has been very insightful. You are politically-engaged. You are a student of history, obviously. When you look at the options and how you want to spend your time, which I'm sure people are looking to hear you and have you as their cast member all the time, how do you go about choosing it?

DANIELS: It depends. Sometimes, it's just mechanics. Does the role have a beginning, middle, and an end if it's supporting? Who are the people? If I'm going to do roles that are the same where I basically create a brand, which many actors have done, you can go back to Clark Gable. You want to see Clark Gable be Clark Gable. That's what he did in pretty much every movie. That's OK. That's kind of brand-name acting and you can carve a great career out that way. I was brought up in the New York theater. You know, I remember a director going, you know, what you're doing now, you did in the last play, we're not interested in that, this is a new character. Got it. Understood. So, they're characters. So, when you get a character after almost 50 years in this business that you haven't done yet, like Ronald Reagan, that's a challenge. That's a mountain to climb. It's an artistic mountain to climb, a creative mountain to climb. That's the challenge. For me, at this point, that's where the fun is.

COATES: All of your movies are wonderful and just seeing you is fun for everyone. Your next film is called "2034." It is said to tackle the subject of A.I.

DANIELS: Yes.

COATES: You talk about artistry and creativity. Do you ever worry about A.I. potentially being used to replace people in film and T.V. and what that would mean to creativity and art?

DANIELS: Joe Gordon-Levitt directed that movie, 2034, that we just shot in June. Rachel McAdams is the star of it. It does speak to that. It speaks to does A.I. have the potential to get out of control. I don't know enough about A.I. I play someone who invented the code that would become artificial intelligence. And 32 years ago, he discovered the code. His big aha moment wasn't that he discovered it, it was that he didn't delete it. Had he deleted it, maybe there wouldn't be an A.I.

[23:50:00]

But, on the other hand, you're looking at A.I. with what it could do for medicine, what it could do to get rid of diabetes, for example. I don't know enough about it, except I don't know how we're going to stop it. I know there are data centers being built all over the country, whether we want them there or not. I hope in the end that A.I. is more good than bad. I know the industry, Hollywood, is worried about it. As soon as the audience decides that they can see John Wayne at 35 years old in a western this weekend, and he makes a hundred million, and everybody else around him is A.I., not good for real living, breathing actors.

COATES: Let me ask you a couple questions. I like to get to know people a little bit more. What do you think people misunderstand about you?

DANIELS: That I really am Harry Dunne.

(LAUGHTER)

COATES: People think that?

DANIELS: Are you really -- are you really like him? Are you like him? You know.

COATES: What do you say in response to that? You better have a canned answer that I hope is G-rated. DANIELS: I usually go it is. I usually go into Harry Dunne.

COATES: Do you?

DANIELS: No, not at all. Why?

(LAUGHTER)

You know, you just drop into it.

COATES: Was there a time you first realized that the life you're living now, it might actually happen? And you're talking about theater, a theater kid to now. Did you feel that this would be what your life is like?

DANIELS: When I was -- it took a long time to accept the fact that this is what I was going to spend my life doing. Really long. I mean -- which is different than when did you know you made it.

COATES: Yes.

DANIELS: And it wasn't until I had done "To Kill a Mockingbird" on Broadway, which was at the time 44 years into this. My agent called up after I was getting ready to be done with it. I was in it for a year on Broadway. He said -- and I said, what's next? Because we were all looking. What's next? And he goes, what do you want to do? It was like -- it was the first time I ever heard my agent say that. And that was the moment where I said, OK, I think I made it. What that was, I don't know, but I made it. And it was 44 years in.

COATES: You know what? What a humbling and inspirational answer. I have to tell you. I have one more question for you, Jeff Daniels, although between you and me, I can ask you 10,000 more questions, but I need you to go back to work because I love your work so much. But, what is the and who is the last person who told you no? And were they right?

DANIELS: Who told me no? Well, no.

(LAUGHTER)

They weren't right. They weren't right. I will tell the story of when I was about to do "Dumb and Dumber." I'm about to do it. It's a -- you know, it's a risk. Jim had done "Ace Ventura." He had shot "The Mask" but we -- it isn't out yet. And I'm going to do it because I want to do comedy with Jim.

And I -- suddenly, I have an intervention from three agents. They're on the phone, conference call the day before I'm supposed to fly out and start wardrobe and all that for "Dumb and Dumber." OK, we're going to stop this. This is not going to happen. You're going to ruin your career. With all due respect, Jim is going to act you off the screen. And I said, well, OK, thanks for the support, one.

Two, I got the snowball in the head, I got the tongue on the pole, and I got the toilet. Those are three scenes that Jim is not even in. So, unless they cut him out of the movie, I'm going to score. And then, with Jim, who is still a friend, I love the guy, let him lead. He's going to, anyway. That's how he's wired. So, you'll be the puppy on the leash.

So that when Lloyd says, Harry, go to a half second delay. What? You know. And then you're there. But don't try to go through the door first, don't try to tell him what to do as a character, and then we're fine. And it worked. It worked. But, yes, we're going to stop this from happening. And they said no, but I said yes.

COATES: Well, that was the unexpected trifecta. You've got the tongue on the pole, the toilet --

(LAUGHTER)

-- and the snowball.

DANIELS: Yes, tongue in the pole and the snowball in the head. Yes. Just classic scenes. They go all the way back to Shakespeare. They all way go back to Shakespeare.

[23:55:00]

COATES: It really was. I'm going to tell you something. It was a pleasure talking to you. So excited to talk to you. It's always nice when somebody that I'm a fan of, I'm still a fan of after I meet. So, thank you.

DANIELS: Doesn't always happen, does it?

COATES: It doesn't always happen. Jeff Daniels, thank you.

DANIELS: Thanks, Laura.

COATES: Thank you all for watching. "The Story Is with Elex Michaelson" is next.

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