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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

Iran State Media Airs Video Purported to be Ships Seized in Strait of Hormuz; U.S. Navy Secretary Ousted as Naval Blockade of Iran Continues; Interview with Rep. White House Says Trump Has Not Set Firm Deadline for Iran to Respond; Sources Say U.S. Navy Secretary Told to Resign or Be Fired; Judge Bars Certification of Virginia Redistricting Vote Results; New York Times Report FBI Investigated Times Reporter Over Article on Director Patel's Girlfriend; Melting Glaciers as Arctic Sea Ice Hits New Lows. Aired 8-9p ET

Aired April 22, 2026 - 20:00   ET

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

KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: ...Department of Justice asking them that very same question and they sent us this statement in regards to allegations specifically about other men. The statement says, "The allegations contained in them we're thoroughly investigated," referring to the Epstein files, "... prosecutors at the time did not feel that the evidence was sufficient to prosecute."

We then turn to some of the men who you just heard about in the report, Erin. A spokesperson for Jarecki, says that he has advanced dementia and is non-communicative and that a non-response does not suggest tacit approval. We did not hear back from representatives for Maxwell or Jes Staley -- Erin.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Kyung, thank you very much and thanks to all of you. AC360 starts now.

[20:00:50]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER: 360": Good evening from the Newsroom.

Breaking news tonight in our CNN Global War coverage. Iran's State Media just aired this video shot with multiple cameras in a drone package, no doubt for propaganda purposes of two cargo ships, they purportedly seized today in the Strait of Hormuz.

Now, in it, you see Iranian soldiers boarding the vessel brandishing their rifles as they make their way past the cameraman. The cameraman is actually following them through the ships. This was released just one day into the Trump extended truce. The Iranians say the seizure of these boats is not a breach of the ceasefire and President Trump agrees, according to The White House.

One boat is Liberian, the other Panamanian. Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, saying the ships we're, "attempting to exit the Strait of Hormuz covertly."

A third. Greek owned ship was also reportedly targeted by the IRGC and, according to Iran, is now disabled off Iran's coast. I'll remind you; Greece is a NATO member.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked about the ships late today on Fox News.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARTHA MACCALLUM, FOX NEWS CHANNEL ANCHOR: We don't know what's going to happen to these crews. We're not sure where all of this is going. Does the President view that as a violation of the ceasefire?

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: No, because these we're not U.S. ships. These we're not Israeli ships; these we're two international vessels.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Seems to be a forgiving view from the Commander-in-Chief who on Easter Sunday wrote a profanity laden social media post threatening Iran and demanding they open the Strait. Two days after that post, he declared a ceasefire that he has repeatedly threatened to end, but has also repeatedly extended it, which he did yet again yesterday.

In a phone interview with Fox today, Mr. Trump said there was no time pressure. That was his term, no time pressure, on the ceasefire. Karoline Leavitt, when asked repeatedly by reporters about next steps in any negotiations, echoed the unified proposal language that the President used in issuing his ceasefire extension.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEAVITT: We want to see a unified proposal to the President's very strong proposal. He has made his redlines very clear. We want to see a unified response and a unified proposal.

Again, we want a unified response. And that's what the President is awaiting.

The President chose to extend the ceasefire because it's Iran who needs to get their act together.

The fact that they cannot send a unified message yet, which is why the President decided to extend the ceasefire just shows how effective Operation Epic Fury truly was, because there's a lot of internal division over there. The President understands that, and so, we await their response.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, if and when negotiations resume and a lasting peace is achieved, the end of the paralysis in the Strait of Hormuz might still be far off, could take up to six months to fully clear the Strait of mines after the war with Iran ends, whenever that may be. That assessment was delivered by Pentagon officials who briefed lawmakers in the House Armed Services Committee yesterday, according to a source. We are also learning tonight that amid all of the uncertainty over the war with Iran, the Secretary of the Navy, John Phelan, has been ousted from his job. The Pentagon spokesman announced late today that he would be departing, "effective immediately."

A lot to get to tonight. I want to go to Washington to Kaitlan Collins, CNN's chief White House correspondent and anchor of "The Source."

What more do you know about the Navy Secretary being pushed out why that occurred? It's an administrative role, not operational, but it does seem I mean, the timing is interesting.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN, CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT AND THE ANCHOR OF "THE SOURCE": Yes. I mean, it happened pretty abruptly and there are only ten days into this blockade, of course, as this is very much still underway in the White House has made clear, despite the extension of the ceasefire from yesterday, that the blockade is going to remain in place. And so, obviously, the United States Navy is conducting that with the ouster of feeling from the White House today.

We're trying to figure out why exactly, because there was no statement or reason given in the statement that was issued by the Pentagon earlier today, confirming that this is effective immediately, we are told.

I was told that he was actually inside the West Wing today as all of this was going down. And so, it just kind of gives you a sense of how quickly all of this was happening. We are told that there we're some tensions between the Navy Secretary and Secretary Pete Hegseth, that obviously the Navy Secretary had a pretty close relationship with the President. He was a big donor to his campaign. He actually doesn't have military experience whenever he was put in this role, which raised some criticisms at the time over that, Anderson.

And so, I do think the timing here, though, is critical in terms of when this is happening, as this blockade is still very much in effect. And as Karoline Leavitt was also making clear today when she was on the driveway there at the White House, this blockade is going to stay in effect right now because the President believes that it is being effective in terms of trying to use leverage over Iran and try to get them back to the negotiating table. After we reported yesterday, there had basically been this void, this silence between the Iranians and the United States as they we're trying to decide whether or not they we're going to meet again, face to face in Pakistan.

And so, it's really more of the timing here. We do not have an indication; I should note that this is related to this war or to this blockade. We believe it's tensions that we're separately happening between Secretary Hegseth and the Navy chief. And so, obviously, there are a lot of questions still that remain here, given the timing of all of this.

[20:05:53]

COOPER: Yes, Kaitlan, thanks very much. Kaitlan will be back at the top of the next hour for "The Source."

Joining me here in the Newsroom, former Army JAG Lawyer and combat veteran Margaret Donovan. Also with us, CNN global affairs analyst and senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Karim Sadjadpour and Alan Eyre, distinguished diplomatic fellow at the Middle East Institute, who was a key member of President Obama's negotiating team for the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, which President Trump pulled out of in 2018.

Karim, President Trump cited what he called Iran seriously fractured government, and Karoline Leavitt echoed that as his reason for extending the ceasefire. Do you believe that is the case? I mean, is there a reason to believe the regime is completely fractured and therefore unable to decide whether or not to negotiate?

KARIM SADJADPOUR, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: I don't think, Anderson, that fractured is probably the correct term. There are differences of opinion in Tehran as to how they should deal with President Trump. There's obviously enormous mistrust of President Trump because on two occasions, while the U.S. and Iran we're negotiating, President Trump launched military action. So, some fear that this is all a ruse and he plans to attack again. Those same folks argue that when you're dealing with a bully you can never give in as a result of their pressure, because that will only embolden President Trump to turn on the heat on Iran. But others, especially those who are in charge of managing Iran's national budget, say, listen, we have to make a compromise. We have to prepare the country for compromise.

And, you know, all these groups are committed to the revolution, committed to the system. They have differences of opinion about how they should negotiate.

COOPER: And Margaret, you heard Karoline Leavitt say, because the ships that the Iranians claim to have seized, we're not U.S. or Israeli, the President doesn't see it as a ceasefire violation. Does that that make sense?

MARGARET DONOVAN, U.S. ARMY COMBAT VETERAN, SERVED IN IRAQ AND SYRIA: No, it does not. So, a blockade in and of itself is actually an act of war. So, even just the imposition of a blockade is technically ending or circumventing the ceasefire. Now, the Iranian blockade has been illegal from the start, whether or not they we're at war because they're blockading international waters, which can never be the case in a blockade. The U.S. by contrast is simply blockading the Iranian ports. But in terms of seizing and boarding these third country vessels, that's basically the entire point of a blockade.

So, no, I don't think -- I think it does constitute a violation of the ceasefire. That is the goal of blockade is to stop third party, third country vessels from breaching and that seems to be what Iran is doing. And I think if you ask Greece whether or not it was a violation of the ceasefire, I think they'd hold a different opinion.

COOPER: And Alan what's President Trump signaling to the Iranians when he says, as he did on Fox, that there is no time pressure on the ceasefire extension. ALAN EYRE, DISTINGUISHED DIPLOMATIC FELLOW, MIDDLE EAST INSTITUTE: Well, he says that, but then his people leaked to Axios and other things, it's a three to five-day extension. So, I think he wants to have his cake and eat it too. On the one hand, he needs to give space to negotiations because he doesn't want to go back to military strikes. But on the other hand, he can't totally relinquish what he feels is control, and he wants to keep pressure on Iran. So that's why that happened the way it did.

COOPER: Do you, Alan, based on your experience in these negotiations, the President constantly or repeatedly, I should say, you know, threatening civilizational destruction or destruction of all the bridges, dual use infrastructure, all of which he has, has threatened at various times. And then threatening, you know, a deadline on a ceasefire and then endless continually extending the ceasefire, which one may say makes sense for valid negotiation reasons. But what sort of a message do you think the Iranians and how do the Iranians, you think, interpret all that?

EYRE: Well, I think they're probably confused because the not necessarily publicly, but the message even passed through the Pakistanis continues to change and that makes the response hard in terms of President Trump's public statements. I think they've probably learned, like the rest of us, not to pay too much attention to them because he's either trying to scare the Iranians into capitulation or assuage the markets. So, all the indices don't go in the wrong direction.

[20:10:03]

COOPER: Karim, you know, we talked about the Navy secretary stepping down or being removed. It apparently has nothing to do with the execution of the war because it's largely, it's not an operational role. It certainly could be used by the Iranians as a sign or interpreted by the Iranians as a sign of some sort of fracture in the U.S. military.

SADJADPOUR: That's right, Anderson. I mean, when you take the country to war, you want to unite America and Americans and divide your adversary. In this case, the Islamic Republic of Iran and unfortunately, we've seen the opposite over the last six weeks. We have a very divided country, increasingly, few Americans are supporting this war, and there's been some very senior level firings. In this case, the secretary of the Navy during a naval blockade being let go. And in contrast, the Iranian government has shown real cohesion, coherence, consistency and their action. And so, you know, in an ideal circumstance, you want the opposite. You want to either you want to fracture the Iranian government and unite America.

COOPER: If at the end of these talks, the result is I mean, you know, Ambassador Crocker was on two nights ago saying that the best the U.S. can hope for right now out of the out of any talks in Islamabad, is a reopening of the Strait and a return to the status quo in the Strait of Hormuz. It's very possible, though, that the status quo could be. I mean, is the status quo even possible to return to, given that Iran now sees I mean, it's always been theoretical that Iran could shut off access to the Strait, it's now been proven.

DONOVAN: Yes, I think it's a very difficult question, especially when you consider that Iran has admitted to mining the Strait. And so, I don't think that it's quite as simple as it is, simply telling Iran to open it and then claiming that it open. And indeed, even for that short period when it was open, Iran was directing vessels through a very specific route that they had to take, presumably because they knew that that particular route wasn't mined. But de-mining, the strait is just this entirely separate logistical step that's going to have to take place before commerce can sort of happen safely throughout.

COOPER: And there's reports that Iran is not sure where the mines are.

DONOVAN: Yes, exactly, so we need, you know, true minesweeping ships.

COOPER: Which, by the way, the U.S. decommissioned.

DONOVAN: That's correct. The U.S. decommissioned an entire class of minesweepers, the avenger class of minesweepers that we're stationed in literally in Bahrain months before the war broke out.

COOPER: This was literally done. I mean, was this in January, if memory serves me.

DONOVAN: Yes, they left port, I think in January, which means that, you know, months before the first bomb dropped, a week before the first bomb dropped.

COOPER: Which is kind of, I mean, which is incredible to think about given, it's not like in January, the idea of conflict with Iran was, so inconceivable.

DONOVAN: Unforeseen.

COOPER: Yes.

DONOVAN: You would hope not and certainly that is the type of thing, you know, the idea that we've lost or that we've decommissioned a class of minesweepers. That's the type of information that you would expect the Secretary of Defense to pass on to the President before he starts a war, or for the Secretary of Defense to at least consider as being relevant before you start a war that's going to implicate the Strait of Hormuz, because, of course, those minesweepers would have been situated within the gulf.

COOPER: Is that something the Secretary of Defense, I mean, in a normal administration, would have known?

DONOVAN: Yes, that's absolutely something that the Secretary of Defense should have been keeping track of and we have, you know, significant losses in assets here. And so, I think while we are in a ceasefire and it's good, and we should be grateful that bombs aren't dropping. I think that the United States really needs to take stock of sort of what we've lost and what we still have to bring to the fight.

COOPER: Alan, what do you think is the biggest obstacle to getting talks started again?

EYRE: Neither side really wants to negotiate. I mean, it seems clear to me it's the same feeling I got the first three years of JCPOA negotiations where it was perfunctory, performative. Each side was negotiating more about where to meet for negotiations. And then when you did show up for negotiations, everyone read their little kabuki speeches and nothing really happened.

So, I think the biggest obstacle is that neither side, you know, it's like a slot machine. Everything has to be lined up for the payout. Things aren't lined up in either country. Neither side is really ready to engage in serious and sustained negotiations. So even if they get in the same country, get in the same room, my concern is that nothing will come of it.

COOPER: You had to work for three years on this thing, knowing that it was just like Kabuki Theater, that's got to be incredible --

EYRE: It was a five-year process. And, you know, the first three years, it was exactly like this. No direct talks between the Iranians and the U.S. Messages we're being passed by other people, long times between meetings, mostly just plenary sessions where people read their speeches. So, for a variety of reasons, neither side was really earnest about finding a negotiated solution.

That changed in 2013 with the election of Hassan Rouhani, when President Obama decided to go after negotiations. And then we did it in 18 months to two years. But the whole process from start to finish was about five years.

[20:15:11]

COOPER: Karim, 20 percent of the world's oil supply flowed through the Strait before this war began. The impact is compounded the longer the Strait is shut, obviously, at some point will the economics of the situation force the hand of one side or the other?

SADJADPOUR: I think President Trump is counting on the fact that the regime in Iran is going to desperately need sanctions relief and a cash injection. That was the observation of some of our negotiators in Islamabad, in particular. The longer this blockade persists as a question of whether Iran would have to shut down some of its oil production, which could do potentially permanent damage to its oil production. And so, I think that is the hope that the Trump administration is banking on.

One thing here, though, is that, Anderson, this is a political culture in the last 47 years that lionizes resistance. It lionizes sacrifice and the word for compromise in Persian is literally a slur. So, as Alan alluded to, it's not a regime which compromises very easily, even when it appears to us that their existence is at stake.

COOPER: Karim Sadjadpour, Alan Eyre, Margaret Donovan, thanks.

Up next, more on the provocation from Iran State Media, they're airing the video purportedly showing Iranian soldiers seizing those two cargo ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Where does that leave peace talks? We'll get an update from Nic Robertson in the region.

And later, "The New York Times" reporting tonight that the FBI began investigating one of their reporters after she wrote an article about Director Kash Patel's girlfriend. Details on that ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:21:01]

COOPER: More on our breaking news tonight. Here's another look at that propaganda video that just aired on Iran's State Media purportedly shows Iranian soldiers seizing two cargo ships in the Strait of Hormuz. This comes a day after the President extended the ceasefire with Iran. We'll get some insight now on where efforts stand on a new round of face-to-face peace talks led by Pakistan. CNN's Nic Robertson joins us from Islamabad. Are you hearing anything about possible talks -- Nic.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: I am, the mediators here are still hopeful. You know, I keep pressing them. How can you be hopeful? The city here is still on lockdown.

The venue is waiting. It's empty and they continue to believe that they can make this happen. At some point that hope really has to dissipate. And what Iran put on display in the early hours of today, targeting two of those container ships and bringing them under their control, and then later on releasing that video of their military operation with those small, fast boats. I think that really shows you that the Iranians are trying to send a very strong military signal, to back what we're hearing from the sort of politically, diplomatically, from leading political voices in Iran.

That is, they want the Strait of Hormuz open. They've kind of brushed off this ceasefire extension saying we didn't ask for it. I actually think there's some circumstantial evidence to suggest that they did, but they're brushing that off and making a big point of brushing it off and at the same time making a big point of asking and demanding what President Trump specifically said in his Truth Social post that he wasn't going to give.

So, where does that hope actually come from? I think earlier on today, yesterday, almost our time when the Iranian ambassador here went in to meet with Pakistan's Prime Minister, that was a very visual display of diplomacy. And not all the diplomacy that happens in this city is put on public display. So, I think that was intended to send a positive signal. But really, it does seem, Anderson, very seriously, as if the Iranians are just holding out over the Strait of Hormuz and they think they have the leverage to do that.

COOPER: Yes, Nic Robertson, thanks very much from Islamabad.

Joining me now is New Hampshire Democratic Congresswoman Maggie Goodlander. She served as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy reserve and s it's on the Armed Services Committee.

Congresswoman, the President saying there is no time pressure those we're his words on the ceasefire extension. Do you take him at his word? And what signal do you believe that sends to Iran?

REP. MAGGIE GOODLANDER (D-NH): Anderson, thanks so much for having me. It's really hard to take the President at his word on anything these days, because he is shifting his position every day on the hour it feels like. So, it's very hard to take what he's saying seriously. But what I can tell you is I believe deeply that the United States Congress should be voting on a war powers resolution each and every day, that this war of choice continues.

COOPER: The President has vowed to continue the U.S. blockade on Iranian ports. Iran has claimed to seize these two foreign vessels in the Strait of Hormuz just last 24 hours. You're a former naval intelligence officer, how tenable or not, is that balance of power?

GOODLANDER: You know, Anderson, the President didn't answer the question that every commander-in-chief should be answering on the front end when a war is launched and a war should always be the absolute last resort. He never answered and still hasn't answered the question of how does this end well? And what he's done is to get us into a huge mess, a mess in which we've seen 13 service members give their lives in this war, 400 wounded and no end in sight.

You know, right now the imperative is to reopen the Strait of Hormuz because people across this country are feeling the intense pain of high prices at the gas pump, at the grocery store, at the pharmacy and beyond. And the President has got to get the Strait of Hormuz reopened, and he's got to bring an end to this war of choice.

COOPER: You're on the Armed Services Committee. Do you have any sense of why the secretary of the U.S. Navy was just pushed out? He's obviously not one of the people making battlefield decisions and it doesn't seem directly related to the war. But do you have any information?

[20:25:23]

GOODLANDER: Anderson, I don't and, you know, that's a big problem because for the secretary of the Navy to depart or be fired abruptly and without any reasons given in the middle of a massive naval blockade that's underway at a moment when we have tens of thousands of service members deployed, a third U.S. aircraft carrier on its way to the Middle East right now, one of our aircraft carriers has been deployed for more than 300 days now.

The secretary of the Navy is the head of the Department of the Navy and a mission critical player for our service members. And this, Anderson, fits into a really troubling pattern that we've seen with Pete Hegseth at the helm of the Pentagon, where people have been dismissed without good reasons, without any reasons given whatsoever.

As my Republican colleagues have pointed out, this creates a real chilling effect in our military and it's downright dangerous to be doing this in the middle of a war. This is why I've said from the very beginning that Pete Hegseth has no business serving as the Secretary of Defense of this country. COOPER: Do you have any information on why or who made the decision to decommission the minesweepers that the U.S. had which we're in the region before the war started?

GOODLANDER: I don't, Anderson, but this is something that we've got to get to the bottom of because what we know is, even if the Strait of Hormuz we're to reopen tomorrow, we're going to be in for months more of real pain and of an inability for the Strait to be operational. We know this is going to be up to six months based on press reports, and that is because of decisions that were made on the front end. And this again, fits into a pattern and a whole long list of really basic operational questions that we're just not sorted out on the front end as any responsible commander-in-chief and any responsible Secretary of Defense would have done.

COOPER: Congresswoman Maggie Goodlander, thanks very much. I appreciate your time.

GOODLANDER: Thank you, Anderson.

COOPER: Up next tonight, more on the war on Iran and what's going on inside the White House. Plus, new reporting from "The New York Times" that the FBI began investigating one of "The New York Times" reporter's last month who wrote about FBI Director Kash Patel's girlfriend and his use of bureau resources for her transportation and security.

And later tonight, after Virginians voted to redraw the congressional map, a judge in rural Virginia ordered the results not be certified. Details on what happens now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:32:01]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president has not set a firm deadline to receive an Iranian proposal. Look, again, I'm not going to set a timetable for the president. He has not done that, and I won't.

I know there's been some anonymous sourced reporting that there was maybe a three to five-day deadline. That is not true. The president has not set a deadline himself. Ultimately, he will dictate the timeline.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST OF "ANDERSON COOPER 360": That was the White House press secretary today giving an update on peace talks with Iran. It's unclear at this point when or where the next round might take place.

Joining me now is CNN Senior Political and Global Affairs Commentator, Rahm Emanuel. He served as President Obama's first Chief of Staff. So Rahm, the president now says there's no time pressure on the ceasefire extension. He says the regime is fractured. How do you assess both sides' negotiating skills so far?

RAHM EMANUEL, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL & GLOBAL AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR: Well, I mean, we're a distance from it, but I would just say the president thinks he wrote a book called "The Art of the Deal." He and his team are getting schooled. The Iranians wrote a book called "The Art of the Negotiation," and they're showing to him, and they're schooling him on it.

And you sent a team, a bunch of real estate developers, off to negotiate with a Persian culture that is built on the ethos of the merchant and the market. They will negotiate and be endless about the negotiating process.

So there's no deal, given how the Iranians are operating, and they know something about negotiations, and they have a leverage point, which is the Strait of Hormuz. And again, as I said, you and I have talked before about this, Anderson.

We went in to deal, or the legitimacy of it, the logic behind the war, rather, was to stop them from acquiring the capacity for a nuclear weapon, and they discovered they had a nuclear option called the Strait of Hormuz. And they have that leverage, and they're using it.

And I don't think either party, and most importantly, I'm more worried about our side on this, is negotiating, and because of the second piece of this, the president, in two separate negotiations, started military action against the Iranians. So there's no trust.

And when you have no trust, you have no capacity to actually negotiate with good faith to get to a conclusion, regardless of where the other side's opposition is.

COOPER: Regardless of the reason, and we're not really clear on the reason, because this has just happened, and it's happened very quickly, the Secretary of the Navy leaving in the middle of, obviously, this biggest naval conflict that the U.S. has had in quite a while. Yes, it's an administrative role, not an operational role. How does this play into things?

EMANUEL: I actually think you got to take a step back, Anderson, and do a wide lens. You have the Secretary of the Army, who has now fired the Head of the Joint Chiefs, fired the Head of the Army, an unbelievably qualified person, the CNO Chief Naval Officer, Lisa Franchetti. You have the FBI director clearly having a drinking problem, acting like he's a frat boy, which is also part of the national security.

[20:35:00]

And today, you also have the person that's been nominated for cybersecurity, a position open, who's pulled himself back because he wasn't qualified. The entire national security apparatus of the United States, not just in this military conflict, but we have actually enemies like Russia and China doing cyber type of attacks on America. And the United States is with a junior varsity team on national security.

Yes, it's the Secretary of Navy today. 12 months ago, you and I were talking right before the set. It's the Head of the Joint Chiefs, then it's the CNO of the Navy, then it's the Head of the Army. There's 20 generals. You read about this in China. You read about this in Russia, not in the most professional entity of the United States.

When you look back at the armed forces of the United States, it's the greatest turnaround in history. You had at the end of Vietnam, a broken operation. You have the best capacity, not just because of the equipment, because of the ethics, the morality, the training.

I've worked with many people in the armed forces, from the Marines and Navy, particularly as ambassador, but also as joint chiefs, the whole joint chiefs. This is the greatest that America has to produce. And the national security team at the present, from the cyber position that's open, an FBI director who's never been confirmed, and a Secretary of Defense who is junior to the people he's firing.

The whole apparatus, at a time of war, let alone real conflicts around, is literally running amok from a president who is acting on impulse.

COOPER: Yeah.

EMANUEL: This is not how a great superpower acts.

COOPER: I do want to point out, Kash Patel has denied any allegation about drinking and denied the accuracy of that Atlantic article. Rahm Emanuel, thank you, appreciate it.

Up next, after Virginia voters approved a new congressional map, a rural judge there bars the certification of the results. We'll tell you what happens next.

Plus, a new report from the New York Times that the FBI began investigating one of their reporters who wrote about Director Kash Patel and his girlfriend.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:41:10]

COOPER: One day after voters in Virginia approved a new congressional map that may hand Democrats four more seats in the House, a judge in rural Virginia ordered the results not to be certified. The judge cited several reasons, including that state lawmakers didn't follow their own rules in passing the referendum and that the ballot language was flagrantly misleading, in the judge's words.

The state attorney general said he intends to immediately appeal the ruling. Joining me now is CNN Chief Political Analyst, David Axelrod, who served as Senior Adviser to President Obama and former Trump Campaign Adviser, David Urban, who's now a CNN Senior Political Commentator. David Axelrod, do you think the results in Virginia are actually in jeopardy here, or do you think this is an order that will be struck down on appeal?

DAVID AXELROD, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Look, I suspect that it will survive because it was a vote of the people of the state, which should carry some weight. I think that it will survive. But, you know, this whole episode of this flurry of ballot initiatives and legislative action began when the president declared sort of a war on redistricting, and it was another war that has had unanticipated consequences for him and his party. So we'll see what happens now.

I think that this is an attempt to save what is a bit of a disaster for them there in Virginia.

COOPER: David Urban, I mean, as David Axelrod said, I mean, the push to gerrymander district is something President Trump, the Republicans, started in Texas. What do you make of Democrats hitting back?

DAVID URBAN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah, so listen, Anderson, while I am a lawyer, I called America's favorite lawyer, not Perry Mason, Elie Honig, before I came here tonight and asked him for his opinion on this.

Elie, so what I am told and what I've -- the little reading I've done, and I think this gets struck down not because of any partisan politics, but because the Democrats in Virginia didn't follow their own rules. There's a rule that says the legislature, after they pass this, it has to be 90 days before any voting can occur on this. So when the legislature passes sometime in February, you know, 90 days would be sometime in May.

So that's strike number one against them. The second strike on procedural grounds, the law in Virginia says that it has to pass the legislature once, and then an election has to take place. So that would be this coming 2026 election. And then the legislature has to pass it again, and then it could take effect.

So I think that Axe may be wrong on this one, and that this will be struck down. The Virginia Supreme Court, this judge on two occasions had challenged this kind of attempt before, and the Supreme Court has never ruled on the merits of this, the Virginia State Supreme Court. This is not going to play out in the federal courts.

But I think this may not survive, and we'll be back at ground zero because there are two pretty solid procedural grounds which Democrats seem to have blown through.

COOPER: Axe, CNN released its latest Poll of Polls today. President Trump's job approval sits just 37 percent. How much do you think he can turn that around if and when the Iran war is brought to an end?

AXELROD: Yeah, it's a really big question. You know, his numbers have slid quite a bit, three or four points in these Poll of Polls since February 28th when this war began, Anderson. And I don't think -- I think there's concern about the war because people don't exactly understand why we are in this war or what the endgame is here.

But primarily, it's because the issue that was always the issue is still the issue, which is the cost of living. This is why Donald Trump was elected. This war has sent prices in the wrong direction, and particularly gasoline. Remember, a couple of days before the war broke out, he told the nation, he boasted about how gasoline prices were coming down.

[20:45:00]

Well, now they're a dollar more than they were then. And it's going to take a while to see to sort all of this out. And the impression is that a lot of economic chaos has been created for reasons that aren't well understood.

I don't know that that goes away simply when the war ends. And I think this is a tremendous burden for Republican candidates in the fall. Well, the president's not running, but these are always kind of referendums on the president.

And right now, the president's numbers, particularly on the economy, are atrocious.

COOPER: Urban, does the 37 percent number worry you?

URBAN: Look, Axe is right. Obviously, you know, the president is still, you know, kind of the leader of the party. The tough part for Democrats is they don't have a leader of the party. If you put up the Democrats' congressional approval number, it's in the teens, right? It's in the like 18 percent. It's somewhere in the abysmal.

So Republicans still, you know, on the generic ballot are still trusted more on the economy, still trusted more on crime, on all those kitchen table issues that people will be voting on. If the messaging in the fall can really focus on that, if gas prices come down a bit, remember, we're still not at the highs, the all-time highs of the Biden administration. We're down, you know, $4 a gallon, no picnic, but still not as bad as it was in the Biden administration.

If the message is, Republicans say, listen, if you want to go back to that, if you want Hakeem Jeffries to be the leader and throw, you know, sand in the gears of any progress that we're going to make moving forward, then go ahead, vote for it. And so I think messaging is going to be really key. Watch what happens.

James Blair was on this afternoon with Dana. I think focusing on, you know, what Republicans are going to run on, it's going to be, you know, Democrats are a whole lot worse than Donald Trump. I think that's going to be the messaging.

COOPER: Do you (inaudible)?

(CROSSTALK)

AXELROD: Anderson, the question is whether that -- I mean, we've had, I think, 39 of these midterms elections since 1940, only twice has the party in power gained seats. The Republicans have a -- have to really, you know, flout history here to reverse it. They only have a three- vote margin in the House.

And as I said, they're always a referendum on the incumbent. And this incumbent tends to -- it's not like he's going to fade away. So the idea that it's going to be turned into kind of the choice rather than a referendum, it's been tried before. Every party does it. Every party hopes to make it happen. It rarely happens.

And there's no indication, particularly with this war, that it would happen here.

COOPER: Yeah. David Axelrod, David Urban, guys, thanks very much.

URBAN: This is the president who defies gravity, as we know.

COOPER: David Urban, thanks. The New York Times reporting tonight that the FBI investigated one of its reporters last month after she wrote about Director Kash Patel using bureau resources to provide his girlfriend, an aspiring country singer, with additional security and transportation. The headline of that reporter's article, "Kash Patel's Girlfriend Seeks Fame and Fortune, Escorted by an FBI SWAT Team."

An FBI spokesman provided the Times with a statement saying that Patel's girlfriend required SWAT protection because, quote, "as a direct result of her relationship with Director Patel, she's facing more than a dozen active threats, death threats."

According to the New York Times, as a result of the article, the FBI began investigating whether the reporter crossed the line into stalking and even went so far as to comb through bureau databases for any potential information on her that would warrant further investigation. The reporter allegedly contacted the subject of the story, Patel's girlfriend, and they had one off-the-record phone call and exchanged e-mails, but never met in person.

The reporter also spoke with numerous other people who worked with or knew her, which is all standard practice for a thorough reporting. A person briefed on the matter tells the Times, DOJ officials ultimately determined there was no legal basis to proceed. I want to get some perspective now from former FBI Deputy Director, Andrew McCabe.

Does it make sense to you that the FBI director's girlfriend would be given extensive protection in the first place, or that the bureau would investigate the New York Times writer who reported on it?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, neither of those things make sense to me. It's not -- this is something I've never seen happen before, where somebody other than the protectee, and in this case, the protectee, of course, is the director of the FBI, receives a security detail. I can tell you when I was the acting director of the FBI, I had the detail for that three-month period, and they did not protect my wife or my children.

If they were traveling with me, they could get into the car that I was driven around in, but when they went about their business and my wife went to work every day, the detail didn't do anything for her. That's standard procedure. I don't know how today's FBI and Kash Patel's office specifically rationalizes doing this. It seems like it's probably contrary to federal regulations.

[20:50:00]

But in terms of the reporter's activity, Anderson, I worked under Eric Holder, and Eric Holder changed the DOJ's guidelines for conducting investigations involving media people and tightened them up significantly. And since that time, it's been the rule that you cannot conduct any investigative activity targeted at a journalist or a journalistic entity because of news gathering activity. So news gathering activity is absolutely off limits. And that, from reading this article, seems to me to be all that this reporter did.

COOPER: Yeah, I mean, the question of a New York Times reporter stalking the subject of an article, I mean, it's pretty much inconceivable. I mean, it doesn't even pass the laugh test.

MCCABE: It's absurd, it's absurd. How many stalkers contact their victim and they have a nice conversation that's off the record and then they exchange emails with each other? I mean, this is ridiculous. It's not stalking to contact someone when you're going to write an article about them.

In fact, I feel like she kind of went, you know, she went pretty far to make sure that what she was doing is transparent with the subject of the article. So it's, yeah, it's not stalking in anybody's book.

COOPER: And so an investigation like this, if Kash Patel, I'm not sure who would have initiated it, hard to imagine that it wouldn't have come from Kash Patel or, I guess, but can the director of the FBI initiate just something like this on their own?

MCCABE: Well, I've never seen anything quite like this before. So I don't have a whole bunch of cases that I can say to you here. But I will say that we know from the article, the Times article, that the investigative activity, the interest in opening a case on this reporter was not coming from a field office. It was actually coming from people who work at FBI headquarters.

So the idea that someone at headquarters was trying to open a criminal case in which the girlfriend of the FBI director was the alleged victim in that case, and that was not known to the director of the FBI, inconceivable. There's absolutely no chance that Kash Patel did not know about what was happening there.

COOPER: Andrew McCabe, appreciate you being on. Thanks very much.

COOPER: Coming up, we're going to take you to the Arctic Circle on this Earth Day to see where scientists are studying temperatures rising here seven to eight times faster than the rest of the planet.

Also later, we'll show you some earthshine as seen from the Orion spacecraft. And yes, I have to look up what earthshine is, and we'll tell you. That's next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:56:49]

COOPER: Today is Earth Day, which began being recognized in 1970 as a way to foster a more sustainable planet. CNN's Chief Climate Correspondent, Bill Weir is in the Arctic Circle, where sea ice dropped to an alarming new low at the end of winter. He joins us now.

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, Happy Earth Day, from the top of the world, this is Svalbard, Norway. This amazing archipelago of mountains and glaciers, these frozen rivers like this one behind me, so stunning to look at for the first time and then so depressing to realize how far they've retreated in just recent years.

The Arctic is overheating. We've known this for a while, but it is accelerating thanks to the power of open water to absorb sunlight. Instead of the reflective power of snow and ice up here, you've got a lot more dark water. And so these temperatures now, this actually part of the globe, Svalbard, is heating up seven to eight times faster than the rest of the planet.

So it's sort of like a glimpse into the future to see how the changes affect every form of life. Polar bears have switched to hunting reindeer up here because the seals are no longer available because the sea ice is gone. It doesn't even touch the land anymore.

For the human settlements up here, the biggest cities, they're seeing their infrastructure crumble as the permafrost melts, and there's more danger of avalanches from more rain and heavier snowfall and these sorts of things. And it has touched off a geopolitical storm up here as well.

Norway has kept this place open to science from all different nations. An odd treaty up here allows pretty much anyone to move to Svalbard, but Norway is flexing its sovereignty after Russia invaded Crimea and were ejected from the Arctic League, after Donald Trump pulled the United States out of climate science entirely.

I've been meeting with scientists up here who just are frustrated at watching these politics play out while they're studying all these changes. You've got countries like Norway and Sweden and England, Japan are up here, South Korea. We met some Italians studying the snowpack yesterday, who want to send a message on this Earth Day that what happens up here will happen to everyone eventually.

This is a glimpse into the future and how we need to prepare the adaptation that this crisis demands.

COOPER: Bill Weir, thanks very much.

Now some new really cool images courtesy of the Artemis II crew on this Earth Day. NASA posted this on social media, four photos the astronauts took of our planet with the message, it's our home. Also today, NASA posted a video captured by Mission Specialist, Christina Koch, on their second flight day when they were nearly 34,000 miles from Earth and headed for the moon.

Take a look at this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTINA KOCH, ARTEMIS II MISSION SPECIALIST: In case you're wondering, the light that you see on my face is Earthshine. And that is the beautiful Earth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[21:00:00]

COOPER: So Earthshine is sunlight that bounces off our planet and travels to the moon. This could be the first time it's been captured in video by an astronaut this far in space. Remarkable.

That's it for us. The news continues. I'll see you tomorrow. "The Source with Kaitlan Collins" starts now.