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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

Blanch Nomination in Trouble; Dr. Fauci Invokes the Fifth 100 plus Times at GOP-Led COVID Response Hearing; Filings Reveal FBI Ex- Mobster if Comey Knew What "86" Meant; CENTCOM Says U.S. Launches New Strikes Against Iran; CNN Poll Finds Most Americans Unhappy With Trump on Iran War and Economy; Russia Launches Massive New Strikes on Ukraine; Senate Vote on Blanche Nomination Postponed. Aired 8-9p ET

Aired July 29, 2026 - 20:00   ET

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

ALEX ISENSTADT, SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER, AXIOS: He might be cutting big checks. He will definitely be cutting big checks, but he won't necessarily be going out to Pennsylvania or Ohio and having those big in front of the camera events that he had in 2024.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Yes, those rallies when he when he himself was a rock star, things have changed.

Alex, thank you so much for sharing all your new reporting with us, I appreciate it.

ISENSTADT: Thank you.

BURNETT: And thanks so much to all of you for joining us as well. AC360 begins now.

[20:00:31]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: Will the President's former criminal defense attorney and current acting attorney general get the full-fledged job or will two Republican Senators derail Todd Blanche's nomination?

Good evening to you, I'm Jim Sciutto in for Anderson, that is the big question tonight and the breaking news.

Just a short time ago. Those two senators, John Cornyn and Thom Tillis, wrapped up a meeting with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley. They have been withholding their support over the Justice Department's and Blanche's handling of the so-called anti- weaponization fund and tax immunity arrangement; the IRS reached with the President.

Without their votes in committee tomorrow, Blanche's nomination stalls. Here's what Chairman Grassley said shortly after that meeting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Mr. Chairman, will the hearing be, will the vote be delayed tomorrow? SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY (R-IA): We are working on getting a solution.

REPORTER: You think you'll make it?

GRASSLEY: We are working on getting a solution.

REPORTER: What did you guys discuss in that meeting?

REPORTER: Will you be meeting with Mr. Blanche again today?

GRASSLEY: We are working on getting a solution.

REPORTER: Any commitments on a vote tomorrow, at this point?

GRASSLEY: We're working on getting a solution.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: That's his answer and he's sticking to it. Again, without Tillis and Cornyn saying, yes, the Blanche nomination will not proceed. We should point out Senator Tillis is, of course, retiring from Congress. Senator Cornyn is leaving after losing his primary to an opponent very publicly backed by the President.

CNN's Manu Raju is on top of all of this, and he joins us now.

So, after this meeting, Manu, do you have any sense that Cornyn got assurances that would give him the vote?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Cornyn is making very clear, Jim, that he absolutely did not get those assurances and that he's very much would vote no if this vote were to happen right now. So, what will happen between now and 9:00 A.M. tomorrow morning, which is when the vote is scheduled in the committee?

At this moment, the chairman of the committee, Chuck Grassley, is not saying how he will proceed. And if he does proceed, and if Cornyn stands firm, that means that this nomination will deadlock in committee. It could stall for some time, and it could effectively derail the Presidents pick for the Nation's top law enforcement officer.

And when I caught up with John Cornyn this evening after he met with Chuck Grassley, after he met with Thom Tillis, the other Republican holdout, he made clear that the DOJ has far more to go to resolve his concerns over the so-called weaponization fund and that immunity deal over the President and tax enforcement.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R-TX): We're waiting for Senator Grassley to make a decision. We haven't heard from the DOJ. So, I think, what he told me is he wanted to wait to see if they made a response, but I'm not aware they have.

RAJU: You would acknowledge, though, having not having to run for reelection anymore has freed you up to be more independent from the President. Would you acknowledge that?

CORNYN: Have you noticed?

RAJU: So, when the President says that you're doing this as a political vendetta, what do you say?

CORNYN: That's a convenient excuse, and it happens to be untrue.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: So that comment there from John Cornyn acknowledging that he's more independent now, Jim, that he has essentially free from the shackles of running for reelection and trying to cozy up to Trump, as he tried to do in winning, trying to win over Trump's primary endorsement, which went to his rival, Ken Paxton. He says that is not motivating him now.

The President seemed to suggest today that he thought that that was motivating John Cornyn. But Cornyn pushing back. But nevertheless, Jim, the timing is a serious issue because the Senate is set to go on recess next week. And if this is delayed past tomorrow, that means it pushes into next week and that means that this could delay until after Labor Day.

And who knows what the political world will look like then heading into the midterm elections, which is why the White House, the Justice Department and Chuck Grassley want to resolve Cornyn's concerns right now, but for now, holding firm.

SCIUTTO: They want to resolve this, Manu. Do you have any sense, are you picking up any sense that they're ready to give up on this, potentially?

RAJU: There is no sign of that, Jim. In fact, there was a written proposal sent over from the Justice Department to John Cornyn. Cornyn told me that he had read it out, some of the lines on that proposal sent it back to the Justice Department and whatever they sent back to him, he said, was not responsive to their concerns.

He seems to think that White House lawyers are playing a role in all of this, too.

So, we'll see how much the President has resisted this. That's a big question here as well, Jim.

SCIUTTO: And Cornyn, has made a point of saying that loyalty is a two- way street or should be.

Manu Raju, on the Hill, thanks so much.

There was, of course, other Senate drama today, Dr. Anthony Fauci's appearance before the Senate Homeland Security Committee and the grilling he got from the Republicans on it, mostly over his role during the COVID pandemic.

Before playing you some of that, I just want to give you a sense of what was the bipartisan consensus for decades about the nation's top infectious disease specialist.

Here he is, in 2008, President George W. Bush awarding him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

[20:05:51]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: For more than 23 years, Tony Fauci has led the fight against HIV and AIDS, he was also leading architect and championing of the emergency plan for AIDS relief, which over the past five years has reached millions of people, preventing HIV infections in infants and easing suffering and bringing dying communities back to life.

For his determined and aggressive efforts to help others live longer and healthier lives, I'm proud to award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Doctor Anthony S. Fauci.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Times have changed. He was 67 then, 12 years later, still running the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, he became the public face of the COVID pandemic, and though he was criticized for some of his advice, then President Trump, on the last day of his first term, awarded him a commendation for his role in developing the first COVID vaccines and very quickly.

Four years later, Republican sentiment against Dr. Fauci had grown so hostile, President Biden gave him a preemptive pardon, and four days later, President Trump ended his federal security detail.

Today, in front of committee chair and longtime critic Senator Rand Paul, Dr. Fauci spent much of his testimony taking the Fifth.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, FORMER DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASE: I respectfully decline to answer, based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.

I respectfully decline --

I respectfully decline --

I respectfully decline --

I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: He refused to answer more than 100 times, and when he was not saying those words, he was listening to this. We bleeped out, Senator Bernie Moreno's "F" word.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RICK SCOTT (R-FL): You forced people to watch their loved ones die alone over the phone, it's disgusting.

SEN. JOSH HAWLEY (R-MO): During the pandemic, you got rich, didn't you? You got rich while people were dying.

SEN. BERNIE MORENO (R-OH): Here I am sitting in front of you six years later saying, who the (bleep) do you think you were for doing that? It is a total disgrace what you did to this country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Some soundbite competition there. At one point, Dr. Fauci's lawyers was escorted out of the hearing after a confrontation with Senator Paul, who said this will not be the last of it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): It's already been scheduled for next week for a vote on contempt of Congress.

I think the courts will have to figure out whether or not, if you have a complete pardon, whether you have a liability against incrimination, can you incriminate yourself, if you have a pardon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Joining us now, Harvard Medical School Medical Doctor Jeremy Faust, and also former Federal Prosecutor Berit Berger. Good to have you both on.

Dr. Faust, if I could begin with you, because there are legitimate questions that you could imagine Congress pursuing here. Early responses to the COVID pandemic, were schools shut too long? Questions about masking advice, et cetera, but also any lingering questions about the origin of the COVID pandemic.

We didn't see that today. We saw a lot of personal attacks. In your view, from a medical standpoint, did the public gain anything from this hearing?

DR. JEREMY FAUST, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF EMERGENCY MEDICINE AT HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL: Thanks for having me. No, they did not. And thank you for starting where you did, Jim, with that moment of President George W. Bush giving Dr. Fauci the Medal of Freedom because Dr. Fauci actually stood shoulder to shoulder with George Bush, Barack Obama, he was a nonpartisan person who many of us in public health and medicine looked up to as a leader for good reason, because the lives that were saved by that program were just beginning. And now we know it's tens of millions, thanks to people like Dr. Fauci and others, but he led it.

So, to go from that to what we saw today, which in which Dr. Fauci was subject to the craven demagoguery that we saw, it was just preposterous. And we learned nothing and we could have learned something if it was a good faith moment where we could have a discussion.

I read those diaries, and there's a lot of things that I think, hey, that's something that I'd like to study and understand. What did the Trump administration and Dr. Fauci know, and what could we have done better? This is a huge trove, actually, but it's a missed opportunity.

[20:10:07]

SCIUTTO: Berit, just on the legal question here, Fauci, of course, was pardoned by President Biden as he left office. A lot of questions today, at least from Republican lawmakers, as to whether that pardon removed Fauci's right to exercise, as he did all those dozens of times there, his Fifth Amendment rights. Where do you stand?

BERIT BERGER, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR, EASTERN AND SOUTHERN DISTRICTS OF NEW YORK: Yes, this is actually a great legal question. There is this tension between his ability to exercise his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and this Presidential pardon. The reason being, when somebody exercises their right to the Fifth, they're essentially saying, I'm in fear that I will be criminally prosecuted and I don't want to put myself in jeopardy.

Now that he has this pardon, the argument is that he's not in criminal jeopardy because the pardon has essentially said there's, it's not possible for you to be criminally prosecuted for this. So, there is a real tension between the Fifth Amendment and this Presidential pardon. And I've got to say, he is not on solid legal ground with exercising the Fifth here.

I think this will be a real question for a judge eventually about whether this Fifth Amendment protection still stands, given this pardon.

SCIUTTO: His argument and his concern and his lawyers concern was that Republican lawmakers were attempting to catch him in a lie or an alleged lie in this testimony here. I mean, if you were advising him as his lawyer at the time, would you have given the same advice that his lawyer before he was kicked out of the room, gave Dr. Fauci?

BERGER: I would, I think it probably was sound legal advice. Again, you know, he said it very clearly. The only reason he believed he was asked to testify here is to essentially lay this perjury trap, to get him to say something that could eventually be used as grounds for some sort of false statements, prosecution, which is what they have been seeking, you know, very vocally and very obviously for a while now.

Now, there are a few sort of loopholes, perhaps, that he could hinge on. The Fifth Amendment will not be available. For example, if you know, the pardon covers any federal prosecutions, you know, if there's a potential state prosecution, he may still have a Fifth Amendment right. If the pardon only was for, you know, certain limited period of time or just for things that were relating to his government service, if he could make some sort of an argument that this fell within outside of the bounds of pardon, he may still have a valid reason to exercise his Fifth Amendment right but, you know, this is something that a judge is going to decide at some point. SCIUTTO: Okay, Dr. Faust -- you mentioned his diaries, HHS Secretary RFK Jr. handed over more than 1,100 pages of what were Fauci's personal diary from 2019 to 2022. And he has explained it as saying he was he was writing a memoir, and that was the explanation for all these sometimes-personal entries, including comments on his media coverage.

But he did talk, for instance, about exploring that question as to the original origin, right, of the virus and whether there were any ties to that lab in Wuhan. Again, in a putative bipartisan or somehow polite setting, can you imagine those diaries yielding something that would be valuable to investigating that question?

FAUST: Absolutely, and the detail in there with how Dr. Fauci was taking in all this new information at a rapid pace, it's remarkable. it's easy for me, and I did it to sit there and to criticize. But then I read day by day what he was going through and I think, gosh, they had very little time. And there's much more detail than in his memoir. And actually, and frankly, in the memoir of Dr. Deborah Birx and Scott Gottlieb and other of these books, you should read them. And this document actually gives us a much better sense of how difficult these moments were.

But then people look at this and they think, why would I want to serve? Because I'm just going to get berated by these zealots. But Dr. Fauci himself has said on the record that he still believes that people should go into public health and public service, even at the risk of this kind of thing. And my heart goes out to him because he's a great public servant who's not perfect, he's human but he showed us a lot of great things. But there's still much to learn, and that's the missed opportunity.

SCIUTTO: And the risk is real not only to him, but we should note his daughter has received threats as well. His family did, so removing that security detail from his family, well, it had impact. Dr. Jeremy Foust, Berit Berger, thanks so much for joining.

Just ahead, will the President follow through on his profane vow to beat the "F-ing S" out of Iran in response to Tehran's attempted strike on U.S. forces last night?

And next, what new court filings reveal about the government's case against former FBI Director James Comey, especially the part about investigators seeking answers from the former mob hit man, Sammy "The Bull" Gravano.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:19:11]

SCIUTTO: Federal law enforcement secretly tracked former FBI Director James Comey's cell phone, despite concerns that doing so might be, "legally questionable." That, according to newly released federal court filings that outline exactly how authorities conducted their investigation into Comey after his infamous 86 47 seashell post. The documents also reveal that Secret Service Agents who interviewed Comey were instructed to send their notes as soon as possible to President Trump, who was aboard Air Force One at the time, according to the filing, "POTUS was requesting a copy of the interview notes to use in his 6:00 P.M. press conference. It is a hot topic on the plane and redacted code name for President Trump is very interested.

Trump and his allies have repeatedly, repeatedly claimed that Comey's post was a threat against the President's life, arguing that 86 was mafia code for killing someone, and that 47 represented Trump, the 47th President of the United States.

The FBI went as far as to interview Salvatore Gravano, aka "Sammy the Bull", a former mobster turned government witness against John Gotti.

Gravano told authorities that while the term 86 never came up during his interactions with Comey, he was sure Comey knew it meant to kill someone.

Comey has denied his post was a threat, saying he understood the term 86 to be restaurant jargon. He was charged with threatening the life of the President nearly a year after that social media post.

Joining us now, former Deputy Director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe. Andrew, good to have you.

[20:20:49]

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Good to be here.

SCIUTTO: So, first basic legal question, was it legal for federal authorities to track Jim Comey's cell phone without a warrant?

MCCABE: Yes, likely not, Jim, in my opinion and I think the communications that we have remarkably in this case that have been entered as a part of the motions recently filed by the defense are revealing on that spot.

You have agents actually saying, I'm not sure we should do this. It seems legally questionable to which another agent replies, yes, we're going to do it anyway, which is really a bad look for the government.

Now, that capability to go -- this is not a warrant. This is not a subpoena. It is simply, the law enforcement officers reach out to the phone company and they say, hey, there are exigent circumstances here. We need you to send us the locational information from this phone on a constant basis, because someone is about to die or be badly hurt. That's lawful for them to do under those circumstances. But those circumstances were absolutely not present in this case.

So, I think it's a really good question that the government should have to answer.

SCIUTTO: Okay, next question. Are there any circumstances under which it would be appropriate for the President to request the Secret Service to provide him with their interview notes? In this case, of course, regarding Comey or for the Secret Service to provide those notes during an investigation that's ongoing.

MCCABE: Jim, in my experience, well, the short answer is no. In my experience, first of all, investigators never share their notes from an interview with anyone. They take those notes back to the office, and they use them to write up a report as to how that interview went. And sometimes that report gets shared under very, you know, closely held circumstances, especially in the middle of an ongoing investigation.

There are many good reasons to keep a President of the United States, any president of the United States far away from the details of a criminal investigation. We've been trying to do that since the 1970s to keep the Justice Department activity and ongoing investigations away from the President, to keep him from becoming politicized.

I don't know a single President and I worked with several during my time in the FBI that ever made such a request. The fact that the President did it here really injects some very bad facts for the government into this case, which could lead to success on the motions to dismiss on the part of Mr. Comey's team.

SCIUTTO: Yes, I mean, and the cause or the justification was so that he would have ammunition for a press conference, which seems somewhat remarkable.

Okay, final question, so, investigators, in trying to build a case that 86 47 was a threat, they go to a former mobster, Sammy the Bull, to confirm via him that the mob used 86 to mean kill. I mean, is that a substantial, you know, method of investigating something like this?

MCCABE: Nothing about this case is typical, that's first of all. But the whether or not Jim Comey knew or believed that that that number meant to kill someone is at the very heart of this case. And if the government can't prove that the whole case falls apart.

So, they did a lot to try to show that that's what Jim Comey knew. They went back and they looked through all of the records of the FBI to figure out how many times that number has come up in the course of investigating mobsters as a term for killing. And the number they came up with was none.

Then they went to a bunch of very well-known FBI agents, retired FBI agents who spent their entire careers investigating mobsters. And they said, did you know this number 86 to be to mean among mobsters, that it meant to kill someone? And they said no.

Then they finally went to a mobster, maybe the only one they could get in touch with, Sammy the Bull, who said he knew it but he never talked to Jim Comey about it. And he also said that mobsters would never have told the government that, which is also not helpful to them.

Finally, Sammy the Bull said to them, you should ask John Gleason, former federal Judge John Gleason. He is the most experienced prosecutor. He will know the answer to this. They asked him, and Gleason actually wrote an affidavit attached to these motions saying that he never heard that term used in any mob case, in any of the thousands of hours he spent talking to mobsters.

So, another swing and a miss for the government on that one.

SCIUTTO: Yeah, remarkable. And having worked in restaurants myself, they do use 86 to kill apps and things like that. Anyway, this is where we are. Andrew McCabe, thanks so much.

MCCABE: Thanks.

SCIUTTO: Again, though we did not have Sammy the Bull on our bingo cards, it is now. And our Randi Kaye has more on Gravano's bloody history.

[20:25:46]

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

SALVATORE GRAVANO, AKA SAMMY THE BULL: I think it's appropriate time for me to talk about it.

RANDI KAYE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): That's Salvatore Gravano, otherwise known as Sammy the Bull. In mafia circles, he is perhaps the most infamous turncoat. It was Gravano, after all, who turned on mafia boss John Gotti and helped bring down the leader of the notorious Gambino crime family.

REPORTER: So, are you a rat?

GRAVANO: I look at it as, I was betrayed. I betrayed him. John's a double crosser; I'm a master double crosser. We played chess and he lost.

KAYE (voice over): Gravano and Gotti had been arrested in 1990. Gravano provided key testimony that helped convict Gotti of five murders, including the hit on former Gambino family boss Paul Castellano, which Gravano had helped Gotti plan.

The hit took place outside Spark's Steakhouse in Manhattan just before Christmas in 1985. After that, Gotti became crime boss and Gravano, his right-hand man. Gotti died in prison in 2002.

Gravano himself confessed to 19 murders, including those of his brother-in-law and his best friend, Louis Milito. He talked about the guilt of killing his pal with ABC's Diane Sawyer in 1997.

GRAVANO: Oh, absolutely -- something tore me up. I knew the wife, I knew the children, it killed me inside.

KAYE (voice over): Gravano got just five years in prison in exchange for that 1991 deal with the government to testify against his fellow mobsters.

KAYE (on camera): Years later, in 2001, Sammy the Bull Gravano pleaded guilty to running a narcotics ring and selling ecstasy. He was sentenced to 20 years on federal charges, but was released in 2017.

KAYE (voice over): By 2020, he had launched a YouTube channel and started a podcast where he entertains listeners with mafia stories.

GRAVANO: Today's a very special episode. I get a lot of questions about it.

KAYE (voice over): According to his website, Gravano was born in 1945 in Brooklyn and got his nickname because he fought like a bull. In 1970, he killed Joseph Colucci, his first hit for the Colombo crime family.

Today, he is a free man who seems to have some remorse.

GRAVANO: Is there anything that I feel I regret and that I would do differently? Of course.

KAYE (voice over): Randi Kaye CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: We have much more ahead tonight. Next, we have just learned that the U.S. has restarted airstrikes on Iran. We're going to have important details right after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:32:20]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST & CO-HOST OF "ANDERSON COOPER 360": Well, the Breaking News tonight, just a day after Iran's failed missile strike on U.S. forces in Jordan, Central Command made the following announcement just in the last several minutes. We're quoting here that "U.S. forces began launching strikes against Iran at 8 p.m. Eastern Time today," a little over a half hour ago. "The strikes, CENTCOM says, are a powerful response to yesterday's attempted Iranian attacks on U.S. forces based in the Middle East."

We're joined now by retired Air Force Colonel, Cedric Leighton. And listen, there's been a lot of telegraphing of these attacks today, President Trump said so, including in some colorful language in an interview earlier today, that he would be striking back for those Iranian missile attacks we saw yesterday. What is the military objective of strikes like this? Is it purely retaliation?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well that's one part of it, Jim. I think what we're seeing is not only retaliation, but also the potential for the start of something else. And there's some reports out there that Admiral Cooper, the Commander of U.S. CENTCOM, might be planning a 10 to 14 day campaign. So whether this is the start of that or not is, of course, something that we don't know yet.

But that is certainly a possibility. But at the very least, retaliation, but also the need to engage in measures that basically result in force protection. And that would include going after some of the areas where missiles are launched from, particularly in western Iran and also some in southwestern Iran. So that would be one of the primary objectives, I would think.

SCIUTTO: The trouble is, Colonel Leighton, is that the U.S. and Israel have been striking such targets for months now, and Iran has maintained a capability, a diminished capability, but a capability nonetheless, to strike its neighbors and to strike U.S. bases in the region with impact, right? The U.S. lost four soldiers in Jordan just a short time ago. What is the evidence that a new night of strikes or round of strikes will reliably eliminate that threat?

LEIGHTON: I don't think we can say that any strikes that are currently being conducted will eliminate that threat. I think the evidence is pretty clear, as you laid out, Jim, that the efforts that we've done so far, that we've conducted so far, are not resulting in an elimination of the Iranian capability to strike at our targets that include U.S. personnel and U.S. assets. So that's going to be a real problem.

What they can do is they can coerce Iran toward another goal, and that other goal might be the negotiating table. But right now, it sure doesn't look like we're going in that direction.

[20:35:00]

SCIUTTO: Well, and listen, to that point, the president has claimed multiple times that Iran is interested in going back to the table, desperate to go back to the table. But we had the deputy foreign minister say a short time ago that we have sent no request for negotiation with the U.S. during the past 16 to 17 days, at least in public statements. They're not expressing any immediate desire.

A question I have for you is, because we've talked a lot about the impact of the war in Iran on U.S. missile stockpiles, particularly interceptor missiles, air defense missiles, those that go into Patriots, et cetera, but also attack missiles like the Tomahawk, for instance. Can the U.S. military and would you expect the military in strikes like the one we're seeing tonight, particularly if it were to go on for 10 to 14 days, is there a way to reduce the expenditure of those missiles so that you don't back yourself deeper into a supply hole, right, magazine depth, as folks talk about?

LEIGHTON: Yeah, so that's a really difficult problem set for American commanders to deal with because we've been used to expending missiles like the Tomahawk and similar missiles, as well as our air defense missiles, in a fairly free manner. And when you look at the expenditure rates in Iran versus in Ukraine, the expenditure rates in Iran are much, much higher than they are for Ukraine, and there are a lot of reasons for that.

But the key factor here is this. The U.S. has really left its defense industrial base lacking in this particular case, the capacity for our industrial base to reproduce those missiles and to bring them out to the front lines where they can be used is not as robust as it should be. And I think it's become pretty clear that, you know, with the expenditures that we've seen in Iran, that there's a lot of work to be done in that particular area. So for this offensive to succeed, I think they are going to be, you know, basically rationing some of the missiles they're using, but they're going to try to make them as effective as possible, and that's going to be a key element right there.

SCIUTTO: Well, President Zelenskyy has made the point that the U.S. has expended more air defense missiles in the war with Iran than it has given Ukraine throughout its more than four-and-a-half years since the Russian invasion.

LEIGHTON: Yeah.

SCIUTTO: Colonel Leighton, thanks so much.

LEIGHTON: You bet, Jim. Thank you.

SCIUTTO: So for more now on the domestic political impact of all this, new CNN polling on the war showing that 72 percent of Americans disapprove of how the president is handling the conflict. 73 percent say he is not paying enough attention to the actual problems that most Americans faced. 70 percent disapprove of his handling of the economy. For more on those numbers, the reality they reflect, perhaps the impact on the upcoming midterm elections, we're joined by CNN's John King, and he is in, well, one of those battleground states in Des Moines, Iowa.

John, first, do Democrats in Iowa see the war as an opportunity to gain advantage? I mean, obviously, some of these are tougher battlegrounds than others, but do they see this as potentially driving their political fortunes in the fall?

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: They know that it's helping them, Jim. The language always has to be careful. Some of the first fatalities were here in Iowa. So people here, opposition to the war runs high. Questions about the president's policy runs high. But Democrats say it is just simply a fact that their standing in some of the races out here have improved.

You're called the Iowa battleground state. Just that is kind of Breaking News, if you will. Look at it. I'll show you. I have the mini-magic wall with me on the road. Go back to 2024.

I mean, Donald Trump won here less than two years ago, November 2024, by 13 points, right? Look at all the red on this map, right? Rural America is Trump country, and Iowa is a big rural state. But, but, number one, this state has a deep anti-war history. It was an unpopular war 20 years ago in 2006, Iraq. That was the last time Iowa Democrats elected a governor. They think they might be able to do that this year.

Two years after that, in 2008, Iowa, first the caucuses, and then in November, lost Barack Obama into the history books because of the unpopular Iraq War at the time. Now it's the Iran War. You see all that red again, Jim. I just want to say, if you have all this red, what is that? That's farms. That's diesel fuel for your tractors, your combines, and your other equipment. That is gasoline to drive. That is fertilizer for those farms as well, which costs money, and some farmers say getting more scarce in this.

And just one other point, as gas prices go up every time this comes back, if you go from Illinois to Nebraska, that's 300 miles. This is a big rural state. If you go from Minnesota down to Missouri below us, that's 200 miles to drive. If you live in a big rural state, you drive a lot. When gas prices go up, you get mad. When you get mad, you take it out on the party in power.

SCIUTTO: No question. And diesel price is up even more than gas prices. So as you speak to voters and to party officials there, given we're less than 100 days out from the midterms, and these numbers are awful for the president.

[20:40:00]

Is there anything they believe the president can do at this point that would fundamentally alter or at least lessen the political impact in November?

KING: Yeah. When you talk to Republicans, smart Republicans who understand this state, the part you just made, Jim, lessen -- lessen. They think it's too late. The affordability crisis people are feeling, maybe gas prices will come down a little bit. Groceries are still high. Is the president focused on the right priorities? Very hard to turn that number. We're 97 days now away from the election.

Just want to bring another number into it from our new poll and bring it up to you. These are devastating numbers for any president, any president. It's Donald Trump at the moment, but I've covered midterm elections a long time. A 34 percent overall approval rating, that's among all Americans. That is a recipe for a midterm blowout.

Here's what concerns Republicans. The president's approval is at 78 percent among Republicans. That is the lowest point, his approval among his own party since he's become president, in both of his terms. That's the lowest number.

Elections, especially midterms, are about passion and turnout. Will Republicans show up? Every Republican I talk to, pollsters and strategists say they are very nervous about that. 24 percent, that means you've lost the middle of the electorate when Independents do not support you. So what does that mean?

I want to show you this. Let's go back to the House elections in 2024. You can't even tell where the districts are, right? When I show you that map, it's all red, because Republicans now control all four House seats here. But there's one here in southeast Iowa, the first district. The margin in that race was 800 votes two years ago.

SCIUTTO: Wow.

KING: Democrats think they can pick that up in this anti-Trump, anti- Republican environment. And they're also, Jim, targeting this district in south -- Des Moines, where I'm standing, to the south. That was a bit more of a race. It was a bigger race. But they think in this environment, it's possible. So Democrats think even here, great possibilities.

And if they have possibilities in Iowa, think about when you get into more purple states.

SCIUTTO: Yeah, no question. John King, good to have you there on the ground.

Coming up next, we turn to another part of the Middle East, a CNN Special Report on what is fueling the harassment and violent attacks on Christians in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank. And more on the other war, the latest from Ukraine where people, as we speak, are taking shelter from a massive new Russian air assault.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:46:25]

SCIUTTO: Tonight, we take you to the occupied West Bank where for months clashes between Israeli settlers and Palestinians have become increasingly violent. The United Nations warns in a new report the attacks there are at an all-time high. And Christians in Jerusalem have also faced problems. More now from Clarissa Ward, here's her special report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For 2,000 years, Christians have been in the Holy Land. That presence now under mounting pressure as attacks on Christians rise. In Jerusalem, spitting at clergy, vandalizing holy sites, harassment and intimidation are almost daily occurrences. While in the occupied West Bank, Israeli settler violence and economic pressure are pushing Palestinian Christians out.

April 2026, a nun is thrown to the pavement by an Israeli extremist just outside the site of the Last Supper. The Israeli government strongly condemns the attack and the suspect is arrested.

FATHER ANTHONY GIAMBRONE, VICE DIRECTOR, EBAF: This is where two of the quarters meet, Christian and Jewish, and so it's always been a friction point.

WARD (voice-over): Father Anthony Giambrone teaches at the same school as the nun who was attacked. He has lived in Jerusalem for 10 years.

WARD: Does anyone have any sense of what the motivation was here? I've heard some speculation that maybe he was disturbed individual or --

GIAMBRONE: He could be disturbed but he's filled with an ideology as well that I think doesn't want to accept our presence here.

WARD: Help us understand that a little bit better.

GIAMBRONE: Yeah. I mean, it's obviously a long history. It's very important to say that that's, you know, that's an extreme view. I think there's increasing concern that it's an extreme view that's getting mainstream. It's a fundamentalist understanding of the possession of the land. The land was given to the Jews and that's -- that needs to mean all of it.

WARD (voice-over): According to the religious freedom data center, from April to June of this year, reports of incidents against Christians in Jerusalem rose by 70 percent compared to the three months before October 7th. Though the spike may partly reflect more people coming forward to report.

The fallout has embarrassed the Israeli government Internationally. In April, it appointed Arab Israeli Christian Diplomat, George Deek as Special Envoy to the Christian World, the first such position in Israel's history.

GEORGE DEEK, ISRAEL SPECIAL ENVOY TO THE CHRISTIAN WORLD: Attacks on Christians, on Jews, on Muslims, or anyone based on their faith or their ethnicity is immoral, illegal and unacceptable. We should however be able to distinguish between serious incidents that require serious action and the false narrative that this is somehow representative of the Israeli state, Israeli society, or Christian life in Israel.

The reality in Israel is that Israel remains the only place in the region where the numbers, the Christian community in Israel is actually growing.

WARD: There is a sense that these types of incidents and this type of bigotry and this ideology has been allowed to continue with relative impunity.

[20:50:00]

DEEK: I acknowledge the fact that there is a rise in extremism in Israel, just like we see a rise in extremism, I think, across the world. We can do more, we should do more, and it is my task to make sure that we will do more.

WARD (voice-over): But just 20 miles away, the government is enabling Israeli settler extremism.

WARD: So we're driving now to a town called Taybeh in the occupied West Bank, and it's been coming under attack from settlers for some years now, but those attacks have really intensified in recent months.

WARD (voice-over): Palestinians of all faiths are struggling, but Christian Palestinians are leaving faster than most.

ROLAND BASSIR, CHRISTIAN PALESTINIAN (through translator): There is no work, no money. My children want to buy something for 20 shekels, and I don't have any to give them. For God's sake!

WARD (voice-over): It doesn't take long for us to come across Roland Bassir. His cement factory has come under attack this morning by settlers, as it does most days. BASSIR (through translator): Look here, they are running after me.

WARD (voice-over): He shows us videos he has compiled over months of settler extremists chasing him out of his factory.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can't you understand, this is our place?

WARD (through translator): Do you have any idea why they are doing this?

BASSIR (through translator): I don't know. They want to take over everything. Yesterday, I told him I'm from Taybeh. He said, this settlement is mine. Taybeh is mine. If I have the opportunity to leave, I would leave and not stay in this town, because there is no future for me or my children.

WARD (voice-over): Down at the damaged factory, the Israeli police and army finally arrive, four-and-a-half hours after Bassir says he first called them. But minutes later, without even getting out of their vehicles, they turn around and start to leave.

BASSIR: See you later. Bye bye.

WARD: So they came, they --

BASSIR (through translator): And you saw it.

WARD: -- seem now to be leaving.

WARD (voice-over): As we drive out of Taybeh, we see a young settler grazing his sheep in the town's olive groves.

WARD: Hi. Hi, excuse me. My name is Clarissa Ward. I work for CNN. Can I ask you some questions? Do you speak any English?

WARD (through translator): Hello, do you speak English?

WARD (voice-over): He ignores our attempts to speak with him in Hebrew and begins to film us.

WARD: This is a Palestinian town, Taybeh. It's a Christian Palestinian town. I'm just wondering if you can explain why you're here, or what you're doing here. This is not your land.

So you can see he took a video of the whole thing, did not say a single word to us. And we're right here, right outside of Taybeh.

WARD (voice-over): Reverend Munther Isaac says that since October 7th, the situation has become untenable.

REV. MUNTHER ISAAC, EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN PASTOR: Christians are part of the Palestinian people. Whatever happened to all Palestinians happens to us. The issue with Christians is that because our numbers are small, we became a very vulnerable community. So every family that leaves, we feel its impact.

WARD: Do you feel that the church is doing enough to protect Christians here?

ISAAC: Churches around the world are saying many good things. What we need is action to put pressure on Israel to stop the settlement activities and to reach a settlement with the Palestinians.

WARD (voice-over): For now, that seems a distant prospect. Without decisive action, the erosion of Christian life in the Holy Land will continue. The question is whether there is political will to change it.

Clarissa Ward, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: Coming up, Breaking News from Ukraine's capital where residents are taking cover as we speak due to yet another Russian missile attack.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:58:26]

SCIUTTO: There is Breaking News just into CNN on tonight's top story. Tomorrow's Senate Judiciary Committee vote on Todd Blanche's attorney general nomination has been postponed. Why? Apparently, there still are not enough Republican votes. A committee spokesperson says, just moments ago, "Chairman Grassley works to set President Trump's nominees up for success in committee, not failure."

No word yet on when that vote will indeed take place.

And now to Ukraine, and more Breaking News. Residents of Kyiv are taking cover in the subway during new Russian missile strikes targeting the capital and other Ukrainian cities. This comes just hours after Ukraine's President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, warned that Russia was preparing a "massive attack."

Earlier tonight, as the strikes were underway, I had this exchange with Kyiv's deputy mayor.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Before we go, what does your night look like for you, given that another Russian attack is underway? Where do you go? And how long do you have to be there?

KONSTANTIN USOV, DEPUTY MAYOR OF KYIV: Just like millions of Ukrainian families, and there are four million people living in Kyiv. It's a big city. My kids and my wife are now down in the basement of our multifamily apartment building. And this is a daily routine for Ukrainian families.

They put their kids to bed earlier so that there is at least some sleep, because Russians tend to strike at night or early in the morning.

[21:00:00]

SCIUTTO: Yeah.

USOV: Then you survive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Then you survive, he says. That is all for us tonight. I'm Jim Sciutto. The news continues. "The Source with Kaitlan Collins" starts right now.