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The Lead with Jake Tapper

New Strikes In Iran As Trump Demands Unconditional Surrender; ICE Detains Nashville Reporter Without Warrant, Attorney Says; Noem Leaves Post With Trail Of Controversies In Her Wake; Rep. Gonzales Drops Re-election Bid After Pressure From GOP; Obama Calls Out Elected Leaders In Tribute To Jesse Jackson; Trump Admin Appears To Back Down On Plan To Build Housing For Vets. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired March 06, 2026 - 18:00   ET

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

[18:00:00]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper.

And we are following breaking news tonight. A fresh wave of attacks lit up the evening sky over Tehran today as President Trump said, there will be no deal with Iran until, quote, unconditional surrender. What exactly does that mean? Well, the president just told Barak Ravid of Axios, who's also a CNN contributor, that, quote, unconditional surrender could mean the complete destruction of the regime's military capabilities, not necessarily a formal unconditional surrender.

Despite the Pentagon continuing to say that the goal is not regime change, President Trump insists he must be involved in the selection of Iran's next leader. Trump telling CNN's Dana Bash earlier today that Iran's leadership has been neutered and he is looking for new leadership that will treat the U.S., Israel, and Middle East allies well.

When pressed on whether he wants Iran to become a democratic state, Trump said he is not concerned whether Iran becomes Democratic or not, telling Dana, no, I'm saying there has to be a leader that's going to be fair and just, do a great job.

But the longer this war on Iran drags on, and it has only been a week, the more political pressure the president will face at home, if past is precedent. The Strait of Hormuz, a key oil passage, is basically at a standstill amid the war. U.S. oil prices are skyrocketing, topping $91 a barrel for the first time since October 2023. President Trump earlier dismissed those concerns, saying, quote, it'll be a short-term time. It'll go way, way down very quickly.

Jeremy Diamond is in Tel Aviv, Israel, for us. Jeremy, you just returned from the site of a skirmish at the Israel-Lebanon border. Hezbollah in Lebanon attacked Israel. Israel is retaliating. Tell us more.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jake, this really is the second front in Israel's war with Iran, especially as Israeli military officials say that Hezbollah faced significant pressure from Iran to join in this war, to retaliate against Israel for the killing of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, and, of course, the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes that we saw this past Saturday.

But I can tell you that that front is certainly intensifying right now. Earlier today, when my team and I were right along the border, we could see projectiles coming from Hezbollah towards Israeli territory, very near to our position, as well as Israeli strikes and artillery fire going into Lebanon.

Here's just a little bit of what we saw.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DIAMOND: Oh, okay, so we're going to put our vests on now because we just saw not one, but two projectiles coming in. Still not clear exactly what that was, but we're now starting to hear the outgoing Israeli fire responding to it.

And now, okay.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's just -- he's so used to it.

DIAMOND: And that wasn't hitting the same spot, yes, getting very active here now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DIAMOND: And, Jake, that cross-border fire continued for several hours today, and it resulted actually in seriously injuring at least five Israeli soldiers, according to the Israeli military. In Lebanon, we know that the Israeli military carried out at least 115 strikes, according to the IDF. That included strikes that were not only in Southern Lebanon, some of those we could see and hear with our own eyes and ears, but also in the Lebanese capital of Beirut, after the Israeli military yesterday ordered hundreds of thousands of people living in the Dahieh, those southern suburbs that are known to be a Hezbollah stronghold, to evacuate from their homes.

Many of those people now living out on the streets or trying to flee to the countryside as the Israeli military subsequently intensified its strikes in Beirut, taking down multiple high-rise buildings as well in Lebanon.

The question now is whether or not Israel is going to go further in terms of a potential larger scale ground operation. My team and I certainly saw tanks and artillery position near the border. We know Israel already occupied several positions in Southern Lebanon. But now the question is whether or not they will go deeper than that. Jake?

TAPPER: I also want to bring in CNN's Clarissa Ward, who is in Erbil, Iraq. Clarissa, the U.S. embassy in Baghdad just issued a warning about a new threat. Tell us about that.

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Jake. This was just a few hours ago. They issued a warning saying that hotels in Iraqi Kurdistan where we are, where foreigners are staying, they believed, may be under threat from strikes from Iran-backed militias inside Iraq. And literally, Jake, not even two hours after they issued that warning, four drones were intercepted over Erbil.

[18:05:00]

One of them actually made some impact or the debris made impact with a hotel right in the center of town. Fortunately, nobody was injured.

But this certainly a new twist or turn, I should say, here in -- or hundreds of contractors who had been working on bases across the region who were pulled for security reasons when this war began, some of them even before this war began, but who are now effectively stranded here, in a sense, and are staying in these hotels and now find themselves a target.

And we did see a statement coming from one of those militias that's part of this sort of axis of resistance, if you will, that effectively said, and I'll just read from the statement, your evacuation of your bases and your flight to hotels does not make you safe. We are pursuing you and we know in which hotels you reside.

So, all of this, Jake, really contributing to fears that civilian infrastructure could now be targeted more and more here in Erbil, which we had not seen before, and, again, the question of what to do with not just all those contractors, but business people and other Americans who have been told that they should leave, but don't necessarily have an easy option at this stage, Jake, to get out.

TAPPER: Clarissa Ward in Erbil, Jeremy Diamond in Tel Aviv, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Let's discuss this all with CNN Global Affairs Analyst Karim Sadjapour. He's a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His latest piece for The Atlantic is titled, quote, Trump has lost the plot in Iran. Thanks so much for being here, Karim.

How has Trump lost the plot in Iran?

KARIM SADJAPOUR, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, I think we need to rewind to January of this year when -- look at the reasons that we've gotten into this situation. President Trump, on nine occasions, warned the Iranian regime that if they kill protesters, American help was on the way. Obviously, Iran ran a giant truck through Trump's red line that killed tens of thousands of protesters.

And I feel we've kind of lost sight of that original rationale. This war, in some ways, has been a tale of two wars. The military aspect of it has been remarkably well-planned, but the political strategic messaging seems from the president to be improvised on a daily basis.

TAPPER: Yes. It's unclear, although regime change is not one of the goals, it would be a nice fringe benefit is how the Trump administration's casting it.

Let me recap what President Trump told my colleague, Dand Bash, earlier today about picking a new leader in Iran. He said it's going to work very easily, like in Venezuela, where the vice president became the president. He said he was open to having a religious leader. When pressed on, he's insisting there needs to be a democratic state, small D, democratic, he said, no. He also said he needs to be involved in picking the new leader. What do you make of that? Is any of that realistic?

SADJAPOUR: I think it's mistaken messaging, Jake, to look at a country like Iran, 2,500-year history, very proud people, and for centuries, there's been great power competition inside Iran, something the population resents.

So, in this situation, I think the president's message should be very simple. We want the people of Iran to choose their next leaders, and we, the United States and global community, want to empower them to do so.

TAPPER: In your Atlantic article, you write that Tehran is recognized for decades that American public opinion is one of its most potent allies in restraining the regional ambitions of U.S. presidents. It seems clear that they are very -- the administration is very wary of so-called boots on the ground, even though a major military campaign is underway and we've already lost at least six service members. How do you think American public opinion is playing a role here?

SADJAPOUR: Well, that is absolutely Iran's strategy, to try to negatively impact American public opinion to restrain Trump's ambitions. And there's several ways in which they can do that. Most importantly, they want to try to spike the price of oil so Americans feel it in their pocketbooks.

TAPPER: That's why they've shut down the Straits of Hormuz.

SADJAPOUR: Shutting down Strait of Hormuz, attacking oil refineries in Saudi Arabia. They have killed service members. They want Americans to be asking why our sons and daughters being killed in Middle East, and just general chaos, explosions. They want the president to -- public opinion to restrain the president, as it did in the aftermath of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

TAPPER: Your piece also notes that the CNN report that the CIA is arming Kurdish groups inside Iran, how unusual is that? How unusual is it that we would know about that? And what does it say to you about the strategy and the long-term planning here?

SADJAPOUR: Well, regimes like Iran, they rule by divide and rule. And I think what's dangerous about this strategy is that Iranian Kurds have long been suffering and been repressed by this regime.

[18:10:03]

They constitute about 10 percent of Iran's population. So, they're never going to pose an existential threat to the regime.

The most effective kind of opposition in Iran will be a united opposition. And there's a danger here when the United States is trying to play sides and arm different factions that it actually accentuates opposition divides rather than helps unite it.

TAPPER: Is there a Jean Moulin, the leader of the French resistance? Is there a person who can unify all the disparate groups and every -- and bring everybody together, at least in the short-term before there are some sort of democratic elections? This is jumping ahead, 15 steps, but is there anyone like that? Is the son of the Shah possibly going to fill that role successfully?

SADJAPOUR: It's too soon to say. I think Reza Pahlavi, the son of the late shah, is in pole position. And that they say all revolutions require two kinds of leadership, inspirational leadership and organizational leadership. And for many Iranians, he has emerged as that source of inspiration. But he's been outside the country for 47 years, doesn't have that organizational leadership on the ground. And for that reason, that's why it's going to require -- if this regime is going to be overthrown by an opposition, it's going to require a much more united opposition.

TAPPER: Karim Sadjapour, thank you so much, great to have you. We'll have you back soon.

Is Russia helping Iran keep tabs on the movements of U.S. troops? A retired general will weigh in on the potential consequences of a CNN report from intelligence sources that Russia is doing exactly that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:15:00]

TAPPER: Back in our World Lead, new satellite images from several key military bases in the Arabian Peninsula suggest that Iran may be trying to weaken regional air defenses by destroying U.S.-made radars used to detect incoming missiles and drones. Satellite images show damage to radar bases in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Let's bring in retired Army Four Star Officer and former Command -- Four Star General and former Commander of U.S. Central Command General Joseph Votel. General, thanks so much for joining us.

As you know, these bases have THAAD batteries, a U.S.-made missile interceptor system used to destroy incoming ballistic missiles. If Iran is deliberately targeting U.S.-made radars that detect these incoming missiles, what does that suggest to you about their strategy right now?

GEN. JOSEPH VOTEL (RET.), FORMER CENTCOM COMMANDER: Oh, thanks, Jake. It's good to be with you. Well, I think what we're seeing here is they want to create an effect on us. And they've been trying to broaden the conflict geographically, and they're trying to extend it in time. So, they want to have some effects at us, against us. They appreciate how the media covers U.S. military operations, and they know that we're very, very sensitive to casualties and other things. So, if they are able to inflict damage or in worse cases casualties on us, they know that that could potentially work against us.

TAPPER: Speaking of casualties and damage, sources with U.S. intelligence tell us that CNN -- tell CNN that Russia is providing Iran with intelligence about the locations and movements of American troops, ships, aircraft. I want you to listen to what White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said about this story on Fox.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Whether or not this happened, frankly, it does not really matter because President Trump and the United States military are absolutely decimating the rogue Iranian terrorist regime.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Obviously, the U.S. military has been remarkably successful in the last week, but do you think it does not matter?

VOTEL: Well, I think any commander would be concerned about anybody who was providing information on their troops or their locations or key pieces of equipment. So, yes, I think this is something we should be paying attention to. And I would hope that in kind of in the backchannels here, we are communicating to Russia our displeasure with these reports and trying to track them down. So, yes, we want to do everything we can to protect our forces and our soldiers against threats that may come from anywhere to include the sharing of intelligence with our adversaries.

TAPPER: After meeting with top defense contractors at the White House earlier today, President Trump said that they agreed to quadruple production. In a Truth Social post, the president added, quote, we have a virtually unlimited supply of medium and upper medium grade munitions, which we are using as an example in Iran and recently used in Venezuela. Regardless, however, we have also increased orders at these levels, unquote.

So, we're in day six of this war in Iran. There's been no clear indication about when it's going to end. At what point would somebody in the military become concerned about how this will definitively impact the U.S. weapons and munition stockpiles?

VOTEL: Well, you know, for all the great stuff we're seeing being executed by airplanes and by our maritime forces, I think we have to appreciate behind all that force is an armada of great logisticians who have been worrying about this problem long before the long before conflict began here.

So, this is the key area that every commander is going to pay attention to. And we're always going to be concerned about supply rates, particularly munition supply rates that we continue to do the things that we are being asked to do.

In my view I think we probably have moved sufficient munitions into the theater to support Admiral Cooper's operations here. You know, we haven't really seen any degrading of that to-date. You know, certainly, with continued time, we could see some particular issues with that, but we're not right now.

[18:20:00]

And I think we're going to continue to rely on our industrial base to make sure that we are provided the equipment that we need.

TAPPER: All right. Former CENTCOM Commander General Joseph Votel, thank you so much for your time and expertise, sir.

VOTEL: Good to be with you.

TAPPER: Confusion and many questions after ICE reportedly detained a journalist in Tennessee. That reporter's attorney is going to join us in studio next to explain what happened.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: In our National Lead, ICE detained a reporter for a Spanish language news channel Wednesday in Nashville without a warrant, according to her attorney, who is now filing a petition for her release.

As Estefany Rodriguez and her husband were in the car outside the gym when they saw ICE vehicles pull up behind and in front of them, the husband tells CNN, my wife was really shocked.

[18:25:07]

She's like really confused and can't understand. You know, we really couldn't understand why we're being surrounded, unquote. That's because, according to her attorney and her family, Estefany immigrated to the U.S. from Colombia legally in 2021, seeking asylum, due to the threats she was getting because of her journalism about crime and corruption. Now, her husband is a U.S. citizen, he was born in Texas and is sponsoring her application for a green card as it works.

Her attorney, Joel Coxander, is here with me now. So, Joel, thanks for being here. You shared with us that Estefany started receiving notices from ICE in January of this year, saying that she should come in for meetings. What happened that led up to this arrest?

JOEL COXANDER, ATTORNEY REPRESENTING REPORTER ESTEFANY RODRIGUEZ: So, she had last week on the 25th, an appointment that she was supposed to go to with ICE and the Monday before my co-counsel, Caleb Mundi (ph), had gone with her husband to ICE to be like, hey, is you know, what's going on here? Like, is there a way that she doesn't have to go to this appointment? And the officer said, hey, there's no appointment for her on Wednesday in this system, and that then gave her a new sheet saying, hey, well, show up on March 17th instead, so she didn't have to go on Wednesday. That was the message. And instead, you know, there's now saying that that was actually a sign that she's a flight risk, that she, you know -- or at least that's part of their argument that she intentionally didn't show up.

TAPPER: So, we reached out to ICE and DHS about Estefany's arrest. In part, the ICE spokesperson statement reads, quote, that she was arrested during a targeted enforcement operation. Rodriguez-Florez entered the United States with a tourist visa March 10th, 2021, which was valid until March 23rd, 2021. She failed to depart the country and is in violation of the conditions of her visa and currently has no lawful immigration status. She will remain in ICE custody pending her immigration proceedings.

Claims that ICE did not have a warrant are false. ICE officers had an administrative warrant at the time of the arrest and the officers issuing administrative warrants have found probable cause to issue the warrant, unquote. And the statement goes on to say, all individuals who violate U.S. immigration law are subject to arrest regardless of their criminal history. Her husband says she has no criminal history. What's your response to this?

COXANDER: They did submit crumpled-up piece of paper that is a warrant for arrest, and we've already responded to that because it doesn't have a lot of information on it. It doesn't have her A number, which is her alien number.

And our position is that also, like this was still a warrantless arrest because they didn't serve this on her. At the very bottom of this document, they say, this is the arrest warrant. There's no signature from an officer, an interpreter for her saying that this was actually given to her. And that's one of the requirements.

TAPPER: So, she came into this country on a tourist visa, right? You're not disputing that. She applied for asylum. She said, I can't go back to Colombia. I'll be killed because of my journalism, right? Is that correct?

COXANDER: That's correct.

TAPPER: She got married, fell in love, got married. He's a U.S. citizen. I don't understand why ICE is pursuing her. She has a job. She's married to a U.S citizen. She applied for asylum. She's been in communication with ICE. She's not hiding. Do you have any idea why they would target her? Is she -- has she -- as a T.V. reporter, has she been critical of ICE?

COXANDER: So, she has covered ice. She's gone to arrests by ice. In fact, just the week that she was arrested, she had gone to, you know, cover some arrests, right, I think, just the day before. And, you know, we don't have any knowledge that they targeted her because she was a reporter, but they did know she was a reporter. As we put in our response, like --

TAPPER: Yes, your response that she frequently reports on stories critical of ICE, including covering ICE arrest yesterday on March 3rd, 2026, which you don't state it directly, but you seem to be suggesting, and I'm not saying you're wrong, that this might be retaliatory in nature.

COXANDER: Yes. So -- and we just filed a response this afternoon where we actually request that the court allow us to amend the habeas petition to specifically addressed that this is a First Amendment violation in retaliation.

TAPPER: Have you talked to her since she was detained? Where is she?

COXANDER: I talked to her for a while, while she was still in Nashville, but I have not been able to speak with her since she was moved.

TAPPER: Do you know where she is?

COXANDER: The best as we know, she's still in Alabama.

TAPPER: What are the next steps if this emergency petition for habeas doesn't work?

COXANDER: So, she is eligible for bond because she entered lawfully. So, we've already filed the bond motion earlier today. And, you know, I think that she has a good chance for that, but it's complicated these days with immigration courts.

[18:30:05]

TAPPER: I just don't even understand it. I thought that if you marry a U.S. citizen, and the country knows that you're here and the citizen, you know, that your husband or wife who's a citizen sponsors you, I thought the country, the nation, the government, kind of just like -- unless you're a criminal, just leaves you alone.

COXANDER: You know, historically, that is how things worked. And from my experience, you know, that's not how things are working in a lot of cases now, that as long as somebody is an overstay on their visa, even if they've been, you know, with a pending asylum application or even, or a pending green card the whole time, it never like really been without something that's pending, you know, that that doesn't seem to matter anymore.

TAPPER: This whole thing stinks.

Joel Coxander, thank you so much. I appreciate it. If she gets out, please bring her by. We'd love to talk to her.

COXANDER: Absolutely. She's wonderful.

TAPPER: As the White House prepares for Kristi Noem's departure from DHS, I'm going to be joined live by a member of Congress who had a viral confrontation with her over mass deportation. Stick with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:35:00]

TAPPER: In our Politics Lead, the White House is working quickly to get confirmation plans in place for the man they want to be the next secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Senator Markwayne Mullin. And as the senator from Oklahoma hopes to step into the president's cabinet, Kristi Noem is on her way out leaving a trail of controversies in her wake. One Trump adviser told Axios, quote, Minneapolis was just a disaster. We were supposed to be stopping fraud from Somalian illegals but we wind up shooting two people in the middle of the street, unquote. Another said she had no goodwill on Capitol Hill. She mismanaged FEMA. She didn't show up to hearings. She was disrespectful. No one liked her, unquote. Congressman Seth Magaziner joins us now. He's a Democrat from Rhode Island and a member of the House Homeland Security Committee. Congressman, do you believe that the ousting of Secretary Noem is enough? And if not, what action do you want to see happen to hold her accountable for her time as secretary?

SEN. SETH MAGAZINER (D-RI): Well, Kristi Noem is out, and good riddance. Nobody from either side is going to miss her, as far as I can tell. I certainly won't. But it's going to take a lot more than firing Kristi Noem to reform the Department of Homeland Security, rein in ICE and regain the trust of the American people.

Look, Kristi Noem's tenure was based on a fundamental lie that she told to Americans. She said that under her tenure, the Department of Homeland Security was going to go after the worst of the worst, her phrase. But they didn't go after the worst of the worst. They went after grandmas and gardeners and kids with cancer and U.S. citizens, even deporting veterans. And by their own data, the majority of the people who they detained and deported under her watch were people who had no criminal record at all.

So, the first thing that's going to have to happen in order for Markwayne Mullin or whoever the next secretary is to regain the trust of the American people is actually focus on the bad guys and demonstrate that you can tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys, which Kristi Noem couldn't.

The second thing that they need to do to regain people's trust is show that there will be accountability when ICE agents or anyone else abuse their power. In any other law enforcement agency in the country, if someone engages in excessive use of force, if you have incidents of people being just killed in the street, as Renee Good and Alex Pretti were, there's an investigation and there can be discipline for misconduct. To my knowledge, they haven't disciplined anybody in over a year, even though there have clearly been abuses of power by ICE in this administration.

So, the other thing that I want to see is accountability, accountability not just for people at the top, but accountability for people in the rank and file if they have abused their power. When people abuse their power, not only does it hurt the victims, hurt the innocent people who are hurt, but it also hurts the people in the agencies who are trying to do their job the right way by putting a bad reputation on the entire agency.

TAPPER: So, Noem's team is firing back at the White House on background. They argued that she was thrown under the bus by the president. At the center of this all, what appeared to be the last straw for President Trump, is this controversial $220 million ad campaign that prominently featured Noem. She testified on Capitol Hill this week that Trump knew about it. Trump said to Reuters, he knew nothing about it. So, the question is, who's telling the truth? Kristi Noem or Donald Trump? Kristi Noem, if you believe the president, committed perjury. But what do you think?

MAGAZINER: Well, you know, I think it says a lot about Donald Trump that the thing that got Kristi Noem fired was not American citizens being murdered in broad daylight by ICE, or children being deported, or kids with cancer being deported. The thing that got her fired ultimately was the fact that she didn't handle a question well about whether she was having an affair and that she didn't handle a question well about this ad campaign. You know, the president apparently doesn't care about the cruelty that we've seen by ICE and by DHS in American neighborhoods. He cares more about Kristi Noem making him look bad.

But, again, this is an opportunity for a reset. I am concerned that, again, the problems that we are seeing go beyond Kristi Noem. It ultimately stems from Stephen Miller and his artificial quota of wanting to deport 3,000 people a day.

[18:40:05]

And if you look at the data, if you look at the facts, you cannot deport that many people if you're only going after people with criminal records, right? You are necessarily going to be deporting children and other people who shouldn't be.

And so, look, I think the administration did this because they know they have a political problem. They know that they are unpopular right now, including on this issue. But -- so they have an opportunity to reset. But, again, getting rid -- to your original question, getting rid of Kristi Noem is not enough. They need to have a real reset in how they approach immigration enforcement.

Will that happen? I don't know. It depends whether cooler heads prevail over Stephen Miller's brand of extremism.

TAPPER: Congressman Seth Magaziner of Rhode Island, thanks so much, sir, I appreciate it.

President Obama delivering a tribute to the late Reverend Jesse Jackson today, calling out those in high office, he didn't mention Donald Trump by name. Hear his remarks next.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: It is good to be home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: In our Politics Lead, after pressure from House Republican leaders, embattled Texas Congressman Tony Gonzales has finally pulled the plug on his reelection bid, posting, quote, "After deep reflection and with the support of my loving family, I've decided not to seek reelection while serving out the rest of this congress," unquote.

[18:45:14]

Gonzales still faces a House ethics investigation after admitting to a sexual relationship with a staffer who later died by suicide. Gonzales had been in a runoff with conservative social media

personality and gun rights activist Brandon Herrera, who presumably now will be the Republican nominee.

By the way, here's Herrera talking about owning a vintage copy of "Mein Kampf" on a podcast in 2024.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRANDON HERRERA (R), TEXAS U.S. CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: That's my copy at my house next to a bunch of the German stick grenades. I got the 1939 edition printed in English just because I thought it was wild that you couldn't buy it on Amazon, but you could buy the Communist Manifesto and desktop at all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Here now is our panel. We should note, Herrera also posted this review of a Nazi made gun on his YouTube channel back in 2022

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HERRERA: This, if you can't tell, is the MP-40, the original ghetto blaster. If the MG-42 was Hitler's buzzsaw, the MP-40 was Hitler's street sweeper.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: I guess ghetto blaster is supposed to be laughing about killing Jews in a ghetto.

Later in the song, Herrera plays a German marching song that was published during the Nazi regime.

Kevin Madden, you're the Republican at the table. Surely, the Republican Party can do better than this.

KEVIN MADDEN, FORMER MITT ROMNEY PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN ADVISOR: Well, you know the voters down in that primary had their say in this. This was the -- these were the candidates that they had to choose from. Not exactly the best crop.

But look, I think candidate, the candidate here in this case is going to have to address this. He's going to have to address it directly. To my knowledge, he has, and I'm sure that the Democrats are going to bring it up, but that's going to just really open up a lot of different, very hard tough fought fights between congressional Republicans in the state as well as congressional Democrats, which we've already seen throughout this entire this entire campaign cycle already.

TAPPER: So, Chuck, the Democratic nominee Katie Padilla Stout, is an attorney, former public school teacher. She posted this after Congressman Gonzales dropped out, quote, while the Republican side is full of dysfunction, chaos and extremism, I'm ready to fight for the real issues that matter to the hard working people of Texas 23. Tuesday night, I received more votes than any other candidate running Democrat or Republican.

We should note this is a congressional district Trump won by 15 points. Is it actually in play just because -- I shouldn't say just -- the Republicans have nominated somebody who owns a copy of "Mein Kampf" and thinks it's funny to joke about the Holocaust. Is it actually in play or no?

CHUCK ROCHA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: It is, because look at the trends. One election doesn't mean anything. Several elections in a row does.

When Trump went in and they redistricted this, Jake, they took it from an R plus five to an R plus seven. And then Trump gets 15.

But if you look at the numbers here, if it's a r plus seven district in the primary, 53,000 Democrats voted and 51,000 Republicans voted. The Democrats spent nothing and the Republicans spent millions of dollars. Congressman Gonzales even had a super PAC backing him up against the AK guy. That's what he calls himself online. And he gives an opening to a woman like this.

And I would draw your attention to a new poll that dropped in Texas today a Televisa Univision poll that talks a lot about what the issues Ms, Padilla was talking about, not what Mr. Herrera was talking about.

TAPPER: I want to play something former President Obama said today at Jesse Jackson's funeral service. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Each day we wake up to some new assault on our democratic institutions, another setback to the idea of the rule of law. Each day we're told by those in high office to fear each other and to turn on each other. And that some Americans count more than others, and that some don't even count at all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Kevin, you have an interesting perspective here on hearing this, because you used to work for Mitt Romney, who at the time Democrats demonized as a, you know, just an -- a cruel robber baron. And then you know, now he's the statesman of the year.

What do you make of the criticism from President Obama?

MADDEN: Well, it's always convenient for Obama to come out and criticize the state of American politics when he was always somebody who, when he was trying to draw what we would describe in political parlance as a contrast message, was very good at it. So, you know, sometimes we -- his biggest -- I think his fiercest critics are always find -- will always point out that while he says, you know, when they go low, we go high, when we should be uniting the country instead of dividing it, there's always a very long laundry list of instances where you know, Obama's instinct is to is to oftentimes be as just as sharp with his political rhetoric as anybody.

ROCHA: I think if you look at what's happening today, a lot of changes, a lot has changed in politics since '08.

[18:50:02]

You know, I spent the primary with James Talarico down in Texas, and he spent a lot of time talking to voters about -- let's look for things that make us -- have more things in common, not the things that pull us apart and the things that we see on this every day that are paid to pull us apart. I think that's starting to resonate with people. And I think you saw that in those results.

TAPPER: Well, let's ask -- let's talk about that, because I don't think I've had you on the show since Talarico won, and you were a consultant for Talarico.

So, Talarico won. I was a little surprised by it, to be honest. How did he win? And Republicans are already going after him as too extreme, too on the left, they have this quote of him saying that God is not binary or something. How is he going to handle those attacks?

ROCHA: Hey, you can tell that they're scared about him because they're going to fight each other now for 60 more days in their runoff. He went and talked to people and a big part of his victory. If you look at the election results were Latino voters and white voters.

But a tremendous amount of Latino voters in Texas, which just a few years ago and I was a Democrat that gave the Republicans credit, they were swinging right but they swung back left hard because he went in and he was the only one advertising over a long period of time in Spanish -- Spanish male, Spanish TV, and showing up in community talking about what we just talked about.

And when folks said Democrats can't talk about religion and hope, he showed up and talked about religion and hope, and Democrats flocked to him.

TAPPER: I'm guessing that you're pulling for John Cornyn over the Attorney General Paxton?

MADDEN: Yeah. Look, I think Cornyn has been -- he's been a very good senator. He's --

TAPPER: Why is he in so much trouble?

MADDEN: Well, I think right now, it's a very -- it's a very tough political environment. There's no doubt about that. But he -- you know, he's been elected a number of times. He's a good campaigner.

And I think that he has the right -- he -- I think he's more aligned with those voters right now in Texas than the Democrats who have, you know, they have a longer history of being out of the mainstream with a lot of the Democrats and the -- and the independent, conservative minded independents in that state. They're going to make or break who wins this election.

TAPPER: He -- Cornyn votes with the president, maybe like 99 percent of the time maybe even like 100 percent. You say it's a tough environment.

MADDEN: Well, you know why.

TAPPER: Why?

MADDEN: Because I think it's very clear there's like an attitudinal shift inside the party or an attitudinal split. And he doesn't necessarily reflect that as well as some of the others.

ROCHA: Remember the hate here. This is why. This is why.

TAPPER: All right. Kevin, Chuck, thanks to both of you. Really appreciate it.

President Trump made a pretty big promise to veterans. But there are some signs that he might not be on track to keep that promise. We'll tell you what we're talking about, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:56:32]

TAPPER: In our politics lead, as President Trump wages a new war in the Middle East, he appears to be breaking a promise here at home to those who have fought in previous wars.

Last May, President Trump signed an executive order called keeping promises to veterans and establishing a National Center for Warrior Independence. The center would finally settle a years-long legal battle and establish homes for veterans in California, something that has been repeatedly promised to these men and women.

And it's a story we've been closely following here on the lead for years. It sounds like a good idea, right?

Well, CNN's Nick Watt looked into how developments are coming along.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Center for Warrior Independence will be here on a vast V.A. campus given to veterans in the 1880s for a home but used over the years for a V.A. hospital, as well as parking lots, dog parks, oil wells, UCLA baseball field and the exclusive Brentwood School's sports facilities. The administration did just terminate that schools long term lease on the property, but the key Trump promise, in that order is, to, quote restore the capacity to house up to 6,000 homeless veterans by January 1st, 2028.

There are, after previous legal battles, some units for homeless vets already here and more under construction Trump administration just announced in court after the V.A. lost a suit filed by needy veterans that they're working to fulfill the president's promise and laid out a vague plan to build around another 2,500 units.

But I've done some math that will only bring the total capacity here to maybe 5,000 and not until the fourth quarter of 2030 could be later. So, about 1,000 units short of the presidents promise to veterans. And around three years late.

Remember, the executive order's title, Keeping Promises to Veterans.

ROB REYNOLDS, VETERAN ADVOCATE: I want to see President Trump's executive order be successful. My big concern at the moment is that a lot of the V.A. executive leadership, they've all signed non- disclosure agreements, and they're not communicating with any of us.

WATT (voice-over): There are more than 30,000 homeless veterans nationwide, by the most recent count, around 3,000 here in Los Angeles alone.

REYNOLDS: With the history of this property, there's always been a lack of transparency. And that's how a lot of the problems have gone on here for decades. You know, promises made have not been kept.

WATT (voice-over): For example, Air Force vet George Fleischmann was told he'd be in one of these eight by eight sheds just for a few months before moving into a permanent home.

WATT: This land is supposed to be for people exactly like you.

GEORGE FLEISCHMAN, VETERAN: Yeah, I'm familiar with the deed. It's not for us. They're not housing us and we're dying over here.

WATT (voice-over): Fleischmann, who says he was exposed to Agent Orange while stationed in Okinawa, has now been in this shed without running water for more than three years.

FLEISCHMAN: And if I wasn't a Christian, I'd kill myself. It's not worth living like this.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WATT: I reached out to the White House. They punted to the V.A. The V.A. declined an interview, eventually gave me a statement that reads in part, "What V.A. outlined in court relates only to issues in the case which is narrower than President Trump's EO."

So, what they're trying to say is they laid out a plan in court, but there's another plan that fulfills the executive order. I asked to see it. They never replied -- Jake.

TAPPER: Our thanks to Nick Watt for that report.

Coming up on Sunday on "STATE OF THE UNION", we're going to have Republican Senator Thom Tillis and Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, and the secretary of the Department of Energy, Chris Wright. That's Sunday at 9:00 a.m. and noon Eastern, only on CNN.

"ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT", live in Tel Aviv, starts now.