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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Polls Close In Texas, Vote Count Underway In Key Primaries; U.S. Warns it's About to Unleash On Iran In Coming Hours, Days; Trump Administration's Justification For Iran War Keeps Growing, Changing; Israel Launches Strikes On Iran; Trump Faces MAGA Backlash On Iran War; Cornyn And Paxton Advance To Texas Primary Runoff. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired March 03, 2026 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, the results are in. Texas voters pick their candidate to battle for a Senate seat and a temperature check on Donald Trump's presidency.
Plus --
SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT): I am more fearful than ever after this briefing that we may be putting boots on the ground.
PHILLIP: -- as America's war against Iran wide is, so do the justifications for it.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: So, if anything, I might have forced Israel's hand.
PHILLIP: Live at the table, Scott Jennings, Adam Mockler, Caroline Downey, Isaiah Martin, Renea Ninan, Bobby Ghosh, and Dana Bash.
This is CNN's special live coverage.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York.
We are following two breaking news stories tonight, and we'll start with the results from the opening day for primaries ahead of November's very high stakes midterm elections. Voters are casting ballots in Arkansas and North Carolina, but all eyes are on Texas, specifically the Senate races there. Democrats are hoping to flip a Senate seat that hasn't been blue in more than 30 years. But will it be Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett or Texas State Representative James Talarico that gets the chance to do it?
On the Republican side, Senator John Cornyn is fighting to keep his seat against Congressman Wesley Hunt and also Texas State Attorney General Ken Paxton. John King, of course, joins us now at the Magic Wall. John, polls just closed. Where do we stand in these Senate races right now in the state of Texas?
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Let's start with the Democratic primary, Abby, because as we open the voting in this midterm year, that is one of the giant questions. Can Democrats really be competitive in Texas? Trump and Republicans are their problems that bad? The Democrats can be competitive. Democrats think so. The question is, who will they send into this marquee Senate race? If the Democrats -- taking back the House is within reach. Taking back the Senate is a lot steeper hill, and you'd have to pick up a surprise like Texas.
So, at the moment, this is a fascinating race. State Representative James Talarico has now a seven-point lead in this race, seven-point stretching out near eight points, 92,000. His lead has been stretching out over the last hour or so.
Here's the biggest test. They left voting polls open in Dallas County for a couple extra hours because there was confusion. They changed some of the rules. People were showing up at the wrong place. They had to go to their specific precinct. So, they did the right thing. They left the polls open. So, we're still waiting for Dallas County. It's the number two population center in the state.
Anyway, Dallas County, it also happens to be where Jasmine Crockett's Congressional district overlaps a lot of Dallas County toward Tarrant County. So, before we could see if that lead holds up, we need to see how she does in her home base. And we're waiting for votes in Dallas County.
But the rest of the map is pretty impressive for Talarico. He's running it up in the places where in the Republican primary or Republican general, actually, you see Trump run it up. These are these small rural counties up here, and he's also running very strong. Talarico is in these Latino majority counties down in the Rio Grande Valley here in southeast Texas, and then all the way out towards El Paso, if you come all the way over here to the corner, you see in El Paso County, 62 percent to 36 percent, if you round that up.
So, the coalition for Talarico right now is working. The question is what happens when the area, Dallas, again, where Crockett's district is. This Democrat, who do Democrats want to send into that fight in November, and then the question of course is who will that candidate be, and it looks like we might have to wait until May to find that out.
We're not certain of that yet, but Texas rules, you need 50 percent plus 1, and you see here the incumbent Republican Senator John Corn at 43, the attorney general, a very MAGA candidate, Ken Paxton, at 41 Congressman Wesley Hunt at 13 percent. Some Republicans will say he's the spoiler there. He was trying to run as an alternative to two candidates. He said their time had come and passed.
But at the moment you see 43, 41, as the map fills in half the vote counted at 50 percent. Is it conceivable? Mathematically, yes, but it's been this way, Abby, for quite a long time. It looks like the Democrats will pick their standard bearer tonight and the Republicans in the most expensive Senate race in history already, will have to fight it out through May.
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, that seems clear on the Republican side so far. But on the Democratic side, John, I'm curious, Dallas is still -- Dallas County is still out, but the other population centers, I mean, have we gotten those votes in and are some of the larger tranches of votes already in, with the exception of Dallas County?
KING: Yes, which is why I noted that the Talarico lead, it's been stretching out too, from 50,000 to 60,000, now to 92,000, so the math is getting harder, right?
[22:05:01]
At some point, this is simply -- you know, we try to say so we can keep our jobs that politics is really complicated. In the end, it's the first math we learned, addition and subtraction. And Talarico is running it up at the moment.
So, you talked about the population centers. Let's just go through the top five counties quickly. Harris County is by far the largest county, more people in the state of Texas, and Congresswoman Crockett getting 54 percent there to Talarico's 46. So, a good bounce for her in the largest population center. And then you come up to number two, which is Dallas, which is what we're waiting on. And, again, this is where her Congressional district is. So, let's take -- be patient and wait for it.
You move over next door. That's Tarrant County. That's the number three, 254 counties in giant Texas. This is number three. And, again, her district stretches into this county a little bit, 56 to 43. So, she's winning big there. She might in the end say maybe not big enough as you go through, only 60 percent of the vote in there, so we'll go from there.
But then as you move down to some of the other population centers, Bexar County is where you have San Antonio. That's the fourth most populous. And you see, again, Talarico, a pretty healthy lead there, 57 percent to 43. And then he's a state representative. As I said, you come up to, Travis County here, which is Austin, where the state government is, and he's trouncing her here, 76 percent to 23 percent. And then you just pull out and you look at the map and you're saying, where else could it be? Smaller cities, right? Lubbock, you come up here, a healthy win for Talarico here.
So Dallas is becoming key, especially one of the big questions as we head into November, did Texas Republicans make a bad bet? Did they overbet on the increased Latino support that Trump had from 2016 to 2020 to winning, a majority in 2024? Did they make a bad bet? Are Latinos swinging back to the Democrats? One of Talarico's calling cards, if he wins this nomination tonight is just look down here in the Rio Grande Valley. He's doing very well in counties. I was here in the Texas 34th Congressional District not that long ago. This is Cameron County. Brownsville, Texas is down here, the southernmost border crossing between the United States and Mexico. This is overwhelmingly Hispanic county. Talarico there 63 percent to 34 percent, if you round up.
So, we're not done with the math here yet. And one of the challenges, as you talk to your panel, what a lot of Democrats are afraid of is regardless of who wins here, will the other person's coalition not show up? So, if Talarico wins, do black voters not show up? If Crockett wins, does somehow, you know, these white rural voters here maybe who are coming back to the Democrats or coming back to vote in the primary after they've given up voting for a long time? That's one of the big questions for Texas.
How many times have we had this conversation in our lifetimes, Abby? Can the Democrats win Texas. To do so, they need to be near perfect. So, while there's a lot of focus on is this. Is this too bloody, right? Are the Republicans having such a bloody primary likely to go into a runoff? Are they hurting themselves? It's a very fair question. But there's also a calculation on the Democratic side when we finally do get to a winner tonight, can the party heal it because they need to be near perfect to keep this in play come November?
If we're talking about this state, this Senate race on election night in November, that tells you Trump and the Republicans are in a lot of trouble.
PHILLIP: Yes. Yes. And, John, I think you gave us the perfect jumping off point for the panel. Thank you very much and do stand by for us, because this race hasn't been called yet, neither of them in the state of Texas. And everybody's looking at Texas. We've got a couple of folks from the Lone Star State at the table.
I'll start with you, Isaiah, because John's question is really important. I mean, whatever happens on the Democratic side, this was a tough primary and it got a little nasty at times. I'm a big believer in primaries. I think they're important, they make better candidates. But can Democrats come together at the end of it?
ISAIAH MARTIN, FORMER U.S. CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE, TEXAS: I really do think so. Abby, you know, I think ultimately Texans got really lucky for Texas Democrats. We had two really good candidates. You know, Congresswoman Crockett was somebody who was a big fighter in Congress. And we also know that James Talarico was someone who did the work in the state house.
And so, ultimately, I think Democrats understand the big threat, which is what Donald Trump is doing to the economy all across the state. We know that job numbers are not doing well for Texans in the state. And I just believe that ultimately when it comes time for November to vote for who's going to represent the state in the United States Senate, I think that independents as well as Democrats are going to come together to send a big message to Donald Trump in Washington.
PHILLIP: And, Dana, I mean, as you know, I mean Republicans kind of were doing a little jujitsu in this race, trying to influence the Democratic primary, perhaps pushing Jasmine Crockett into the race. She got into the race. What do you think they're thinking tonight as they're looking at these results?
DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, I think most of the Republicans who you talk to and you give them truth serum, they would rather -- they say they would rather run against Jasmine Crockett than against James Talarico because they think that Talarico is more -- has more appeal to moderates and to even some Republicans who were kind of fed up with the Trump party right now.
But I do think that there could be something to the Jasmine Crockett argument also because -- and we'll see what happens in this primary. But in sort of in a vacuum there is -- she's trying to make the argument on the Democratic side that, frankly, Donald Trump did on the Republican side, nothing about policy, but just about turnout and about exciting the base.
PHILLIP: Yes, enthusiasm.
BASH: And -- yes. And, I mean, we'll get the answer to that question in the short-term and what happens in the primary, but I think that if she would have or would find a way to win the primary, it would be an interesting test to see if that would be successful.
PHILLIP: Meanwhile, there's a messy, bloody fight on the Republican side. And, you know -- and I think that we're it's going to be inconclusive tonight. That's pretty much clear. But if you have a Ken Paxton who -- frankly, the argument against him is almost entirely on character. I'm going to play -- let me play what the Cornyn Lone Star Victory Fund ad had to say about Paxton. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Crooked Ken Paxton cheated on his wife. She's divorcing him on biblical grounds. So, now Paxton's wrecking another home, sleeping around with a married mother of seven. Now, think of the Paxton dirty deeds we don't know about yet. The wife cheater and fraud, or the Texas workhorse?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Is Ken Paxton single? Yes, single handedly bringing divorce on biblical grounds back into the lexicon. But he could be the nominee. He could actually be the nominee here. And the ad, they're not lying about the things that have been -- that have happened to Ken Paxton, what he has done.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. I'll be candid. I've been in a lot of campaigns, been in politics for over 26 years. That was one of the most incendiary ads I've ever seen run in any election anywhere, and they put it out. I actually had Senator Cornyn on my radio show the other day, the day after it came out. I played it, I said. How do you think people are going to react to this? And he said, well, I'll tell you. It's all true, you know? And so to say that this has gotten nasty or gotten chippy is an understatement, but it's a contrast in styles, right? Cornyn, the consummate insider, longtime senator, kind of the pre-Trump Republican, but he's been very loyal to Trump. He's voted with Trump 99 percent of the time. On style, he's sort of the old world Republican.
Paxton, very MAGA, very -- as a performative matter, matches the new Republican base. Interestingly, Wesley Hunt, who's the third candidate, who's way behind, he will probably be the person that drives this to a runoff. He kind of also thought maybe he might attract Donald Trump's attention. But Trump endorsed no one here.
So, the strategy is this. If you're Cornyn, you get to a runoff. And you have your people who are close to Trump, go to him and say, listen, it's going to be harder for Paxton to beat a Talarico and energize Democratic base. We don't have a hundred million dollars to try to save a Texas Senate race for the Republicans. We shouldn't be spending money here, so come in for Cornyn.
A lot of this is on Trump's shoulders. If he determines in the runoff to make a choice, that would probably be determinative, but the president hasn't done that yet.
CAROLINE DOWNEY, COLUMNIST, NATIONAL REVIEW: And I think in the event of a runoff, those Wesley Hunt votes are probably going to go to Ken Paxton. And I think --
PHILLIP: Do you think so?
DOWNEY: I think likely, that's my guess.
JENNINGS: Even if the president told them, I want Cornyn?
PHILLIP: Because, I mean --
DOWNEY: Well, that could be persuasive. But then, again, I think Trump's endorsement, it's debatable how much power that carries at the end day.
PHILLIP: I guess you could be right about that because Wesley Hunt has run a very anti-Cornyn campaign from the beginning --
DOWNEY: Right. But I think --
PHILLIP: -- more than anything else.
DOWNEY: -- what both of these races though, both Democratic and Republican side, indicate to me is that there are referendums on who are the fighters and who are the folders. That's James Talarico's words.
And when it comes to Cornyn and he is more palatable and he doesn't risk alienating independents the way that. Ken Paxton does. He has too much baggage, too many skeletons in his closet and scandals, I think, for a lot of independents to swallow. But I think, ultimately, it does come down to, you know, quality of life issues, like you were saying, the economy and things like that.
And I will say the risk of Talarico winning the nomination here is that he's trying to pitch this Mamdani-light-style of economic populism in a state like Texas, which even though it's become more purple is still not a red state. And in recent elections, I mean, recent years, they're not all that comfortable with voting in Democrats across the state?
PHILLIP: You mean they're not a blue state?
DOWNEY: Sorry. They're not a blue state, they're not a blue state. And I think, you know, when it comes to waging war against the billionaires, what that translates to is higher taxes. And I don't think Texas, which is a tax haven, just like Florida, I'm not so sure they're going to be well on board with that.
MARTIN: Well, I --
PHILLIP: I'll let you respond real quick.
MARTIN: I just want to say, you know, Trump went and passed these massive tax cuts for the richest people on Earth, and costs are still going up. People are seeing that despite these tax cut, you still have unemployment numbers going up. So, ultimately, I think what this is a showing of is people in our country that are just sick of the policies that have been passed in Washington that are just simply not working.
DOWNEY: Well -- but the thing is, so like I said, the Mamdani prescription is affordability, right?
[22:15:02]
But Democrats, including Talarico, they're not explaining what that actually means. Affordability means productivity plus innovation, not dumping more money on a problem and expecting different results. But Republicans are pushing --
MARTIN: But your solutions have raised costs.
DOWNEY: No. It's cut, taxes, deregulation, lower red tape and unleash supply.
MARTIN: That has raised costs.
DOWNEY: That is what brings -- no, that's what bring costs down.
ADAM MOCKLER, COMMENTATOR, MEIDASTOUCH NETWORK: I mean, first of all, both candidates are really great. Whoever wins, the other candidate should throw all of their weight behind what the other can, of course. But I think that the idea that James Talarico hasn't run on anything affirmative is not true. He's been running on a bunch of 80-20 issues. The 80-20 issues are like banning Congressional stock trading, redistributing wealth from billionaires. That's very popular. Taxing billionaires has a 90 percent approval, I believe. He's been running on anti-corruption campaigns. These are 80-20 issues that will resonate with the people of Texas. PHILLIP: All right. We got to pause for just a second because we have some news coming in.
John King is back with us. And, John, we were just talking about Dallas County. There's been some new developments with Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett's campaign. What are we learning?
KING: Apparently she wants to keep the polls open even longer in Dallas County and is asking that they do that. They changed the -- normally, the Democrats and Republicans formed together to run the primaries in Texas this year, Abby. I don't pretend to understand everything, how it happened on the ground, but what they had is they just changed where you should able to show up in your area to vote and they'd have you on a voting list, you could vote. This time, they told the Democrats they had to go do their specific precinct. So, it did cause some confusion.
Now, they kept the polls open for two extra hours and Congressman Crockett is apparently asking now that they keep them open even longer because she believes there are still some people haven't been able to find their place, and we'll watch how that plays out. And certainly not a partisan state, many people haven't been able to vote and they're still looking to be able to vote. We would hope that they would find a way to help them to vote.
Here's my question as we wait for the answer to that play out is, is it enough math, right? In the end, this is about math, 69,000 right now. See, what happened? What happened? While we were talking, some Dallas votes came in. When you came to me, Talarico, the state representative was, up by 111,000. Now, he's up by 69,000. Why? Because we got our first votes from Dallas County tonight in the Democratic primary, and as noted, Congresswoman Crockett's Congressional district is part of this county, and she is running it up big there.
The question is, is it enough? Is it enough, right? 61 percent, you say, wow, that's a resounding victory, and it is, the 38 percent. So, you do the math there. But, look, if you do the math there, you see 30 and then 16, so you're looking at 45, roughly, my quick math, 45,000 votes. But you got -- so which caught her from 112,000 lead to a 70,000 lead. The question is, where do you get the other 70,000 when you're looking at this map and your major population centers have a significant amount of the vote in? Again, if we go down to Harris County, you're at 65 percent and she has an eight-point lead there. But, you know, so as the rest comes in, if it came in exactly as it has so far, does it give you that much?
That's when we get late into the night and you're looking at the different pieces on the chessboard. In Texas, there are 254 of them, meaning 254 counties. So, there's a lot of chess pieces to go through and count. Not a lot of people live up in these places, but look at all that Talarico blue. That's the key to the lead right now. He is just winning in all these small, rural counties. He's also winning down here in the majority Latino counties. So, we'll see what happens to a very important point. And, again, not a partisan statement, my view of doing this for 40 years is if people are trying to find their place to vote, let them vote. Find a way to let them vote. So, we'll see how that plays out in Dallas County and if it's happening anywhere else. I will just tell you at the moment, we're not close to calling this race. Best of my knowledge anyway, our decision desk, our experts, they're working on this, but we're up close to 60 percent of the estimated vote counting. His lead has gone from triple digits, yes, to 69,000, but you do get to a point where that's five points. That's five points. And so if you're a Congresswoman Crockett, I can fully understand why you're saying let people vote, keep the polls open, because you're doing the math, you're behind right now and you're trying to squeeze every last vote you can.
PHILLIP: Yes, this is still a live race and that we're going to continue to follow. John King, please stand by for us as we wait for these results.
Some breaking news tonight in the war against Iran, as explosions and attacks intensify, lawmakers say that they fear an endless war after getting a classified briefing from the administration.
Now, this comes as President Trump and his administration keep changing and adding justifications for this war and why it started in the first place.
This is CNN special live coverage.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: We are keeping an eye on the races in Texas, but there is -- where there is some drama involving the key Senate primaries, and we'll have more on that in just a moment. But, first, as the U.S. warns that attack against Iran are going to intensify in the coming hours and days, the administration can't seem to get its story straight about why the war began in the first place.
In the weeks leading up to the strike and in the days since, the president and his administration have offered evolving explanations. We've counted at least nine so far.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TRUMP: I've made the statement very strongly that if they start killing people, like they have in the past, we will get involved.
J.D. VANCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: He wanted to make sure that Iran could never have a nuclear weapon.
PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Their swelling arsenal of ballistic missiles and killer drones were no longer, are no longer tolerable risks.
TRUMP: they were going to attack. If we didn't do it, they were going to attack for a second.
JONATHAN KARL, ABC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: That experience was clearly on his mind as he ordered the attack that killed the supreme leader. He told me, I got him before he got me. They tried twice. Well, I got him first.
TRUMP: Its menacing activities directly endanger the United States, our troops, our bases overseas, and our allies throughout the world.
[22:25:03]
STEVE WITKOFF, SPECIAL ENVOY TO THE MIDDLE EAST: Elimination of their navy so we can have freedom of the seas and not be threatened with the shutdown of the Gulf of Hormuz.
TRUMP: When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.
SEN. TOM COTTON (R-AR): Iran has posed an imminent risk to the United States for 47 years.
TRUMP: Because they're evil and they're bad. It's a bad seed and somebody had to do it. And it should have been done sometime during a 47-year period.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP: So, when you hear all of that, just note this new reporting from The Wall Street Journal, it says, U.S. officials, lawmakers, and experts all say that the administration's assertions have been incomplete, unsubstantiated, or flat out wrong. Some people have suggested that what's at play here is strategic ambiguity. Bobby, do you see that or do you see fishing for an explanation that can cover all bases?
BOBBY GHOSH, BLOOMBERG SENIOR EDITOR: Well, strategic ambiguity is in itself a sort of ambiguous term that people reverse engineer into situations like this often. When you don't have a clear line, you could throw that out there as a sort of as a kind of plausible explanation. No, I don't buy that. I think this is what you see is what you get. You are seeing confusion play out, and I think that confusion -- and it would be -- you could make the case for strategic ambiguity if the messaging from this administration on so many other things. So many other aspects of foreign policy had been clear and concise and cleanly defined.
But this is a pattern we've seen not just in Iran. We've seen it with most recently with Greenland. You get different messages from different parts of the administration and sometimes from the president himself, depending on what time of day you ask him, you get different explanations. So, this is consistent with a very muddled approach to foreign policy that we've seen from the Trump administration, from the get-go
PHILLIP: And a very clear attempt to walk back what Secretary Rubio said yesterday, which was that we attacked Iran because Israel was going to attack Iran and they might retaliate against us. Then you had President Trump saying, well, I just felt like they were going to attack us, which leads people to wonder, where's the proof of that? So, what is really going on here in the administration and why can't they get their story straight?
JENNINGS: Well, first of all, president has access to intelligence in people that none of us do, and I believe he is probably looking at a set of information and making decisions about the likelihood of Iran attacking U.S. installations and saying, I'm just not willing to take that risk. That's a legitimate decision for a president to make. I do think --
PHILLIP: But that isn't that the opposite of what they told lawmakers when they briefed them over the weekend? They told them that there was no imminent threat to the United States, imminent attack.
JENNINGS: I mean, I can tell you what I heard from senior administration officials, is that they did believe there was, I mean, an imminent threat. I don't really have any confusion about what we're doing there. And also I think multiple things --
PHILLIP: It's interesting that you said that because Marco Rubio hasn't reiterated that at all. He's been talking to the press. He has not suggested that there was an imminent --
JENNINGS: He absolutely has said that there is an imminent threat of them having ballistic missiles, that they were, A, possibly planning to shoot at U.S. military installations, B, and in the short and medium-term, continuing to manufacture ballistic missiles that would allow them to shield a nuclear program that they would not give up. This is a pretty clear rationale.
PHILLIP: Let me play what Marco Rubio has been saying, what the president has been saying. There's been a lot of back and forth on this. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARCO RUBIO, SECRETARY OF STATE: We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces. And we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.
TRUMP: You see, we were having negotiations with these lunatics and it was my opinion that they were going to attack first.
If anything, I might have forced Israel's hand. But Israel was ready and we were ready.
RUBIO: Once the president made a decision that negotiations were not going to work, that they were playing us on the negotiations, and that this was a threat that was untenable, the decision was made to strike them. That's what I said yesterday.
(END VIDEO CLIP) PHILLIP: No talk of an imminent attack on the United States, Reena. And, look, that's important because when a decision is made to attack another country without Congress, an imminent attack or something akin to it should be on the table.
REENA NINAN, FOREIGN AFFAIRS ANALYST: You know, this is so different from the lead up to the Iraq war in 2003 when it was all about creating a coalition, both domestically of folks on Capitol Hill, but also a global coalition, you know, Saturday morning, the U.K. government was beside themselves of trying to separate themselves from what had happened. What this was was a decapitation strike, and I think what happened was they did not anticipate how quickly and how, with precision, the Iranians would be able to strike back on military installations.
[22:30:02]
We're seeing hotels on airports. I was talking to some somebody in the travel industry. He said, look, in the next 48 to 72 hours, if these airports aren't opened and traffic isn't resumed again, it's crippling to economies. You can hit first militarily but the next thing is financial.
JENNINGS: Are you suggesting we are not completely and totally dominating these people right now?
NINAN: It's not about domination. See, that's where everyone gets excited. Go out there, throw the missiles and the bombs and then, but what happens after at that point? Nobody thinks of the day after the war. What's your plan?
GHOSH: We dominated the Taliban. We dominated Saddam's army.
MOCKLER: Look, this is quite literally the -- sorry.
JENNINGS: Look, the bottom line is they don't want them to ballistic missiles. They don't want them to have a nuclear program. They don't like that their Navy makes trouble for everybody in the Gulf. And that is the stated rationale. You could throw on other things for the last 47 years. They have killed American troops. They've maimed American personnel.
They've exported and funded terror around the world and around the region. And you seem to be suggesting we have no allies in this. I watched the President with the chancellor of Germany today. He strongly supports what we're doing. The U.K. is feckless. Spain is feckless. But we have plenty of allies in the region and around the world who know we have done the right thing.
PHILLIP: So, to be clear, I just want to just reiterate, you just listed a bunch of things. None of them were imminent attack, but Reena's question is actually about --
JENNINGS: Ballistic missiles, Abby.
PHILLIP: No, there are-- JENNINGS: Drones. These are imminent attack weapons.
PHILLIP: What proof is there that there were ballistic missiles -- that they actually had ballistic missiles that could reach the United States?
JENNINGS: Reach U.S. bases. Look at your television.
PHILLIP: Hold on. Hold on a second.
JENNINGS: They're falling right now. Iran has been attacking through their proxies, U.S. military bases for some time now, okay?
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: The argument that the administration may be making sometimes is that they might have had capabilities to attack the United States on the homeland. Where is the proof of that?
NINAN: And U.S. intelligence that has been released has said that this is not at all defense intelligence agency.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: It's the ballistic missiles on our facilities in the region and our allies in the region. It is not in dispute. It is not in dispute.
PHILLIP: Okay, so what about that is new?
JENNINGS: What do you mean what about it? It's not -- it's not new other than to say that the decision --
PHILLIP: What about that is new?
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Yes, let me put it to put it another way. What about that is imminent?
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: Are you all -- are you all arguing that they are not -- were not prepared and are not currently firing missiles and drones into things?
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Actually it's not that. I mean everybody understands the threat of Iran. It's been there to quote Tom Cotton for 47 years.
JENNINGS: Yes.
PHILLIP: The question is what changed in the last 30 days?
(CROSSTALK) PHILLIP: What changed in the last 30 days is the question that everybody is asking.
BASH: Can I help answer what I think the real reason, the real answer to that question is, is that for the past two and a half years, that the U.S. and its allies in the region have built up what they consider to be a lot of momentum leading to this point. Imminent, I mean, that's obviously a question that you're debating and it's a legitimate debate.
But if you look at Hamas, Hezbollah, what happened in Syria with Bashar al-Assad, if you look at what happened, you know, in Lebanon and beyond, the feeling was that Iran, the hub of Iran, the heart of Iran, the regime, is at its weakest point in 47 years --
NINAN: But this is a mistake that the U.S. made --
BASH: I'm not -- I'm not defending it.
(CROSSTALK)
NINAN: -- that we believe that regime change is easy --
(CROSSTALK)
BASH: I'm not defending it. I'm just explaining it. And this is why -- it's that -- combined with the President was very clear when tens of thousands of protesters were in the streets, and then got massacred, that he, you know, was going to try to do something about that. So, the combination of all of those things and the pressure from allies in the region, not just Israel, but also Saudi Arabia, I think it ended at this point.
(CROSSTALK)
NINAN: The biggest mistake I have made as a foreign correspondent covering these wars on the ground has been thinking that regime change is going to happen because you watch the protesters on the ground with Mubarak. We all believed covering it. This was the moment that Mubarak was going to fall. Do you know what made Mubarak fall?
It was his own security forces ended up caving in and turning on them. And so, that is what we're watching in Iran right now. Will the Revolutionary Guard somehow crack? That is not an easy thing to see and achieve.
MOCKLER: There is nothing I would like to see more than the dismantling of the Iranian regime, but this is an experiment that America has tried and failed for decades and decades and decades. Under Bush, who you worked for, under Obama, Trump promised to be different, but it is not different. He is continuing to make the same mistake of thinking that just because you remove the bad guy, everything is magically solved. Didn't work with Gaddafi it got worse. Didn't work with Saddam Hussein, it got worse.
You can't just remove the bad guy with no backup plan to build long- lasting institutions. And from everything we've seen from this administration, they have no plan. They have no plan on what's going to happen next.
[22:35:00]
They have no transition plan. I don't think they know -- they took out most of the people they were going to replace the Supreme Leader with. And now, Marco Rubio contradicts Donald Trump. Donald Trump contradicts himself. Senator Mark-Wayne Mullen doesn't seem to know what the word war even means. He's like debating himself on that every single day. We need an actual plan. I haven't seen a plan from this administration and that's worrying to me. It's very worrying.
PHILLIP: Bobby, I'm curious what you think of this reporting that CNN has, that the CIA is now working to arm Kurdish forces, hoping that that would spark a, either confusion, or that they could overtake revolutionary guard forces and overthrow the regime?
GHOSH: Well, we've seen this movie before. Reena and I covered the war in Iraq from the get-go. And this is Kurdish history going back generations where the Kurds are used by any number of foreign powers. The old Russian Empire, Saddam Hussein against the Shah, the Shah against Saddam Hussein, the Turks against everybody and then we've done it ourselves.
We use the Kurds as a sort of shock troops to try and engineer some change on the ground. And then, we turn around and abandon them. They've seen this movie before, and I doubt that they're going to throw themselves wholeheartedly into an effort like that. Listen, the Kurds want to have a homeland of their own and we could argue that they deserve to have a homeland of their own.
But they have been betrayed over and over again by people claiming to be their friends, by people encouraging them to reach for a homeland and then denying --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: And then of course Iran is massive -- massive population center.
(CROSSTALK)
GHOSH: And Iran is a much, much larger proposition.
PHILLIP: More organized.
GOSH: Much stronger military, much stronger paramilitary forces, much stronger regime. And Iran is not a dictatorship. People keep using examples of Saddam Hussein and I've done that. I made that mistake, too. But Saddam Hussein -- Iraq was a dictatorship. It was a one man rule. That same with Libya and Gaddafi. To a substantial degree the same with Bashar Assad and Syria.
Iran, there's a whole regime that was designed to survive this kind of attack. They have redundancies upon redundancies upon redundancies. These, let me be clear, these are unambiguously bad guys and they, as you said, no one's shedding a tear. Certainly very few Iranians I know are going to be shedding any tears for them. And it is to be desired, change in the regime, a chance for Iranians to have a chance to live up to their potential, which is enormous.
However, we don't seem to have a plan. If the explanation for this was so simple, why is the administration trotting out a different explanation every week? If it was so clear and so unambiguous, why is it having trouble gathering, as the Bush administration did, gathering an international coalition of the willing to go in there and do this? That is what makes me worry. Not that these are bad guys. They're bad guys. I don't think we know what to do about that situation.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Everyone agrees on the bad guy -- yes -- everyone agrees on the fact that Iran, they're the bad guys. Question is what happens next. Next for us though, we will go back to the drama in the state of Texas. The primary is down there. It is the opening day ahead of the midterms. Jasmine Crockett says that she is suing. Stand by.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:43:07]
PHILLIP: We're following the breaking news out of Texas where the races are still too close and too early to call, and that includes the Republican and the Democratic primaries for the open Senate seat down there. I want to bring in CNN's chief national affairs correspondent Jeff Zeleny. He's at James Talarico's campaign headquarters in Austin, Texas.
Jeff, talk to us about what the status is of the polls. Are they, any of them, still open, especially in Dallas County?
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: To our understanding, Abby, the polls are not open anywhere in Texas at this point. They were open in Dallas County an extra two hours to accommodate for some of those voters who apparently did not know their proper polling locations because of a change in how the vote was conducted this year.
Effectively in previous years, there's been a central polling location. This year it was done on a precinct level, so there was some confusion. So a judge ordered it to stay open for two more hours. But at that point, it seemed that the anticipation was building here at the Talarico campaign as the clock ticked just right up to nine o'clock here in Texas, ten o'clock on the east. They thought that the victory was at hand.
They are very confident in their overall results as they've been watching the results come in areas across Texas. James Talarico is having a strong performance, there's no doubt. But just a few moments ago, Jasmine Crockett in Dallas addressed her supporters and she said that voters had been disenfranchised. She said there will not be a result this evening. So, she urged her supporters to effectively stand by. That effectively deflated the crowd here in Talarico.
They were watching her remarks. So, now we seem to be in a bit of a standstill here. I am told by the Talarico campaign that they are still very confident, a victory they're confident of how these numbers look.
[22:45:06]
But they're also of course mindful of party unity going forward. So, if he should win whenever this would be decided, party unity would be very important of course if he does not. And the party unity challenge will be on the Crocket campaign side. But of course, that is the central question here is democrats trying to something they have not done in James Talarico's lifetime when a U.S. senate seat from Texas. It's been 1988.
Lloyd Benson was the last Democratic senator re-elected here in Texas. A lot would have to happen between now and November. The Talarico campaign is confident of their showing, but mindful of what comes next. So, Abby, I can tell you this went from a Word Alive music venue here in Austin, of course a great music city.
It is fairly quiet here and people are just trying to see what is coming next, because that speech from Jasmine Crockett effectively cause some confusion and deflated emotions at least for now. But we will see if James Talarico actually comes out and addresses his supporters this evening. Abby?
PHILLIP: All right, Jeff Zeleny, thank you very much. It's a confusing night and we'll see whether Jasmine Crockett's prediction actually comes true. But let's check back in with John King. John, since we last talked to you, have we made any progress on the vote count here?
KING: Modest progress, modest progress. We're up to 61 percent right now. And Jeff just made a key point. Does Talarico come out and say anything when he wants to be graceful at least and wait and see, you know, how it turns out and what Congressman Crockett says, whether there's any other efforts to try to count votes that haven't been counted yet.
We'll see what happens on the ground in Dallas County. But if you look at the math now, 61 percent of the vote in. The lead, Talarico, last time we spoke, it was in at around 60,000. It's gone back up. The 71,500 votes, it's 52 percent to 47 percent. If you look at the percentages, when you look at the map, we're largely filled in, meaning we have votes reported just about everywhere. And most, the majority of the 254 counties in Texas, we are still waiting.
Let's just go through by the population center. We're waiting for about a third of the vote, 65 percent is counted estimate in Harris County. So, here's a dynamic we've gone through since the COVID age. We've gone through it even before then, but the numbers have been big in the COVID age. There was massive early voting in Texas. Democrats were very encouraged by their early voting numbers as a matter of fact. And so, those are the votes that tend to be counted first and then if
you're trying to make a decision, do you want to call a race, project a race, or win a, you want to make sure you have a big enough percentage of the election day vote because sometimes the early voting electorate and the election day voting electorate are different people. They support different candidates.
So, that's one of reasons you wait and count. So you're at 61 percent statewide. It was 65 percent there in Houston. Sixty-one now in Dallas County. This is where Congresswoman Crockett would have to make up most of the math, her home base, Dallas County and over here in Tarrant County where we have 60 percent. So, you have about 40 percent of the vote in both of these major population centers.
The number two largest county and the third largest county. That's why you just be cautious, don't want to get it wrong, you want to see what happens. However, I would say as you go through the count, it just jumped up to 73,000 votes. We get to 62 percent. And what's happening is down here in the Rio Grande Valley, majority Latino communities, the state representative, Talarico, you see it there. Not a lot of votes here. Not a lot of votes here -- 335 votes to 134 votes.
You come over here, 634 votes to 336 votes. But Talarico in these smaller counties along the border and then in these smaller rural counties up here in northwest Texas is running up big margins. Again, not a lot of people, 44 votes to 27 votes, right? Ninety-eight votes to 64 votes. But just like that is key to Donald Trump running up big margins in any state that has small rural counties, it's helping Talarico tonight run up the math, his math in these rural counties.
So, it's a 73,000 vote lead with 62 percent of the vote in. Some questions obviously being raised by the Crockett campaign. Our decision desk is going through the math. Their main focus, I'm told, is just to get a higher percentage of the today vote, the election day voting, to see if it tracks the early voting. That's when you feel safe about making a projection. We're simply not there yet. We'll keep counting.
PHILLIP: Yes, and John, let's take look at the Republican race right now. Are we in territory where we know this is going to be a runoff?
KING: We're very close. We're very close. Same dynamic I just said. You get the early votes in, then you're looking for election day votes, and then you just want to double check and triple check your math, right? It's the first night of the primary season. There's no reason to be in a rush about anything. But your eyes don't lie here if you just look at the math. We're up to about 60 percent of the vote in the Republican primary.
We're at 43 percent to 40 percent. It's John Cornyn, the Republican incumbent at 43, Ken Paxton, the state attorney general at 40 percent, and Congressman Wesley Hunt at 13 percent if you round that up. Your eyes don't lie. Somebody has to get to 50 plus one, and you're at 60 percent of the vote, and this margin has held for pretty much the last few hours as more votes have come in.
[22:50:00]
The margin has been pretty consistent. And so, your eyes tell you and your gut tells you you're headed for a runoff, but again --
PHILLIP: And John --
KING: Go ahead.
PHILLIP: -- as you're talking, I'm being told that we are making the call. This is officially headed to a runoff. It'll be John Cornyn against Ken Paxton in a Republican runoff just ahead. I mean, this is the scenario that some Republicans wanted to get ahead of, but it looks like it is going to happen. It is going to happen in the next few weeks.
John, what's your sense of what Ken Paxton's strengths are? Because, I mean, John Cornyn is the incumbent here and, you know, perhaps he's the person who has the most recognition in the state. But does Ken Paxton have some pockets of strength?
KING: Number one, Ken Paxton has many pockets of strength. You see it right here. You see Cornyn Paxton essentially splitting the state. If you look, the dark red is Paxton, the lighter red is John Cornyn, and you just see them moving around.
Now, Cornyn has won. This actually surprised me earlier. Cornyn has won in most of the major population centers. So, you think he goes back to the Bush days, right? I'm oversimplifying this, but this race, Cornyn Paxton is Bush versus Trump in some ways. The old school Republican Party versus the MAGA Republican Party.
Now, Cornyn has tried to move and at least draft with Trump, right? To try to -- as you know, as so many Republicans have tried to do in the Trump age, they don't perform like Trump, they're not as provocative or as coarse as Trump. But Cornyn has voted with Trump most of the time in the Senate leadership, but look at the map. They're kind of splitting county to county.
One of the rules tells you if the incumbent can't win, the primary gets put in a runoff. It's very hard for the incumbent. He's going to get a one-on-one race now. If he can't win now, why would he win in a runoff? So, your panel can talk about this better than I can.
The pressure is going to come on one Donald J. Trump to get involved in the Texas primary. And Cornyn is going to go to him and say, Paxton is a more damaged candidate. I'm a stronger general election candidate. I'm not saying that's true, but that's the argument Cornyn is going to make.
And Abby, this is the point I think anybody in this race is going to make. In a Republican -- in a midterm election year that we already know, is a tough climate for Republicans. Trump's approval rating is below 40. That tells you the Democrats are going to take back the House if that doesn't change. It tells you the Senate is in play, but the Democrats need essentially to draw to an inside straight or an inside straight flush even, and Texas is one of their targets, $71 million just by pro-Cornyn forces so far.
Now, we're going to take this race through May, right? Think about this Republican race. How much money is going to be spent to pick a Republican nominee in Texas in a year when Republicans have to defend their House majority, a Senate seat in Ohio, a Senate seat in Alaska, a Senate seat in Texas, a Senate seat in North Carolina?
And so, the argument is going to be, why should we do this for a few more months? Why do we have to spend all this money? So, Cornyn will go to Trump. Paxton will go to Trump and they're going to say, sir, we need you to put your thumb on the scale. That's what the President did not do in this primary. He stayed out of it because each one of these candidates has been good to Trump, has helped Trump along the way.
And so, Trump stayed out of it. There's going be a lot of pressure now for Trump to put his thumb on the scale to try to save them spending all that money. But the argument Democrats are going to make, and we're still waiting to clear up that nominee, is keep it up, gentlemen. Keep shedding blood. Keep attacking each other. Keep weakening each other. Because we all know Texas is hard for Democrats.
They need to have their coalition perfect and the debate about disenfranchisement -- disenfranchisement tonight could hurt that effort. But Democrats have to be perfect and they'd really appreciate some help from Republicans and they just might get it.
PHILLIP: Yes, the Democrats have to be perfect and they would love Republicans to be a hot mess going into November. That would help them a lot. All right. So look, there's a lot to talk about there. And I think the first thing that comes to mind is did Trump make a mistake in not making a decision about what he was going to do in this race on the Republican side early on?
DOWNEY: I don't think so. I actually think he should have let the voters, the primary voters at least, who tend to be more energized, litigate this themselves. But look, if Paxton loses this seat, the Senate GOP majority is in danger. And that means Trump's last two years are going to be hell.
He's going to be managing a Congress that is -- I mean, Congress has been ineffective now. Wait till it's not necessarily, you know, in our hands. But I will say what the MAGA voters who like Paxton might be thinking is, well, on the merits, Cornyn is old school.
And Paxton, though the baggage is an infinite list, he was at the forefront of the culture war confrontation over 2020, especially when it came to the 80-20 issues of sex changes for children when it came to COVID, Draconian mandates and restrictions. He fought for those things.
And those are actually pretty traditionally conservative ideas. Like I think MAGA sometimes means big government, but like libertine social ideas.
[22:55:00]
Technically, what Ken Paxton did as A.G. for this very long tenure was pretty traditionally conservative.
PHILLIP: All right. Let me go back to Jeff Zeleny who's with James Talarico's election night party tonight. Jeff, what are you hearing right now from the Talarico campaign about what they're expecting tonight?
ZELENY: Well, Abby, this is a party that is put on hold as a legal matter is looked into a bit more in Dallas County. So, we are in Austin. That's where James Talarico was expecting to hold a campaign party tonight, and his advisors are very confident of what they are seeing in these numbers coming in really across the state, but obviously Dallas County, very major, very key to any statewide campaign here.
There was confusion there was known -- actually detected earlier today, my colleague Arlette Saenz who is in Dallas throughout the day talking to voters notice that there was some -- some voters were confused about being turned away from polling places. The reason is this.
Dallas county decided to effectively have the primary held slightly differently because of some disagreement between Republicans and Democrats, so there was not a joint primary effectively. So, voters were effectively told to vote in their precincts, not necessarily at a central voting location in a normal primary.
It's a little bit in the weeds here, but it mattered because voters were turned away from some polling places, which created some confusion. So, shortly before the polls would have closed at 7 P.M., there was some legal action that was taken initially by the Crockett campaign was going to do it, but it appeared that the Democratic Party decided to do it in Dallas County to effectively ask a judge to keep the polls open.
So, the polls were kept open for two more hours until nine o'clock here in Texas. It's an open question how many people actually voted during those two hours. We're hearing anecdotal reports that were certainly not long lines because many of the people who couldn't vote earlier had gone home. So, a little while ago, we heard Jasmine Crockett saying voters had been disenfranchised. She said that she's considering her options effectively. So, that is why we are in a bit of a standstill here.
Again, the Talarico campaign is very confident of their performance tonight, but also mindful and treading carefully about their next steps here, obviously wanting to protect voter rights but also wanting to try and preserve some party unity.
So, we've seen other situations like this over the years. We will see if Talarico comes out and addresses this crowd but I can tell you the campaign has not said a single thing to any of his supporters gathered here. It's a bit of a wait and see as three bars are open around me. Most of his supporters are spending their time there waiting to see what happens. Abby?
PHILLIP: Yes, all right, Jeff Zeleny, thank you. So, bring it back into the room here. Dana, this could get maybe a little bit messy, but I mean, let's look at where we are now. I mean, Talarico has at the moment a fairly healthy lead and Jasmine Crockett is holding out essentially for Dallas County. Is that false hope? Is that real hope? Is it is just stirring the pot of party disunity?
BASH: I don't know that it's stirring the pot. I mean, I think, you know, give her the benefit of the doubt that there are people who wanted to vote and she wants them to be able to vote no matter where they are in Texas. The fact that they're in her hometown of Dallas is certainly another factor here. So, you know, I mean, let's let the process play out. I mean, it's an open question.
I do want to just quickly go to the Republican side for a second and the question of whether the President will endorse. I was told today that, you know, it's very likely that the President will endorse understanding all of the factors that everybody has talked about here today not the least of which is the money. How much money would be wasted?
PHILLIP: It would take a lot of money.
BASH: Exactly.
PHILLIP: It would take a lot of money.
JENNINGS: And the Cornyn campaign has around it a lot of the veterans of the Trump campaign.
BASH: Chris LaCivita.
JENNINGS: The manager, the pollster. So, a lot of the apparatus around Cornyn has a lot of credibility with President Trump. So, that I'm sure will be brought to bear. Cornyn was just speaking a moment ago. It's chippy. I'll tell you what he said.
He said Paxton is a flawed, self-centered, and shameless candidate. He promises Paxton's quote, "Indefensible personal behavior and failures in office. Judgment Day is coming for Ken Paxton." So, whatever you thought was nasty just before the end of the primary, get ready for more is what I'm hearing from Cornyn.
PHILLIP: But there is also a huge amount of enthusiasm on the Democratic side. Tons of new voters coming into the process right now. And as John described, could be they need a perfect race.
[23:00:00]
But they could have the raw materials for it this cycle.
MARTIN: Absolutely. I mean, because like I said, people are really frustrated with the economy. Everybody's mad about the direction that the country's going. They're upset about this situation in Iran. And this election is an opportunity for them to respond.
Because as a voter in this country, going to the ballot box is your way to be able to tell the President of the United States whether or not you are okay with what he's doing. And I just happen to believe that going around Texas and talking to as many people as I have, this is going the year that Democrats are going to make a big push at the ballot box.
PHILLIP: All right everybody. Our special coverage is going to continue with "Laura Coates Live," that starts right now.
