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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip

U.S. Says It Will Strike Deeper into Iran as War Spreads; Hegseth Criticizes Media for Making U.S. Deaths Front Page News; CIA Aiming to Arm Opposition Groups to Trigger Uprising in Iran. Senate Democrats Attempted to Rein in Trump's War But Failed; Newsom Ramps Up Criticism Against Israel; "NewsNight" Honors Soldiers Killed in Iran War. Aired 10-11p ET

Aired March 04, 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, as America's war widens, the administration ditches the speak softly while touting the big stick.

PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Death and destruction from the sky all day long.

PHILLIP: Plus, a secret gamble,

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Multiple sources now telling CNN the CIA is working to arm and assist Kurdish forces.

PHILLIP: The U.S. looks to trigger an uprising in Iran.

Also, five days in, Congress sits on the sidelines, unsure about what to even call it.

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): They have declared war on us. We're not at war right now.

PHILLIP: And a potential presidential contender suggest Donald Trump is bowing to Israel.

GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): We have to reconcile why our bombs were used, or Israeli bombs were used to kill children, young girls at a school.

PHILLIP: Live at the table, Ana Navarro, Shermichael Singleton, Hagar Chemali, Bobby Ghosh, Max Boot, and Brett McGurk.

This is CNN's special live coverage of the war with Iran.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York. The war is expanding and so is the Trump administration's rhetoric. Tonight, as the U.S. escalates its fight against Iran, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is setting the tone. He held a briefing today to give an update on the conflict. But that quickly spiraled into tough talking, stick swinging, bombastic messages that seemed catered to his boss. And it was apparent from the start. Here is Hegseth's opening remarks and compare that to that of his top military officer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HEGSETH: I stand before you today with one unmistakable message about Operation Epic Fury. America is winning decisively, devastatingly, and without mercy.

GEN. DAN CAINE, JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: I'm here today to provide the American people and those of you in this room an update on Operation Epic Fury. First, it's with profound sadness and gratitude that I share the names of four of our six fallen heroes, all from the 103rd Sustainment Command.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: The contrast is incredibly striking. While his general sought to memorialize the fallen soldiers, Hegseth saw the tragedy as an opportunity to blast the media.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HEGSETH: This is what the fake news misses. We've taken control of Iran's airspace and waterways without boots on the ground. We control their fate. But when a few drones get through, or tragic things happen, it's front page news. I get it. The press only wants to make the president look bad, but try for once to report the reality.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: The Pentagon chief's rough rhetoric didn't stop there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HEGSETH: They are toast and they know it.

And we have only just begun to hunt, dismantle, demoralize, destroy and defeat their capabilities.

We will fly all day, all night, day and night, finding, fixing, and finishing the missiles every minute of every day until we decide it's over.

Death and destruction from the sky all day long.

We are punching them while they're down.

We are accelerating, not decelerating.

American strength grows fiercer, smarter and utterly dominant. They are terrorists.

We will find them and we will kill them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Speak softly and carry a big stick no longer, Brett. First of all, welcome to the show. But what do you make of Pete Hegseth's rhetoric? And, I mean, I've seen a lot of generals talk about armed conflict, and they're usually incredibly measured about it because they know the balance of life and death that's happening there. The secretary of defense didn't do that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRETT MCGURK, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: We've had two briefings from generals in the last 24 hours. We had Brad Cooper, the CENTCOM commander, I know very well. He put out a statement last night and actually a kind of a briefing to the American people of the military operation. I thought that was very effective. I thought the General Caine's briefing today, again, very effective about the military objectives. Obviously, I don't think I would speak the way the secretary did.

[22:05:00]

But I think looking at what the military commanders are saying about this operation, I actually think is quite instructive. We do have military objectives. They're carrying them out. But, again, I think there's always the importance of the connection between the civilian leadership and the military command is one of the most important things if you're measuring the ultimate successfulness of a military operation.

And what worries me here is you have the military command, I think, being very focused on military operations. And what we're hearing from the civilian leadership, including the president, is kind of, we hear shifting things all the time. And that can be very dangerous.

You know, there's history here. You study history. When President Truman met General MacArthur on Wake Island, they thought they had a meeting of the mines and they actually didn't. And MacArthur went all the way north to his Chinese border, brought the Chinese into the war. We had 30,000 American casualties. A lot of history here, the importance of the civilian leadership being in a meld with the military leadership of what we're trying to achieve.

PHILLIP: Yes, that's an interesting point. I mean, it does seem like the political leadership of the country, Pete Hegseth, the president, that, to Brett's point, they are all over the place in terms of what they're saying about this conflict. And I think the biggest question that we're all facing is, is that a sign of something that is unsettled, undecided beneath the surface, or is it just a lack of discipline?

BOBBY GHOSH, COLUMNIST AND GEOPOLITICS ANALYST: Well, it's not just about this conflict. They've shown this behavior on a number of other issues, domestic as well as international. So, you have to say that it is systemic and it is a sign of a problem that runs deeper than just the messaging on this conflict. The messaging has been all over the place. Messaging was all over the place over Greenland. The messaging, you know, on a lot of foreign policy issues, different people in the administration give different explanations for decisions that are made.

So, if you take that into consideration, then it's hard to say, well, you know, they're deliberately doing this in order to keep the enemy guessing. I've heard that explanation used that this is all part of a sort of deliberate strategy. You don't want the Iranians to know exactly what's coming next, and that's why you offer different messages. That would make sense if there was message discipline in other areas. And this was the one area where they were doing this. Here, there's a pattern and the pattern's very clear. Different parts of the administration simply don't seem to be reading from the same page.

PHILLIP: And maybe it all comes down to Trump's gut. Let's play what Karoline Leavitt said about why the president made the decision to go to war.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: President Trump does not make these decisions in a vacuum.

The president had a feeling, again, based on fact that Iran was going to strike the United States, was going to strike our assets in the region, and he made a determination to launch Operation Epic Fury based on all of those reasons.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAGAR CHEMALI, FORMER TREASURY SPOKESPERSON, TERRORISM AND FINANCIAL INTELLIGENCE: I do think I have to add, you know, Bobby. I think that I do believe there is an element of deliberately trying to obfuscate and trying to -- because Trump and the government is aware that adversaries listen to what we say in the U.S. government. They know that they listen very clearly and that then they view whatever we say as predicting the next move or setting a certain red line. And I think that it doesn't work that well for democracies where we have freedom of the press and where we have a public that deserves to know.

At the same time, while I do know that that kind of communication works for an adversary, you know, I do think it's important for Americans to understand why the U.S. ever, in any, whether it's this war or any war, why the U.S. goes to war. Because you need them to understand that you don't want things to divide further. You need them to understand national security threats. You need them to understand the threats posed by a regime.

And while you may not want to go out there and say, this is going to be the next move, and this is exactly what we're doing next, you see now a cadre of political officials and many people across the nation say, even having banter that almost comes off as though it's pro- regime sometimes, as though they feel the regime is the victim. And this is a real risk for our national security in general.

So, I don't -- I do believe there is a benefit to having mixed communications when it comes to an adversarial listening. But as somebody for my own media brand where I like to educate Americans, I do think it's important to communicate to Americans properly.

PHILLIP: So, when the Karoline Leavitt says that he has a feeling based on fact, should the American people be privy to what facts underlie that feeling?

SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Sure, you have to make your case, but I also remember during the Obama administration during Libya, the administration did not feel the need to get permission, if you want to put it that way, from Congress for those strikes. I think they actually put a 32-page document together listing all the legal reasons why the president wasn't mandated by the Constitution for those military airstrikes, and we had hundreds of them, maybe even thousands by some accounts.

That said, the way I look at this, for 47 years, Iran has been the number one state sponsor of terror.

[22:10:04]

The United States of America, we have interest in that part of the world. Number two, China's our greatest adversary. They're only getting stronger. They're putting a lot of money beefing up their military technology, specifically hypersonics. They import about 13 to 14 percent of all crude oil from Iran. 1.38 million barrels pumped per day, 80 percent, out of Iran going to China.

And so if you want to make the case strategically speaking, why this matters, one, we have interest in the region. Two, we want to make sure that China does not usurp the United States of America in terms of global dominance. That, to me, is a very solid argument about why we need to remove the regime.

PHILLIP: I don't think anybody's debating that. I think the question is whether or not that argument could not have been taken to the American people because, as you point out, all of those things have been true for a very long time. So, there's nothing about this moment, at least that we know of, that would say, okay, it has to be tomorrow, when, in fact, we know that Iran has been a menace for 47 years. Why not go to the American people?

ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It's incredible to me that we are, what, four, five days into this now, and there still hasn't been a formal address to the nation by the president of the United States.

Look, I think, Donald Trump, and to a certain extent Hegseth as well, I think their psyche changed as a result of Venezuela. They are emboldened. Donald Trump realized he's got the biggest, most powerful armed forces in the world, and he intends to use them whenever he wants and however he wants. He didn't have to get permission for Congress to do the Maduro operation. And so now he thinks he can replicate it elsewhere.

Obviously, Iran and Venezuela are two completely different balls of wax. We had two completely different regimes with capacities. Venezuela did not have the capacity. Maduro did not have the capacity to inflict pain and war on America. Iran has much greater capacities.

I think -- you know what I think is tragic, that Pete Hegseth refers to the death of six Americans as tragic things happen almost flippantly. And I think the bellicose and, you know, braggadocios narrative and rhetoric you're hearing from him, that's what happens when you pick an unqualified Weekend Fox News host to be secretary of defense.

And I'm old enough to remember, and so are we around this table, 2003, when George W. Bush stood in a U.S. aircraft carrier and declared mission accomplished. And it was years of more fighting that ensued, and that was very premature.

So, him beating his chest and talking about all feels like not the right thing at the right time. And his focus should be on the loss of life.

SINGLETON: Can I just make one point of objection to what Ana just said? You know, in politics sometimes we make flippant remarks. If we could go back and do it over, we would. Pete Hegseth has served this country honorably, a tour in Afghanistan, a tour in Iraq. I never put on the uniform, but I certainly have a lot of damn respect for the people who do. He led his troops for about a year as a leader. Many of the generals and individuals who gave him a bronze star wrote admirably about his leadership position.

So, I don't think that this is someone who doesn't recognize the importance of war, the toll it takes on families, and that you might indeed pay the ultimate price. And so I think we shouldn't forget that. We may dislike him. You may not like the comment that he made, and we could critique, maybe it wasn't the right way to word it. But this is someone who knows war more than anybody at this table that I'm familiar with, and we should keep that in mind.

NAVARRO: Well, Shermichael, let me remind you that this is the same guy that was on a chat group revealing all sorts of information that should not have revealed in that chat group to all sorts of people that should not have had that information, including a journalist, who he didn't even know was on the chat group.

SINGLETON: And, Ana, I have no quarrels with this, with that at all. My point simply is this guy understands what happens when you go to war. He's been to war. He's seen people die. He's been to combat. And, again, I would've phrased it differently, sure, we can have that argument.

NAVARRO: He was reading from prepared remarks.

SINGLETON: But to but to make the case that he doesn't care that soldiers lost their lives, I find that hard as hell to believe.

NAVARRO: I did not say he's there. I said that the way he phrased it as tragic things happened was a very unfortunate way to discuss the loss of six --

SINGLETON: Okay. Unfortunate, I'll take that I'll take the unfortunate.

PHILLIP: Yes. I don't know that this was a critique of his service. It was actually a critique of what he in fact said and how he placed the deaths of those service members in the context of President Trump, and whether or not he's being treated fairly or unfairly by the press, it just was out of left field for most people who heard those remarks.

[22:15:03]

But next for us, we have more ahead. The CIA is looking to trigger an uprising in Iran by arming opposition forces. Is this smart or is it dangerous?

Plus, Senate Republicans tonight have blocked efforts to rein in Trump's war powers, as Mike Johnson waffles on whether this is even a war.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIP: Tonight, the CIA is reportedly working to arm and assist Kurdish forces with the aim of starting a popular uprising in Iran. Iranian Kurdish groups have thousands of forces operating along the Iraq-Iran border, and several of these groups have been hinting at imminent action.

[22:20:05]

Iran has been striking Kurdish groups and said on Tuesday that it targeted Kurdish forces with dozens of drones. Trump called Iraqi Kurdish leaders on Sunday as well to discuss how the U.S. and the Kurds could potentially work together.

But according to a readout from the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Iraqi Kurds are pledging cooperation with Iran.

There's a lot going on here, and you don't even honestly need to be all that in the weeds on this to understand that the United States, according to this reporting, is considering arming basically a third party group and hoping that they overthrow the government in Iran. Is that going to be a plan that works?

CHEMALI: You know, it depends. So, this -- it worked when it came to the fight against ISIS. It works quite well. You would know this better than anybody. So, I'll let you opine more on that piece, since Brett was directly involved in that. So, it can work.

When I handled Syria, I wasn't in favor of arming opposition groups, but it was a very different. You were talking about, we knew that those groups were going to be infiltrated by terrorists. We knew we wouldn't have good control over those arms and where they went. And the Kurds are different. They've proven to be a very good partner on the ground.

The thing that -- you know, when I saw this, I just -- I winced for two reasons, which was mainly because, number one, I was worried the Kurds might not trust us after we basically -- we, the U.S., I mean, this administration threw them under the bus in Syria and it really resulted in their massacre. And then, secondly, was just that it foments instability. That's what this ultimately does. Will it actually take them to the point of regime change? That's the part --

PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, isn't that -- but it sounds like part of the plan is the instability, and that's the part that I'm not sure --

MCGURK: I want to step -- first of all, we don't know exactly what's happening. There's a lot of different reports. I obviously have been very close to this. I mean, in the Syrian Kurdish context, there was a team, you might remember, ten years ago, Abby, there's a town called Kobani. ISIS was surrounding it. There was going to be a massacre. We made the decision to drop some weapons, work with them. We actually brought Kurds from Iraq into Kobani. They won the battle six months later, actually went into Kobani after that, and we kind of worked with them continuously with that.

I mean, if there was a threat in Iran of the Iranian forces about to massacre people in these areas of Northwestern Iran, that might be something. But here, I mean, what's being reported is that we're trying to organize a collection of Iranian Kurdish groups.

I just want to emphasize, first of all, anyone who's been to the Kurdistan region of Iraq, the Kurds are like so pro-American, so welcoming. They're fierce fighters, but they have a lot of divisions amongst them. And within the Iranian groups, it's even more complicated. There's a 300-mile border between Turkey and Iran. That's a border that was not drawn after World War I. That's a border from the 17th century. So, there's a lot of history here.

And if I could just even go one layer deeper of the history, the one time the Kurds, again, 30 million people, the only ethnic group without their own self-governing state, in 1946, it actually did have a republic in this area of Iran, and it was crushed when the Soviet Union withdrew support from them and Iranian forces came in and crushed them. Actually, the leader of that (INAUDIBLE) leader was Mustafa Barzani, whose son is now the leader of Iraqi Kurdish groups of KDP and Erbil.

There's so much history here. It's so complicated. And I just -- I hope we know what we're doing and that we have the experts, the experts that know all these divisions, before we get into something like this. And, again, a lot of open questions, it's very unclear, Abby, exactly what's happening here, but it is complex business.

PHILLIP: But what does it say about the planning for all of this before the bomb started dropping? That is, I think, the question that all of this raises to me. GHOSH: Well, if you want to take the most charitable explanation, the Iraqi Kurds do have very good relations with the Iranian regime. They have to. They're on the border. The Iranian regime has very strong relations with Shia political groups in Iraq. So, if you are an Iraqi Kurdish leader, it is in your best interests to have good relations at everybody. It's possible that the Trump administration didn't want to share any plans in advance for fear of that information leaking to the Iranians. That's the most positive spin that I could possibly put on this.

But I think your explanation sounds more, more plausible to me, which is that they seem to be making this thing up as they go along. The president of the United States picks up the phone himself and calls a Kurdish tribal leader. Brett, again --

PHILLIP: Is that unusual?

GHOSH: That might be unusual, is it not?

MCGURK: There's a lot happening in Iraq, right? There's a government formation process.

GHOSH: Yes.

MCGURK: Look, if I was in the White House, I'd want the president to be calling these leaders about helping to protect American facilities. We're working together. There's a lot on the agenda. So, it's not necessarily just this issue.

PHILLIP: The other part of this is the administration is also suggesting that there was a nuclear threat.

[22:25:03]

The president -- let's just play it. It's a very quick clip. The president said this today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: If we didn't hit within two weeks, they would've had a nuclear weapon. If we didn't do the B-2 attack a number of months ago, they would have a nuclear weapon. And when crazy people have nuclear weapons, bad things happen. So, we're in very good shape now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: All right. So, the long game with Iran is always keep them away from nuclear weapons, but the idea that they were two weeks away, I don't think I've seen anything that suggested that's accurate.

MCGURK: Yes. You know, they have the capability if you do a crash program, and let's give you an anecdote. In December of 2024, we did an exercise in the White House that if Iran, because they had 60 percent uranium, were to enrich to weapons grade, because once they have a canister of that weapons grade uranium, it's a much different problem, would we be prepared to do the operation that was Midnight Hammer? And we actually said, yes, that was an operation that was prepared over many administrations. But after June, it is almost impossible for Iran to get from A to B. However.

Iran insists on having this massive nuclear infrastructure that has no conceivable civilian need. And in the negotiations with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Iran continued to insist. They said things like, we'll bring our stockpile down to zero, but they want to keep this huge civilian -- this nuclear infrastructure, which the IAEA has said repeatedly has no connection to a civilian program. We know Iran used to have a weapons program.

The point is, no, they're not two weeks away from having a nuclear weapon, but this is a very serious problem, as is the missiles program and as is the drone problem.

PHILLIP: All right, much more ahead. As the Senate Democrats are trying to limit the president's war authority, House Speaker Mike Johnson is arguing what happened in Iran isn't a war at all. But President Trump and Pete Hegseth are calling it one repeatedly. We'll debate that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:30:00]

PHILLIP: Tonight, Senate Democrats attempted to rein in President Trump's war and failed. Nearly all Republicans voted against the measure that would have required Trump to seek congressional approval for any future military action against Iran. And earlier, House Speaker Mike Johnson argued a war powers resolution wasn't needed at all because what's happening in Iran is not a war.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R) HOUSE SPEAKER: Iran has attacked three of our U.S. embassies in the last couple of days, okay? Those are sovereign territories of the U.S. They have declared war on us. I don't believe in the semantics. We've talked about the language this morning. We're not at war right now. We're four days in to a very specific, clear mission and operation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: And he's not the only one. A lot of Republican lawmakers are quick to call what's happening in the Middle East anything other than a war.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. BRIAN MAST (R-FL): Nobody should classify this as war. It is combat operations.

SEN. TOMMY TUBERVILLE (R-AL): I wouldn't call this a war as much as I'd call it a conflict that should be very short and sweet.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): I don't know if this is technically a war.

SEN. MARKWAYNE MULLIN (R-OK): We have declared war. So if we haven't declared war, I don't see that. The President hasn't asked us to declare war yet, but they have declared war on us.

MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Would you consider it a war?

REP. MIKE FLOOD (R-NE): It's a significant military operation.

REP. ANNA PAULINA LUNA (R-FL): Strategic strikes are not war.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: So, if this is not a war, they better tell the people who are calling the shots around here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: We didn't start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We may have casualties that often happens in war.

HEGSETH: We set the terms of this war, from start to finish.

TRUMP: I think you probably want to speak about war rather than this, but this is very important.

HEGSETH: War is hell, and always will be.

TRUMP: We're doing very well on the war front.

HEGSETH: The terms of this war will be set by us at every step.

TRUMP: I have to go back and look at the war. You know, we a lot of things happening.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Max Boot is with us now at the table. Shermichael, how is this not a war?

SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You know, look. I'm going to go back to the point that I made earlier because I think historic context matters. Presidents have gotten us entangled, if you want to put it that way, in foreign conflicts without going to Congress. And again, the best case that I could find research in this that people might remember around my age is the Obama administration.

We were in Libya, I believe, seven months, correct me if I was wrong. And a lot of Republicans at the time, and even some Democrats, said you --

(CROSSTALK) PHILLIP: Many -- actually, many -- more Democrats than Republicans --

(CROSSTALK)

SINGLETON: Correct. You can't do this.

PHILLIP: Democrats sued him.

(CROSSTALK)

SINGLETON: They did and a judge actually kicked out that lawsuit of course, I'm sure you were. But the administration argued that this was a limited airstrike without troops on the ground. Therefore, it was not war. I think the Trump administration is making the same argument. Whether you like it or not, there is some precedent here.

PHILLIP: Yes, I definitely think presidents tend to do this to argue that they can strike whenever they want. But they are also calling it a war every single day. So, at what point does it become that? And also, I mean, just on a foreign policy perspective, the scope of this is actually massive. It's become more regional. They're striking boats in the Indian Ocean. We're talking about something that has a scope that is very different.

[22:35:02]

MAX BOOT, SENIOR FELLOW, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Yes, maybe they should, you know, borrow a page from Putin's playbook and call it a special military operation. It seems like what the administration's M.O. right now is they call it a war when they want to rationalize and explain why we're taking casualties. But when they're talking about whether Congress needs to authorize it, then it's not a war.

So, there's a lot of gamesmanship going on, obviously. I mean, remember, this is an operation being conducted by what is now known as the Department of War. So, it would seem very much to be, in fact, a war. But I don't think we should get caught up over the semantics here. I think the important thing is, you know, does it have authorization from Congress? Clearly not, as Shermichael says. There have been past military operations that did not have authorization from Congress.

Although in the case of Libya, that was an operation that was supported by the U.N. Security Council, supported by --

(CROSSTALK)

SINGLETON: NATO allies --

(CROSSTALK)

BOOT: -- by NATO allies. In this case, we're very isolated. It's really very much President Trump on an island with Bibi Netanyahu raging this war together with no congressional support, no international support. And I think he's taking a huge risk. If it's successful, that will perhaps vindicate his gamble. If it's not successful, he's going to be left holding the bag, which

is one of the reasons why in the past, presidents have generally considered it prudent to go to Congress before waging a war of regime change in the way that President George W. Bush, for example, did before going into Iraq in 2003.

PHILLIP: I'm not so sure that they wouldn't be successful if they -- had they gone to Congress in advance. So I guess, you know, why not do that when of course the element of surprise everybody loves the element of surprise, but in this particular situation, the threat is the same threat that it has been for some time now. They could have gone to Congress and chose not to.

ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, I think Bibi Netanyahu knows how to press Trump's buttons and they are playing us, Trump and his administration for idiots by trying to say that it -- and so are the Republican Congress by trying to say it is not a war. I think most Americans looking at what happens, and what is happening right now in front of our eyes sees it as a war.

And just two months before what happened in Iran, we saw what happened in Venezuela. And clearly, they're very different operations. That was one where they went in, they took the guy, no American loss of life. The guy's in a jail here in a jail here in New York and will be tried. This is a war.

And the reason they don't want to call it that is because then Congress would have to acknowledge and admit their failure to provide oversight and to be taken into consideration. They would have to admit that they're a bunch of fools.

PHILLIP: Well, let me play Thomas Massie because he made a very similar point on Capitol Hill.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. THOMAS MASSIE (R-KY): If American lives are to be risked and American blood is to be shed, that decision must be debated and voted on by the representatives of the American people.

I have a theory. I think my colleagues don't want to go on record because we have a terrible track record of meddling in the Middle East. They don't want their name associated with this when it doesn't turn out well. But Congress cannot be bothered with its constitutional duty because for many in this chamber it's easier to simply allow someone else's sons and daughters to be sent to combat without their vote.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAGAR CHEMALI, NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL, FORMER DIRECTOR FOR SYRIA AND LEBANON: I don't think Congress would ever be courageous enough, by the way, to make a vote, regardless of the threats that are emanating from the Iranian regime, to vote to authorize a war like this. And the reason for that is that they don't want to make that risk. After Iraq, people are still saying, oh, back then, that congressperson or that senator voted yes on Iraq or no on Iraq.

And it's not -- that's not something that they want to be saddled with. And then, by the way, that ends up being worse. Because if you take it to Congress and then Congress says no, then the Iranian regime is sitting back there and saying -- the Iranian regime and other dictators around the world are going to sit back and say, oh, look at the feckless United States. They can't even -- they can't even agree on combating threats.

But Congress pisses me off. And the reason for that is that they should have seen this coming. I've known, because I work on Middle East issues, I've known since the end of the 12-day war in June that round two was likely. All of us did. All of us foreign policy experts --

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: Our motto was being built up for a month or another.

CHEMALI: Yes, we had been debating this. After the new year, I had been telling people don't go to the region because we are expecting the possibility of round two strikes. So, how is it that Congress is so surprised?

(CROSSTALK)

NAVARRO: They don't want to vote on this, but at some point they're going to have to vote on funding this war. This is billions and billions and billions of dollars that are going to require funding. So what happens then?

PHILLIP: Look, it is not pleasant to have to take a tough vote, but there's a reason that it's in the Constitution that they have to do it. And their failure to do their job, I think, is a complete rejection of what the Constitution says is their responsibility on behalf of the people who, by the way, are sending their kids into these war zones.

[22:40:00]

So, next for us, Gavin Newsom is now accusing President Trump of bowing to Israel, and he's comparing Israel to an apartheid state. We'll debate that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIP: Tonight, Gavin Newsom becomes the latest Democrat to ramp up criticism against Israel. A one-time staunch vocal supporter, Newsom is now blaming Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for pushing the United States into war with Iran.

[22:45:04]

And it only escalated from there.

[BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): But the issue of Bibi is interesting because he's got his own domestic issues. He's trying to stay out of jail. He's got an election coming up. He's potentially on the ropes. He's got folks the hard line that want to annex the West -- the West Bank. I mean, Freeman and others are talking about it appropriately, sort of an apartheid state.

JON FAVREAU, COMMENTATOR: Do you think, looking down the road, that the United States should consider maybe, you know, rethinking our military support for Israel?

NEWSOM: It breaks my heart because the current leadership in Israel is walking us down that path where I don't think you have a choice but that consideration.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: So, you hear that and you have to hear this other thing because this is what he said, you know, about a year ago or so. Listen to what he said on a radio show.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NEWSOM: Flew in to meet with Bibi now with the President just weeks after October 7th, sent a field hospital deep reverence for the state of Israel and Israeli people. But Jesus, I mean, look at these children starving. You know, and can-- I mean, so, enough. But it breaks my heart man and again this is someone that reveres the state of Israel and has its back --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Okay, so we all know he's running for president, but what does this shift tell you?

BOBBY GHOSH, COLUMNIST AND GEOPOLITICS ANALYST: Well, he's clearly made the calculation that he can say things like that, and that will resonate with a large part of the American public. It's now become okay, and that's a calculation he's making. It's now become okay when you want to run for president to say something like that.

Remember that when Kamala Harris ran for president, in the last cycle, she sort of pointedly avoided criticizing Israel in the context of Gaza and that cost her. Now, we're learning and now we're seeing data to suggest that that cost her a big chunk of the vote which may or may not have been decisive but certainly cost her vote.

Gavin Newsom is making the calculation that it's not going to cost him and that it might be actually to his benefit. There's a lot of polling that shows Americans as a whole have changed their views on Israel, particularly young Americans.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: Yes and we have some of that. Let me just show what he's talking about because I think it's important. Look at where we were in February 2021 in terms of opinions of Israel among U.S. adults, 75 percent support. That's down to 46 percent now and it's not just Democrats. It's also on the right, as well.

NAVARRO: Well, but I don't -- you play two clips of Gavin Newsom and I think it's actually reflective of a lot of Americans. I think there's a lot of Americans who support the state of Israel and have deep reverence for the state of Israel, but do not support or do not trust Bibi Netanyahu. They're not exactly the same thing.

Bibi Netanyahu has charges filed against him for bribery, for fraud, for breach of trust in Israel. And I do think he's -- that some people wonder if some of this desire to stay in war and be in these prolonged wars isn't about him not going to jail and not facing those charges. As long as he is leading a war for Israel, he is not going to be brought to for the -- into court for those charges.

I think, you know, in the same way that I think a lot of people think that Donald Trump is doing some of what he's doing to distract from the bad poll numbers going on here, you know, the "Wag the Dog" theory.

BOOT: I have to say that, you know, as somebody who's been a lifelong supporter of Israel, it is very disturbing to me what's happening because you're seeing a split along partisan lines in terms of support for Israel. I mean, if you look at the latest Gallup, while I just looking at the numbers, 65 percent of Democrats now sympathize more with Palestinians than with Israelis.

And with Republicans, it's the exact opposite, 70 percent sympathize more with Israelis than Palestinians. I think this is very dangerous for Israel's future because basically, I think this is the price that Israel is paying for Netanyahu's strategy, which is to lash himself so closely to the MAGA right to identify so much with Donald Trump.

That pays off for him in the short term because he gets what he wants out of Trump, including support for a war with Iran. But the long-term cost for Israel, I fear, is going to be pretty high because the next time you have Democrats in the Oval Office, Democrats in control of Congress, they are not going to be all that supportive of Israel.

And I think Israel will ultimately pay that price. And so, part of it is Netanyahu's tactic of aligning himself with the Republican right in American politics, but also with the way that he waged the Gaza war, which caused global public opinion to turn against Israel. And he didn't care because he wanted to go out and obliterate Hamas. But now, you know, the chickens are coming home to roost.

SINGLETON: Look, I think Max is right. I think the next several potential candidates for the Democratic presidency in 2028 will probably take a very different position on Israel.

[22:50:07]

That worries me because the world is a very dangerous place. We're lucky from our geographic location that we don't have to deal with the constant threats that Israel or Saudi Arabia or Jordan or any of our other allies in the region constantly have to face when dealing with entities like Iran that are funding most of these proxy groups in that region.

And so, it's one thing to be critical of Benjamin Netanyahu. You have freedom of speech. He's running for president soon. Okay, I'm okay with that, even though I disagree. But the notion that we wouldn't support our greatest ally in the region is naive to me. And if you don't think that crap could come home to roost and harm Americans, Gavin Newsom doesn't belong anywhere near the White House, so that's his mindset.

CHEMALI: I agree. I could not agree more. I think Newsom is just only catering and pandering to the far left because they saw that it's been working in elections. It's certainly worked for Mamdani. And I find it extremely risky and frankly ignorant of him to push that because it's as though he doesn't understand why the United States supports the state of Israel.

And it is because the threats that Israel faces are the same that we face. It's not that, oh, Israel is just a friend that we wanted to go out and support. It's because those elements, those terrorist groups, the Iranian regime, they are countering the West and Israel.

And the relationship with Israel, and I can tell you because I worked very closely with the Israeli government when I worked in counterterrorism, that is a relationship that is mutually beneficial. A vast majority of terror plots that we thwart related to the Middle East are coming from Israeli intelligence.

NAVARRO: Do you think it's incorrect to not have a certain mistrust of Netanyahu and his motives?

CHEMALI: I don't think -- I don't see a problem with that, but the fact is that we're the United States of America and we don't really get fooled by Bibi Netanyahu. I mean, he's not the one who convinces us what to do. We are the ones who try -- and by the way --

(CROSSTALK)

NAVARRO: Did you hear what Marco Rubio said? Why are we going to war?

(CROSSTALK)

SINGLETON: But being critical of Netanyahu does not mean we shouldn't support our ally.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: We are up against time. The only thing I'll say is that it is just worth noting. It's not the far left anymore.

UNKNOWN: That's exactly right.

PHILLIP: It's a majority of the left. It's actually half of the independence and it's a third of Republicans. So, it's a very broad political situation that's happening here in the United States. Everyone, thank you very much for being here. Next, we're going to remember the fallen American soldiers who died this week.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:56:59]

PHILLIP: One of the painful realities of any war is the sacrifice of the men and women who answer the call to serve and lose their lives. Six U.S. service members were killed in action in a drone attack in Kuwait on Sunday. All six of them were assigned to the 103rd Sustainment Command Army Reserve Unit out of Iowa.

The Pentagon, tonight, identifying the final two service members. Major Jeffrey O'Brien was 45 years old from Iowa. Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert Marzan, 54 years old from Sacramento. Both of those are the two names that have just been released. Sergeant Declan Cody was 20 years old and he was from Des Moines, Iowa. He was a Drake University student and he had just updated his family from Kuwait on Saturday, but his parents couldn't reach him just 24 hours later. This is his older sister.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEIRA COADY, DECLAN COADY'S SISTER: I still don't fully think it's real. I didn't think it was real when they told us because I just remember all of our conversations about what he was going to do when he came back. I just wish he could know one more time that we all loved him because he was so amazing and kind. He was just like a little brother you could have.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Captain Cody Khork, 35 years old from Lakeland, Florida, is remembered by his family as the life of the party. He won awards for his dedication and his service to the United States Army. And his parents and stepmother say he was known for his infectious spirit, his generous heart, and his deep care for those who served alongside him and for everyone blessed to know him.

Sergeant First Class Nicole Amor, 39, from White Bear Lake, Minnesota, she was just days away from returning home. The wife and mother of two, a senior in high school and a fourth grader, she spoke with her husband Joey just two hours before she was killed. Sergeant Amor was an avid gardener and enjoyed rollerblading and biking with her children.

Sergeant First Class Noah Tietjens, 42 years old from Bellevue, Nebraska, was a husband and a father and an instructor who earned a black belt in Taekwondo. A fellow Nebraska soldier thought of him as a mentor and said, he made you feel important. Nebraska's governor, Jim Pillen, called his death, a sacrifice we must never forget. It's a sentiment that suits all of the fallen. We thank them for their service. We thank their families for their sacrifice. And tonight, we honor their memory.

[22:59:56] LAURA COATES, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight, Trump's war with Iran, where it's headed, and the one question the administration still can't answer. Fareed Zakaria will be my guest. Plus, is Secretary Pete Hegseth suggesting --