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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Declares Victory in Ongoing Iran War, We Won; 1 Dead, 38 Rescued from Oil Tankers Set Ablaze by Iran in Gulf; Sources Say, U.S. Strike Likely Hit School Due to Outdated Intel. U.S. Strike in Iran Allegedly Hits School; Cornyn Denies Flipping His Stance to Win Trump's Endorsement. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired March 11, 2026 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, the president declares victory in Iran --
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: You know, you never like to say too early, you won. We won.
PHILLIP: -- as Epic Fury takes on a new label.
REPORTER: You just said it is a little excursion and you said it is a war. So, which one is it?
TRUMP: Well, it's both.
PHILLIP: A war, an excursion, whatever it's called, some Republicans are eager for it to be over.
SEN. JOSH HAWLEY (R-MO): It's time to declare victory.
PHILLIP: Plus, a deadly mistake. America's own assessment suggests the U.S. is behind the bombing of a school in Iran. So, how will the government respond?
And --
SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R-TX): This is why we need the filibuster for every piece of legislation that comes out of the Senate.
PHILLIP: Filibusted, the Republican senator who wants Trump's endorsement reverses his longtime position to back the president's demands.
TRUMP: It's the most popular bill I've ever seen put before Congress.
PHILLIP: Live at the table, Neera Tanden, Peter Meijer, Xochitl Hinojosa, Brianna Lyman and Bobby Ghosh. Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York.
Tonight, the president of the United States is declaring victory in the war against Iran, but he's offering little evidence for that claim.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We've won. Let me tell you, we've won. You know, you never like to say too early, you won. We won. We won the bet. In the first hour, it was over.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Donald Trump's timeline for the war continues to be all over the place. Earlier, he said the war would end soon because there's, quote, practically nothing left to target. But that contradicts what both the Pentagon and Israel have said.
It also contradicts what's happening on the ground between new bombings and Iran's threats and retaliation. Just tonight, 38 crew members of two foreign oil tankers had been rescued in the Persian Gulf after both ships were set ablaze. One person is dead and the attack happened in Iraq's territorial waters. Iran has claimed responsibility for it.
And despite that happening, just a few moments ago, President Trump now has a new term for how he is labeling this conflict.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: You just said it is a little excursion and you said it is a war. So, which one is it?
TRUMP: Well, it's both. It's both. It's an excursion that will keep us out of a war. And the war is going to be -- I mean, for them, it's a war. For us, it's -- it turned out to be easier than we thought.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, he's very much changed his mind on whether or not this is a war. But, Peter, do you think he's looking for an off-ramp? Should he take one at this point, just given where we are?
PETER MEIJER, CO-FOUNDER AND HEAD OF STRATEGY, THE NEW INDUSTRIAL CORPORATION: I think where we are, it's appropriate for him to recognize the significant military victory that's been achieved so far. I mean, the overwhelming success of the U.S. military's effort to date is incredible and deserves laud, it deserves kudos.
I spent time doing some of the planning on what this would look like about a decade ago, and this has outstripped by every measure what our expectations were in terms of what the first days and week, week and a half would look like.
The political question is a different one entirely. You know, that will be informed by the situation on the ground. It'll be informed by our military actions, but that is something where the enemy has a vote and where the president is going to have to be nimble and have to respond to a changing situation on the ground.
PHILLIP: And Trump continues to suggest that he would really like to see a more amenable regime. He would really like to see Iran's nuclear capabilities actually taken off the table. But it does seem like increasingly that may not be his choice. And if it's not, is it better to cut their losses at this point given the extraordinary tactical victory that they've experienced, even if those other objectives are not met?
BOBBY GHOSH, COLUMNIST AND GEOPOLITICS ANALYST: Here's the thing with wars. One side can't claim victory until the other side is lost. And for Iran, the regime in Iran simply surviving is their definition of victory. If we are declaring victory on our definition, then they get to define their survival as their victory.
[22:05:02]
As we saw, even as the president was declaring victory, Iran blew up a couple of tankers, which means they can still do that. The Iranian regime is even more hardlined today with a different Khamenei in charge than it was ten days ago. It is weakened, but that doesn't mean it's anywhere near on its knees.
And the third thing is, this is the big story from today that caught my mind, attention. The Wall Street Journal reported that the country that is exporting more oil through the Straits of Hormuz than before the war is Iran. So, ten days later, more hardlined regime, Iran is exporting more oil while the rest of our allies don't get to export their oil, and Iran continues to be able to blow up ships in the Persian Gulf. From which independent direction, never mind the definitions of the two sides, from which independent standpoint is this a victory for anybody?
PHILLIP: That's a question, and a good one.
BRIANNA LYMAN, REPORTER, THE FEDERALIST: Yes. Well, look I don't think it's surprising that this is President Trump's posturing, right? This man is a salesman through and through. So, he's going to sell anything his administration does, and he's going to do it with confidence like he's doing with this war saying it's over, we won in the first hour. So, I don't think that's surprising. And I pray to God that he has some kind of intel that we are not privy to that would suggest or indicate that maybe within a week or two weeks, this will actually show more of America's absolutely the victor, regardless of what side you're on,
PHILLIP: Well, what would you define as America being the absolute victor? Because I think obviously there's a lot of destruction happening in Iran, but the leadership is not decimated. They've created a whole new leadership regime. And when you look at what's happened to the global oil markets price of gas has gone up 50 cents from a year ago. 172 million barrels of oil the United States announced is going to be released from the strategic petroleum oil reserve. But yet, as we speak here, oil futures are up because it seems like the markets don't believe that this is going to be over soon. So, I don't know. What is victory?
LYMAN: Well, I think we've seen that the Iranian regime is literally using a cardboard cutout of the Khameini son because he hasn't been seen since he's been injured. That means he could be dead, he could be severely injured and may not be the next leader. So, I do think there are questions, as do they have the right leader and do they have someone in place? When it comes to oil, look, unfortunately, I think President Trump's warnings for the past decade are coming true. He has encouraged not only the United States but other countries to be energy independent and to diversify the oil markets. So, when you have these shocks in the oil market, it's not impacting everyone else. But, unfortunately, no country has diversified enough.
NEERA TANDEN, FORMER DOMESTIC POLICY ADVISER, BIDEN ADMINISTRATION: I mean, global -- just to be clear, oil is a -- oil is set at a global market. Even if we're producing more in the United States, we're still affected.
PHILLIP: Which we are.
TANDEN: Which we are.
But I think the issue here is I think, actually, many assessments would be, have always been, that with the United States could militarily dominate Iraq. The challenge has been -- oh, Iran, I'm Iran. I'm sorry. Iran, I'm sorry. So, similar, so just another Middle East war with another Republican president.
MEIJER: I spent time in Iraq. It was a little different. Yes.
TANDEN: Well, we'll see how it goes over the next years. But the real issue I think is that it is, as we all know, Iran is on the Strait of Hormuz, and this has always been the question of what, how they would interfere or basically take hostage the global market. And just as a reminder, as you just noted, even with using the SPRO, oil is up to almost $100. I just want to say what that means for American consumers. Not only do we pay more for gas, not only because -- not only do we pay more for gas, but we also pay more because of natural gas exports. Those prices are increasing because natural gas goes through the Strait of Hormuz.
We are seeing at a time where Americans are deeply concerned about the cost of living the Iranian regime and the president and his policies driving up those costs. And I think that I appreciate that we don't know what is going to happen in the weeks to come, but he is asking Americans, American service members to sacrifice and also Americans throughout this country to pay more for his war.
MEIJER: The 50 cents a gallon is still -- yes, that increase, that's not great. It's still well below where it was at the end of Biden's term. The $100 --
TANDEN: No, it wasn't. No, it's not. No, we were down.
(CROSSTALKS)
GHOSH: This was a choice that was made.
TANDEN: Yes. After the Ukraine war created --
MEIJER: Right after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
TANDEN: Yes.
MEIJER: It went up to $130 a barrel.
TANDEN: Yes.
MEIJER: Let me just -- but can I also say, you mentioned the export of natural gas. I'm so grateful that we're a net energy exporter right now.
[22:10:02]
Your organization was critical and it supported Biden's effort to try to tamp down on U.S. natural gas exports.
TANDEN: We are supporting -- we support natural gas.
MEIJER: I love that. No, I love that Democrats care about the price of gas. I love that you now support American domestic energy production, like this is fantastic, because I spent a lot of time in Congress arguing with colleagues on the other side of the aisle --
TANDEN: Well, I mean, you're for permitting. But I guess here's the issue. The president himself decided -- the difference between the Biden Biden administration is Putin invaded Ukraine and drove up prices. What's happened here is we decided to have a war of choice against --
MEIJER: To take out one of the most dangerous regimes in the world.
TANDEN: Yes, and we'll see if that regime changes. It won't matter if the regime doesn't change. If it's a worst hardline regime afterwards, then what have we accomplished if there are actually more militant afterwards?
XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, but not only that, and like we need to stop talking about Joe Biden. Joe Biden lost and Donald Trump was elected to reduce prices. And time after time, whether it was last year with tariffs and now with this war, what's happening is the president is saying, trust me. Trust me. You need to feel the pain for a little bit, and then the overall outcome will end up benefiting America.
They didn't trust him with tariffs. He didn't deliver on tariffs. Now, what is happening is that he has -- he's gotten us into this war that the American people do not want. They didn't -- they trusted him whenever he said that he obliterated the nuclear program. Now, we find out later that he lied to us and that he actually did not do that. So, why should the American people trust him now?
He has failed at every point throughout his administration, and I keep on hearing Republicans blame Joe Biden. Joe Biden is not the president of the United States. Donald Trump is. And not only that, Donald Trump has the House and the Senate. And so if he wanted authorization from Congress to go into a war, why didn't he get the authorization?
MEIJER: Because no president has done that in two decades. And I would love for him to do that.
HINOJOSA: So -- and I understand, but you guys are the ones in power. Donald Trump is in power, and he hasn't been able to deliver on anything, especially price of the cost of living.
LYMAN: That is not true.
HINOJOSA: It is true.
LYMAN: Inflation was at a record high under Biden, and it has dropped significantly under Donald Trump.
HINOJOSA: And if you go to the grocery store, the prices are up.
LYMAN: The prices are much better than they were --
(CROSSTALKS)
GHOSH: The rate of the prices have gone up has slowed. The prices are still up, the prices haven't come down.
HINOJOSA: They're up.
GHOSH: Also, it makes no difference to the price of gas in the tank whether or not we're energy independent. The oil companies charge us international rates. The fact that we are producing more oil -- when I go to buy gas, that does not reduce my bill at all. The oil companies charge us international rates. So, when the price of oil goes down everywhere -- it goes up everywhere, it goes up for us, when it goes down, everywhere it goes up for us.
So, a war in the Middle East that shuts down the Strait of Hormuz, even if we are not getting one drop of oil from that region, will still affect the cost of gas. And gas -- not just gas. To your point, not just natural gas, fertilizer, huge exporters of fertilizer from that part of the world.
HINOJOSA: Food price is going up.
GHOSH: Dubai and the UAE are one of the world's major logistic hubs. All kinds of goods move through Dubai and come here and exports from America, go to Asia through Dubai. All kinds of things are blocked.
You know, the price of gas is only -- we are talking like this is the first Gulf War or the second war where you served and I covered as a journalist. This is a whole different world from there. The world is a much more complex place and the Middle East is more important.
PHILLIP: Let me just ask you a final question. I mean, even if Trump decides everything went swimmingly time to get out, if Iran doesn't agree, and maybe they are diminished, but they're still -- tonight, they are still lobbying missiles at their regional partners, they are still bombing ships in the Strait of Hormuz, then what has happened? Have we created a sort of Pandora's Box of an even more aggressive actor in the region?
MEIJER: We have highlighted and validated the exact threat that Iran posed to the region. We just had the most unanimous vote in the United Nations Security Council today condemning Iran's attacks on all of their neighbors. They had 134 co-sponsors. That is the most of any resolution that's gone through there. The entire region, including the Omanis, the Qataris, I don't think that they understood the threat that Iran posed. Today, they do.
All the countries that were even friendly with Iran have been struck, not military targets, not American bases. Those obviously were the expectation. But civilian targets, civilian infrastructure, because that Iranian regime is vindictive, is dangerous. And all of the things that Democrats and Republicans viewed about the threat that Iran posed, they have proven that a hundred times over in the past two weeks.
TANDEN: I mean, they are a horrifying regime. They're also targeting tourism and economic weakness.
[22:15:00]
And I do think that is one of the reasons. I mean, what is surprising is the Gulf states aren't entering the war, as Lindsey Graham has acted.
MEIJER: They are more than happy to stand behind us, right behind us.
TANDEN: Yes. they're 100 percent behind us, but they are not doing anything militarily. They're only resting on us, which means it's our soldiers who are at risk.
PHILLIP: All right, everyone stand by, more to come.
But, first, this morning I issued a correction first thing in the morning on X for a mistake that I made in last night's show, but I also wanted to do so on air as well. I incorrectly said that the bombs that were thrown by ISIS-inspired suspects in New York over the weekend were directed at Mayor Mamdani. They were not. I failed to catch and correct that mistake in real time, and I take full responsibility for that. And while we do make mistakes, it is important to acknowledge and correct those errors when they happen.
But next for us, sources say that the US assessments suggest that America did in fact strike that Iranian school thanks to outdated intelligence. So, how will the White House respond? Plus, first, Democrats wanted to nuke the filibuster now. There's a veteran Republican senator who's reversing his longtime stance on it to help Donald Trump. We'll debate.
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[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, we're learning more about that strike on a school that the Iranian state media says killed at least 168 children and 14 teachers. Sources that were briefed on the preliminary findings of an ongoing military investigation tells CNN that the report shows that the U.S. accidentally struck the school likely due to outdated information about a nearby naval base.
Now, President Trump was asked about that report today, and here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: As commander-in-chief, do you take responsibility for that?
TRUMP: That is what? What are you --
REPORTER: As commander-in-chief, do you --
TRUMP: For what?
REPORTER: The strike on the school in Iran. A new report says the military investigation has found it was the United States that struck the school.
TRUMP: I don't know about it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Over the last week, Pete Hegseth has pointed to the ongoing investigation when asked about that strike, but President Trump has been quick to blame Iran.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Based on what I've seen that was done by Iran. We think it was done -- we think it was done by Iran, because they're very inaccurate, as you know, with their munitions. They have no accuracy, whatsoever. It was done by Iran.
REPORTER: You just suggested that Iran somehow got its hands on a Tomahawk and bombed its own elementary school on the first day of the war, but you're the only person in your government saying this.
Why are you the only person saying this?
TRUMP: Because I just don't know enough about it. I think it's something that I was told is under investigation, but Tomahawks are used by others. As you know, numerous other nations have Tomahawks. (END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: And, Bobby, you've covered these conflicts for a long time. These terrible incidents unfortunately do happen. But I wonder Trump's response to it, claiming he doesn't know anything about it, and the administration's delay in sort of just acknowledging what independent media seems to be circling around, is that doing damage?
GHOSH: Yes, it does damage at the end when the truth finally comes out. It was all so unnecessary to go through all of this. All the president had to say, as previous -- leaders of countries that go into war are always aware that terrible things will happen during war. Mistakes will happen, civilians will be killed. The standard operating procedure is to say when the like -- when something like that happens is we wait for the investigation. We would never deliberately do this. Our enemies deliberately do this all the time. We would never deliberately do this. If it has happened, it's a terrible mistake and we are deeply sorry, but we'll wait until the investigation comes out.
It's fairly simple, it's politics 101. It's international relations 101. The problem with having a president who shoots from the hip is that sometimes you get into these situations. So, now, so many days later, when it finally does come out that it was a mistake on our part, American part. There will be an apology, but that apology will now ring hollow because of all of this unnecessary verbiage. It was completely unnecessary.
HINOJOSA: Yes. And name one time that Trump has waited for some internal investigation to complete before speaking out. That is what administrations and presidents typically do and we should do that, but he has never done that as a president. He's quick to put -- place blame on anyone else he can place blame on. And whenever it is America's fault, he -- or his fault, he tries to change the subject and does not want to answer questions. This is part of a playbook that he's always been part of.
The other thing I'll say is this is what happens when you loosen the rules of engagement, which have happened with Pete Hegseth. We are acting and the way that we are acting and the sloppiness, and this falls on Donald Trump. 180 people died. Children died, mostly children. This falls directly on Donald Trump's hands. And I think he needs to apologize and he needs to show some remorse for these children dying and address the American people.
PHILLIP: So, for the folks -- I'll let you respond directly to that, but I just want to play just what Xochitl was talking about. Because Pete Hegseth, just in the early days of this conflict, he was very clear that this is a different kind of war. He said this about the rules of engagement.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: The dumb, politically correct wars of the past were the opposite of what we're doing here. They had vague objectives with restrictive, minimalist rules of engagement. No more.
[22:25:00]
Our authorities, his authorities, CENTCOM's authorities through the president and myself are maxed out. Our capabilities are overwhelming and gathering still, as are those of our Israeli partners. Our munitions are full up, and our will is iron clad, which means our timeline is ours and ours alone to control.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: He's repeated this several times. The rules of engagement, he says have changed.
MEIJER: Which was a very common criticism during the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, that there was a threshold that had to be met in terms of when you could return force or flyer the positive identification, depending on where you were and when there was a very diligent checklist, which can lead to a lot of positive scenarios where you avoid an innocent casualty, and it can also create scenarios that put soldiers in danger because they're reticent to respond, you know, for fewer of the legal repercussions.
I will say the important thing to understand, and this is why an investigation is important, that should be thorough, that should obviously be swift so we can come to that.
Truth is we have no way of knowing whether or not the rules of engagement that he's talking about had any bearing on this. If it was mislabeling, if it was bad information, if it was outdated, that wouldn't pertain to the rules of engagement. That's bad intelligence. It is regrettable. It is terrible. It's a tragedy. It's a sad inevitability and a conflict. But that is less to do with the rules of engagement than all of the preparation that goes in it.
PHILLIP: So, just one piece of context on what might have also changed, right? Congress in 2022 created the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence. It was part of a bipartisan bill. But under Pete Hegseth's, the office size was slashed and the work to updating what they called a no-strike list stopped, according to a former official who worked there. They have no budget, that official said. They're just sitting there trying to maintain any semblance of mission.
This was an office that was responsible for updating a list of civilian targets, hospitals, schools, things like that, that should not be hit. And it seems, according to this person, that that office has essentially -- you know, it's disbanded effectively.
TANDEN: Right. I just want to be clear, we have rules of engagement for military objectives. The reason why you have these rules is because we have recognized as a country that if you hit civilian targets, you tend to get people in opposition to you. For the first week of this war, we heard that the Iranian people were about to rise up and that the whole goal was to get the Iranian people to rise up.
But then we -- I mean, after this bombing, and, of course, the mass targeting that is happening, there's a lot less talk about the Iranian people rising up. And why is that? Because they might see the United States as an enemy. One of the reasons why they might see the United States as an enemy is because we had this horrifying incident in which 150 children might have been killed with our bombs. We don't -- it's not for sure, but that's what the investigation we're hearing is -- that's the news we're getting today.
And that happened in the first hours of this war, okay? That is the horror of the situation that we're in, which is hopefully no one, no other children will be killed in this war, but we should recognize that this whole effort, you know, again, it seems to me the strategy of the first week has meant that the Iranian people are much less likely and, therefore, the Iranian regime is much more entrenched, which is not our military objective.
GHOSH: And it's also --
MEIJER: (INAUDIBLE) the civilian casualty kind of center de- confliction and going down those targeting lists and making sure you're identifying what's a hospital, what's a school, what should be off limits. You know, I worked in Afghanistan. Part of my job there was training aid workers and safety and security matters. I trained some of the MSF, the Medicins Sans Frontieres doctors who ended up getting killed in an airstrike on their facility, that was white labeled, it was green on all the maps, it still got destroyed by an AC-130 attack in November -- sorry, October of 2015, you know? So, even those lists can be highly imperfect and subject to the whims of war.
But another reason why the folks aren't on the streets, because the besieged militants are out in force. You know, there are checkpoints on most corners in Tehran. You know, this is not something where the regime is disappearing. They are fearful for that threat.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: There was a Financial Times piece just out today about the impact. There has been a lot of civilian damage in Tehran. And the Israelis bombed these oil facilities that caused giant plumes of smoke to cover the city. I mean, people are starting to feel the effects of this war, and there is a concern that that might have the opposite effect. It might supercharge nationalism at a time -- just at the time that we don't want that to happen.
[22:30:00]
LYMAN: Yes. And actually there was a report in The New York Times and they interviewed an engineer from Tehran, and what he said was interesting. He said that a lot of people in Tehran, in Iran actually don't necessarily want the bombs to stop dropping because if the bombs stop dropping it means that the Iranian regime currently in place is still in place. And for them they said we are thought of as human shields for the Iranian regime so we want this regime gone.
So, I actually think, of course, bombings are horrible especially when they accidentally kill young girls. That is absolutely tragic and awful. But I do think the Iranian people see this as a risk calculation and are saying, look, if the choice is to live under the current Iranian regime, at least according to this guy in "The New York Times," then --
(CROSSTALK)
NEERA TANDEN, FORMER DOMESTIC POLICY ADVISER, BIDEN ADMINISTRATION: Yes, one guy in "The New York Times." In that same story, there were other people who had -- who were opposed to the regime -- who had been opposed to regime, but now feel pressure, basically are supporting the regime against the United States.
(CROSSTALK)
LYMAN: If they're supporting a suicide --
BOBBY GHOSH, COLUMNIST AND GEOPOLITICS ANALYST: I think trying to get a sense of where Iranians are at any given point is very hard. We can't do polling in that country. It's not a free country. But we do know that the regime is deeply, deeply unpopular. Whether that's the same as Iranians wanting to see their children getting killed, of course not. That's just human nature. You don't want to see innocent people die in a war, even if that war is against your oppressors.
If I can go back just one beat to this question of the rules of engagement. This administration has tried to make the case that removing the rules of engagement somehow unshackles us and makes us better at being able to defeat our enemies. You know who's fought without rules of engagement? The Russians. They fought without rules of engagement in Afghanistan. You saw what they did there.
PETER MEIJER (R) FORMER U.S. CONGRESSMAN, MICHIGAN: But also intentionally targeting civilians.
GHOSH: They also -- and intentionally targeting. Without rules of engagement, they still manage to lose that war. They're fighting in Ukraine without rules of engagement. They're not doing very well. Removing the rules of engagement doesn't make an army better and more likely to win anything.
All it does is makes it more likely to kill innocent people. That's what the rules of engagement are there for. They're not there to change the possibility of win or lose. They're there to protect civilians. And that's the only reason they exist.
MEIJER: And I do think it is important bearing in mind, and this is the ultimate distinction between the United States and the adversaries, specifically in this case, Iran. It is not our policy to target civilians. We are not intentionally doing that. Mistakes happen, tragedies happen.
The Iranians, part of their strategy right now is inflicting civilian casualties throughout the region, targeting civilian residential complexes, targeting civilian airports. And we still, regardless, number one, we're not getting rid of the rules of engagement. We have rules of engagement. The question is how tight they should be --
(CROSSTALK) MEIJER: No, but we still, you know, abide by the Geneva Conventions, the laws of armed conflict. Every soldier has drilled in them from the beginning, you know, the legal ramifications, the legal specifications. And frankly, what makes us different from those we fight?
TANDEN: I just think it would be great if the President would acknowledge that instead of saying three days ago that it was Iran and not us.
PHILLIP: All right, next for us. GOP Senator John Cornyn was a staunch supporter of the filibuster rules until he wasn't. What's behind this change of heart? We'll debate.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:37:52]
PHILLIP: Republican Senator John Cornyn really needs to win President Trump's endorsement as he faces a tight runoff in the Texas Senate primary. A source tells CNN that Trump was leaning toward endorsing Cornyn last week, but backed off after it leaked to the press. Cornyn's opponent, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, then dropped an ultimatum. He said he'd quit the race if the Senate lifted the filibuster to pass one of Trump's biggest priorities, the Save America Act.
A Trump aide called it a "genius move," and now Paxton is still in the running. So now, in an op-ed for "The New York Post," Cornyn did a complete 180, writing that he supports nuking the filibuster to pass Trump's bill after he spent years defending it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R-TX): The filibuster is designed for very important purpose, and that is to ensure that we do something that's not -- that doesn't come natural, which is we actually work together.
Not only are our colleagues trying to seize the authority given under the Constitution to the states to manage their own elections, they're willing to take a wrecking ball to the United States Senate itself, and particularly the Senate rules.
Power is fleeting, and at some point the shoe will always be on the other foot. I oppose any effort to eliminate or weaken the legislative filibuster, just as we did when we were in the majority.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Yes, you got to do what you got to do. But this is such a huge turnaround for him and maybe he can do it because he knows that it's probably not going to happen. But the tape speaks for itself.
LYMAN: Well, I think first of all, the SAVE Act is not just important to President Trump. It's very important to Texas voters and just the Republican Party writ large, whether Donald Trump was for it or against it. When it comes to the filibuster, I know there's some questions now about Fetterman and Murkowski tonight about whether they support the SAVE Act.
But if they were to support the SAVE Act and we have 51 votes, Chip Roy laid out that we don't even need to nuke the filibuster to get this passed. You can have a talking filibuster, Republicans and John Fetterman would have to band together, enforce senators to speak only two times when they stop speaking, that's it.
[22:40:05]
And when they run out of time and things to talk about, it would just automatically go to a 51 majority vote. So, you don't necessarily need to nuke the filibuster. But this is legislation that is extremely popular. It's an 80-20 issue for Republicans, Democrats, independents, and it's common sense election integrity.
TANDEN: Actually, it's not an 80-20 issue when you actually described the SAVE Act which requires people to have passports or their birth certificates, 60 percent of people are opposed to it because they recognize that it's not actually voter ID. People who talk about the SAVE Act confuse voter ID with the SAVE Act all the time. And lots of people can support voter ID, lots of, in fact every Democrat voted for voter ID and legislation --
(CROSSTALK)
LYMAN: Regardless, every Democrat in the House, Republicans oppose that legislation. So -- the Freedom to Vote Act, that was -- it was in the legislation So, I think the issue -- but let's just stipulate voter ID is an important issue, but that is not what the SAVE Act is. But I think the irony of this whole situation is the SAVE Act will ensure that a lot of people don't vote because people don't have a birth certificate or a - they don't have a birth certificate or a passport.
So, that's what will just disenfranchise lots of people. But the real issue here is that John Cornyn, who just said power is fleeting, is sacrificing all of his principles because he is so desperate to hold onto power and keep his seat in a seat where he just barely came out a point ahead of Ken Paxton, a scandal-ridden attorney general.
LYMAN: I'm sorry, I have to jump in here.
PHILLIP: Let me just make a note though about the SAVE Act because I think one of the things that's been fascinating to me is that there's a SAVE Act that the House has passed which says one thing about voter ID and other things, and then there's the SAVE Act that Donald Trump wants which has a bunch of other stuff in it that has not been passed by Congress.
He wants limits to mail in ballots, again, not in the bill. He wants a ban on transwomen in sports, not sure what that has to do with voting. He wants a ban on gender affirming surgery for minors, again, not sure what that has to do with voting. So, there are actually a bunch of different hurdles to this. Not only is the SAVE Act that Trump is talking about not the one that
Congress has already addressed. But, you know, I also think that the filibuster, to enact this sort of thing, when Democrats were advocating for this four years ago, it was -- it was problematic and now we're seeing exactly why.
XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, this is all about political power. Just as Neera said, this is about not only John Cornyn trying to keep his seat, but this is also about the Save Act literally saving Donald Trump from the midterm elections. He wants less people to vote in the election, which will ultimately happen with the Save Act. Less people will turn out to vote because they don't have the documentation, which will save Donald Trump and people potentially keep the majority.
So, that is what this is all about and I should disclose, my sister is running for governor of Texas as we talk about Texas here. But the interesting part about what is happening in Texas is that we have about one week until Ken Paxton can be off the ballot. There is one week until he has to decide. It sounds now that he's not going to, but he has to decide in one week whether or not he's going to exit the race. If not, he stays on the ballot.
And people in Texas, and especially Republicans, they want the option. They don't want as much as they love Donald Trump, John Cornyn is not Donald Trump, and neither is Ken Paxton, and they want to vote for Ken Paxton. And that's the reality in the Republican Party right now there. And so, the fact that they're not going to have the choice is going to alienate a lot of MAGA voters. And I am not necessarily sure that just a Donald Trump endorsement is going to pull John Cornyn over the finish line in November.
(CROSSTALK)
LYMAN: On to -- hold on, hold on. I keep getting cut off.
PHILLIP: We're going to -- we're about to come back from the break and I'll let you say exactly what you want to say as soon as we get back from the break. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: We are back and let's continue the debate where we left off. Brianna?
LYMAN: Just want to address a few things. So one, the fear mongering about voter turnout. When Georgia passed its Jim Crow 2.0 election integrity law, which had voter ID, there was actually record high turnout. CNN did an article, so did "The Washington Post" that black voters in particular said it was actually easier to vote this go around with the voter ID in place than before.
(CROSSTALK)
LYMAN: As for this not being an 80-20 issue, that's incorrect. A 2024 Gallup poll, 84 percent of adults favor photo ID, 83 percent favor documentary proof of citizenship to register. That's 66 percent of Democrats, 84 percent of independents, 96 percent of GOP. A 2025 August poll, 83 percent of adults favor voter ID. Also, you talked about --
(CROSSTALK)
TANDEN: The SAVE Act is not voter ID. That's my point.
LYMAN: -- talked about -- it is voter ID and documentary proof of citizenship, which Gallup poll literally scored. Second of all, you mentioned birth records. There is a thing called vital check, which 45 states have. The other five states require you to go through their own state databases. And you could - it takes about 10 minutes.
You could request your birth certificate. They mail it to you. The next question becomes lots of poll tax. I think Republicans should come up with a compromise and say we will give you a tax rebate if you paid for that.
(CROSSTALK)
LYMAN: First of all you're making it seem like everybody's missing their birth certificate. That's not true. Last but not least, when it comes to women --
[22:50:01]
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: That's a good compromise. I mean, look, I do think that attempts to actually address concerns about this legislation would be useful here.
UNKNOWN: Yes.
PHILLIP: But I think the other piece of this is that the president, again, we're talking about a version of the SAVE Act that has those things in it that the House has passed. But what the President wants is something else. He wants bans on mail-in voting and he wants all this other stuff about trans individuals. And part of it is because of his fervent belief that he won the last election, that he in fact lost.
And just today, he was asked about his FBI seizing records in Arizona. And here's how he responded to the reporter, Liz Landers. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LIZ LANDERS, REPORTER: Sir, in Arizona -- Sir, in Arizona, why did the FBI seize election records in that state?
TRUMP: Well they probably thought the election was rigged, right?
LANDERS: It wasn't rigged, though.
TRUMP: Oh really? Who told you? How do you know? How do you know? LANDERS: Your own Attorney Federal in 2020 said that there was not measurable voter fraud to change the outcome of the election.
(CROSSTALK)
LANDERS: Sir, where's the evidence for that?
TRUMP: You don't think it was rigged? I think it was rigged.
LANDERS: Sir, where's the evidence for that?
TRUMP: If you say it wasn't rigged, you're a rotten reporter.
LANDERS: Where's the evidence for that?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: This is why Trump has promised he won't sign any other legislation until his version of the SAVE Act is passed.
MEIJER: Which I don't think the ban on boys and girls sports or those type of things have much of a bearing on 2020. He's thrown in together a bunch of 80-20 issues that pull very well and that Democrats are consistently eager --
PHILLIP: Well, not a ban on mail-in ballots. That's not an 80-20 issue.
MEIJER: No, but some idea that you shouldn't just have, you know, we have states where it is all mail-in ballots, where there are very low checks. There's a lot of reasonable, and this is what we're talking about. There's a lot of reasonable compromises that could get overwhelming support. The challenge is whoever's in the minority is never going to offer enough votes. I would love to see, frankly, a negotiation in the Senate. I
I mean, talk about something that's workable, or you get a handful of the John Fettermans and find the next eight Democrats who are willing to just say, let's put this issue to bed. Let's find some level of federal support. We still want elections to be run at the state level, but it is appropriate for the federal government to have some left and right limits within which the states can-
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: So, if he's going to have a vote on this next week, why is he having a vote on it next week? Because he knows it's not going to go anywhere.
HINOJOSA: Yes, that's right. And also, Donald Trump mentioned this on Monday at the Republican conference where he says that if we don't get this done, then the election is over for them. I mean, it is very transparent what this is about. This is all about them winning and they're trying to please Trump at this point. I mean, that's -- there is no other reason to pass this.
LYMAN: There's no reason to oppose it. Voter ID is very important --
(CROSSTALK)
TANDEN: Yes, it is --
(CROSSTALK)
TANDEN: -- because of election integrity. I mean, actually, if you really want everyone should vote, everyone who can vote to vote, then you would not have artificial things like requiring a passport, which most millions of Americans, fact half of the country does not have a passport or a birth certificate.
LYMAN: So, how do know they're eligible if you have an ID?
TANDEN: Use other ID. That's what most states do.
PHILLIP: Everyone, thank you very much for being here. Next for us, a trend is developing with one of America's most influential podcasters, how Joe Rogan keeps highlighting some of Trump's biggest liabilities.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:58:00]
PHILLIP: On the eve of the election, influencer podcaster Joe Rogan endorsed Donald Trump for a second term after interviewing the president. Fast forward to now, and the host is now putting a spotlight on Trump's biggest vulnerabilities, most recently the war in Iran.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE ROGAN, "THE JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE" PODCAST HOST: It just seems so insane based on what he ran on. I mean, this is why a lot of people feel betrayed, right? He ran on no more wars and these stupid senseless wars and then, we have one that we can't even really clearly define why we did it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: On tariffs, Rogan has also been outspoken about the policies causing a rift between the U.S. and the world.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROGAN: I can't believe that there's like anti-American and anti- Canadian sentiment going on. It's the dumbest (BEEP) feud. I'm scared of this tariff stuff because it's radical change.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Rogan also takes issue with many of Trump's immigration and deportation policies.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ROGAN: It's insane -- the targeting of migrant workers, not cartel members, not gang members, not drug dealers, just construction workers shown up in construction sites, raiding them. Gardeners --
UNKNOWN: Yes.
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: A bunch of people are totally innocent and you're caught up, you know, they have been. You know, they have been.
ROGAN: The military on the street I think is a dangerous precedent. They just don't have their papers on them. Are we really going to be that the Gestapo, where's your papers? Is that what we've come to?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: And perhaps one of the biggest splits between Rogan and this presidency is the administration's handling of the Epstein files.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROGAN: Gaslightiest gaslighting. I've ever heard in my life. This is not good. None of this is good for this administration. It looks (BEEP) terrible. Looks terrible for Trump when he was saying that none of this was real. This was all a hoax. This is not a hoax.
(23:00:00]
Did you not know maybe he didn't know -- if you want to be charitable. But this is definitely not a hoax.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: None of this criticism seems to be phasing Trump himself, though, who complimented Rogan last month.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I think he's a great guy and I think he likes me, too. And you know, liking me isn't important. What happens is that I think we do a phenomenal job, but I don't think we're good at public relations.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Thank you very much for watching "NewsNight." "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
