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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Says, Iran War Will Be Finished Within Two to Three Weeks; Sources Say, Trump Admin Can't Promise to Reopen Strait Before War's End; Markets Rally as Optimism Grows for End to Iran War; Federal Judge Blocks Construction of the Controversial White House Ballroom; Trump signs Executive Order for Stricter Mail-in Voting. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired March 31, 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 VIDEOTAPE)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, after stock surge on Wall Street, the president says he's achieved the goal in Iran.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I had one goal. They will have no nuclear weapon. And that goal has been attained.
PHILLIP: Is this winning?
And what about the Strait of Hormuz? Trump and Hegseth say other countries should step up to keep it open.
TRUMP: What happens in the strait, we're not going to have anything to do with.
PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: It's not just the United States Navy. Last time I checked, there was supposed to be a big bad Royal Navy.
PHILLIP: Also --
TRUMP: It'll be the greatest ballroom.
PHILLIP: -- a federal judge rules with an exclamation point, the ballroom construction has to stop. He says, Trump needs Congressional approval, but Trump says those rules don't apply.
TRUMP: He's saying, I need Congressional approval, and he's so wrong.
PHILLIP: And the president ordering DHS to provide a list of eligible U.S citizens to vote as he tries to use his executive power to curb mail-in ballots.
Live at the table, Scott Jennings, Christine Quinn, Kurt Bardella and Joe Borelli.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening. I'm Abby Philip in New York.
Four to five weeks, that's initially how long President Trump said the war with Iran would last. But today, Trump gave an update to that timeline.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I think two or three weeks we'll leave, because there's no reason for us to do this.
We have had regime change. Now, regime change was not one of the things I had as a goal. I had one goal. They will have no nuclear weapon, and that goal has been attained. They will not have nuclear weapons. But we're finishing the job. And I think within maybe two weeks, maybe a couple of days longer to do the job.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, a couple of things. First, two to three weeks, that would be the war's seventh and eighth week in total, which is outside of that initial four to five weeks that he gave the American public. Secondly, while preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons was one of Trump's many goals, it certainly wasn't the only goal. So, if that deadline ends up holding, what ends up happening to the Strait of Hormuz?
CNN has learned that the administration increasingly believes that they can't promise to reopen the strait before they end this war. And top officials have privately acknowledged that the U.S. can't achieve its military objectives and reopen the strait within the same timeline.
Now, Trump lashed out at his allies this morning essentially saying that opening the Strait of Hormuz is their problem, not his. He urged them to build up some courage and to get, quote, your own oil. Trump doubled down on that message in the Oval Office today, while also downplaying the danger that these ships in the strait could experience.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The problem with the strait, a guy can take a mine, drop it in the water and say, oh, it's unsafe. It's not like you're taking out an army or you're taking out a country or you -- they can drop it -- or you can take a machine gun from the shore and shoot a little few bullets on a ship, or maybe an over the shoulder missile, small missiles. That's not for us. That'll be for France. That'll be for whoever's using the strait. But I think when we leave, probably that's all cleared up.
(END VIDEO CLIP) PHILLIP: Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, posted on X that Trump will give a, quote, important update on Iran tomorrow night at 9:00 P.M. Eastern in an address to the nation.
In our fifth seat is Margaret Donovan. She's a former Army JAG officer.
We're at the moment now where I think the question is, is President Trump going to end this war soon? And I actually think -- I mean, the Strait of Hormuz is a big question mark here, but I actually am wondering about the other part of this, which is, have we really made sure that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon if we haven't secured that nuclear material that's still somewhere in Iran?
MARGARET DONOVAN, FORMER ARMY JAG: Yes. I think if that is the goal, it's difficult to ascertain that without having troops on the ground to confirm that the enriched uranium actually has been destroyed or otherwise secured.
And so I think this moving target of what the goal actually is, it's really hard for the public to assess whether or not we are successful when you, A, don't know what the goal is, or, B, don't have troops on the ground to confirm that if it is the goal to completely eliminate nuclear capability, which I think is a good goal, by the way.
[22:05:13]
Iran shouldn't have that. But how can we properly assess that when we're hearing different things out of the White House? I think that's problematic.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think tomorrow night, based on what I'm hearing, we're going to get a couple of things from the president. Probably a recitation of how he sees the last four or five weeks, the military successes we've had, the fact that we've obliterated their navy, we've obliterated most of their missile and drone capacity, and the fact that we did take out the previous regime and now we're talking to new people that I think the president and the administration believe are somewhat more willing to have a reasonable conversation.
I also believe we're probably going to hear how he sees the next two to three weeks when we will wrap up what he sees as our military objectives, and, hopefully, you know, bring our large scale operations to a conclusion in a way that meets all the objectives, the nuclear stuff, the missiles, the navy, the exporting of terror, and also leaves us in a position on the nuclear piece to know that not only have we taken away their ability to do it, but they won't be developing it any further. That's what I want to hear, and I hope that's what he's able to say.
DONOVAN: How do you ascertain that long-term, though? That's what I don't understand from the administration's plan. How can you confirm long-term that they're not going to try to rebuild their program or rebuild their capabilities without actually having people on the ground to basically observe that and ensure that doesn't happen? JENNINGS: It is a great question because I wouldn't trust these people any farther than I could throw them. Because I think they're religious fanatics who would like to build a nuclear weapon to bring about the end of the world, and we always just have to know that. So, I'm as interested in anyone is what have we done to degrade this now? What deals are we making in the diplomatic process to keep it from happening in the future? I share your questions and look forward to the answers.
DONOVAN: Yes. I mean, I think that's the problem with an ideology, right? You can't just root it out through airstrikes. I think you need more than that.
CHRISTINE QUINN (D), FORMER SPEAKER, NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL: And didn't we already get rid of all of their nuclear power? The first time we struck in Iran, I mean, it seems like this is a second go round for it, which makes it a little even harder to accept what the president is saying at its face value.
JENNINGS: Well, I think we degraded their capabilities, but they came to the table with our negotiators and said, we retained enough enriched uranium to build 11 bombs. The president, for as long as he'd been an adult on this Earth, has said they'll never have a nuclear weapon. And once they told Witkoff that was their starting position, that crossed his red line. And so I want to hear what he says about that.
PHILLIP: So, what changed since then, I think, is an important question.
JENNINGS: It should be a big part of the speech.
PHILLIP: Right. So, as you just pointed out, they bombed the first time saying they got rid of the nuclear capabilities. That wasn't true. They've bombed a second time. We have no evidence one way or another whether the nuclear capabilities have been further degraded.
And then on the regime change side there's a lot of contradictory messages happening here from the White House. This is the president and Marco Rubio just in the same week talking about whether or not there has actually been regime change in the room.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Now, we have a group of people that's very -- that are very different. They're much more reasonable, I think much more -- much less radicalized.
REPORTER: Does Iran have to make a deal for the U.S. to end its operation Iran?
TRUMP: No.
REPORTER: Have you spoken -- and have you spoken directly to Iran?
TRUMP: Iran doesn't have to make a deal. No. Yes, I've spoken to a lot of people. It's a new regime. They are much more accessible.
MARCO RUBIO, SECRETARY OF STATE: It's very opaque right now. It's not quite clear how decisions are being made inside of Iran.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Last night on the show, we had Kian Tajbakhsh, who's a former dissident who was jailed in Iran, who's very plugged in. And he says the person that they are speaking with through a third party might be presented as more reasonable, but that person doesn't have any power inside of Iran.
If that is the case, then what are we doing here in terms of whether or not we are actually changing the behavior, changing the prospect that Iran is going to be continue to be a menace in the region?
JOE BORELLI, FORMER REPUBLICAN LEADER, NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL: Look, you had a side by side of President Trump and Marco Rubio just there. I think a better side by side would've been the Iranian president and the head of the IRGC who had this conversation essentially leaked, where they each kind of said blame the other one for the continuing crisis. You had the Iranian president saying that he wanted to find a negotiated piece. You had the head of the IRGC saying, no, we want to keep escalating until there's a negotiating point.
So, we can say there's a division here in the U.S. over how and when to end the conflict. There's a greater division there. And that also proves the second point is that there are people will in Iran who want this war to end, who want to work with the west, who want to work with the Gulf countries, to actually ensure that they can comply with whatever peace deal is possible. So, I think there is some light at the end of the tunnel based on just what we're seeing leaked out of Iran.
PHILLIP: So, are we going to just end the war on the hope that so the more reasonable people went out?
[22:10:00]
BORELLI: No. I think --
PHILLIP: I mean, is that -- because that's what it sounds like you're saying, is that maybe there's light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe they went out fine, but it sounds like we're ending the war one way or another, whether we do it or not.
BORELLI: Every single time, there's a B-52 circling Iran bombing IRGC positions, their position gets weaker within the current power structure of Iran. So, that is going to continue to happen, I think, until you have people who are the more moderates in a position to negotiate.
PHILLIP: But to answer my question, whether or not that happens, we're probably going to end this war, correct?
BORELLI: Yes. Yes. I mean, I certainly think the war's going to end. I mean, the capabilities are gone. The objectives are being achieved. I mean, that's kind of the point we're all at.
JENNINGS: Well, our objectives -- there is another party here, and that's Israel. And, of course, for them, there's more to it. They have to live in the region. And, for them, this is finishing off what started on October the 7th.
And so I guess I'm also curious, Abby, you know, what our place in this is going to be, but also what Israel is going to do long-term, because they are never going to permit Iran to ever get to a place again so they can fund terror proxies that commit those kind of atrocities in Israel again.
KURT BARDELLA, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER, HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE: I think the issue here at home though is we have a president who days after the State of the Union where he had the opportunity to a national audience to make the case about why is he going to do this, chose not to address it at all, launch an attack. It went not the way they thought it would to the point where oil's gone up. The start market has tanked, there's been global chaos. Then he goes out there and says, all of you're going to have to clean this up. All you other allies out there, I broke it, but you fix it. And now he's saying this regime is going to be really reasonable. They're going to negotiate with us. Then if that's the case, why do we need these other countries to come in and clean up the mess in the first place? It doesn't make any sense.
And the challenge he's going to have tomorrow night, he can give his speech, he can say, we've annihilated their nuclear capabilities. They'll never have nuclear weapon ever again. This is why we did that. People here at home know one thing, their condition, their daily pocketbook situation is worse off after this war than it was before.
QUINN: And, you know, it's interesting, the word the president used that this -- the folks who are in power now are more accessible. That's what the president likes, is to be kind of wooed and let in. But you know what? Being accessible is not the same thing as being reasonable and not being, you know, folks who are focused on terror. They could be rope-a-doping him with all that accessibility. So, I don't know that we --
PHILLIP: Which is actually -- I mean, Kian yesterday was suggesting that that's potentially kind of what's happening, that they are giving -- offering him up someone who seems more, quote/unquote, reasonable, even though that person doesn't have the power to do what they might be saying they want to do at the table.
JENNINGS: But you would admit Iran is in a much weaker position today. I mean, we've bombed 13,000 military targets.
PHILLIP: No question.
JENNINGS: And we've taken away last night, you know, the underground missile stores in Isfahan. I mean, we control the skies. We're refueling B-52s over their airspace. They're in a much weaker position. So, when it comes to talking whether they're reasonable or accessible, or whatever, I know this, they got really nothing to shoot back with at us with right now. And that's a weak position to end the war.
PHILLIP: Well, why -- so why is the Strait of Hormuz closed then --
DONOVAN: Right.
PHILLIP: -- if that's the case?
DONOVAN: Yes. I mean, that -- at one point that was a goal and now it no longer is. So, it's very difficult to ascertain. And just to your point about, are they militarily weaker? Yes, absolutely. We're destroying them. We're the United States and we have all the power of CENTCOM behind us hitting these targets. But I worry about the extremism that we are encouraging here or we are seeding with civilian casualties, with sort of offhanded remarks that there's some type of divine justification for this war. And so I'm thinking long-term.
Short-term, yes, we've definitely degraded their capabilities, but I worry that we're not thinking about this long-term enough and what the effects of an extremist ideology that already has a governmental structure.
BORELLI: You think they'll do things like fund proxies against Israel? You think they'll do things like launch missiles of their neighbors? Because if that's the case, I would agree with you and it's kind of damn good that we actually did this operation now before they had greater capability in five years, ten years down the road.
The idea of strategic patience was a crap policy for the better part of two or three decades. And I think this is a much better solution long-term --
PHILLIP: Well, if at the end of the day, they're still doing those things. They're now, reaping huge financial windfalls. The oil that was on the seas was taken off -- hold on. The oil that was on the seas no longer sanctioned, $14 billion back to the Iranians. Every single day, they are making more money from each barrel of gas that leaves the Strait of Hormuz under their permission than they were before, twice as much.
So, if they're still able to do all of those things, fund terrorism, you know, all of these malign acts in the region, what was the point of this war?
JENNINGS: But that won't be how this ends. I mean, if they're negotiating a peace deal, a diplomatic end to this, the diplomatic end won't be, and you get to go back doing what you were doing. That will not happen.
PHILLIP: But I think that's important to note, right? So, you're saying there's a diplomatic end of course, great. Everybody agrees that would be a great solution. If there is not and we still pull out, then what?
[22:15:00]
JENNINGS: We wouldn't pull out, in my opinion, unless they ultimately agree to our demands. We made our demand quite clear.
PHILLIP: Okay. So, we'll find out, but you're saying that you don't think that Trump will end this war unless there is a diplomatic peace deal on the table?
JENNINGS: I think the president believes if you completely destroy these people militarily and you take away all of the things that we don't want them to have, they have no choice but to make a deal with us and try to move forward in some capacity.
PHILLIP: I mean, they do have a choice. They cannot make a deal. They can drag this out. That's what they -- that's what would be in their best interest.
JENNINGS: We'll see. It wasn't in the best interest of previous --
BARDELLA: (INAUDIBLE) asking allies to come in and fix this mess. We might have destroyed them militarily. They might be weak. I agree. They're definitely weaker off than they were before this, but it's our people here at home who are paying more at the pump. It's our people here at home who are paying more for energy. It's our people here at home who end up bearing the costs of the supply chain being cut off and those costs being passed on us.
So, again, I think the issue here at home for the American people as they watch this speech tomorrow night is asking the question that we always ask this in politics, are you better off today than you were yesterday? When it comes to this conflict, there is no indication at all that the American people are better off because of this.
PHILLIP: That's a good segue. We'll resume that conversation at the other side of the break.
Hold your thought. We're going to talk about Pete Hegseth's message to the MAGA base about their worries about this Iran war, and he says, have faith.
Plus, Trump's White House ballroom has hit a snag. Why a judge blocked the construction and why Congress may have to get involved. That's ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAMIE DIMON, CEO, JPMORGAN CHASE: Obviously, gas prices going up are going to hurt people a little bit. It's $4. But they still have money to spend. They still have jobs.
Now, we should all hope nothing goes wrong. We should all hope that these bad people are -- you know, that we win this thing and clean up the straits and that Iran is no longer a threat to everybody. And -- but there -- you know, the markets will be concerned until it's over.
But I think it's very important. It's much more important that this be successfully completed than what the market does.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: That was Jamie Dimon, CEO, of JPMorgan Chase.
Look, I think what he's saying sort of makes sense from a politically correct perspective, but from the American people's pocketbook perspective, as you were just saying, they're worried about $4 gas, they're worried about $5 gas, they're worried it could be $7 gas.
And I actually think it's interesting because, you know, the problem with fighting a war against a homicidal, authoritarian regime is that they don't have voters to answer to and we do. And that's the constraint. It's an asymmetric constraint that we are under right now that is causing some of these problems.
QUINN: And that's so critical to understand because these folks will fight to the death. They will just keep going and going. So, the assumption that we're going to be able to come up with a reasonable diplomatic compromise, I don't know that that's baked into the folks that we are dealing with here.
And you're right, they have no voters to respond to. This is -- you know, but here in the States, I think we're seeing the impact of this already as it relates to the midterms coming up. I mean, look at the Republicans. You all just lost something in Trump's backyard. I mean, if that doesn't send a message about how freaked out and scared and worried the American people are, I don't know what would.
PHILLIP: And I feel like Trump's response indicates that he understands that because he says that the strait is going to open up once they stop fighting the war. He says, we don't really have a role in ensuring that Iran doesn't control it. He's like, I washed my hands off it, and it'll just go back to the status quo pre-war once we're done.
JENNINGS: So, first of all, I think making national security decisions based on a statehouse result in Florida in an off-year election is not a great way to make national security policy. That would be my rebuttal to that.
QUINN: No, but it's the impact number, not the decision-making. It's the impact.
JENNINGS: Number two, generally you want the commander-in-chief, in my opinion, to make national security decisions based on one thing. Is this in the best interest of protecting the American people? The decision he obviously made was that I've set a red line, they're not going to have nuclear weapons and I'm tired of them for 47 years terrorizing the world, shooting us with missiles, shooting our allies with missiles, having this aggressive navy, and they crossed a line with him and now he's enforcing it. And to say, well, if gas goes up a nickel or we have a statehouse race in Florida, we can no longer operate national security policy I think is an extremely shortsighted and cynical way to assess this.
At the end of this, if they're totally defanged, if they meet our objectives here in terms of nukes and missiles and navy and exporting terror, if there are new people in charge who are willing to abide by some kind of an agreement, that is a net positive for us, for the world, for the world. And that's we --
(CROSSTALKS)
BARDELLA: (INAUDIBLE) argument that we heard the last time we attacked them and they declared victory. They said they annihilated their capabilities. So, were they wrong? Were they lying? Were they misinforming us? What was the situation before? And then how did they deteriorate in such a short amount of time from then and now? We're talking a few months went by and now, oh, there's this threat. We got to get them right now. They've never, by the way, explained what that threat was. They've never given any information to American people about why it was --
JENNINGS: But wait, they do have missiles that can reach most of Europe. You know that, right?
BARDELLA: But the last time they did that, they said, we annihilated it. That's literally the words, that they annihilated their capability. That was the -- this is the problem the president has.
JENNINGS: Do you want Iran to have missiles, with nuclear weapons that can hit Europe?
BARDELLA: The president made -- set an expectation -- I don't. The president said --
JENNINGS: Okay. Then why are you upset?
BARDELLA: That -- I'm not upset. The president said like he has annihilated them.
[22:25:00]
That is the -- that is the goalpost that he's being measured against his own words, his own hyperbole. So, now that he comes back and says, actually that wasn't what happened. Now this time we got it right, this time we've all blown them all up, exactly has no credibility here because he already used all the platitudes.
JENNINGS: You're just prejudging it based on your own political views.
BARDELLA: Based on what he said.
QUINN: What he said that wasn't true. And no one's saying change national -- you know, international policy based on the politics. I'm just saying the American people are raising real questions --
BORELLI: But the most important people who believe in that -- QUINN: But the issue is I really think that the assumption that we are going to be able to root out Iran as a terror entity based on these new folks who have come in, I don't see -- I hope that would be true, but that's just a hope. I don't see the evidence that support that.
BORELLI: There's a group people out there now that believe President Trump, what he says, right? They are the Iranian people who witnessed their military get decimated, their navy get decimated, their ability to shoot down American aircraft. All the things that the Iranian regime promised them they could do, it was revealed that the emperor has no clothes.
So, whoever's ruling Iran in the next phase, they know that they can't hide behind this false idea that they have this military that's capable of standing up to America and western allies.
DONOVAN: Well, they just need a military capable of shooting up the civilians. They still have machine guns. I mean, it's --
BORELLI: We're not -- I'm not talking -- I'm talking about the ability of other countries to ensure that they don't have nuclear capabilities. Everything they promised they can do was revealed to be false and they have no capability.
QUINN: But, Joe, you what other emperor has no clothes is President Trump, who said that they had annihilated their nuclear capacity, and that was not true.
PHILLIP: Margaret?
DONOVAN: Yes, I just want to say one point, to Scott's point. You know, we're just forgetting that days ago, the president was threatening to take out civilian infrastructure for the expressed purpose of opening the Strait of Hormuz. So, I would offer that that is one example where he is tying a military action to basically lowering gas prices. And that's wrong, in my opinion, for two reasons. One, civilian -- this is long, boring, legal opinion that you don't need, but, basically, civilian structures don't lose their protective status unless there's a specific military objective for it. Lowering gas prices isn't one of them.
But, two, the point that we all just discussed, the Iranian regime isn't worried about the damage to civilians. So, that isn't going to resonate. I mean, it's unlawful for the president to threaten to harm civilians purposely, but it also just isn't effective strategically because the regime doesn't care.
JENNINGS: Look, I think tomorrow night he's going to have to lay out military stuff, but also talk to the country about who he's talking to, what they're telling him, and what a post-military action scenario looks like here. That has to include some conversation about the Strait of Hormuz.
You know, my impression is the other Gulf states are tired of Iran, you know, harassing everybody and making the region have instability. They're probably going to have to be involved in this. I'm as interested as anyone to see what the president has to say about this.
PHILLIP: I mean, so let me play -- this is Pete Hegseth talking to Trump's base, to the people who are concerned that what could be next, if they try to finish this in a particular way, is boots on the ground.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HEGSETH: As far as President Trump and boots on the ground, I don't understand why the base, which they have already, they understand, wouldn't have faith in his ability to execute on this.
We're not going to foreclose any option. You can't fight and win a war if you tell your adversary what you are willing to do or what you are not willing to do, to include boots on the ground.
Maybe negotiations work, or maybe there's a different approach. But the point is to be unpredictable in that, certainly not let anybody know what you're willing to do or not do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I mean, look, he can say that, but the American people also have a say and it's very unpopular to put boots on the ground. Not to mention that there's a good reason for that, because it would be extremely dangerous. So, yes, I mean, to Scott's point, I mean, does the president have to level what the American people about what the expectations are around that?
BORELLI: Look, we're talking about the MAGA base, you know? We have to compare that to the experience that gave rise to the MAGA movement, the never ending wars, a 20-year engagement in Afghanistan, a 15-year or so engagement in Iraq. That's the parameter, which I think this argument is framed. It's not framed in whether it's five weeks or six weeks or seven weeks.
And as far as boots on the ground, I've said this every time I've been on this show, if it takes some American troops in a limited engagement to secure nuclear enriched material, I think that would be a wise use of American military power.
s that the same thing as nation building? Is that the same thing as occupying cities? Is that the same thing as occupying a country for 20 years? Absolutely not. And I think the American public would be smart enough to see the difference between the two.
PHILLIP: I think that the American public would really need to understand just how dangerous what you're talking about is, because it is not just a small contingent of troops to remove nuclear materials. Every time we've talked to military experts about what it would take to do that, it is extraordinarily difficult, extraordinarily dangerous because of the location of these materials. And it would require thousands of troops.
DONOVAN: Yes, which is why these types of military operations, these offensive operations, starting a war, should be going through Congress.
[22:30:02]
This is basically a surprise war that we all woke up one day and realized the country was in, and now we're talking about committing tens of thousands of troops on the ground. If it is properly authorized by Congress, that's a different position that we're in.
PHILLIP: There's been a conversation nationally about it, and that did not happen.
KURT BARDELLA, FORMER SR. ADVISER, HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE: Well, and the President here, again, is being measured against expectations he set with his own base and his own party. He campaigned on no more endless wars, no more Middle East, no more spending good money after bad there, and he turns around and does a complete 180 without laying the groundwork, without giving the explanation.
And again, days before this attack happened, days before the offensive, he delivered the State of the Union address. He could have made the case right there.
DONOVAN: We got congressional authorization after 9/11, so there's really no reason that we can't go to Congress and people can't speak through their elected representatives with the military strategy.
BARDELLA: Absolutely.
PHILLIP: Margaret Donovan, thank you very much for joining us.
Next for us, a federal judge puts the reconstruction of the Trump ballroom on ice for now. So is that entire project now in jeopardy? We'll debate.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:35:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Construction on President Trump's beloved White House ballroom just got torpedoed after a federal district judge ordered it to stop. In his ruling, the judge wrote, the President is the steward of the executive mansion, not the owner, and that no statute comes close to giving him the authority that he claims to have.
But the judge, a George W. Bush appointee, offered Trump some good news. He wrote that as long as he gets congressional blessing on this project, construction can continue. That's something that Trump has an issue with.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Basically, he's saying I need congressional approval. We're going to have the finest ballroom, I believe, anywhere in the world. And he said we need congressional approval.
We have no taxpayer putting up $0.10. And I see right here, I just wrote it out. He said we need congressional approval.
We have the East Room, which is very small. And he said we need congressional approval.
What's not covered perfectly is the fact that the judge said we need congressional approval. We know that congressional approval is not necessary.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I guess he got the message.
BARDELLA: Why have another branch of government? That's so inconvenient. I want to run my house.
PHILLIP: Go get congressional approval.
JOE BORELLI, FORMER REPUBLICAN LEADER, NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL: I think the real question is what form does the congressional approval take? There's no congressional, you know, landmark design committee, right? So I look back in history as to what was approved by Congress in terms of renovations in the White House.
So Nixon didn't get any approval to renovate the pool and turn it into the Brady Press Room.
PHILLIP: Not a structural change.
BORELLI: So you're going back to FDR, I'm sorry, Theodore Roosevelt in 1904, whenever he actually built the West Wing. It was controversial then, and Congress approved it. They didn't approve anything but the funding.
This is a case where the President is not asking Congress to appropriate any money for it.
PHILLIP: Okay, we have the list, okay? We have a list.
What you see highlighted here, these are major projects that received congressional approval. If you look closely, there's really one.
The 1942 expansion, this is really an expansion of the East Wing that didn't get congressional approval because FDR used wartime authorities to do it. They were building a bunker underneath, etc.
So really, when you look at this list, nearly every one of these major changes, building a portico, creating the West Wing, gut renovating the White House, adding a balcony, etc., they went to Congress.
Now, to your point, the judge is basically saying, look, Congress can do this a lot of ways. They can say, we authorize this project, we give the President the authority to determine what it looks like. We authorize the project, here's the money for it. But the judge says, you just got to go to Congress one way or another.
BORELLI: All of those projects, the congressional approval was for the funding, not for the actual job, not for the design commission. In fact, in the case of Theodore Roosevelt, with Roosevelt being the West Wing, there was a controversy, and Congress didn't adjudicate it.
Congress just approved the funding. There was a controversy about how big the West Wing should be, and they needed it. Congress did not approve the idea of it, they approved the funding.
PHILLIP: All these other examples, there were varying degrees of congressional approval. Some of them involved the back and forth about what the plans were and what the scope was.
They involved money. The judge is basically saying, it can look however Congress wants it to look like. It just has to go to Congress.
BORELLI: I'll bet you a nickel if you can find me an example of Congress approving a design for a White House thing.
PHILLIP: I'm not understanding the point of what you're saying. Are you disputing that Congress has approved these plans?
BORELLI: No, I'm saying that Congress has approved the funding for specific projects. This project did not require any funding, it doesn't require a congressional authorization of any funds of any kind.
PHILLIP: Look, I guess what I'm saying is the judge--
BARDELLA: A judge just said that Congress gets to have a role, and I don't think we can be so casual about saying, you know what? I don't like what the judge said, so we're just going to ignore it. I don't think we can be so casual about sending a President where the President says, I'm going to bypass Congress because if you do it here, if you allow it here, who knows where that stops? That's a very slippery slope.
A judge has ruled we're the law and order party, aren't we? So why don't we follow the law?
[22:40:03]
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SR. POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: He's going to, they're going to appeal it. I mean, he just has a different legal point of view, which is to Joe's point, because we're not asking for any money, we should be able to do this. We'll see what an appeals court says. I actually think ultimately, if he had to get a Republican Congress to stick a line in a bill somewhere to say, sure, build your ballroom, he could probably get it done.
How long would that take? And I think that's part of the issue is he wants this bill and now there is a big hole in the ground and they do want to put, I think, a secure bunker under there, apparently, which is a good thing to have. And so I think you do want to get this done in a timely fashion. And
that's something the President --
CHRISTIN QUINN (D), FORMER SPEAKER, NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL: And he wasted a lot of time, he could have gone to Congress before he put a hole in the ground.
PHILLIP: He could have done it last year. They passed several bills last year.
BARDELLA: One big beautiful building, one big beautiful renovation, one big beautiful ballroom.
PHILLIP: 40 USC 8106, Buildings on Reservations, Parks and Public Grounds. A building or a structure shall not be erected on any reservation, park or public ground of the federal government in the District of Columbia without the express authority of Congress.
So this is addressing funding. It doesn't say anything about funding. It says you cannot build without Congress permitting it.
And that's what the judge is actually saying. It has nothing to do with the money, actually. Congress can say, hey, we'll give you five bucks and you raise the rest.
They can say whatever they want. It's a separation of powers issue.
BORELLI: Yes, that's exactly it. It's preserved. Again, the judge has said Congress gets to weigh in on this.
Whatever that looks like, there's a lot of ways to get there. And I think there are a lot of ways to get there and have no problem.
PHILLIP: A lot of ways that would give Trump a lot of if they wanted to, they could give him a lot of rope on this.
JENNINGS: Let me ask you a question.
There's a big hole in the ground right now. The Democrats have had the Department of Homeland Security shut down for over 40 days, longest shutdown of something important in our nation's history. What are the odds they would just say, no, we will not go along with any kind of language to rebuild this while Donald Trump is the President? Do you want a hole sitting there for the next?
BARDELLA: You got a Republican House, a Republican Senate, a Republican President.
JENNINGS: And yet you can't get your own party to vote for it. And yet the Democrats have the Department of Homeland Security shut down, which is a non-trivial matter.
BARDELLA: You rejected a Republican proposal the other day. House Republicans and Senate Republicans can't get on the same page right now. PHILLIP: -- that leadership used to be about working even when you had
divided government, which actually we don't have right now. Even when you have not complete power, it used to be a thing that you would work with the other side and come to a deal, whether it's on funding the Department of Homeland Security or building a ballroom.
Back in the day, that was a thing that we expected Presidents to be able to do. Why is it that now all of a sudden it is impossible for it to be done?
QUINN: And when both houses are your own party for the President, it makes no sense.
JENNINGS: I assume you know how the Senate works. They get 60 votes to do things, we have 53 votes.
QUINN: Leadership.
JENNINGS: There's a gulf of seven votes.
PHILLIP: Is leadership an option here? The President himself has said this ballroom.
BARDELLA: Senate Republicans has had a deal. House Republicans rejected it. That wasn't a Democrat.
PHILLIP: Republican and Democratic administrations have all believed some solution needed to be done about the lack of space in the White House. Leadership would look like, let's come up with a plan that we can all agree on because we know that this is a problem. Let's resolve it.
Trump chose not to take that path intentionally. Why?
BORELLI: I cannot wait to be at the Donald Trump ballroom when this is all said and done, celebrating whenever, you know, whatever the heck the event is. Look, I ascribe to the President's --
JENNINGS: Isn't 30-year-old Joe what you're hoping to be?
BORELLI: Yes, that's the one. The year is 2030.
Again, so the President, even the judge in this case, said that the President is essentially the steward of the White House and has the authority to make significant changes within the White House. Okay? This is one of those things where--
PHILLIP: That's not what the President--
JENNINGS: Missing some words there.
The delta between what people are talking about in media on this and what the public cares about this, I think is a huge gap.
PHILLIP: 58 percent of Americans disapprove... 56 percent of Americans oppose the destruction of the East Wing. So I guess if you take it that way, they are opposed to this.
All right. Breaking news tonight. President Trump signs an executive order targeting mail-in voting, but does it actually stand a chance of even being implemented? We'll debate that next.
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[22:45:00]
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PHILLIP: Tonight, Donald Trump signed an executive order requiring states to impose stricter mail-in voting rules, and he's directing the Department of Homeland Security to create a list of confirmed U.S. citizens eligible to vote in each state.
Now, it's not clear what authority Trump is relying on to carry out this order, and legal challenges are almost certain. States, not the President, have broad authority to run elections. And to be clear, non-citizen voting in federal elections is already illegal, it's already exceedingly rare.
And Trump, who called voting by mail cheating, well, he voted by mail in a recent Florida special election. He defended that decision saying, I'm President of the United States, but everybody else, you get this.
[22:50:00]
Look, I mean, there are lots of issues with this, not the least of which is that even if Trump wanted to do this, doing it by executive order is seems blatantly illegal, unconstitutional. It'll be challenged.
But the premise of what he's trying to do, I think speaks to his false belief, which he reiterated today, that he won elections, an election that he lost.
BARDELLA: Yes, the irony here is actually this hurts Republicans too. Every time he comes out against mail-in voting, you have the other side, the political side of the Republican Party going, okay, but we really want people to vote and vote by mail. A lot of our voters vote by mail.
I'm old enough to remember when I was Republican, we actually won many elections because we had an advantage on the mail-in voting. We were really good at the absentee ballot chasing, at the mail-in identification, at getting those people to turn out and vote.
It was a huge advantage structurally for the Republican Party in elections, and he has single-handedly decimated it. Every time he does this, Democrats in Congress who are working on the midterms are like, thank God, make it harder, make it more confusing, make Republicans doubt the process so they have a harder time to participate in the process. And oh, by the way, the idea that the USPS is equipped to do this. Let me tell you something. The postmaster general just last week testified before Congress that they might run out of money by October. They are not equipped to do this job.
BORELLI: I'm not going to rehash the argument that we always have, how much fraud is enough fraud and how many people are actually convicted. But the thing we can agree on is when fraud does happen in elections, it almost entirely happens on paper ballots, almost exclusively, right? Voter fraud happens on paper ballots.
So I think the sentiment behind Trump's executive order is good. It's something that the American public wildly approves of in polling. The difference, obviously, as you pointed out, it's going to be in the implementation.
How do we do this for this election year? How do we do this going forward? How do we get states on board? It's going to be a challenge to the court.
Look, the elections clause in the Constitution is very clear. States have the authority to regulate elections. It does leave room.
The last part of that clause allows Congress to make some rules. I just think this is going to be one of those things that the Trump administration does popular with the American public, but it's going to go right to the courts.
PHILLIP: I mean, it also seems like a huge distraction.
QUINN: Yes. And also, you know, the idea of how much is enough fraud, etc. Okay.
You know, I don't think there's rampant fraud problem, and this is certainly taking like a bazooka to kill a fly to say that there were some incorrect mail-in ballots, so we're going to get rid of mail-in ballots altogether, which are very important resources.
BORELLI: He's not saying that. He's saying we're going to have tech to be able to confirm.
Look, we use facial recognition to sign on to our phones. We get text saying verify the code to get into our bank accounts. I don't think the government should be not in the business of using tech to verify things as important as voting.
Let me just play. This is David Becker, he's the CEO of the Center for Election Innovation and Research. He's talking about the underlying data that the government claims that they want to use in order to verify citizenship.
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DAVID BECKER, CEO, CENTER FOR ELECTION INNOVATION AND RESEARCH: Looking through this executive order, it attempts to mandate that the DHS create a national citizenship registry, which Congress has not authorized by any means. Their data is incomplete, we know that DHS already admits that.
It dictates that states should only be able to send mail ballots government has deemed eligible, not that the states have deemed eligible under their laws, that's clearly unconstitutional. And it even goes so far as to say that the federal government is going to design the envelopes for mail ballots, which is something that can't just be instantly done. This is going to be blocked almost as soon as that ink is dry.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: And that registry that he's talking about, the Trump administration tried to cross-check voter rolls from some states that they asked for their voter rolls, and a lot of red states gave it to them. And guess what happened? They found that there were a lot of false flags on that list.
They were flagging people who were totally eligible to vote. And that's part of what he's talking about there.
JENNINGS: Yes, they did try to work with the states to clean up the voter list. I mean, a lot of states had a lot of phantom registrants on there, people who had died, people who had moved, people who were duplicative.
So it is a worthwhile thing to think like, why can't we have clean voter rolls, if only to engender public confidence?
I was texting with an elections official tonight. He pointed out to me that I think the E.O. may have tied getting federal funding to compliance. And so I think there's a fair question about whether some blue states, maybe their impulse will be to resist, but at the same time, they may rely upon some of this federal funding.
I did Google.
PHILLIP: It's not something that he can do by executive order. I think that's the bottom line, is that that's something that Congress can do.
Well, through laws, but the President's writing, signing his name on a piece of paper is not going to do it.
QUINN: It's totally beyond his authority.
JENNINGS: I did Google like mail-in ballot problems. I mean, there's a lot of headlines, you know, nearly 100,000 New York City voters get ballot envelopes meant for someone else.
Get two ballots. Here's what to do.
Woman says she got 16 ballots at her house. It's not like these things are foolproof things.
[22:55:09]
PHILLIP: Sure, voter fraud is rare, and it has not been sufficient to overturn the results of federal elections, certainly. And when those things happen, to your point, you're reading some headlines there.
They're getting caught. They're getting identified.
BARDELLA: This executive order delegates the authority and the responsibility to do the ballots to the USPS, an entity that last year lost $9 billion in its operations. It's down $1.3 billion in quarter one. It is an entity that literally is not capable of doing the job it's been assigned.
QUINN: And no one can.
BARDELLA: I mean, I can't get my own letters within five days.
PHILLIP: Thank you all.
Coming up tomorrow, the Supreme Court is going to hear major oral arguments in the White House's bid to end birthright citizenship. And the President says that he's going to attend in person.
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