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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Addresses the Nation on War with Iran; Trump Asks Americans to "Keep This Conflict in Perspective." Justices Appear Skeptical of Trump's Birthright Citizenship Order; GOP Leaders Reach Deal to End Record-Long DHS Shutdown. Aired 11p-12a ET
Aired April 01, 2026 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[23:00:00]
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ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR AND SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Tonight, a presidential wartime address to the nation. Live at the table, Scott Jennings, Charles Blow, Brianna Lyman, Adam Mockler, and Alex Plitsas. Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other. But here, they do.
Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York. Our breaking news tonight, President Trump's national address to the American public about the war with Iran. It was a full sell to the American people that the president uses time mostly to justify why the United States began the conflict in the first place. He signaled that the U.S. is prepared to hit Iran hard in the coming weeks.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We are on track to complete all of America's military objectives shortly, very shortly. We are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We are going to bring them back to the Stone Ages where they belong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Trump also repeated his warnings about Iran's stockpile of ballistic missiles as he sought to explain the war to the American public.
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TRUMP: They were also rapidly building a vast stockpile of conventional ballistic missiles and would soon have had missiles that could reach the American homeland, Europe, and virtually any other place on Earth. Iran's strategy was so obvious. They wanted to produce as many missiles as possible, and they did.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Well, Trump has previously offered similar assessments. But sources have told CNN that there is no intelligence suggesting that Iran is pursuing a missile program targeting the United States. And these long-range missiles that he's warning about were much farther into the future than he led on.
It is an important question about actually the truthfulness of a lot of what he said there. He talked about the ballistic missile threat. He talked about the nuclear threat. He claimed that they were trying to rebuild, which contradicts what his own administration has said about that in recent months. So, do the American people have more clarity or less tonight?
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CHARLES BLOW, LANGSTON HUGHES FELLOW, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: I think they have a lot less. And I think, you know, what we saw, the minor ticks on what was happening with oil, suggests that the markets think we have less. I think we'll see more of what is happening with the American people when the initial polling comes out about this.
But, you know, I think he has this problem of mixing in obvious problems, falsehoods, in what he could have said, which is -- which -- part of it where he started smartly on his speech was these are the things that we have destroyed, these are incontrovertible facts, there's no military greater than the U.S. Military. That's smart.
Mixing in all of the numbers that nobody can verify, we went from him saying on February 28th that there were 32,000 protesters killed. Tonight, that jump or jump by 13,000 people to 45,000 protesters killed. When would these protesters kill the other 13,000? No one has any reference for that.
This idea of talking about what Obama did not do with the Iran deal that he had, well, in fact, what he left out of that was that that deal was multinational, including also Russia and China. It had inspectors, and they were able to get out seven -- 97 percent of Iran's nuclear stockpiles with that deal. Tonight, he's basically saying this stuff is very (INAUDIBLE), we're not going to touch it. Obama got 97 percent without -- we're going to leave it all within their reach. It's always -- it's kind of insane, what he said.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, FORMER SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH, SALEM RADIO HOST: Well, if I might, he said that it's very deep because we've destroyed this area on top of it, we're monitoring it with satellites, and if they try to go anywhere near it, will bomb those people. We have military expert here who can explain this maybe a little better. But what I understood is that, at this moment, we basically have air superiority over Iran, under surveillance to see if they're doing anything with the material that's left. Those are -- those are two good things, you know.
ALEX PLITSAS, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST, COUNTER TERRORISM PROGRAM DIRECTOR AT ATLANTIC COUNCIL: Yes. I mean, going to the military objectives that you laid out before, just going to object. We'll look at what he -- what he stated. The Iranians about a month beforehand said, hey, we're not looking to pursue longer range ballistic missiles.
[23:05:02]
They then went and attacked Diego Garcia with two, which was twice the distance of the known capabilities they had previously. So, they were trying to extend the missiles. The timeframe for when they would get to an intercontinental ballistic missile at the United States is unclear. And nobody has really laid that out from an intelligence perspective. So, we'll have to just take that for what it's worth at the moment.
This was a missile math game. So, the Israelis did say that six months after the start of this operation, they would have had to initiate something because the Iranians were building something like 300 ballistic missiles a month. They were thought to have between 2,000 and 3,000 medium-range missiles, and that's the ones that were launched basically at Israel. And then 6,000 to 8,000 short-range are the stuff that they're launching at their neighbors, that's all the Arab states that are around them, and those have now been struck as well as the launchers going after them.
So, anyway, if you take all those numbers and put them together and the ability to intercept them, we were basically six months out from when a strike would have had to happen because somebody would have had to do something. The U.S. or Israel wouldn't have been able to defend against it.
Then you take the nuke problem set. This is where it's a little less clear. We've heard they were about two weeks away from having enough fuel for about eleven weapons, if they had 440 kilograms of highly rich uranium from 60 percent to 90 percent, if they still had all centrifuge technology. So, the president said now we've moved from -- from that, too. We are going to have a persistent stare. And now, there has been some leaks in the press that the operation we had to go get it would be pretty substance.
So, I think there has been evolution in the mission. I think the president was briefed basically. I'm reading the tea leaves. This is probably what he wants to do. Could this be deception covering a potential operation in the future? Does he now want to do it?
PHILLIP: You say it is more than he wants to do.
PLITSAS: Yes. I think so.
PHILLIP: To go in and actually get it. So, he's just going to leave it, and we're just going to continue on.
PLITSAS: Because I think --
JENNINGS: He used the phrase "boots on the ground" tonight. But he did talk about the satellites. I thought that was noteworthy.
PHILLIP: Well, of course -- I mean, look --
BLOW: The satellites --
PHILLIP: I mean, the satellites -- PLITSAS: Yes.
PHILLIP: It is noteworthy for exactly the reason --
PLITSAS: Yes.
PHILLIP: -- that you're pointing out because what it really means is that we're committing to a long-term commitment of --
PLITSAS: Yes.
PHILLIP: -- essentially bombing Iran forever if they ever try to get this material.
PLITSAS: Yes.
PHILLIP: And I think that is important for the American people to understand.
PLITSAS: Yes.
PHILLIP: We're not taking it off the table. We're just saying that we're going to continuously have to deal with it forever, which seems to be kind of where we were before.
BRIANNA LYMAN, REPORTER, THE FEDERALIST: Well, I think we're definitely in a different position than where we were before. To Alex's point, to Scott's point, their air force is not capable of defending Iran's homeland, so to speak. The United States and Israel has done a good job with that.
I do think President Trump tonight was very mythological. He was trying to make a point that this is not going to be a forever war. I think that's the reason you saw him reference World War I, World War II, the Korean War. I think he was trying to reassure Americans who are concerned that this can turn into something prolonged, that this is not his goal. His goal is to ideally get in and out. And he told us originally that the time frame was four to six weeks. We're at the four and a half-week mark now.
So, if this operation does conclude in two to three weeks, like he said it would, that would just be a week or so out of his initial timeframe, which I think for President Trump would be successful militarily, that we got in and out within six to seven weeks, and also that he can say, look, I told you we were going in for this XYZ, I told you we were getting out here, I pretty much met all of those goals, just as I said. And I think that might be a way for him to kind of reassure Americans and hopefully win back some, you know, voters for the midterms.
ADAM MOCKLER, COMMENTATOR, MEIDASTOUCH NETWORK: The idea that he was reassuring Americans that this won't be a forever war was contradicted by what we were just talking about. They're setting up perpetual oversight in the air so they can perpetually see what Iran is doing. And there's a chance you might have to perpetually strike them over and over just like we did eight or nine months ago, just like we did again. And if we don't actually get the enriched uranium, this will turn into a military treadmill where every eight months or so, we're continuing to strike them over and over.
Now, I want to make this point again. The main weapon system that were actually a threat to us are still intact. You obviously know better than I do. But their navy was gifted to them 55 years ago. It's ancient. Their air force was gifted to them 55 years ago. It's ancient. Their air force could have laps run around it by like one of our planes.
So, I see people at this table or on T.V. sitting here and trying to pull all these examples of how we've won. Oh, we destroyed their air force, we destroyed their navy. This isn't a substantive win in any meaningful way. We destroyed an ancient air force. We killed in 86- year-old supreme leader who had cancer and replaced him with a 30-year younger son who is more extreme, more radical. They're purging the moderates right there.
I think that Iran's thought process right now is you know what? We need to back off the nukes. No more nukes. Iran's thought process is we need to accelerate. We need at some point to get nukes and stop this from happening.
PHILLIP: Let me play --
JENNINGS: Do you agree -- do you agree with these military assessments?
PLITSAS: I think -- I think there are two pieces that are not completely clear yet, just in the objectives that are left. There are about 3,000 targets left. We struck 13,000 targets. Count matters. So, there are 3,000 left over the next two to three weeks. What that encompass would be the remainder of the industrial base associated with the missiles and the drones. The missiles, I think, we can really get to.
I think the problem, the long range, is going to be the drones because you only need a couple of those to be able to strike ships. So, that's going to be a perpetual problem from a symmetric standpoint for shutting down or keeping the strait held at risk if they choose to in the future afterwards if they don't -- if they're unable to get everything else.
And then your point about the nuclear piece. It is a persistent perpetual stare afterwards if hiding enriched uranium doesn't come out of there, which will require persistent monitoring.
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The alternative to that would be a very large ground operation with a very significant risk to U.S. forces. That facility where most of it is stored is 300 miles inland, completely surrounded by mountains, 15 kilometers outside the third largest city in the country. That would require probably large blocking force, somebody going inside to get it, and I think there's a trade-off basically between the risk to U.S. forces and having actually to do that. PHILLIP: Let me add -- let me add a third scenario. I mean, there is a third option, which is diplomacy, which has always been an option.
MOCKLER: Absolutely.
PHILLIP: And that's actually one of the things that Trump said very little about today. He didn't seem to have a whole lot to say about what kind of diplomatic outcome. And I just want to play. This is just coming in. The prime minister of Australia responding to what Trump said today and basically saying he also has a lot of questions.
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ANTHONY ALBANESE, AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER: Despite its indiscriminate attacks across the region, Iran's air force is degraded. Its navy is degraded. Its military industrial base is degraded and so, too, is its capacity to launch missiles. That is a good thing. And now, those objectives have been realized. It is not clear what more needs to be achieved or what the end point looks like.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Because I think the rest of the world understands that while perpetual stare, perpetual surveillance is possible, I don't think that's what anybody really wants, is a world in which we are perpetually on the verge of bombing. And we also know that the material that we want out is still there, still inside of Iran.
JENNINGS: You don't think -- you don't think people want to perpetually surveil Iran.
BLOW: Yes, but we have --
PHILLIP: I don't think -- I don't think --
JENNINGS: We're surveilling them, were' surveilling North Korea --
PHILLIP: I'm sorry, Scott. No, I don't think --
JENNINGS: -- we're surveilling all of our enemies.
PHILLIP: I don't think the American people want to perpetually bomb anyone because it costs money to do that. It is not a free. Bombing perpetually is not free. And it also doesn't ultimately solve the problem. The radicalization, the sponsorship of terrorism, the regime itself that still has as its objective being a blind actor. It doesn't solve that problem.
BLOW: We are in a much worse position. And he has done a much worse job than what Obama and the rest of the world did through diplomacy. The JCPOA had inspectors on the ground. But there's a limit capability of satellite surveillance. We can see soil (ph) being moved. We can see trucks, entrances. We can see things like that. It does not give you the ability to see how much you are increasing capacity, enriching materials, whether or not locations change from the ones that we are surveilling now to another location. That was what the 2015 agreement gave us. And it had the entire world, including China and Russia, signed on to that agreement.
The fact that we are now saying we're going to leave these things here, just we're going to trust the rubble, we're going to trust the rubble to protect it rather than people on the ground to inspect it or actual people moving it out of the country, it's a much worse situation. And then they complain and complain and complain that Obama unfroze the $1.7 billion for Iranian funds. Iran has made twice as much by selling their oil because they're the only people moving oil through the Strait of Homs. How is this better than what he scrapped? (ph)
PHILLIP: Scott?
JENNINGS: Well, number one, taking away their ability over a long period of time to fire missiles, to have an aggressive navy, and to, you know, see any profit in being the largest state sponsor in the world, I think, is a good thing. On the nuclear peace, I'm not in full disagreement with you about, can you just trust the rubble forever? There is one other player here that we haven't discussed, and that's Israel. They may not want to trust the rubble. And the other Gulf states may not want to trust the rubble either.
I -- you know, we didn't hear much about this tonight. I'm just wondering on the diplomatic conversations that are going on. Are the other players going to say, well, you know what? If you don't want to do that, we may want to do that, and that may be how it works out. So, I think that's an unsaid piece that we are waiting.
PHILLIP: So, can the other players -- can the other players --
BLOW: -- Iran. (INAUDIBLE) played it up. But what is -- what is Iran's incentive to come up with any sort of deal if not all the players are not involved in that deal? Number two, it has taught them that they are stronger than they thought they were. They were able to squeeze the Strait of Hormuz and actually extract a toll on the world, and it has worked. And Donald Trump is suggesting that they may just walk away and it will naturally release, it will naturally be opened back up by just the course of events.
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The Iranians may not want that to happen at all. And we will also suffer from that, including -- in addition to other people around the world, and they will continue to make money hand over fist from doing that.
PHILLIP: So, Scott suggesting also that other countries could go in and take it. Could they?
PLITSAS: I mean, it's possible. So, the original plan this summer, Midnight Hammer didn't happen, was for one of the regional forces to send in a special operations force to go in and go retrieve the material if necessary as a potential backup.
But I think you actually hit the point. It was the third point that we haven't discussed yet, which is diplomacy. So, if you're going to do this, you're going to degrade the rest of the capabilities that are going after the missiles, the drones, everything else that oppose the threat. The nuclear program will be the last thing that you go after. There has been diplomacy playing out in the background. It is one of the last levers that the Iranians have. They're approaching this differently than any of our exercises have to date.
People say, how do we end up in this position? You know, the strait closing everything else. All of our exercises today were predicated upon the strikes being the nuclear program and the missiles. It didn't begin with opening and decapitating strike on all of the senior leadership, which had them responding from an existential threat, which is how the straits were being closed by risk.
So now that they've done, what are we going to do? The president basically said, look, I'm not going to get sucked into this. That's what they want me to do to go in, as I think they've kind of realized what the military options were. You know what? I got two or three weeks of bombing left. Let's leave that off to the side for right now.
They're going to -- they're going to negotiate in the background. We don't know where the Iranians will land. But their whole position, the regime wants to survive. This is about regime survival for them. And if they can get the regime to survive on some sort of terms that they want without an unconditional surrender, then there's a chance that they'll open things up and deal with it afterwards.
The president's perspective, he said, look, I'm not going to engage in state building. What happened in Iraq was a disaster. I'm not going to go and do that. I'd rather deal with remnants of the government that is left.
I have no idea where it's going to land. They're negotiating with the speaker of the parliament at the background. I think we'll know over the next week to 10 days where that goes, and we'll see what --
PHILLIP: I mean, look, they just do need to survive. And under that circumstance, Trump has already said it's going to be two to three weeks, and then our military objectives will be over. They don't have to make a deal. They don't. They can just keep the status quo, wade it out, keep the Strait of Hormuz closed, keep the leverage on the world. That's the other scenario that is very possible, if not more likely.
PLITSAS: So, I think in that case, if that does happen, talking to some of the Gulf states and folks who are there, there was a six-month gap between the 12-day war and when the protests erupted in January because the deep economic issues are still there. If they don't come to a deal and they don't -- and they're going to retain material, whatever else, they will remain, I believe, diplomatically and economically isolated and the conditions are going to get worse. So, most of the folks in region I talked to believe that that will end up with people on the streets eventually again, and this is not over.
PHILLIP: All right. Next for us, Trump tries to tout accomplishments in Iran by invoking a history lesson. But will citing America's past wars calm the nerves of voters who are tired of this conflict and pretty much all others? We'll discuss that ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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PHILLIP: President Trump is asking skeptical Americans to keep the war in Iran in perspective. In a speech to the nation tonight, the president compared the current situation to other major conflicts in modern American history. Listen.
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TRUMP: American involvement in World War I lasted one year, seven months, and five days. World War II lasted for three years, eight months, and 25 days. The Korean War lasted for three years, one month, and two days. The Vietnam War lasted for 19 years, five months, and 29 days. Iraq went on for eight years, eight months, and 28 days. We are in this military operation, so powerful, so brilliant, against one of the most powerful countries for 32 days. And the country has been eviscerated and essentially is really no longer a threat. This is a true investment in your children and your grandchildren's future.
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PHILLIP: Sounds like he's trying to convince the American people of something that they fundamentally don't believe. And it's interesting because when you look at all of these other conflicts throughout history, a lot of which he named there, they were so much more popular than the war in Iran, which is that red bar that you see at the bottom there at 41 percent support. The president is trying to claw back from a pretty deep hole here of public disapproval.
LYMAN: And I would note that when it comes to Afghanistan, Iraq, you know, early polling indicated before we did that, that it's actually very popular among the American people. And as we know now, you know, in hindsight, it wasn't actually popular. It was the wrong decision to make for a lot of people, I think. So, I don't know if polling necessarily indicates that this is the right or wrong move.
I would also say President Trump is right to tell Americans to keep things into perspective because you do have a lot of people on the left who constantly say, you know, Donald Trump is putting us in bigger danger by going after Iran. When I was the same party that had no problem running a proxy war against Russia that does have nuclear weapons, we were giving Ukraine intelligence for long-range missiles in Russia. We were actively sending them money. We had Shapiro signing missiles to send to Ukraine to put into Russia.
So, when you put those things into perspective, it's hard to take seriously half of the country's dissatisfaction with the president when they were rallying against war with an actual nuclear power.
BLOW: Are you saying that we should not have been supporting Ukraine?
LYMAN: I do not think that was our war. BLOW: Wow.
MOCKLER: Damn. So, you guys are going to complain in one breath, we shouldn't support Ukraine at all.
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And then be like, wait a minute, those same allies refused to come help us over in Europe when we're in trouble.
LYMAN: People of Ukraine at the end of the day, and they still didn't come back and help us. So, what's your point?
MOCKLER: I mean, point is --
BLOW: Still at war.
MOCKLER: My point is --
PHILLIP: You're talking about NATO didn't help us.
LYMAN: I'm talking -- I'm talking about the fact that the United States had no real necessary obligation to step in and help Ukraine, but we did alongside other NATO allies. And the fact remains, to your point, we still went and did it. But when we asked for some assistance, whether it's sharing intelligence, whether it's using some naval bases, they say, oh, we don't want to get involved.
I know you're going to say, he said it last time, when Article 5 wasn't invoked, there are other non-triggering events that can get NATO to work with the United States, and they refused to do so.
MOCKLER: Well, the real problem here is that asking allied ships to go through the Strait of Hormuz which is 21 miles wide but the most navigable shipping lane, two miles wide, means it's almost a suicide mission. I mean, off the coast of Iran, they'll just continually strike our allies. And the serious question that I want to ask is, if it's so easy to go through the Strait of Hormuz for our NATO allies, why doesn't the United States just attempt to do it ourselves?
LYMAN: Well, I think also the point that President Trump has been making when it comes to NATO is that our NATO allies are willing to do low-risk endeavors. So, Operation Sea Guardian, they're willing to protect the Mediterranean because they're going to watch for terrorists, they're going to make sure ships go through. But when there is something that impacts them, the Strait of Hormuz impacts them more than it does us. The Strait of Hormuz actually qualifies --
MOCKLER: It affects everyone.
LYMAN: -- as a more of a humanitarian potential disaster because of the sulfur that travels there --
MOCKLER: Who caused it?
LYMAN: -- the farming and everything else -- Iran did when they decided to start attacking people. When you have those things, you have NATO allies who are not willing to step up when there is some risk possibly associated with it, and that goes to President Trump's point. They are freeloaders. They are only available when it benefits them solely, but not when it would help their allies and eventually them in the long --
MOCKLER: Donald Trump --
BLOW: Most of the NATO countries were part of the 2015 Iran deal. They had negotiated with us. We were dealing with the issue. We were dealing with the nuclear material. Donald Trump snatches us out of that. Then he rushes into this war only with Israel. And then he asks the people who had negotiated that former deal to say, now that I've done this on my own, you need to come and help me out. I didn't deal with you on the front end, I didn't negotiate with you, I didn't ask you for your help or planning or anything. But now that I have done this on my own, it is your responsibility to come and help us out. It is an extraordinary claim.
PLITSAS: So, just off the polling data, I usually don't deal with the politics, but this is the one time where the politics and military strategy are actually tied together. So, I thought it was interesting when you show the polling data.
Iran's -- part of Iran's strategy, the asymmetric strategy they've tried to employ here, raise the cost of oil and goods by holding the straights at risk, maximize U.S. casualties as part of that, elongate the war because they don't think the president has the stomach for it, and then try to divide the base. The four of those things are centered around what they believe.
And what I'm hearing from the Gulf and from Iranians, the folks from the inside, their core to strategies, they believe the president is concerned about the midterm elections and that they want to make sure they put enough pressure on him where he feels he is going to lose. They think that's the pressure point, to get the war to stop.
So, it's the difference in this type of war is you actually have an adversary who is actively seeking to divide a president's base as part of the strategy, which is interesting because they realized they can't compete with the U.S. conventionally.
BLOW: But that long view is really important. I think this is another thing that we have not talked enough about with the American people, which is that when we're dealing with ancient societies, Iran is 2,600 years old, their oldest city is 4,000 to 7,000 years old, they have a very long view. This area has been losing war since Alexander the Great.
I mean, they still maintain themselves, they come back, they bounce back. We are about to celebrate 250th-year anniversary of being a country. We're younger. I think that other places in the world just take a longer view. And they know that our view is shorter, our attention span is shorter, our patience is shorter. We want immediate results, and that's not how they're operating. PHILLIP: There is also a democracy, and they know that. They know
that that is -- in a situation like this, it's something that they can use to their advantage. And they're not wrong about that because Trump is, as he said today, going to end this war in two to three weeks.
And guess what? We haven't secured the nuclear material. Iran has gotten sanctions relief. They're tolling ships in the Strait of Hormuz. They're making tons of money where they weren't making it before. There are some parts of this where Iran feels like, well, he's going to end the war regardless, and we're just going to rebuild at the end of it.
JENNINGS: I agree with a lot of what you said there. What you said, their strategy is somewhat political. I think what the president was asking for tonight was a little bit more patience from the American people, two to three more weeks for large-scale military operations.
[23:29:56]
And at that point, I assume what we're going to hear is we destroyed every target that we had when we started, we've degraded their military down to effectively zero. I assume, at some point, in next two to three weeks, we're going to hear what Israel thinks about how they want to end this.
And then, ultimately, in the big piece, which we don't have much information to debate on, is what is the status of the diplomatic conversations going on behind the scenes, winding this down over three weeks, coinciding with some kind of details about that. That would be the next political trigger point.
And if some of this comes out the way we want it, I think you could see the polling change with the American people saying, oh, yes, it was a short engagement, and we did wind up with some --
BLOW: But if we say we're degrading their capabilities and Israelis are still running to shelters, I don't think the Israelis are going to be satisfied. Even no matter -- no matter what we say about how much we have degraded their capabilities, if the rockets are still raining down on Israeli cities and they're still running to shelters 12 times a day, they're not going to be satisfied.
JENNINGS: I don't disagree with that. And they don't want that. I agree with you.
PHILLIP: Alex, a quick word on why that is happening. Why we are still seeing, despite the degrading, all of these missiles still heading toward Israel and the Gulf allies?
PLITSAS: Sure. So, the remaining missile launchers are largely inside or covered facilities or under, you know, mountainous terrain or whatnot, which is why we're basically using strategic bombers to try to get the remainder of the launchers that are left. We're not done with the war. So, tonight's speech was there's still two or three weeks left. So, the point that was made, there's still 3,000 targets left. So, I think we really won't know where we are until those remaining 3,000 targets are hit, until we see the remainder of the diplomatic negotiations, and whether or not we're going to be able to extract material or we're going to end up in a persistence there. So, still a couple of unanswered questions, still some military operations to go, still some more diplomacy. And these are valid questions, I think, we're going to be asking for the next couple of weeks until this is done.
PHILLIP: All right. Next for us, could Trump be headed to his second big defeat in the Supreme Court inside today's oral arguments over birthright citizenship that had even the conservative justices questioning the president's reasoning?
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PHILLIP: History at the Supreme Court today as President Trump became the first sitting president to attend oral arguments. But the president apparently didn't like what he heard about the efforts that he's making to end birthright citizenship.
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TRUMP: I didn't realize this is first time in history that a president went to the Supreme Court. I was really surprised to hear that. And the Supreme Court has not been acting very well, actually.
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PHILLIP: Well, he's saying that because the justices, many of them, maybe even most of them, seem skeptical of the changes to the 14th Amendment that his counsel was proposing. And if they reject Trump's argument, it would be another big blow to his agenda. Remember, back in February, the justices struck down Trump's emergency tariffs.
Attorney Stacy Schneider is with us in our fifth seat. I think it's probably a good thing that Trump was there to hear how this went. What do you think he learned?
STACY SCHNEIDER, CRIMINAL DEFENSE TRIAL ATTORNEY: I think he learned that the tide is not in his favor on this argument. So, the Supreme Court was very vocal about how they were interpreting all of these. And it was really interesting because -- so, first of all, the Constitution says the 14th Amendment, you have the right to citizenship if you're born in the United States and you're subject to the jurisdiction thereof. So, the Trump administration is relying on that little phrase, subject to the jurisdiction, to say, well, if you're an illegal immigrant or as the court called them illegal alien in the United States, your children and you are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. So, the 14th Amendment is that right to birthright citizenship is not automatic. That's what this whole argument is about. But the Supreme Court wasn't buying the arguments that the Trump administration was using through the solicitor general to make their point. So, the argument is a legitimate one. I could see that interpretation of the language. But the -- Justice Roberts called some of the government's arguments quirky and a bit of an attempt to stretch it to cover illegal immigrants in the country.
And one of the arguments made that I thought was the most interesting was the solicitor general said to the Supreme Court justices, there are 500 businesses in China right now that are engaged in birth tourism. They are gathering up groups of pregnant women, and they are paying to come to the United States to get citizenship for their children. This is not what the Constitution was intended to do. And he said, this is a new world, and we're looking for this change. And Chief Justice Roberts said back, it may be a new world, but it's the same old Constitution. So, we're constantly interpreting the Constitution based on modern times, and it just did not seem like many of the justices were going for these arguments.
PHILLIP: And Amy Coney Barrett was also just questioning, how would this all even work in the first place? Like, how are you going to determine who is legitimately here, whose kids are supposed to get citizenship, and whose are not? Here's what she said.
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AMY CONEY BARRETT, ASSOCIATE JUSTICE, SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES (voice-over): I can imagine it being messy in some applications.
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So how, what would you do with what the common law called foundlings? You know, the thing about this is then you have to adjudicate if you're looking at parents and if you're looking at parents domicile, then you have to adjudicate both residents and intent to stay. What if you don't know who the parents are?
JOHN SAUER, SOLICITOR GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES (voice-over): I think, I think there are marginal cases. That one, I think has the benefit of being addressed in 1401 where it talks about --
BARRETT (voice-over): Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but what about the Constitution?
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PHILLIP: Marginal. But there are probably thousands of cases like that, thousands of cases of people who might have undocumented status one day and legal status the next. What happens to the kids that are -- that are born in the interim? Are they stateless? What -- none of that was really addressed.
BLOW: It's impossible to truly predict what the Supreme Court will do on this. But it did not look good for them today. And it's important to realize that what they were doing was arguing basically the dissenting position from the 1898 case before the Fuller Court.
Now, I would argue that the Fuller Court of 1898 is very much like the Roberts Court. They are incredibly conservative. These are same people who give you separate but equal judgment, the same people who give you -- let Mississippi disenfranchise Black voters in its new Constitution. So, they're very, very conservative. And even that court, the Fuller Court, was like, no, no, no, we're not doing this. And I think the Roberts Court, very conservative, it's also like this is just a step too far. The Constitution simply says what it says.
You can argue that they were sloppy when they wrote it and they weren't precise, but that's not what the court is there to do. The court has said this is why they wrote it. If you want -- if you have a policy problem, there's tourism, birth tourism, that's a policy problem, go back and solve it, send us another law, adjust the Constitution.
SCHNEIDER: Yes.
PHILLIP: It is a trend, though, with Trump that they take a lot of policy problems and think that they can resolve them by just writing his name on a piece of paper and calling it an executive order when the issue is in the Constitution. So, why not address that?
LYMAN: Well, look, I would love to see Congress be a little more clear about what the 14th Amendment means. I think that would be probably the safest. I think that would be the safest path in terms of what Donald Trump wants.
PHILLIP: According to the court today, they reiterated multiple times, Congress did, their interpretation of this previous ruling and the 14th Amendment applying to birthright citizenships.
LYMAN: Right, right, right, but case in point, because the Congress did in the 40s and 50s had to make it clearer, I think that lends credence to the argument that the 14th Amendment is still a little unclear. And for Justice Roberts, I know he said, you know, the same Constitution, it is the same Constitution. But the problems are, in fact, different.
So, I do think it's also a little irresponsible to say that the 14th Amendment as it was written by that Congress would also then apply to, for example, a problem they could not have foreseen, which is mass illegal migration and anchor babies.
And an argument I didn't hear from the solicitor general, which I would have liked to hear, is something very simple. The entire United States rests on the idea of the social compact theory, right? You have to consent to be part of our political environment. We have to consent to let you in. How is it so that if we do not consent to an illegal alien being here, we have not given them membership into our political community, that somehow, they have a child and that child automatically gets consent? We never consented to the parents being here, but we have to automatically accept the child --
PHILLIP: Do you realize that for a lot of American history, there was no such thing as legal or illegal immigrants? People just showed up, and they came into the country.
LYMAN: They came in through things like Ellis Island.
PHILLIP: Yes. So, yes. So, in other words -- in other words, this idea of -- yes, the idea of legalization being the main way that you come into America is a relatively -- in the history of our country, a relatively new phenomenon. And part of that -- that is part of the argument that was being dealt with, which is that originally, sure, maybe they didn't conceptualize the idea of legal or illegal immigration, but they made the rule. And like in a lot of other things, we have to apply the law as it was written today, regardless of whether the circumstances --
(CROSSTALK)
SCHNEIDER: I was going to say, all through time, your argument didn't hold up to -- it might have hold up as a general -- held up as a general argument, but it didn't hold up today because the Supreme Court justice, including Justice Kavanaugh, had said Congress has had a chance to reinterpret the 14th Amendment. They didn't do it in 1942 -- 1940. They didn't do it in 1952. They've had numerous chances to --
LYMAN: That's illegal migration at that point either.
SCHNEIDER: Right. But the Constitution has been followed in every area. The search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment. We have A.I. now in different techniques. We don't change the way we handle the law based on modern times versus the Constitution. The Constitution is supposed to buttress everything we do. There was so much skepticism today about this -- this put the -- the citizenship amendment has been interpreted the same way even by the Supreme Court.
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In 1898, there's an Ark case, ARK, that the Supreme Court found that a Chinese baby born in San Francisco to Chinese parents who are not citizens --
LYMAN: But they were legally domiciled.
SCHNEIDER: Exactly. And that was a big -- that was a big argument --
LYMAN: -- to the legal immigrants having --
SCHNEIDER: But that's different. But that's different.
LYMAN: It is different.
BLOW: The domicile question never came up in the --
PHILLIP: Let her finish. Let her finish her point, and then this is the last --
SCHNEIDER: There was controversy today over the definition of domicile, and the Supreme Court did get involved. And that's maybe where the Trump administration has some wiggle room to force success here over this issue of domicile because in that case that you're talking about, the Supreme Court said the parents are considered legal residents and, therefore, this child gets citizenship. So, the argument, if they're not legal residents, the Supreme Court is paying attention to that, but they're not really buying into it because the way that this amendment has been interpreted by the Supreme Court and by Congress has been consistent with you have an automatic right to birthright --
LYMAN: I think --
BLOW: But the other thing about domicile, and think Kavanaugh brought this up, of all people, which was that he had reviewed the entire debate over the passing of the 14th Amendment, and it had not been part of the debate. That the intent of the 14th Amendment had not been about domicile or not. It was always about the children. It was never about the parents.
PHILLIP: All right, we really do have to leave it there, my friends. Next for us, is the DHS shutdown actually getting closer to ending? House and Senate Republicans finally reach a deal. But when it gets across the finish line, it remains an open question tonight. We'll be right back.
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PHILLIP: It was the longest partial government shutdown in history, and it may have an end in sight. Republican leaders have now reached a deal to end the DHS shutdown and fund the CBP and ICE through the reconciliation process at a later date. That is essentially what the Senate passed last week, and House Republicans and President Trump turned it down just a few days ago.
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MIKE JOHNSON, SPEAKER OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: It shouldn't be a surprise to anybody that we would not be able to do that. We're not going to split apart two of the most important agencies in the government and leave them hanging like that. We just couldn't do it.
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PHILLIP: So, this has led Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries to take a victory lap. h Chuck Schumer says, we are united, held the line, and refuse to let Republican chaos win. Jeffries says, Mike Johnson and House Republicans have come to realize that we will never bend the knee. They are -- Republicans effectively negotiating with themselves and getting back to a position they could have taken last week.
JENNINGS: Victory lap for what? They got no reforms that they had been demanding to ICE. And all they really did was inflict a bunch of pain and chaos on American travelers, and they cause a bunch of TSA agents who make about $50,000 a year to go without paychecks.
This is what the senators who went to see President Trump several days ago effectively hashed out. And I guess we're going to have this two- track where we're going to fund one piece through regular order, and we're going to do the reconciliation which, by the way, is a complicated thing to get done.
PHILLIP: Why didn't they take it last week? I mean, as you pointed out, they hashed it out, they got it passed, they could have voted on it. They didn't.
JENNINGS: The Senate --
PHILLIP: People could have gotten paid over this past weekend.
JENNINGS: Well, they did. The president paid them on Monday. But the Senate Republicans hashed it out. The House Republicans, you know, initially, they didn't like it. They don't -- I mean, Speaker Johnson has said they didn't like the idea of splitting this off. It has now become clear that Democrats have no interest in getting this agency back open. So, really have no choice but to do this, and they are going to do it. But to me, the net result of this --
BLOW: -- enough Republicans will go along?
JENNINGS: We'll see. I will just tell you that the Senate Republicans, I think, are happy with where this is leading. But the House Republicans have been a little muted today. Now, the speaker has put out a statement. But I haven't seen a ton of statements from the rest of the conference.
PHILLIP: There are at least three -- there are at least three that have been skeptical of this. Leaving parts of DHS unfunded to be resolved in reconciliation is a bad idea. Another said that that ICE and CBP must never be separated from DHS funding. Another said caving to Democrats and not paying CBP and ICE is agreeing to defund law enforcement. So, there are some cracks. And I think also Republicans are characterizing this as a cave.
MOCKLER: Yes, Democrats gave Republicans multiple off ramps and Trump was the one that spiked it. And our ask was very simple. We were looking at the case that Minnesota just waged against the admin saying, listen, you guys are spiking investigations into murders that happened in the streets of Minnesota. You guys are not allowing the proper investigations. All we want to do is have state actors held accountable when they abuse their power, and that's what this was all over. Republicans apparently disagree.
LYMAN: To be very clear, no one has been formally charged with murder, and that's a reckless accusation to make when someone almost got run over with their car. Second of all, I do think, actually, Republicans were wrong to cave. I do think this was a cave. I think they control all chambers of Congress right now. And ICE and CBP are critical to Homeland Security. They help get criminal aliens off the streets.
[23:54:53]
And to have Democrats hold this country and American travellers and our TSA workers hostage for illegal aliens is a problem that Republicans should have used the very end and should have gotten a deal without having to cave to Democrats' ridiculous demands because they're fighting over illegal aliens. They're fighting to defend --
MOCKLER: No one got charged with murder because they didn't really allow a proper investigation. And secondly, Democrats gave like 15 chances for TSA to be funded. Donald Trump himself, Trump himself is the one that was, like, we're not going to take this offer.
LYMAN: Democrats refused several opportunities to fund DHS fully, give our workers their pay, and allowed DHS to properly enforce federal immigration law. Just because Democrats don't want to enforce a law doesn't mean we should --
MOCKLER: You guys --
PHILLIP: That's the last word. We got to leave it there. Thank you very much for watching "NewsNight." "The Story Is with Elex Michaelson" is next.
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