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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
U.S. Army Chief Of Staff, Two Generals Fired AS Iran War Continues; Source: Decision To Fire Top Army General "Abrupt, But Expected"; NYT: Hegseth Blocked Promotions Of Two Black And Two Female Officers. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired April 03, 2026 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST (voice over): Tonight, the war in Iran now even more of a challenge as a U.S. fighter jet is shot down. What this says about Iran's capability and the president's timeline to get out.
Plus, Pete Hegseth's big purge at the Pentagon.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All sorts of politics are being injected into a military selection, and that's never a good sign.
PHILLIP: Why tensions between the secretary and some top brass were so high, Hegseth sent them into early retirement in the middle of a war.
Also, show me your budget and I'll tell you your priorities, what the president wants funded and what he thinks can be cut.
And --
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Attorney General Pam Bondi, my friend.
She's doing a great job with Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem out, the rest of Trump's top officials are worried about who's next, as insiders say the president's high expectations are not being met.
Live at the table, Nayyera Haq, Jason Rantz, Pete Seat, and Isaiah Martin.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York.
Tonight, a desperate search and rescue effort is underway for one of the two pilots of an F-15 that was shot down in Iran. It was one of three military aircraft hit by Iranian ground fire today. The second plane was struck shortly after, but the pilot was able to navigate out of Iranian airspace before ejecting. And now The New York Times is reporting that a Black Hawk helicopter was hit while trying to rescue the crew of one of those downed jets.
Fortunately, the Black Hawk did manage to fly to safety, but this is the debris from that F-15. It was the first American warplane taken down by Iranian air fire since the fighting began. State media is telling Iranians that if they capture the enemy alive and hand them over to authorities, they'll receive a valuable reward and prize. And we've learned that that reward amounts to about $76,000.
And just last night, CNN reported that sources told us that roughly half of Iran's missile launchers, they're still intact and thousands of drones remain in the arsenal, which is a much more nuanced picture of the Iranian missile launching capabilities than what the Trump administration has been saying for days and weeks. And that comes after weeks of the Trump administration downplaying Iranian air defenses all together.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: They have no air detection. That's been knocked out. Their radar has been knocked out.
PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: It's in under a week, the two most powerful air forces in the world will have complete control of Iranian skies, uncontested airspace.
KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We expect to have complete and total dominance over Iranian airspace in the coming hours.
TRUMP: Their anti-aircraft weapons are gone, so they have no air force, they have no air defense.
HEGSETH: We're hunting and striking death and destruction from above. Iran's air defenses flattened.
TRUMP: They have no anti-aircraft equipment. Their radar is 100 percent annihilated.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Joining us at the table is former political prisoner in Iran Kian Tajbakhsh, also with us, former Pentagon Official Alex Plitsas.
Alex, does this recalibrate how the United States sees the threat from Iran from this point going forward?
ALEX PLITSAS, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: So, I think what the president and the secretary were speaking to in the in the comments that we played at the opening clip were for the integrated air defense system. So, your missiles and your radar systems, those are the big systems that we all are kind of aware of and the fighter jets. And so if you take out the two of those, you largely end up with air superiority and air dominance. But you also have shoulder-fired missiles, which can hit up to somewhere between five to 5,000, 7,500 feet and even some up to 10,000. So, even if you take out most of the major systems, there's always going to be a residual threat. We've seen about 13,000 targets struck. This was the first plane that went down.
[22:05:00]
I think it does speak to the overall risk that our men and women in uniforms still face until this operation is complete.
PHILLIP: And we've seen these images of Iranians, just regular people, kind of canvassing the area presumptively looking for this downed pilot. Tell us about where they are and what kind of situation that this pilot could be facing or danger that they could be in.
KIAN TAJBAKHSH, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS PROFESSOR, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY: Well, Iranian state media put out earlier today an appeal to the people of a province called, it's a long name, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad, which is next to Khuzestan Province. I think other media have said that it's either one of those two provinces. But state media put out this appeal saying, anyone who finds this pilot should alert the authorities and immediately go to the police.
It is a -- this area is down in the southwest of Iran. A lot of it is mountainous. I visited that area myself. And, you know, there are plateaus. There are areas where the big cities are. And so it very much depends on where exactly the plane has gone down and where the pilot might be.
And so the population of those areas, if it's the Khuzestan area, it's mostly Arab ethnic groups who are actually mostly Shia, not Sunni, like Arabs of the neighboring countries. And the other province which was the one that Iranian state T.V. mentioned are an ethnic group called Lurs, L-U-R.
Both these ethnic groups in the past have been oppositional to the regime, to the Islamic Republic. But for many, many years, these -- the population has been quite integrated into the -- you know, into the nation in terms of administration.
And so, I think, you know, if people do find this pilot, the good news, I can say as an Iranian is that he would be treated with great hospitality. He wouldn't be dragged through. I mean, it would be very unlikely. He would not be like abused or dragged through the streets like other ones. But I think it's very unlikely that anyone would hide him or protect him, but they would contact the police.
NAYYERA HAQ, ASSISTANT DEAN, SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY'S MAXWELL SCHOOL: And, Abby, this goes to some of the horrific images that come to mind when we think of Black Hawk Down, which glamorized in television, but the reality of what we saw in 1993, similarly, when there was a military effort to take out rebel or, you know, anti-American interest leaders, and we had soldiers who ended up missing and some were dragged through the street.
Now, at that time, we had a president who would see images like that and realize what that means for the American public and support for the war. And it fundamentally changed Bill Clinton's decisions. We now have here in Iran in six weeks five F-15s that have been shot down. In Afghanistan, zero. The entire war by enemy fire in Iraq in the 2003 war --
PHILLIP: You're referring to at least some that were shot by friendly --
HAQ: Yes, by enemy fire, right.
PHILLIP: But here in this conflict, by friendly fire and enemy.
HAQ: And enemy. But the loss in six weeks of five aircraft and the training and everything that goes into that, this all points towards a hastiness, a lack of planning, a sense of let's just, you know, shift direction, as it seems the commander-in-chief wants to do. And that is not only deeply disheartening for the American public, it is putting our men and women in danger.
JASON RANTZ, SEATTLE RED RADIO HOST: Well, I think that's editorializing to a degree that doesn't necessarily reflect the facts on the ground, at least at this point. The reality is nothing's changed as far as air superiority, and that doesn't suggest a lack of planning or a lack of strategy that suggests quite the opposite.
I think what people do need to understand, I think CNN all day has been doing this really effectively talking to folks, including, you know, military experts who are not necessarily pro-Trump saying this can and does still happen. I mean, by the definition of air superiority means we lose no aircraft, then the Gulf War, I suppose, we didn't have air superiority and yet we lost I think it was like 75 to 80 different aircrafts. So, I think that's an important caveat to have, a part of this conversation that does at least put some context to this, but there's no evidence to suggest that we were hasty in this as a direct result of what happened today.
PHILLIP: So, at the very least, I mean, the worst case scenario here is that Iran, the regime, has a hostage that they can use as leverage, which would be, I think, deeply problematic. And already, you know, it's unclear what trajectory we're really on here. Because President Trump today, in a bunch of different Truth Social posts, he seemed to be suggesting a whole lot of escalation.
[22:10:00]
He says, keep the oil. He says, with more time, we can easily open the Strait of Hormuz, make a fortune from the oil. He adds, bridges next and electrical power plants their new regime leadership knows what needs to be done. And perhaps he's saying that because there are reports in the Wall Street Journal that Iranian mediators have told the United States that there will be no talks this weekend, that things might be falling apart in terms of talks.
And just to remind the audience, Monday is Trump's deadline for when he gave them a little bit of extra time to reach a deal. Otherwise, he would strike them, you know, in a catastrophic way.
PETE SEAT, FORMER WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMAN, PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Well, a few points to what you just brought up, Abby. First we may have to escalate to deescalate. Sometimes that is the trajectory that conflicts such as this take. The second point is The New York Times had a story today about how Iran is skeptical of diplomacy, and that's because they don't believe in diplomacy. They only understand the language of conflict and force.
And that is why President Trump made this decision in alliance with Israel to take seriously their desire to obtain a nuclear weapon, and it may require an escalation to force them to that diplomacy table.
But I do want to touch on the beginning of what you said, yes, they could very well have a pawn in their propaganda campaign. But at bare minimum, they did today undermine the credibility of the United States because we've been out there saying that we have air superiority, I take your point, Jason, on that, but Americans who are listening to this, you know, we say about terrorists that we have to be right 100 percent of the time, they only have to be right one time.
And in this case, they were right, the Iranians one time, whether it was a shoulder-fired missile or whatever it was, took down an American plane, and that puts into question what the president and the secretary of defense have been saying.
RANTZ: Just very, very quickly on that. That's where the responsibility of media outlets really come into play, and putting this into context of being clear about. You're right, and the president runs into this problem. It's one of his vulnerabilities that he speaks in absolutes. That's how he speaks. He's always spoken like that. And when you do have an event like today or two events like today can be very easily used against him, even if that's not the context or the spirit of what he was saying and how he was saying that.
HAQ: So I'll piggyback off of that. F-15s are very different than any other aircrafts. So, the fact that five and three of them were with friendly fire is problematic for how the military has been conducting its resources and how it's had to manage this war.
But to your point broadly about negotiations, when I was part of the negotiating team with the Taliban, when this was all still secret, and we understood that this -- at this point, almost 15-year war, had to end in a settlement, in a negotiated agreement. There had -- like you can't bomb somebody into the stone age, and then what happens, what comes after you leave, right? This is just a standard understanding of how national security and politics works overseas. You still have to negotiate in good faith.
And when you have a president who multiple times not only pulled out of an agreement that had multiple international agreements that have been working and that were all parties were involved in, one of them involving Iran, then gets back to the table for negotiations in which he says that if they don't go at the pace that he wants, he's going to strike, he does then strikes a war, the idea, what is the incentive right now for Iran to come to the table and negotiate in good faith when the next morning, it's, we're going to bomb you for two weeks straight? TAJBAKHSH: Well, I'd like to say something about that because you mentioned a point about the Iranians not believing in diplomacy. I think there's an important point there, which is that I think the approach to negotiations, we should have learned over the last 20 years that the Iranian regime, and I don't think the Iranian regime represents the majority of the Iranian people, but I think the Iranian regime has a mindset and a worldview which is very different from the way the American worldview is. In other words, for the Iranians, it is purely transactional. It is only something which was -- is only temporary until they can get the upper hand.
So, when the Iranians go into diplomacy, they really don't accept the basic premise that there's a convergence of values and that an agreement will lead to a kind of consensus to work over the long-term. I think this is a very important point.
So, I think that the --
PHILLIP: But then what's -- if that's the case, then how does this really end? Because at the end of the day, we are not going to bomb our way out of this. We haven't been able to thus far, and it doesn't seem that there's any indication that that's going to work. So, what do we do?
HAQ: Where it's gone in the past is we've had very targeted line items and we've enforced those, right? And one of them was allowing inspectors into Iran to make sure they didn't get, you know, any nuclear material.
[22:15:02]
When you eliminate all of that and then, you know, end up giving them money last week to be able to send oil through, I mean, it just turns the whole framework topsy-turvy.
TAJBAKHSH: Yes. I mean, I'd just like to say, I mean, I think that there is, in my view, as a sort of misunderstanding of the relationship between coercion and diplomacy. They're not like completely mutually exclusive things. They are two sides of one coin. Actually, war is an element of statecraft. It is politics by other means, as being famously said. That is to say it is bargaining.
I mean, any point the Iranians can actually say, we are willing to discuss and negotiate the three points that President Trump put on the table in Oman, the fact that they don't -- are not willing to is, I think, explained by two things. One is they really are -- they do have a different mindset. I mean, I don't want to be I don't want to be dramatic, but if you ask people, are they suicidal? That is to say, are they willing --
PHILLIP: They're motivated by different --
TAJBAKHSH: Are they motivated differently? That's one thing. And the other thing is they feel that time is on their side and they can hunker it.
PHILLIP: And war is a tool for us, but it's also a tool for them too.
Alex, just a word on the negotiations, are we done here in terms of the Pakistani element of this?
PLITSAS: It's pretty close. I mean, what I've been hearing today is that the Pakistani side of the negotiations has largely not resulted in anything meaningful. The five-point plan that came out today that was issued in coordination with the Chinese, what was phrased back, you know, one of the regional mediators was, I think it was fed into ChatGPT. So, I don't think that's going anywhere. The Turks are probably going to try to step up into a more prominent role here.
The folks that have taken power inside of Iran now, it's the Ramadan division folks who had served in that division as part of the IRGC with Mojtaba Khamenei back in '87 to '88 when he was in and then folks in the intelligence part of the IRGC who were sort of seizing power. They've got good relationships with Turkish MIT, the intelligence side on the Pakistanis, which is why you saw the ISI and the MIT on the Turkish side stepping in.
So, since that's not going anywhere, it looks like the Turks may be --
PHILLIP: But are they more moderate or more radical?
PLITSAS: It's hard to -- I mean, it's hard to tell. So, in terms of Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Parliament, right, what's been sort of espoused is that behind closed doors, he seems to be a little bit more pragmatic, even though the public figure seems to be more hardlined. It is yet to result in a deal coming out of the 15 points that we had sort of put on the table were apparently a little bit too much for them now. And from what I'm hearing from the inside and speaking to folks that are there, they believe that they're winning at this point still.
So, when we had the U.S. objectives inside of Iran, clearly about 16,000 targets. If you just do the math, CENTCOM commander said 13,000 struck, 3,000 left to go, it tells you there's 16,000 total with about two or three weeks left of bombing in total. That was before mission creep with the straits, and that was before there was a decision made about what to do with the nuclear program. Neither one of those there's a clear outcome for right now. If we just run through the targets that are there to take out the drones, the missiles, the navy, et cetera, two weeks, you're done. Do you leave the straits for the allies to deal with, as he suggested? Maybe. What do you do?
The last piece, I'll hit on that. We had two carriers, right -- sorry. Well, go ahead.
PHILLIP: We do have to leave it there because we have to go to break, but thank you for all of that. And, Kian Tajbakhsh, thank you very much for being with us, as always.
Next for us, Pete Hegseth's purge at the Pentagon have many questioning the timing and what is driving these tensions between the secretary and the now former top brass that he's fired. Plus, the White House wants more than a trillion dollars in new defense spending in its new budget and what it's calling woke social programs are looking at sharp cutbacks. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, a shakeup at the Pentagon amid the ongoing war in Iran. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired the Army's top general. And a source tells CNN that Hegseth told Army Chief of Staff General Randy George to retire immediately. Two other senior leaders are also out.
Another source reveals that the decision to fire George was abrupt but expected. George and Hegseth had been at odds for months after Hegseth blocked the promotion of several Army officers, including two women and two who are black. The source says that George demanded to see Hegseth about the issue, but Hegseth denied the meeting.
The purge comes just days after President Trump's signal that the U.S. would intensify strikes in Iran and as the Pentagon weighs a potential ground invasion.
Isaiah Martin is here with us. It is even outside of all of the interpersonal drama, of which there is plenty about this. We're in the middle of a war and the Army chief of staff and to just be purging members of the top military brass in this moment just seems unwise, if not just a great gift to our enemies in terms of what they can say about us in this moment.
ISAIAH MARTIN, FORMER U.S. CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE, TEXAS: Well, I certainly think that the Iranian regime couldn't have seen or gotten something better for them in this instance. I think, ultimately, what's happening right now is that the United States military is seeing that we completely have a leadership that is just simply we don't understand where we're going.
I'm particularly concerned about the fact that, you know, the target seems to be moving consistently. I know for this, first, he said that there was not going to be a ground invasion. Then we see reports that there could potentially be one. I think that's an issue. And the fact that we're seeing this change in leadership right now I think is a sign that we don't really know what's going on.
PLITSAS: I think to provide some context for it, right? So, the Armed Services, so the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, their job is what we call man, train and equip. Their job is to recruit the forces, train them, and make sure they're equipped to go to war and then we fight a war. There's a four-star commander in charge of the combatant commands around the world where we're basically broken up worldwide in geography, and there's a four-star responsible for fighting in the different areas.
[22:25:02] So, right now, the war is being fought by U.S. Central Command. So, there's a four-star commander, Admiral Brad Cooper, down in Tampa, who's responsible for the fight. The Army's job is to transfer forces in accordance with the war plan if there's ground troops or the Navy or the Air Force regardless.
So, the folks that were let go today or that were fired, the chief of chaplains. There's been a problem where I think the secretary said he had an issue with what he saw as secular humanism in the chaplain's core ranks, want to move back.
PHILLIP: And I just want to note that it's apparently the first time that the chief of chaplains has ever been fired.
PLITSAS: Yes, in the history of the military.
PHILLIP: It's a four-year term.
PLITSAS: And in the history of the military, it's the first time there. The chief of the training site, he said he's had issues with training, and then him, General George, you just mentioned, had an issue going back to that. But this is part of a series of firings that we've seen across the administration.
And I think, you know, as you noted, just in terms of demographics, women make up about 20 percent of the military, a little bit less than that, a little bit less than 8 percent of the --
PHILLIP: Yes, 17 percent.
PLITSAS: 17 percent. And then the office -- general officer ranks only about eight. There's been a disproportionate number of women and minority general officers that were fired and the arguments kind of coming back, are they being fired because they're minorities and whether it's, you know, gender or ethnic or racial minorities, or is this for another reason? I think secretary is coming back and saying that some people were put in positions they shouldn't have been in as a result of that. Other people are saying, no, that they deserve to be there and you're firing them as a result. And that's the two sides of the argument people are making.
HAQ: And General George as well as the Army secretary. So, let's not forget, the secretary of Army is a political appointee. So, you have here the civilian in the military leadership of the Army very -- working very closely together. And, apparently, that was part of Hegseth's problem is that he had these two people working closely together.
PHILLIP: Yes. And just a little bit of context on that, I mean, CNN's reporting is that Randy George was very close to Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and Hegseth perceived Driscoll as a threat, and at times had a contentious relationship with him. Driscoll is also close to J.D. Vance, has been mentioned as a possible replacement for Hegseth.
Hegseth is -- since Signal gate, since that chat where he was sharing classified information, he seems to be on shaky ground, or at least his perception of his job, and there's some reporting that this is a result of that.
HAQ: I will say it so you don't have to. He is signaling that he's a very insecure leader right now, because he's getting rid of expertise surrounding him. General George brought the Army out of a massive recruitment crisis back in 2020, one of the worst we've seen, he brought it back to force, full force. He moved to adapt and accommodate for cheap -- the cheap drones, an acquisition of cheap drones that we're seeing prevalent in the war in Ukraine, which, oh, by the way, happened to be drones from Iran. So, he was doing what he was supposed to do.
Him and Secretary Driscoll also both spoke up about the fact that people don't get on these lists for flags to become general officers without having exemplary service. So, I find it very interesting that somebody apolitical in the Army chief of staff, somebody -- Republican appointed under Trump, that that is who the current secretary of war is going after.
PHILLIP: Jason?
RANTZ: Well, I think Peter Hegseth plays a huge role in recruitment, and I think that's a key reason why you're seeing so many more people volunteering to serve. I think if you don't have trust in the people around you, whether or not they come with expertise, and I have no doubt that they came with expertise, but it's kind of useless if you don't actually trust it. We don't know really what was behind this.
Now, again, the reporting suggests that there's some conflict or tension between the two from a personality perspective, perhaps. Maybe this was a case of a line versus agree, and they could do neither. But when you're in a position like this, you have to make sure that you trust the people around you.
When General McChrystal was fired during the Afghanistan war by President Obama, because he downplayed the importance of, at the time, Vice President Joe Biden, while it was obviously a news story, I don't recall some of the same framing.
Now, this could be a huge deal, right, at the end of this. We don't know. Right now, it doesn't appear to be a huge deal as far as readiness is concerned with what's going on in Iran right this moment.
PHILLIP: But it does say a lot about Pete Hegseth, for sure, because it --
RANTZ: Well, without knowing his reason.
PHILLIP: Well, it says -- well, I mean, you're saying we don't know, but there's actually a lot of reporting that suggests that there are several reasons, including insecurity, as Nayyera pointed out. But also, I mean, his hand or attempt to have a hand in personnel decisions has been something that across the forces, not just in the Army, has been a problem for senior leadership. He's taking a list of potential one-star promotions that doesn't get political, that is merit-based, that's based on a long process in the military. And he's striking individual names, which, you know, according to the reporting, it's not even clear if it's legal for him to do that.
So, there's -- the broader picture is of somebody who is a defense secretary who is dealing with both some personality drama, but also has a leadership style that's resulting in mass firings. I'm not sure mass firings are ever really a good sign.
SEAT: The pattern that I see, and it's not true in every instance.
[22:30:00]
But the pattern that I'm seeing is that Secretary Hegseth resents dissent and disagreement and he resents anyone who he believes is a holdover from the Biden administration. He wants to pick his team. He doesn't want a team that was picked for him, and that is largely who he has been targeting with these firings, are people who he feels like he was stuck with, and to Jason's point, he wants people that he trusts, not people that he is told to trust, but people that he trusts.
PHILLIP: Let's be honest. I mean, this is the military. Virtually everybody at the star level is a holdover from the previous administration. They didn't just show up. They were there because they're all serving under the United States military and whatever the -- whoever the president is at the top.
RANTZ: But if you --
PHILLIP: So, how is that a reason to fire people?
RANTZ: So, if you go into this believing that there has to be some systemic change, because you believe that a lot of the problems, as he perceives them, is due to the fact that everyone is, in fact, a holdover, then this does make sense. And to be clear, there is --
PHILLIP: Wait. So sorry.
RANTZ: -- unfortunately, there is going to be another Democratic president --
PHILLIP: -- so sorry. So --
RANTZ: -- who is then going to make the exact same changes --
PHILLIP: Say that again. So, you're suggesting that his belief is that any person in the military had any holdover from the previous administration, which is virtually --
RANTZ: Not every person.
PHILLIP: -- everyone, is a problem?
RANTZ: I think he views any kind of non-institutionalized change as part of the issues within the department.
PHILLIP: We also know -- but we also know -- we also know, and I don't want to downplay this, because we also know he is written a book about this, that he believes that women in the military are a problem. We also know that he believes that people of color are, in large part, not qualified for all kinds of different what he calls DEI reasons. And so, when we see actions that are supported by his own words, that's why there are questions about what the motivations --
NAYYERA HAQ, ASSISTANT DEAN, SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY'S MAXWELL SCHOOL: And the idea the -- I mean, the entire idea of having a professional force, right, after the Warren Commission, after Vietnam, and not to have drafting family members willy-nilly, was a professionalized force that was separate from all of these political challenges. So, listen, if he has an issue with his Secretary of Army, who is a political appointee and may be threatening, got it, but people who actually know, who have served in Iraq, served in Afghanistan, know how war is conducted, have actually made great gains for our military strength and adaptability, those are probably not the people you want walking out the door.
PHILLIP: You have a quick --
ALEX PLITSAS, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yeah. I just have a quick -- so -- I mean, I think across the board, normally you see three and four stars being interviewed by the Secretary of Defense before they get promoted and those positions confirmed by the Senate. So, in terms of an institutional change, yes, we also saw the firing of most of the career ambassadors, who were appointed on the previous administration. So, we are seeing institutional change across the government, from the State Department, the Pentagon, etc.
But when you look at the disproportionate numbers for who is getting fired, right, and where that's coming from, I think it does get back to the root question that's there, and I think you hit the nail on the head, is he seeing the folks that were in those positions put there because he saw them -- as illegitimately put in those positions based on not being qualified, that they were somehow put there for being a minority, or were they actually qualified to be there, and they're now being targeted as a result of their gender or race, and that's the two sides of the debate right now that are going on in Washington. He is saying folks aren't qualified. Other folks are saying you're targeting people.
PHILLIP: And obviously -- I mean, you've got people inside the Pentagon, in the high ranks of the Trump Pentagon, who believe that he was wrong to strike those names for whatever reason that he wanted to strike them.
Alex, thanks a lot for being here all week, actually, for us. Thank you.
PLITSAS: Thanks, Abby.
PHILLIP: And up next, the big, beautiful budget proposal, with more than a trillion dollars allocated for defense spending and a lot of cutbacks for programs that are deemed too woke. We will debate that.
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[22:35:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight, as the war rages on in Iran, the White House is seeking roughly $1.5 trillion for defense as part of its 2027 fiscal budget. The proposal would boost military spending to its highest point in modern history, while slashing funding for housing, social services, and health care.
The blueprint was released today, and perhaps a reflection of the president's priorities. It would bolster munitions, build out the U.S. naval fleet, and begin construction on Trump's planned Golden Dome, a missile defense system. It would also provide hefty raises for all military personnel with the help -- to help with recruitment and with retention. That budget proposal seeks to cut non-defense spending by 10 percent. $73 billion of that would primarily affect housing, social services, healthcare and other domestic programs that the administration has derided as woke.
This budget probably makes the White House feel good, but I can't imagine that a lot of Republicans, who are running for re-election back home right now, are feeling great about it, because the headline is not great. More military spending for more wars, less money for you, for healthcare, for housing, for heating your home, etc.
SEAT: It might not be politically palatable, but that is precisely why we find ourselves in such a horrible national debt crisis. I remember, back in 2011, then-Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels spoke at CPAC, and he called what was then $15 trillion in debt, the quote, "red menace", and today, it's $39 trillion in debt, which is why people on both sides of the aisle, including military leaders, say that is our greatest national security risk. So, I think 10 percent in non-defense spending cuts is not enough. We need to get real about cutting spending.
[22:40:00]
But when it comes to the $1.5 trillion in defense spending, I've seen a lot of outrage about this today. People are outraged when any time that we want to increase defense spending. But the way I see this is, if you want NATO to survive, you should be all in on this, because it is the cost of keeping NATO alive and our alliances alive literally. All the NATO allies, including the United States, agreed to spend five percent of their respective GDP on defense. This would be 4.5 percent of our GDP. The last budget that Joe Biden put forward, by 2034, would have only been 2.4 percent of GDP.
This is the United States of America showing leadership, keeping our word, and leading by example to our allies, saying, this is how it's done. This is what you need to do to keep the alliance strong and our world safe.
ISAIAH MARTIN, FORMER U.S. CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE, TEXAS: I always laugh whenever I hear conservatives talk about the national debt, largely because if they really wanted to address national debt problems, they would have done that in the big, beautiful bill. $3.4 trillion worth of tax cuts that they literally approved with the passage of that legislation, that they had the opportunity to just simply not let go forward.
I think ultimately what's happening in this country is exactly why the Republican Party is seeing disastrous numbers overall, why Trump's approval rating is as low as it is. He promised no new wars. He promised that he was going to invest in America, but that did not happen. While people have their healthcare premiums going up by more than 26 percent, the wrong message for this country is telling them that they need to defund their healthcare and everything else.
SEAT: So, when Americans want more affordable living, you don't want them to have tax cuts so they can have more money in their pocket to make ends meet?
MARTIN: Well, you talked about the deficit and the deficit is something that you guys ran up.
SEAT: No. But addressing affordability, part of that is tax cuts. Part of that is allowing Americans to keep more of their money, not the government's money. The money I make is not the government's money. It's my money.
MARTIN: You --
SEAT: Yes, I need to help pay for goods and services and make sure that our country runs --
HAQ: Can we remind everybody that those tax cuts didn't go to the majority of Americans, that they went to corporations and the top one percent of the population?
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MARTIN: One you know the benefits --
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MARTIN: -- that is verifiably false.
PHILLIP: Look, I think a more accurate way of describing it is that a larger chunk of the benefits from the tax cuts that were extended in the last bill would benefit people in the higher income brackets. That is true.
RANTZ: Who are job creators and stimulators of the economy, which part of the conversation --
PHILLIP: Hey, listen, I'm just saying, do you --
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RANTZ: --just roll that out there.
PHILLIP: -- do you acknowledge that that is true? You can characterize if that's good -- RANTZ: When you look at --
PHILLIP: -- or versus bad, but I' saying --
RANTZ: -- rates, but I'm simply saying, it's not accurate to say that the majority of people benefit from this. That is not a reasonable perspective to take on this, and it's just not what it says.
PHILLIP: Right. So, it's not that the majority of people don't benefit. It's that the majority of the benefit from the tax cuts go to the wealthiest people.
RANTZ: When we all benefit, it helps everyone. That's part of why we supported these things. I benefit the same way you benefit, the same way that we all benefit.
PHILLIP: So --
RANTZ: And when -- even just because the wealthy are getting some of these cuts, it does not mean --
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RANTZ: -- yes.
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RANTZ: Yes. They also pay a disproportionately higher number of raw --
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PHILLIP: So, that's a -- because that's a good budget for just the moment.
HAQ: I know. This is like the tiny violin for the billionaires right now.
PHILLIP: Trump wants to -- he is asking for $152 million to reopen Alcatraz because he just likes it, even though Alcatraz has been closed for many, many years and is not really a realistic way to house prisoners in the United States. He has found money for Melania Trump's priorities. But as we mentioned earlier, the program that helps low income people and seniors fuel their homes in the winter that is getting slashed. So, look, I mean, priorities are priorities, right? And this is a budget that is -- looks like something that Democrats are going to be very eager to run on.
HAQ: Well, and it's -- exactly. They're running on it as opposition, as some Republicans may be put in that tough position, right, to also have to not only about deficit, but talk about the fact that they already passed $150 billion for the Pentagon budget, which, at the time, prior to this Iran war, you had multiple Pentagon sources and leadership saying, we don't actually know what to do with all this money, because we didn't actually request it.
This is something the president is giving us. We don't know what to do with it. So, now add on top of that, triple that, that $350 billion that the president wants to pass through reconciliation, which means without debate, just straight through Republicans, and then you have like another $1 trillion, I mean, it gets to the point where the numbers stop making sense, and I will -- to make it on the record --
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RANTZ: That's always the case.
HAQ: -- half of American states spend $350 billion on all of their healthcare. That's the kind of trade-offs --
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[22:45:00]
PHILLIP: Even on the politics of this on the Republican side, a couple of Republicans have indicated they don't support it. John Curtis says, I can't support funding for their military operations in Iran. He is talking about without a declaration of war from Congress. Tim Burchett says, I'm very wary of excessive spending on defense. This may not be smooth sailing, and at least to your point, $350 billion of this money is going to need to come through a purely partisan process.
RANTZ: It is a starting off point for negotiations. I mean, presidents generally don't get the budget that they put forward. The last time he put forward a budget, he didn't get actually what he wanted, and spending was pretty much stagnant. So, I think at the end of the day, it actually might benefit some Republicans more than people might think. I mean, we hear the talking point often from Democrats that they cave to everything that Donald Trump wants, and now he has got a budget that they're not going to cave to.
PHILLIP: Now they get to push back on Trump just in time for the midterms.
RANTZ: But to be clear, there are some things that people do support across the board.
PHILLIP: After Pam Bondi is ousted, the rest of Trump's officials in his government are watching their backs tonight. They're worried that they may be next. We'll talk about who might be the most at risk, next.
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[22:50:00]
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PHILLIP: Tonight, I don't think anybody is safe. That is the ominous warning that one White House source tells CNN about the job security prospects of Trump's cabinet. The recent ouster of Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi has fanned fears inside the administration that even more firings could be coming. A person close to the president calls that, quote, "a recalibration", and about half a dozen sources tell CNN that Trump is more willing to cut ties now, given his frustration with his declining approval numbers and the increasingly bleak warning signs for Republican chances in the midterms.
Some of the officials on the possible hot seat are Labor Department Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, FBI Director Kash Patel, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. One interesting note on Lori Chavez-DeRemer is that, according to CNN, it could cause a headache for the White House, according to one source, because media reaction would focus on the fact that all three of Trump's first high-profile firings were ladies, women.
RANTZ: She was not particularly popular amongst Republicans because of her positions when she was in the House. This is someone who has got a little bit of a scandal that's been brewing since early January about a potential inappropriate relationship with the staff member. So, that one would probably be really easy. And as much as people might want to focus on the optics, at least in that particular case, there is a really easy fall back to a point here to say why she was on the list.
HAQ: If we're looking at inappropriate, Howard Lutnick, Epstein Island, like you just want to get rid of that whole story and also the fact that he forgets that people actually do need Social Security. They're not trying to build the system when they're using it. I mean, he referenced of his grandmother. Of course, you're Howard Lutnick, You have billions of dollars. Your grandmother doesn't need the money. I feel like that would be continuing to bury the Epstein file challenge of it all. But Kash Patel, again, I'm not sure how -- when I was a government official, there was -- none of those things were an option for me to do.
PHILLIP: Trump has been reluctant, at least in this term, to fire people, but even that might be a bit of an overstatement, because let's remember, even though the last 12 months have felt like 100 years, it has been just a year, and already two cabinet officials are gone. So -- I mean, actually, that's churn. That's a decent amount of churn for an administration.
SEAT: Yeah. I was going to say when you were leading up to that, he doesn't want chaos, and I thought, well, that's silly. Why would I say that? But a word of advice to these cabinet members, if the president asks any of them to put on a Red Star Fleet shirt and come to the Oval Office, just say no, because that will be the sign that you're going to be fired. We know what happened to anyone wearing a red shirt on a landing party.
Look, the reality is this quote about everyone is watching their back or whatever, every cabinet job is on the line every single day. You work at the pleasure of the president. That was true when I was in the George W. Bush White House. It's true in the Donald Trump White House. They should always operate under the assumption that they could be fired that very day, and particularly in this White House, because Donald Trump enjoys saying you're fired.
PHILLIP: But should they be -- I mean, should -- I mean, are there people that should be gone at this point? I mean, there have been problems. (CROSSTALK)
SEAT: He got rid of two pretty objectionable ones. There is a reason. There were lot of embarrassments --
PHILLIP: Kristi Noem is gone for a reason, not just because -- yeah.
SEAT: -- a lot of distractions. And I think it shows that this president is not as isolated as advertised. He is responsive to what people are saying.
PHILLIP: A quick last word, Isaiah.
MARTIN: I just think it's really interesting, because just like one year ago, Trump said this was the most competent cabinet in the history of America. Now we see them -- it seems like they're almost dropping like pies. I think that ultimately, when it comes to this administration, Pam Bondi was somebody who covered up for the worst of the worst people in the list, and I think that ultimately, what's going on in this country.
Look, Trump is very reactive to his poll numbers. I think that we all know that. And so, he is very cognizant of the fact that he sees House seats on the table. He sees that his numbers are not looking good. So, he needs to scapegoat. I think then he is going to look for that every step of the way.
PHILLIP: All right. Coming up for us, new pictures from space, the crew of the Artemis II giving us a jaw-dropping view of Earth, plus a glimpse at life inside the Orion spacecraft.
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[22:55:00]
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PHILLIP: This weekend, a look at 50 years of Apple, with more than 2.5 billion users worldwide. CNN's Bill Weir dives into how the company has impacted society. The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper airs on Saturday at 10:00 p.m. on CNN and you can watch it on the CNN app.
And thank you very much for watching NewsNight. Catch our Saturday show "Table for Five" tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. Eastern.
And in the meantime, Laura Coates Live starts right now.
