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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Vows Attacks If No Deal At Deadline, No More Mr. Nice Guy; Some U.S. Officials Privately Acknowledge Trump's Rhetoric Unhelpful; Trump Says His Energy Secretary Totally Wrong on Gas Prices; White House Announces the Stepping Down of Lori Chavez- DeRemer; Energy Secretary Says Gas Prices May Stay Above $3 Until Next Year; Virginia's Redistricting Vote May Confuse and Mislead Voters. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired April 20, 2026 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, from his rhetoric --
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Well, I think we're going to end it.
This war has been won.
PHILLIP: -- to new reporting that he was kept out of the room. Is Donald Trump actually a hindrance to ending this war?
Plus, when will Americans see $3 gas again?
CHRIS WRIGHT, ENERGY SECRETARY: That could happen later this year. That might not happen until next year.
PHILLIP: The president disagrees and lashes out.
Also, what could galvanize a skeptical MAGA base, a supreme surprise, or a redistricting rumble?
And --
JOE ROGAN, HOST, THE JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE: Do you want FDA approval? Let's do it.
TRUMP: Let's get it done immediately.
PHILLIP: -- one Fox host suggests psychedelics along with porn and gambling is just another step in society's downfall.
Live at the table, Keith Boykin, Jason Rantz, Keisha Lance Bottoms, Horace Cooper and Geraldo Rivera.
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.
51 days, that's how long the U.S. has been at war with Iran so far. Trump initially said that it could last two to three days, then it was two to three weeks, then four to five weeks. Now, we're in week eight and talks are expected to resume tomorrow. So, has Trump now become the biggest obstacle in ending this conflict?
On Friday, the president declared victory, saying that the Strait of Horus was over and that fight was over with Iran. But then moments later, he said that the U.S. would blockade Iran until there was a deal made. And then Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz yet again. On Sunday, Trump told ABC that J.D. Vance would not be attending the peace talks in Pakistan. Then 90 minutes later, ABC reported that the White House said that Vance would in fact be going. Then today, Trump told The New York Post that Vance is traveling there right now, but sources tell CNN that they aren't leaving until tomorrow morning. And then this morning Trump says that tomorrow's ceasefire deadline would not be extended, but then later he told Bloomberg that the ceasefire ends Wednesday night, Washington time, not Tuesday.
And if all of that isn't enough to illustrate the spin, or at least perhaps how out of the loop he might be, we're now learning that Trump's inner circle has tried to limit war updates from him. A senior official told The Wall Street Journal that after a U.S. pilot was shot down over Iran, aides kept the president out of the room because they felt that Trump's impatience wouldn't be helpful.
CNN has also learned that last week, the U.S. and Iran were closing in on a deal, but Trump's social media frenzy and media interviews hurt the negotiations. Some Trump officials privately acknowledged to CNN that Trump's public commentary has in fact been detrimental to these talks. And making matters even more difficult, American officials suspect that there is a divide inside of Iran's negotiating team.
All of this, the last 72 hours of constant interviews and the president giving different narratives at dawn, and then another one at dusk, and then the Iranians basically saying, we don't even know what to believe, it does suggest that the president is trying to play a narrative game that is very different from what might be negotiating -- might be happening at the negotiating table. And I'm not sure that it's wrong that the Iranians are not sure what to believe or who to believe in this negotiation.
JASON RANTZ, SEATTLE RED RADIO HOST: Well, I wouldn't trust anything coming from Iran, that they're not trustworthy actors in this.
I think what this shows, and it's good and bad. So, the president being out there and actually talking to the American people and talking to the press and giving updates is important and that's something that we didn't get under the last administration. The problem, however, that can sometimes but up against is the fact that this is an evolving situation, that something that is true at 9:00 A.M. might not be true at 11:00 A.M. And that's part of the problem that I think the president will run into with trying to be transparent. And, again, we probably want more of that. We were told that from the beginning that, you know, the president wasn't clear enough as to why he was doing what he was doing, and now he's coming out and he's saying where he stands.
[22:05:03]
And I think that there's underappreciation from that perspective. Because does it cause some chaos sometimes? Yes, it does. There's no denying that. But to spin this completely as if it's a bad thing that he's actually talking to the American people, I don't think, is fair.
KEITH BOYKIN, FORMER CLINTON WHITE HOUSE AIDE: Because it's not just talking, it's chaos. There's no clear communicated message that he's delivering to the American public. One day, he's saying he wants unconditional surrender, next day, let's make a deal. One day, we're going to take away Iran's oil, next day, we're going to actually let them sell more oil. You know, one day he wants one thing, the next day he wants something else.
The guy has not been consistent with the American people, and that's the problem. The second problem is that with Donald Trump saying this every day, something different that the public doesn't know, but Iran doesn't know how to respond to this. Our allies don't know how to respond to this. We're all caught off guard waiting for Trump inside what's in his head from day-to-day.
RANTZ: Well, Iran has been responding. They came to the table for the ceasefire conversation after some of the, quote/unquote, chaos coming from the White House. So, you can dismiss or maybe disagree with tactics, but I do think that there is a method to them. Whether or not we like them, I think that is a fair --
PHILLIP: Method to Trump's tactics?
RANTZ: Yes. So, Trump's tactics, specifically how he's negotiating.
PHILLIP: Saying different things hour by hour.
RANTZ: But it's not --so when he's saying different things hour by hour, I do think that the important piece is that --
PHILLIP: I mean that is essentially what's happening. And also --
RANTZ: Giving updates.
PHILLIP: well, it only is an update if it's actually accurate. I think part of the problem is, for example, Trump announcing the Strait of Hormuz was open, that wasn't a done deal. So, when you announce something that hasn't actually been agreed to, what does that constitute? Is that an update or is that just market manipulation, false information? What do you want to call it?
GERALDO RIVERA, PEABODY AWARD-WINNING JOURNALIST: Oh, my sense is that the president doesn't have a clear idea of what he wants, he has a general idea. I think if I were chief negotiator for Iran, what I would do what the Iranians always do. I would just lie, say we're going to give up our nukes, you know, take them, come, we'll arrange this, we'll negotiate the means and we'll get this done. And then the reason being the real nuclear weapon is the Strait of Hormuz. You don't have to go and mess around with A-bombs. You have a chokepoint where he -- the Iranians have humbled the whole free enterprise system. They panicked everybody. Every American watching this program and walking the streets that has a car is looking every day at the price of gasoline and their lives are upended.
This was a war that they had no idea was going to last this long. It's so, so messy. And no one knows really when it's going to end or whether the president will, you know, drag his heels and, you know, pull as much as he can temporizing ad hoc, improvise.
PHILLIP: So, Horace to Geraldo's point, I mean, there's been -- Reuters had an interesting story about European allies being afraid that an inexperienced U.S. negotiating team is pushing for a swift headline-grabbing framework for Iran that would entrench rather than resolve deeper problems. The concern, according to the diplomats, is that there won't -- it's not that there won't be an agreement. It's that there will be a bad initial agreement that creates endless downstream problems. Another negotiator said it took us 12 years in immense technical work. Does anyone think that this can be done in 21 hours?
HORACE COOPER, LEGAL COMMENTATOR: I'm really surprised to hear that the chocolatiers of Planet Earth are complaining about the leadership that is being shown in this effort. We now know that they have -- they had developed a missile capacity that actually could reach the greatest croissant and coffee bars in Europe, and yet only America stepped in to act.
BOYKIN: I was wondering where the chocolatier thing came from. I was wondering if I missed that memo.
PHILLIP: Well, I mean, look, as we've discussed before, that may be true, but it also begs the question, why didn't the Trump administration even bother to involve the Europeans in a decision to go into this war?
COOPER: Because they won't --
PHILLIP: But then, secondly, on the issue of whether Trump just wants a headline, is it a risk here that he might get a headline, but that the real work of verifying, removing nuclear materials, all of that gets left for someone else to deal with or gets left for the indefinite future in which we're just going back and forth with the Iranians for years and years and years about how to actually make sure that this thing is verified?
KEISHA LANCE BOTTOMS (D), GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE, GEORGIA: Yes. This gives new meaning to loose lips sink ships. I mean, literally he is putting our safety at risk by not being disciplined.
[22:10:00] And what concerns me most of all is that, as I'm moving around Georgia and talking to people, the affordability issue is still not being addressed. Gas prices are still going up across this nation. And there is a concept for plan of war. There is no plan and it is creating chaos in the lives of people. And I think you're going to see this reflected in the way that people show up this election year, this midterm cycle, to express their frustration with Donald Trump.
COOPER: Look, I don't want to oversell what is happening, but AAA announces every single morning what the price nationally was when the date ended yesterday, and we've had seven straight days of the price dropping. And --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: We have a whole segment coming up about the economic concern, so we'll get to that in just a second.
But just back to the state of the negotiations right now and also the state of the president, I mean, I think that's a huge part of this is that the president himself seems to be getting frustrated. The Wall Street Journal had a piece about this, as we talked about in the introduction here, and he's distracted, he wants to get back to the ballroom. He, at one point, mused that he should award himself the nation's highest military honor, the Medal of Honor.
RANTZ: It was a joke. That's how we jokes. I mean, come on --
PHILLIP: Maybe that was a joke, but Trump wants this thing done and it's not done, and it may not be done. I mean, he did extend the deadline. He extended it probably another day. So, it may not be done even with that extended deadline.
BOYKIN: That's the biggest disadvantage he has in this negotiation. He wants it resolve because he wants the oil prices to go back down. He wants the gas prices to go back down. He wants inflation to go back down, and he doesn't have any control over that. Iran still controls the Strait of Hormuz. So, that means he's in a position to make a bad deal. And I don't think he wants to be in that position. But that's the reason why you have decisions that are being made where they're keeping him out of the room because they're afraid he's so mercurial.
RANTZ: No, that's not why. That's not what the reporting said. That's not what the reporting said. Come on. Listen --
PHILLIP: He is concerned. It sounds like he's nervous that whatever comes out of this might be compared to the JCPOA. He's been sending --
RANTZ: But he should be concerned about whether or not we're going to revert back to a plan that wasn't particularly serving this country.
PHILLIP: But I guess my point is that if he thinks that it's even a close call that what he might get out of this is substantially similar enough that people might compare it to the thing that he pulled out of, that seems to indicate a state of mind here. RANTZ: But The Wall Street Journal, this report made it clear that he's actually really involved and he's been hesitant to make moves that could cost American lives. He's doing the opposite of what we were told by a lot of Democrats early on, that he was impulsive, that he's a warmonger. The reporting suggests completely the opposite.
I mean, part of the reason why they wanted to pull him out of the room for some of the conversations on the rescuing of American pilots was because he was eager to get minute by minute updates because he actually wanted to protect an American citizen. That's actually something that we would want from our president, although it can get in the way. Sure, we've all been in positions where maybe we're a little bit too eager for an update from God knows what, but that's the reality.
RIVERA: He thought this war would be over in days. He had no idea.
RANTZ: He said from the beginning --
RIVERA: He had no idea that it was going to be this protracted struggle. And this fight, this gutter fight, this knife fight, he had no idea. And because it is improv, you never know where the, sometimes it's genius and other times it's disastrous. What's going to happen in Islamabad if the Iranians say, you have to blink first in terms of the Strait of Hormuz, what's going to happen? And there'll be an impasse. What's the president going to say are going to wipe out your civilization?
RANTZ: Well, we have the leverage right now over Iran. We don't have to worry about anything beyond right now, the politics, which is an important piece that we have.
RIVERA: What leverage?
RANTZ: Well, we have double the amount of Air Forces right now --
(CROSSTALKS)
RIVERA: The whole western (INAUDIBLE) has an advantage over Iran. If you were just talking about the United States muscle compared to Iranian muscle, of course, the United States has the muscle.
RANTZ: Okay. So, then we do have --
RIVERA: But it's the question of whether or not you really want to use all that to what? What do you want to do? Blow up the bridges, blow up the bridges, blow up the power plants?
RANTZ: When the Strait of Hormuz is slowed down or stopped, does it hurt the United States as much as it hurts Iran economically? That's a big piece of -- that is a very big piece of the leverage that we have.
(CROSSTALKS)
RANTZ: But, I'm sorry, but we do have an economic leverage over Iran. PHILLIP: We're in that place right now where the Strait of Hormuz is shut down and we will find out exactly how much leverage that gives us, because it's been a minute since the blockade has worked, but Iran is still -- we're not at a deal yet.
[22:15:10]
We have not --
BOYKIN: So, Iran has more cards here. Iran has more cards than the Trump administration was ever willing to admit. And we are the world's greatest military power.
RANTZ: We have the cards.
BOYKIN: Let me finish. We are the world's greatest military power, the United States. We have a $1 trillion military budget. We spend more on our defense than the next ten nations combined. Iran is not even in that list. They're a middle power. And yet after how many days has it been now, 48 days has been -- we've been at war with them and we still have -- 51, we still haven't been able to defeat them because they control the Strait of Hormuz, something that everyone who thought about this knew that that was likely to happen. Except Donald Trump was so mercurial, again, that he was willing to rush in without thinking about the consequences.
RANTZ: No. I know that is a piece of the talking point that's coming out.
BOYKIN: No, that's the reality. That's what's happening now.
RANTZ: But the reality, is from a military perspective, we could in fact destroy Iran. We're choosing not to do that because that would be in fact war crime.
BOYKIN: Because that's genocide.
RANTZ: Exactly my point.
BOYKIN: And Trump is threatening genocide on a regular basis.
RANTZ: No, he's not.
BOYKIN: He did so on Easter.
RANTZ: No, he's --
PHILLIP: So, Jason, let me let you finish your point so we can understand where you're going with that.
RANTZ: Where I'm going is that we had clear military objectives, which we have achieved.
BOYKIN: Which were?
RANTZ: We have a greater vulnerability, that's not just for the United States, but for the world, that the Strait of Hormuz has been under the control of Iran. That is not in the best interest of anyone. This right now is making that point. The Strait of Hormuz is supposed to be open for every single country to travel through. And if we're able to --
PHILLIP: And it's not.
BOYKIN: That was not a military objective. The Strait of Hormuz was open --
PHILLIP: Hold on. So, it's not. So --
RANTZ: Yes. But if it was, would that not be a win for the globe?
PHILLIP: Yes, of course.
RANTZ: It would be.
PHILLIP: But just to be clear, that would be the status quo prior to the war?
RANTZ: No. Prior to the war, Iran had control of the Strait of Hormuz. It was a different kind of --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: The status prior to the war was that there was free travel through the Strait of Hormuz. And to your -- maybe to your point, Iran could have utilized perhaps control over the Strait of Hormuz. But they --
RANTZ: That's always the threat.
PHILLIP: Yes, but they didn't. So, getting us back to where we were on February 28th, that would be sort of like the minimum baseline consequence of this conflict.
COOPER: Not true at all, Abby.
PHILLIP: It would not be necessarily some kind of added bonus that would justify --
RANTZ: Well, they don't have any air force anymore. They don't have --
COOPER: Exactly where I was going to.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: I want to be totally clear, when we're talking about the Strait of Hormuz, I just want to be clear, that reopening the strait just gets us back to where we were 51 days ago. It doesn't actually 50 days do anything different.
COOPER: The open strait came with it, a country with nuclear ambitions that was a terrorist state. PHILLIP: Sure, of course. And they're still a terrorist state and they still have their nuclear material in their country. So, that hasn't changed either.
COOPER: That has been greatly attenuated.
PHILLIP: All right, to be continued.
Next for us, Donald Trump's energy secretary makes a sobering prediction about gas prices to which the president hits back.
Plus, is there an October surprise looming in the form of another Supreme Court vacancy? Some Republicans sure hope so. We'll discuss next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: President Trump and his team can't seem to get on the same page when it comes to gas prices. Tonight, Americans are paying more than $4 a gallon as the Iran war drives up oil prices. That's a dollar more than before the conflict began.
So, when can people actually see those pre-war prices again? Well, here's Trump's energy secretary with a warning.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: When do you think it's realistic for Americans to expect the guests will go back to under $3 a gallon?
WRIGHT: I don't know. That could happen later this year. That might not happen until next year. But prices have likely peaked and they'll start going down. Certainly, with a resolution of this conflict, you'll see prices go down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: But President Trump is disputing all that. He told the Hill that his own energy secretary is, quote, wrong on that, totally wrong.
Now, keep in mind, Trump conceded earlier this month that gas prices wouldn't budge anytime soon. Then he contradicted himself just days later.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARIA BARTIROMO, FOX BUSINESS HOST: Do you believe the price of oil and gas will be lower before the midterm elections?
TRUMP: I hope so. I mean, I think so. It could be. It could be or the same or maybe a little bit higher. But it should be around the same.
BARTIROMO: Do you think gas prices will be lower before the midterm elections? TRUMP: I think they'll be much lower before midterm, much lower.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, Horace, you were pointing out that there has been a ticking down, but it's been a slow ticking down of the gas prices, and as we have been discussing. The Strait of Hormuz is still closed. So, the reason for the inflation of prices is still there and 51 percent of Americans say that this has been a hardship for them, a financial hardship. It is possible that we might not see lower gas prices before the midterms, and then what for Republicans?
COOPER: Well, it's possible, but I actually am not nearly as pessimistic as some. I worked in the Bush administration and I was among those appointees who said, after a war in Iraq, a lot of people would expect fuel prices to go down, and the president's plan, Mr. Bush, at the time was not to exploit that.
[22:25:02]
But there's a phenomenon here at work that's a little different, and that is West Texas Intermediate versus Worldwide Brent Crude. There has been a gap between the prices of the two and it is widening. And the reason for that is that when we have far more than we could ever produce, there are going to be local distributors in the United States that are going to start offering lower and lower prices.
The West Texas Intermediate is actually the biggest pull on worldwide crude prices. But if the Strait of Hormuz doesn't get resolved, it is not going to be a year-long process in the United States for that gap to get to $5 to get to $10, to get to $25 a barrel, because we have more than we can use.
BOTTOMS: Yes. I mean, it, this is one of these issues that's coming up for everybody every day. I was at the gas station last week. I saw a young man, he said, is that war still going on? He said, I'm so sick of these high gas prices. So, people are laying it directly into Trump's lap, as they should, but also we've got to think about this trickledown effect. Delta Airlines said that they expect to pay $2 billion more for oil. What does that mean, one, for people who may have -- may fly a lot, obviously, but for people who work for the airline, people who are associated with the industry.
So, it is a concern. Obviously, anytime we are in the midst of a war, that is a concern in and of itself, but how long will this go on, what will this mean to the American people, because this affordability issue is not a hoax. People are concerned about rising healthcare costs. Now, they're concerned about fuel costs. They're concerned about housing costs, and the list goes on.
PHILLIP: It's not just -- and it's not just it's not just gas prices. And, I mean, maybe what you're saying will happen. We haven't really seen it yet. We've seen the global market really controlling prices globally regardless of how much we produce. There's fertilizer. There are other goods that go through the Strait of Hormuz that drive up prices, in general, drive up costs for Americans. That's part of the concern too.
RANTZ: Yes. It's a political issue. I don't think it harms Republicans alone. And Democrats should be worried about two talking points from Republicans that's based in reality. Number one, we didn't hear a whole lot of concern from Democrats when gas prices were considerably more -- that were considerably higher than they currently are. In fact, it was quite the opposite. It was almost by design that they were driving up the cost of gasoline because they didn't want you driving in a gas-powered vehicle. That's just a reality, especially on the West Coast.
Number two, all we have to do is point out we have really high gas taxes that we can give a gas tax holiday at the local level. Many Democrats, although I don't think it will --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: (INAUDIBLE) driving up gas prices?
RANTZ: Well, when you ban --
PHILLIP: How is that possible when the driver of gas prices in the Biden administration was the war in Ukraine?
RANTZ: Well, no. I'm sorry, that's -- yes. So --
PHILLIP: I'm sorry, what?
RANTZ: In particular in Washington State, for example, and in California, you have incredibly high -- let me -- just let me make my one point.
PHILLIP: No. I'm talking about the overall nationwide, not in your state, nationwide, that, you're right, extremely high gas prices in the Biden administration. And I should note that ended not so well for them, so there's that. But the idea that they intentionally drove up gas prices to get people to drive E.V.s, that doesn't --
RANTZ: Well, they actually ban -- I mean, they were banning the sale of gas-powered vehicles, new gas-powered vehicles.
PHILLIP: No, but did they intentionally drive up gas prices to drive E.V. sales?
RANTZ: No, not to drive E.V. sales but to get you out of gas-powered vehicles.
PHILLIP: How so? What is the mechanism by which they drove up gas prices?
RANTZ: Well, you have --
PHILLIP: They've forced Russia to invade Ukraine?
RANTZ: No, but you're pointing to one particular piece. And I'm not disputing -- PHILLIP: That was the largest driver of gas prices increasing.
RANTZ: I'm sorry, I'm not disputing that had an impact on gas prices, but I do say that when you have incredibly high state gas taxes, while at the same time you have Democrats who have actively said they're trying to get you out of these vehicles and gas being put -- that's an impact.
(CROSSTALKS)
RIVERA: But what about the oil companies? What about the oil -- you're talking about driving up the price? What about the oil companies and their tens of billions of dollars in excess profits because the price of a barrel of gas on the international oil -- on an international market is determined by the international --
[22:30:00]
RANTZ: But are we disputing when the policies can end --
RIVERA: And also billion of dollars in (INAUDIBLE) profits. So, in other words, when our price -- when the price goes open at the pump, the people that are, the companies that are making the money are the oil companies. It's, you know, why don't we, rather than reduce their profits, why don't we let them pay excess profit tax.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: That's been something that's talked about. The reason I said it was a hoax is the trend line for higher fuel prices began early in the Biden administration as it pursued EPA regulations --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Okay. Maybe that is true, but it is -- are you disputing that the war in Ukraine
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: The primary driver was not the war.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: -- was not the driver
(CROSSTALK)
BOYKIN: That is not true.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: -- for the huge jump in gas prices?
COOPER: I dispute that.
(CROSSTALK) PHILLIP: All right, most people don't dispute that. But anyway, Keith, go ahead.
BOYKIN: I looked at the gas price history today on the Federal Reserve side and the AAA sites. The spike in gas prices happened in 2023 after Russia invaded Ukraine, and it remained high for several months and it came down later that year. And by the time Joe Biden left office, gas prices were about $3.21 from $5. Now, currently, gas prices are higher today than they were when Joe Biden left office. But the driver of gas prices was the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The difference today is that Donald Trump has created a self-inflicted wound on American consumers by forcing this war on us against Iran has caused gas prices to spike to $4 a gallon.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER:
RANTZ: Why don't Democrats agree to getting rid of the statewide --
BOYKIN: Donald Trump started this.
BOTTOMS: The gas tax has been suspended in Georgia, and gas is still high in Georgia right now.
RANTZ: Yes, I'm saying there are things that you can do right now at a state-by-state basis that would drive the taxes --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: And states are doing that, but it doesn't change the fact that gas prices are high.
COOPER: Fuel prices, according to the Federal Reserve, on the last day of the Trump administration, the first one was below $2.
UNKNOWN: Ancient history. Let's talk about today.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Wait, wait, wait, wait, it's not ancient history. The trajectory is that it continued to spike. Now, here is a point to Geraldo Rivera.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Hold on. And continued to spike, and then it did what?
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: And then it came back down. So, you've got to finish -- you've got to finish the history. You can't just tell half the history.
(CROSSTALK) COOPER: -- back down. It released -- the President released from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
UNKNOWN: Oh, come on. When it became a political issue.
COOPER: I want to respond to all those --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Trump released from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, as well, okay? Presidents have --
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: Not as much.
PHILLLIP: He did it. He did it multiple times. So you can't just lay that all on Joe Biden's feet. President Trump has done the same thing. All right, we got to go onto the -- okay. Quick, please.
COOPER: Demand during the Biden administration for fuel dropped. So, all companies could in fact sell more, profit more, and they didn't have to sell as much. That's a dangerous situation for our country to get in where the oil companies can sit fat and happy and they don't have to go drill. They don't have to go extract. They're not doing that today.
PHILLIP: Well, look, they're --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: And also, the United States increased its oil production. Under Biden, too, it continued when Trump came into office. But again, like, you can't tell half the history. Oil production continued to increase under Biden and it has continued since then. That's why we are a net exporter now of oil when we weren't before.
So anyway, next for us. President Trump and Barack Obama now are both pleading with voters tonight on the eve of a major redistricting battle in Virginia. But did the President start this fight? We'll discuss.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:38:53]
PHILLIP: Tonight, he's facing an increasingly unpopular war and a fractured MAGA base, and he's on the eve of a redistricting battle that may cost Republicans up to four seats in Congress. And Donald Trump is final pitch tonight to Virginia voters.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: What's going to happen if we lose these elections, you know, the House, and this case, the House, and just, it's going to be a disaster. If they do this, they're guaranteed to pick up a lot of seats. And it's everybody knows it's unjust, including them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Before we jump in, Keisha, we should mention that you have a book out tomorrow, "The Rough Side of the Mountain." It's right here. You can pick it up in stores tomorrow or you could pre-order it tonight for all (inaudible).
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: But this redistricting fight, actually I'll start with you on this because this has been a change. Some might call it a flip-flop on Democrats' parts that they are now in favor of redistricting. How do think this is going to end up?
BOTTOMS: Well, you know, when you start a fight, you better be prepared to finish it. And I don't think that Donald Trump saw this coming, that states are now pushing back.
[22:40:03]
Democrats are fighting back against this thing that he started, this unraveling of these maps. And there's no turnout machine like the Donald Trump turnout machine in this year. And by that, I mean, he is going to energize Democrats, I believe, to come out and vote in favor of this redistricting plan. And it's unfortunate that we are here, but this is something, this was a can of worms that he opened, and now Democrats are responding in kind.
RIVERA: A pox (ph) on both their houses, I think, that's why people hate politicians, with due respect, not you.
BOTTOMS: Not me.
RIVERA: But I -- if you can change the rules in mid in mid game. You know, what kind of business is that? And I, you know, Texas, I blame them for starting it -- due respect, but it spread and then Gavin Newsom counted with California. And now, Virginia is up and the districts look, you know, so contrived. They look so unfair. They look like there's three Puerto Rican people over here and two black people over here. They drilled the district and they circled their house. They circled their house. And you were supposed to have faith in the electoral system when it's so clearly rigged. It's really a --
(CROSSTALK)
BOYKIN: So, what would you do, Geraldo? But let me ask you a question.
(CROSSTALK)
RIVERA: Here's what I would do. I'm glad you asked. Well, me just say the quick answer is I would limit gerrymandering to at least every decade or some kind of uniform rule for every --
(CROSSTALK) PHILLIP: Well, that is typically -- that is typically how it is supposed to be. One of the things that makes this moment so different is because, to Keisha's point, Republicans decided they wanted to do it not every decade. They wanted to do it mid-decade. And that's what's made this a different kind of gerrymandering fight.
BOYKIN: Exactly right. The reason I was asking you the question is because I agree with you. I don't think that we should be gerrymandering districts. I don't like the weird shapes of the districts. I don't like the idea of doing this in the middle of a decade instead of when we have a census. But the reason why Democrats are doing this now is because Donald Trump sent a message to every Republican governor out there that he needs them to go and win the midterm elections for them.
And so, Democrats had no choice but to fight back. We were -- I don't even speak for the Democratic Party, but Democrats --
(CROSSTALK)
RIVERA: Chisellers (ph) never win.
BOYKIN: Democrats can't give into -- to that type of threat with just unilateral disarmament. If one side is taking advantage of changing the rules in the game, you can't just stay back and say, okay, well, I'm going to play by the rules. Democrats have done that long, far too long. It's time to fight back, fight fire with fire.
PHILLIP: Jason, should Republicans regret starting this mid-decade redistricting (inaudible)?
RANTZ: It depends on what the math looks like when this is all said and done across the country. You're taking --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: So, no if it works for them and yes if it doesn't.
RANTZ: No, if we get to a point where we basically moved a bunch of stuff around but the numbers are still the numbers overall, then it didn't cost them anything but potentially good people in certain states.
PHILLIP: It also may have cost them a precedent which now is set that any party in power can try to do this.
RANTZ: They do that now anyway. This idea that redistricting as a general fight was only started now. He started the current issue, yes, but redistricting has happened all the time and it's been weaponized by Democrats as much as it has been by Republicans. And then I will put a red state map up against a blue state map in Illinois.
(CROSSTALK)
RANTZ: I just said that this current battle was started by the Republicans. Redistricting as a whole was not started by Republicans. It didn't just start within the last year
PHILLIP: Let me give Horace a quick last word.
COOPER: Okay. It would be okay in my view for all the states to want to redistrict whenever they want to since it's constitutional. Just don't cheat. What did the state of Virginia do? They had a bill that they introduced two years ago and they treated it as pending until after a gubernatorial election so that they could bring it forward. That is cheating and that is why the Virginia --
PHILLIP: How is that cheating if it's permissible? If it is permissible in their legislative rules, how is that cheating? So secondly --
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: The Virginia Supreme Court is going to say no to that.
PHILLIP: It' going to, okay, well they haven't --
(CROSSTALK)
(LAUGHTER)
COOPER: They haven't held a final decision.
PHILLIP: One thing that's interesting to me is that Virginia and California are heading to the voters, so the voters are ultimately going to decide. The same cannot be said of Texas, it can't be said of Indiana where Trump tried and failed.
[22:45:00]
It can't be said of Missouri. It can't be said of all these other states. So, you're seeing two different approaches to how to do this and I think that is also --
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: The legislature was not allowed to (inaudible) and then fix it by holding a popular vote.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: We will find out if they were acting illegally. I don't -- I actually don't -- I have no idea. I'm not an expert in Virginia law but we will find out. And maybe we'll discuss it again if you turn out to be right. Next for us, what Joe Rogan wants, Joe Rogan gets. The President and the podcaster, and Psychedelic Drug Research will discuss why not all of MAGA is happy about this idea.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:5016]
PHILLIP: President Trump is fast-tracking research into some psychedelic drugs, signing an executive order to lucid restrictions as part of a broader push to explore emerging mental health treatments. He also directed $50 million in federal funds to research one drug, which is not FDA-approved, but it's used in some countries to treat depression, anxiety, and PTSD in veterans.
But Fox News host Laura Ingraham isn't a fan. She writes that weed, psychedelics, online gambling, and OnlyFans are just another step in society's downfall. Geraldo, is your former colleague correct here?
RIVERA: You know, I grew up, there was no social media but they managed to find weed, they managed to find acid and LSD, managed to find whatever the drug of choice was, managed to find pornography, managed to find every other sin. I think that what has happened is the accelerating impact of social media and that it's just so much easier you do it at the click of a --
But I think that in terms of experimentation on psychedelics to fight PTSD or some other condition, I'm for anything that people think helps them. And I think that --
PHILLIP: It feels like that's a bit of a different ball game, you know, psychedelics in a controlled setting. But weed -- marijuana started out that way. Now, it's more or less legal in 40 states in Washington, D.C. And you can see how these things start to expand.
RANTZ: Yes, I think Laura's point, which I generally agree with, is more the cultural issues tied with all of those key pieces. And I think that that's very valid. I don't think any one of us can honestly say that we're all better off as a country because we've embraced drug culture and easy access to pornography, which has all sorts of downstream effects on relationships, on how boys treat girls and men treat women. I think those are fair points.
Separate from that, there is part of the Maha movement, this embrace of more biohacking as a way in psychedelics in particular. I don't see the harm in doing research into it, research that has been hindered, unfortunately. And there has been lots of research already done that shows great promise. But I'm concerned about the cultural acceptance of just leaning into more drug use which has destroyed many cities.
PHILLIP: Some people, I mean, maybe I'm one of them, I feel like the online gambling thing is probably the biggest advice that we're facing. Because it's not just -- it's not that gambling hasn't existed, it's just that now people can do it anywhere, anytime.
BOYKIN: Even the pilot markets too, that's a whole other thing.
UNKNOWN: Well, let me make a trade right now.
BOYKIN: I'm going to bet on what I'm going to say right now. I think that the market manipulation is going on in the Trump administration with the war, but I do think that the big issue you hear from me is I don't really care about whether psychedelics are legal or not, if they're helpful for people. That's not my concern. My concern is it looks like Trump is doing this in part because he wants to get Joe Rogan's base. And I hope that he's not doing it. I'm not saying that he's doing
entirely for that because I don't think he really cares about it either. I think in part he's doing it because he wants to get Joe Rogan's base. And I hope he's not doing pushing, he's not just asking for more research, he's pushing expedited research. I hope he's not doing that to promote politics instead of (inaudible).
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Let me just play this real quick. This is what Joe Rogan said about that this weekend.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE ROGAN, PODCASTER AND COMMENTATOR: I want to tell everybody how this happened. I sent President Trump some information. The text message came back, sounds great. Do you want FDA approval? Let's do it.
(LAUGHTER)
ROGAN: Literally that quick.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RANTZ: He followed up and said (inaudible) --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Is that really the way we're doing it here?
COOPER: I share a lot of Laura Ingraham's sympathies, too, about the cultural effects of a lot of this. There is a separate category with regard to new techniques and pharmaceuticals to treat people with depression.
PHILLIP: Right.
COOPER: But there is a huge downside with regard to this marijuana normalization and some of this other drug use. I had a kid come to my house and he was going to do a carpet steam thing. He walks in the door and he about erupts in my mind, in my eyes, with the aroma of the bad weed that he was on.
UNKNOWN: Is it in Texas?
COOPER: This was not in Texas. We are a non-marijuana state. But this was in Virginia where I still maintain residence, as well. And there, he said to me, but it's legal. That's a sign of something being normalized.
[22:55:01]
Bourbon's legal. I don't show up in the workplace drinking --
(CROSSTALK) RIVERA: But that's the point. That's why you don't blame the bourbon, you blame the drinker.
PHILLIP: All right.
RIVERA: You don't put --
PHILLIP: All right, we'll have to leave that one there. Everyone, thank you very much for being here. Next for us, breaking news tonight, another cabinet member is leaving the Trump White House. We'll tell you about it next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:00:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, another high profile exit from President Trump's cabinet. The White House announced that Labor Secretary Lori Chavez- DeRemer is stepping down and taking a job in the private sector. A source told CNN, a watchdog investigating a complaint that she was having a sexual relationship with a member of her security team and accusations of professional misconduct were happening at the same time. And her lawyer has called those allegations against her absurd.
Thank you very much for watching "NewsNight." "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
