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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Extends Iran Ceasefire Indefinitely, Vance Cancels Trip; U.S At Risk Of Running Out Of Missiles If Another War Erupts; Virginia Voters Approve Redrawing Map, Giving Democrats A Boost. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired April 21, 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, backing off. Donald Trump drops his deadline, extends the ceasefire without any apparent concessions from Iran. Does buying time play into Tehran's hands?
Plus, fire with fire. Virginia votes to potentially give Democrats four new seats in a mid-decade fight the president began.
Also, more Americans question Trump's mental acuity, while his followers question their support.
TUCKER CARLSON, HOST, THE TUCKER CARLSON SHOW: I want to say I'm sorry for misleading people.
PHILLIP: And the new edition of Mr. Telephone Man.
DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I spoke to him on the phone this morning.
KRISTEN WELKER, NBC NEWS ANCHOR: I had about a half-hour phone call with President Donald Trump.
BRET BAIER, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: I just got off the phone with the president.
PHILLIP: If you want to hear how the president's messaging this war, he says, call me, maybe?
Live at the table, Ashley Allison, Jason Rantz, Justin Pearson, Lauren Wright, 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.
President Trump is extending his ceasefire with Iran yet again, just a day before it was set to expire. In a post on Truth Social, Trump says that the truce will continue until Iran can come up with a unified proposal to permanently end the conflict. Until then, he says, the U.S. will continue to blockade the Strait of Hormuz.
The initial two-week deadline was set to expire today when it shifted to tomorrow evening. And now there is no clear timeline at all, even though an extension is something that Trump repeatedly insisted that he wouldn't do.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Does your threat from before still stand?
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Yes, I don't want to comment on that, but it won't be pleasant for them, let me put it that way.
If there's no deal, fighting resumes.
REPORTER: Just for clarity, you're willing to extend the ceasefire period if there's no deal?
TRUMP: Well, we'll see. I don't know that we'll have to. But ideally we will, but if I needed to, I would.
Maybe not, maybe I won't extend it, but the blockade is going to remain.
Well, I expect to be bombing because I think that's a better attitude to go in with. But, you know, we're ready to go. I mean, the military is raring to go.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: All of this happened as a second round of peace talks with Iran was expected to get underway with Vice President J.D. Vance set to travel to Pakistan. But we are learning that as Air Force One idled on the tarmac ahead of Vance's scheduled departure, Iran essentially ghosted the United States, telling -- his officials told CNN that the White House had sent an initial list of broad deal points that it wanted Iran to agree to before negotiations, but they never received a response. And that then raised questions about whether much of anything could be achieved in person.
The big question now is, where does this conflict go from here, and what comes next for the all-important Strait of Hormuz?
And this new reporting from CNN, Geraldo, that Iran basically did not answer them at all, and the explanation could be that they are fractured, as President Trump said. But the fact that the threat of a resumption of hostilities wasn't enough for them to scurry something together, what does that tell you about how much leverage the United States has by continuing to use force as a threat here?
GERALDO RIVERA, PEABODY AWARD-WINNING JOURNALIST: Well, that's a great question. I think they called his bluff. I think that the Iranians figured out that the whole TACO thing, the whole Trump always chickens out. You know, they estimated that his bluster, at first it shocked them and frightened them, and then the more they, I guess, became familiar with his M.O., the more they saw that he was all talk.
And that I think the other big point is Trump wildly underestimated the Iranians' capacity to suffer. I really think that he thought that by bombing and causing widespread devastation and all the rest of it, that he could leverage them into a negotiation. Instead, he watched them martyr themselves and strengthen their hand.
Yes, I don't know what's going on behind closed doors in Iran, by any means, but I suspect that Trump probably does, and the Israelis probably do, and they've come to the conclusion, and that's why they pulled off yesterday, come to the conclusion that it was disastrous to continue.
PHILLIP: I mean, it's also surprising that they would even schedule or even get to the point where they were committing the vice president to go to Pakistan when they hadn't even gotten sign-off on broad concepts of a deal.
[22:05:06]
JASON RANTZ, SEATTLE RED RADIO HOST: Well, I think that they were obviously hopeful. And, you know, to Geraldo's point, we don't actually know what's going on behind the scenes. I think it's fair to say that part of this is because they are in fact fractured, and that, of course, makes complete and total sense given the situation on the ground, that we would doubt that there is fractures within their leadership to the extent that it exists is kind of naive to me. I think, you know, you want to make sure that you're doing a lasting peace.
Yesterday, you had brought up, I think it was a Reuters piece that suggested that international leaders were kind of worried about whether or not the president was going to lead for a headline and just get something done. This shows again quite the opposite, that he's being thoughtful and not wanting to just grab a headline, and is in fact willing to take on a political cause so that we can get to a point where we have a lasting peace.
PHILLIP: I'm not sure that's what this shows, because it'd be one thing if the reporting indicated that we were close to something, headline, a lasting deal. It suggests that we weren't close to any of those things. We couldn't get them to even respond to broad strokes. You're willing to talk about your nuclear deal. Like that doesn't suggest that we were close to anything at all.
STATE REP. JUSTIN PEARSON (D-TN): No, and we shouldn't be in this war at all. These last seven weeks have been horrible for the United States of America and for people all across the globe. The reality is we've spent $60 billion on this war. It's going to be another billion or two by the time this show happens again tomorrow, and the cost has been real, and has been detrimental.
We've had over a dozen service members who have died, hundreds who have been wounded. In my community and the constituents that I represent, they are feeling this at the gas pump, in the grocery store. People are deciding whether or not they're going to be able to afford the medicine or the rent. The consequences have been dire. And this administration has done this because we have a wannabe dictator as President of the United States and, again, we are in a war that was completely unnecessary. It is. It's an authoritarian, an elected authoritarian who is operating as a dictator, who thought that he could kill -- who thought that he could kill, destroy and bomb an entire nation into submission, and that is what has happened. And that is what's happened.
RANTZ: I think it's fair and reasonable, and I've said this before, like to debate the actual issues here and whether or not we think that this was the right move. But to immediately go to this lazy talking point that is used by the left all the time, just screaming about a dictator-in-chief, it's not a serious conversation.
If you're saying that you're serious about --
PEARSON: It is serious. It is serious.
RANTZ: Talk about the policy --
PEARSON: It is serious.
Let's talk about the policies. I'm glad you mentioned that. Let's talk about the big, ugly bill that cost those billions of dollars.
PHILLIP: I think it is fair to say, I mean, in this moment, this war is what's on the agenda.
PEARSON: That's right.
PHILLIP: And it is a test for President Trump. It's a test for the United States.
One of the interesting pieces of reporting also that to come out is that our stockpiles of weapons are being depleted. 45 percent of our precision strike weapons expended, 50 percent of our THAAD, these are eight missiles that intercept ballistic missiles, have been expended. Patriot batteries, 50 percent expended. Tomahawk missiles, 30 percent expended. It's going to take years to rebuild these stockpiles. And the concern is that if there is another conflict that we're not going to be ready. So, that's the other thing that's on the horizon here for us.
LAUREN A. WRIGHT, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY POLITICAL SCIENTIST: I think that it's a very rational concern because there might be a conflict in a completely different area of the world that we haven't even anticipated yet. We're worried about a peer conflict with China that we might not have enough weapons to support.
What I think we need to do a better job at, and, by the way, I think this war is a disaster, we'll talk about the messaging later, but we do not have a dictator. I'm sorry. We have a very unsuccessful dictator. If we have a dictator, he's checked continually all the time by his own Congress, by his own courts, by other countries and our allies.
PEARSON: Which is not correct.
WRIGHT: There is no conversation about the Iranian dictatorship and torturing their own people. I mean, I would just be curious to hear what you have to say about that.
PEARSON: I appreciate that. So, let's be very clear. This Congress has capitulated to what this administration has wanted at every turn, from the big, ugly bill, to cutting Medicaid, to making it harder for people to live. And I'm not saying that Iran is a perfect nation. What I'm saying is this president ran on not having --
RANTZ: Could you condemn the actual dictator?
WRIGHT: Yes.
PEARSON: Can we talk about this, though? Like, look, because we said -- we have a president who said he didn't want to have forever wars, who said he didn't want to have forever wars, and yet here we are in one, $60 billion. We have people in this administration, as well as Congress people, Democrats and Republicans, who are making billions off of --
RANTZ: Can you condemn the dictator of Iran?
PEARSON: Of course, go ahead.
RANTZ: Of course not.
ASHLEY ALLISON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: so I think in war, I've never been to war, I thank our servicemen who sacrifice so much and the families that do. I think, though, in war there's like physical warfare and there's psychological warfare. And one thing we know is psychologically, the silent treatment is a form of abuse.
[22:10:03]
And whether the Iranian regime are split or not, they were coordinated enough not for one side to go usurp another and go talk to our president. And often when people are in a conflict, they use access as a power and as a posture to try and weaken the other side.
And so if they really were as split, as some are posturing, perhaps there would not be a cricket silence from both sides. That actually makes me even more concerned that both sides are being silent because maybe they're getting dug in totally different ways and there is no real clear path out.
Yes, I will say also the Iranian regime is awful. And you know what else?
RANTZ: It's easy to say.
ALLISON: Aren't they more awful than our -- I --
WRIGHT: Dictatorial regime that we're talking about?
ALLISON: I think -- yes. I will not compare what the Iranian regime is doing, and I can still say the things that are happening in America.
WRIGHT: So, then why do we have to call Trump an authoritarian and a dictator when he's not literally one? It's not helpful.
ALLISON: Well, I don't -- but that's not what I'm saying right now. What I'm saying right now is also, though, our president said that this was an effort to liberate the Iranian people, and I haven't heard them at all in this debate since --
WRIGHT: Because they're all in prison being tortured. That's what's happening.
(CROSSTALKS)
PEARSON: What you did hear is a president on Easter say that he was going to destroy an entire civilization and that he advocated on war crime and genocide against an entire people. That's what the president of the United States is doing.
RANTZ: And you still can't say that you condemn the dictatorship in Iran.
PEARSON: And now he is using -- I condemn the dictatorship in Iran, and I condemn the dictatorial and authoritarian actions of this president of the United States against the people in this country.
(CROSSTALKS)
I don't want to suggest we totally sidetrack on this Iran versus the United States, whose worse situation, because that's not --
RANTZ: But one is worse. That's a moral --
PHILLIP: I agree with you. I'm just suggesting you guys having an argument about that makes no sense.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: It's obvious that Iran is a worse regime. That's all -- hold on. That's all I'm saying, is that it is obvious that Iran is a worse regime. That's not the issue at hand here.
PEARSON: Right. The question is, what is the future of this war, okay?
So, one more thing I want you all to respond to. Let me play what the president said on CNBC today about our ally, the United Arab Emirates, and their potential needs for a bailout soon. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The UAE asking the U.S. for some type of financial lifeline. Is that under consideration?
TRUMP: It is, but it's been a good country. It's been a good ally of ours. And, you know, these are unusual times. They were more than anybody else. They're very good for this country. So, yes, if I could help them, I would.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, just to add layers to this, the president is now putting on the table a bailout of the UAE in the middle of a war that is incredibly unpopular, that has no end in sight? How is that going to work with the American people?
RANTZ: Well, we don't know because we're preliminarily talking about this. There's not an official proposal. This is something that they're saying.
PHILLIP: Do you think it's a good idea for us to do?
RANTZ: It could potentially be a good idea, depending on how it actually works.
RIVERA: To lend money to the UAE?
RANTZ: In this context, depending on the specifics.
RIVERA: They walk in golden slippers.
RANTZ: Okay. So, we do this with other nations pretty frequently or semi-frequently.
RIVERA: Can I say one other thing about the -- you started the piece with the depletion of our stockpiles. How do we know what the depletion of our stockpiles are? How is it that all of a sudden every news outlet in the country got the depletion of our stockpiles? Who benefits when there's fear over depletion of stockpiles? Defense contractors benefit, in the same way oil companies benefit when price of oil goes up.
You can't divorce yourself from the -- you know, everybody's not all got, you know, doo-pee-dee-doo and they rally behind the flag and bad guys -- let's get the bad -- you know, there, there are those with self-serving, nefarious motivations also.
WRIGHT: You don't think we actually have a depletion?
ALLISON: That's happened, yes.
RIVERA: It's an interesting question. I have covered war, 11 assignments in Afghanistan, 11 in Iraq. I've seen lots of armaments be depleted over time. You have a there is a process where there's constant replenishment.
And to think that we could -- we can get a depletion of our stockpiles fighting a third-rate country like Iran, and this was the army we were going to take against China and Russia, I think it's preposterous.
ALLISON: It's that's scary, yes. PHILLIP: Well, I mean, we -- I actually -- I hear your skepticism, but I do think that there were some unique aspects of this particular conflict that would make it possible or even plausible, even if you are skeptical, because Iran had very cheap drones that we were using very expensive weapons to shoot down.
[22:15:08]
And that imbalance is pretty unique to this conflict, and it also, I think, suggests that that's a problem that we need to resolve. And I think that's one of the things that has been revealed by this by this war.
RIVERA: As far as I know, we've lost four -- we lost three F-35s. We lost one F-18. I don't know. I guess a couple of accidents here and there.
PHILLIP: Yes.
RIVERA: In terms of what our armed forces have expended, we have a vast amount of ammunition and --
(CROSSTALKS)
ALLISON: But here's what I'll say -- I just want to say, like you mentioned the policy. Those are policy choices. Those are choices that when we say, are we going to -- I'm sorry, when you -- the UAE and we bail them out, that is money that is going not into United States but across UAE. And that is what Justin is saying in terms of when his folks are saying, I thought you were going to put America first, and my pocketbook is getting smaller and smaller and tighter and tighter, and then the UAE and their golden slippers are getting richer and richer.
RANTZ: Well, they're not quite talking about just handing over money without any conditions.
ALLISON: And to Geraldo's point, we know that defense contractors make millions and billions of dollars with federal contracts. And yet, again, that actually is not going into the everyday American pocket.
So, those are actually policy decisions that this administration has to account for.
RIVERA: And none of it's (INAUDIBLE).
PHILLIP: Next for us, big breaking news tonight. Voters in Virginia have approved the redistricting plan from the Democrats, which could net the party four additional seats. It's something that Trump has said would be a disaster.
Plus, as more Americans question the president's mental acuity, one of his most high-profile supporters is apologizing for endorsing him in the first place.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [22:20:00]
PHILLIP: Breaking tonight, Virginians just voted to redraw its Congressional map, a result that could play a major role in Democrats' efforts to flip the House in November. Right now, Democrats hold 6 of the state's 11 seats in Congress. But in this new map, Kamala Harris earned more 2024 votes than President Trump in ten of the newly drawn districts.
It was a narrow result, but a victory nonetheless. And I don't know, I think it's feels like a new frontier now. Both sides have now said brazen partisan redistricting is on the table. That's where we're headed. And it sounds like the voters are like doing it, but they're not happy about it.
ALLISON: Yes. I think to your point, Abby, I think that most people probably thought that the margin was going to be a lot larger in this because of how activated Democrats and Republicans have been on this redistricting thing. I don't like gerrymandering, point-blank, period, but I also don't like one side playing by the rules and one side not. And so like, at that point, those aren't rules. Those are just like someone's cheating. So, I do understand why Democrats are doing it.
Do I think it is healthy in the long-term for our country? No. But, I mean, it would be -- I would be disappointed if Democrats just passively sat by and was like, yes, go ahead in Texas, and we're just going to let you do what you do. Like what is that, you know?
WRIGHT: But I have to ask, like --
PHILLIP: Should Democrats have passively sat by as Republicans gerrymandered?
WRIGHT: Well, it's not that they actively sat by. They used to say, this is a threat to democracy. You don't get to choose your voters. It should be the other way around. I mean, Obama gave very compelling remarks on these things.
And so was that a lie or -- okay. So, it's okay to threaten democracy and --
ALLISON: Fact patterns change. And what this fact pattern did was that Donald Trump called and said, I'm trying to rig this next election because we think we're going --
WRIGHT: And he's so bad.
RIVERA: I don't buy that at all.
WRIGHT: He's so bad that you have to cheat.
ALLISON: He literally called --
RIVERA: To attribute a higher morality to either of the political parties -- ALLISON: I'm not saying one is higher morality. I'm saying that like the fact pattern has changed in this point, and the same backdrop when Obama gave his speech.
RIVERA: It was because Texas went first? Is that your --
PEARSON: It was Texas and seven other states.
ALLISON: Yes, I'm saying, like, that's politics. Like don't be mad if you got beat on.
RIVERA: Followed by California.
ALLISON: I mean, like --
PHILLIP: So, wait, Geraldo, are you saying that you don't think that Trump starting this is a good enough rationale for Democrats to finish it?
RIVERA: I do not think so. I think that gerrymandering is a cancer on politics. I don't understand how it made it into the Constitution. I fret about that, or the Supreme Court. I think that if you can manipulate the borders of a vote just to get a vote and it deprives the people who don't get the vote of their constitutional rights, I think it's really obscene. It's as if you were playing in a baseball game and one side starts with three extra runs. It's just --
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, I think, honestly --
RIVERA: And we should bust the chops of all of the people.
PHILLIP: I think most Americans would totally agree with that. But let me just play -- I mean, this is to what Ashley was talking about. This is Trump talking about what started this mid-decade redistricting effort back in July of 2025.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: On Texas, how many more seats do you want the Republicans to draw?
TRUMP: Five.
REPORTER: And then what if California, New York, Illinois, and other blue states decide to do this?
TRUMP: Yes. Well, that's okay, too, but five. I think we get five, and there could be some other states. We're going to get another three or four or five in addition. Texas would be the biggest one, and that'll be five.
[22:25:01]
REPORTER: So, are you calling in for a complete redrawing of the Congressional map ahead of next year?
TRUMP: No, just a very simple redrawing. We pick up five seats.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: He actually said there, you might have missed it, he said -- he was asked if California and other states did it. He said, that's okay, too. Maybe he didn't believe that they would do it, but they did. Well, at least California did, and Virginia has now.
RANTZ: Yes, and, look, this just creates a domino effect. I think, ultimately, what this creates is red states and blue states, and we're getting rid of purple states. And I don't like that as a general rule for democracy. I think it leads to just out of control power grabs and can ruin communities. I think that's true when you've got one party rule anywhere.
So, I'm not a big fan of this, but as I've pointed out before, this current battle was started in Texas. Trump did not start this battle, though, of redistricting in general. There's been no conversation specifically about Illinois, about Maryland, which have been redrawn to unrecognizable maps. It's unnatural. And there's going to be a push.
PHILLIP: Trump didn't invent gerrymandering. No, he did not. But gerrymandering also did not start with Maryland, and it didn't start in any of these places.
RANTZ: Well, it started in Texas, except in this case.
PHILLIP: I guess what I'm saying is that, yes, no, it's not, the origin of this story, it is not 2025, for sure. But it is also not with -- solely with Democratic states, because look at currently southern red states right now that are gerrymandered all over the place, and nobody says anything about that.
PEARSON: Absolutely not. And I think the important thing, mid-decade redistricting has been pushed by this administration and Donald Trump. The responses that we've gotten from Democratic states really has put us back to roughly where we were. But what we have to realize is the attacks on voting rights is not new.
The Supreme Court right now is hearing a case to potentially gut Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Ten years ago, it was previously gutted by the Supreme Court even further. We have seen Republican efforts, and I represent in a state that has continued to take away people's access to the ballot box.
And so the attempt to redraw the districts, mid-district -- mid-decade redistricting by the Republican Party and by this administration is again an attempt to silence the voices of communities that are already facing a lot of oppression.
WRIGHT: But you don't think that such a complicated ballot measure is confusing to people? I mean, that's the highest bar to voting. People find these decision-making processes much, much more difficult than getting to the ballot. That's what the research shows. PHILLIP: Let me -- I mean, you're referring to the ballot measure. Let me read -- this is kind of controversial. So, the Virginia ballot measure read, should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to allow the General Assembly to temporarily adopt new Congressional districts to restore fairness in the upcoming elections while ensuring Virginia's standard redistricting process resumes for all future redistricting after the 2030 census?
RANTZ: So, not bad.
WRIGHT: Very confusing.
PHILLIP: So, I mean, I don't know. I mean, I guess some people might say it's confusing, some people might say it's transparent because it's sort of a very partisan -- I would describe this as a very partisan language here.
WRIGHT: And then one group was the map fairness, and one group was the --
PHILLIP: But that's how these referenda --
(CROSSTALKS)
RANTZ: But that's not how they're supposed to be written on the ballot.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: I was just going to say, ballot initiatives -- this is the thing with ballot initiatives, is that if you create a ballot initiative and you kind of get to decide how it shows up on the ballot.
ALLISON: How many times --
RANTZ: Well, it depends on the state. So, in some states it's actually up to the secretary of state who then defines what is. And so it can be --
PHILLIP: Who is likely a partisan person.
(CROSSTALKS)
WRIGHT: But also this is not going to work. Can I just say very, very quickly, we are in an iterative arms race that's going to result in no one benefiting from this. So, that's a lot of moral high ground for Democrats to cede for zero electoral benefit.
PHILLIP: You mean it's going to be net zero?
WRIGHT: This year, yes. Eventually it'll be a net zero.
PHILLIP: Well, I guess that is the point.
PEARSON: That's the exact point. PHILLIP: I mean, for Democrats, that's a win. Had they done nothing, it would've been a net advantage --
ALLISON: It would've been -- we would've started the games where people already had three points on the board.
WRIGHT: But -- so what -- let's say (INAUDIBLE) will continue to amp it up in response.
ALLISON: Yes, so then tell your party or whoever to stop it. If you take the high ground then, be the bigger person. But nobody does that, right? So, then don't expect the other side to do it. I think gerrymandering is wrong, that's what I started. But what should -- okay, let's say we would've paused time after Texas, would you have advocated and told Donald Trump, and done everything to get your party to stop that?
WRIGHT: Yes, because I'm not part of a party, absolutely.
RANTZ: Yes. No, I was not a fan of what happened in Texas.
ALLISON: But if they did not stop it -- do you realize how that was unfair and rigging the system against Democrats?
WRIGHT: Yes, I think it's terrible.
ALLISON: So, what did --
WRIGHT: I'm saying Democrats are the ones that made an ethical argument --
ALLISON: I know --
WRIGHT: -- against -- about the threat to democracy.
ALLISON: But once something is unfair, won't you try and do something to make it fair again, or do you just live in unfairness?
[22:30:04]
WRIGHT: With a tactic that people called (INAUDIBLE) and the end of democracy and the end of voting.
PHILLIP: I don't know that you describe -- I'm not sure that you can really describe the Virginia map as fair again.
UNKNOWN: Even. Even.
UNKNOWN: It's clearly not. It's not even. It's not even.
PHILLIP: It has zeroed, perhaps zeroed out the ledger at a national level.
UNKNOWN: Yes.
PHILLIP: But in fact, what's happening is that you have unfairness in Texas, and then you have unfairness in Virginia.
WRIGHT: Yes.
PHILLIP: And yes, the voters are the losers, right?
WRIGHT: I guess I'm just saying it was worth it. I don't think it was worth it.
ALLISON: I think it is worth it if people feel like this administration, and this Congress, and this Senate do not represent them and it is run by Republicans. And what was happening in Texas was going to enable it to be continued to be run by Republicans. I think the way you can make it even is say don't do it and if you do it, we're going to do it to make it even again.
PHILLIP: All right.
RANTZ: I just hope -- keep that consistency across the board.
UNKNOWN: Yes, exactly.
PHILLIP: Well, if --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Democrats retake the House, let's see if the first thing they do is outlaw partisan redistricting.
WRIGHT: Very good point.
PHILLIP: All right. Next for us, Tucker Carlson says that he's sorry. He's sorry for helping to elect Donald Trump. That remarkable turnaround and the President's sinking approval ratings, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:35:57]
PHILLIP: Tonight, President Trump's popularity continues to sink toward record lows, flirting with the historic lows of George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter. Many different polls found that Trump's approval rating is now in the 30s, and a growing number of people are also questioning the President's mental acuity, with 51 percent saying that Trump's mental sharpness has gotten worse in the last year, according to a new Reuters Ipsos poll.
When asked how the words "even-tempered" describes the President, 71 percent said, "not well." That's not exactly a surprise here. Yes, but the mental acuity piece of it, as Trump has gotten at least publicly more erratic, that has broken through to the public. That is something that people are paying attention to.
RANTZ: I think people remember how Joe Biden was covered and they look at conversations like this and they don't find it particularly serious. But especially if you've followed Trump for a long time, this is his personality. This is nothing new. And people don't have that short of a memory.
PHILLIP: What people are you talking about? The 51 percent of people who think that Trump doesn't have the mental acuity?
RANTZ: I'm talking about the average American. Again, we can show as many polls as we want. It's indisputable that his personality today is virtually the same as it was a decade ago, two decades ago.
PHILLIP: I don't know if this is --
UNKNOWN: I will so attest.
PHILLIP: Well, I don't know if this is about his personality. I think it's about the other things. It's about -- if you listen to him speak, he often goes completely off the rails. He was -- in an interview with Maria Bartiromo the other day, he didn't remember that he had appointed or he had named a Supreme Court justice to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg while he was president before the midterms. There things that he is not relaying information accurately, which he's really never done.
But he also doesn't remember a lot of things. In times, you wonder, does he remember that he appointed the current Fed chair who he attacks on a regular basis? Those are the things I think people are looking at.
ALLISON: I think that it's the sharpness that people are starting to see, which is like, totally normal, that the office wears on you and he is getting older. I would agree with you, Jason. Like I do think people look and they're like, and look at Joe Biden, he did -- and I think that that's where we're being like, alert, alert, alert.
RIVERA: I think he's amazing, personally. And I don't like his politics, but I've known him for a long time, and it just seems to me that, I don't know, a single person in public life that can ad-lib the way he can. They can be so charismatic and tireless giving 30-minute interviews around the clock. Where do you find an 80-year-old man that has that kind of energy?
ALLISON: But do they make sense?
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: That is the question. Do they make -- does it make sense, Geraldo? That is, okay. I also, Geraldo, I also want to stick with you for just a second because I want you to respond to this. This is Tucker Carlson apologizing to, I guess, his supporters.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TUCKER CARLSON, CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATOR: You and I and everyone else who supported him, you wrote speeches for him, I campaigned for him, we were implicated in this for sure.
BUCKLEY CARLSON, FORMER SPEECHWRITER: Yes. T. CARLSON: It's not enough to say well, I changed my mind or like oh, this is bad, I'm out. It's like in very small ways, but in real ways, you and me and millions of people like us for the reason this is happening right now.
B. CARLSON: Yes.
T. CARLSON: So, I do think it's like a moment to wrestle with our own consciences. You know, we will be tormented by it for a long time. I will be. And I want to say I'm sorry for misleading people. It was not intentional. That's all I'll say.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RANTZ: He seems tormented.
PHILLIP: Do you think he's wrestling with his conscience?
RIVERA: I think that Tucker had plenty of time to untorment himself between January 6, 2021 and election day of 2024.
[22:40:02]
He had plenty of time to torment himself and say, I give up on this man. Instead, he embraced him. He helped propel him to this historic election win. I think that Tucker can't, by being sorry now, run away or rewrite history, nor can I.
WRIGHT: He had nothing to do with this election, in my opinion.
RIVERA: What's that?
WRIGHT: I mean, Trump is like a singularly talented campaigner who made it through all these historic, like chaotic periods of disasters. And you know, Kamala Harris made Trump president. Joe Biden made Trump president. Tucker is acting as if like he went out and he gave the endorsement and that rallied all these people. Like this guy was going to win, anyway, and had nothing to do with that.
PHILLIP: Maybe so, but Tucker did absolutely boost Trump. He did absolutely support Trump, and he did it despite, you know, we know, privately saying totally different things. And to Geraldo's point, back in these text messages that were released in the Dominion defamation lawsuit, here's what Tucker said back around that time. "Trump has a pretty low success rate in his business ventures," is what his producer says. He says, "That's for sure. All of them fail. What he's good at is destroying things. He's the undisputed world champion of that."
Tucker then says, "We are very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights. I truly can't wait. I hate him passionately." Another Tucker message, " That's the last four years. We're all pretending we've got lot to show for it. But admitting what a disaster it's been is too tough to digest. But come on, this isn't really an upside to Trump." This is somebody who has profited off of talking out of both sides of his mouth. So, I mean, no surprise that today he is crying some, whatever.
JUSTIN J. PEARSON (D) TENNESSEE STATE REPRESENTATIVE: Right. You'll get lot of apologists and things like that, but the consequences are real. And again, if you look in our district, we have 55,000 units of housing that are necessary. Half of our kids are in poverty. We're actually struggling because of the decisions, the policies, the programs that this administration has pushed. And there has been nothing to actually adequately address that.
And so, the fact that he's failing in the polls is because this administration is failing. it's failing to actually protect our country. Nobody feels more safe in the United States of America after seven weeks of a disastrous war that we're having in Iran.
We are living the consequences of an election that God wished we had won, but the consequences are really impacting everyday working class folks, not those who are politicos and talking heads and things like that, the Moses really impacting people and the day-to-day life in communities like Memphis.
RANTZ: Just to clarify though, the world is a better place without the Iranian regime. We are safer. And one group of people who doing worse in the polls than Donald Trump? Democrats.
PEARSON: Well, you're playing all these semantics.
RANTZ: I'm looking at the poll.
PEARSON: But just look at people's lives. There are people right now in my community who are struggling and who are suffering in this administration.
(CROSSTALK)
RANTZ: I don't disagree with that.
PEARSON: -- do anything about it while transferring wealth to billionaires and multi-millionaires.
(CROSSTALK)
RANTZ: So, what does that say about them?
PEARSON: And we're seeing people who are in elected offices --
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: I agree with you about the (inaudible).
(CROSSTALK)
WRIGHT: You should have picked someone other than Harris.
ALLISON: I just will say Tucker--
PHILLIP: We got to leave it --
ALLISON: Fine, and do better. Like do better. Like don't talk out of both sides of your mouth because you will. And I don't believe it. You know what I'm saying?
PHILLIP: That's asking a lot. The President is making the case for his actions in Iran, one reporter at a time. How his phone calls are contributing to the many mixed messages coming from the White House.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:48:20]
PHILLIP: President Trump continues to face increasing pressure to explain the war in Iran. And if you hear his message, apparently, just call him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: I spoke to the President.
DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: I spoke to him on the phone this morning.
BAIER: I just got off the phone with the President.
UNKNOWN: I just got off the phone with the President.
UNKNOWN (voice-over): In a phone call with CBS News --
UNKNOWN: The President picked up my call once again.
KRISTEN WELKER, NBC NEWS ANCHOR: You just spoke with President Trump by phone.
UNKNOWN: I wanted to get the reaction of the President of the United States. So, I called him and he answered.
MARIA BARTIROMO, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: I just spoke with the President this morning.
JONATHAN KARL, JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR: I just got off the phone with President Trump, yet again --
LIZ LANDERS, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: He has been picking up the phone when reporters have called.
WELKER: Today, I had about a half hour phone call with President Donald Trump.
UNKNOWN: I spoke to him for about 12 minutes.
UNKNOWN: I just spoke with President Trump for 15 minutes.
LANDERS: I called him around 8 A.M. this morning. We spoke for just three minutes.
UNKNOWN: So, I was drinking my coffee, having a piece of toast and figured, hey, let me give it a shot.
UNKNOWN: You are quite literally picking up your mobile phone and calling Donald Trump on his mobile phone.
UNKNOWN: With President Trump, you just never know if he's going to answer or not. You don't know what kind of mood he'll be in, if he'll be chatty.
UNKNOWN: Mark, you've now spoken to the President of the United States more times in the past seven days than I've spoken to my own parents.
UNKNOWN: It's probably as easy to call up the Kellners as it is to call up the President, as I'm finding out. It's a very strange - it's just very strange.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Do you remember when Obama was not allowed to have a cell phone when they tried to charge Hillary Clinton with a crime for having an email server?
[22:50:11]
I mean, we are in a whole different universe right now. I'm sure China has the phone number, too.
RANTZ: Well, look, there are positives and there are negatives. The negative is obvious, right? I mean, the more you're talking, the more difficult it's going to be for all the people around you to know exactly what you're saying so you can stay on message. But on the other hand, we have a president who's actually open, and if reporters find it so objectionable that he is going off script as it were, you can stop calling him.
But you're calling him because there's value in that. And having a president who's going to talk to the press, unlike the last president who was not very open with the press, I think is overall good thing. We want more transparency.
RIVERA: I used to -- he used to call me. And it was fun. My wife's reaction, she's trying to lobby me to get the more liberal point of view. And then the President would call and she'd take, I'm not going to compete with the President. But I think that this flurry of activity is, I think, a direct parameter of his frustration that he sees -- I sense, he sees history slipping through his fingers that he had.
He had it going. He had the B2s last year. He had Maduro, you know, plucked from the dark part of his Cuban palace guard. He had, you know, he had a lot going for and then all of a sudden he's invited to go to Cuba. He steps in steps in the mire of the Mid-East and now he's trying to dig his way out -- one reporter --
PHILLIP: He's trying to John Barron his way out of this. But this is not a John Barron situation. I mean,
WRIGHT: That's, exactly.
PHILLIP: And it's a war and it's also a delicate negotiation with people that even he acknowledges are very skilled negotiators. They have been running the world around for decades now over these nuclear weapons and Trump seems to be addressing that by just saying what he wants to happen? I don't know.
WRIGHT: I mean, the transparency is a good thing, not on Iran. It's way too serious. Let Marco Rubio be the messenger. I mean he has talented messengers that know the substance of the issues and can make a real case that it's a threat and we need to be there. That's not what he's doing. I mean, this is serious business.
The communications with the public need to be formalized. They need to be consistent. We need to trust that what comes out of his mouth is something that will actually happen. And if circumstances change, then hopefully we can get some information again. But yes, I mean, I really like the access that he's giving the press. I do not like the issue that he's using.
PHILLIP: Got to leave it there. Next for us, the panel is going to give us their Nightcaps, Marathon reading edition.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:57:38]
PHILLIP: We are back and it's time for the News Nightcap. The President participated in a marathon Bible reading session tonight and that got us thinking, what else would you like to see a marathon reading of? Lauren, you're up first.
WRIGHT: So, is this a real answer or it can be, do you want a fun answer? Okay, no, this is what I'd actually really like.
PHILLIP: So, this a girl confession.
WRIGHT: Gwyneth Paltrow's yet to be released memoir about her sex life? I was really into that. I think I would like to read that.
PHILLIP: You would like to have it read out loud.
WRIGHT: Oh, sure. I would be way into that. Sorry to say.
(CROSSTALK)
WRIGHT: Okay, so that was my real one.
ALLISON: That wasn't your fake one?
(LAUGHTER)
PEARSON: I get to tell the world what I really believe.
WRIGHT: Go ahead, follow that.
PEARSON: Absolutely.
UNKNOWN: That is unbeatable.
PEARSON: So, as a person who is a Christian, who is a preacher, and who has actually read the Bible front to back, I would actually have a marathon reading of Mayor's Magnificant. Go to Luke 1, 40, 60, 55, and I just force the President and everyone else to keep reading it and keep reading it. My favorite line is that, "Those who are at the top will be made low, and those who are at the bottom will be lifted up."
WRIGHT: I really love those. Beautiful.
(CROSSTALK)
RIVERA: The collected lyrics of Bob Dylan, 1962 to 1985. Remember he is a Nobel laureate in literature. "Blowin' in the Wind," "The Times They Are A-Changing." "Forever Young" was the song that my daughter and I danced to when she got married. And she's just that baby she's watching right now, the little baby.
(CROSSTALK)
ALLISON: Okay, taking a back look.
(LAUGHTER)
ALLISON: I've never read one of these books, but I think just like a marathon reading of every Danielle Steele, oh --
PHILLIP: I sense a theme here.
ALLISON: Like you can walk out of the room and come back like, she did what? She did who? Like, yes.
PEARSON: Binge reading.
PHILLIP: I feel like America -- you guys are begging for some counter programming. All right.
RANTZ: I've already read all of the Danielle Steele novels, so I can't add that. No, mine, I'm going with Andy Weir, because I've been trying to get you to go see "Project Hail Mary" for like three and a half weeks.
PHILLIP: You have been lobbying me hard on --
RANTZ: I've been pushing this so hard because it's so good.
[23:00:00]
But the book is even better than the movie.
PEARSON: It's so good.
(CROSSTALK)
RANTZ: He also wrote "The Martian." He wrote "Artemis." Outstanding author.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I feel like I might read the book before I watch it.
UNKNOWN: The book is great.
RANTZ: It's outstanding.
PEARSON: Three days in a row. I didn't sleep. I was just like, it was amazing.
RANTZ: It reads like a movie.
PHILLIP: And also in this this time of space, you know, adventure and exploration, yes.
RANTZ: There's a book called "Artemis."
PHILLIP: It's a perfect book. All right. Everyone, thank you very much. Thanks for watching "NewsNight." You can catch me anytime on your favorite social media -- X, Instagram and on TikTok. "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
