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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Dismisses Iran's "Nuclear Dust" After Insisting on Seizure; Vance Becomes Face of Admin's Controversial Iran Agreement; Washington Post Reports that the White House Ballroom Construction Could Cost $600 Million, plus Taxpayer Money; Reflecting Pool at the White House turned into Green Algaes Despite Tedious Makeover by Trump. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired June 16, 2026 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:36]
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight, the mystery intensifies over what the U.S. and Iran agreed to as the goalposts move and the backpedals spin.
DONALD TRUMP (R), U.S. PRESIDENT: Why are you even bothering? It's not very valuable stuff.
PHILLIP: Plus, J.D. Vance becomes the face of the agreement as conservative backlash escalates.
BEN DOMENECH, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Or we can, you know, just backslide into being some kind of hillbilly Obama kind of GOP.
PHILLIP: Also, a nation of party poopers. Why nearly half of Americans now refuse to identify as Republican or a Democrat?
And --
TRUMP: This is taxpayer-free. We have no taxpayer putting up 10 cents.
PHILLIP: Well, never mind. A new report shows the White House knew the ballroom wasn't free and wasn't as cheap as advertised.
Live at the table, Scott Jennings, Tara Setmayer, Tony Kinnett, Sarah Matthews, and Kmele Foster. Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here they do.
Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York. We don't know what's in the Iran agreement and the U.S. and Iran are contradicting each other. U.S. officials are now lowering expectations, calling the language vague. There's really only one member of the administration right now trying to sell it. And tonight, sources say that the president just wants to be done with this war. And now he's backing off on his main reason for launching it in the first place.
Now, you might recall that Donald Trump has spent months saying that it is absolutely necessary to retrieve Iran's highly enriched uranium. Here's what he said before, and here's what he's saying after. TRUMP: We're going to get the dust back.
I call it the nuclear dust, right? But we have to take that nuclear dust.
We want the nuclear dust. We're going to want that, and I think we're going to get that. We've agreed to that, yeah.
I'd still rather have it. I'd rather get it. I'd just feel better if I got it.
We'll get it back either. We'll get it back from them or we'll take it. We're taking it. We're taking it. Very simple.
The USA will get all nuclear dust.
The whole mountain is collapsed on top. We have cameras on it. You could make the case, why are you even bothering? Because it's not really valuable. It's, you know, it's probably half a million dollars' worth. It's not very valuable.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Now, Trump said there that the U.S. may psychologically need to retrieve the material, but it's yet another apparent contradiction that's spinning heads over on Capitol Hill and certainly among conservatives. Responding to "Wall Street Journal" reporting that Trump's deal allows Iran to immediately sell oil and provides sanctions relief, Trump's former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley slammed Trump's deal, writing, quote, "If this is true, Iran wins. There should be zero sanctions relief on day one."
That is just to start there on the sanctions relief that appears to be contemplated upon the signing of this MOU. Scott, the MOU does not actually resolve any of the nuclear issues. OK, what it does do, perhaps, as far as we know, is reopen the strait. It's an agreement within the 60 days the strait would be open. So, are we, in effect, paying Iran by relieving sanctions to get the Strait of Hormuz to some degree back to what it was before we started this war?
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I can only tell you what J.D. Vance has said today, which is Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. The Strait of Hormuz will be open. And all these benefits are complicated that the Iranians can get if they behave. If they don't behave, they don't get anything. So, that that has been his line today. As you pointed out --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: What about I just said?
JENNINGS: As you pointed out, by the way, we haven't seen the text of this. I said last night I thought they should release the text. I still believe that this evening. And the president said today he wanted to release the text, but it sounded like he wanted to do it when they do the formal signing on Friday. So, I guess I'm less interested in conjecture, more interested in the actual text when we get it.
PHILLIP: Well, I'll ask you again. If Iran gets sanctions relief upon the signing of this nuclear deal, how is that us not paying them to get back to the pre-war status quo that does not have anything to do with the nuclear program, the ballistic missile program?
[22:05:14]
JENNINGS: Yeah, look, I mean, you're saying if this happens, I don't know.
PHILLIP: It's in the reporting. And actually, Kaitlan Collins just interviewed the Canadian leader who has seen it. And he also confirmed that there are sanctions relief in there.
JENNINGS: Look, my view of the Iranians is this. A, I don't like the idea of them having any financial relief because they take money and then they put it into terrorism. Number two, I don't think you can trust the Iranians. Number three, I don't think an Iranian signature is worth all that much.
The one and only thing that I've ever wanted out of any of this was that they cannot have or ever get a nuclear weapon. That's been the president's top objective. I trust the president on that. And I know that's what he wants out of the deal.
If we end up doing things, though, that on the back end enable them to do any kind of rebuilding of any terror network or any ability to terrorize us or anyone else, I would not be happy.
SARAH MATTHEWS, FORMER WH DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY, TRUMP FIRST ADMINISTRATION: But isn't the $300 billion also financing them for their terror network, if we're -- if that's part of the deal? And I have to say, too, I agree with you on your point that you want to see the text released. That's something I want to see. And it feels like if this were a good deal that the administration wanted to sell, then they wouldn't be trying to set the bar so low right now. We've seen all of these anonymous sources coming out and saying that, oh, the deal, it's not that great. And, oh, like Hegseth and Ratcliffe and Rubio were all kind of questioning it and whether we should trust Iran and their commitments that they've made.
And it seems like Trump is the one who wants to rush this deal and get it done because it feels like he knows that his poll numbers are cratering as a result of this war. And he thought that this was going to be an easy win for him, like Venezuela was. And now I think he realizes that he overplayed his hand and he's trying to get this deal done. But unless it's better than the JCPOA, this will be a failure for this presidency.
PHILLIP: The interesting thing, I mean, to your point, here's a CNN reporting. It says the officials described the text of the agreement as incredibly vague, mainly intended to create a more favorable environment for the highly technical in-person talks to come. They added that the framework is aimed at providing Iran the ability to sell it politically to their internal audience. MATTHEWS: That doesn't sound America first.
PHILLIP: It also says the officials say that the text of the memorandum didn't reflect critical back-channel commitments that Iran has made to the U.S.
JENNINGS: Can I just make a quick comment on this?
PHILLIP: What are those? We don't know. We're not done yet. People should not read too much into the language of the MOU, says an official, describing the agreement as a political document. So, are -- what is this, kabuki theater?
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: Yes, a lot of this -- look, a lot of this, but a lot of this has to get -- I mean, it is true. A lot of the technical issues around the nuclear peace do have to get worked out in the 60 days. And I'll just reiterate what I told you yesterday. The president told me on Sunday, if they don't perform, if they don't do what they say they're going to do, we will hit them again.
PHILLIP: So, why --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: So, he's not taking military action.
TARA SETMAYER, SUBSTACK AUTHOR, "UNCOMPROMISED WITH TARA SETMAYER": It took them two years. What makes you think that the Trump administration can do it in 60 days?
PHILLIP: Why should we be giving U.S. relief for nothing.
SETMAYER: We shouldn't. And we shouldn't. We should make sure that there are safeguards. There shouldn't be sanctions relief without certain examples by Iran that they're going to live up to it. We shouldn't have any of this. They shouldn't be getting money.
And you know what? You know who all agreed with that? You did. I did back in 2015 when we were critical of Barack Obama's deal with Iran. That was the exact same criticisms that we had for the Iran deal in the Obama administration are present in this one. So, the mental gymnastics here that are going on to try to rationalize the fact that Donald Trump is surrendering to Iran. He's bored. He has made a strategic mistake. That is -- it's a quagmire right now.
And a lot of people understand this is politically really bad for the president. So, he's just trying to, you know, do what he does and sell a con.
TONY KINNETT, NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, DAILY SIGNAL: It is true. OK, let's play off of that. Let's talk about selling a con for a second. We are engaged in a series of negotiations with an entire regime that is based on conning. Let me finish.
SETMAYER: I didn't say a word.
KINNETT: And with this instance, there was a lot of kabuki theater that occurred under both the Obama and Biden administrations that I seem to remember certain individuals in our general circles, including some of us running cover for, because right now, unlike in other centuries of the historical previous politics, every single negotiation is played out on international media.
Our enemy knows what we decide the minute it's out of the individual's mouths. So, there is a necessity for bluffing and kabuki theater in order to get here. You can even smile at it.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: It isn't the bluff. So, what are the objectives of this deal? Because Trump initially said that no nuclear weapons.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: But he said that no nuclear weapons and regime change. Regime change is obviously not happening. And then you look at nuclear weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency now says that the risk is higher than before the war for Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon.
[22:10:02]
SETMAYER: There's no mechanism.
MATTHEWS: In 60 days, Trump can negotiate a deal that says no nuclear weapon and enrichment capped at three percent. That's what the preamble of the JCPOA says. If you can negotiate something better than that, then I'll have it. That would be a win for America. But I just doubt their ability to do that in such a rushed timeline.
KMELE FOSTER, EDITOR-AT-LARGE, TANGLE: Briefly, almost since the start of this conflict, the president of the United States and various other representatives of the administration have been talking about this being over. It's already done. We pretty much got a deal worked out. At those times, what was going on? There were no details about the deal so much. Actually, there was once before. We've been here. They spelled out a deal that didn't actually exist at all. At this point, I'm not even sure if we should give them any credence whatsoever with respect to the deal that is vaguely written and vaguely proposed. And apparently, there are back-channel commitments that they're supposed to be agreeing to.
(CROSSTALK)
KINNETT: So, when Ghalibaf gets in front of Parliament and he makes a statement and the IRGC responds negatively, and we've seen this before, what happens after a certain deal falls through? There's a series of strikes. Certain assets in the region change.
FOSTER: Is this what we should expect now?
PHILLIP: I don't know. I'm sorry. Yeah, what is the argument? Because there are no other deals. What are you referring to?
(CROSSTALK)
KINNETT: You haven't heard President Trump get in front of the agency and say, I think there's going to be a deal any day now. I mean, he does this multiple times.
PHILLIP: But there's no evidence that there were ever any other deals.
KINNETT: Again, he has made --
MATTHEWS: I think he was manipulating markets when he said that there were other deals.
PHILLIP: All I'm pointing out is that you're saying, based on Trump saying that we are close to a deal, which he's said over 40 times --
KINNETT: Correct.
PHILLIP: -- that there were other deals. There's zero evidence that there were any other deals.
KINNETT: I'm sorry, again, I'm looking for where the downside is, that I'm pointing out that in diplomacy, there's a heavy amount of bluffing. What's the issue here?
FOSTER: Who is he bluffing now?
PHILLIP: Right.
KINNETT: Again, when I'm seeing the parliament leader, when I'm seeing Ghalibaf, which is now getting ire from the IRGC itself, and then, of course, you have different groups alongside the Strait of Hormuz.
SETMAYER: But you know the IRGC runs Iran, OK? So, I mean, this is a more extreme --
(CROSSTALK)
KINNETT: So, he's going against who runs Iran? Ghalibaf is going against his own regime?
SETMAYER: No, he doesn't have the same amount of power as the IRGC. We already see internally what goes on in Iran. So this is like a backwards argument.
PHILLIP: The bottom line here is -- here's the thing, Trump has signed a deal. We don't know what's in it, OK?
KINNETT: He signed a memorandum of understanding.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: He signed something that nobody knows what's in it. And I'm going to play what J.D. Vance says about why this is such a secret that they cannot reveal what's in it. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
J.D. VANCE (R), U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: The reason why we haven't released it yet is there are some delicate diplomatic things going on where the Iranians, and not just the Iranians, but some of our mediators, the Pakistanis and the Qataris, have asked us to sequence this in the right way. I don't, frankly, fully understand it, but there are sensitivities that exist in the Arab and Muslim world that we're trying to be responsive to. Fundamentally, does it really matter if the deal comes out on Wednesday versus Friday? No. That's why we haven't emphasized it so much is because at the very latest, the text is going to be out on Friday.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SETMAYER: Oh, my goodness.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: That's why they haven't emphasized the details of what they're calling a deal, the memorandum of understanding, because they don't think that the text matters all that much. And there are some mysterious Arab and Muslim, you know, cultural norms that prevent us from revealing.
MATTHEWS: Can I acknowledge that I used to work --
PHILLIP: Why did we announce the deal in the first place?
MATTHEWS: I used to work in communications at the White House. You don't dump good news on a Friday. They should be wanting to talk about this today and be touting it throughout the whole week. You put out good or bad news on a Friday and do a Friday news dump because it gets lost in the weekend news cycle because people check out of the news.
So, why would they do it on Friday? It makes no sense to me. And if it were such a great deal and there were all these things, but, you know, apparently we have to be sensitive to these cultural sensitivities. But to me, that doesn't sound like America.
PHILLIP: Why are we being so sensitive to the Iranians? I mean, according to this administration official, we're worried about the internal politics of Iran as if Iran is a country and --
(CROSSTALK)
FOSTER: I'm sorry, what did they do to their civilians over the last couple of months?
PHILLIP: OK, that's exactly my point. Iran is not a place where the politics of this really matters. So, why are we bending over -- if the argument is we've put them in such a hard spot because we bombed them to smithereens, why are we bending over backwards to make them feel comfortable, Scott, about signing a deal that actually gives us what we had before and gives them what they did not have before, which is more money, sanctions relief?
JENNINGS: Well, you're leaving out the critical piece, which is, according to some reporting and according to the president, the document flatly states Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.
PHILLIP: That's what the JCPOA says.
SETMAYER: Exactly, same thing.
MATTHEWS: That's great. And there's nothing in the JCPOA.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: There's literally no teeth to enforce it.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: In the plain text of the JCPOA, it says Iran will not pursue a nuclear weapon.
[22:15:03]
JENNINGS: But they did.
PHILLIP: And this document, as far as we know, says that it reiterates what it has always said, which is that they have been saying for many, many years that they are not pursuing a nuclear weapon.
JENNINGS: You believe that?
PHILLIP: No, you don't believe it. So, then why do you believe it now?
JENNINGS: Well, I believe it now because, A, we bombed the ever-living crap out of their uranium enrichment facilities last summer. And, B, we now have something that no one's ever had, this amazing coalition of Arab states in the Gulf working with us to keep on top of the Iranians to keep it from ever happening. To me, that is the critical thing.
SETMAYER: But we're giving them $300 billion --
(CROSSTALK)
SETMAYER: $300 billion, which is more than they got under Obama.
KINNETT: We don't have that --
SETMAYER: No, it's more than what happened.
(CROSSTALK)
KINNETT: So, if we're just going to wish-cast and kind of tarot card reading, if we're just --
SETMAYER: We're not wish-casting. Because if they were -- if this plan was -- KINNETT: You're choosing which hypotheticals to dig through.
SETMAYER: OK, if this plan was better, to Sarah's point, than the Obama plan that they signed, they would have been out there screaming it from the rooftops as soon as they made the announcement. But it isn't. So, they are trying to BS everyone.
And even J.D. Vance, for God's sakes, is like, well, I'm not quite sure why. I don't know.
KINNETT: Do you know the details --
(CROSSTALK)
SETMAYER: I'd like to finish my full sentence. Hold on --
PHILLIP: Are you just giving $300 billion?
KINNETT: Because I haven't seen it in person yet. Correct.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: OK, well, he was right behind us when he just said it. But J.D. Vance confirmed that that fund is in the deal.
SETMAYER: Right, he did.
KINNETT: I know.
JENNINGS: He said there was no American taxpayer money.
PHILLIP: But that's not what I --
MATTHEWS: $300 billion.
JENNINGS: That's not what I said --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Hold on, let's just play J.D. Vance real quick so that we can all hear it with our own ears.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VANCE: There's been a lot of misreporting on this. And people have said, oh, is the United States going to give Iran billions of dollars? No. Very, very crystal clear. Even if the Iranians do everything contemplated by this deal, not a penny of American money flows to Iran. We're saying that if the Iranians change their behavior, we're going to let some of these other countries invest in rebuilding their country and creating some prosperity for their people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, note that I never said that that would be American dollars. Why did I not say that? Because it's a fund that may be funded by someone else.
But the question is, does it even matter? The argument against the JCPOA was that unfreezing Iranian funds, which again, not American dollars, Iranian funds, was facilitating the Iranian regime to pursue their terroristic aims. Because as the saying goes, money is fungible.
You give them $300 billion dollars they don't have to spend of their own funds to rebuild, they can use that money elsewhere. So, how do you argue that it does not matter that there are funds writ large that are orders of magnitude more than the JCPOA being contemplated to be given to Iran?
KINNETT: So, two reasons. Number one, because I have heard all of this before and it has all fallen through before with the United States having to approve that the UAE gives money up from its own coffers, maybe taken from Iranian assets, maybe just UAE dollars. Let's go to the full there and steelman the argument.
The United States still has to approve that release based on actions that Iran takes. This is not an immediate, hesto presto, boom, the deal is signed, the money starts flowing like water into the reflecting pool.
SETMAYER: That's what they claim, that when this is signed, the sanctions relief happens immediately and the oil gets to flow through the stream.
KINNETT: Vance, since we're citing Vance here.
SETMAYER: So, as a result of that, it doesn't matter where that $300 billion comes from or where the sanctions relief comes from, they're still going to get the money to do whatever they need to do with it, whether it's continue to be the state sponsor of terror, whether it is to continue their nuclear program, we don't know.
But I remember, because I was one of those people that was critical of the Obama deal 10 years ago, that giving them this money to rebuild their country, whether it comes from the UAE or not, or whomever, what coalition, it's like if we started the Marshall Plan to rebuild Germany, but the Nazis were still in power. I thought this was supposed to be about regime change.
Donald Trump himself was worried about the Iranian people. He said, you go out there, we bomb them, go out there and take your country over again. What happened to that? That was a dust in the wind now. So, he has changed his tune so many times because he doesn't know what he's doing. And you have two camps competing.
You've got J.D. Vance's camp with J.D., Kushner and Witkoff, the two real estate developers who are probably going to get a cut of whatever's happening in the redevelopment. Then you have the Radcliffe, Rubio, Hegseth wing, which is intelligence department of defense. And they're going, whoa, wait a minute. We don't trust what's going on here. You have multiple Republicans also that are upset about this. PHILLIP: They are nowhere to be found. And next for us, we're going to talk about J.D. Vance becoming the face of this agreement and pretty much being out there as the only administration official talking about it. Some columnists are suggesting that he's actually being set up here.
Plus, the president promises the taxpayers won't be footing the bill for the ballroom. But it turns out not only is that false, but the White House reportedly knew it.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:24:23]
PHILLIP: J.D. Vance has been making the media rounds over the last 72 hours, and he is becoming the face of the signed memorandum of understanding with Iran, even if the details of that agreement remain murky. But still, it's not enough for some Republicans.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DOMENECH: This deal and everything that we know about it, to the degree that it is being spun in public by this, you know, in behind the scenes by the administration, everything about this deal seems bad to me, this conflict. And look, at some point, this Republican Party needs to decide which kind of foreign policy it's going to have. Is it going to be an America first foreign policy, one that is bold, that uses American power in key moments, decisively, in order to affect what it wants to achieve? Or are we going to just backslide into being some kind of hillbilly Obama kind of GOP? That is not something that is acceptable to me. It should not be acceptable to Republicans.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[22:25:18]
PHILLIP: Hillbilly, of course, is a not so veiled reference to Vance's book, Hillbilly Elegy. But Vance pushed back on the criticism from his own party, particularly those who want to see that text of the MOU.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VANCE: Why do they believe Iranian propaganda only about one thing, the peace deal? They don't seem to believe Iranian propaganda, rightfully so, about anything else. I just don't think that people who are criticizing this, one, they're not actually dealing with the reality of what's in it.
And number two, they don't have an alternative. If your alternative is just to drop bombs without any clear goal or any clear American interest implicated, then you're not making the wise decisions on behalf of the American people. The president is, and that's why we're in this position.
(END VIDEO CLIP) PHILLIP: So, a couple of opinion pieces today suggesting that Vance is being set up, Kmele. "The Washington Post" says, "Good luck, J.D. Vance. I sense a set up." "The Bulwark" says, "J.D. Vance is being set up as the Iran deal fall guy." I even saw our friend of the show, Bhatia (ph), saying this kind of seems a little bit like the Kamala Harris, you're in charge of the southern border moment. Is he being set up, you think?
FOSTER: I just left Bhatia about 20 minutes ago or however long ago we started this. And she said pretty much the same thing to me. Listening to Ben talk there about Hillbilly Obama and you making that connection between the cover, the title of J.D.'s book and what Ben said, it's a bit like trying to decode rap lyrics, like the beef here.
And it's hard to ignore the parallels to Kamala Harris being sent out as the border czar to actually try and go talk about what is likely the most unpopular issue for the president at that time. And J.D. Vance doing something very similar while almost no one else from the administration is visible or vocal about this at all right now.
PHILLIP: Where are you at, Marco Rubio?
FOSTER: And if you're going to talk about the deal being misrepresented, it's easy to misrepresent the deal that no one has actually seen.
PHILLIP: They refuse to release the text.
MATTHEWS: Yeah, I thought that was interesting about him saying the propaganda piece and how people are choosing to believe Iranian propaganda. OK, well, there's a very easy way to dispute that.
FOSTER: Release the deal.
MATTHEWS: Release the deal. And I think that the reason that he is being put up as a fall guy, as my employer, "The Bulwark," said recently today, is because 64 percent of Americans believe that Trump made the wrong choice to launch this war with Iran, according to a new "New York Times/Siena Poll." And now it seems that J.D. is the guy stuck trying to sell this to the American people. But the thing is, is that J.D. is trying to distance himself. We've seen in reporting how there have been leaked reports about how he was the one in the Situation Room telling Trump, "hey, I don't think this is a good idea, but I will support you." And I know how that works. There is someone clearly in his camp who is leaking that to a reporter.
So, that way he can set himself up for a 2028 run and show, hey, I was actually pushing back on this. I warned the president, but he also has to toe a line and stand by the president and his decision. Something that Kamala Harris did not do very well.
I don't think that she positioned herself well enough when it came to something like the border by creating that distance between her and Biden. She wasn't really willing to criticize him. And it seems like we're seeing J.D. Vance start to lay the groundwork for that. PHILLIP: So, Ben Shapiro says in the "Wall Street Journal," the American people don't like war. They like even less losing wars. If this deal is perceived as an American loss and the vice president brokered that deal, then the political consequences will be significant.
Now, I actually have to say, not even sure that you can blame Joe Biden for being so political that he wants to see this war come to an end. He didn't want to see the war in the first place. He wants to see the war come to an end.
That might be an OK thing if this president hadn't made the case that being sort of a fighter was the whole point, that we were going to win, not because we conceded, but because we bombed the crap out of them. And if it looks like we conceded, that seems to be the opposite of what Trump is trying to sell to his supporters.
SETMAYER: This is J.D. Vance's pick-me moment. Pick me, please. Pick me. Because J.D. Vance has been fighting for his political life for months now. Because they pulled him, remember, the last time they thought they had a deal and they were supposed to be getting on the planes, and then all of a sudden J.D. Vance was going, then he wasn't going, and then he got left out completely. Then you didn't hear from J.D. Vance for like two months.
Marco Rubio has been out front. You saw a lot of Marco. Marco was giving the press conferences, you know, in the press briefing room. I actually, I don't know how my email got on a Trump list, fundraising list, which is a lot.
[22:29:56]
But one of Trump's MAGA Inc. Super PACs sent out about two weeks ago, one of their fundraising letters said, email said, how do you think Marco Rubio is doing?
They're testing the waters because they're trying to anoint Marco Rubio. There is an obvious splintering going on inside the MAGA movement here where J.D. Vance is on one side and Marco Rubio on that camp is on the other and there are a lot of people here that are trying to figure out which way to go and J.D. Vance is the sucker in this moment right now, but he's desperate for the attention, so he's going to do it.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, AND FORMER AIDE TO GEORGE W. BUSH: I think J.D. Vance believes that they've accomplished the goal of stopping them from getting nuclear weapons, but beyond that, based on what I've heard him say in his media interviews today, he clearly believes they are on the brink of transforming the way Iran deals with the rest of the world.
Whether he's right about that, we don't know the answer to that yet, but obviously that's what he thinks and that's what he is selling. You say the American people don't support the idea of being at war, well J.D. Vance is the one out here trying to end it. And so, I think in his mind, he's been more on the dovish side of
this. He says, look, we went to war, we took away their ability to have nuclear weapons, I brokered the end of the war.
We've made a deal to talk about a nuclear deal.
JENNINGS: I'm saying it at the conclusion of this. The ultimate argument would be, we went to war, we met the objective, I helped end the war, we transformed the way Iran deals with the rest of the world, and that ultimately was a good result.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Hold on, Tony.
What's interesting and amusing about this, because what Scott just said, that Vance said, Trump also said, he said, we're dealing with good people, they want what's best for their country. They've basically, they've changed their ways. Are we really supposed to believe that is true based on a page and a half document that basically commits them to nothing?
TONY KINNETT, NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, DAILY SIGNAL: I think previously the President's made it perfectly clear, no matter who he's negotiating against, he says, well they want to make the right choice, I think that's what he says, because he wants to make it very easy. It's very obvious.
PHILLIP: What about Vance? I mean, Vance is not, he's not Trump, they're different people. He is also claiming, with no evidence, that Iran has suddenly woken up, and the scales have fallen from their eyes, and they've changed their ways.
What is the proof point of this?
JENNINGS: Actually on CNN, he did say that in their dealings directly with the Iranians, that he perceived that they had decided the way they had been dealing with the United States was incorrect. Now, you can be skeptical that the people who say death to America woke up one day and decided that was not correct. I do believe this.
I do believe we have militarily subdued them. I do believe the blockade has economically subdued them. And I do believe there is a path here, because we have this coalition in the Gulf, to keep them from ever being the menace that they were.
But it is going to take, effectively, eternal vigilance, because I don't personally believe these people are ever going to change. I know it's aspirational, and I know it feels good to talk about it that way, but you could never take your eye off these guys.
SARAH MATTHEWS, FORMER WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY UNDER FIRST TRUMP ADMINISTRATION: I will say, though, I think that something that we were talking about, though, was that you were saying that, should we give J.D. Vance the credit that he's helping negotiate this peace deal?
And my argument was that the American people are not supportive of this war. I don't think that they've made a great case for selling the war to the American people, and what the urgent threat was. That's the thing.
Of course, I agree that we don't want to see Iran acquire a nuclear weapon, but Trump's the one who tore up the JCPOA, and then he is now about to maybe negotiate something, at best, exactly the same, at worst.
JENNINGS: You know, the JCPOA never contemplated the terror proxies. I mean, it was aspirational on the nuclear piece.
I didn't believe Iran then. They never dealt--
KMELE FOSTER, PODCAST HOST, "THE FIFTH COLUMN": I was just going to ask, briefly, if anyone thought that they were actually doing a better job of messaging now that the deal is supposedly done, because it certainly doesn't seem that way.
JENNINGS: You can't message something that we haven't seen. My advice would be, hand it out.
PHILLIP: Well, they can certainly something that exists, it does exist. They still don't know how to message it.
JENNINGS: They need to hand it out.
PHILLIP: All right, next for us. Remember when the President told you that the ballroom wouldn't cost taxpayers a dime? Well, a new report is showing that the bill is more like $300 million, and the White House knew it for a while. We'll discuss that.
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[22:35:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: For months, President Trump has insisted that his new ballroom wouldn't cost taxpayers a dollar. But the new report in the "Washington Post" disputes that.
According to a contractor estimate obtained by the Post, the White House was told that the ballroom project could cost $600 million, with more than half of that coming from taxpayers. And by March, the federal government had already approved work totaling millions of dollars in public funds. But despite that, Trump has said the project would be taxpayer-free before and after that estimate was made.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We have no taxes. This is taxpayer-free. We have no taxpayer putting up $0.10.
We did this no charge to the taxpayer whatsoever.
And I'm paying for it. I'm paying for it. The country is not. We're donating a $400 million ballroom. Myself and donors are giving
them, free of charge, for nothing.
[22:40:05]
It's being paid for 100 percent by me and some friends of mine donors.
Rich people and people are putting up the money. Zero taxpayer dollars.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Man, just tear the building down and pay for it later. The taxpayer dollars, no less.
MATTHEWS: Sounds like that was a lie that it was going to be completely privately funded. And my question then is, why isn't Trump the one fronting the money?
If it's going to cost $300 million for taxpayers and he's going to stick us with the bill, I don't understand why a man worth $7 billion who has seen a $3 billion gain in the last year because he's profiting off the presidency can't be the one to foot the bill in a time when so many Americans are struggling.
It's just completely out of touch and elitist. And I will note, though, there is a need for an upgraded space at the White House to host events. I'm not willing to dispute that.
I just think that the way that he has gone about this and messaged it is completely out of touch. I mean, so many people are struggling right now. And at a time when gas prices are skyrocketing, grocery prices--
JENNINGS: Are actually coming down like $0.50 over the last month.
MATTHEWS: But we're going to see the--
JENNINGS: Oil, $72 a barrel.
MATTHEWS: Well, it's still going to be high for the next few months because it's not going to come down immediately, even if they negotiate.
PHILLIP: Listen, I don't think we're talking about gas prices are high.
MATTHEWS: I know you want to talk about that right now and not talk about--
KINNETT: All address your exact.
MATTHEWS: But let's honor his promise that it would be privately funded.
PHILLIP: What Sarah's talking about, because, again, this is about a year, maybe less than a year after a whole bunch of talk about government waste, fraud and abuse, about things that are being spent on taxpayer dime. It shouldn't have been spent there about a lack of oversight, about pet projects by bipartisans.
How does this not count as that when there's a clear lack of transparency on this issue of Trump wanting to create a ballroom really for his own vanity?
KINNETT: So to answer her question and to then your build on point there, because, again, answering the direct point that she made. So it would be really kind of weird for the administration to do a big, huge man and we're going to pay for it all and then turn around with all of these rich people and rug pull the American people.
Here's the issue, though, in the Senate bill itself. And I know because I read the entire bill, kind of a cool thing you can do. In the bill, it said you cannot use any of these funds for the ballroom- style furnishings in the middle of the building.
There are security expenses above. You can raise the eyebrows. But in this case, do you not agree that after the drone terror planning over the weekend, there should be defenses on top of the White House?
PHILLIP: You're actually disputing a completely different thing. So the first--
KINNETT: But the contract report--
PHILLIP: --about the first thing is that Senate money, that congressional money is no longer they're not doing it. It's not in the bill. Right.
So the second thing is there's -- Trump said this would be 300 million dollars paid for by him and his friends. It turns out that's only half of the money. The other half of the money is coming from the taxpayers.
How do you explain that?
KINNETT: Again, so the President of the United States made it clear that the inside of the ballroom stuff, like the actual ballroom inner side, not the bulletproof glass windows that can't be bought by private donations. The Department of War has to approve certain aspects of that.
PHILLIP: So you really think that people are going to be okay with this idea that, okay, the furniture and the lighting, that's going to be paid for by friends.
KINNET: Yes, I put a tarp on my wall for the defenses on top of the White House.
PHILLIP: But everything else will be paid for by you. And we just won't tell you.
KINNETT: No, we're buying. MATTHEWS: So why did he lie when he said that this would be 100
percent privately funded, that it would cost $0 to the taxpayer?
PHILLIP: He said, $0.
MATTHEWS: I then because I see the point that you're making, that he tried to sell it one way to the American people. And that's just not the truth.
And instead of being the one to now put up the money, he's going to stick taxpayers with the bill. And that just doesn't seem like a fair thing for taxpayers.
The vast majority of the American people will never step foot in this ballroom. And I don't understand because I think I would rather see my taxpayer dollars go toward quite literally anything--
SETMAYER: Anything else but this. Look, from the beginning, this has been a terrible, non-transparent thing. Remember, they bulldozed the East Wing in the like, shocking literally the world, literally bulldozed it.
It's the people's house. It is the people's house. And there's a process.
And they violated the law and they were taken to court for it. The White House Historical Association, the National Preservation Society, like all these people are going, oh, my God, there is a process for this. This administration completely bypassed that process because he said, I'm going to do what I want to do, come after me later.
So now we have a big, this despicable hole in the ground on the White House lawn. And they're going, well, it's not going to cost you anything.
No, it's going to cost $200 million. Then it was $400 million because he doubled the size.
This whole B.S. about the drone port on the top and all that came months later after Trump was obsessed with this in every single meeting, bringing up the stupid ball, gilded ballroom.
[22:45:07]
MATTHEWS: He went to a Knicks game the other week. I understand. I want to see the first family and the President be safe.
Of course, I pray for their safety. That is something we can all agree on at this table.
But it is disingenuous to say that that is the reason for this ballroom. He initially wanted it for a vanity project. And yes, I agree.
There is a heightened threat against him. And that is something that we need to be cognizant of. But then he shouldn't be going to Knicks games.
He shouldn't be hosting a 4th of July rally. He shouldn't be doing those things.
JENNINGS: You said you want them to be safe, but you also said you want your tax dollars to go for anything else other than this.
SETMAYER: Other than the ballroom.
KINNET: And the bunker below it. The truth is that we're forgetting the fact that that is part of the project according to the "Washington Post" report.
SETMAYER: He never brings that up.
JENNINGS: There's two parts to the project. There's the social space, which I think you acknowledged is needed. And now they're going to have to build that.
MATTHEWS: But he could have gone through the proper process to get it approved.
JENNINGS: And there is the security space. I read the "Washington Post" reporting on this tonight. Three experts who reviewed the documents related to the project said it was appropriate for the Secret Service and the White House military office to pay for parts of the project that fall within their mission.
The mission is to keep the First Family and the White House safe.
PHILLIP: Where is the telling the truth part to the American public? That's the issue, is that when Trump says, I'm initiating this project and it's not going to cost you anything, and then it ends up costing $300 million of taxpayer funds, that's being deceptive.
JENNINGS: I think they should tell the American people every single dollar that's going into this, private and public. And I think they ought to tell the American people exactly why and how this is going to be the most secure building in Washington, D.C., because that's what we deserve.
PHILLIP: You know what, that's what they should have done a year ago before they tore a brick off of that building. Because actually, in the litigation that's ongoing about this, one of the big issues is that that's in the plain text of the law, that they do have to go to Congress to authorize major projects at the White House, and they did not do that.
So they're going to have to answer for why they defied the law and then are trying to spend $300 million in taxpayer funds without authorization from Congress. These are going to be questions that have to be answered, and in the meantime, there's a hole in the ground.
MATTHEWS: And I think that's my argument, is that it was the way in which he went about it, not that there is a lack of a security need or anything. He just should have gone about it in a different way and been up front, because that's what it was about.
PHILLIP: All right, and next for us, to add insult to injury, we've got a reflecting pool that now is covered in green algae. What the President is trying to do about it right now.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:50:00]
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PHILLIP: We're back.
See that right there? That's the newly renovated reflecting, and yes, it is green and not American blue, I guess, is what it was supposed to be.
Look, this is $14 million of taxpayer dollars as well that went into that project. And now they're pouring literally by hand gallons of hydrogen peroxide into the water to try to kill the algae.
I don't even know what to say about this, except that maybe this is why a no-bid contract is not the best idea.
SETMAYER: It's idiocracy at its height right here. I mean, when I saw the pictures of them literally pouring hydrogen peroxide into this, I just was like, oh my God. You know, this is what happens when you fire all the scientists and like the environmental experts and just say, I want a reflecting pool.
I'm going to hire my pool guy that worked on my pools. And then it was like, oh, it wasn't him. Didn't he also say that it was only going to cost a couple of million dollars?
PHILLIP: He said it was going to cost $2 million.
SETMAYER: Right. And then now it's $14 million. I mean, this is just another example of how asinine a lot of the things that Donald Trump does because they're vanity projects, you know, and he continues to rob the American people blind with all of these things.
It's a waste of money because it's not his. So what does he care? The way he is a terrible steward of the people's money is rich for particularly Republicans who used to go on and on about the importance of being a good steward of the taxpayer money.
And now here you have an algae-filled pool that looks worse than it was before. It's basic science and they didn't follow it.
JENNINGS: I really feel for the President on this because as a chicken farmer, I have to clean the algae out of my chicken watering jugs every day in the summer. That water is green every day.
Now, fortunately it doesn't harm chickens and it's not going to harm the reflecting pool either, but water and sun and organic material that will lead to algae in the summertime. If I were the President, we can rebrand this thing right now. The reason that water is green is because this country has never been wealthier.
FOSTER: That is the marketing advice of the day.
PHILLIP: He painted it blue and now it is green because of Scott points out its nature.
MATTHEWS: It's so silly that we're talking about a reflecting pool.
I gotta be honest. I could really care less about it. Obama also spent money toward, trying to fix up the reflecting pool.
It's been an issue that's plagued every presidency it seems like, but I got to acknowledge that Trump is the one who's making it such a big issue. He keeps talking about it, holding up the poster boards.
[22:55:06]
PHILLIP: Everyone, thanks for being here.
Next, I've got a confession to make. We'll be back in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: I have an exciting announcement. In addition to "NewsNight" and "Table for Five," I'm going to be hosting a new streaming show called "Confessions and Obsessions." This room is like a confessional booth for all the familiar faces that you're used to seeing saying what they probably shouldn't be saying out loud, things that they want to get off best and things that they just cannot stop thinking about.
We talk about everything from sex and stealing to etiquette and happiness and grudges. Starting tomorrow, you can stream the show anytime with an all access subscription in the CNN app or at cnn.com/watch.
And thank you for watching "NewsNight." "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
