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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Tries Distancing Himself From Voter Anger With GOP; U.S. Employers Unexpectedly Lost Jobs As Labor Force Shrinks; Court Blocks Trump's Ballroom, Says Congress Must Approve; Joint Chiefs Of Staff Head Looks For An Off-Ramp From The War In Iran; Louisiana GOP to Support Blanche's Nomination. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired August 07, 2026 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST (voice over): Tonight, Donald Trump gives a middle finger to Republican midterm fears.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: They're angry at Republicans, but they're not angry at me.
PHILLIP: As his economy gets another abysmal jobs report.
Plus, as a court stops the president's ballroom, will the next one erase his golden additions?
HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: You know what? It's sad to me. It's sad that it's so tackied up.
PHILLIP: Also, first, the munition shortage, now Trump's top general is looking for an off-ramp to the Iran war.
And Trump's controversial pick to lead the Justice Department gets a green light from a spurned senator.
SEN. BILL CASSIDY (R-LA): I'll be criticized for this vote. What's new?
PHILLIP: Live from the Food Network, Van Lathan, Caroline Downey, Leigh McGowan, and Governor Asa Hutchinson.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here they do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening, everyone. I'm Abby Phillip with a field trip edition of NewsNight. And as you know, we spend our Fridays here at the Food Network's Test Kitchen in our sister company here in New York. We have a fabulous chef, as always, serving our friends at the show. She's got a special treat for us at the end of the night.
But first, the news, President Trump has a lot on his plate, a dismal jobs number coming out today, the ongoing war with Iran, a tanking approval rating, and a midterm lineup that's boosting Democrat momentum. So, it's no wonder that Republicans have the jitters this November, but Trump doesn't seem to care.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: If I don't run, will those people go out and vote? And that's the one thing I can't tell. I'm going to ask them to, but I'm just watching guys like you, and you're very talented people. The question is will they vote, because a lot of them are very angry at Republicans, to be honest with you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why is that?
TRUMP: They're angry at -- I don't know. I mean, they're angry at Republicans, but they're not angry at me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's an interesting thing. Why, though?
TRUMP: They're not angry at me, but they are angry at Republicans.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Right now, Republicans are trailing Democrats on the generic ballot by eight points. Democrats also have a 20-point advantage among those who say that they're extremely motivated to vote, and 63 percent of Republican voters say that their own party is not focusing enough on cost of living issues, something that remains top of mind for most Americans.
And in addition to all of that, there are new signs of cracks in the economy, and it's likely to add to Republicans' anxiety. A new report shows that the U.S. actually lost jobs in July to the tune of 23,000. Job gains in the previous months were also revised down. The unemployment rate ticked down slightly, largely because of people leaving the workforce. But things are just rosy in Trump's eyes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: You know, when I see polls on the economy, I should have 150 percent, not 100 percent.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, yes.
TRUMP: Because we have the greatest -- this is the golden age of America. What's being built now in this country has never, ever been built. And we're really -- we are literally in the golden age of America.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Before we open it up to the table here, we want to invite you at home to join the debate. Go to cnn.com/abby. Weigh in there. We'll get to some of your comments as we go throughout the show.
You know, Governor, let me start with you because the president, he insists that he is not the problem. He insists that the economy is doing great, that Americans are not mad at him even though his approval rating is -- has only been lower after the January 6th insurrection. So, is he just completely blind to what's happening here, or is he just putting on a positive face for the reporter?
[22:05:03]
FMR. GOV. ASA HUTCHINSON (R-AR): Well, you did paint a rather abysmal picture of Republicans as we go into the midterm elections and the saving grace is that the Democrats have their own set of problems. But what President Trump said today really is mystifying because he does care. He does care about the midterm elections. He cares about whether there's going to be a Democrat Congress or Senate next year because it impacts what he can do and whether his whole agenda is blocked or not. So, he does care. The question is how can he turn the fortunes around and have a successful midterm election?
He's making a mistake by attacking GOP senators. John Thune needs to be his friend. John Cornyn, he's alienated. Bill Cassidy, he's alienated, those two senators that he opposed in the primary. And so he's paying a price for bad relations with the Senate that he needs to rectify. We need to be on the same team as we go into the fall election.
PHILLIP: Yes, and we'll talk about this later, but, I mean, he even -- I mean, he attacked Lisa Murkowski today.
I mean, I think it also raises the question, is Trump even -- I mean, there are things he could do that would make this better. He doesn't seem to be interested in doing them.
VAN LATHAN, PODCAST CO-HOST, HIGHER LEARNING: No. That's him getting off the ship. I mean, like, Donald -- I believe him. What he just said, I think that that's true. I think that if there's somebody that's going to take the fall for the problems in the country right now that are based around the policies of Donald Trump, it's going to be anybody but Donald Trump.
You see it all the time. You see Republicans, sometimes high-profile Republicans, want to criticize the president, but they won't. They'll criticize the people that are advising him. They'll criticize everyone around him, but no criticism for him. That's because it's religion. You can't get angry at God. It's everybody else's fault.
So, that, to me, if I was a Republican, which I'm not and never would be, but if I was one of them, I would be very concerned about being abandoned by the most powerful force in the entire party listening to him talk right there.
LEIGH MCGOWAN, PODCAST HOST, POLITICSGIRL: But it also makes sense that people are angry with Republicans. Like Trump's probably right. They're not mad at him. That's why people think it's a cult. He has a get out of jail free card that the Republican Party doesn't have.
But I think people are justifiably, understandably upset at Republicans because they are the ones with the power to rein him in, to say no, to the war, to the cuts in healthcare, to the terrible people that he put in charge of the DOD or the HHS or the Justice Department. But they do nothing, and that's why we have multiple food- borne illnesses and a full-blown war in the Middle East, and we're letting child rapists walk free because he's allowing it to go forward.
They could stop him. They don't do it. And I think that's why people are upset with Republicans, and I think that's why we need to be really serious in November about who we put into power.
PHILLIP: So, in this interview, Jake Sherman kind of just plainly told the president, hey, look, if Democrats take over, you're going to be on the menu in terms of investigations. And here's what the president said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If Democrats do take over the house, it's just going to be investigation mania. You know, they're going to do oversight. They could impeach you again. I mean, do you think they will?
TRUMP: Well, a lot of people are saying I'm one of the greatest presidents ever.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're not saying that, though.
TRUMP: Yes, but they know. They see the results.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I mean, Caroline, this is a real question of whether the president is here with us on Earth One or if he is on a different political planet.
CAROLINE DOWNEY, COLUMNIST, NATIONAL REVIEW: I think Jake Sherman is correct that the investigations are going to come pretty fast and furious, which is why it's, I think, especially frustrating for so many Republicans, because he's going to be a lame duck on steroids. And that's why it's also so disappointing that many voters, including his base, feel like he has squandered the economic promises that he made.
The fact is that, you know, the Iran war, the prosecution of it, has been pretty bipolar, and I think that has unfortunately trickled down to a very shaky economy, or at least that's the sentiment of people. But I want to dive into that a little bit more, because the polling on this has been confusing.
Now, the economy still definitely looms largest for voters, and they can't be faulted for that, right? It's the economy, stupid. It's still the correct mantra to have. But there was a recent poll just a few days ago by Navigator Research that found that over 60 percent of respondents actually say that their personal financial situation is thriving, it's excellent or good, while only 30 percent of respondents said that the economy is excellent or good. That's a pretty big gap. But I think we should step back and ask ourselves, okay, so people are saying that in their individual households, their daily lives, they're actually doing quite well. They're thriving. But when you take the macro story into account and all of the things that are going on in the economy zooming out, they somehow are very doom and gloom.
PHILLIP: That was true in the Biden years.
LATHAN: Yes.
PHILLIP: I mean, I remember those polls because I used to look at them too. It literally, voters would say, Hey, me and my family, we're doing okay, but I think the economy kind of sucks.
[22:10:04]
But here's the big difference between then and now. The jobs picture, look at the jobs picture from the last year, okay? We lost 23,000 jobs in the last month, but look at how many times we've been in the negative in the last 12 months, right? And it's worse than that. Wage growth has been eclipsed by inflation.
When you look deeper, people are leaving the workforce. The Trump administration, they want to say it's all immigrants being deported, but it's also Americans leaving the workforce, the unemployment rate for Americans going up. So the actual difference is that under Biden, the job picture was actually much better than it is right now. That's the reality.
MCGOWAN: Yes, people -- but the people kept saying, but we're not feeling it. We're not feeling it. Now, people really are feeling the actual pain, but Donald Trump is saying, we're living in the golden age. If anyone asked, I should get 150 percent on my, you know, exam. And you're like, if you understood economics, you would understand why you can't get 150 percent.
I think the thing is that what we need to ask is does Donald Trump even really understand what's going on? Does he not understand the economy is bad? Does he not understand that he's losing the war? Is it that just no one has the balls to give him bad news so he really truly doesn't understand? We know he doesn't care about the environment or public health or parks or and he thinks groceries is a made-up word. But is he so completely out of touch with what's really going on?
PHILLIP: Well, let me play -- I mean, this is Kevin Hassett and he's talking about the job numbers and claiming, well, if you just take out all the bad numbers, this is a good jobs report.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KEVIN HASSETT, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: The weakness in this number were really just two things, government workers and a sort of rebound from all the employment we got from the World Cup, because the World Cup was ending. And so if you throw out the World Cup and the government workers, we actually had a number that was about plus 100,000. (END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Well, and I'm sorry, that's not how this works.
HUTCHINSON: One thing positive that he needs to do for right now, there's a 46 percent increase in farm bankruptcies across the United States of America. Arkansas, my state, leads the nation, regretfully, in farm bankruptcies. They're hurting out there, and yet we have not been able to pass a farm bill.
If the president of the United States could help work with the senators and pull this together, and have on his desk a farm bill that is signed, that Biden couldn't get passed, it's been delayed, that would be a stroke of genius. It would be helpful to the economy, and would mean something.
That's the kind of thing he can do. Obviously, the question whether he will or not, but that's what he needs to be doing.
MCGOWAN: Let's back it up, though, and ask why -- let's back it up and ask why the farmers are all struggling. Why are --
HUTCHINSON: Because of tariffs.
MCGOWAN: Yes. And who put in the tariffs?
LATHAN: He did it to them.
(CROSSTALKS)
DOWNEY: To Kevin Hassett's point, though, to Kevin Hassett's point, the manufacturing sector did grow in the jobs numbers.
PHILLIP: Slightly, but we're still at a four-year low for manufacturing jobs.
DOWNEY: But, I mean, okay, but it did grow. And also --
PHILLIP: Yes, it went up like marginally again, but we've been -- we are on a downward slope for manufacturing jobs come in the last four years.
LATHAN: We're going back and forth like talking about whether or not we can juke the stats on this. The overall sentiment of people in America right now is that they are not being governed properly.
MCGOWAN: Well, they're not being --
LATHAN: They are completely disillusioned by what they're seeing happening in foreign wars, like domestically here with the economy. A lot of these errors are unforced errors, like completely unforced errors based on failed policies and bad ideas.
HUTCHINSON: And divided government.
LATHAN: Well, without a doubt. But here's the thing about -- PHILLIP: But, I mean, I don't even know. I mean, you say divided government, but Trump has not put forward an economic agenda to Congress, period.
LATHAN: Without a doubt. No, he -- what he tries to do --
PHILLIP: He has not.
DOWNEY: The big, beautiful bill did extend the 2017 tax cuts, which delivered real wage growth to American households.
PHILLIP: If he had left that, it would be a completely different picture than what we have right now.
DOWNEY: I agree that the tariff strategy was not smart. It was very imprudent also to launch new ones against Canada just as the midterms are looming. But I don't think he gets enough credit for the deregulation that he put in place right off the bat when he took office.
Now, I know Democrats like to sit in this affordability platform. They throw this out as like this --
LATHAN: Democrats like to sit in an affordability platform.
MCGOWAN: Why do you say it with an accent? Like affordability is important to people.
DOWNEY: What does affordability mean? What does affordability mean?
MCGOWAN: I think, listen, at the end of the day --
PHILLIP: It's not about affordability. It's about what things cost.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: We've been talking about a lot of numbers, right?
DOWNEY: The equation of affordability is productivity and innovation.
PHILLIP: No, it's not.
DOWNEY: Yes, it is.
PHILLIP: No, it's not.
DOWNEY: That is how you unlock affordability.
LATHAN: Affordability is in the aisles at Vons and Ralphs and stuff like that, is eggs and bacon and cheese and --
PHILLIP: Affordability is what that box of cereal costs.
LATHAN: Yes, that's what that is, right?
DOWNEY: And how do you get there? PHILLIP: Affordability is how much it costs you to put gas in your car. That's what affordability is.
MCGOWAN: And wages.
DOWNEY: And how do you get there?
[22:15:00]
MCGOWAN: And healthcare.
PHILLIP: Innovation or productivity has nothing to do with the gas prices that people pay.
DOWNEY: That's a function of the market. What are you talking about?
LATHAN: Well, you also --
DOWNEY: Yes, it is.
LATHAN: I'll tell you one way you don't get there is by levying an unnecessary tax on manufacturers and people like that and driving up --
DOWNEY: I'm with you.
LATHAN: So, I'm telling you, so that right there affects affordability. The people are feeling that when they go to the grocery store. They're feeling that at the gas pump.
DOWNEY: But the Democrats' response is stipends and more welfare benefits and dumping money at a problem and delivering zero results. It's not --
MCGOWAN: I'm sorry, delivering zero results? The last 11 recessions -- the last 11 recessions, 10 of them were under Republican presidents. Democrats are better stewards of the economy, period, the end. And it doesn't -- you can say all these terrible things, but at the end of the day --
DOWNEY: Which states are thriving and which ones are failing?
MCGOWAN: Democrats perform by every metric better than Republicans when they are in office, because they look out for middle class, small businesses, economic resilience. Every time Republicans get into office, they prioritize tax cuts for the wealthy and deregulation.
LATHAN: Just real quick.
PHILLIP: Yes.
LATHAN: Like, Republicans, when you guys talk about states that are thriving, it's Florida, it's Texas. I don't hear a lot of talk about my home state of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, other places that have unconscionable poverty that they are dealing with, and have been dealing with under Republican leadership for generations. PHILLIP: Right.
DOWNEY: Well, Mississippi's doing well.
PHILLIP: Next for us, breaking news, Trump's top general is privately looking for an off-ramp in this Iran war.
Plus, a court stops the construction of Trump's ballroom. But even if it's built, will the next president get rid of all these old additions? We'll debate.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, another major setback for President Trump's White House ballroom after a federal appeals court ruled the construction of it was unlawful. The judge wrote that each president is, quote, temporary tenant and not owner of the White House, and that the power to renovate belongs to Congress, not the executive branch.
President Trump, on the other hand, pushed back and said on Truth Social, we are not tenants, we are presidents, claiming that he has the right to, quote, fix, renovate, secure, protect and beautify the White House grounds.
Earlier, President Trump vowed to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court while questioning the timing of the ruling. He also, again, claimed that the entire project wasn't costing taxpayers anything. But just a quick reminder, a Washington Post report, which cited the contractor's invoices from March, found that costs had ballooned to $600 million, and roughly half of that is being paid for with taxpayer money.
Now, today, Hillary Clinton said that she actually isn't against the idea of a ballroom, though she took issue with the way that Trump went about doing it, and she also slammed Trump's overhaul of the White House and made a stunning comparison. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: When I was in Baghdad after the fall of Saddam Hussein, I had meetings. I was then a senator. I had meetings in some of his palaces, and they were quite reminiscent of what we are seeing in our own White House. It's just insane.
It's sad that it's so tackied up, and it is a reflection of, you know, his narcissistic personality and his need to feel important.
This is a man who can't concentrate. This is a man whose mind apparently goes to, where can I add more gold, instead of, how do I get out of Iran without looking like the loser that I am?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Well, you know, she has a reason for being as salty as she is. I would also say, I mean, what she's saying about Trump's attention is backed up by other people, including Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, who wrote that, you know, his aides would catch him literally super gluing gold onto the walls of the Oval Office. He spends an enormous amount of time thinking about and talking about these things.
But what's so striking about this whole ballroom thing is that Trump very easily, with control of the House and the Senate, could have gone to them and said, hey, we need a ballroom, and they might have given it to him. But what he doesn't like is oversight, and that's the part that makes it unconstitutional.
DOWNEY: Well, after reading this reading -- ruling, I would say it's one thing if the objections actually were on the basis of does he have the constitutional authority to do this unilaterally as the executive to build a ballroom, which obviously that was part of what the case that was brought against him.
But looking a little bit deeper, the dissent from one of the judges, she said, well, it was actually didn't really hold water, and there really wasn't even standing to sue because the plaintiff of this historical heritage society said, well, aesthetic injury, basically saying it was such an eyesore to her to walk by it every day, that she just didn't think it deserved to be erected.
That's not really a good justification to block the building of a space that would actually benefit the country and all of our state dinners, where there isn't really adequate space for that.
PHILLIP: To the contrary. I mean, the justification to block it is that there's an actual statute that says the Congress is responsible for this, and the judges cited that in their -- several judges have cited that in their rulings. And then the Constitution says, the Congress shall have the power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory and/or property belonging to the United States, which is the White House, okay?
[22:25:04]
HUTCHINSON: That really sounds like a weak legislation to govern the White House. That's a very, very general thing.
PHILLIP: As you know, Governor, there are a bunch of statutes that govern the White House and other federal buildings, and they all say that Congress has to authorize the amendment of these buildings.
HUTCHINSON: Every project, whether you're a governor dealing with your governor's residence, which is public property, or the White House, always has controversy. Every renovation project, a ballroom is needed. You're right, he could've gone to Congress. He has an urgency of the moment because he only got a -- has a limited amount of time, and he doesn't want to wait.
And that's where he makes mistakes. I agree with that, but it's going to be fascinating what the Supreme Court does with this mess because you've got a deconstructed White House, a ballroom's not finished, and the appeals court judge stays the decision for a couple weeks so he can continue the project. What's the Supreme Court going to do?
PHILLIP: Well, I mean, look, I don't know what they're going to do, but, again, Trump not only could go to the Congress, he should go to the Congress. And don't forget, he tried to, earlier this year, slip in a billion dollars for this ballroom. They are obfuscating the actual costs of this project. They tried to slip it in a bill, and it was such an extreme inflation of cost that even Republicans said, absolutely no way, and they took it out of the bill.
So, there's a lack of transparency, not just to Congress, but to the American people about what this thing is, how much it's going to cost, and who's responsible for it.
MCGOWAN: I think he's also forgetting what his role is. It's not the president's job to tear down half of the White House. You lived in a governor's mansion. If you had taken a wrecking ball to the governor's mansion, I'm sure the people of Arkansas would have been --
HUTCHINSON: I'd get out of office very quickly.
MCGOWAN: Exactly, you'd be out of office. If you just take down one- third of the White House without asking anyone, when you know you have to rebuild something in its place, and Congress is in charge of the funds to rebuild anything, then you need to go through Congress in the first place.
I feel like we're back to the same question of people need to tell this man, no, because he's like a child playing with an unlimited budget, but the budget comes from taxpayer dollars, and the Republicans in Congress need to tell him to stop. And if they don't, we need to replace them with people that will.
PHILLIP: So, let me play this from today. And, honestly, this is apropos of absolutely nothing. I mean, this was an event about something completely different, but here's what he was talking about in the middle of it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The president's allowed to remove things from any building. And I'm liking the chandeliers. I really -- I like those Corinthian columns, but I don't know, cutting them out would be not good. Those are beautiful columns. But -- and I'm allowed to do it. Every once in a while, I'll come in here and grab a painting and put it at the Oval Office, right? But not too much.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: He's got a builder's eye. I mean, should the next president dismantle all of the things that he has changed and --
LATHAN: I remember when he was first running for president and there was this video that went viral about the things like he felt like he was allowed to do. And that's the way he treats everything. When he just -- the tweet says it all. What did the tweet say? The tweet said, we're not tenants, we're presidents. You are a tenant. You're a tenant. It's my house. It's your house, not his house. It's not -- it's our house. There are rules.
And Donald Trump thinks he's bigger than the program now. He's always thought that he was bigger than the program. The only thing is, will he destroy the program? Will he destroy all of the norms that we have, all of the constitutional laws that we have? Will he leave our opinions of our government and who we are in tatters? And he will if his party doesn't get engaged and stop him.
You guys are supposed to be the strict constitutionalists and the originalists and the we-do-it rule-of-law people and all of this. I'm supposed to be the wacky, crazy, leftist liberal. But you guys won't even tell him to put the Kool-Aid back in the refrigerator.
HUTCHINSON: We stopped the weaponization of justice fund, the one point some billion dollars.
DOWNEY: But also, I just think it's a bit --
(CROSSTALKS)
LATHAN: We'll see. It might come back.
PHILLIP: We will also get to that later.
DOWNEY: I think it's a bit hyperbolic to suggest that erecting a very necessary new building that, again, dignitaries, foreign diplomats, and everyone who's in politics in this country could potentially benefit from, that was very much overdue, with abusing egregious federal power.
Okay. Yes, there's a statute on the books, but previous presidents have also conducted renovations to the White House.
LATHAN: Can I ask you a question? Can I ask you a question? Can I ask you a question?
PHILLIP: He bulldozed the building. That's actually --
LATHAN: Right. If you are a person that is down and out, you're down on your luck, can you steal money? Can you take money?
DOWNEY: The answer's no.
LATHAN: No, right?
[22:30:00]
It doesn't matter if you need something, because there's still rules, right? You're a law and order person, right?
So even though something might be needed, I don't know if a ballroom is needed or not, there's still rules in the way that you get it, and the rule, the rule of law, is what governs America in perpetuity and not the whims of one God. We're on the same page.
CAROLINE DOWNEY, SENIOR FELLOW, INDEPENDENT WOMEN'S FORUM, AND COLUMNIST, "NATIONAL REVIEW": Okay, sure, but I'm trying, what I said earlier is that the plaintiff claimed that because she thought he was ugly, it should go. That is not a legitimate legal standard. I hope you realize that.
PHILLIP: Well, I mean, you say that, but we also have laws on the books that empower commissions to make sure that if there are changes that are being made, that they are fitting in with the aesthetic history of the place, right, of the capital city of America.
So aesthetics is not the only reason, but it definitely could be one of the reasons. There's a reason, there's a process around that too that Congress has established. So, I mean, look, I think you may not like that there's a board that decides what things are supposed to look like, but that was a decision that Congress made, and Trump is just deciding to ignore it, and to Van's point, I mean, that's the whole point of having the rule of law, right?
So, all right. Next, breaking news, Trump's top general is quietly looking for an off-ramp in this Iran war because he is extremely worried about the military. We're going to tell you why next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:35:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight, a stunning private admission from the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. Sources tell CNN that General Dan Caine has made clear to top advisors that the U.S. needs to find an off-ramp from the Iran war.
Over the last few weeks, he's met with key cabinet officials, including the CIA director, secretary of state, and the Vice President, all warning that escalating this conflict could backfire, and air power alone is unlikely to achieve President Trump's stated objectives. That's something that General Caine has said in part publicly during a Senate hearing just last month.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JACK REED (D-RI): General Caine, these airstrikes have not yet deterred and defeated the Iranians. Do you think airstrikes alone will do that?
GENERAL DAN CAINE, CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: Sir, I think academically, as you look across the totality of history, air power's got limits and we always have to be mindful of those.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: The sources say that Caine has recently sidebarred with like- minded Trump advisers to make sure that they were on the same page ahead of meetings with Trump. The goal has been to make clear that there are limitations and pitfalls to the military options, including those that don't involve boots on the ground. This is obviously something that has been said about this conflict
since the beginning, from the very beginning, and here at this table and elsewhere, you hear a lot of boosters of this conflict basically saying, you know, we just have to bomb them enough and then they'll submit. That clearly hasn't worked. Is it time for the Trump administration to really come to terms with that, like General Caine wants them to?
ASA HUTCHINSON (R), FORMER ARKANSAS GOVERNOR: Well, I think that's exactly what President Trump is looking at. He wants to be able to move away from Iran, he wants to be able to end the conflict.
He'd like to be able to accomplish his original objectives, but I think what General Caine and the military is saying, unless you put boots on the ground, we're not going to be able to destroy Iran, and I think you're going to see a movement from a destruction of the enemy to a containment of the enemy, and I think that's going to be the new approach for Iran.
PHILLIP: Isn't that a failure, though, of this mission? I mean, because the whole point of this war was not to further contain Iran, which we've been doing for 47 years, as I've been told many times. It's to stop Iran's nuclear ambition. It's to stop them from being a malign force in the region.
If we are just further containing them, what was the point?
HUTCHINSON: That's all part of containment. You contain them by making sure that they're not the disruptive force in the region, that they're not attacking Israel, they're not supporting Hezbollah and the Houthis. That's part of containment, but it's also making sure that the Strait of Hormuz is open for international traffic and that they don't have the capability for nuclear weapons.
That is part of what we have to do in the future.
PHILLIP: I don't see any of those things happening.
LEIGH MCGOWAN, PODCAST HOST, POLITICSGIRL: I mean, talking about our objectives, have we met our objectives? I think we went into this war with no strategy to meet those objectives.
I think they thought it would be easy-peasy like Venezuela was, and then it wasn't. I think this is what happens when you have an administration that was full of people who were chosen for their loyalty and not their talent.
So what you end up with is going into a war when you don't really have a set plan of what you're doing there, and now it's like we're playing poker with an open hand, and the Iranians know what we're doing. They're watching it. The Strait of Hormuz was open before, now it's closed.
Now we're going to have to pay people to go through. We have, if anything, made it worse. DOWNEY: Back to our previous conversation about separation of powers,
maybe a little bit more than a beautification project, this is where you die on that hill, and from a small-c conservative perspective, the original sin here was the Trump administration not consulting Congress, right?
[22:40:02]
Even though, I will say, Obama did conduct a military operation in Libya without congressional approval.
DOWNEY: Can you make a comment about what's happening now without mentioning Obama? Could we just on that one?
HUTCHINSON: That's fair. Go ahead.
DOWNEY: But it's a pretty fair point, right? Because there wasn't, I mean, you have to be able to condemn both, right?
Let's just hold a consistent standard, but I agree that we need a congressional input, and the public deserves a debate about the calculus of this war, and maybe that fact-finding process would have resulted in the discovery that there's this little vulnerability called the Strait of Hormuz, which wasn't really talked about at the outset of this war, and that is the reason why this is a game of chicken, is because that was not included in the original assessment, and we didn't expect that they, we knew that they had that cart of leverage.
It's their only cart of leverage, to be fair, and so much of their military capacity has been so heavily degraded, and, you know, Operation Epic Fury does not get enough credit for the amazing tactical success that it was in almost eliminating their nuclear facility.
PHILLIP: That being said, though, I mean, yes, they've been degraded, but Gulf states, Kuwait, Bahrain, where U.S. has bases, they are still seeing their infrastructure being damaged by Iranian drones and missiles. They've been able to reconstitute a lot of their missile program. Again, war is a dynamic thing, right?
We did a lot at the beginning, but they haven't been sitting on their hands, and now we're in a position where we are running low on munitions, and they just have to survive.
LATHAN: Right. The war has been a complete strategic failure.
They've made some tactical gains, obviously, that we have superior air power, but a complete strategic failure. As a matter of fact, I think the Iranians are emboldened. One of the reasons why we got into this war is because the Israelis were able to convince us that this would be quick and easy.
So if we're talking about having transparency about who should have said what to whom, we should also talk about transparency with our relationship to a foreign power that has drugged America into a war that now America is mired down and bogged down in, and has actually created a threat that didn't exist there before, which is the Iranians' ability to put a choke hold on the world oil supply.
DOWNEY: I think it's taking away President Trump's agency.
PHILLIP: Okay, I actually agree with that.
LATHAN: It certainly is--
DOWNEY: -- taking away President Trump's agency.
PHILLIP: -- because Netanyahu has made that argument to many a President. Most of them just don't follow through on it like Trump did. So that's where we have problems.
Next for us, more breaking news tonight. The Senate is close to voting on Donald Trump's attorney general pick, who just got a green light from a senator who was once snubbed by the President.
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[22:45:00]
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PHILLIP: President Trump's former personal lawyer appears to be on track to become the nation's top prosecutor, and it's thanks to Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, who now supports Todd Blanche's nomination for attorney general. That clears the way for his narrow confirmation in the Senate.
The decision follows weeks of scrutiny over Blanche's role in creating the Trump slush fund for his allies and the tax immunity deal for the President and his family. While making his announcement earlier today, Cassidy appeared to get emotional and choked up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BILL CASSIDY (R-LA): Considered, I will vote for Mr. Blanche. I'll be criticized for this vote. What's new?
But people of Louisiana can be assured that I worked hard to understand the issue and to make the right decision.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: You know, Caroline, he didn't have to do that. Nobody, I mean, was really forcing him to. He's out.
So what's all the emotion about?
DOWNEY: Well, I mean, look, I think the objections that he and those other Republican senators had to the anti-weaponization fund were shared by a lot of common sense conservatives. They felt like it was a bridge too far. But I just felt like this whole confirmation pending process devolved
into theater because of the simple fact that Todd Blanche can continue to serve as an acting A.G. in perpetuity without a formal confirmation. It's really not necessary. He doesn't actually need this.
But Trump wants to say that he got this confirmation in the bag. And as a result, he's going to fight with all these other senators for it. But, you know, really what was needed was simply for Todd Blanche to say memorialize in writing what he had already verbally said, which was the fund is dead, it's not going to be revived.
But to appease Trump, he didn't want to do that. He didn't want to document it and that's why we're still in this mess. But again, I find it silly because he can literally just do exactly what he's doing and nothing changes.
MCGOWAN: Todd Blanche should have been disqualified from the very beginning. The President's personal defense attorney should not be the attorney general of the United States. That is a blatant conflict of interest.
The man who ignored the Epstein victims and then moved Ghislaine Maxwell from a maximum security prison to where she is now should not be the attorney general of the United States. It's disrespectful to every single sexual abuse survivor that has been waiting to be heard.
I think Bill Cassidy is a spineless coward. I can't believe he did this.
He already wrecked it for us with the HHS confirmation of RFK Jr. He's a doctor, he knows better. Our health is worse because of that decision.
[03:50:02]
I think it doesn't matter if Bill Cassidy voted yes or no. If he decided to vote no, they would have got Lisa Murkowski or Susan Collins to vote yes. I mean, they had the votes to begin with.
John Thune needed this vote because he wasn't going to vote for the SAVE Act and he has to throw Trump a bone. But this is pathetic.
I think this whole thing is theater. And I think that Todd Blanche has absolutely no business being attorney general of the United States.
PHILLIP: So Bill Cassidy makes a kind of lesser of two evils argument here. He's saying, yes, Blanche is not perfect, but there are worse alternatives.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CASSIDY: Mr. Blanche is not perfect, and he will tell you this. But the choice is not between perfection and Mr. Blanche. It is between Mr. Blanche and another acting attorney general who may not run the department effectively under President Trump and who indeed may not be as good as Mr. Blanche.
This is not a referendum on President Trump. It is a decision regarding Mr. Blanche in very specific circumstances.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LATHAN: I think he's embarrassed. I think he's embarrassed and to our point, I think he's confronting his cowardice. I think he's been completely by his party and the intelligentsia of it at the top.
And he's standing up there right now, knowing how that looks. And what he's really confronting right there is not the vote, but his own manhood. I'm being serious.
I think the cowardice that she's talking about right now, he feels it as he's saying the words that for some reason he feels compelled to say. It's probably very difficult the way he's been knocked about in the media for the last couple of years.
HUTCHINSON: I'm saying, you're talking about Senator Cassidy, who voted for the impeachment of the President of the United States. That takes courage for you to sit here and say, demean his character.
I think he's wrestling with his conscience there. And I think he did what he thought was right for the people of Louisiana. And I think the point is that Blanche is, I know him.
I'm bothered by the lack of independence and the justice department from the President, but that's not going to change whoever is there.
LATHAN: What do you call somebody that supplants their conscience at a time where they should vote their conscience? What do you call someone? I mean, the reality is it was --
HUTCHINSON: -- reflecting what the people of Louisiana wanted.
MCGOWAN: The people of Louisiana want the guy that's not doing the Epstein transparency. They want the guy who's blocking the New Mexico thing, they want the guy who's now telling us he's going to have a full abortion ban across the United States. That's what the people of Louisiana want.
PHILLIP: But he is in a unique position where he really does not have to do what the President wants him to do. So why not stick with his principles? He's clearly saying he's still not comfortable with this.
HUTCHINSON: Because you analyze it, what's best for our country under these circumstances, Todd is going to be there running the justice department.
MCGOWAN: On behalf of Donald Trump?
Not on behalf of the American people. And that's what the Attorney General's job is.
I think Bill Cassidy knows that he's out of the job because of Donald Trump. And if he wants to get another job out of this job, it's going to be at the behest of Donald Trump. We're going to get a lot of people here somewhere else.
PHILLIP: You can respond, Governor.
HUTCHINSON: Well, I just think that I have trouble because there's not the independence in the Justice Department that there should be. I've been in the Justice Department for two different administrations, I understand the importance of that independence.
That's not going to change under President Trump, and it might not change under a Democrat President either. We have a new scenario here under the rules that we're operating with.
Senator Cassidy simply voted what he believed. He didn't have any gain either way. And I think he was a practical vote that he sees as an opportunity to have some continuity in the Justice Department.
I know the DEA. I've been there. I've seen the Attorney General in action, the Acting Attorney General.
He's very supportive of the troops, the field, and I think that counts for something as well.
PHILLIP: All right. We'll leave it there.
Next for us, we'll find out what Chef Liza has been cooking up for us over there. We'll be right back.
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[22:55:00]
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PHILLIP: Welcome back.
The Food Network's supervising culinary producer, Liza Zeneski, is here with us with some spectacular plates for us. Tell us what we've got, Chef.
LIZA ZENESKI, SUPERVISING CULINARY PRODUCER, FOOD NETWORK: So tonight we have Tacos Gobernador which means Governor's Tacos.
Very popular in coastal regions of Mexico. I think it's a perfect recipe for the summer, it's lighter. You don't have that heavy, meaty filling that tacos usually have.
This is some poblano peppers, shrimp, some very melty queso. They're absolutely delicious. And as I said, I think just lighter for the summer dinners or lunches.
PHILLIP: So much flavor.
ZENESKI: Oh good. I'm glad. Yes, I think the cheese kind of melts and just velvets the shrimp and it's a killer combination. Tyler Florence is one of our chefs and he is incredible. He actually
hosts "Great Food Truck Race" on Food Network at 9 p.m. on Sundays. If I was competing on that show with my team and we made this dish, we would walk away the winners a thousand percent.
PHILLIP: Yes, for sure.
[23:00:02]
I mean, first of all, shrimp tacos are my favorite, but I've never had shrimp tacos with this much good stuff going on.
ZENESKI: Oh good.
PHILLIP: So it's like, it's pretty amazing. Table, how do you feel?
HUTCHINSON: Wow.
MCGOWAN: Fantastic. It take a little kick, but not too spicy. Not overwhelming.
PHILLIP: Not at all.
MCGOWAN: Just enough.
PHILLIP: Yes.
MCGOWAN: So fresh.
PHILLIP: All right, everyone. Thank you very much for watching "NewsNight." You can catch our Saturday show "Table for Five," it's tomorrow at 10 A.M. Eastern, and don't forget, stream my new show, "Confessions and Obsessions," anytime on the CNN app.
"Laura Coates Live" picks it up right now.
