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Trump Threatens Iran: "A Whole Civilization Will Die Tonight"; Vance: "Going To Be A Lot Of Negotiation" Ahead Of 8 pm Deadline; Tucker Carlson: Bombing Civilian Infrastructure A "War Crime"; Today: Special Election Runoff To Replace MTG In Congress. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired April 07, 2026 - 12:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[12:00:00]

DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Will Iran face total annihilation? President Trump says, we'll find out tonight. I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at Inside Politics.

We all woke up today knowing it would be a crucial one in the six-week war with Iran. The clock is ticking toward the president's deadline of 8 pm eastern tonight for Iran to make a deal that he deems sufficient or face death and destruction. But then at 8:06 am eastern, the president took what was already a series of profane and stark warnings to a new apocalyptic level. These are the commander in chief's exact words.

Quote, a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it will -- it probably will. However, now that we have complete and total regime change where different, smarter and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionary, wonderful can happen. Who knows? We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the world. 47 years of extortion, corruption and death will finally end. God bless the great people of Iran.

Now, we have gotten used to President Trump's over the top rhetoric. But for a president of the United States to warn that a quote, whole civilization will die tonight is a sentence that cannot -- should not be shrugged off as a classic Trump statement or even a negotiating tactic, even if that was his intent.

I'm joined by a terrific group of reporters on this potentially very important day here. Phil Mattingly?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR & CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: That's -- you're just going to tee me up based off that. Here's what I think is important going into tonight, stepping back and actually stepping away just momentarily from kind of the rhetorical warfare the president has launched over the course of the last couple days via social media.

The president right now is obviously amping up the escalatory rhetoric to the highest level he possibly can, whether it be profanity or threatening mass murder of a civilization, while also saying, God bless the people of Iran, who are integral to that civilization. The reality is, there are no good options right now for the president of the United States, given what his goals were heading into this, and given the realities the dynamics right now, in particular the Strait of Hormuz, which we spent so much time talking about over the course of the last couple of weeks.

If the president decides to go through with his targeting of electric grids power infrastructure, the Iranian will immediately retaliate hitting Gulf countries electric grids power infrastructure. The spiral from that will create a much more expansive regional conflict that will also have a dramatic and substantial effect on the global economy, global energy prices, domestic gas prices at home, that will make what we've seen in the last six weeks look relatively minor in scale.

That has always been kind of the paradox of this moment for him, for him to escalate and push this even further as he's threatened, would immediately put on the brink the issue that he is cared most deeply about throughout both of his terms in the White House. And so, that has been the dynamic he's been dealing with. It's why he's continued to extend deadlines, to continue to look for some type of deal.

And the question right now going into this is, is Iran going to call his bluff? Is he calling Iran's bluff? And if they're both calling one another's bluffs, are we about to wander into a place where this gets much larger, much more expansive and much more dangerous than it already is in a very precarious position?

BASH: The vice president is in Hungary today, which we'll talk about more later in the program. But with regard to Iran, here's what he said about the conflict.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT: I hope that they're smart. The president has set a deadline for about 12 hours from now in the United States. We're going to find out, but there's going to be a lot of negotiation between now and then and I'm hopeful that it gets to a good resolution.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Nia-Malika Henderson, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, he apparently isn't part of that negotiation because he's in Hungary and he's rallying there for the nation's prime minister. So, you know, we've heard a lot about this negotiation from the president and every time he talks about it. The Iranians come back and say, you know, there is no deal. The Strait of Hormuz is going to remain closed.

[12:05:00]

He wants to portray it like the folks who are there in power are much more lenient and reasonable and smarter than the people who the Americans wiped out, but they're much more entrenched, much more hardline at this point, partly because the father was killed, all of, you know, all the leaders, the mother. And so, we're in this position where it's hard to believe what the American president says. Often times with this, there have been several rounds of these, negotiations are going well, extension of deadlines. Is that what we're looking at tonight, right? So, you know, we're just in unchartered, unprecedented territory, where in many ways, it's easier to believe what the Iranian have to say about the negotiations, essentially, that there is no negotiation and that there is no sort of forward movement at this point, but, you know, we'll see it in a number of hours.

BASH: It seems like, I mean, and I'd like to know what you're hearing from your sources, it seems like there are negotiations. But the question is, how do you define that because they're not -- they don't seem to be direct? They're through, you know, emissaries and so on. You mentioned Nia, the fact that there have been several deadlines that the president has set and then moved the goal posts.

Let's just look at some examples of what we're talking about. Starting on March 21, he gave a 48-hour ultimatum. Two days later, five-day extension. Three days after that, a 10-day extension. And then four days later, March 30, a new ultimatum, if the deal is not shortly reached, and then we land where we are today, this deadline at 8 pm eastern tonight.

JEFF MASON, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, BLOOMBERG: We've all at this table covered President Trump for a long time. One of his rhetorical ticks, I think you can say, is to throw out a two-week or three-week or a two-day, or whatever it is, deadline for whatever it is. In this case, it's a war. I think you were spot on to start off this show by saying you can't shrug off what he's saying today as just that, because it's talking about civilization. He's talking about human beings. He's talking about lives. He's centering himself and this country in a moment of world history that absolutely could be defining and tragic.

That said, going back to the -- we've all covered Donald Trump for a long time, phrase. We know that it almost certainly is a negotiating tactic. He sees himself as a deal maker. He uses bombastic rhetoric, and he does it in order to bring people in the direction that he wants to go. Will that happen? Hard to say. He also said in the White House yesterday that the negotiations are tough because they don't really have a way to communicate.

So, how are you going to get a negotiation, which according to him, according to the president United States yesterday, is essentially being run by passing notes. How are you going to do that by eight o'clock in order to prevent the end of civilization in Iran? He is raising all those questions with his descriptions.

BASH: Yeah. I mean, you can kind of see the various sort of off ramps that he is eyeing --

MASON: 100 percent.

BASH: -- with this post, including the fact that he is claiming that this current regime is more reasonable than the last one, which he also said yesterday and there's no evidence of that. But it's his way of saying, well, maybe we can kind of live with them if they make a couple of deals on a few things.

Tucker Carlson is not certainly somebody who tends to be -- certainly recent years, the arbiter of somebody who is stable and, you know, accurate in the way that he -- they approach the world. And yet it is, I think, important in this moment to play what he said in reaction to the series of threats we have heard from the president in the last 48 hours or so with regard to Iran.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TUCKER CARLSON, HOST, THE TUCKER CARLSON SHOW: It is vile on every level. It begins with a promise to use the U.S. military, our military, to destroy civilian infrastructure in another country, which is to say, to commit a war crime, a moral crime, against the people of the country. Those people who are in direct contact with the president, need to say, no, I'll resign. I'll do whatever I can do legally to stop this because this is insane. Give the order, I'm not carrying it out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Now, the president talked to the New York Post this morning, responding by calling Tucker a low IQ person who has no idea what's going on.

MATTINGLY: I think it was really instructive and this has actually often been the case over the course of the last six weeks. As you're listening to administration officials talk about plans or talk about strategies, is listening to General Dan Caine, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, where joint chief of staff -- where he kind of walks through in very methodical and in some ways technocratic in logistical detail, kind of how the military operation is running and what their goals are, what their objectives are, and perhaps what is still to be determined.

[12:10:00]

And he was asked a question recently about, basically, is this something you can do this would constitute a war crime? How do you actually think through this if this order is given? And he gave an answer that did not directly address what the president has threatened repeatedly over and over again but made very clear that the U.S. military has ethical and moral restrictions in terms of how they operate.

They have lawyers that are overseeing all of their targeting packages and the strikes that they carry out. And that would be something that they would hew to as they always do, based on how the U.S. military operates. I think that's a notable response, not because he was running up against what the president was saying or objecting to what the president was saying. But just that the military has a way of doing things that involves lawyers and legal responsibilities, and the idea that they would diverge from that, the chairman was saying explicitly, that's not how it works. We'll see. The president is -- we shouldn't give a pass to a president who's continually threatening to commit what constitutes war crimes as part of his threats. But I think that that's I often turn to what the military officials are saying when you're trying to get an understanding of, like, OK, what's real here and what's actually taking place versus what's the kind of hyperbolic rhetoric.

BASH: That's true, except that in this country, the commander in chief is intentionally a civilian.

MATTINGLY: Yes, oh, 100 percent.

BASH: Let's say, I mean, it's --

MATTINGLY: And it would be -- I hope and pray you don't get to the moment where the commander in chief orders something where the U.S. military has to say, that's not legal. We can't do this.

BASH: All right. We're going to take a quick break. Up next. It is election day in Georgia. Voters are picking a congressman to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene. Do Democrats have any shot in a district President Trump carried by 37 percentage points? And as we just mentioned, Vice President J.D. Vance hits the campaign trail thousands of miles from any American swing state. What is he doing in Budapest with a autocrat running for reelection?

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: Right now, in northwest Georgia, voters are picking a replacement for ex Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. The race in the ruby red district pits two veterans against one another. Republican Clayton Fuller is an Air National Guard veteran endorsed by President Trump and supports the war in Iran. Democrat Shawn Harris has been very outspoken against the war, and he is a retired Army Brigadier General.

CNN's Isabel Rosales is live at a polling place in Rome, Georgia. Isabel?

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Dana, this House seat is critical for the GOP with a slim majority in the House, 217 to 214, and this race could also serve as a referendum on President Trump. The big question here is whether broad unease toward the Trump administration's Iran policy. If that's going to trickle down into this special election, whether this is going to be an early test ahead of the midterms on what the public sentiment is, how voters feel about this war in Iran.

Now, both candidates are veterans, but both very different in the positions that they're taking when it comes to Iran. Now Republican Clay Fuller, he is a former district attorney. He is Trump's hand- picked candidate. He has his endorsement. If Republicans consolidate their support around Fuller, he should win this election. On Iran, he says, quote, our country is safer because of what President Trump has done regarding Iran. Democrat Shawn Harris, he's a retired U.S. Army officer. He called Iran, quote, a war of choice.

Now, I've been speaking to voters here for a couple of hours. The issues that they said were top of mind were the economy, the war in Iran and immigration. All but, one voter I spoke with were in support of Trump's military action in Iran. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LATONYA ROBERTS, GEORGIA VOTER: Right now, everything, everything matters, and everybody needs to come out and vote because this is a really important election. The economy as a whole, I mean, everything is costing us way more and we're not getting paid any more money.

ALLEN GORMAN, GEORGIA VOTER: I think the cost of living is number one right now. I understand the other issues at hand, but, you know, this is something that's been hindering this country for four or five years. If you put a fork in a devil's hand, something is going to go wrong. And, you know, I mean Iran, that was going to happen. You know, you take the countries that are much closer than we are, it's extreme dangerous for them. And I think the right to control whether they have the ability to make nuclear weapons, somebody had to step up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROSALES: Now, Georgia's 14th congressional district covers 10 counties from the Atlanta suburbs all the way to the Appalachian foothills along the Tennessee border there. Trump carried this district by 68 percent of the vote back in 2024. Dana?

BASH: Isabel, thank you so much for that reporting. And my panel is back here. Nia, I guess the first question is, you know, 37 percentage points again, what Trump won this district by just last year, a year and a half ago.

[12:20:00]

HENDERSON: Yeah.

BASH: So, the notion of a Democrat actually winning could be farfetched, maybe not, but could be. At this point, though, we're looking at margins and what that tells us.

HENDERSON: Yeah, I think that's right. How effective is the message that Democrats are telling voters about the economy, about this person, obviously, is running against the war in Iran. Are they able to get their voters out? You saw the black voter there. That's obviously going to be important to any Democrat going forward beyond this race. So, in so many ways, it's sort of a test case. Can they get the margins out? I doubt they'll win. I think Marjorie Taylor Greene won by like 30 points, beating Harris in 2024.

But again, even as I talk about Marjorie Taylor Greene, it's amazing that she's not in Congress anymore, right? I mean, that's sort of the backdrop of this. And when she talks about the war, she sounds more like the Democrat than she sounds like the Republican. So, there are all of these dynamics at play, and we'll see how Democrats are able to harness them in this particular race, not to win, but to sort of test these messages going forward.

MASON: I'm nodding my head vigorously because we just, in the last section, played that clip from Tucker Carlson. It's the Tucker Carlson and the Marjorie Taylor Greene's, who now represent some of the major divisions in MAGA and that could manifest itself in this race. It's got to be a huge blow either way that a Democrat is even remotely competitive in this district.

So, I agree with both of you that the margins will be looked at, but it doesn't really even matter in, and certainly, if he wins, it's going to matter dramatically, because it will reduce the already tight majority in Congress for the Republicans. But the fact of him being competitive represents the divisions in MAGA are only growing and upset with President Trump and his record is this thing going into the midterms.

BASH: Phil, you can go, but I'm going to dork out with you for a second. So, I think you're going to enjoy doing this.

MATTINGLY: Go for it.

BASH: OK. Check out this graphic that our team made. This is about the special elections since Donald Trump took office. And what you're looking at on the right side of your screen is the margins in 2024. On the left side of your screen, the margins in the special elections since 2024. And the pattern that you're looking at is Republicans, even those who have won, have won by a lot less, and Democrats who won before are winning by a lot more.

And let's just put it another way. There are about 70 House Republicans who won their districts by less than 17 points. 17 percentage points is the average of what you're looking at on the screen.

MATTINGLY: This is exactly, and we didn't actually plan this --

BASH: We're just too dark.

MATTINGLY: Exactly more or less. Yes. What matters here? Like, Fuller should win. He should win going away. It shouldn't actually be that close. That's not the metric here. The metric that the other 216 or 17 House Republicans are going to be looking at right now is the margin. If he's winning by 13 to 16 points, Republicans are going to see that as just another piece of evidence that things are heading in a very, very bad direction.

It's not about whether or not he wins handily. It's -- does he come anywhere near the margins? Nobody is expecting him to hit 25 or 30 necessarily, but if you're under 20 in a district like this district. Having spent a lot of time in this district in 2024, it would be another example where Republicans are looking around and saying, well, you know, specials have weird turnout. You can't necessarily know exactly where this is going to go. No, they're all thinking the same thing behind the scenes, which is, we have yet to see a special over the course of the last six to eight months that, in any way, gives us something to hold on to as we're in good shape right now.

BASH: Assuming the Republican ones, Republican wins, it gives the House speaker something to hold on to, which is one more seat, which is not nothing, with this kind of slim majority. Up next. As President Trump's ultimatum nears, what risks is he weighing? There are lot of them. I'll speak with a top former intelligence official who used to brief President Trump.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: Now to President Trump's ultimatum to Iran, the commander in chief this morning warned, quote, a whole civilization will die tonight unless the Iranian regime opens the Strait of Hormuz. His self-imposed deadline is now about seven and a half hours away.

I want to bring in CNN national security analyst Beth Sanner, who is also the former Deputy Director of National Intelligence. Beth, thank you so much for being here. When you saw that post threatening a whole civilization could die tonight. What went through your mind, just as somebody who is dedicated your life, obviously to public service. You're an intelligence expert, and you were a person who briefed this president on national security and on intelligence in his first term.

BETH SANNER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yeah. I'm also a pastor's kid, and I think that the first thing that went through my head was, you know, here we are in the middle of Holy Week time, Easter, Passover. And we're talking about ending a civilization after the beginning of this war was supposed to be about saving it by helping.

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