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Laura Coates Live

U.S. Bombs Iran's 'Crown Jewel'; Synagogue Attacker Flagged In DHS Database For Possible Terror Ties; Hegseth Lashes Out At Press Over Iran War Coverage; Trump's Retribution Tour Gets Another Setback After Powell Ruling; Search Ongoing For Retired Air Force Major General. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired March 13, 2026 - 23:00   ET

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

[23:00:00]

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR AND SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: "CNN & Variety Red Carpet Live" starts Sunday at 4 p.m. And thank you very much for watching "NewsNight." You can catch me any time on your favorite social media, on X, Instagram, and on TikTok. "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.

LAURA COATES, CNN HOST AND SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Tonight, President Trump orders an attack on Iran's crown jewel to keep black gold moving through the Persian Gulf. But did the Pentagon underestimate Iran's grip on the world's oil? Plus, Americans on edge after two terror attacks on U.S. soil in the same day. We have new troubling information about the men who carried out those attacks. And Trump's revenge tour hits another legal roadblock as a judge backs Jerome Powell with a brutal message to the DOJ. Tonight on "Laura Coates Live."

Well, we're closing in on now the third week of the war with Iran. And tonight, President Trump says the United States has bombed what he calls Iran's crown jewel, a vital Iranian oil hub in the Persian Gulf. Now, this move significantly raises the stakes in this conflict. What you might be wondering about is the timing. Specifically, why does he need to hit it now? Because if you've been listening to Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Iran's military has already been devastated and almost completely destroyed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Their navy is gone. Their air force is gone. Most of their military is gone. Their big threat is gone in every way.

PETE HEGSETH, UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Iran has no air defenses. Iran has no air force. Iran has no navy. Their missiles, their missile launchers and drones being destroyed or shot out of the sky.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: Strikes from Iran, they are down from the opening days of the war. Hegseth says Iranian missile volume is also down 90 percent. Drones, down 95 percent. But Iran is still proving it can threaten the entire global economy. Exhibit A seems to be the Strait of Hormuz, that vital chokepoint for 20 percent of the world's oil. Tankers that try to pass through, they're being hit, turned into fireballs, something Hegseth acknowledges.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HEGSETH: They are exercising sheer desperation in the Strait of Hormuz, something we're dealing with. We have been dealing with it. Don't need to worry about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: No need to worry about it, he says. Well, the president put it this way earlier this week. "These ships should go through the Strait of Hormuz and show some guts, there's nothing to be afraid of." What? Try saying that to the cruise of those ships, the ones who've seen the videos of other tankers erupting into flames. Hegseth said today the United States would not let Iran contest Hormuz.

And tonight, it looks like we're seeing part of Trump's plan to keep those ships sailing because he says the United States has obliterated every military target here, Kharg Island, on your screen. That's a small Iranian port in the Persian Gulf. It handles about 90 percent of the Iran's oil exports.

But if the strikes on its military sites are the stick, well, Trump also left Iran a choice. He says he deliberately did not wipe out the island oil infrastructure. But if Iran tries to interfere with shipping through Hormuz, he says he will reconsider. So, the big question now is, what is Iran going to do? Just yesterday, a top Iranian official warned the country would abandon all restraint if the United States attacked any of its islands.

There's another major question underneath all of these. Did the administration fully grasp how willing Iran would be to cause chaos? Why did this island go untouched until now, nearly two weeks into the war? Why didn't the U.S. tap into the petroleum reserve until this Wednesday? And why didn't the military announce the bombing of Iranian mine laying ships until Tuesday?

Multiple sources are telling CNN that the Pentagon significantly underestimated Iran's ability to shut down that strait. Now, Hegseth says the idea that they didn't plan for that scenario is patently ridiculous. But the timeline raises some questions. And frankly, there may still be more to come.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN (voice-over): Mr. President, when will the Navy start escorting tankers to the Strait of Hormuz?

TRUMP: It will happen soon.

(END VIDEO CLIP) COATES: A lot to cover with vice president and senior director of the Atlantic Council's Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Matthew Kroenig. Also, former secretary of the Air Force under President Biden, Frank Kendall. Glad to have both of you here.

[23:05:00]

Thank you. Help me understand, Mr. Secretary, because I'd like to know your reaction to the United States forces bombing Kharg Island. I mean, had the stakes now been raised exponentially?

FRANK KENDALL, FORMER SECRETARY, U.S. AIR FORCE: I would not say that. The attempt, I think, was for an original very strong attack, and then some kind of capitulation by Iran. That did not happen. I think we're in a phase of this operation that the White House didn't expect.

COATES: Are you surprised that capitulation -- the capitulations even did not happen?

KENDALL: I'm not terribly surprised. I mean, this is a resilient regime. They just put down, you know, put a violently protests within Iran. They have been -- basically regarded the U.S. as (INAUDIBLE) adversary for decades. They've been preparing for just this sort of an assault on Iran for a very long time. And I've been involved over the years in war games in Iran.

Their ability to shut down the strait is pretty significant. And it doesn't require their air force or their navy, the things that Secretary Hegseth said were destroyed. They just need small boats to get a few mines out there, some drones or some missiles that can be launched from on land. They can target ships out there. And shipping companies are not going to send their ships through the strait.

COATES: Yes.

KENDALL: Stopping that is a very difficult military problem.

COATES: I can imagine the insurance alone, frankly. Matthew, the president described this island as the crown jewel of Iran. Do you think that his threat to hit oil infrastructure would cause the kind of blinking that he wants from Iran?

MATTHEW KROENIG, VICE PRESIDENT, SCOWCROFT CENTER FOR STRATEGY AND SECURITY: Well, maybe. And one of the things that's paradoxical now is that Iran has essentially shut down U.S. and global energy exports out of the region, except for Iranian exports, which are still getting through to China.

And so, when we thought about Iranian threats to close the Strait of Hormuz in the past, we always thought it would be kind of cutting off their nose to spite their face, that they would suffer, too. But now, we have the situation where they're still benefiting and the rest of the world is suffering.

And so, I suspect that this move is maybe a first step toward getting after Kharg Island, which where something like 90 percent of Iranian exports originate from. And so, cutting that off would make Iran feel the pain as well as the rest of the world.

COATES: Does that invite the people who receive those exports to take a bigger role in this then?

KROENIG: Possibly. China is a big importer of Iranian oil, and I think they, you know, on one hand are kind of aligned with Iran. But really what they care about most is regional stability and getting their imports to run the Chinese economy. So, I think they'll care if those exports are cut off. But there's a limit in terms of what they can do. They're not going to project military power in the region and get in the fight themselves, but there may be other things that they could do.

COATES: What do you expect the reaction of Iran to be after this bombing of Kharg Island?

KENDALL: I think Iran is doing what they can do, which is to continue with essentially harassing attacks with drones and ballistic missiles, take some steps to make it too high risk to use the strait.

COATES: Does the fact that Hegseth has reported -- excuse me, one second, does the fact that Hegseth has talked about the drones decreasing in Iran, does that impact at all how you think they're able to respond? Is that indicative of what they can do?

KENDALL: They don't have the force that can defeat our forces, but they have a force that can continue to inflict some casualties and some damage. So, even though the numbers are down, there are still attacks coming in to the countries in the region. There's still, you know, a chance of Americans and others being killed. And the oil being cut off is a major economic impact. So, it's a form of a war of attrition on their side. And they're trying to inflict enough pain on the U.S. to get us to stop.

COATES: Yes.

KENDALL: At the end of the day, there must be some political settlement here. There has to be, right? This can't go on forever. But it's not well clear when that's going to occur.

COATES: Well, the Pentagon says that they're sending -- is sending a Marine Expeditionary Unit of 2,500 troops to the Middle East. And it's unclear still how exactly they're going to be used. What does that tell us about? What can you tell us about a rapid response unit or what that might mean in terms of their capabilities and how this would impact?

KROENIG: Well, what is interesting, because when you think about Trump's peace through strength approach, it seems like he's comfortable with short, sharp, decisive uses of force like against Venezuela or the bombing of Iran's nuclear facilities last year, but he has always been skeptical of long drawn out military campaigns.

So, I think many analysts, including me, thought there is no way he's going to put in large numbers of ground forces. And I still think that's the case. So, what might this smaller unit be doing? And a couple of ideas. One may be doing something on Kharg Island to deal with Iran's oil. The other may -- we know that Iran is hitting shipping coming through the strait from the coast.

So, maybe it's going after Iranian drones and missiles near the coast, or we think that Iran still has stockpiles of highly-enriched uranium. You know, the nuclear program was the key issue from the beginning. And so, could this be the beginning of some kind of raid against that highly-enriched uranium to stop the nuclear program?

[23:10:00]

COATES: How risky is that to have these troops on the ground?

KENDALL: They're all high-risk operations. There are two or three things that could be done, as Matthew said, with special operations forces. Maybe try to go after the nuclear materials. Those are going to be very well protected. Putting a force on Kharg is possible. I don't know how well defended it actually is and was just attacked. But it's within relatively close range of the shore. So, whoever goes there is going to be subject to bombardment.

The Strait of Hormuz themselves, there's a very long coastline. It's a very rugged coastline. The battalion of Marines that are coming in is not anywhere near -- remotely near the size of force you'd need to try to secure that terrain.

COATES: So, then, what does that size tell you they intended to do?

KENDALL: I think it's partly a show of force. I think it's partly possibly to do some smaller scale operations, raids basically. What we're seeing is an escalation. And this is just another step. It's not a very big step, quite frankly, but it's sending a signal that the U.S. is committed in sending additional forces.

COATES: Let's talk about Russia because Russia is providing intelligence to Iran. I mean, the president pretty much actually confirmed. So, listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIAN KILMEADE, FOX NEWS HOST (voice-over): You think Putin is helping them?

TRUMP (voice-over): I think he might be helping them a little bit, yeah, I guess, and he probably thinks we're helping Ukraine, right?

KILMEADE (voice-over): And you are, right?

TRUMP (voice-over): Yeah, we're helping them also, and so he says that, and China would say the same thing, you know, it's like, hey, they do it and we do it in all fairness. They do it and we do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: What's your reaction to his seeming, I don't know, confidence or dismissive tone about that?

KROENIG: Well, I do think one of the greatest threats facing the United States and its allies right now is this axis of aggressors. China, Russia, Iran, North Korea are working more closely together. And this is good example of how they're working together, Russia helping Iran against us.

On the plus side, this is potential benefit if we can succeed in degrading Iran's military capabilities, setting it back for several years. And best-case scenario doesn't look likely now, but is at least still possible that you get a better government in Iran that's less threatening.

COATES: Does Russia's help possibly undermine the ability to do that?

KROENIG: It does potentially undermine the ability to do that. But if you could do that, it could allow the United States to focus on other threats like China which, I think, is the biggest threat facing the United States.

COATES: How about the timing of this? You know, the president says the war with Iran will end when he feels it in his bones. I like intuition, but wow.

KENDALL: I want to talk a little bit about the human element here.

COATES: Yes.

KENDALL: The comment earlier about Russia. Donald Trump doesn't bring a moral compass to the table, as far as I can tell. He's purely transactional. And he looks at what Russia does or he does. He made a comment at one time about, well, we're all killers. He does not see the world the way anyone with a strong moral compass would see it, as far as I can tell.

So, to him, I think he's trying to coerce Iran. I think he expects them to look at it the way he does to certain degree and when it's in their interest to cut a deal with him. I don't think he appreciates that that may not be the way they're looking at it at all. This is, to them, a great struggle. They're religious zealots, and they're very committed to what they're doing. So, he may not get the kind of behavior he expects.

He also operates from his gut all the time. He operates on intuition. You see it in all sorts of things. And that's what you're seeing here. I know it when I feel it. That's not really a very good basis to go to war. One of the things we owe our troops is a clear objective and the tools to achieve that objective when we send them into combat. And we've sent them into combat here, people are dying, and it doesn't seem like we have a clear objective at all.

COATES: Matthew, what's your reaction?

KROENIG: Well, I think that, you know, if you look back to the president's first speech on the Saturday after the bombing started, he said the goal is to degrade Iran's nuclear program, its missile program, its drones, its navy. And I think we are succeeding in doing that, and we can do that.

I think there are bigger questions, though. What is the future of governance in Tehran? What does this mean for global geopolitics? And answering those questions will be difficult. But I do think, no matter how this end, Iran will emerge on the back end weaker than it was a few weeks ago. And on balance, I think that is a good thing for the United States and regional security.

COATES: The question will be for how long and to what degree. Matthew Kroenig, Frank Kendall, thank you both so much.

Up next, two terror attacks in a single day. And now, two ongoing investigations. We've got updates on the potential link to Hezbollah in the Michigan attack and the troubling information about how the ISIS-supporting suspect got the gun that was used in the Old Dominion attack. Plus, the president said J.D. Vance was less than enthusiastic about the war. So, how did the vice president handle this question today?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN (voice-over): What did you advise the president initially as he considered his actions in Iran?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[23:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COATES: Well, tonight, the investigation into the antisemitic attack at a synagogue in Michigan is raising new questions about the safeguards in place to protect all Americans.

Law enforcement sources tell CNN Ayman Mohamad Ghazali was in a DHS database as having connections to known or suspected terrorists. Those terrorists were connected to Hezbollah in Lebanon. And a week before the attack, sources say that two of his brothers and their children were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon. But investigators also released this video showing the attacker purchasing thousands of dollars-worth of fireworks two days before the attack.

[23:20:01]

Police say that he loaded those fireworks along with flammable liquid into the truck he drove into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township just yesterday. Police say the suspect shot and killed himself. No worshippers were injured, even though more than a hundred young children were attending school inside the synagogue. The survivors describe a harrowing scene.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CASSI COHEN, DIRECTOR OF STRATEGIC DEVELOPMENT, TEMPLE ISRAEL: I heard a loud crash, and I saw some debris from the car, and I knew that something was very wrong. I heard a bang, which was a shot, and grabbed the staff members that were around me, and we ran into my office which was very close by, barricaded the door, and hid under my desk.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: I'm joined now by William Braniff. He is the executive director of the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab and was previously a counterterrorism official at the Department of Homeland Security. William, thank you for being here.

There are so many questions people have, particularly the one you learned about this person's background, in particular. And I'm wondering how does the DHS establish whether someone has connections to a known or suspected terrorist.

WILLIAM BRANIFF, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, POLARIZATION AND EXTREMISM RESEARCH AND INNOVATION LAB: So, first, I just want to offer my condolences to the communities that were affected in the last few days from these acts of violence. So, the Department of Homeland Security is one of many federal agencies that have access to and feed into a database that contains the identities of known and suspected terrorists from an international context. And so, DHS has access to that information like other agencies and departments. And they use that to support things like vetting and screening at borders and similar security checks.

COATES: So, a big question people might have, if he's in this sort of database or he's had no information, how would he become naturalized?

BRANIFF: Well, I think the information is that he had connections in his cellphone to individuals who were in the database. So, it wasn't him in the database himself. But he's got family in Lebanon. If you're a Shia from the Bekaa Valley, from Beirut, or from southern Lebanon, the idea that you might know somebody in Hezbollah is actually not a stretch. It's not a small organization. It has a fairly large number of individuals associated with it. So --

COATES: An important point to see how they would be able to be discerning on this very issue. I mean, surveillance video, it shows him buying thousands of dollars-worth of fireworks just two days before the attack. What does that suggest to you? I mean, the timing of it, the spontaneity of it, the length of planning.

BRANIFF: Right. When you consider that the weapon of choice for the arson attack was gasoline and fireworks, this doesn't suggest high-end sleeper cell, Hollywood-style violence in the days after his family were killed in an airstrike. Funeral or a memorial service held over the weekend for his brothers and niece and nephew. This seems like an individual who had a crisis, was angry, and in a condemnable way, lashed out.

COATES: Obviously, this was an attack on a synagogue. The terror threat to the Jewish community, including antisemitic language and vitriol, over the years has increased. How serious is the terror threat for the Jewish community in particular right now? BRANIFF: It's unfortunately very high. The Jewish community has experienced something like a 350 percent increase in threats in recent years. It's an unfortunately frequent thing in the United States for antisemitic attacks to be leveraged from white supremacists, from Muslim extremists, right?

This is unfortunately a community that's often targeted. We call it an intersectional threat, meaning that a lot of different groups look at the Jewish population, which is why we really need to make sure that we're reaching out and supporting all of our American communities at a time like this and making sure that we have prevention programs in place before an unpredicted crisis like the war in Iran.

COATES: There's also one, the shooting at Old Dominion University, as you well know, and it's also being investigated as a terror attack. And today, federal law enforcement arrested the man who they say sold the gun to the shooter. Investigators say the seller didn't know the shooter at the time was supporting ISIS in the past. I mean, would that shooter have been in a kind of a database that the gun seller could have even accessed?

BRANIFF: I'm not an expert on that information. What we know is that the individual was not allowed to have a firearm as one of the conditions of his release.

[23:25:00]

He was under probation, basically.

COATES: Supervised release.

BRANIFF: Supervised released. He had been out for 15 months and, you know, engaged in this act of violence 14 days after the war started. So, again, it's hard to say that this was premeditated in the sense that it was long in the coming, but this was an individual convicted of an ISIS felony.

And certainly, we need to be investing more in what's called tertiary prevention, which is rehabilitation and reintegration of individuals who have these kinds of prison sentences. It sounds weird, perhaps, to be investing in individuals who are convicted of supporting ISIS in 2016, but if we don't invest in rehabilitation and reintegration, we're increasing the risk to our own communities. So, it's just rational -- rational to do so.

COATES: Do we have the resources for that?

BRANIFF: No. We've got really dedicated probation officers who need a lot more support.

COATES: William Braniff, thank you so much for joining.

Next, don't report what your eyes and ears see and hear. But what will we tell you? That seemed to be the message to the media from Secretary Pete Hegseth today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HEGSETH: Here's a real headline for you for an actual patriotic press. How about Iran shrinking, going underground?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:30:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COATES: Report as I say, says Secretary Pete Hegseth, who is once again demanding favorable coverage of the war with Iran. Hegseth began his latest press conference with a few suggestions for the media. You know what? Here's one of them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HEGSETH: People look up at the T.V., and they see banners, they see headlines. I used to be in that business. And I know that everything is written intentionally. For example, a banner or a headline, Mideast war intensifies, splashing on the screen the last couple of days, alongside visuals of civilian or energy targets that Iran has hit because that's what they do. What should the banner read instead? About Iran increasingly desperate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: Hegseth also complained about CNN's reporting that the administration underestimated the war's impact on the Strait of Hormuz, calling that ridiculous. CNN stands by its reporting. But Hegseth lashing out is not particularly new. Just days ago, he criticized the press for making the deaths of U.S. troops front-page news.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HEGSETH: When a few drones get through or tragic things happen, it's front-page news. I get it, the press only wants to make the president look bad, but try for once to report the reality.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: Can I repeat, the reality to honor our service members? Well, that's not all, because "The Washington Post" report the Pentagon banned a number of photographers from multiple Iran war briefings. Why? Because they released photos that Secretary Hegseth, his team, thought unflattering. In response, the Defense Department says they've implemented limited access to the briefing room in order to use the space effectively.

With me now, former Republican congressman turned Democrat, Joe Walsh, and former national spokesperson for Senator Ted Cruz's presidential campaign, Rick Tyler. Good to have both of you here with me. I mean, Joe, I'll begin with you because the administration, to say they're defensive, increasingly so about their coverage, would likely be an understatement. He went as far as to suggest that the press is being unpatriotic due to his interpretation of banners as subjective. What is your assessment?

JOE WALSH, PODCAST HOST, FORMER ILLINOIS REPRESENTATIVE: What a punk and what a crybaby. And it's offensive, Laura. Thirteen of our service members have died, have been killed. And this guy is crying about news coverage.

I mean, think about that. The country doesn't know why we're there. The country doesn't know what the case for war was. The country doesn't know what's going to happen. Our men and women are dying. And this guy is bitching and moaning about how he's being treated in the media.

And to answer your question, it's not the media's job to be patriotic, it's the media's job to put the truth out there. What a crybaby.

COATES: I mean, the First Amendment, press is one of the most patriotic aspects of the Constitution, as we should say. Rick, I mean, it's one thing for the president, who frequently has criticized the press. There's something about timing, though, with secretary of defense during war. It rings different. I wonder how you interpret it in terms of the purpose of that criticism and how that is playing among the American public.

RICK TYLER, FORMER SPOKESPERSON FOR SENATOR TED CRUZ'S PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: Well, (INAUDIBLE). Look, we expect the secretary of war, we call it SECDEF, to get up in front of the cameras and inform the people about how the war was going. Of course, they are going to put their best light on it.

But to be truthful with it, I guess when he is lecturing the media on how to do their jobs, he is not talking about the fact that Iran hit our refueling planes in Saudi Arabia and Riyadh, he's not talking about the fact that the Strait of Hormuz is closed, he's not talking about $100 barrel of oil, he's not talking about when the conclusion of this war, what the end game might look like.

[23:35:03]

So, he's going to lecture the media. The problem is he looks weak. He doesn't look like he's in command of himself. He doesn't look like he's in command of our military, which is a great military. He's always disputing that. But he doesn't represent the power and gives confidence in the United States.

And frankly, it's embarrassing because the whole world looks at this and watches him lecture the media as opposed to how is the war going, how is it going to come to an end.

And look, the American people have lot of patience for when they understand what has to happen, and then it takes time. They understand that. But when you get there and start lecturing the media about the headlines, the writing, it's childish.

COATES: It's an odd distraction. I want to get back to this point, but Vice President J.D. Vance was reportedly the skeptical voice in the White House, as you have heard, about the Iran war. In line with what he said on the campaign trail, frankly, listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Our interest, I think, very much is in not going to war with Iran, right? It would be huge distraction of resources. It would be massively expensive to our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: The president didn't shy away from acknowledging that the two were philosophically different about striking Iran. Vance was actually asked about this today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN (voice-over): What did you advise the president initially as he considered his actions in Iran?

VANCE: I hate to disappoint you, but I'm not going to show up here in front of God and everybody else, tell you exactly what I said in that classified room, partially because I don't want to go to prison, and partially because I think it's important for the president of the United States to be able to talk to his advisors without those advisors running their mouth to the American media.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: That's a good point, that you want to have some level of discretion and ability to speak to one of your advisors freely and not have that risk. But there are still fundamental questions about the disconnect if it means there's no answer to why we entered or whether it was prudent.

WALSH: And the disconnect doesn't matter anymore. J.D. sold his soul to be in that spot. And he's tied to what Trump is doing right now. He is tied to this Iran war. He doesn't like it, but he'll never say that. But he now is going to have to own it. So, if he wants to be the nominee in '28, he's going to have to wrap his arms around this thing.

COATES: Well, you know, my colleague, Kaitlan Collins, spoke with the former congressman from Georgia, Marjorie Taylor Greene. And Greene told her that she wants people in administration who disagree with the Iran war to speak out. Will they ever?

TYLER: Look, I don't know. Look, when the United States is at war, you can disagree with it, right? But I think that people who are elected officials are going to try to show at least a unified front. I mean, it's early in the war.

The problem with J.D. Vance is he's going to try to have it both ways. He's going to try to keep to his 2016 endorsement of Donald Trump in "The Wall Street Journal" where he said he won't get us into foreign wars, and I trust him on that. He's gotten us into lots of foreign wars, but he is trying to manage to distance himself. The problem is he says limited war, and nobody knows if it's going to be a limited war.

COATES: Right.

TYLER: You can't just say, well, it's going to be a limited war. We're already sending Marines there. They're on their way. So, this always starts this way. It's a limited war, then it escalates the war.

And look, it's not like -- the Middle Eastern mentality in these wars, we can see. They're not going to give up. This is not Germany. This is not Japan. This is -- in Gaza, you would look at how they get bombed over and over again, Hamas didn't give up, Hezbollah has not given up, and the Iranians are not going to give up.

So, does something need to happen? I believe so. But is it going to be a short, quick, limited war? Absolutely not.

COATES: According to Trump, it's when it feels right in his bones to end it. Joe, Rick, thank you both so much.

Up next, another defeat in court for President Trump. A judge throwing out DOJ subpoenas for the Fed chair and criticizing the department for even trying.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEANINE PIRRO, U.S. ATTORNEY FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: -- is now bathed in immunity, preventing my office from investigating the Federal Reserve.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[23:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COATES: Score another one for the judiciary in the battle between President Trump and his enemies. This time, a federal judge rejected the DOJ's subpoena against Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. The investigation focuses on whether Powell misled Congress during testimony about renovations at the Federal Reserve headquarters that were going over budget. D.C. US Attorney Jeanine Pirro is not happy and vowing to appeal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PIRRO: As a result, Jerome Powell today is now bathed in immunity, preventing my office from investigating the Federal Reserve. This is wrong and it is without legal authority.

(END VIDEO CLIP) COATES: But for months, Trump has publicly called for Powell to resign, saying he was too slow to cut interest rates, and even calling him one of the dumbest and most destructive people in government.

Judge James Boasberg used these exact posts from Trump's Truth Social account. The very argument, this case was never about whether Powell lied under oath. Judge Boasberg says he saw no evidence to support his subpoena, writing his opinion -- quote -- "It is hard to see the renovations and testimony as anything other than a convenient pretext for launching a criminal investigation that the Government launched for another, unstated purpose: pressuring Powell to knuckle under."

[23:45:05]

I want to bring in Josh Gerstein, senior legal affairs reporter for "Politico," and Mark Zaid, founder of Whistleblower Aid and a national security attorney who himself has been targeted by this administration.

Josh, I'll begin with you. I mean, the DOJ has not had a lot of success, frankly, in going after, at least legally, Trump's perceived enemies so far. Is this proving harder, perhaps, for that enemy's list to be checked off?

JOSH GERSTEIN, SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS REPORTER, POLITICO: Yes, they've run into a lot of hurdles, whether it's the judge in this particular instance or if we look at the Comey and James cases there, we saw judges down there dismissed. We also saw grand juries, in some cases, refuse to indict, which is an extraordinarily rare thing. It was supposed to be a safeguard when it was devised at the beginning of the republic. Rarely has been, yet we've seen it invoked repeatedly in the last few months.

So, you're quite right that Trump hasn't been as successful in getting, I would say, results from this effort. However, he has managed to inflict pain, discomfort, legal bills on people which, sometimes, the process is the punishment.

COATES: It absolutely is. And, of course, the prosecutors in these cases, they're up against the evidence they want to put before the grand jury and public statements from the president, as you saw here.

Mark, Judge Boasberg brought up something that surprised him. He said the government did not submit to the court any evidence supporting its investigation to Powell, despite his offer for them to do so privately without notifying the other party. Explain what that says to you.

MARK ZAID, NATIONAL SECURITY ATTORNEY: I mean, to me, that says a lot, right? The basis that publicly was known was that they had gone over budget on a project that dates back nine years, construction started four years, and as if that was somehow criminal because it showed a specter of fraud.

So, the judge said rightly, look, it could be that the government doesn't want to reveal an open court what some of its sources might be, where strategy might be going. So, I, the judge, will hear the information, received it ex parte. Only one party. Only the government. You can come in. You can verbally describe the evidence to me. You can put it in writing. And they wouldn't or couldn't do so. So, he was left with the quote that you said.

This only looks like a pretext. There is nothing left because then you could say that the Trump White House ballroom should be investigated criminally because it's already going over budget. You need to be able to show something, which is to Josh's point about this notion of how grand juries are declining to indict, or if you look through Judge Boasberg's decision, he cited cases from around the country, including the Supreme Court, that gave him the authority, unlike what U.S. Attorney Pirro said, to squash these subpoenas.

COATES: An important point. I mean, Josh, you have new reporting that one of Trump's allies appears to be digging for dirt on several people who worked for him during the first administration. Who is behind this and why?

GERSTEIN: So, the person behind it is a fellow named Mike Howell who works for the Heritage Foundation. He was very involved in Project 2025, which I think people have probably heard of. What he is doing is doing what frankly a bunch of journalists and other activists are doing, which is trying to mine Trump's first term White House records, so the 2017 to 2021 records. They became available in January to make requests five years after the president's first term ended. And Mike Howell has gotten in line with a lot of other people.

But what's interesting about his request is he's seeking information on Trump's appointees who you might say turned on him or soured on him over the years, people like Omarosa, people like Mark Short, the advisor to the vice president during the first term. And it's one group after another. John Kelly, the former White House chief of staff. So, it's an interesting sort of fishing effort here, looking for information that might be useful.

A lot of people also asking questions frankly about January 6th and trying to get information about what Trump was up to on that day, which still remains a little bit of a mystery.

COATES: Indeed. Mark, before we go, I want to ask you about Trump's apparent renewed effort to target law firms with executive orders. A judge struck down the orders. And initially, the DOJ said it would not appeal, but now it will. That's surprising. They had that sort of whiplash.

ZAID: I think it was surprising to the senior officials in the Justice Department. The number three, a justice official who was his lawyer previously, signed the motion to voluntarily dismiss the case.

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And from my own sources, my clients inside the government, from my friends and colleagues in the media, everybody came back with the same reason as to what happened. Trump saw the news and how negative it was, saying they capitulated, it was weak from the beginning, and he blew a fit. So, the next day, the same lawyer said, OK, I'm withdrawing the notice, I am refiling the appeals. Those appeals for them are combined with my case, in my security clearance. We're going to be heard by the same D.C. circuit panel sometime, probably later in the spring, maybe early summer.

And the vitriol that was in the opening brief that the government filed against the law firms, similar to what we saw U.S. Attorney Pirro today of just basically -- as if they're back on, you know, Fox and Friends, and they're just talking to an audience of one. I mean, it's really beneath the dignity of the Justice Department, at least the one I have known for the last 30 plus years.

COATES: Mark Zaid, Josh Gerstein, thank you both.

Up next, a retired Air Force major general now missing for two weeks, a general who just so happens to have commanded a military base loaded with UFO lore.

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COATES: We are following a new mystery tonight around the disappearance, a bizarre one at that, of a retired U.S. Air Force major general. His name is William McCasland, 68 years old, lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He's now been missing for two weeks to the day. There has been a lot of misinformation about this story online, in part because McCasland used to work at Wright Air Force Base, which used to investigate UFOs. He also did some consulting for a group that promoted UFO research.

His wife says that has nothing to do with it, saying -- quote -- "This connection is not a reason for someone to abduct Neil. Neil does not have any special knowledge about the ET bodies and debris from the Roswell crash." The FBI is now involved in trying to find him.

And here's what we know: The sheriff says they believe McCasland likely left his home at some point in the 11 a.m. hour on February 27th. He left his phone, glasses, and wearable devices behind. But his handgun, a revolver, was missing from the home, along with his wallet and hiking boots.

Joining me now, CNN law enforcement contributor and retired FBI special agent, Steve Moore. Steve, what a strange story. I mean, the wife says he doesn't have dementia. It's out of character to be away so long. Where do investigators even begin with this?

STEVE MOORE, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CONTRIBUTOR, RETIRED FBI SUPERVISORY SPECIAL AGENT: I think what right now, what this is going to be is a search rather than any kind of criminal investigation. There's no indication here that I've seen that there is any kind of criminal activity involved in this.

And while the wife is very tongue-in-cheek, in a very tongue-in-cheek way, kind of poo-pooing any ideas that there was either UFO involvement or dementia or any issue like that, they haven't been very forthcoming in the medical condition that they say could be involved.

COATES: The phone, it's at the house, along with the glasses, but his wallet and his gun are apparently missing. I mean, what is the FBI do with that information?

MOORE: It's just an additional piece of evidence that goes on. They'll probably go to profilers and say would somebody leave the house that way. And if they did, what would be their state of mind. Likely, it is strange that he wouldn't bring a phone, but would bring a gun. And he is not an elderly person. Really, he may be of age, but he's not elderly. And had there been any kind of kidnapping, any kind of struggle, it would have left evidence of that.

COATES: How does the fact that he has significant military experience, does that factor in the investigation at all?

MOORE: I think, Laura, where that factors in is that the FBI is coming aboard to help on this. There is -- I think there's a belief that he has served the country, and he may have information, classified information, regardless of where it's from. They just want to ensure that there is no possibility that there's criminal activity in here. And the FBI probably -- not probably. The FBI has a lot of technology that would help find a person.

COATES: This home where he has left is next to mountain with a lot of hiking trails. I wonder to what extent that makes it harder for the FBI to truly figure out even where to begin the search.

MOORE: Yes, it's immensely difficult. The only place you know you're going to find some kind of finger prints -- I'm sorry, foot prints in the area are going to be very close to the house. And if you can't pick up a scent or a trail from there, you don't even know which direction to go. And yes, you're absolutely right, the mountains create immense complications on this.

COATES: Steve Moore, thank you.

MOORE: Thank you.

COATES: And thank all of you for watching. But before we go, a quick program. You know, for all you Oscar fans, "CNN & Variety" are live on the red carpet this Sunday. You can watch it at 4 p.m. Eastern on TBS and on the CNN app. Well, that does it for me tonight. "The Story Is with Elex Michaelson" starts right now.

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