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Laura Coates Live

Trump Pauses Strikes on Iranian Energy Sites Amid Talks; Trump Orders to Pay TSA Agents; Savannah Guthrie Speaks Out. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired March 26, 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]

KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST AND POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: -- takes a look at our nation's enduring love for baseball when Shohei Ohtani and Japan's biggest major league stars returned home. "Homecoming: The Tokyo Series" premieres Friday on the CNN App.

Thank you all for watching "NewsNight." Don't forget, you can catch my show "The Arena." It's tomorrow at 4 p.m. right here on CNN. Don't go anywhere. "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.

LAURA COATES, CNN HOST AND SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Tonight, Trump gives Iran a longer leash on talks just as the Pentagon gives him some final military options. Plus, Trump steps in and tries to bypass Congress by ordering DHS to pay TSA agents immediately. Can he do that? And will it fix the crisis? And Savannah Guthrie opens up about her mother's abduction and new details about the crime scene and the ransom notes, she thinks, were real. Tonight on "Laura Coates Live."

My opening statement tonight, President Trump is waging three wars: one with Iran, one with the markets, and most of all, one with himself? Start with exhibit A, negotiations with Iran. Now, tonight, he's pausing strikes on Iranian power plants for another 10 days. Why? To give more time for talks, which he says are going well.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (voice-over): Well, the Iranians asked me to do that, and I was not happy with them because I made a statement that we're having productive negotiations. I don't know that they get there. Maybe they do. Maybe they won't. They asked for seven, and I gave them 10. You got 10 days, and they were very thankful about that. Now, they may say, oh, we're not speaking. That's -- I don't like that because that wasn't true the last time, as you found out. But we are speaking, and it's going fairly well. So, I gave them 10 days.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: But even as he's talking up negotiations, thousands of U.S. forces are on their way to the Middle East. New reporting from CNN says the Defense Department is putting together scenarios in case Trump decides the talks aren't working. Take a look at this headline from Axios. "Pentagon prepares for massive "final blow" of Iran war." It lays out four options Trump can choose from, military options. All of them would be a major escalation. I'll get into those options in just a moment.

But whatever happens next with Iran, well, it's tied to another front Trump is trying to juggle. Exhibit B, the markets. This is the S&P 500 for the last five days. Today was the biggest drop in U.S. stocks since the war started. Every new twist has sent Wall Street scrambling to reprice what may come next. See those big movements after trading ends for the day? That's because a lot of Trump's big Iran announcements come after the closing bell. Oil has been just as jumpy. Prices fell right when Trump announced more time for talks today, but reversed course just minutes later.

And the bigger question, that still hasn't gone away. How much more economic pain can this war create if energy prices keep rising? Now Trump, he's downplaying the costs.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Frankly, I thought the oil prices would go up more, and I thought the stock market would go down more. I said we're going to take a little bit of a hit, a short-term hit. It's going to end up going much higher.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: But Americans are already feeling it at the pump. And if prices spike high enough for long enough, the political cost will skyrocket right along with them, which brings us to exhibit C. The biggest negotiation, you know, that may be the one happening inside the president's own mind, because if the president had a clear plan for Iran or a clear plan for the economic fallout, maybe you'd hear a clear, consistent, and one message. Instead, you hear this all in the same setting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We have very substantial talks going on with respect to Iran, with the right people. I mean, I read a story today that I'm desperate to make a deal. I'm not -- I don't -- if if I was desperate, he'd be the first to know.

(LAUGHTER)

Let's get that one out there. I'm -- I'm the opposite of desperate. I don't care. In fact, we have other targets we want to hit before we leave.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: Is that a president who hasn't made up his mind? And it makes an already volatile war even harder to predict. You know, one can't help but wonder if -- if he views that unpredictability as a strategic military asset.

[23:05:00] My first guest got the inside scoop. I'm talking about senior politics reporter for Axios, Marc Caputo. Marc, glad to have you here because you lay out four potential final blow choices that the Pentagon is preparing for the president that's focused on the Strait of Hormuz, and they include the invasion of Iran's oil export islands, Kharg Island or Larak, take control of strategic island, Abu Musa, block or seize ships that are exporting Iranian oil on eastern side of the strait. I wonder, have your sources said if the president is leaning to any one of those four sort of potential final blow strategies over the other?

MARC CAPUTO, SENIOR POLITICS REPORTER, AXIOS: No, we don't know. In the Trump White House parlance, this is strategic ambiguity. His opponents just sort of call it madness. Who knows? But these are the four options that we know about. There's probably many more. The Pentagon has a lot of plans for a lot of circumstances, and these are sort of the four that rise as being among the most obvious.

COATES: Are ground troops inside Iran, are those off the table?

CAPUTO: Well, if you listen to the president, nothing is off the table. I'm inclined to believe him. I think one of the things you have to remember with Trump is that when he starts offering to make a deal on one hand and then massing forces on the other, he has so far shown a penchant for attacking if he doesn't get what he wants, and it suddenly comes when a lot of folks least expect it. It happened in Venezuela. It happened twice in Iran. And now, the question is, is it going to happen a third time?

The only difference this time is the Iranians have clearly said that they don't trust the president. They're not sure they want to engage in negotiations because they think it's a ruse. Trump, the president, and the White House said it's not a ruse. They want to have these talks. We'll see what we see.

COATES: So, who has the president's ear right now?

CAPUTO: Well, Benjamin Netanyahu does because the president of the United States and prime minister of Israel are hand in hand. But in these cases, Donald Trump has a general idea of what he wants, and he has this council of three, four, five, six advisors, and that's about it.

Now, having the president's ear in this case, I think it's more like whom is the president bouncing his ideas off of, to sort of sharpen them and hone them? And that's the people that you come to expect, Vice President J.D. Vance, the secretary of war, Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, the top three, Susie Wiles, his chief of staff, and then his energy secretary and interior secretary, Chris Wright and Doug Burgum, respectively.

COATES: Are any of those more influential than the other?

CAPUTO: I don't think anyone is necessarily more influential than another. I should have added Dan Caine there, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, because influential implies that they would be sort of persuading the president to go a way that he wouldn't want to go. In these cases, he seems to know what he wants to do, and he just wants to double check that he understands what some of the risks are.

Now, some critics have pointed out, for instance, that he sorts of ran roughshod over his advisors when they warned him about the Strait of Hormuz closing.

COATES: Right.

CAPUTO: So, there's only so much advice that he's necessarily going to take or listen to. Again, that's just what we understand. I don't really have that firmly nailed down.

COATES: Is he guided by what has happened with the markets? Are they impactful to him?

CAPUTO: Well, clearly, they are. I think there are three different emotions that you could really describe with Donald Trump. Concern with the markets and with the price of oil and fuel, anger at the media and critics for pointing out the higher cost of fuel, and in the case of "The Wall Street Journal," saying he's desperate or those are his terms, and then he's actually quite happy, and that's his overall mood, because he's looking at these daily reports from the Pentagon, he's looking at all the things blown up and the progress made on the battlefield, so to speak, the decreased missile capacity, the almost non-existent Iranian Navy, and he feels, hey, I'm winning this war, we are winning this war.

And that happiness then gives away a little anger. Why is he not getting more credit? Well, the answer to that, again, is that while you might be achieving victory militarily and on the battlefield of the political war at home, the one where people look at the price of gas, either when they fill up the tank or just drive by the gas station, tells a different story.

COATES: Marc Caputo, thank you. With me now, CNN military analyst, retired Army lieutenant general, Mark Schwartz, and former State Department Middle East negotiator, Aaron David Miller. Thank you, both of you, for joining me. I mean, general, I want to begin with you here because our sources say that none of the military options that we were just describing are ideal.

[23:10:00]

Do any of them sound like the right move to you?

MARK SCHWARTZ, CNN MILITARY ANALYST, RETIRED U.S. ARMY LIEUTENANT GENERAL: Well, I think the last one that was mentioned, the blockade, is probably the most reasonable in my military experience. I don't see any benefit of putting troops on the ground on Siri Island, Abu Musa, which are right there as you're entering the strait from the west, or on Kharg Island.

We own Kharg Island now. We can deny it through our air superiority that we have. We can deny the transit of Iranian oil by blockading the mouth of the Gulf of Oman as it leads into the strait and, frankly, commandeer and take control of anything that flows out of, you know, from Iran, from those oil terminals on Kharg Island once it goes into the Gulf of Oman.

So, I don't see a benefit of putting boots on the ground when we have the ability with long standoff weapons and drawing down, you know, the risk to force because any -- whether it's an air assault, you know, using the rotary aircraft that are coming in with the two EMUs that are coming in to the operations or other aircraft, it's all extremely high risk.

We've lost the ability to have operational or tactical surprise, really. While we've taken out communications for Iran, the early warning network is alive and well, the human early warning network. So, I just -- I think the last option is probably the most reasonable.

COATES: Aaron, let me ask you. The president claims that Iran asked for a seven-day pause. Trump gave them 10 days instead. Do you think this extension will actually provide anything meaningful or is it just buying time?

AARON DAVID MILLER, FORMER STATE DEPARTMENT MIDDLE EAST NEGOTIATOR: I mean, it could, Laura, if you -- it's great to be here with you and Lieutenant General Schwartz. It could if you were serious about negotiations, and that includes not only this administration, but the Iranians. You can't do this on the back of a cocktail napkin, you can't do it over the phone, and you can't do it indirectly. You've got to sit across the table from decision makers, and that raises the real question, of course, who's making decisions and what sort of authority do Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps decisionmakers have here.

So, if you look at Trump's 15 points, Newsweek actually had what they purport to be a detailed summary of them. And you look at the five points the Iranians came back with. I mean, we're talking about gaps that are as wide as the Grand Canyon.

The other problem, Laura, is that the Iranians believe, whether they're -- maybe they're delusional. Maybe they understand that they've mobilized and deployed geography as a critically important strategic weapon. The Iranians think they're winning. And frankly, I don't see any sense. You know, Woody Allen said that 80 percent of life is just showing up. Success in life, it's really showing up at the right time. And negotiations to succeed need to be joined at the right time. And right now, I mean, I think we're just drifting.

COATES: General, former director of National Counterterrorism, Joe Kent, he warns against a hard island takeover. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE KENT, FORMER DIRECTOR, UNITED STATES NATIONAL COUNTERTERRORISM CENTER: In terms of the Kharg Island, that makes me nervous because I have heard so many people like Lindsey Graham and others that are not military people, that are not in the Pentagon, that are not reading intelligence every day, talk about it very flippantly. Like, oh, we'll just take that island, we'll just take their oil. I want to tell you guys, like, it's not 2003 anymore. You can't just put guys there, and they'll occupy it. Like, there's ballistics, there's drones. They would be sitting ducks in that area.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: Does the military have any way to avoid that very scenario, general?

SCHWARTZ: Well, we certainly have ways to mitigate that threat. But the point that's being brought there, they -- while we've significantly reduced the amount of, you know, ballistic missiles and drones that Iran is firing at the Gulf states and Israel and our forces, most importantly to me, they still have a lot of capability left. So, there are ways to mitigate it.

You know, certainly if we put forces, you know, on a piece of terrain, we're going to make sure we have the anti-drone drones that, you know, Ukraine has so successfully used over the course of their campaign against the Russian Federation, we're going to have other, you know, air defense assets, short-range air defense assets that typically go in with lighter forces to marines and U.S. infantry and the other enablers.

But that doesn't mean there's no threat. There is still going to be a significant threat. And, you know, all those islands, they're a pool table, you know? So, there's not any really good cover other than if you want to go inside of the urban areas. You know, use the structures for cover. There's not a lot of, you know, cover. There's very little concealment. So, if I can see you, I can range you, and I can hit you.

[23:15:00]

And we know that Iran has that capability to do all of those things, even now, you know, going into our fifth week of this conflict.

COATES: Aaron, Reuters reports that Pakistan urged the United States to press Israel to remove two senior officials who are still alive from their hit list. Now, the president says the United States knows where they are. What would happen to negotiations if these remaining senior officials were killed?

MILLER: I mean, that assumes that the two in question, Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi who, frankly, is not a decision maker, he's a cipher, a talented one but still a cipher, and Ghalibaf, who is essentially tied in with the former mayor of Tehran, speaker of the parliament, who is also tied intimately with the guard, that somehow, they are the keys to making the decision.

I think command and control is a real problem here. This is no longer a question of the supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, if he's still alive, incapacitated, in a hospital in Moscow. Who knows where he is? His father, Ali Khamenei, probably could have made decision. He had pronounced on the Iranian nuclear agreement.

Now, I think it's much more difficult, Laura, even if you had decision makers. I mean, I think we got to, you know, wake up and smell the coffee here. The Iranians have managed, frankly, to hold their regime together and to impose a set of costs on the United States, on the international economy, and clearly on the Gulf states.

Again, maybe it's delusional. We're only five weeks in. I think this war is going to go on for weeks, weeks longer. Maybe they think -- maybe they're delusional, but I think they believe that, in fact, they can get things out of this. So, they're in no hurry, it seems to me, despite what the president says, to make critical concessions or, frankly, right now, any concessions at all.

COATES: General Schwartz, Aaron David Miller, thank you both. Up next, the president declares a national emergency at airports that he says will let him pay the TSA agents directly. Will this solve the crisis? And if so, what took so long? We'll debate it, next. Plus, what the deputy attorney general said today that may end up backfiring on him and the Department of Justice.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:20:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COATES: A major development in the TSA crisis gripping airports across the nation. President Trump says he will order the DHS secretary, Markwayne Mullin, to pay TSA workers immediately. Sources tell CNN the money will come from the one big, beautiful bill that Congress passed last year.

But the administration cautions that this plan is in the preliminary stages and it could take time to process. So, that means TSA workers could still miss their second full paycheck this weekend while things take time. And speaking of time, those long lines at the airport security checkpoints, well, they may linger. There doesn't seem to be an end in sight to the stalemate over funding DHS.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. GARY PETERS (D-MI): On the margins, there are some issues. So, we're -- we're in a pretty close place. But in this business, being at the margin still means you could be long ways away. So, that -- that is going on.

SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA): We're not going to be able to get DHS open with Democratic votes. It -- it -- it should be clear. Even Stevie Wonder can see this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: I want to bring in my political panel tonight. Democratic strategist Michael Trujillo, former Republican lieutenant governor of California, Abel Maldonado, and CNN anchor Elex Michaelson. Glad to have all of you here. I'll begin with you, Abel. I mean, only TSA is getting paid with this deal, as you know. It means the Coast Guard, for example, they're not getting a benefit out of this as well. Is the White House just kicking the can down the road by just dealing with TSA exclusively? ABEL MALDONADO, FORMER LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA: Well, I think, Laura, the White House has been waiting for Congress to act. And frankly, I'm going to say this: Both political parties got to get their act together. This is just crazy, for them to hold the American traveler and the TSA workers hostage.

I mean, the president is going to go -- I don't know. I mean, I don't know if it's legal, what he's going to do to get these TSA workers paid, Laura, but he's trying to do something to get these folks -- these folks -- look, I wasn't raised to not pay my bills. Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, the leadership in Washington, they weren't raised to not pay their bills. They got to pay their bills.

I mean, they're -- they think they're winning. They're not winning. The American people are just upset. I mean, I'm upset. I was at the airport. It's horrible.

COATES: I mean, Congress is -- they're still getting paid. That's part of the frustration.

MALDONADO: Of course, they are.

COATES: I've been a federal employee not paid during a government shutdown. It is infuriating when this happens. And you've mentioned the idea of hostage, right? The president was asked about negotiations just over the bill, and actually he singled out Republicans, not Democrats. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I like John Thune, and I -- you know, it's not easy for him because he's got three or four people in there that, you know, I'm not big fans of, frankly, and that don't vote for us, well, like they should.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: Elex, you're smiling. What's your reaction to that?

ELEX MICHAELSON, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Well, I mean, he's frustrated with anybody that doesn't vote with him, and he'll throw them, you know, under the bus in that situation. I mean, it's frustrating for everybody involved. But most of all, as Abel pointed out, it's frustrating for the American people who have to go and deal with the results of this.

[23:24:59]

And -- and, you know, the question is, does president -- is President Trump's plan actually legal, to just pay these people out of that bill?

COATES: And one must wonder, obviously, if you could've done this all along, like it's sort of "The Wizard of Oz," where the ruby slippers are on your feet, you need to click your heels three times, we could've all gone home. I don't know. It's pretty novel, what he's approaching right now, given the power of the purse.

But, you know, when you think about this -- I mean, he was calling out Rand Paul. He called out Lisa Murkowski. How can the president negotiate with Democrats if he can't seem to align his own party?

MICHAEL TRUJILLO, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I don't think he can. You know, you have the Republicans in charge of the White House, the House, the U.S. Senate. They broke it. They got to fix it. I mean, I know Abel was raised that you got to pay your bills, but I was also paid. If I broke something, it's my responsibility. And so, that's all wholly on the lap of President Trump and the U.S. House and the Republican Congress. This is -- they broke our U.S. transportation system.

MALDONADO: They've actually -- they've actually passed a bill several times.

MICHAELSON: Yes. And you know as well also that the Senate, you got to get 60 votes with the filibuster. So, they can't pass it just with the Republicans.

MALDONADO: So, Michael kind of blamed the Republican Party, all Republicans. Look, the Democrats have had this bill. It's just politics, Laura. And you know what? Who's losing? The people. The people of America are losing, and the politicians are getting away with it. Let's -- let's just -- let's just call it what it is.

COATES: Well, there's a politician who's not getting away with something, which is the ire and insult of the president of the United States. I'm talking about the California governor, Gavin Newsom. He was being almost taunted over his lifelong struggles with dyslexia. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I don't want a person with mental disability to be my president. I mean, you don't want to have a person with mental disability being your president. And Gavin Newsom said that he can't read a speech. He can't do almost anything.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP (voice-over): He admits that he suffers from mental disability. He admits it. And somebody said, a reporter, a fake reporter said to me, well, it's not fair that you talk about he's mentally disabled. I say, yes, but he said that he's essentially mentally disabled.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: He hasn't actually made that statement, number one. Number two, according to Yale, one in five people have dyslexia. So, the idea of attacking Newsom this way is odd to me for a number of reasons. But I also want to note that he did respond by posting to X. Quote -- "If you have dyslexia, hear this: Bullies will laugh and call you names. Let them talk. Keep moving. No one -- not even the president -- decides your worth. Prove them wrong. Every time."

Elex, you've interviewed him a number of times. Describe for me why you think Trump is attacking him this way and what you think the governor makes of it.

MICHAELSON: Well, the governor sees it as an opportunity. I mean, every time that President Trump talks about Governor Newsom, that's a win for Governor Newsom, who likes to see a political mano a mano with Donald Trump. It gets his name out there and it's, frankly, good politics for Gavin Newsom.

But President Trump, he sees this as a weakness. This is one of those things that he thinks that maybe plays with his base and that people that follow him, who would not be the ones who would tell pollsters that they think this, actually think it's the kind of thing that they would say behind the scenes. And a lot of people that like Trump feel like he gives voice to them. The stuff that they were always afraid to say out loud, that they now are hearing the president of the United States say out loud. I'm not sure about the politics of this for Donald Trump, though.

COATES: Michael, is there any strategic advantage to going into the gutter in this way?

TRUJILLO: No. But that has been President Trump's one, two, three sorts of move on everything. You know, when you played the clip of President Trump saying -- talking about this, I really thought he was talking about himself for a quick second.

You know, dyslexia affects everyone. It's not a Republican, it's not a Democratic Party issue. And so, the fact is that he's basically bashing his own party that are dyslexic, the children of parents who are dyslexic, the parents who are dyslexic. And it's not just a Democratic Party or Republican thing. And so, those are the things that turn off Americans. And it's not what's a -- it's not a uniting sort of message. So, it's interesting to see Donald Trump to constantly go back and use the sort of same tricks he has always used. But I don't -- I agree with Elex. I don't think this one is going to work.

COATES: Abel, when you hear this, and obviously, in your position here in California as well, thinking about your past here -- I mean, as Elex has pointed out, Newsom wants to be living rent-free in Trump's mind. He hopes that it translates into political advantages as well. What would be the motivation for Trump to try to attack him this way? Does it mean, you know, he fears Newsom as a foe?

MALDONADO: No, I don't think so. I think -- first of all, I'd like to clarify that dyslexia is a learning disability.

[23:29:58]

And, you know, President Trump is a puncher. And Gavin Newsom doesn't want to talk about what California is today, so he punches at Trump. And what happens is Trump punches back twice. And it's back and forth. As Elex said, you know, it's good for Gavin. But I don't think it's good for Gavin. I think President Trump is trying to ingrain the American people, Gavin has got a disability. That's what he's trying to say here.

But let's just get to the facts here. Gavin Newsom is running for president. He's the governor of California, Laura. And when you are a governor or a former governor running for president, you're going to the swing states and you're going to the American people and say, look, look at what I've done in California. I want to make -- I want to make America like California. That doesn't bode well.

So, what's his only other option? Go after Trump, distract people, make it a Trump-Gavin Newsom fight, and not talk about the homelessness here in California, not talk about unemployment, train to nowhere. I can keep going on all night. California is not in good shape. And Governor Newsom, I can personally say, has not done a good job as governor. So, what's he going to do? Can't talk about his record. Let's talk about beating up on Trump. And then Trump, he --

MICHAELSON: Well, he's not bringing up this dyslexia thing.

COATES: Right. He's reacting to it.

MALDONADO: Of course, he did. I mean, he went on and said --

MICHAELSON: Well, he's talking about it -- he's talking about it in his book.

(CROSSTALK)

MALDONADO: He can't read a speech. I mean, I've seen his State of the Union, State of the States. Come on. I mean, be consistent with the facts.

MICHAELSON: He didn't -- he didn't say that he can't read a speech. He said that it's difficult for him to read a teleprompter. It takes him a long time to work on it. Most of what he does is done from memory. He is able to read. He just has to read in a different way, as a lot of people that are dyslexic know.

COATES: Look, I've been in television for a long time. There are a lot of people who can't read prompter. I'm not in that --

(LAUGHTER)

I'm not in that. But I will say, I think voters do love it when a person who asks to be the commander-in-chief and leader of the so- called free world, when they can think off the cuff. Thanks, guys.

Up next, Todd Blanche bragging about all the firings at DOJ and the FBI. But did the deputy attorney general just make a big mistake? I mean, huge. I'll explain. And later, Savannah Guthrie sharing the hardest story of her life as she lets us in on the investigation, the new details about what happened, and the gut-wrenching private moments.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SAVANNAH GUTHRIE, DAUGHTER OF NANCY GUTHRIE, NBC NEWS SHOW HOST: She said, "Mom is missing." And I said, "What?"

HODA KOTB, NBC ANCHOR: Yes.

GUTHRIE: "What are you talking about?" She said, "She's gone."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:35:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN: How many have been canned?

TODD BLANCHE, UNITED STATES DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: Over 200. Over 200 either left before we came in because they knew it was coming or were fired or took early retirement. They are no longer employed by this department.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: That's the deputy A.G., Todd Blanche, declaring that every single person who worked on any investigations into President Trump no longer works at the Department of Justice. None, he says. He's talking about the Jack Smith investigations into Trump's retention of classified documents and his efforts to overturn the 2020 investigation. Here's more.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BLANCHE: President Trump, for the first time in modern history, has said, "I am the president, and if you work in the executive branch, you work for me." And guess what? We can all read the Constitution. He's right. And, unfortunately, past administrations, Republican included, have just resigned themselves to putting up with partisan actors within the Department of Justice. We do not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: Todd, which specific clause of the Constitution did you just cite? Which one said that an employee of the executive branch works for the president as opposed to a branch whose job it is to enforce the law?

You see why I have pause here? Because I actually worked at the Department of Justice. I was a line attorney. I was a trial attorney. I was at Main Justice. And I know that every prosecutor who swears an oath is doing it not to the president, not to a political party. They're swearing to uphold the Constitution. And when you stand in front of a trial courtroom, you are saying in front of a judge, which is a different branch, that you are serving on behalf of the people of the United States. It's a different POTUS, people of the United States.

Let's talk about it because my next guest prosecuted the most high- profile cases from January 6th. He says he was fired for political reasons. And now, he is suing. Mike Gordon joins us now. Mike, thank you for being here. I mean, it strikes me that as much as Todd Blanche seemed to enjoy bragging about the firings, he actually may have just helped make the case that there was some political motivation or one that could be ascribed to the motivations for firing. That's got to be gold for all the wrongful termination lawsuits, right?

MIKE GORDON, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: You would hope so, Laura. But the administration is taking the stance of something called the unitary executive theory.

[23:40:02]

The idea is that all of the Constitution's power is in the president himself and not in the executive branch as a whole. It's the idea that he is the law, he is the sole enforcer of the law. And so, when Todd Blanche says we all work for him, what he is doing is spitting in the face of John Adams's quote that has defined this country for over 200 years, that we are a nation of laws, not of men. That we in the Department of Justice and the executive branch, that we uphold the law, not the whims or the desires of any person.

President Trump campaigned on and made clear that he intended to spend his second term exacting revenge on all the people he believes have wronged him, and that has been one of the projects this administration has been doing since day one, and that's what's going on here, and that's what Todd Blanche is bragging about.

COATES: I mean, Blanche claims partisans have been fired. We're both old enough to remember that the idea of your political background is, for line attorneys in particular who are not political appointees, has no bearing on the cases that you're working on. That is the expectation and the directive.

But, you know, there is a banner now that hangs in front of Main Justice with the president's face on it. I wonder if the Department of Justice has been irrevocably changed. I mean, you do see the president's picture, the attorney general picture inside of the building. Obviously, they're there in the halls in different points in time. But do you see the outside images of this president combined with the statements that have been made as having a detrimental impact on what is meant for the Justice Department?

GORDON: Absolutely, Laura. I think the department has been just kneecapped by what they've been doing over the past year. And it's not just the images. There's also a law, the Hatch Act, that says there's to be no political statements by government employees. And yet when the shutdown happened, the Department of Justice and many other federal agencies put on their websites that the Democrats were to blame for the shutdown. They're taking an explicit partisan stance.

And that not only erodes the public's trust in the Department of Justice, the idea that it's there to serve all Americans, not just the ones who voted for the president, but it also undermines judges' trust in the government. The idea that the government can be relied on has been something the Department of Justice has made great use of in court for, you know, hundreds of years. And what I've seen and what I've heard is that is gone. Judges no longer trust that they can take the government at its word, and that will take generations to repair.

COATES: That's a very scary proposition. People should realize that if judges doubt the prosecutors, juries doubt the prosecutors, and prosecutors are the only ones who can bring cases on behalf of a victim, then the pursuit of justice becomes perhaps a fool's errand.

Trump's former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, just settled with the Department of Justice after he sued. He alleged wrongful prosecution. And I should note, Flynn pled guilty in 2017 to lying to the FBI about his contacts with a Russian official, and the case was later dropped. He was pardoned by the president, Donald Trump. Flynn is said to be getting more than a million bucks. Should he?

GORDON: Of course not. Laura, the whole idea is that when he pled guilty, he admitted that he did the thing that he was charged with. He stood up in court, he swore under oath that he had done those things, and the judge accepted his plea. Now, when the political winds change, turns around and says it was a wrongful prosecution.

And the Department of Justice that charged that case and took that plea by settling is now implicitly stating that they did something wrong. I don't know what that wrong thing is. I don't know how Michael Flynn can claim that he was wrongfully prosecuted for something that he pled guilty to, that he admitted doing.

What it looks like from where I sit, Laura, is this is yet another example of the president using the government to enrich himself and his allies. This is just essentially public corruption, and it's in plain sight. This is no different than passing a bag of money.

COATES: Mike Gordon, thank you.

GORDON: Thank you, Laura.

COATES: Still ahead, did the person who took Nancy Guthrie enter through the back door? And were those ransom notes real? We have some answers tonight from Savannah Guthrie as she lets the world into the nightmare that she has been living.

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GUTHRIE: I just-- I didn't want to believe. I just said, "Do you think because of me?"

[23:45:02]

And he said, "I'm sorry it's with you. But, yes, maybe." But I knew that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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GUTHRIE: To think that I brought this to her bedside, that it's because of me. And I just want to say I'm so sorry, Mommy. I'm so sorry.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: That is Savannah Guthrie in her first interview since her mother, Nancy, disappeared almost two months ago. The interview, I mean, is nothing short of heartbreaking from start to finish.

[23:50:01]

In the moment you just watched, she blames herself for what happened to her mother. And she says she feels guilty. She wakes up every night thinking about what her mother might have gone through.

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GUTHRIE: I can't imagine that that is who she saw standing over her bed. I can't. It's too much.

KOTB: Yeah.

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COATES: But Guthrie did send a message to whoever this person is that took her mother.

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GUTHRIE: We need answers.

KOTB: Yes.

GUTHRIE: We cannot be at peace without knowing. And someone can do the right thing. And it is never too late to do the right thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: I want to bring in criminologist and behavioralist, Casey Jordan, and Briana Whitney, reporter with Arizona's 3TV and CBS 5 and host of "True Crime Arizona Live." Thank you both. I mean, Casey, we've been covering this since the beginning. I mean, Savannah is blaming her fame for her mother's disappearance. She says the family believed from the beginning this was a kidnapping, her brother thinking a kidnapping for ransom. But you're not entirely convinced that's the case. Why?

CASEY JORDAN, CRIMINOLOGIST, BEHAVIORAL ANALYST: Quite simply, there's no evidence that this was a kidnapping for profit. And at the very beginning, this is a logical thing for the family to believe because Savannah Guthrie is a household name across the nation. This is classic, if you will, survivor's guilt. You go to the worst-case scenario because you feel helpless and you feel like there's something that you should be able to do. It is not uncommon for people to blame themselves when, whether it's a child, a parent, any loved one, disappears. The helplessness makes them feel guilty, that they should be able to do something.

But remember, we've had no proof of life, no proof of captivity, no proof of anything. So, even though she does tend to believe that those first two communications asking for a ransom might be legitimate, throughout this, entire interview, she couches it with maybe or we think, but she says repeatedly, we just don't know.

COATES: Speaking of those notes, I mean, Briana, here is what Savannah said about the ransom notes that they received. Watch.

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GUTHRIE: There are a lot of different notes, I think, that came.

KOTB: Yes.

GUTHRIE: And I think most of them, it's my understanding, are not real. And I didn't see them. But I believe the two notes that we received, that we responded to, I tend to believe those are real.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: Briana, remind us what the contents of those first two were about and what investigators think of them.

BRIANA WHITNEY, REPORTER, ARIZONA'S FAMILY: Yes. I mean, we still don't know from investigators themselves whether they believe those were legit or not. But I've read those notes. They came into our Tucson sister station. So, as a company, we had to deal with this. And, you know, it had details in there that only the perpetrator or the abductor would have known, that really specific details that would only be at the crime scene itself. They were demanding a certain amount of money, a certain amount of Bitcoin, and they also said that there would be no communication other than these notes. What was interesting, though, about that, obviously, the Guthrie family then wanted proof of life.

The second note that came in just days later could not provide that proof of life. And so, there's a possibility here that this was kind of done in that first week, that once they realized they couldn't give the Guthrie family what they needed to be able to send that money, that they just stopped any more communication, gave no more answers.

We haven't revealed what is in those ransom notes just because they are part of the investigation, but it's possible that that's where things kind of stopped in terms of any more information as to where Nancy would be.

COATES: Casey, we got some more information from Savannah as she described the scene at the home. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GUTHRIE: So, there was no wander off. And the doors were propped open.

KOTB: Yes.

GUTHRIE: And there was blood on the front doorstep. And the Ring camera had been yanked off.

KOTB: Yes.

GUTHRIE: And so, we were saying, this is --

KOTB: Yes. Do something.

GUTHRIE: This is not okay.

KOTB: Yes.

GUTHRIE: This isn't -- something is very wrong here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: We didn't previously know that the doors had been propped open. What does that tell you, Casey?

JORDAN: Yes, that was the one detail that really came from this interview that I don't think any of us had heard before.

[23:55:02]

So, the propped open thing might suggest that the doors were propped open -- I mean, you don't need a PhD for this -- for easy access. Was it to make sure that they could get out very quickly? Was it to make sure that they could see whatever was going on in the backyard or was it to let other people, co-conspirators, other burglars or abductors have easy egress there? Maybe that suggests there was, you know, give a signal, call, other people come once you're inside.

But it doesn't explain why there were the little blood droplets on the front porch. That door wasn't propped open. It might suggest that they gained the egress through the back of the house, propped the doors open for easy access. But perhaps if this was a burglary gone wrong instead of a kidnapping for profit, they end up leaving through the front door, perhaps carrying Nancy, because the droplets are more consistent with, like, a bleeding nose than with a severe injury. But the propping of the doors just shows, suggests that perhaps there was more than one person involved.

COATES: Casey, Briana, thank you both. And thank you all so much for watching. Hey, a quick programming note. I'll be on "Real Time with Bill Maher" tomorrow. That's at 10:00 p.m. on HBO Max. "The Story Is with Elex Michaelson," that's coming up next.

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