Return to Transcripts main page

Laura Coates Live

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), Is Interviewed About Trump Fires Pam Bondi As Attorney General; Todd Blanche Promoted To Acting Attorney General After Bondi Fired; Time: Susie Wiles Tells Aides To Be "More Forthright" With Trump; Trump: U.S. "Can't Take Care Of Daycare, We're Fighting Wars"; Police Release New Bodycam Video Of Tiger Woods Dui Arrest; Now: Astronaut Victor Glover's Dad Speaks Out On Son's Mission. Aired 11-12a ET

Aired April 02, 2026 - 23:00   ET

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

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST: -- Madness: College Basketball at a Crossroads airs Sunday at 8:00 p.m. on CNN, or you can watch it on the CNN app.

[23:00:07]

And thank you very much for watching NewsNight. You can catch me anytime on your favorite social media, X, Instagram, and on TikTok. Laura Coates Live starts right now.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: The President says bye-bye, Bondi. And now that he's fired one of his most loyal cabinet members, what kind of attorney general is he looking for?

Plus, inside Trump's search for an exit from the war with Iran. Brand new reporting tonight on the top White House official now ordering aides to stop pulling punches on the realities of the war.

A new body cam video of Tiger Woods' DUI arrest reveals his phone call to President Trump moments after his crash. It's all tonight on Laura Coates Live.

Good evening, I'm Victor Blackwell in for Laura. And it turns out even intense public loyalty to President Trump is not enough to guarantee job security. Attorney General Pam Bondi is out. She's the second cabinet secretary to be fired in the last weeks after Trump removed Kristi Noem as homeland security secretary.

And Trump fired Bondi in a social media post. He says she'll be moving to the private sector. He did not say why she was dismissed, but our reporting does. And there are several points of frustration. Sources say Trump was fed up with her handling of the Epstein files.

There's no question she made a series of missteps that helped turn the fallout into a headache for the President. There's that phase one binder. Remember these photos? The photo op outside the White House, the DOJ and FBI memo that essentially said case closed. And there's also this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The DOJ may be releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients. Will that really happen?

PAM BONDI, FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL: It's sitting on my desk right now to review. That's been a directive by President Trump.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Yes, so there's a lot there. But Epstein is not the only reason Bondi fell out of Trump's favor. We're also told that she did not investigate or prosecute enough of President Trump's political enemies. And the President made that pretty clear. Remember this post from September? Apparently it was meant to be a private message.

But Trump explicitly tells Bondi to prosecute James Comey, Letitia James, Adam Schiff. But here's what makes Bondi's removal so striking. She actually tried to follow the directive. Her Justice Department did bring charges against Comey and James, although the prosecutions eventually fell apart. And she repeatedly and very publicly went to bat for the President. She tore into Democrats in the process. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-WA): I will reclaim my time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The gentle lady is reclaimed her time.

BONDI: I'm not going to get in the gutter for her theatrics. You don't tell me anything.

REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): Yes. Oh, I did tell you because we saw what you did in the Senate.

BONDI: You're not even lawyer. I find it interesting that she keeps going after President Trump, the greatest president in American history. None of them ask Merrick Garland over the last four years one word about Jeffrey Epstein. How ironic is that? You know why? Because Donald Trump, the Dow, the Dow right now is over. The Dow is over $50,000. I don't know why you're laughing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Well, despite all of that and all the times she went to war with Trump's critics, she still could not save her job. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche will be acting AG now. But we're learning the President is considering other names for the post, including the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lee Zeldin.

Whomever the President nominates, they will have a tough road ahead. Because if Bondi's version of loyalty did not go far enough for Trump, who could even go further and still get the Senate confirmation? Let's begin with Democratic Congressman from California, Eric Swalwell. He's a member of the House Judiciary Committee and is running for governor. Congressman, thanks for being on. I mean, again, from what we just saw, the theatrics in the House testimony and the binders full of clients. Who do you believe can fill that little space in the Venn diagram of obsequious enough for the President and can get 50 votes in the Senate?

REP. ERIC SWALWELL (D-CA): Right. What's clear is that being 90 percent in favor of what Trump and who Trump wants prosecuted is not enough. You have to be 100 percent or you're out. That's not democracy. That's tyranny. I also found it laughable that the President apparently is blaming me for this firing. And it was tweeting at me at 4:45 a.m. this morning.

And as someone who saw the President six months ago, try and go after me and Adam Schiff and Tish James and Lisa Cook on mortgage fraud nonsense. And then last week, we have Kash Patel trying to weaponize the Department of Justice against us.

[23:05:11]

We expect in the next couple of weeks something else against me and other enemies of the President. That's just what they do. But the good news is it doesn't work. No one is flinching. Folks are stepping up. They're fighting back. And that's the only way out, regardless of who he decides to pick next.

BLACKWELL: Congressman, since you brought it up, I do want to ask you about Semaphore's reporting that another source of frustration for the President, you just mentioned it, was that the President believed that Pam Bondi gave you a heads up about an effort to release the files of an FBI investigation into you and a Chinese spy. Is there any truth to that? What do you know?

SWALWELL: No, we're living rent-free in his head. He's seeing ghosts. Pam Bondi did not tip me or anybody affiliated with me off on this. FBI agents tipped a "Washington Post" reporter off because they saw Kash Patel and Donald Trump seeking to interfere in the California governor's race where I'm leading.

And as I said, six months ago, they tried to refer me for a mortgage case, just as they did with Adam Schiff. And we expect, as we're 30 days out from voting beginning in California, that there will be something new in the next couple of weeks. And the best thing that folks inside the building can do right now, and they've already shown the courage if they've gone forward to "The Washington Post," is to just walk away from this.

Come forward. Expose the corruption. You will be protected. And anyone who stays and enables this, and that goes for the next attorney general, you're going to be before Congress. Democrats are going to be in the majority coming, you know, this November, and you're going to be before Congress. And it's all going to come out, period.

BLACKWELL: Speaking of coming before Congress, Congressional House Oversight Chairman James Comer scheduled a talk with Republicans on the committee about the deposition, Bondi's deposition in the Epstein investigation. Congresswoman Nancy Mace says that it's still enforceable, still stands. What do you believe about the future of that deposition?

SWALWELL: Democrats have shown, one, for the sake of justice for these sexual assault victims, you know, we don't care who's involved in the files. We want to see justice, and we don't care who's involved. We want you to come forward if you saw something as it relates to this case. And we're able to get the votes, second, from Republicans in this thin majority that they have.

And so we should continue to pursue every witness, you know, from people who have investigated the case or did not investigate the case enough. But I will also say, you know, to you, Victor, if they don't do it now, we're going to do it when we're in the majority. And the best thing Democrats can do is just telegraph what being in the majority looks like as far as accountability, who's going to be in the witness chair, and what power of, you know, the subpoena is going to look like for any wrongdoers.

BLACKWELL: Congressman Eric Swalwell of California, thank you so much.

Let's bring in now White House correspondent for Bloomberg, Jeff Mason, and former DOJ prosecutor Brendan Ballou. He works in the National Security Division.

Jeff, let me start with you. The now acting AG, Todd Blanche, will be the ninth confirmed or acting attorney general under Trump, first term and second. We got him up on the screen if you forgot some of these over the time.

If Pam Bondi's version of loyalty wasn't enough, who can, you know, the first question back to the congressman, fill that position for both the President and get confirmed?

JEFF MASON, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, BLOOMBERG: Well, I think that's a great question. I mean, clearly Pam Bondi, the former -- now former attorney general, was there to do what President Trump wanted, and she did that. And so if that's not the criteria, then it raises a good question about what is.

I think the President was frustrated, and you talked about this earlier, that she wasn't necessarily able to deliver on all of the things that he wanted to do. I think he sees the Justice Department as an extension of the White House. That is a shift from how previous presidents and previous administrations have done.

And she wasn't able to do sort of the long list of things that he wanted. He's also just generally frustrated right now, Victor, I think, because of the war, because of the economy, because of his political standing in the polls. And so that's leading to lashing out.

And it's leading to what is a little bit of a shift for Trump 2.0, which is these firings. And we'll see if that's the start of a trend of more or not.

BLACKWELL: Or is it anticipation of what could be coming for the Senate, and if he has to get these replacements confirmed before the next Congress to do it now?

MASON: Ding, ding, ding. I mean the -- he's got a majority in the Senate until the end of this year and possibly next year. I mean, the Senate does not look as --

[23:10:00]

BLACKWELL: Sure.

MASON: -- attractive for -- attractive is the wrong word, but it doesn't look as easy for Democrats to take over as the House does in November elections. Even so, it's vulnerable. Both houses of Congress are vulnerable, and he knows that. And so that may also be part of the motivation.

BLACKWELL: Brendan, let me play something for you that the now acting AG, Todd Blanche, recently said, his description of the changes at the Department of Justice under Trump. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TODD BLANCHE, DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: There is not a single man or woman who has ever been in the White House, at the Department of Justice, who had anything to do with those prosecutions. Director Patel has cleaned house there, too. There isn't a single man or woman with a gun, federal agent, still in that organization that had anything to do with the prosecution of President Trump.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: And there are now FBI agents, former agents, who are suing both Kash Patel and former AG Pam Bondi now over this. What do you see as her legacy as she leaves the department?

BRENDAN BALLOU, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Bluntly, I think Pam Bondi will probably be the most consequential attorney general since Watergate. You know, whether or not she was successful in her aim, she has dramatically transformed the Department of Justice. You know, it is now really an extension of the White House and the president specifically. There is no longer that separation between the Department of Justice and the White House that was so instrumental and important to both institutions.

The fact that she went after so many of Donald Trump's political enemies because they were enemies, an unprecedented prosecutorial strategy, again, not successful, but certainly something new. The fact that she, you know, has tried to clean House, as Deputy AG Todd Blanche was saying, by firing people that were perceived to be disloyal.

And then even smaller things, like dismantling the basic infrastructure for going after white collar criminals, dismantling the tax division, you know, undermining the antitrust division and so forth. All of which is to say that the Department of Justice is not the same institution that it was even 14 months ago, and it is going to take a generation to change it back. BLACKWELL: But do you expect, let's say it's Lee Zeldin or Harmeet Dhillon, who's now leading up the Civil Rights Division, that it will be a stylistic change only? Because the President has been clear about what he wants from his attorney general.

BALLOU: Yes, well, you know, I don't think Pam Bondi could have really been more loyal to the president than she was. I can't imagine that Lee Zeldin or any of these other people are going to be -- can be more loyal to him. The problem that she faced, the problem that any of these people face, is going to be the basic constitutional protections that you have against political prosecutions.

The reason that she wasn't successful wasn't because she was unwilling to prosecute political enemies. It's that grand juries and judges disagreed with her, you know. And that's what stopped her. I think that's what's going to stop future appointees too.

MASON: I want to take that question too, because I think you're spot on with that answer. And also, I just think it's very clear that President Trump, just like with DHS, his policies haven't changed. His desires for what he wants out of that department hasn't changed. He just wants a new face.

BLACKWELL: Let me read for you a post from Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. He posed this question. If Bondi gets the Noem treatment, will a new AG want to put up with Patel's shenanigans and baggage, or does he get the Lewandowski treatment and follow the boss out of the door, a chance for Blanche to clean house for the new arrival? What do you think about Kash Patel's future as director at FBI?

MASON: I don't have any reporting to suggest that he is vulnerable, but I would say that it's not going to be the attorney general's decision. Kash Patel had a relationship with President Trump. If President Trump is annoyed with Kash Patel, then that's going to probably lead to his departure much faster than anything the new AG would say.

BLACKWELL: All right, Jeff, Brendan, thank you both.

Up next, the Army's top general suddenly forced out as Secretary Pete Hegseth makes a major change in the middle of the war with Iran.

[23:13:57]

Plus, inside Trump's search for a way out of this fight. The Time Magazine reporter who spoke with the President today will join me with new details on the scramble inside the White House. And the one top official who is reportedly worried that Trump is only being told what he wants to hear.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: There's another major department departure from the Trump administration tonight. The Army Chief of Staff General Randy George has been ordered to retire immediately. General George served for more than 35 years, including under President Biden's Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and that's considered a mark against him by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

This shakeup is a day after Trump spoke to the world about the war and said the U.S. was on the cusp of achieving its objectives, but that the bombing campaign will last another two to three weeks. And Trump says the U.S. will bomb Iran back to the Stone Age. One strike today destroyed one of Iran's tallest bridges. And moments ago, the president posted on Truth Social that the U.S. will target electric power plants next.

And tonight, CNN has exclusive reporting that roughly half of Iran's missile launchers are still intact and Iran still possesses thousands of attack drones. So what does the end game look like? And when will the President declare mission accomplished? My next guest spoke with the President about that for this week's cover story for Time magazine, national political reporter, writer, rather, for Time, Eric Cortellessa joins me now.

Eric, welcome in. So let me start here with this concern from Susie Wiles, chief of staff, that there were people who were advising the President and giving him these rose-tinted characterizations of the war, telling him what he wanted to hear. That was her concern. Were those concerns valid? And how is that shaping what the President does?

[23:20:13]

ERIC CORTELLESSA, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, TIME MAGAZINE: Well, I mean, certainly public polling has suggested that they are valid. The poll -- the war itself is not popular. Americans are disgruntled, including some of the President's most ardent supporters about the economic consequences of the war, particularly high gas prices, surging prices. The stock market, of course, has been tumbling in recent weeks.

What Susie Wiles was concerned about was that there were members of the administration who were not being candid enough with President Trump that if he doesn't wind down this war on the compressed timeline that he has promised, these economic consequences are going to only get worse, they will deteriorate, and that that will have next-order consequences, not only for President Trump, but for Republicans all across the ballot in the upcoming midterms.

BLACKWELL: The President starts his day by watching this reel of successes from the military, that they let him watch them blow up planes and vehicles across Iran. But he's also seeing poll numbers, and he's also seeing the impacts on the American public. How much are the economic effects and the polling impacts influencing this timeline, do you believe, through the reporting on what happens next?

CORTELLESSA: Well, I think they're influencing it a great deal. I think President Trump has recognized in private conversations with his own staff that he really does have a narrow window to get this done. And what you saw in his address last night was an attempt to kind of thread this needle, to say we're two to three weeks away, we're nearing completion, and yet we're still going to blow them to smithereens to an extent. So what President Trump really understands is that there's a narrow window. They have to get as much that they can do in these next couple weeks. And what he's looking for, aides tell me, is an attempt to declare victory some way, somehow, seek an off-ramp in the coming weeks so that he can end this, hope the economic situation improves, and that it will essentially amount to something very similar to what we'd seen with previous operations, where there was a lot of short- term discomfort domestically, but eventually people forgot.

BLACKWELL: For all the struggle, all the tumult, the President told you that negotiating with Iranians was easy. And so is that just the bluster? Is it just the president being boastful? What are the indicators that behind that he really doesn't know what to do? Or what do you think when you hear that?

CORTELLESSA: Well, I think, you know, part of President Trump wants to sort of position himself in a negotiating standpoint. He wants to make the Iranians feel like there is a window so that he can basically have a victory. I mean, he wants a decisive victory. And so he wants to keep that door open, is my sense. And that he really wants to have this exit ramp in the next couple of weeks.

BLACKWELL: Yes. In one ear, he has the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu telling him at the start of this that this is existential for the Iranians, that this is going to be more difficult than the one and done in June of 2025. On the other side, he had Pete Hegseth saying that this was going to be easier than it has turned out to be. How have those, and obviously it's turned out to be more difficult than expected, how have those influenced the President? And what should we expect over the next couple of weeks, considering those advice from those two parties?

CORTELLESSA: Well, I think a couple of things. I think for one, what Netanyahu really impressed upon President Trump was that there was a unique historic opportunity to severely degrade the Islamic Republic regime, to potentially create the conditions to install a new leadership, and that he had a greater opportunity at this moment in time with Iran, as weakened as it was, to put an end to their nuclear ambitions.

At the same time, what President Trump believed, based on certain advice he had been given by Secretary Hegseth, was that what we'd seen from previous instances of attacking the Iranians, whether it was assassinating the Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in 2020, or Operation Midnight Hammer, where we attacked their three nuclear facilities in the summer of 2025, was that the response would be muted, they would want to have a mainly symbolic, performative, retaliatory response, but they would not embark on such a full- throttle war, that they wouldn't attack allies in the region.

And once, you know, you saw them send missiles into Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, all across the Middle East, they were taken off guard and weren't quite prepared for that scale of a response. I think one thing that's really important to look at in the coming weeks and months is that while Prime Minister Netanyahu, who has had essentially a fever dream for decades to attack Iran like this, is going to want to keep going until as far as he can, whereas President Trump now has this timeline that he would like to get it finished with.

But, you know, Netanyahu is now so dependent on President Trump for his own domestic support that he is not going to be able to withdraw from this or to go against President Trump in any way for fear of his own domestic backlash, because President Trump is so popular and so beloved in Israel for all the things he has done in support of that country.

[23:25:01]

BLACKWELL: All right. Eric Cortellessa with Time Magazine, thank you.

CORTELLESSA: Great to be with you, thanks.

BLACKWELL: Still ahead, Trump suggests Uncle Sam needs to focus on funding the war and not daycare for Americans. Did he just deliver Democrats their central midterm message?

And who needs a lawyer when you could just call the President? Tiger Woods captured on body camera in footage that could make or break his legal case.

Plus later, a message from space, what the Artemis II astronauts said tonight about their lunar mission.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:30:13]

BLACKWELL: Daycare or defense spending? Which gets priority spending? Well, for President Trump, there is one choice right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The United States can't take care of daycare. That has to be up to a state. If we have all these other people who are fighting wars, we can't take care of daycare. They have to raise their taxes, but they should pay for it. And we could lower our taxes a little bit to them to make up for it. But it's not possible for us to take care of daycare. Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things, they can do it on a state.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Both issues are important. No American wants the troops to go unfunded, especially at wartime. And a recent poll from "The Associated Press" found most adults believe the skyrocketing cost of child care is a major problem. But consider these numbers. In 2022, the U.S. spent about $29 billion in subsidies on child care. That same year, the Pentagon asked for a $715 billion defense budget.

Joining me now, Neera Tanden, former domestic policy advisor to President Biden and President and CEO of the Center for American Progress, and Bryan Lanza, former senior advisor to the Trump 2024 presidential campaign. Bryan, of course, I'm starting with you. When the President says we don't have money for daycare, we got to pay for wars. Clearly, that's not what you want to hear from the President going into the midterms.

BRYAN LANZA, FMR. SENIOR ADVISER, TRUMP-VANCE 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: Yes, listen, government can't promise everything and deliver everything. We've seen Mamdani in New York, he made all these promises during the campaign, you know, free buses, all these things, and it showed that he couldn't do it. So President Trump is acknowledging what's taking place. That at this time the Constitution says you have to guarantee safety for all American people first and health care seems, I'm sorry, daycare, I have children, you know, seems like a priority that should be pushed onto the states.

I will say this, coming from state government, state government is probably the most efficient place for it to take place because each state is different and if you have this sort of mass approach to daycare, it's going to be completely inefficient.

BLACKWELL: I don't know how that answer got to Mamdani, but I want to play with what President Trump said during the campaign, specifically about child care.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Child care is child care. It's couldn't, you know, there's something you have to have it. In this country you have to have it.

Under a Trump administration, no American citizen will ever again feel that their needs come second to the citizens of a foreign country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: So when the President I mean, the first answer kind of meandered off into a tariff thing. But when the President promised America first and the people who voted based on the America first platform. It wasn't just moral or principled. It was economic in many ways. And so what do you say to those voters who believed Trump who said we're not going to be spending our money on these foreign wars we're going to build our bridges and build our infrastructure and take care of home.

LANZA: You say 2018 or 2016 when you saw the first quote is in 2024 the dynamics have severely changed since then. You've had COVID, you've had the world economy shift and clearly those priorities that he was promising in 2016 when he first ran for president those dynamics don't exist today.

BLACKWELL: Neera those dynamics don't exist today.

NEERA TANDEN, FORMER DOMESTIC POLICY ADVISER TO PRESIDENT BIDEN: I mean, I think the thing that is really just stunning about all of this is the thing that the American people are most concerned about this war is that it's driving up their costs. And it's driving up their gas costs. It's driving up fertilizer costs, which will drive up food costs because farmers need to buy fertilizer.

So in a time where the country is experiencing a cost of living crisis, which includes child care, the President of the United States says, no, we need more money for wars and less money for child care. Now, it is the case that if we stop funding child care, that'll mean people will lose child care funding. And that means costs will go up to families.

So what the President is really saying is the way that we lower your costs in America, we're going to take a few more of those efforts to help you away and raise your costs so that we can pay more for these foreign wars. And I heard the President in 2024 argue against foreign wars, attack Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for allegedly perpetrating foreign wars.

Right now, we are spending -- we've spent $30 billion on this war at a time where it's raising costs for American people. And the fact that you want to take away child care from people to raise their costs and also apparently put Medicare and Medicaid under risk, I think tells the American people that November can't come soon enough.

[23:35:02]

BLACKWELL: So let's talk about what the President tried to accomplish with that speech last night. He tried to, in many ways, calm the markets. And apparently it didn't do the job. Let's watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIM CRAMER, CNBC ANCHOR: Look, investors didn't get what they wanted to hear last night. I think that it was pretty straightforward that there were a lot of people buying stocks, betting that this was going to be the official wind down. We understand that the Navy has been decimated. We understand that the Air Force is not factor in Iran. But those really aren't on the table, what's been on the table in the missiles and the drones. And they don't stop. And as long as they don't stop, I think it makes it problematic that the U.S. just stops.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Barrel of U.S. crude oil hit $111 today. Diesel fuel is 30 cents away from the record from 2022 per gallon. We're above $4 for regular unleaded. I mean, how problematic is it that this effort from the President to say we're good, everything's fine, apparently the markets didn't buy?

TANDEN: I mean, I think the reason why the President has his lowest approval rating ever and the highest disapproval that he has ever experienced is in part because he is driving, it's his decision, his decision alone to enter this war that is having really incredibly difficult consequences for working families. You know, an extra dollar of gas a week or for a dollar a gallon, just per gallon, that's a lot of money for a family struggling to make ends meet.

And the President who said he was going to be a champion for working class families has added to their burden, not just with the tariffs, but now with this war and gas prices. And as I said, other costs, home mortgage rates are going up. All the costs are going up because of the President's decisions just himself. He can't blame COVID. He can't blame the world economy. These are his decisions hurting Americans today.

BLACKWELL: Bryan, I don't know if you heard my conversation with Eric Cortellessa from Time magazine yesterday. And his reporting that Susie Wiles is concerned that the President's advisers aren't giving him the truth about the war, that they're giving him this, as he phrased it, rose-tinted characterization. Are you confident that he's getting the truth, even the things he doesn't want to hear about this war?

LANZA: No. Listen, I've been around, you know, the people that are around the President, you know, and various people who go in and people too tend to paint a rosy picture to the President rather than sort of, you know, the President's a businessman so he's going to start diving down with very difficult questions and some of these people can't handle these difficult questions so they do paint a rosy picture. That's why you saw Susie step in and say we need to be more clear. I think that's a good thing.

But yes, I've -- I don't want to say -- I don't want to speak too much but I certainly see the circumstance where you don't paint a very clear picture of the president and that does have harm.

BLACKWELL: Let me finish here with the dismissal of Pam Bondi today and the question of if not Pam Bondi in the way that she served the president who could serve the President, satisfy him and get those votes from 50 votes in the Senate?

TANDEN: I mean, I think this whole thing is kind of just absurd. I mean, he is basically firing her because she didn't break the law more for him. I mean, essentially, she was trying to do these unlawful prosecutions that have been thrown out by courts.

To me, I kind of I basically think this decision of who will be attorney general is really just, you know, shuffling the decks on the Titanic. Whoever else is going to be subject to the President's political whims and be forced to do these prosecutions, which hopefully courts will see the reality of and throw out. But I think we should overall be concerned that the President of the United States believes the Department of Justice is his personal vengeance machine, and that should disturb every American.

BLACKWELL: All right. Neera, Bryan, thank you both.

Up next tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just keep you down here with us, please.

TIGER WOODS, PROFESSIONAL GOLFER: Yes, I was just talking to the President.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Why did Tiger Woods call the President after he crashed his car? And does the body cam video from this DUI arrest help or hurt his case? We'll get into all that. [23:39:17]

Plus, our first update from the Artemis II astronauts. We'll hear from them directly as their mission around the Moon enters a new and critical phase.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: You're seeing new police body cam video of Tiger Woods after his rollover crash that resulted in that DUI arrest. At the scene, Woods gave this reason for the crash.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get you to hang out down here with us, please.

WOODS: Thank you so much. All right. You got it. All right. Thank you. Bye.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: All right. We'll get you that explanation of the reason for the crash. I think he was reaching for his phone and changing the radio station is what he said. But officers were skeptical of Woods' sobriety and questioned him about the medications he was taking. Notably, most of the medicines he lists are bleeped out by the Martin County Sheriff's Office with the exception of ibuprofen. Woods also told officers about his injuries and numerous surgeries.

And according to the affidavit, the sheriff's deputy wrote, Woods was in no condition to drive, had bloodshot and glassy eyes with extremely dilated pupils.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[23:45:04]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: At this time, I do believe your normal faculties are impaired, OK? And you are under the unknown substance, OK. So at this time, you are under arrest for DUI, yes, sir.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Officers went on to search his pockets. Pills were confiscated. Then in the back of the police cruiser, Woods said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WOODS: This is fun.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: And joining me now is CNN legal analyst and criminal defense attorney, Joey Jackson. Joey, seeing you in the evening is a change. Good to have you on. Let me ask you first about Tiger Woods says that he wants a jury trial. Would that be your advice? And do you think it'll get that far?

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: So I don't think it'll get that far, Victor. Good to be with you. However, absolutely. I think a jury can assess what's what. It's important in these cases to know police are out there doing their job, of course, trying to make the road safe, of course. But the determinations they're making in terms of impairment are very subjective, right?

This is not a doctor that you see conducting a test. It's an officer who, yes, is indeed trained, but she's making assessments based upon that training. And you have to evaluate those tests in context, right? This is after a crash in a car where you would imagine that someone would certainly be in some state of confusion or some impairment that doesn't necessarily rise to the level of driving while impaired.

And so I do think that a jury can make its own determinations from these things. I haven't been a person who's tried cases, some involving fatalities, unfortunately, with successful results. I think juries can parse out, was he impaired? Was he not? Was he responsive to the questions? And that's part of the test that you're conducting, Victor, to determine not only can you follow the rules, but can you respond appropriately to what's being asked? So if a jury determined that, I certainly think it's a defensible case. However, I don't think it'll get that far at all.

BLACKWELL: Well, listen to who Tiger Woods said he was talking to after the crash.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get you to hang out down here with us, please.

WOODS: Thank you so much. All right. You got it. All right. Thank you. Bye. Say again?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just keep you down here with us, please.

WOODS: Yes, I was just talking to the President.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Now, we reached out to the White House, did not hear back. If this goes to a jury, though, how do you think that plays, Tiger Woods saying, oh, I was just on the phone with the President of the United States?

JACKSON: So I don't think that plays well, not anything relating to whether you like or dislike the President. But, you know, jurors don't like anything involving a sense of entitlement, a sense of, you know, certainly a person distinguishing them from anybody else.

I think jurors like people that they can relate to, that they can resonate with. And so that alone won't be the determination I think a jury will make. They'll say, hey, listen, was he responsive to the questions? And he appeared to have been responsive. He explained the back surgeries he had. He explained issues with his leg. He talked about his limitations. He seemed to be cooperative. He seemed to be polite.

And so I think all of that on balance will be evaluated. But again, important in this case is not only when they're doing these to test that they're conducting is how you perform them, but it's also, are you responsive? Can you answer questions? Are you stammering all over yourself? Are you babbling?

And I think in those senses, he really is not. And I think that when you evaluate it, yes, an officer can say, hey, he turned his head back and forth. I told him to keep his head together or keep it straight. Officers are doing this regularly. A person who gets stopped is not really conversant with all of these rules. And so we'll see how it plays out. Again, I think it'll resolve itself perhaps with some program, perhaps with some reduction. I don't see this going to a jury trial.

But if it did, I think a jury could assess whether he was impaired or not. And I think, again, it's a defensible case by all means. Of course, Victor, they'll also look at how he was driving and the lead up into it and whether he was turning the radio and looking down or whether he genuinely was impaired. That, I think, is a factual determination before members of a jury. If it gets that far, I do not think it will.

BLACKWELL: Joey Jackson, always good to have you. Thank you.

[23:49:20]

Up next, the Artemis II astronauts give the world an update from space as they now officially start leaving Earth's orbit. Astronaut Victor Glover among them as he pilots this history-making mission around the world. His father, Victor Glover Sr., is my next guest.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: And new tonight, we are hearing from the Artemis crew aboard the Orion that is about to clear Earth's orbit on their way to the Moon. Astronaut Victor Glover said Earth from above is beautiful and reflected on the importance of the mission.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VICTOR GLOVER JR., ASTRONAUT: One of the things that's amazing about being around and just being an astronaut, you know, serving our countries at this time is that we get to give ourselves a mission that we can hold on to, to say, hey, look at what we did for the rest of our lives. You know, we call amazing things that humans do moonshots for a reason because this brought us together and showed us what we can do when we put, not just putting our differences aside, when we bring our differences together and use all the strengths to accomplish something great. And so this mission will give us one of those that we all can remember and hold on to for the rest of our days.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[23:55:09] BLACKWELL: Glover is the first person of color to travel to the vicinity of the Moon. He joined NASA after an impressive career in the Navy. He's also the father of four daughters. Joining me now is Victor Glover Sr., astronaut Victor Glover's father. Mr. Glover, good to see you. I just want to start with your feelings. I mean, I'm proud as just a human. I'm just a black man in America with both feet on the ground, and I'm proud of your son. How do you feel?

VICTOR GLOVER SR., FATHER OF ASTRONAUT VICTOR GLOVER: You know, I am extremely proud and ecstatic. And as I've told people before, the proud just doesn't capture it for me. It's so much more than that. And, you know, I walk around with my chest poked out. I think I told someone else it's like my chest is all the way out to the moon, out to where they're headed. So it's an exceptional moment for me and all the rest of the family watching my son do what he's doing along with the rest of the crew.

BLACKWELL: Your chest is poked out, but I wonder where your heart was when this, uh, took off yesterday in the 5 o'clock hour. Where were you? What were you feeling?

GLOVER SR.: So, we were at Kennedy Space Center at a special viewing area where they took a lot of the family and friends to view the launch. And, you know, it was very emotional. Of course, as the rocket left the launch pad, I shed some tears, but it was because of such a proud moment and how happy and proud I am of my son and this adventure along with his crewmates. I don't even know what my heart was doing. I was so awestruck watching that rocket take off.

So it was probably racing, but I didn't even pay attention to it because I was so focused on the beauty of that rocket taking off and then just thinking about the fact that my son and his crewmates are sitting on top of that onto a very, very special mission that a lot of people around the world are intrigued by.

BLACKWELL: Yes, he's the pilot of this mission. He's been on several others. Been far from home before, but this is 250,000 miles. And I understand that there will be some time for them to speak with family. I wonder what have you planned what you want to say? Have you -- what's the question you want to ask?

GLOVER SR.: You know, for me is -- to be honest, is waiting for that splashdown after day 10, I believe it is. And when he actually gets home and I can physically hug him and squeeze him and welcome him back home. And then that's when all the questions will come. He'll have the opportunity to speak with his wife and my four granddaughters, I think he'll get a chance to speak to them a couple of times while he's up there. That's not one of those calls that I get to be involved in this time. So I get to hold my breath and wait for him to get home. I believe on April 10th was just happens to be my wife's birthday.

BLACKWELL: Oh, well, that'll be an excellent birthday present to have your son come home. And especially your namesake to now go to the other side of the Moon. Let me ask you this. There will be a few minutes where they will be out of communication. And I wonder, does that make you nervous? Are you concerned at all? GLOVER SR.: You know, not so much concerned, but that's kind of one of those things where you kind of sit there and wait and I will probably be looking at my watch counting down that entire 40 to 45 minutes and just sitting there waiting to initially hear that first voice when they're clear and have communication again. So yes, for me, that's a kind of a nerve wracking time. I'll be sitting there listening and waiting to see who speaks first, but knowing when that voice comes through that everything is OK and they're still continuing on with their mission.

BLACKWELL: This mission makes history for a myriad of reasons. Your son makes history as the first person of color to travel to the vicinity of the Moon. Let's play here what he said about his place in history.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GLOVER JR.: I want to highlight, I guess maybe one facet of this is the tension, I call it, and that young brown boys and girls can look at me and go, hey, he looks like me and he's doing what? And that's great. I love that. But I also hope we are pushing the other direction that one day we don't have to talk about these first, that one day this is just, and I listen to this, that this is the human history. It's about human history. It's the story of humanity, not black history, not women's history, but that it becomes human history.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[00:00:01]

BLACKWELL: And what do you say?

GLOVER SR.: I agree with him, and that's something he's always focused on. You know, so when he went up the very -- to the International Space Station. He was the first Black to do a long-term stay on the space station.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

GLOVER SR.: He didn't want everybody to focus just solely on that. He wanted them to focus on, again, like he said, how this impacts humanity overall. But I will say this.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

GLOVER SR.: He has a significant, significant impact on young Black folks all across this country. He is a first and a lot of them know that, and they get to point to him and say, I'm going to be like him one day.

BLACKWELL: He certainly is. Victor Glover Sr., thank you so much for the time tonight. And that does it for me. The Story Is with Elex Michelson is next.