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Laura Coates Live

Trump Extends Iran Ceasefire Indefinitely As Talks Fall Apart; Democrats Get Midterm Boost As VA Approves New Map; Soldier's Wife Detained by ICE; Laura Coates Interviews Alex Bores. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired April 21, 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]

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ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR AND SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I feel like -- I feel like I might read the book before I watch it.

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PHILLIP: Yes. It's a perfect book. All right, everyone, thank you very much. Thanks for watching "NewsNight." You can catch me any time on your favorite social media, X, Instagram, and on TikTok. "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.

LAURA COATES, CNN HOST AND SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Breaking tonight, the president sends the ceasefire with Iran into overtime as talks fall apart with no deal and plenty of new threats. Also, tonight, Democrats score a big win in the redistricting war with a dramatic new map in Virginia that could help decide the midterms. The Democratic leader of the House, Hakeem Jeffries, will join me live. And later, the wife of a U.S. Army soldier detained by ICE and at risk of deportation. Her husband fighting for her release will be my guest. Tonight on "Laura Coates Live."

My opening statement tonight, negotiations usually require some basic level of trust, like a belief the other side is acting in good faith. But when it comes to President Trump and Iran, there doesn't seem to be much of that left, at least not in public, because tonight, Iranian officials are signaling they don't buy Trump's ceasefire extension, one that is now essentially open-ended with no deadline. He says that he extended it in part because Iran's leadership is fractured and wants to give them time to come up with a unified proposal. Sources tell us silence from the Iranians actually sparked his decision, which is hours before making the announcement. He was talking about resuming the bombing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (voice-over): Well, I don't want to do that. Well, I expect to be bombing because I think that's a better attitude to go in with. But we're ready to go. I mean, the military is raring to go.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: And the mixed messages get to the bigger issue. At this point, I mean, it's hard to know which of Trump's statements Iran or anyone is supposed to take seriously. He claimed today the Iranians will make a great deal. There has been no new deal, no new talks. He said last week, they agreed to everything. Iran? Well, they called that alternative facts. And we still don't know if anything has actually been agreed to.

Now, he has said the Strait of Hormuz was open even though ships barely passed through. And Iran officially shut it down a day later. It's still essentially closed. He has repeatedly declared, we've won. But, clearly, the conflict isn't over.

But set the rhetoric aside for a second, OK? Because beneath all of it, one of the biggest pressure points right now may be this: An economic game of chicken over the strait. Who can hold out longer, the U.S. which is dealing with spiking gas prices at home or Iran which is losing critical oil revenue under the U.S. blockade?

You know, the only thing that is clear right now is that the United States and Iran don't trust each other. And I mean not one bit. And tonight, an advisor to Iran's top negotiator is putting it bluntly. He says Trump's ceasefire extension means nada, claiming it's merely a -- quote -- "ploy to buy time for a surprise strike."

With me now, lead global security analyst for "The Washington Post," Josh Rogin, and foreign policy journalist, Jonathan Guyer. Glad to have both of you guys here as we try to unpack what in the world is going on. I want to begin with you, Josh, because the latest from President Trump tonight, he says lifting the blockade would undercut a potential deal unless -- quote -- "we blow up the rest of Iran." Why is he threatening to bomb this entire civilization again, so to speak?

JOSH ROGIN, LEAD GLOBAL SECURITY ANALYST, THE WASHINGTON POST: Right. Well, Laura, the good news tonight is that major combat operations are not resuming, at least not yet, and this ceasefire deadline put forth the idea that we could have major combat operations, putting U.S. forces in harm's way, in a major way as of early tomorrow.

[23:05:05] So, at least, that has been delayed. That's the good news. The bad news is that President Trump and his administration still have no clear explanation for what they want to see as the end result, how they plan to get there, and what is the deal, the off-ramp, the exit plan to get us out of this conflict, and to end it on terms that are acceptable to both the Iranians and the Americans.

Now, it's true, of course, that there are some problems on the Iranian side between their hardliners and their negotiators. And it is also true that the Trump administration itself has no real concept of what to do next.

And so, we're in a limbo. They can't release the pressure because that will hurt their ability to negotiate, and they can't raise the pressure because they want to start the combat operations. So, we're just in a stasis, in a middle ground where we're still at war with Iran, we're still putting pain on their economy, but we're still suffering pain on our economy because we have no strategy. The way that, you know, we have no strategy is because the strategy changes all the time.

COATES: Jon, let me turn to you on this because Iran's U.N. envoy says that he believes talks will take place. They will take place after the U.S. ends the blockade. Yet another contingency, right, in all these discussions. At the moment, the ending of the blockade is like a hard no for the president of the United States, at least so far. So, does that mean without that contingency satisfied, there is no end in sight?

JONATHAN GUYER, FOREIGN POLICY JOURNALIST: Well, I think you really laid it out in your intro that there's a lot of truths that conflict with one another right here. Well, I would say, just echoing what Josh said, we should take some solace in this unilateral ceasefire that President Trump has taken. We should applaud him for that.

But he deserves a ton of criticism for launching this war of choice. There didn't need to be this war. His envoys, Mr. Kushner and Mr. Witkoff, I think they could have had a serious deal in February in Geneva with the Iranians. They didn't want that.

Now, we're in this cascade of war. It's challenging the whole Middle East. And what we know is that about 80 percent of Trump voters, Republicans, think that it would be great if he just packed up and said, we won, let's leave. So, I'm still holding out for that option.

And, you know, diplomacy is going to be the only way to get there. I'm really afraid that more militarism will lead to detrimental effects in Lebanon, across the Palestinian territories. And, you know, for us, it's just the feeling at the pump. But what's happening right now in Gaza, where aid hasn't been getting in, where 1.2 million Lebanese folks have been uprooted, there's real tragedy in the Middle East that goes far beyond this conflict, and all of that is connected.

COATES: Thank you for pointing out the scope of what is at issue here because you're right, it is more than the talk about the pumps and what it really means globally. So, thank you for pointing that out yet again.

Josh, the president pays close attention to the stock market. And today, he said he is surprised the market has not hit rock bottom during this war. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP (voice-over): I thought they'd be down 20 percent or down a very substantial amount. Even when it was down more a couple of weeks ago, I was surprised. I thought it would be down much more, and I thought the oil would be much higher. If you would have told me that oil is at 90 as opposed to 200, I would be, frankly, surprised.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: So, this has given a lot of people concern and pause because it almost sounds like if the stock market response so far is his sort of decision-making metric, the fact that he's stunned it hasn't tanked, could that embolden the president to take maybe bigger risks?

ROGIN: Well, I think there are two things going on here, Laura. One is that Trump is constantly spinning a bad situation to make it seem less bad. So, what he does is he paints an even worse situation. It's like at least we're not at $500 a barrel, at least gas is not $20 a gallon. So, you should thank me that it's only $4 a gallon and not $20 a gallon, which is just a rhetorical trick that he uses to try to pretend that the pain being felt by Americans and people all over the world isn't real. And that's pretty callous, but it's a very sort of political thing that Trump does a lot. That's one thing.

The second thing is what you're pointing to, which is like -- what I hear when I talk to people inside the administration and around Trump is that they say that Trump will keep the war going as long as the economy is not so bad. So, they're trying to find ways to convince them that the economy is not so bad so that they will keep the war going. And if the war gets really -- if the economy gets really bad, then he might want to stop more.

So, it has become this sort of wag the dog situation inside the administration where they -- a lot of people going, hey, Trump, look, stock market is really great, I guess everything is going great, I guess we can keep going. And he's OK, great, you know. So, you got this sort of corrupt and sort of feedback loop that is trying to -- people are trying to gain Trump's mind, and then that comes garbled out through his mouth and confuses everybody.

[23:10:02]

That just makes A, the American people understand that he's not really concerned about their everyday suffering from the cost of the war, and B, that there's no way to convince Trump that the political pain and the poll numbers are bad for him if the people around him are saying, listen, everything is fine, just pretend everything is fine and everything is going to be fine. It's a pretty bad situation if you think about it. COATES: Well -- I mean -- and we are thinking about it, Jonathan, and thinking about how voters see this not only in the short term, but the long term here in this country. There's also the idea, if this is truly a game of chicken, can you assess what the threshold and the tolerance of the Iranians would be to withstand this blockade? Because that's the ultimate leverage, the idea of the revenue dipping and beyond. Do you have a sense of what their tolerance is for the pain?

GUYER: Well, I think the first point on voters, it's really crucial to say that President Trump was elected as a peace candidate. He has really taken an intense turn towards militarism between Venezuela, new threats on Cuba and these ongoing threats to Iran which are incredibly troubling. I can't speak to that exact threshold of pain for the Iranians, but they've been under economic sanctions that are very intense.

They hurt the most vulnerable. And they haven't really worked. They haven't done much effectively, policy-wise. So that part of the dynamic really needs more attention, the kind of negative effects of U.S. sanctions. And that's also what has been happening in Cuba. I'm quite concerned about that, where there have been severe shortages in hospitals and so forth.

So, we've seen a real turn towards militarism in this year plus of this presidency. And we really need the kind of peace voices that brought Trump to power to step up because, otherwise, I think the Republicans will face some stiff competition in the midterms.

COATES: Well, there's a lot of voices that are coming right now in terms of the midterms and beyond. Josh, Jonathan, thank you both so much. Good to see you.

ROGIN: Any time.

COATES: Next, the major breaking news out of Virginia where Democrats have just won a key battle in the redistricting war. And now, they're all but daring Republicans to try and retaliate in Florida. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is with me live, next.

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[23:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COATES: Breaking news, voters in Virginia have decided to redraw the state's congressional map. It is part of the nationwide mid-cycle redistricting battle sparked by President Trump. And this result, it means the current split between six Democratic seats and five Republican ones in Virginia, well, that's going to change. The state's new map will create 10, 10 Democratic seats and just one Republican seat. All this was sparked by President Trump's call to find more safe red seats before the midterms. Remember that Texas followed through, as did Missouri, Ohio, and North Carolina. And Democrats picked up seats when California and Utah redrew their districts. And now, the Democrats can add Virginia to that list. I want to bring in the leader of the Democrats in the House, House Minority Leader and New York Democratic Congressman Hakeem Jeffries. Leader, thank you so much for being here. I am curious if this vote now gives you confidence that the party, your party, will take back the House in November.

REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): We're going to continue to run through the finish line. And this effort in Virginia, which was a big victory for the people of the commonwealth, a big victory for the country, and free and fair elections, and ensuring that there's a competitive, fair national congressional map, and it was a big win for our democracy.

Listen, we were on our way to winning control of the House of Representatives because Donald Trump and Republicans have completely and totally failed. The economy is a disaster. They've broken health care in the United States of America.

And now, we have this reckless, costly war of choice that Donald Trump has plunged the country in, spending billions of dollars to drop bombs in the Middle East while these Republican extremists won't spend a dime to make life better for the American people.

But it was important for Democrats to push back aggressively across the country to stop Donald Trump's gerrymandering scheme, which was designed to rig the midterm elections. They thought we were going to step back, but we've made clear that we will fight back and we're going to keep our foot on the gas pedal.

COATES: Clearly an instance of trying to fight a kind of fire with fire. But the number of Republican-leaning districts in Virginia is going down from five to one. And there will be many who complain that gerrymandering is gerrymandering is gerrymandering. Is that fair in Virginia?

JEFFRIES: Well, this is a temporary measure that was a response to Donald Trump's efforts to rig the midterm elections. We needed to stop the MAGA power grab. And what's different about our approach, and I'm thankful for what was done in California, led by Gavin Newsom and the California congressional delegation and the state leaders in the great state of California, is that we took the map to the people. And that's what was done here in Virginia.

Thankful for the leadership of Governor Abigail Spanberger, Speaker Don Scott of Virginia congressional delegation, all of the legislative leaders, the advocacy groups, President Obama. This was an all-hands- on-deck effort to make sure we level the playing field, and we stop Donald Trump's national MAGA power grab.

[23:20:04]

COATES: You can expect legal challenges. There already have been some to redraw maps. More are expected. Do you think that this map will survive any lawsuits and last through the midterm election?

JEFFRIES: Yes, unquestionably, because, again, unlike what Republicans did in Texas, in Missouri, and in North Carolina, where their state legislative bodies in the dead of night redrew those congressional maps and jammed them down the throats of the people of those three great states, here in Virginia, the question was put to the people of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the map was in front of them, and they were empowered to make the decision yes or no and have decided that the right thing to do in Virginia is to ensure that it's the people of Virginia who get to decide who represents them in the next Congress, not Donald Trump and Republican extremists.

COATES: It does become a different legal question for the courts when it has been voted on in a democratic fashion. But let's look at the horizon because Florida is expected to be the next state to redistrict. And, frankly, you've been all but daring Republicans in Florida to do so. You even named several Republicans. You say that you're going to target if the state redistricts. Can you really flip eight Republican seats in Florida?

JEFFRIES: There are eight Republican seats in Florida that will be put in significant jeopardy if the DeSantis dummymander takes place. First of all, understand something, Laura. In Florida, the voters put into the Constitution an explicit prohibition on partisan gerrymandering.

So, there's no reason whatsoever that is constitutional in any way, shape or form if the Republicans, having been ordered by Donald Trump to go find a few Republican seats, actually change the map in the middle of the decade. If they take it to the voters, that's one thing. But they're afraid to do that. They're going to try to jam another map down the throats of the people of Florida in the dead of night because that's what cowards do.

And listen, we're going to fight it with everything that we have. And just in the same way that in Texas, Republicans who claim that they were taken five seats away from us aren't winning those five seats. They'll be fortunate if they even come away with two. In Florida, if they go down this map, with the failed Republican policies, the unpopular war, the fact that courts are out of control, the corruption that's taking place in real time as a result of the Trump cartel, and the failure of Republicans to actually make life better for the people of Florida and all across the country, they're going to suffer significant defeats in that state.

COATES: Let's talk about -- let's talk about what's going on in a broader context because, as you know, the president insulted you this morning during his interview on CNBC and took issue with your critique of the war. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (voice-over): You know, I watched this low I.Q. guy, Hakeem Jeffries. He's a totally low I.Q. person. And he's always ranting and raving, oh, this war is so terrible. So, they shouldn't be saying that when we're in the midst of a negotiation because it does hurt us somewhat. It gives the other side some hope, and I don't want them to have hope.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: He, of course, has been criticized for his own comments undermining any negotiations. What is your response to the president?

JEFFRIES: I mean, it's such a lame insult at this point in time. First of all, we know Donald Trump is the dumbest president ever to sit at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And he's driving our country, our economy into a ditch.

And the reality is we don't work for the wannabe king. We are part of a separate and co-equal branch of government. I work for the American people. And we're going to continue to call a spade a spade. And the reality is this is a reckless and costly war of choice that Donald Trump has plunged the country into, wasting billions of taxpayer dollars when this guy and Republicans won't spend a dime to actually make health care more affordable. Instead, they've gotten us into this war where gas prices are through the roof.

We need to end this reckless war of choice now. And we're going to continue to advance War Powers Resolution in the House of Representatives until we get that done.

COATES: Do you have the votes?

JEFFRIES: We only need about two additional Republicans to show some guts and some courage and to actually stand up to Donald Trump and end this reckless war of choice, and I believe we will get there sooner rather than later.

COATES: Leader Hakeem Jeffries, thank you.

JEFFRIES: Thank you.

[23:24:57]

COATES: Let's discuss the fallout from this race with Natasha Alford, SVP and chief content officer for TheGrio, and Marc LoPresti, Wall Street veteran and CEO of Market Rebellion. Glad to have both of you guys here.

I want to pick up for a moment, Marc, on something that we've now learned about based on what has happened in Virginia. Republicans have now picked up one more seat -- I'm sorry, Democrats have picked up one more seat than Republicans via redistricting now, looking at this map. Did Trump and Republicans then overplay their hand in even picking this fight?

MARC LOPRESTI, CEO, MARKET REBELLION: I think it still remains to be seen. We are going to be taking the fight to Florida. But one of the questions that I am asking myself is, as I was discussing with Natasha before we went on air, what the point of all of this is? I think both parties can agree that gerrymandering is bad, right, fundamentally speaking.

I do take issue with some of Congressman Jeffries's framing of the issue. Virginians actually did vote on this. They did take to a vote in 2020, and they passed a bipartisan legislation essentially outlawing gerrymandering under this fair map system. So, this was -- this was a decision that had already been voted on by the people of Virginia, and I think that's important as part of the discourse, but it remains to be seen.

COATES: But now, they changed their mind.

LOPRESTI: Well, they changed their minds, but they also changed their minds on the basis of the phrasing, excuse me, of a ballot that I think had some pretty fundamental bias in it in this concept of to restore fairness, that concept of restoring fairness, which implies, of course, that there was not fairness previous to this vote taking place.

COATES: Well, it is more than implying. They believe there was either fundamentally not going to be or has not been in the past.

LOPRESTI: Right.

COATES: What is your reaction to the fact that Virginians have now, as a result of -- frankly, a call of action by the president of the United States that has resulted in the domino effect. Is this going to bode well for Democrats in the long term?

NATASHA ALFORD, AUTHOR, SVP AND CHIEF CONTENT OFFICER AT THEGRIO: I think there's room for nuance in the conversation. If you listen to voters, many of them were saying, we don't want to do this, but you're forcing us to do this. This is a fight we did not start, but we're not going to lay down and have one person dictate the outcome of the midterms before it happens. So, what you hear when you hear Leader Jeffries talk, he keeps emphasizing the voters' decision.

And I hear you, Marc. In 2020, voters made decision. We're now in 2026. It's a different world. And so, they're saying and they've been calling on Democrats, stop just laying down. The days of going high are over. And Governor Newsom also talked about this. It's not just about being philosophically right, it's about actually winning the game that we are playing right now. Another --

COATES: Is this the right -- I want you to finish your point, but on that point, it's intriguing. Do you think this idea of, you know, if they go low, we go high, and this idea that Democrats were trying to politically hold on to a more high ground and often accused of playing the entirely wrong game or not reading the room, is this pivot, the one that will be successful in to restore power for themselves?

ALFORD: I think it certainly rallies people. If you feel like you've lost the game and there's no chance of winning, people check out. They don't come out to vote. But what you saw is that people were really engaged in this. And also, when you talk about purity, they were handing out, we're talking about people who were against the redistrict game on the Republican side, flyers with language about Jim Crow.

So, the same party that has traditionally been disenfranchising voters of color was trying to tell these voters that, oh, in the name of, you know, anti-Jim Crow sort of stance, you should vote no against this. Well, they know good and well that what they were standing for was actually basically rigging an election that took away voters' voices. So, I think it's clear why the Democrats did this. COATES: Look ahead to Florida for me because, you know, you heard Jeffries talking about the attempt to flip several Republicans or at least that they'd be vulnerable enough to have a strong fight against it. Do you have concerns that that could be a possibility in Florida?

LOPRESTI: I think we've certainly seen perhaps more cracks in the republican base in Florida in recent elections.

COATES: Why is that?

LOPRESTI: That's a good question. I don't know. if I did, I would be happy to share it with you, Laura.

(LAUGHTER)

But I feel pretty strongly that the Republicans can expect to eke out five seats from the Florida redistricting, and I think that's what we're going to see happen in Florida.

ALFORD: I have some thoughts about Florida. I mean, I'm thinking of the Latino population who were promised that only certain folks were going to be affected by immigration, and they're watching their husbands and their children and their loved ones be sent away even if they're hardworking, you know, contributing taxpayers. All of that is happening. So, there were people who really believed in Donald Trump's promises. They're seeing the broken promises, and I think they're ready to change their stance in the fall.

COATES: You know, we always look ahead, obviously, to midterms and, you know, our timelines are always perhaps in line with the public or not, but that has always been the focus, talking about election cycles. But Marc, I am really curious about the idea that the Democrats, you heard Jeffries and others, talking about essentially that era being over and just trying to play by what they now believe are outdated rules.

[23:30:07]

Does this bode well for Republicans, on the other hand, who will see this as maybe Democrats now being the ones to change course and no longer fulfill the promises they've made in the past?

LOPRESTI: I think it's a call to action on the part of the Republican Party. It's certainly a call to action on the part of this administration. They've got to get the messaging right. I mean, there is so much talk that the economy is in the toilet, that everybody is doing so poorly. We had retail sales numbers come out this morning, Laura, that completely surprised myself and other people on the street. Retail sales, particularly if you take out gasoline and car prices, very strong. The American consumer remains very strong. The economy remains very strong.

COATES: But they care about gas prices.

LOPRESTI: Of course, we all care about gas prices. That's absolutely the case. And we have an expectation that gas prices will come back down into something that's more livable once there is a sustainable resolution to this Iran conflict.

I'd also point out, by the way, that the gas price shock that we're experiencing right now relative to the last period under the Biden administration is substantially lower on a comparative basis. But I think that it's really incumbent on the president and his team to get a message out there that talks about what's right and what's going right in this economy because there's a lot to be happy about in the American economy.

COATES: How did Democrats respond to the idea that -- and the comparison points to Biden? Because, obviously, he's further and further back in the rearview mirror. And I know Republicans will point to the Biden years. But I wonder about the amnesia that occurs naturally once you have a president going into his second year, second term.

ALFORD: I agree. I mean, as you were talking, again, the numbers show one thing, but I think in the spirits of the people, they feel that difference. I was just telling my husband the other day, I'm like, didn't we just fill up the car with gas and already we had to do it again? Those are the things that people remember. The question is the why.

And the problem is right now, you have a lot of Americans who say, I do not know why we are at war with Iran when you said that you were not going to be a president who advocated for wars, you were going to protect us from this, you promised us that we would see the economy come back. So, it's the most recent promise that I think stays in the minds of the American people.

And the quick thing about the gerrymandering, 2030, that's the key word to keep in mind. They said it's temporary. And I think people were willing to compromise because of that temporary nature.

LOPRESTI: What was the justification for that, though? I mean, I understand that was a big part of the selling point, right? This is just temporary. This is not -- what was the reason? Why was that such an important selling point?

ALFORD: The 2030, that it was temporary?

LOPRESTI: Yes, yes.

ALFORD: Because, as I said before, there were people who held their noses when they made that vote. They said, we don't want to do this, but because you started the fight and you made the playing field uneven, we have to do something to make it right.

COATES: Somewhere, Billy Joel is singing about not starting the fire. Natasha, Marc, thank you both so much. Up next, he is an army sergeant of 27 years. He served in Afghanistan. And tonight, he is trying to get his wife out of ICE custody. Sergeant Jose Serrano will join me to share his story, next. And later, the candidate for Congress who has taken on A.I. with an idea to make the companies pay for jobs they wiped out.

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[23:35:00]

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COATES: It was supposed to be a routine immigration appointment for the wife of a 27-year Army sergeant when she was detained by ICE. Deisy Rivera-Ortega, originally from El Salvador, has lived in the United States for more than a decade. Rivera-Ortega had a valid work permit when she was arrested. Her husband, Sergeant First Class Jose Serrano, says she followed the rules to a T.

But in a statement to CNN, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson described her as a -- quote -- "criminal illegal alien from El Salvador" -- end quote. Federal officials say she was previously convicted for illegal entry and received full due process, and an immigration judge issued her a final order of removal in 2019. Rivera-Ortega now faces deportation to Mexico.

Joining me now, her husband, Sergeant First Class Jose Serrano and her attorney, Matthew Kozik. Thank you both for being here. Sergeant, I want to begin with you. It might be shocking for people to know, given your service, that this is happening in your family. Can you tell me what ICE officials told you when your wife, Deisy, was taken into ICE custody?

SGT. JOSE SERRANO, U.S. ARMY: Nothing, ma'am. Thank you for the question. When she got arrested, they didn't tell me anything at that point. They don't even have a warrant. They just took away -- four people that work in that building told me, just find a lawyer, just get a lawyer, and that was everything, ma'am, at that point.

COATES: The Department of Homeland Security says that Deisy was previously convicted for illegally entering the United States, and they insist that her work permit does not prevent her deportation. What's your response to the department tonight?

MATTHEW KOZIK, ATTORNEY FOR DEISY RIVERA-ORTEGA: Laura, again, I want to say thank you to you and your team for bringing us on tonight to tell this story because if it's not told, this could happen to many other service members' spouses.

[23:40:05]

I want to address DHS. We already know the game plan of DHS. It's to slander the people that they have disagreements with. I've already sent to your team the fact that Deisy has no criminal convictions. There's no case from 2016. There is nothing. So, that's a false statement, the statement that she's illegally present and that her work authorization doesn't grant her any permission to be here.

I'm going to ask you and your viewers a question. How many people who are unauthorized to be here live on a military installation and work on a military installation and have a spousal military I.D.? Those are all applicable to her. She worked at Fort Bliss at the hotels. She accessed the security, passed the security lines at Fort Bliss, did that daily. And then she also, you know, had the work authorization to -- the authorization to live at Fort Bliss.

So, I want to note those type of things that they say she's a criminal. That's not true. She doesn't have authority to be here. Who, again, doesn't have authority to be here yet works at Fort Bliss and lives at Fort Bliss?

And there's one other point I wanted to note. The attorney general, for her to have a work permit, anyone who has a removal order or a stay removal, they're not entitled to work authorization unless the attorney general has made determination that the removal is not in the public benefit or removal is not practical.

They initiated, they gave her a work authorization in 2025 for an additional five years. She has had a work authorization now for approximately 10 years. She came here in 2016 seeking asylum. Obviously, her claims for relief were valid. She was granted withholding and removing to El Salvador. She was in the process of parole in place, a military program that in 2019 Congress reaffirmed the importance of keeping our military families together. But I guess this administration determines that service members and their spouses should not be together.

COATES: It's not lost on me that I'm looking at a man in uniform having served this nation. And this is more than a story for you. Obviously, this is your life, sergeant. It must be so difficult for you and your wife. Have you been able to speak with her? How are you even coping with all that's unfolding?

SERRANO: Yes, ma'am, I was able to spoke with my wife last Sunday, around 40 minutes. And also, she has a privilege or everybody over there have a privilege to call at least once or twice a day. So, we keep in communication. Of course, it's only two to five minutes. It's nothing a long call. But, at least, I was able -- I've been able to talk to my wife. Yes, ma'am.

COATES: How is she doing?

SERRANO: She is doing OK. When I say OK, she always told me, I keep fighting, I keep fighting with the situation. And, like I said before, my wife is very religious. And she believes this is something that needs to happen, that is something that God has for her. And she continues. And after this, will be something better. That's the type of my wife is.

COATES: What a woman of faith. Thank you for your service. Matthew, Jose, thank you. Sergeant, thank you for helping us to better understand what is happening in cases like this. Thank you.

KOZIK: Our pleasure. And thank you again for having us on and telling the story. Let's hope this doesn't happen to other service members.

COATES: Thank you. Up next, are you freaked out about A.I.? Are you worried that lawmakers aren't doing anything? Well, my next guest, he wants to change all that. And his ideas have turned him into big A.I.'s number one enemy. The former Palantir employee turned candidate for Congress, Alex Bores, next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:45:00]

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL MAHER, HBO POLITICAL TALK SHOW HOST: That's another scary thing about A.I, the people who run it. I.e., the people who run the world. And it's like five guys -- five guys between them and working as a team couldn't correctly read a social cue.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

I wouldn't let these guys around a mixed drink, let alone my personal data.

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(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: That was Bill Maher raising yet another alarm on the issue that seems to have everyone worried these days. I'm talking about two letters, A.I. And if you're concerned when it comes to A.I.'s purported safety risks, the warnings of the large-scale job losses, you're probably not alone. A recent Quinnipiac poll found that 80 percent, 80 percent of Americans say that they're either very or somewhat concerned about A.I. Now, it's extremely rare to see 80 percent of the country agree on just about anything these days. And one candidate for Congress is making this issue a centerpiece of his campaign, taking big tech head on.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEX BORES, NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY, U.S. HOUSE CANDIDATE FOR NEW YORK: There's a war brewing between the big A.I. companies and the humans that want to regulate them. And Manhattan has become the central battleground. I know because I'm big A.I.'s number one target on Team Humanity.

The richest, most powerful people controlling the most consequential technology of the millennium have decided that the path to unchecked wealth and power is through defeating this campaign.

Ultimately, this story is about the opening front in a fight over whether this transformative technology is controlled by tech billionaires or by you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: Well, that candidate, Alex Bores, joins me now. He is a state assemblyman here in New York who is running for Congress in the state's Democratic primary. [23:50:01]

He previously worked as a data scientist at Palantir. Good to have you here, assemblyman. What are you making A.I. regulations such a big part of your campaign?

BORES: I didn't originally set out for it to be a big part of the campaign. I figured, you know, I'm the first Democrat ever elected in New York with a degree in computer science. If tech and A.I. is your issue, I'm already your candidate.

But it just keeps impacting people. It is moving so quickly that it becomes a thing that my neighbors are talking to me the most about, whether it's the impacts on their kids, whether it's the impacts on their job. Maybe they haven't seen layoffs yet, but the hiring freeze is in effect, and they're wondering what comes next, or whether it's some of the international conversations and the catastrophic risks. This is just touching more and more of people's daily lives, and they don't see Congress taking an action on it.

COATES: Well, the CEO of Anthropics says unemployment could reach as high as 20 percent in the next five years because of A.I., because of A.I., and that half, half of all entry-level white-collar jobs could be wiped out. Is that hyperbole or could it be as bad as he's claiming?

BORES: It could be worse. I mean, we have to approach this whole thing with humility and understand that we don't know exactly where it's going. You know, I hope it is not that much of an impact and maybe we end up in a place where the normal policy choices we already are trying are enough. But clearly, the options on the table need to be expanded because the impact could be so large.

This is the first time in history that people are building a technology with the explicit goal of replacing all human labor. That doesn't mean they're going to succeed, but if that option is on the table, government needs to be taking it seriously.

COATES: You just put out a plan called the A.I. Dividend, and you describe it as an insurance policy where people would receive payments in the event that A.I. leads to substantial job loss. How would that work?

BORES: The idea is to make sure that every American has a stake in the A.I. economy. So, it would be funded via a token tax, actually taxing the use of A.I. when it's replacing jobs in a commercial setting by limiting the depreciation on capital investments, on A.I. investments. So, companies right now can write off those investments on their taxes. But they pay additional taxes for hiring workers. That's exactly backwards and we should change that.

And by the government taking equity stakes in the companies themselves by using warrants, basically out of the money options, so they only pay off if one of these companies are wildly successful. Basically, if they replace a substantial portion of human labor, then federal government would get a lot of that windfall, which could be used for direct payments for people, for job training, for jobs or for building infrastructure to keep Americans safe.

COATES: You know, these companies, they argue that there may be some jobs replaced, but they're creating jobs as well, and that this is all really blown out of proportion, and that if there is too much regulation, China would have a leg up. What's your reaction?

BORES: First of all, the companies themselves don't argue that. They say, no, this might actually change a lot of jobs. From Dario Amodei to Sam Altman, one of the things they seem to agree on.

But the other bit is that China is regulating A.I. far more than anything that is being proposed in the western hemisphere. The CCP is terrified of an A.I. chatbot saying the wrong thing. They're terrified of dispersed control among the people. And so, regulation will not be the reason that we win or lose the race to China.

But more than that, true leadership would be reaching out to China and trying to lower the temperature of the A.I. arms race and finding verification systems, finding safety systems that make all of us better off.

COATES: Elon Musk has his own solution that he seems to be posting on. I want to read it for you. He says, universal high income via checks issued by the federal government is the best way to deal with unemployment caused by A.I. He even says A.I./Robotics will mean everyone can have a penthouse if they want. When is mine coming?

BORES: Well, and who's living under the penthouse? I look out the window. I wonder what happens in the floors below. It's -- when he says that, it's marketing, right? He is trying to stave off any regulation whatsoever. What I'm putting forward in a dividend plan is actual plan that Congress should enact, including funding mechanisms with how to do it. You know, if he really believes in a world where there are going to large checks from the government, how is the government getting that money? Where are we claiming it from? And I'll remind people, he claims we're all going to get five-thousand-dollar checks from DOGE. I'm still waiting for mine. Have you got it?

COATES: No. No. I'll check my mailbox again.

(LAUGHTER)

I'll tell you that. Look, you're not the most popular person when it comes to big A.I. They're not in line with you. You call yourself big A.I.'s number one target. And there's a pack that called Leading the Future.

BORES: Yes.

COATES: It has pledged over $100 million to boost candidates who are friendly to A.I. You don't strike me as the friendliest to A.I., but not necessarily against it. They put out attack ads against you specifically as well. And there's an op-ed in "The New York Times" that said -- quote -- "No one else in the race has better enemies than you."

[23:55:01]

Does your message still win if you're up against this sort of machine?

BORES: Absolutely. I'm standing with the 80 percent of Americans that are seriously concerned and the 80 percent that want reasonable guardrails that are actually protecting them. Most of America is not anti-A.I. Put it back in the -- the genie back in the bottle and burn the data centers. They're saying, I see some uses for it. I want it to cure diseases. I see it automating some of the monotony of life. But I'm worried about what happens to my kids. I'm worried about the A.I. slop. What is the impact on our democracy? I'm worried about my job.

This is moving really, really fast, and government doesn't seem up to the task. And my message, along with the vast majority of Americans across parties, is that Americans need to have a say in the development of A.I. and the most important technology happening in our lifetime. It shouldn't be decided by just five Silicon Valley billionaires.

COATES: Fascinating. Assemblyman Alex Bores, thank you so much.

BORES: Thanks for having me.

COATES: And hey, thank all of you for watching. Elex Michaelson in "The Story Is" is next.

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