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The Source with Kaitlan Collins
Trump: Not Obliged To Think "Purely Of Peace" In Greenland Push; DOJ Investigating Protesters Who Disrupted MN Church Service; New Book Details Louisiana School's Admissions Scandal. Aired 9-10p ET
Aired January 19, 2026 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[21:00:00]
MATT TYRNAUER, DIRECTOR, "VALENTINO: THE LAST EMPEROR": It was really one of the most extraordinary relationships I've ever seen, and that's really what I made the movie about.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, ANDERSON COOPER 360: Yes. And, I mean, to those who were close with them, I mean, you can't think of one, really, without the other in so many ways, both in business and in life.
Matt, I hope a lot of people watch the documentary. They can watch it streaming "Valentino." It's called "The Last Emperor." It is a fascinating and rare look at their life.
Matt Tyrnauer, thank you.
That's it for us. I'll see you tomorrow night.
In the meantime, the news continues. "THE SOURCE" starts now.
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST, THE SOURCE WITH KAITLAN COLLINS: An extraordinary text exchange with a U.S. ally reveals that Donald Trump's push for Greenland is personal.
I'm Jim Sciutto in for Kaitlan Collins. And this is THE SOURCE.
As we come on the air tonight, a stunning new message from President Trump has now pushed some of America's staunchest European allies to the brink of revolt. It's all over the President's newly-energized pursuit of Greenland, and Trump is now tying that pursuit to his failing to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
When Norway's Prime Minister, Jonas Store, messaged Trump, yesterday, on the need for President Trump to de-escalate his Greenland rhetoric. This was President Trump's reply. Quote, "Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America."
The President's text, and by the way, this was a text message, continues, quote, "Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a 'right of ownership' anyway? There are no written documents, it's only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States."
The President then ends his message with this: "The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland."
Pretty clear words.
That shocking, even petulant message was also sent by U.S. officials to multiple European ambassadors, here in Washington. And it came on the heels of President Trump threatening European allies with a new 10 percent tariff, which would grow to 25 percent, if a deal for the U.S. to acquire Greenland is not reached by June 1st.
And this is just the latest escalation in his emphatic demand to take a territory that is part of Denmark, one of the United States' closest allies.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We need Greenland for national security and even international security, and I think we're going to get it. One way or the other, we're going to get it.
(LAUGHTER)
TRUMP: Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place. We need Greenland, from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it.
We're not going to have Russia or China occupy Greenland, and that's what they're going to do if we don't. So we're going to be doing something with Greenland, either the nice way or the more difficult way.
Look, if we don't take Greenland, Russia or China will, and I'm not letting that happen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: Tonight, U.S. officials tell CNN that the successful capture of then-Venezuelan leader, Nicolas Maduro, emboldened the President, and has now fueled his pursuit.
A new wave of Danish troops arrived in Greenland today, even as CNN learned that some European officials fear their decision, last week, to dispatch troops from NATO nations for joint military exercises to Greenland, may have backfired, irking President Trump and convincing him to move more quickly than he originally planned.
But tonight, a senior U.K. official tells me that President Trump conceded that he may have been given bad information on those European troop deployments, during a weekend call with British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer. U.K. officials see that concession to Starmer as a potential path to de-escalation.
However, Trump's demand to take Greenland has not changed, and European nations are strongly resisting the pressure. With one Danish official insisting, There are red lines which can't be crossed. And a German official saying, We will not allow ourselves to be blackmailed.
And while the President frames his desire to seize Greenland as a defense against Chinese and Russian aggression. The Kremlin today confirmed that Russian President Vladimir Putin has been invited to join President Trump's so-called Board of Peace, ostensibly, to oversee the reconstruction of Gaza.
[21:05:00]
The Kremlin says they are now reviewing the invitation, and are hoping to get more details from the U.S. side.
But the invitation alone marks a stunning return to the world stage for a Russian leader who has been shunned by the Western world since his invasion, Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
My lead source tonight is Rasmus Jarlov, a conservative member of Denmark's parliament and Chair of its Defence Committee.
Rasmus, good to be talking to you again.
RASMUS JARLOV, MEMBER OF DANISH PARLIAMENT: Good to be talking to you, Jim. It's the middle of the night here, but it's very important for us to talk to the American audience, because this madness mustn't escalate any further than it already has.
SCIUTTO: I wonder, given where it already is, has President Trump already irreparably harmed, damaged the Transatlantic Alliance?
JARLOV: It will be quite difficult to return to the levels of trust that we had before, because it is a shock that the USA has turned on us that quickly and that aggressively. So, it is dangerous for us to be as dependent on the Americans as we have been before, and of course, we have to take into account in the future.
But it's not too late to work together to save NATO, to fight our enemies, free the West from terrorism and threats. We can still do that, and we want to do that.
SCIUTTO: As you know, President Trump is threatening your country, other countries in Europe, with economic penalties, these new tariffs. But he is also continuing to refuse to rule out using military force to take Greenland. Just today, when asked by NBC if he would use force, he said simply, No comment.
You were Chair of Denmark's Defence Committee. You are responsible, in part, for helping design the defense of Denmark. Do you consider that a genuine possibility that he might deploy troops there to, in effect, force Denmark out of Greenland?
JARLOV: I have to say, at this point, with the very aggressive statements also made today about not wanting to work only for peace, and linking that to Greenland, that is quite threatening, and we would be reckless if we didn't take that seriously.
We know you so well in the United States. We've been your friend for 250 years. And this is not you. This is not a country that attacks and threatens peaceful, friendly neighbors that have done absolutely nothing to you and don't pose a threat. You're a country that stands for freedom. You're not a country that subjugates neighbors and goes to wars of conquest to take land from other countries.
You work together with your allies. You're a country that can be trusted. Not one that suddenly turns on its allies and runs away from treaties and says, all of a sudden, that there's no document that proves that Greenland belongs to Denmark after centuries, six and a half centuries, of ownership.
This is not you, and we don't recognize you at the moment, and we have to get away from this path, because there is no way that we could give in to a demand of handing over land and people that does not want to be part of the United States. We can't do it. And from there, it's up to the U.S., how much of a confrontation this is have -- is going to turn into.
We don't want a confrontation. We want to work with you, and we want to give you the access to Greenland that you need. But we can never give in to a demand that we should just hand over land and people that the United States has absolutely no right to.
SCIUTTO: But what if this is America today under Trump, regardless of its history? And, by the way, he's president for three more years, and has other leverage to hint. For instance, he could, and he's threatened before, to remove U.S. troops from Europe. He could, and he's threatened before, to stop all U.S. aid to Ukraine.
How far is Denmark, and how far are your allies in Europe, willing to go to defend this red line you're setting?
JARLOV: We will, of course, defend Greenland. If there is an invasion by American troops, it would be a war, and we would be fighting against each other.
We know, the Americans are stronger than us, and you have a much stronger military than ours. But it is our duty to defend our land and our people, and the 57,000 Danish citizens that live in Greenland, that have made it absolutely crystal clear that they don't want to be taken by the United States. We have an obligation to fight for those people, and our forces will do that. But it would be a disaster also for the United States.
[21:10:00]
We know this is not you, it's not who you are. But even for the very, very few people in the United States that don't care about what is right and wrong, and that you can't just take your neighbor's land, just because you think you need it, even for those people, this is a very, very bad idea. The business case of taking Greenland is terrible, because you already have access to it. And if you annexed it, the only thing you would get is more expenses. You would have to run the country. You would have a population that would never recognize that you own their land, and you would have to do all the things -- without all the things that Denmark pays for today.
We're paying a lot of money for Greenland. We're not making any money on it. We're paying a lot of money for defense. We have invested about $14 billion in the past two years in drones, ships, satellites, troops on the ground, helicopters, everything else that you want up there.
SCIUTTO: Yes.
JARLOV: Why would you want to take over that expense? Why not work together with us, when the door is wide open? You have access to Greenland. There's no expiry date to that access. And you can put as many troops up there as you want. But Greenland is not threatened by the Chinese or Russians.
SCIUTTO: OK.
JARLOV: We have kept them out, and they're in no way about to take over the country.
SCIUTTO: Let me ask you this. Are you confident that Europe will remain unified on this? Because there have been recent episodes. I mean, even on Ukraine, right, there have been divisions within the Alliance, or, for instance, on taking Russian frozen assets, divisions in the Alliance that led it not to come to an agreement here.
Are you confident that all members of Europe will be willing to bear the costs? And quite significant costs. We're talking about tariffs now, but potentially security changes in the not-too-distant future, based on Trump digging his heels in?
JARLOV: I'm very confident of that. It is, of course, a big ask from the other European countries to stand up against the United States. It could cost a lot of money if this escalates into a trade war or worse. But everyone can see that this is not reasonable, and that it simply doesn't make any sense.
So, we are very confident that we have the backing of our European allies and others, including Canada, and we're extremely grateful for that, because, of course, that means everything for us in this situation that we are in right now, which is the toughest pressure and the biggest threat to our country since Second World War.
SCIUTTO: Remarkable say, given you're talking about a treaty ally of Denmark, of course, from the U.S.
Rasmus Jarlov, we appreciate you joining tonight.
JARLOV: Thanks a lot.
SCIUTTO: I want to bring in now Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. And a former State Department Middle East negotiator, a long history in diplomacy himself.
Aaron, you've worked under six different U.S. Secretaries of State. One, do you see a diplomatic path out of this, given Trump is making quite clear that he's digging in?
AARON DAVID MILLER, SENIOR FELLOW, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE: I mean, if Trump isn't prepared to forego ownership, Jim, and by the way, Happy New Year, I think a lot is possible.
But I have to say it's head-exploding, having worked and voted for opponents and Democrats. You have a president that has developed a solution to a problem we don't have, which is how to protect American and NATO interests in Greenland.
And the conversation or the texting with the Norwegian is extraordinary, because in the President's mind, it's not just a question that the Russians and the Chinese are somehow going to gobble up Greenland. Now it's because, the Nobel Committee, independent as it is, did not award me a Nobel Peace Prize.
So, we have to wonder, and I do all the time, I've been on this since January of this year, and during Trump 1.0, whether or not the President of the United States has a clear conception of what previous Democrats and Republicans would describe as the national interest. Or whether his conception of the national interest is tethered to his own vanities, his prejudices, his political interests, his financial interests. If that is, in fact, the case, and that goes a long way, I think, to explain the boost of confidence he got with the Maduro Venezuelan affair, and now he feels much more emboldened.
And what we have here is a Transatlantic game of chicken that is totally and utterly, Jim, unnecessary and harmful, obviously, to the alliance.
SCIUTTO: Well, it appears that Trump's ambitions go beyond Greenland, in that now he has announced, unilaterally, this Board of Peace, which The Wall Street Journal is reporting tonight, has ambitions far beyond Gaza, that this is in effect a replacement for the United Nations with Donald Trump in charge.
[21:15:00]
In addition to that, Donald Trump sending a membership fee of $1 billion, almost like it's a golf club, and controlling that money when it comes in.
Is that a serious diplomatic venture on the part of the U.S. President?
DAVID MILLER: I mean, on the face of it, how could it be? You've got a punitive organization which the President of the United States is the Chairman with -- according to the charter, with his right to veto suggestions and proposals. It's going to last more than three years. He's going to remain Chairman once he leaves office, assuming he agrees to do so.
What do you think the next Democratic or even Republican president would think about a rival organization, and a rival president doing diplomacy--
SCIUTTO: Yes.
DAVID MILLER: --and conducting foreign relations?
No, Jim, the Board of Peace, in that sense, I think, is more tethered to a galaxy far, far away, rather than to the realities back here on planet Earth.
SCIUTTO: Yes.
DAVID MILLER: The three committees though, Jim, that the President created to deal with the situation in Gaza, that may have a more practical impact. And I hope it will, because if we can't move from phase one to phase two, Gaza is going to going to remain divided, with the Israelis controlling 53 percent, and Hamas controlling 47, and the odds of increasing Israeli military action to deal with Hamas--
SCIUTTO: Yes.
DAVID MILLER: --deal with Hamas problem can grow exponentially.
SCIUTTO: I spoke to a Palestinian leader, earlier tonight, who said that it is not practically at phase two right now, despite that announcement that the many more steps need to be met.
Aaron David Miller, we appreciate you joining.
DAVID MILLER: Thanks for having me, Jim.
SCIUTTO: Coming up next. President Trump says nothing is off the table when it comes to Greenland. A stern warning tonight from my source, John Bolton, of course, the President's former National Security Adviser.
Plus, a dangerous downward spiral. NATO allies bash Trump's Greenland tariffs. Hear what his former Vice President is telling CNN.
But first, we have learned that the FBI did initially open a civil rights investigation into the ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis. But its focus was very quickly shifted.
[21:20:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SCIUTTO: Tonight, CNN has learned the FBI briefly opened a civil rights investigation into the ICE agent who fatally shot and killed Renee Good, in Minneapolis, earlier this month. Despite what the Deputy Attorney General, Todd Blanche, said, on Sunday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TODD BLANCHE, UNITED STATES DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: The Department of Justice, our Civil Rights Unit, we don't just go out and investigate every time an officer is forced to defend himself against somebody, or putting his life in danger. We never do.
We investigate when it's appropriate to investigate, and that is not the case here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: Sources say the FBI investigation quickly shifted from investigating the ICE agent to investigating Good and those around her, including her widow, a move that some inside the Justice Department view as politically motivated.
CNN has previously reported at least six federal prosecutors in Minnesota resigned after being told to shift their focus away from the agent.
Tensions in the city remain high as federal agents have surged in Minneapolis, thousands of them. The Pentagon has also ordered some 1,500 active-duty soldiers to prepare for a possible deployment there, as the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, ordered the National Guard to be on standby as well.
My source tonight is Democratic congresswoman, Adelita Grijalva.
Thanks so much for taking the time tonight.
REP. ADELITA GRIJALVA (D-AZ): Thanks for having me.
SCIUTTO: So first, if I can, your reaction to news that the FBI initially launched an investigation into the ICE agent who shot Good before then being pressured to shift focus to the victim and her wife. What's your reaction?
GRIJALVA: It reeks of political interference. We know that those federal prosecutors resigned in protest after being told to shift their focus. These are rank-and-file career prosecutors. Isn't it bad enough that ICE shot a mother of three in the face? And now they're trying to smear the victim in this case, and her spouse, too. They have no shame at all.
SCIUTTO: Deputy Attorney General, Todd Blanche, he said that the DOJ Civil Rights Unit is now looking into something else, and that is anti-ICE protesters who disrupted a church service in St. Paul yesterday. The demonstrators say they were there because they believe the pastor named David Easterwood is a top ICE official.
I wonder what you make of the DOJ using that Civil Rights Unit to investigate this, as we're showing now on the screen, but not the federal agent involved in a deadly shooting.
GRIJALVA: The DOJ is spending their time trying to go after protesters. There's still no federal investigation into the murder of Renee Nicole Good. The hypocrisy of that speaks for itself. And this federal agent now knows what it's like to have his daily life and privacy interrupted. This is a daily occurrence in our immigrant communities, being followed, being kidnapped, us out of our schools, churches and hospitals. The difference is this agent got to go home at the end of the day, where many families have no idea where their loved ones are when they've been kidnapped off the streets.
SCIUTTO: Do you believe it was a step too far for protesters to go into a church?
[21:25:00]
GRIJALVA: I don't. I don't. I think that when they find out that someone that's supposed to be speaking for the community in church is found out to be in ICE, like, a federal agent that is running ICE in their communities, they have the right to go in there. Churches have always been an open door. And from my understanding in the videos that I saw, those protesters were not violent in any way.
SCIUTTO: You have come face-to-face with ICE agents in Arizona, and we're going to show some video that when this happened to you. Do you believe the agents -- and I think you could see on the video there, you were sprayed with some sort of pepper spray. Do you believe the agents escalate encounters like this one, deliberately, unnecessarily?
GRIJALVA: I absolutely do. I don't think that their goal is de- escalation of any kind. I don't think the vast majority of them have had any kind of training. I've been talking to law enforcement, people who have been veteran police officers for 30 years. The number one thing you do is try to de-escalate a situation.
They come in with guns-drawn, aggressive, and ready to fight whomever. I mean they are -- I think that the goal is to try to get headlines, and then justify the enforcement aspect and justify like -- like Trump is trying to do now, and the justification of having 1,500 soldiers on standby, waiting to go into Minnesota and Minneapolis.
SCIUTTO: I want to ask you about that prospect there, because you already have ICE and CBP agents there, who are doing not just immigration enforcement right, but they're also doing crowd control.
GRIJALVA: Yes.
SCIUTTO: You now have the Governor of Minnesota saying that he has mobilized the State National Guard. And now you have this unit from Alaska, regular soldiers, regular troops that may be deployed there. I mean, you can picture quite a volatile mix of law enforcement. And of course, there's also the Minnesota PD that has been less visibly present here.
Are you worried about that leading to potentially some sort of confrontation between federal and state troops or local law enforcement and federal agents?
GRIJALVA: Absolutely, because our local law enforcement is there to protect the people of their communities. That's what I heard very clearly when I went to Minneapolis.
And if you add up the number of law enforcement that serve the Twin Cities, both St. Paul and Minneapolis, the number of ICE agents on the ground outnumber the total number of the law enforcement there. So, when you add in 1,500 soldiers, I can very easily see a situation where law enforcement is trying to protect the people in their communities.
SCIUTTO: And one might say those Alaska forces are up in the Arctic that now Trump is saying is under threat from Russia.
Before we go, CNN has learned that a military recruiter in Minnesota, pointing to the fears you're describing, over those ongoing ICE operations in Minneapolis, in an email to high school students, telling them that joining the National Guard could offer their immediate family members protection against deportation.
The email said, and we're quoting here, All of you have heard about how ICE and how they are taking people without any consideration... If you are born here and you are 17 years old, and in a position, like many, where your parents may not be documented. They need you to help.
I wonder if you think that's a proper way for the National Guard to recruit students.
GRIJALVA: No, absolutely not. It's also not a guarantee of any kind. I mean, we've seen veterans getting deported.
SCIUTTO: Yes.
GRIJALVA: People who have served this country honorably, getting deported. And so, there is no guarantee. I would advise people to look into every claim that's being given by this administration, and any kind of promise that's being made, because they're not keeping the promises to American citizens.
SCIUTTO: And you're right, a number of American citizens have been picked up in these operations.
Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva, we appreciate you joining.
GRIJALVA: Thanks for having me.
SCIUTTO: Coming up next. Trump's former National Security Adviser calls his Greenland threats, quote, Disastrous for the U.S.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN BOLTON, FORMER TRUMP NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: If Trump actually used military force against Greenland, there'd be a political earthquake in the United States.
SCIUTTO: Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[21:30:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOLTON: He said publicly, We need to own Greenland for psychological reasons.
Now, I don't think there's anybody else that I'm aware of in America that psychologically needs to own Greenland. I think this is about Trump.
I think even within the Republican Party, I see a lot of increased dissent over this. And I think if Trump actually used military force against Greenland, there would be a political earthquake in the United States.
SCIUTTO: Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: Stern warning from my source, John Bolton, President Trump's former National Security Adviser, as Trump escalates further U.S. efforts to annex Greenland.
Sources tell CNN, the renewed push for the territory comes, as Trump feels more emboldened, following his administration's success in capturing Venezuela's leader earlier this month.
[21:35:00]
Also tonight, some European officials tell CNN, they are fearful that their decision to dispatch troops from Denmark and other NATO nations for joint exercises over the weekend might have backfired, irking Trump and convincing him to move more quickly than he otherwise would have.
My political sources tonight are:
Karen Finney, former senior adviser to Hillary Clinton.
And Marc Short, former Chief of Staff to Vice President Mike Pence.
Good to have you both.
Marc, speaking, and you heard, to a Danish lawmaker earlier, who said, Listen, if the U.S. sends troops there, sends forces, this could be war. I mean, it's a remarkable thing to hear from a U.S. treaty ally about the U.S. Is that where we're heading here?
MARC SHORT, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF TO VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: I don't think that's where we're heading. I don't think he has much choice but to answer it that way, Jim.
But this is also nonsensical. I mean, in so many ways, the President can take a win, because Greenland has again reiterated that, You're welcome to expand your military bases here, where we once had 17 bases, you can do that. They've allowed access to a mine for a rare- earth minerals. And so, this makes no sense.
And the President's reaction makes even less sense, Jim. To say, I'm going to tax Americans another 10 percent until Denmark relents. It's like, we're the ones paying the extra amount.
And the whole idea that -- it would make further or less sense is that if we're saying, We need Greenland, which I think is we need to have access there, is true, because I do think that Russia and China pose real threats, and they have continued to gain more and more territory in the Arctic. But if we're concerned about Russia there, why aren't we concerned about Russia and Ukraine?
SCIUTTO: Yes.
KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, SENIOR ADVISER, HILLARY CLINTON'S 2016 CAMPAIGN, FORMER DNC COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Right.
SCIUTTO: Or why are we not concerned about strengthening relationships with Sweden and Finland, two NATO members that are actually Arctic powers?
I mean, Karen, it doesn't make sense. And by the way, everybody says that.
FINNEY: Correct. But that's--
SCIUTTO: Even Republicans. Whether they say it publicly. Most are saying it privately. Yet--
FINNEY: Yes.
SCIUTTO: --Trump is pushing forward.
FINNEY: Yes.
SCIUTTO: Should we realistically expect that to continue?
FINNEY: Yes, he is not on the reality bus. So, it doesn't matter what makes sense or does not make sense, and I make light of it.
But I mean, we were speaking earlier, reports from Davos suggest that there you have world leaders and business leaders from, globally, having a conversation about how serious Trump might be about Greenland, and what impact that could have on the economy. And they're asking the same question that Marc just posed. This doesn't make sense that Greenlanders and Denmark would gladly give you whatever it is that you want.
But this is part of this part -- Trump 2.0. Everything is a zero-sum game. Everything is, I have to own it, I have to control it. It is not about diplomacy. It is not about -- I mean, again, our alliances, I mean, if we wanted to have a serious conversation about the Arctic, we could have that conversation, and that would probably be welcome. But that's not the path that he's taking. SCIUTTO: And there's already a treaty that covers--
FINNEY: How about that?
SCIUTTO: --any additional U.S. military presence there.
FINNEY: Right.
SCIUTTO: So, after Trump issued this latest tariff threat, your former boss, Mike Pence, spoke to my colleague, Jake Tapper. Have a listen to what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIKE PENCE, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think it's a question right now, Jake, not of what the President's trying to accomplish, but how? And I have concerns about using what I think is a questionable constitutional authority, imposing unilateral tariffs on NATO allies, to achieve this objective, as much as I had concerns about the threat of a military invasion.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: Supreme Court, of course, has a vote in this, and might very well deliver that vote this week, and might tie Trump's hands. What happens if the Supreme Court rules against him on the way he's using these tariffs?
SHORT: Well, I think that the Supreme Court will rule against the administration here. There's no president who's exerted this sort of tariff authority. And I think our Founders were very clear the ability to tax the Americans belongs in Congress.
But Jim, I do think that Congress has ceded a lot of other authorities to the executive branch.
SCIUTTO: Yes.
SHORT: And so, even if he loses this case, I expect the President to pivot to 232, to 301, to 122, and all these other mechanisms he has to continue the trade war.
SCIUTTO: I mean, that's the thing, because there's another way Congress could, of course, assert itself here, right?
FINNEY: Yes.
SCIUTTO: I mean, they could pass legislation.
FINNEY: About that.
SCIUTTO: Which I think is somewhere written in the Constitution about their powers.
But they've also already written legislation to limit, for instance, the President's ability to remove forces from Europe, which is on the table here as a further way to--
FINNEY: Right.
SCIUTTO: --cudgel against Europe.
FINNEY: But--
SCIUTTO: Do you see Congress stepping up?
FINNEY: Sure. But again, I think, whereas we've seen time and time again over the past year, it doesn't seem to matter much to the President. He's even said, in interviews last week with Steve Holland from Reuters, a very fine journalist, he doesn't care.
The one other piece of this though, that I think we should add. Our own John King was just in Iowa, and has done some great reporting. And it was so interesting to hear former Trump voters who said, I don't care about Greenland. I don't want -- no way, no-how, I'm not interested.
So, the more he talks about it, the worst it is actually, for Republicans and for anyone who has their name on a ballot this coming year. So, at some point--
SHORT: Yes.
FINNEY: --that tension also has to -- will come into play--
SCIUTTO: And listen, by the way--
FINNEY: --and we'll see what they do.
[21:40:00]
SCIUTTO: --to your point, tension. Tariffs get passed on to consumers. There was a study out today that showed that--
SHORT: Yes.
SCIUTTO: --95 percent of those tariffs--
SHORT: Yes.
SCIUTTO: --have not -- you know, been passed on to consumers. Not absorbed by corporations, and by the way, not paid for by foreign countries, as Trump has long implied they would.
FINNEY: Right.
SCIUTTO: Is that eating into Republican support to a degree that at least the candidates, set aside Trump, know that that's a problem for them?
SHORT: I think so, Jim. I think the reality is that the markets continue to stay at all-time highs. I think that what you've seen is that inflation has peaked up in some places. But energy prices, the President, to his credit, has lowered significantly. And so, that's not severe.
But I think where you're seeing it is honestly in the employment numbers.
FINNEY: Yes.
SHORT: You continue to see unemployment continue to tick up. And I think that for some of the President's strongest supporters in the heartland, the farmers of America, they're the ones that are feeling this impact most. And so, I think as you look toward the midterms, I think it is a concern for a lot of elected Republicans in territories that you would suspect would be reliably red.
SCIUTTO: Yes.
FINNEY: Well--
SCIUTTO: Karen, but are Democrats showing an alternative enough to voters? Or are they just sitting back and saying, as they've done in the past--
FINNEY: Yes.
SCIUTTO: --not with the greatest success--
FINNEY: Tell me about it.
SCIUTTO: --saying, Trump will be his own -- will be his own downfall?
FINNEY: Yes, look, I think our own CNN polling has pointed out to Democrats that you're not going to win -- we're not going to win big in the midterms, or the kind of blue wave that people are talking about, by just saying, We're not them, we're not him.
They're going to have to offer a viable alternative, and they're going to have to try to offer, I think, some realistic goals around things they can actually accomplish. Because I think the most important thing right now is, will Americans trust Democrats that we can deliver on what we say? Because right now, they don't trust either party, very much.
SCIUTTO: Marc, are you worried, though? Because we're talking -- we're not just talking about a midterm election here, right? Because the way European allies are talking right now, both publicly, I speak to a number of them every day, is that this is doing long-term damage to U.S. national security partnerships built up over decades, and that you can't turn this back.
SHORT: Well, you can't. I do think that Trump is an anomaly, and I do think the Danes (ph) understand that. But certainly I think it hurts the long-term relationships.
But, yes, I think that, again, Greenland is offering us what we want. So, it's hard to understand why. I know the President often believes he gets more leverage by taking an extreme position, think he'll get a better deal. But they're already giving him the deal. FINNEY: But again, Americans are saying, When you're talking about Greenland, you're not talking about me, you're not talking about my health care costs, you're not talking about our lives. And to some degree, why are you making fights around the world when you could be fighting for us right here at home?
SCIUTTO: Well, we'll see what they say in November.
Marc. Karen.
FINNEY: Yes.
SHORT: Thanks, Jim.
SCIUTTO: Thanks so much.
Coming up next. Just a riveting investigation into a school, a scam and a notorious college admissions scandal. Kaitlan spoke with one of the authors, an award-winning New York Times journalist. Their interview is next.
[21:45:00]
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(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, CNN HOST, THE SOURCE WITH KAITLAN COLLINS: You may have seen those viral videos before, showing black students, from working-class families, gathering anxiously around a computer, before erupting in cheers as their classmates were finding out they had been admitted to an Ivy League school.
These videos vaulted a small school in Louisiana, known as T.M.Landry, to national prominence, by sending numerous students to top schools, like Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Brown.
That is, until two New York Times reporters in 2018 uncovered a major scandal that was actually playing out, finding that T.M.Landry had doctored college applications, falsified transcripts, and fostered a culture of fear with physical and emotional abuse, where students were forced to kneel on rice, rocks, hot pavement. They were choked, yelled at, and berated.
And tonight, a new book offers a more in-depth account of what happened and how the school's founders got away with it for so long. The book is "Miracle Children: Race, Education, and a True Story of False Promises" by New York Times reporters, Erica Green and Katie Benner, who first broke this story.
And Katie Benner joins me now.
And Katie, I'm so glad you're here, because I just think this story is so remarkable in and of itself--
KATIE BENNER, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES, CO-AUTHOR, "MIRACLE CHILDREN": Hi.
COLLINS: --and the fact that, that this could happen for as long as it did.
Can you just first tell us how you and Erica broke this story, how you realized that something was happening that was not what they were telling the world?
BENNER: I mean, I think with a lot of great stories, it began with a good tip from somebody who knew a parent whose child was at the school. And it was in a moment where families were starting to wonder whether or not they wanted their kids there. They knew there was something that wasn't right, and more and more students themselves were coming to their parents and trying to explain what was happening to them inside of this school.
So, we heard about what had gone on. And Erica, being an education reporter, she went down to Louisiana immediately. And then we started looking into the Landrys themselves, the founders of the school.
COLLINS: And what did you find?
BENNER: It was very interesting. We found, to your point, what you mentioned before, a lot of behavior, abusive behavior, which the Landrys have denied on the record, ever being abusive, ever doctoring transcripts, ever falsifying information. However, we found police reports, we found documentation, we found the students' own transcripts that undercut their story.
And we felt that it was important for the world to understand why this had happened, and why some of these families felt compelled to put themselves, whether it's the students, or to put their children, through this ordeal, in order to get into a top college.
[21:50:00]
COLLINS: Yes. I mean, you can imagine how for a lot of these families, maybe some of them thought it was -- it was easier to not speak up.
I do wonder, when you look at this on the other side of it, how did some of these schools, some of the prestigious schools that we have in the United States, how are they not able to see through what was happening with these transcripts and with these students?
BENNER: That was one of the interesting things that we did -- we were able to research in the book, and not for the story, was how the college admissions process really works, which is fascinating.
You have too many students, essentially, trying to apply for too few slots all over the country, at almost every school in the nation. And once you get that kind of demand, it is almost impossible for any college to critically read all of these applications. And actually, it's a system that relies, almost entirely, on trust.
So, the idea of a school designed specifically to take advantage of that system and cheat the system was unheard of amongst college admissions officials. They knew that there were students who lied on their applications. But the idea that an entire school could be designed to do so was unfathomable. And so, they were not looking for this.
You have one person reading dozens, if not hundreds of applications at every school across the country. It is very easy for some of these things to slip through the cracks.
COLLINS: Well, I know, in 2019, the FBI had said they were investigating this school, and including the founders that you mentioned. Whatever happened to the Landrys?
BENNER: It's very interesting. Right after we broke the story, three months later, the Justice Department brought a case against Operation Varsity Blues, against a man who had promised to get very wealthy students into colleges, by falsifying their applications, and by saying they had participated in sports they never participated in, that they had had grades they didn't have, and those parents were prosecuted.
This was an interesting situation where the U.S. Attorney in Louisiana did not want, per se, to be prosecuting these families. He didn't really feel that they had been complicit in this scheme. He did not really feel that they had certainly wanted their children abused, and he didn't feel that, at the end of the day, what was happening was a scam perpetrated by the families themselves, but by the Landrys. So, it was very hard to untangle the families from the couple.
And then another piece of the investigation was looking into whether or not the Landrys had misused the funds that had been donated to the school, for things like scholarships for high school students, in ways that, you know -- in ways that were untoward to enrich themselves. And that seemed to be the most promising piece of the investigation. However, the pandemic hit, and it fizzled out.
COLLINS: So, they were never prosecuted?
BENNER: They were never prosecuted. When we think about a world where we want justice to prevail, where we want people held accountable by a system, by law enforcement, by a U.S. Attorney? That didn't happen in this case, and the Landrys were free. They actually continued to operate the school--
COLLINS: Wow.
BENNER: --for a couple of years after the story came out.
COLLINS: What about the students? I mean, did you stay in touch with any of them or their families? I mean, how did most of them fare after all of this happened?
BENNER: It's interesting. The book is based on -- told through the eyes of the students who we interacted with for years after our story came out in 2018. Throughout the pandemic. We follow their lives. And we really wanted them to tell the story of what their experience was like, and what they felt the American Dream meant to them. We wanted them to explain to readers why they made the choices they had.
Now, some students, they go to college and they graduate. They graduate from Yale. They graduate from NYU. One goes on to become a lawyer. They have what you would call traditional success stories. Others do not. But what we found when we were researching college admissions is that that's actually not that unusual, and the idea that these schools are meritocratic is pretty absurd. There are people getting in for all sorts of reasons, and that these students really just felt like they were part of a rigged system and they were gaming as well as they could.
COLLINS: Yes.
Katie Benner, it's a fascinating story. I'm glad that you and Erica told it. So thank you for joining me.
And for those, the book is "Miracle Children: Race, Education, and a True Story of False Promises."
Thank you, Katie.
BENNER: Thank you so much.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: Coming up next. Have you always wanted to see the Northern Lights? Well, tonight might be your chance, and you probably won't have to go too far to see it. Well it's playing next.
[21:55:00]
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SCIUTTO: Some advice for people around the United States tonight. Go look up. That's because across the country, you may get an extremely rare chance to see the Northern Lights.
Forecasters say the lights could be visible all the way from California to New York and possibly as far south as Alabama, which is almost unheard of, all thanks to a massive solar storm, the strongest in more than 20 years. Ejections from the sun are sending energized particles straight into the Earth's magnetic field. When they interact with the atmosphere tonight, they will light up the night sky in a spectacular array of colors, like you're seeing there.
NOAA says your best shot to see them is between 10:00 p.m. and 04:00 a.m. Eastern Time.
But it's not all fun and games. Forecasters warn that a storm this severe could disrupt things like GPS, space missions, air travel and other satellite operations. The last storm on this scale, back in 2003, forced some planes to be rerouted and knocked out power in parts of Europe. Tonight, officials say they have notified the airlines, NASA and the FAA as a precaution to prepare.
[22:00:00] But as night falls across the country, all that's left to do is look up and enjoy the show. I'm going to do that right after I get off the air.
Thanks so much for joining us. I'm Jim Sciutto.
"CNN NEWSNIGHT" starts now.
