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State of the Union

Interview With Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA); Interview With Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA); Interview With Neil deGrasse Tyson; Interview With Former U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Aired 9-10a ET

Aired May 17, 2026 - 09:00   ET

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

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANA BASH, CNN HOST (voice-over): Settling a score. President Trump gets payback against a Republican who voted to impeach him.

SEN. BILL CASSIDY (R-LA): Sometimes, it doesn't turn out the way you want it to, but you don't pout, you don't whine, you don't claim the election was stolen.

BASH: But is Trump's grip on his base blinding him to the dangers his party faces this fall?

Plus: blueprint. More than anything, Democrats say they want a fighter.

KAMALA HARRIS, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There is so much at stake.

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): My ambition is to change this country.

PETE BUTTIGIEG, FORMER U.S. TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: If something is broken, we actually do what it takes to fix it.

BASH: Who can meet the moment now and in 2028? Former presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg is next.

And out of this world. The Pentagon makes UFO files public, but are we ready for first contact? Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson joins me on his new book coming up.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: Hello. I'm Dana Bash in Washington, where the state of our union is waking up to see that revenge is a dish best served cold.

President Trump took down his fellow Republican Senator Bill Cassidy. Why? One reason. The Louisiana Republican voted in 2021 to convict Trump of impeachable offenses after the January 6 insurrection. Cassidy did not even qualify for a GOP run-off in Louisiana's primary last night.

Instead, House Republicans Julia Letlow and John Fleming advanced to a run-off this summer. As for Democrats, they hope voters see this fall much differently than Trump's loyal base.

Elsewhere, voters down South and people who are trying to appeal to voters, Democratic leaders were marching in defense of the Voting Rights Act. This weekend, that happened. And party leaders are scrambling to try to counter aggressive moves by the president and his party to secure a midterm advantage.

Here with me now from the campaign trail is former Democratic presidential candidate, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

Thank you so much for being here, sir.

I do want to start with Senator Cassidy's defeat in Louisiana last night. It's just the latest example of the president successfully getting revenge against Republicans who cross him. What do you make of that?

PETE BUTTIGIEG, FORMER U.S. TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: Well, good morning. Thanks for having me on.

Yes, in my experience, Senator Cassidy is a normal, honest and very conservative Republican. And it turns out people like that have less and less of a home in Donald Trump's Republican Party. We are seeing more and more extreme candidates put forward in their House and Senate races, which does create a big opening for Democrats.

That doesn't mean that Democrats don't have to do the work, but I think it shows you that the Republican Party is organized less and less around conservative principles, more and more around one man.

And as that one man remains deeply unpopular, they're having a very hard time convincing the rest of America to vote for them, which is why they're spending less time convincing their voters and more time rearranging voters and silencing voters through gerrymandering.

BASH: So let's talk about redistricting. The House Democratic leader has a plan to push blue states to redistrict in the next couple of years as a way to neutralize what looks like a Republican redistricting advantage heading into the midterms.

Last month, you called Republican efforts to redistrict cheating. Are Democrats also cheating?

BUTTIGIEG: Well, let's be very clear about what's going on right now, which is a systematic effort to dismantle black political representation in the House of Representatives.

What we're seeing amounts to the biggest reversal of black political power since the Voting Rights Act itself. It is wrong. It is unfair. And we never should have been here in the first place.

Now, we have seen Democrats around the country, states that are more Democratic taking action to try to offset or balance out the Republican gerrymandering. But Democrats didn't ask for this. And Americans didn't ask for this.

We should have and could have fair maps across the country, where, in every state, red, blue, and purple, people are arranged into communities that actually make sense district lines that look like normal shapes, instead of these bizarre creations. And with the algorithms and the mathematical precision going into redistricting now, it has become even more extreme.

[09:05:06]

I think Americans are fed up with it. I think we're fed up with a country where about one out of 10 House races are actually even competitive and the other nine out of 10, you pretty much know who's going to win before the first vote is even cast.

And we'd be better off just to have broad-based reform. I think that's something that Democrats would welcome Republicans working with us on. But, instead, they have chosen this last-minute redistricting.

I mean, in Louisiana, they were so focused on this, they actually stopped a primary where votes were already being cast, so they could hurry up and rearrange the lines. And, again, the racial element to this is particularly disturbing.

BASH: So I hear what you're saying about the fact that this is just bad for democracy and America. And when I say this, I mean gerrymandering.

But what is going on right now is, there is a redistricting war that, at least in the short term, Democrats engaged in and lost. So my question is, going forward, do you agree with the Democratic leadership's plan to try to push for changing the lines in blue states the Democrats control in order to try to get to at least maybe a wash?

BUTTIGIEG: Yes, obviously, if Republicans are going to do this, Democrats have to try to offset it. But we would all be better off if it wasn't happening in the first place.

BASH: OK. You are in Montana to support a ballot initiative that would amend the state constitution to ban corporate money from elections. You didn't take PAC money during your 2020 presidential campaign, but you did raise more than $100 million in a year, including from corporate executives on Wall Street.

What would you do differently if you run in 2028? Would you still take that money from the individuals who are on Wall Street and in corporations?

BUTTIGIEG: Yes, I don't have a problem with individuals giving up to the legal limit. I think it's about $3,000 to participate in a campaign. But what we're seeing right now is millions and millions and millions

of dollars of often dark money, super PAC money coming directly from corporations. And it is horrifically distorting our politics.

Now, there's this idea that there's just nothing you can do about this, that we just have to accept, in the wake of Citizens United, that there will be absurd amounts of corporate money dominating our elections year after year. I don't believe that.

And the people of Montana are standing up. Montana has a long political tradition of standing up to corruption. Very excited to see what they're doing here. They have an initiative. It's called the Montana Plan.

It's a ballot initiative that would handle this not by trying to regulate campaign speech, which is what runs afoul of the Supreme Court, but by using the power of citizens to define what a corporation is, state law that defines what corporations can and cannot be, try to come at it from that angle.

It's creative. It is people-powered. And I'm here to cheer on the volunteers who are out there getting signatures to make sure that this goes to the voters for this fall.

BASH: I want to ask about the economy. Inflation is at a three-year high. Gas prices are spiking. Wages no longer keep pace with the cost of living.

And yet your party, the Democratic Party, doesn't have anything to show for it in terms of the political headway that you would think that they would have with voters. A Pew poll shows that Democrats have a 39 percent favorability rating, roughly about the same as the last two years.

So, in this economic climate, why can't Democrats catch on more with voters?

BUTTIGIEG: Well, in this climate right now, the Republican failure on the economy and President Trump's unpopularity has created an opening for Democrats.

Now, an opening is not the same thing as a solution. Democrats need to be making clear what it is that we would actually do differently. It's not enough to just be against the other guy. Believe me, I am, and we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about the president's breaking his promises about his failure to bring down costs, about his launching the Iraq War, which is why everything from diesel to fertilizer to mortgages costs more now.

But we also have to remind people of the things that we are for. We are for things like Medicaid. We are for expanding your access to health insurance. We are for raising wages in this country. People need to see a proactive governing agenda, things like paid parental and family leave, things like political reform to do away with gerrymandering and corporate money and politics. I think, the more we talk about that, alongside of our rightful

criticism of the Trump administration's chaos and corruption, that's really the formula to earn trust and have success not just in November, but as a governing majority.

BASH: Secretary Buttigieg, I have to ask you about what the current transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, is doing.

[09:10:04]

He filmed, I think everybody knows this at this point, a road trip reality series. You criticized it. Your husband, Chasten, said that Secretary Duffy and his wife threw endless fits on national television when you worked from your son's ICU bedside, and now Secretary Duffy is criticizing you on social media. He's making videos about you.

He said that the -- quote -- "radical, miserable left hates his road trip because they don't want people to celebrate America."

Your response?

BUTTIGIEG: I love road trips. I love America.

I actually took a taxpayer-funded road trip lasting about seven months. It was in Afghanistan. This is something very different. This is not about patriotism. And it is an embarrassment to have him going around saying that a road trip -- quote -- "fits any budget" at a time when more and more Americans cannot afford a road trip, because of the explosion in diesel prices and gas prices caused directly by the Iran war and by the Trump administration.

To make road trips unaffordable and then go around celebrating your own road trip is exactly what people are so frustrated about. And part of why the Duffy road trip scandal has been such an embarrassment to the Trump administration is, it's happening at the same moment that Trump is alienating voters by making it clear that he doesn't care.

He even specifically said, right, when he was asked recently that Americans' financial situation is not something he's focused on, not something that's on his mind. And this administration never misses a chance to show it.

Then, of course, you have the issue of the corruption involved. I mean, the fact that you have a transportation industry lobbyist running an effort to funnel money from corporate sponsors regulated by the Department of Transportation to pay for this project is just nakedly unfair, wrong and part of what people are so frustrated about in Donald Trump's pay-to-play Washington.

And I think the third thing that is really on people's minds is, what's going on over there? If they're doing stuff like this and posting memes all day, are they attending to the actual issues that Americans are most concerned about in transportation?

We just saw quietly a Friday news dump out of the Department of Transportation at the end of last week saying that they were going to cut the target for air traffic control hiring, slash the air traffic control targets by about 2,000.

I'm very puzzled by this. I don't know why you would be cutting down targets for air traffic control when pretty -- the one thing I think most of us agree on is that there's a shortage around air traffic control. Maybe it's because they've been struggling to hire.

I noticed that, under my successor, the pace of hiring air traffic controllers slowed down dramatically to less than a dozen net new certified professional controllers compared to what we were doing on my watch. Maybe it's got something to do with that. I don't know.

But, clearly, the priorities are out of whack, and the priorities should be making sure that Americans have safe and affordable transportation.

BASH: Before I let you go, Secretary Duffy is also blaming you for the shutdown of Spirit Airlines. You were transportation secretary and you publicly supported your administration, the Biden administration's decision to block the merger with Spirit and JetBlue.

Since Spirit is gone, 17,000 people have lost their jobs. In retrospect, was blocking that merger a mistake?

BUTTIGIEG: No.

Spirit Airlines shut down because the Iran war sent jet fuel prices through the roof. This is not about an antitrust decision from two or three years ago. But I'll also say, if Spirit and JetBlue had merged, it's very possible that that would have taken down two airlines, instead of one.

We took action to protect consumers, and we found that that proposed merger violated the law, which is what a judge found as well. But trying to reach back a year, two years, three years for excuses for what's happening on your watch is a tremendous show of weakness.

And I think the more the Trump administration shows that it is obsessed with blaming people who've been out of power for quite a while, rather than deep into their own second year trying to actually solve problems, I think it's exactly why Americans are increasingly turning away from Republicans and from the Trump White House.

BASH: I do have one more question. And that is, if you do run for president and you win your party's nomination, there is a pretty good chance you would go up against J.D. Vance.

I want you to listen to what he said about your party this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is not -- unfortunately, this is not my grandmother's Democrat Party, right? This is not the party of sort of socially conservative, patriotic people. It's now the party of left-wing radicalism.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BASH: Would he be a formidable opponent in 2028?

[09:15:00]

BUTTIGIEG: Well, look, there's been a bit of a stink politically around the Trump administration generally and J.D. Vance politically. He tends not to be very successful when he's out campaigning for people, even overseas, seems to have been the kind of nail in the coffin of Viktor Orban in Hungary. We will see what happens politically.

But what I know is, when you're out there doing that kind of name- calling, it shows how removed you are from the center of gravity of the American people. Most Americans want the wealthy to pay their fair share in taxes, not these billionaire tax cuts, want there to be more access to health care, not these cuts to Medicaid and cuts to rural hospitals that the Trump administration is pursuing.

They want there to be more fairness and transparency in government, not these special favors for the Mar-a-Lago class. They want there to be higher wages and strong worker protections and good policies for families in this country.

And it's not about accusing somebody who disagrees with you of being less patriotic or whatever other names they want to throw around. It's about actually putting together the solutions that two-thirds of Americans already agree on. We just can't seem to get him in today's Washington.

BASH: You don't really think that he was the reason Viktor Orban lost, do you? I mean, maybe he just went.

BUTTIGIEG: No, but I get the impression he didn't help. And I think that might also be true when they send him around the trail this year. But we will see.

BASH: Secretary Pete Buttigieg, thank you so much for being here. Appreciate it.

BUTTIGIEG: Thank you. Glad to be with you.

BASH: And then there were two. President Trump takes down another lawmaker who opposed him.

Next, a Republican who is on the ballot this week and a Democrat many see as part of the party's future on the president's influence this fall.

And, then, aliens from other planets among us? Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson joins me to talk about his new book coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) (APPLAUSE)

SEN. BILL CASSIDY (R-LA): It is the welfare of my people and my state and my country and our Constitution to which I am loyal. And if someone doesn't understand that and attempts to control others through using the levers of power, they're about serving themselves. They're not about serving us.

And that person is not qualified to be a leader.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: That was Republican Senator Bill Cassidy after he lost his reelection bid last night. President Trump campaigned against him.

My panel joins me now, including Congressman Buddy Carter.

And you are on the ballot this coming week.

REP. BUDDY CARTER (R-GA): Yes.

BASH: You're in your own primary for a Senate race.

How does -- I know it's a very different dynamic.

CARTER: Yes.

BASH: But how do you read what happened in Louisiana and what it says about your party?

CARTER: Well, first of all, I don't think you should ever go against a president and vote for impeachment if you're going to plan on rerunning and running for reelection.

Secondly, this is just another example. Donald Trump is going to try to get rid of anyone who is not helping him with his agenda. That's why I'm running for the Senate. Jon Ossoff is our senator now. He does not represent Georgia values. He's not helping President Trump with his America first policies.

That's why I'm running because we need someone from the state of Georgia who is going to support President Trump and his America first values. I have done that in the House. I will continue to do it in the Senate.

BASH: Congressman Auchincloss?

REP. JAKE AUCHINCLOSS (D-MA): It's Donald Trump's party. As you just heard from my colleague from Georgia, even an insurrection is apparently to the Republican Party not cause for impeachment.

So it's not a surprise to anybody that Senator Cassidy lost. What's disappointing is that, even though he knew that, he still was the deciding vote to confirm RFK Jr. as HHS secretary. RFK Jr. is now launching an anti-vax crusade, quietly now that the White House has told him to muzzle it, but still effectively. And we have measles and whooping cough outbreaks throughout this

country. Buddy, you and I are on the Health Subcommittee in Congress. We have to do oversight and investigations before more kids get these preventable infectious diseases.

CARTER: I agree. We do need to do more investigations. And, certainly we don't want any. I have got grandchildren. I have got children, grandchildren...

(CROSSTALK)

AUCHINCLOSS: So, do you agree that RFK Jr. should resign?

CARTER: No, I do not agree, absolutely not. RFK Jr. is doing his job and I applaud him for doing his job. He's making sure...

AUCHINCLOSS: Doing his job, even though measles is spreading throughout the country right now?

CARTER: No, no, no, measles is not spreading through the country right now. We are getting -- he's going to get it under control. This is something that we have got.

(CROSSTALK)

AUCHINCLOSS: We had it under control in the year 2000, and then this guy came back with his pro-measles campaign for public health.

You're a pharmacist, Buddy. You know better than this. Let's bring him to Congress, put the facts on the table and tell him to prevent more children from dying from what we can prevent.

CARTER: No, let's let him do his job. Let's let him do his job.

AUCHINCLOSS: That's what the last 18 months has looked like, and we have kids with whooping cough.

CARTER: I mean, we experienced this through -- we experienced this through the virus, the COVID virus, where we were forcing people to have vaccines who did not want to have vaccines. And we...

AUCHINCLOSS: So you don't think the MMR vaccine is effective?

CARTER: Look, look, the point is...

AUCHINCLOSS: Is the MMR vaccine effective?

CARTER: The point, Jake, is the fact that we cannot force people into doing things. We have to give them a choice based on education and based on it.

AUCHINCLOSS: You're a pharmacist. Will you actually say that the MMR vaccine is not safe and effective?

CARTER: I am not. Obviously, it's safe and effective. AUCHINCLOSS: Good. I would love to hear the secretary of health and

human services say that unequivocally and tell parents to get their kids vaccinated.

Kids are dying in this country from a disease that was eradicated 25 years ago.

CARTER: You know, this is the kind of rhetoric that we hear from the Democratic Party that causes people to be upset about it.

AUCHINCLOSS: So we don't have a measles outbreak?

CARTER: We have a measles outbreak. It is going to be under control.

AUCHINCLOSS: Going to be under control. That should hearten every American who is seeing the resurgence of measles.

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: You know what? All I have to say is that this is the kind of debate I used to see when I came to Washington, to have, like, actual policy debates. And it's really nice.

Back to what's going on in the Republican Party, Sean, you wrote in your new book, "Trump 2.0," that Republicans need to pay attention to internal threats within the party.

SEAN SPICER, FORMER WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Yes.

[09:25:00]

BASH: So I'm guessing you're -- what we're seeing with Cassidy, what we saw in Indiana and what we could see with Thomas Massie next week are examples of that.

SPICER: Well, I would not categorize certain people as threats that you just listed, but I would say that the point of the book was to contrast what happened in Trump 1.0 to Trump 2.0 and why it's different, the vetting that's gone on to ensure that people don't come in to subvert the will of the American people when it comes to the president's agenda.

There's a big difference. I think Thomas Massie has been very open with his criticism of President Trump and some of his policies, but we had people in Trump 1.0 that came in under the guise of serving President Trump and then openly bragged about how they were subverting the will of the American people, how they were going into meetings to stop the agenda and doing it quietly and behind the scenes.

So there's a big difference. I think President Trump's made his critique known of people who publicly choose another side, whether it's the senators in Indiana, Thomas Massie, Bill Cassidy, and others. So there's a big difference on the continuum of threat.

But I think there's a big difference between people who come in under the guise of, I'm here to support your agenda and then undermine it once in office.

BASH: And as I bring you in, I do want to put up on the screen a graphic of -- just going back to Cassidy, of the Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump for whatever his role was in the January 6 interaction.

They obviously thought it was a big one, because they went against their party and against their president to -- to vote yes. Excuse me. This -- these are the House members. We will start here, because they voted to impeach him.

And I think, of all of those Republicans, there is only one -- David Valadao, only one left who is planning on running again for reelection. Now let's look at the senators, if we can. The senators who voted to convict Donald Trump, There are only two who are now staying in. Susan Collins is trying to get reelected from Maine and Lisa Murkowski is still there from Alaska.

XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, there was also a grand jury that indicted Donald Trump on several counts when it came to January 6.

And so the fact that Congress was doing its job in attempting impeachment, I think, is something that it should not be -- it shouldn't necessarily be a loyalty test.

Can I just say this conversation is extremely concerning that this is where the Republican Party is at. You mentioned loyalty. You mentioned making sure that you are moving forward with the president's agenda. If you are picked to serve in Congress or in any elected office, your loyalty should never be to the president of the United States.

I don't care if you are a Democrat or if you're a Republican. Your loyalty is to the constituents that you serve. Look at the war, for example. On the war, every Republican used to talk about how they did not want a war. President Trump ran against going into any sort of war.

Now we're in a war, and now the Republican Party is silent on where exactly they are and whether they stand with the president on the war. I don't think -- I don't know if you have mentioned or if you have come out against Donald Trump on this.

But when it comes to the war, there has been complete silence.

CARTER: May I remind you we have been in a war for 47 years against the leading state sponsor of terrorism, Iran?

HINOJOSA: So you agree with the war?

SPICER: Let's just go back a second.

HINOJOSA: You agree with the war?

BASH: Real quick, Sean, because we have to sneak in a break. We will have more. (CROSSTALK)

SPICER: Look, there's a difference. These people came out and voted against Donald Trump, said they didn't want him in office anymore, and then almost to a T....

HINOJOSA: He was indicted.

SPICER: Xochitl, let me just finish. Then they came back in the case of Cassidy and said, can we please have your endorsement to stay in office?

So there's a big difference. You didn't want him in, campaign against him. But the people of Louisiana last night spoke loudly. They didn't even give him a quarter of the vote to go back. This wasn't Donald Trump. The people of Louisiana sent a very clear message that they didn't want Bill Cassidy as their representative in the United States Senate.

BASH: We're going to take a quick break. We're going to talk more about Iran and other issues.

Republicans are getting worried about President Trump's midterm message. We will discuss that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:33:18]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES AUSTIN JOHNSON, ACTOR: I'm sorry I didn't take you with me to China, J.D. I would have, but I didn't want to.

(LAUGHTER)

JOHNSON: But I brought you a present that President Xi Jinping gave me.

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: A finger trap, very nice. What did you give him?

JOHNSON: Taiwan.

(LAUGHTER)

JOHNSON: Now, J.D...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: President getting "SNL" treatment about his trip to China, but it really boils down to Iran and what it is doing to Americans with regard to the economy.

We have a brand-new poll out that shows that even Republicans are very worried about inflation. If you look at this just out now, the question is whether or not Republicans approve of the president's handling on inflation. It is down now -- these are Republicans -- to 63 percent, Sean.

SPICER: I mean, I think people go to the grocery store, the gas station, you see prices are rising. The president needs to continue to make the case that there's a bigger existential threat that Iran poses to our safety, to the safety and lives of Americans who serve around the globe.

And Americans, I think, understand that. We have been able to sacrifice over the last 250 years of our country to make sure that we preserve and protect the freedom that so many of us have been able to prosper under here in America.

So that's a message that the president needs to double down on, number one, and then, number two, work on a lot of these deals that can bring some kind of relief. So there's other things that they can and should be doing to stay laser-focused on the economy, gas prices.

But there's a lot of prices that have gone down. And I think that's where, again, part of this is making sure that they message some of the positive effects of their policies that have come out of the Big Beautiful Bill. When you go to the grocery store, things like eggs and some fresh fruit have gone way down.

So they have got to highlight the successes that they have had and then explain to people that they have a path forward on where they feel a little bit more consternation.

[09:35:07]

BASH: Is that working with voters you talk to?

CARTER: It is working.

And I think the Working Families Tax Cut act is working. When I talk to people who are servers and in the business of not paying tax on tips, they're happy. They have got more money in their pocket, blue- collar workers who are working overtime, more money in their pockets, senior citizens not paying tax on Social Security, more money in their pockets.

So, yes, we see it getting better. But let me assure you that gas prices are going to go down again. Democrats are the party of high gas prices. If we were in Iran with Democrats now, gas prices would never go down.

But, with Republicans, as soon as this conflict is over, I can assure you gas prices are going to go down. Therefore, groceries and everything that is impacted by petroleum will go down.

AUCHINCLOSS: I think it's fitting the poll came out right when the president is leaving China, because Americans are making the connection between his failed foreign policy and higher prices. Last year, he picks a trade war with China, loses it because they

exercise choke point control over critical minerals. Prices go up. This year, picks a kinetic war with Iran, loses it because Iran exercises choke point control over oil. Prices go up.

Americans can see that this self-described dealmaker is actually pretty bad at cutting deals, and they're the ones paying for his failure.

HINOJOSA: Listen, I would say to the Republican Party, learn from the Biden administration.

One thing that Biden and folks who worked for Biden remember is that he talked about how everything was great in the economy, and Democrats lost everything. And what is happening here is, not only are Republicans saying things -- hold on, just wait a little bit, but then you have the president saying that he is not thinking about them and about their finances whenever he is trying to leave and go to China.

People don't understand what is happening with this war. He did not explain to them. People still don't understand why we are there. And all they see is their prices are going up every single day.

(CROSSTALK)

SPICER: That's just not true. They're not going up...

(CROSSTALK)

SPICER: The Biden administration gaslit us and told us everything was great.

HINOJOSA: So is the Trump administration.

SPICER: The Trump administration does have a good story to tell.

There's a lot -- I mean, Congressman Carter mentioned this, but you talk to servers around the country right now, there's more in their pocket because of no tax on tip. Seniors are keeping more because of no tax on Social Security. Americans are buying cars that are not taxed right now.

(CROSSTALK)

AUCHINCLOSS: You think the American public thinks that they have more take-home pay right now?

SPICER: No, no, I think, right now, a lot of Americans are benefiting. The Republican Party unquestionably needs to do more to communicate that.

AUCHINCLOSS: I would encourage...

SPICER: But we have a lot of cards to play that we're not playing as effectively as we could.

AUCHINCLOSS: I'm a Democrat.

SPICER: But the big difference, Congressman, is that we didn't -- the Biden administration didn't have anything to play. They just gaslit people. We actually can campaign on these policies.

AUCHINCLOSS: Honestly, I actually hope the Republican Party goes out on campaigns with that message, that you go and tell the American public that they have more take-home pay, because we will take the House and we will take the Senate.

And then it will be incumbent upon Democrats to actually deliver, because, right now, affordability is a hot potato. We actually have to treat cost disease in housing and health care and energy and show the American public that we will cut red tape where it's necessary like housing, that we will take on corporate interests where necessary like drug pricing issues, but we will lower the prices.

CARTER: And then we can take that money and we can send it to Iran again and beg them not to have a nuclear weapon.

BASH: We got to...

AUCHINCLOSS: I hope they campaign on Iran too, because two-thirds of the American public, including a majority of the GOP, knows this war is a failure.

BASH: We got to sneak in a break, guys. We got to sneak in a break. This was a great discussion.

Thank you so much.

Don't go anywhere. Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson says, the question isn't whether aliens from other planets exist. It's whether we're ready. We're going to talk to him about his wild new book after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:43:04]

BASH: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION.

Last week, the Pentagon began releasing government files documenting years of unidentified flying objects, UFOs, as well as concerns by previous administrations that we as a human race are not ready for the possibility of encountering alien life.

My next guest is out with a new book about just that. And it's full of advice, like the following: "If an alien approaches you with multiple appendages, one of which looks like an extended hand, resist grabbing and shaking it. You don't know in advance what part of the alien's anatomy you just touched, and you probably don't want to find out."

Here with me now is astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Thank you so much for being here. You are the author of "Take Me To Your Leader."

And you do write that your child -- since you were a child, you have wanted to be abducted by aliens. I just want to go on record, sir, and tell you that I do not share that desire.

(LAUGHTER)

BASH: But I'm glad that you feel that way, because, as you said, the real question is not, are we alone? It's, are we ready? Are we?

NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON, ASTROPHYSICIST: Yes, I think we are, actually, because, given the testimonies that we have heard given and that we heard delivered in front of Congress in 2023, 2024, 2025 from whistle- blowers and insiders and military officials, ex-military, ex- intelligence officers, it's no longer just the farmer in the back 40, right, commenting on what hovered over their crops or the revelers coming out of the bar at 2:00 a.m.

So these are people of high rank, and all sincere. And so not only have they sort of said that they have got alien body parts and reverse-engineered technologies that's sort of consistent with the files that were released that -- so I'm fine, fine if that's where we are.

[09:45:12]

All I'm going to ask is, where's the alien?

BASH: So, that's my question to you.

DEGRASSE TYSON: Is it too much to ask that, if you have got them in the back shed, just bring out the alien? Then we would all transition from asking one another, do you believe in aliens to, well, yes, of course, the alien is there.

BASH: Well, you wrote the book.

DEGRASSE TYSON: People want to say, do you believe in elephants, right?

BASH: You wrote the book. You're an astrophysicist. What do you think? Are they here or have they been among us?

DEGRASSE TYSON: Whatever are the claims, I'm saying, let's assume they're all true. But just start with that assumption.

If it's all true, they ought to be able to bring out the alien.

BASH: Got it, evidence, right.

DEGRASSE TYSON: And that hasn't happened yet.

So I'm just sitting -- I'm sitting on the couch waiting patiently for that. And it's -- we're long past having to require that aliens are something you believe in based on testimony or fuzzy videos. Let's just bring out the alien and get it over with. BASH: Yes, I mean, that's one of the points that you make in your

book, is that you are a scientist, you are somebody who is evidence- based, so show the evidence.

On that note, the Pentagon -- you mentioned this -- did release some documents never-before seen, is what they call it, UFO files. And this is a big part of what you write about. You said you are -- quote -- "saddened to report that smooth rotating flying saucers are not a thing. The physics just don't work."

DEGRASSE TYSON: Yes, not for smooth flying saucers.

I mean, there are other issues for me with rotating flying saucers. Any time we show the view out the front window of a flying saucer, the view isn't whizzing by. So how do you have a stationary view looking out the front in a spinning craft? Never made any sense to me.

So it doesn't mean other craft could exist.

BASH: Now you're talking about the movies, yes.

(LAUGHTER)

BASH: Yes.

DEGRASSE TYSON: Well, this is our reference framing.

BASH: Right.

DEGRASSE TYSON: But laws of physics matter.

We test laws of physics on Earth, and they apply across the universe and across time. If an alien is of this universe, it'll be subject to the same laws of physics.

BASH: One of the things that you write about that really got me thinking is that humans share 98-plus percent identical DNA with chimpanzees.

And then you ask us to entertain the idea. Imagine if aliens have 5 percent or 10 percent or even 25 percent more intelligence. Along that same vector places us 2 percent above chimps, just how advanced could aliens be?

DEGRASSE TYSON: Yes, the hubris of us to say, let's look in the universe for other intelligent life. Who said we're intelligent?

We did.

(LAUGHTER)

DEGRASSE TYSON: On a cosmic scale, it may be we are to the aliens as chimps are to us.

So, for these reasons, I'm happy to grant aliens all manner of advanced technology, but laws of physics still matter. But the technology, I will give them wormholes. I will give them any of that. But one thing that's odd, what would surprise me most is if they bring out the alien and it's humanoid, OK?

That -- most alien renderings we have seen, it's got a head, two eyes, nose, mouth, shoulders, arms, fingers, maybe four fingers, instead of five, right, legs, and they're walking. OK, most life on Earth doesn't do that, but they're from another planet?

So the -- I think of the book as a love letter to our fascination with aliens manifested in our movies, our culture, our TV. And this is -- and let's use -- we can start there and say, how realistic is this? What can we expect, given our imagination and the laws of physics combined?

So, yes, plus, it's also a primer on what to say and not to say in your first encounter. You're representing all of humans, you want that to be the best impression you can leave on them.

BASH: We have 30 seconds left.

Given this thought experiment that you put in this book, what do you think the meaning of life is?

DEGRASSE TYSON: Oh, I think people search for meaning of life, as though it's under a rock or behind a tree. But we have the power to create meaning in life.

And, for me, I want to learn something today that I didn't know yesterday and spend each day lessening the suffering of others. That's something that we all have the power to do. And maybe aliens want to do that too. We always make them evil.

[09:50:00]

And I think it's because we're projecting our own evil ways onto them, knowing that's how we behaved when we encountered cultures of lower civilization, lesser technology than ourselves.

BASH: Yes.

DEGRASSE TYSON: So, yes, meaning, we can find it. And if we find aliens, and they help us get more meaning out of the universe, more power to us.

BASH: Neil deGrasse Tyson, thank you so much for coming on. It's a wild book. That is for sure.

(LAUGHTER)

DEGRASSE TYSON: Thanks for having me.

BASH: So, OK, we might not be ready for an alien encounter, but perhaps a more pressing concern is, is the United States government ready for the next pandemic?

We're going to check the facts after a break. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:55:22]

BASH: A deadly Ebola outbreak is spreading in Africa and a former U.S. health official points out it's happening in two African capitals with international airports and requires a quick and sure-handed response, something we might have expected the U.S. to take the lead on just a few years ago.

But, as we learned during the hantavirus situation, the U.S. is no longer taking the lead. My colleague Adam Cancryn reports the Trump administration is urgently trying to fill empty spots leading critical health agencies, the CDC and the FDA, not to mention the office of surgeon general.

Another CNN colleague, Andrew Kaczynski, reports, one of the top U.S. health officials in charge of infectious disease policy was, as of last year, a urologist specializing in penile implants and is also a COVID conspiracy theorist.

Is this what Americans thought they were voting for? The idea is to look at lessons learned from the last pandemic and be more ready for the next one. An array of health officials are warning, we are not ready.

Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for spending your Sunday morning with us.

Fareed Zakaria picks it up next.