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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Proposes U.S. Take Over Gaza To Be Riviera; Trump Not Ruling Out Sending Troops To Take Over Gaza; Speechless Democrats On Trump Wanting To Seize Gaza, Insane; CIA Offers Buyouts To Its Entire Workforce; Democrats Versus Elon Musk. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired February 04, 2025 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST: Good evening. I'm Abby Philip in New York.
Let's get right to what America is talking about, an explosive proposal. Tonight, it appears President Donald Trump is willing to use American soldiers as an occupying force in Gaza. His plan, according to the few concrete details that he spelled out this evening, while standing next to Israel's hardline prime minister, hinges on the U.S. seizing the Gaza Strip, yes, you heard that right, and permanently relocating 2 million Palestinians who live there.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: The only reason the Palestinians want to go back to Gaza is they have no alternative. It's right now a demolition site. They can live out their lives in peace and harmony instead of having to go back and do it again.
The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it too. We'll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Donald Trump, in case you forgot, is the same politician who promised to put America first, the candidate who called the invasion of Iraq a dumb war, the man who once wondered on social media why the U.S. would waste its money rebuilding Afghanistan, the president, who is okay with abandoning an American ally, Ukraine, in its war of survival. Tonight, he is something a bit different.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: You are talking tonight about the United States taking over a sovereign territory. What authority would allow you to do that? Are you talking about a permanent occupation there, redevelopment?
TRUMP: I do see a long-term ownership position and I see it bringing great stability to that part of the Middle East and maybe the entire Middle East. And everybody I've spoken to, this was not a decision made lightly. Everybody I've spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land, developing and creating thousands of jobs with something that will be magnificent in a really magnificent area that nobody would know. If the United States can help to bring stability and peace in the Middle East, we'll do that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Now critics call that the expelling of Palestinians from their homes, ethnic cleansing. Trump calls it a fresh start to remake the strip into a Middle East Monaco of sorts. All that was missing was renderings for a Trump Hotel in Gaza.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We have an opportunity to do something that could be phenomenal. And I don't want to be cute, I don't want to be a wise guy, but the Riviera of the Middle East, this could be something that could be so -- this could be so magnificent.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Joining us at the table tonight, Scott Jennings, Bakari Sellers, also with us, Josh Rogin, Rula Jebreal, and Brad Polumbo. Gretchen Carlson will be with us in just a minute.
But this is extraordinary, to put it lightly, and I was saying to you all as we were waiting for those sound bites to go through. Trump was reading from a piece of paper when he talked about acquiring the Gaza Strip, Rula. Like what is this all about?
RULA JEBREAL, VISITING PROFESSOR, THE UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI: I mean, clearly there is now, it's an official foreign policy of the United States. It's the illegal occupation of a sovereign land, ethnic cleansing, which constitute both, on both counts, crimes against humanity. I mean, maybe Donald Trump doesn't remember, but July this year, the International Court of Justice actually talked about Gaza and issued an order, and in the order says that Gaza is still occupied, that that occupation is illegal, that Israel needs to end the occupation, both of the West Bank And in Gaza.
By the way, the other piece, he said, he will decide on the West Bank next week, which means we don't know next week if he will allow Israel to an exit or not. I mean, I, in 30 years, have been covering foreign policy. I never seen a coherent, incoherent, lunatic proposal, a proposition as such. He just put a target on every serviceman back tonight because the region is on fire already. And he's setting the whole region further on fire.
PHILLIP: This feels I think that's honestly, Josh, like the effective end of any hope that there will be a two-state solution. I mean, this feels like the end of it. For him to say that at the podium, it's not off the cuff.
[22:05:00]
It's planned. It's part of a foreign policy strategy of this administration. JOSH ROGIN, GLOBAL SECURITY ANALYST, THE WASHINGTON POST INTELLIGENCE: Right, I agree with everything you said. And I think to have the president of the United States advocating for ethnic cleansing is horrendous and unprecedented and deserves its own hearing. It also to me reveals a deep ignorance of the situation in the Middle East and the part of the president of the United States.
Because the plan that he articulated doesn't match any reality in the region. It has no chance of actually happening. Because none of the Arab states are going to take 2 million people. And they're not going to leave anyway. And there's no mechanism to actually get them out if they wanted to leave, which they don't.
And so the whole idea is based in a fundamental misunderstanding of what's going on in the region. So we've sacrificed our moral authority as a nation for nothing, for no tangible benefit, and undermined the ceasefire, the peace deal that Trump says that he wants, undermining his own policy in the process.
So, it's really a triple lose-lose-lose scenario where Trump has undermined his own policies, he's undermined America's standing in the world, and he's tossed 2 million people into the abyss of an ethnic cleansing plan that we should all vocally stand against.
BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: One of the things that disturbed me the most today is last night we were having this conversation about the congresswoman misspoke about $50 million dollars spent on condoms in Gaza, not understanding that it was actually the Gaza province of Mozambique, right? We're talking about something totally different. Today, we're talking about condos in Gaza, and it's amazing how the chaos that comes with this Trump administration shifts one day to the next.
My biggest concern with actually listening to this today was that he's talking about going in and rebuilding Gaza. He's talking about taking control of Gaza. But we still have dozens of hostages in Gaza who have not been brought home. We're talking about Israeli hostages who have not been brought home. He's setting fire to the region, as one of you all stated.
And not only is he doing that, but he's going at it alone. Because, Abby, the fact is Jordan doesn't want this. Egypt doesn't want this. You know who else hasn't asked? Saudi Arabia. And Israel, Israel is not saying that they want this.
And so --
PHILLIP: I think that's probably up for debate.
SELLERS: Well, I'm not -- let me also be extremely clear. I'm not a Bibi Netanyahu fan. However, this is not a position -- the United States annexing Gaza is not a position that's held by the Israeli government. I mean, that's a fact. So, if you're going into this region where you don't have the support of Saudi Arabia, you don't have the support of Jordan, you don't have the support of Egypt, and you don't have the support of, well, regardless then it seems as if this is misguided.
And the last thing I'll say politically, these people -- the American public voted to bring troops home, and you have this individual talking about Greenland, Panama, Canada, and now Gaza. That seems counterintuitive to the base.
ROGIN: Oh, and I know what he's talking about with the West Bank thing, by the way. You want the answer to that? I know exactly what he's going to do. So, they've been debating internally, according to my sources, recognizing, as the United States of America, the renaming of the West Bank to Judea and Samaria. There's a bill about that.
PHILLIP: Yes.
JEBREAL: Annexation.
ROGIN: That's what they're talking about. It's not exactly annexation, just erasing the name of the West Bank.
PHILLIP: Let me go ahead and play this because this is the man that Trump has chosen as the ambassador to Israel, and everything that we're talking about here was telegraphed by him, and this is in 2008 and in 2017. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FMR. GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE (R-AR): Basically, I mean, there really is no such thing as, and I have to be careful in saying this, because people just really get upset, there's really no such thing as a Palestinian. There's not.
My feeling personally, and I'm speaking only as a person, I think Israel would only be acting on the property it already owns. I think Israel has title deed to Judea and Samaria. There are certain words I refuse to use. There is no such thing as a West Bank. It's Judea and Samaria. There's no such thing as a settlement. They're communities, they're neighborhoods, they're cities. There's no such thing as an occupation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JEBREAL: This is illegal. This is illegal. This is -- what he just said that is a violation of every international law. It's a violation of every convention that the United States, by the way, was part of. It's a violation of a free, but also every U.N. resolution, it's a violation of international court of justice and International Criminal Court resolutions. What they are saying tonight to the world and the international community, international law is dead.
PHILLIP: And, Scott, is international law dead? I think Rula is right in suggesting that that's basically what Trump is suggesting, forcibly removing Palestinians from their land is against international law.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think we're being a little dramatic and we're on our jump to conclusions mat here a little bit. He muses occasionally. ROGIN: Take him at his word.
JENNIGS: He muses occasionally.
PHILLIP: Look, Scott, just to be clear.
JENNINGS: And it's provocative.
PHILLIP: You're suggesting that we are making this up.
JENNINGS: No, I'm not suggesting anything. No. Now, you're putting words in my mouth. I'm saying you and I both know he muses occasionally, and he's aspirational, and he says provocative things occasionally.
[22:10:04]
PHILLIP: Scott, I don't, look, I really don't want to interrupt you, but I just -- for my own -- you know, I think I have to come to my own defense here in saying, Donald Trump, with his own words, said this is what he wants to do. He wasn't musing, he was looking down at a piece of paper. I've been in that, in a room with him, just like that, with foreign leaders, looking down at a piece of paper. He is reading a statement that was prepared for him. Those are not musings.
BRAD POLUMBO, CO-FOUNDER, BASEDPOLITICS: Well, also, Scott, what happened to America first? This is the guy who was supposed to take us out of the endless wars, said he's against nation building, derailed against I.M.
JENNINGS: I know. You're playing the role of Catherine tonight, correct?
PHILLIP: I do want Scott's --
POLUMBO: Are you for the ethnic cleansing or against it?
JENNINGS: Look, I don't know that I agree with the terminology you're using. Here's what I think. It's provocative. It's an interesting conversation point. Donald Trump, he's the only person in the world speaking positively about this particular geography right now, and I will just say that in the first term, he did something rather audacious with the Abraham Accords, highly successful. He's always thought positively and aspirationally about the Middle East. And I would just ask all of you all who were enraged about this, how's it going right now? How's the current management doing? Not really all that well, terrible, terrible.
JEBREAL: That's because of America's weapons and America's inability to enforce --
JENNINGS: You're blaming us for the management problems in Gaza?
POLUMBO: It wasn't doing a great job before.
JEBREAL: Okay. Let's be honest, we have a 58-year-old occupation. That is illegal. That decimated people's hopes and lives and I am the only Palestinian here and I must say that, honestly, the fact that we are not able to put in perspective, that's the history of that region. Before October 7th, hundreds of people were killed. After October 7th, still thousands and thousands of people are getting killed.
JENNINGS: And what happened on that day?
JEBREAL: For 58 years --
JENNINGS: What happened on that day?
JEBREAL: You know what happened on that day, actually Secret Service of Israel had been predicted what happened on that day. What happened on that day is we had basically, you know, a border that was, you know, breached because we have a government in Israel, and as I am an Israeli-Palestinian, we had a government in Israel that favored annexation and Bagram's in the West Bank.
JENNINGS: Let me just ask you what happened that day.
JEBREAL: I want to tell you something. We had a government, we had the prime minister who said Hamas is an asset. We need to finance Hamas. He's the one that sent to Doha, the head of the Secret Service, three weeks before October 7th, to ask the Qataris to finance Hamas.
JENNINGS: But you don't want to say what happened that day.
JEBREAL: It's an atrocity that happened that day. But that atrocity is by --
JENNINGS: Yes. And from where did it (INAUDIBLE)?
JEBREAL: That atrocity is -- it doesn't justify the atrocities and the war crimes and the genocidal campaign that happened after.
JENNINGS: I totally reject everything you just said about genocide, war crimes. Israel has every right to defend itself.
JEBREAL: Well, not by committing war crimes.
PHILLIP: I don't want us to get off course because I think that it is easy to redirect this conversation about October 7th when what we're talking about right now is what happens today and tomorrow and what comes next. And I want to ask you just a follow up to what you said, hold on, a follow up to what you said. Trump is talking positively about the region. But in his view of Gaza, the Palestinians do not exist. How is that something that is positive for Palestinians, 2 million people, that live there right now?
JENNINGS: Yes. I mean, he didn't give a lot of details about how he envisions the future for that population and I certainly am not in a position to flesh it out either, because I don't know what he means by that. Here's what I do know. Current management failing, a president of the United States who's speaking positively about what could be happening in that region, and you all talk about the Middle East being on fire, and nobody seems to want to acknowledge on whose watch it was set ablaze.
And so, look, I think sometimes he calls things out, and it's to start a conversation, and you see where it goes.
PHILLIP: You're talking displacing millions of people from their homes.
ROGIN: Sending U.S. troops --
SELLERS: I think it's also necessary, and I said this earlier, but the fact that we still -- the fact that we still have hostages that aren't brought back yet, the fact that seems to be somewhat of an overlooked portion of this entire --
JENNINGS: We have a deal.
SELLERS: And not only that, I'm interested to see, and there are people smarter than me about this, but what effect does this have on any ceasefire deal? What effect does it --
JEBREAL: There's no ceasefire.
PHILLIP: And he suggested that it might actually affect it, and he --
SELLERS: So, that's my point. I mean, if there are people who have, you know, the innocent men, women and children of Palestinian babies and innocent women and children in their heart and minds at the forefront, then they want a ceasefire, we want to ceasefire. If they're individuals who want the hostages brought home, then they want a ceasefire so those hostages can be brought home. Today, makes no sense in actually moving that ball down the road.
POLUMBO: And what about the American families who don't want their loved ones who serve in our service to go fight another war overseas in the Middle East that he has no clear vision for it?
[22:15:04]
He talked about us boots on the ground. That's a slap in the face to MAGA voters who specifically rejected the old neoconservative ideology. He sounds like Liz Cheney.
SELLERS: But not only that. You have a --
JEBREAL: But this is exactly what Russia and China have been saying. It's all about the land. And basically, nobody watched what the Chinese said tonight. They said, we know exactly what they want, the Americans. Gaza, outside the Gaza shores, they discovered oil and gas. So, it's not only --
SELLERS: But this isn't a new concept. I mean, in March --
JEBREAL: One second, it's about colonialism Donald Trump today, he proposed a new vision for America and it's colonialism and he's been proposing this for other areas, Panama and other places. But tonight, he went further, he said, Palestinians, we will send them, you know, left and right, whatever.
And Palestinians, by the way, the millions of Palestinians, they have families in the West Bank. They have families in Jerusalem. I have families in Gaza, and my family lives both in Haifa, in Jaffa, and in the West Bank. We can move them there. Why not allow the women and children to move actually to where they have relatives? Why not allow the orphans -- there's 38, 000 orphans in Gaza. We have orphanage that are empty in Jerusalem, in the West Bank, in Ramallah, in Jilin and elsewhere. But you see that the vision is actually bypassing the Palestinians and ethnically cleansing them.
SELLERS: I reject one portion of your statement, which is to say that there was a new vision of colonialism for the United States of America. I think that's as old as the United States of America. That's not necessarily a new vision.
PHILLIP: Well, I think the point that she's making is right.
SELLERS: No. But I'm also just --
PHILLIP: It's something that Trump doing right now that is about grabbing land. There's no question about it.
SELLERS: No question. But, I mean, this isn't a new --
PHILLIP: He wants to pick --
SELLERS: Buying Greenland versus invading Gaza is two very different things. Ethnic cleansing versus anything else is different. But colonialism is not something that's new to the United States, and that's my only point.
But also can we just point out the fact that like Donald Trump is probably the most honest broker we've had in American politics in recent history, because nothing that he's saying, nothing that he's doing is not something that he didn't tell us he was going to do? Why are people surprised by this? Jared Kushner in March of last year literally said that Gaza would do, what, make great beachfront property.
PHILLIP: All right. Let me play it real quick and we'll -- let me play that by just, you know, he's not making it up.
SELLERS: Thank God, I won one.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JARED KUSHNER, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER TO PRESIDENT TURMP: In Gaza's waterfront property, it could be very valuable to if people would focus on kind of building up, you know, livelihoods, you think about all the money that's gone into this tunnel network and into all the munitions, if that would have gone into education or innovation, what could have been done?
And so I think that it's a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but I think from Israel's perspective, I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: We we're going to have to hit pause. We will be right back with more on this conversation. Rula Jebreal, thank you very much for joining us and bringing that perspective. Everyone else, don't go anywhere, lots more ahead.
Coming up next, more on this explosive development, including whether it threatens the fragile hostile deal -- hostage deal.
Plus, more breaking news tonight, we are getting word that the Trump administration has offered buyouts to all members of the CIA. What this means for American security.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: We're going to jump back into our top conversation tonight, President Trump's plan for an American-led takeover of Gaza.
Joining us at the table is Gretchen Carlson. But, Scott, you were saying something as we went to break in the last second.
JENNINGS: Yes, I thought at the top your remarks were correct. I mean this is the end of the two-state solution fantasy. That's what I heard from Donald Trump tonight was that this is not going to work. Certainly, that's Mike Huckabee's position, our new ambassador over there. And so I think what he is communicating is it won't be the policy of the U.S. government to continue to nurture or nurse along this fantasy of a two-state solution. That is what I'm taking away from it. I thought you were right.
PHILLIP: So, a state for Israel, no state for Palestinians?
ROGIN: Listen, it seems that the two state solution is further away than it has ever been. And that's a tragedy for the people of both states because they both are going to live next to each other forever, and they both want peace and security. But what we've seen is that, regardless of how --
JENNINGS: Do you think they both want peace?
ROGIN: Yes, Palestinian people want peace.
JENNINGS: Do they?
ROGIN: Yes.
JENNINGS: Okay.
ROGIN: Yes.
JENNINGS: I mean, they're kind of running a terrorist state.
GRETCHEN CARLSON, JOURNALIST AND CO-FOUNDER, LIFT OUR VOICES: But one thing nobody's talking about --
ROGIN: The point of the of what I'm trying to say is that no matter what the political structure is, you're never going to get rid of the rights of the Palestinian people to have dignity and agency and some control over their lives and some control over their government, whatever you want to call it, okay? Because that's what all people deserve and that's a universal human right.
JENNINGS: And Israel deserves to have -- to be able to live without having terrorists flying over and kidnapping them and murdering them and raping them. I assume we can agree with that.
ROGIN: Sure, we can agree on both of those things, then we can agree that we, there's no solution for the Middle East that doesn't grant the Palestinians basic human rights.
JENNINGS: Unfortunately, aggressors in this case do not agree.
CARLSON: If you're talking about Hamas, you're not talking about necessarily just the Palestinian people. And one thing that nobody's talked about yet is how Republicans are going to actually feel about this. Lindsey Graham today, who's usually a Trump supporter, said, well, we'll see what our Arab friends think about this.
So, will Republicans finally stand up and say that this is actually something that they're going to oppose, as opposed to all the nominations that they're allowing to go through with not a lot of pomp and circumstance?
PHILLIP: My favorite line that I've seen tonight, Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, says, there are probably a couple of kinks in that slinky, but I'll have to take a look at the statement.
POLUMBO: It's always good to imagine, what would they say if just the party was switched. If Biden had floated this idea, what would Republican senators have said about him acquiring something else?
[22:25:02]
They would have freaked out. And they often do this. Democrats do this too. They will not react to something equivalent because it's their side versus the other side.
I think if you ask anybody, take out how they feel about Trump about this, it's a crazy idea.
PHILLIP: And you are a libertarian.
POLUMBO: I'm an independent. So, I can look at this and I can tell you that most people -- I know so many -- I'm in Michigan, I know so many people who voted for Trump. They voted for him because of the border crisis, because of inflation, because of the economy, not because they want to go on another military adventure, this time invading the Gaza Strip.
CARLSON: But a lot of Arab Americans in Michigan also voted for Trump. POLUMBO: Well, that vote aged poorly. To the lefties who voted against Kamala because of this issue, it aged poorly.
PHILLIP: Can I just read this statement from the co-chair of the Uncommitted Movement? It was put out tonight. I feel sad and angry and scared for our communities. For months, we warned about the dangers of Trump at home and abroad, but our calls largely went unheard. Trump's illegal calls for ethnic cleansing are horrific, but as on so many issues, Democrats had a chance to persuade voters they were better than the alternative, and they blew it.
POLUMBO: They sound ridiculous.
SELLERS: That statement is frustrating. That statement is ill-timed. That statement is petty. I really would call it what I want to call it, but my mom's watching the show. I just -- for me, it's -- if you actually voted one way or withheld your vote, you should own it.
There were two choices in this campaign. It was extremely clear. You got Kamala Harris going forward who recognized that Hamas has no place in governing Palestine, but she also knew -- or Gaza, but she also knew that the Palestinian people had the right to human dignity. She also knew that Israel wanted safety and security, deserved that, had the right to defend itself, and we would have been in a much better situation. There was not a question about ethnic cleansing if Kamala Harris would have been the president of the United States.
ROGIN: I have to totally disagree with you because I spent many, many weeks talking to Muslim community leaders and activists and a lot of my friends in the Muslim community, a lot of them in swing states, they all said the same thing. They said, if we're being ignored by the Democrats, and we're being ignored by the Republicans, then we can't bring ourselves to vote for them.
SELLERS: But they weren't being ignored.
ROGIN: They were. Kamala Harris said many things that were right, but she didn't do anything. And for her to preside over a policy that ended up in their families for getting killed and then asking them to vote for them was something that they couldn't do.
SELLERS: But now the question is --
ROGIN: You can't talk down to the Muslim community and tell them that, oh, you didn't do what's in your best interest. They know what's in their best.
SELLERS: But now we're talking about ethnic cleansing. We're talking about too many people being displaced. So --
ROGIN: They knew what the risks were and they made a decision because their calculation, if you're interested at all, was that they have to punish the Democratic Party so that the next time this happens, because they've been through so many atrocities, that the Democratic Party, the only one that has a chance of respecting them --
SELLERS: Do you understand that that is divorced from political reality?
ROGIN: I'm saying, we can listen to the Muslim community or we can talk at them, and I'm trying to listen.
SELLERS: But, Josh, I've actually been in -- I was actually in that -- I was in that room and Kamala Harris. Come on, listening to Muslim voters. Yes, she did. Did she do everything they wanted to do?
ROGIN: They'd do anything they wanted to do.
SELLERS: That's not true. And that's --
ROGIN: That's what they say that you're going to tell them that they don't know what they're interested in.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Hold on. But, Josh, for real, when you say she did not do anything that they wanted to do, they wanted her to, even though she was a vice president of the United States, withhold weapons from Israel, she couldn't do that. She talked about the Palestinian people and their right to live in peace and security at the convention.
ROGIN: I'm telling you what they're -- yes.
PHILLIP: But to Bakari's point --
ROGIN: And then she refused to have a Palestinian speak at the convention.
PHILLIP: Trump's position right now is that --
ROGIN: They won't put a Palestinian speaker --
(CROSSTALKS)
JENNINGS: Are you saying that if they had pro-Palestinian speakers at the DNC, she would have done better?
ROGIN: I'm saying that that was a calculation they made to --
JENNINGS: Probably the right one.
SELLERS: But, respectfully --
ROGIN: Now, Scott's right.
SELLERS: Maybe it is.
ROGIN: Kamala Harris made the right decision by choosing the Jewish vote over the Muslim vote, but she chose.
SELLERS: That wasn't a choice.
ROGIN: It was a choice.
SELLERS: But you know the --
ROGIN: And I talked to people in her campaign.
(CROSSTALKS)
CARLSON: Okay. But can we look to the future of this? The future of this is that the American voters who voted for Trump also pretty much agreed that we should get out of Ukraine. And now, do you think --
ROGIN: A non sequitur?
CARLSON: It is. Because do you think that those same -- do you think those same people that voted for that are going to now be in favor of American troops going over to Gaza and American lives lost in this?
PHILLIP: It sounds like a forever war to me.
CARLSON: Yes. No way.
POLUMBO: It sounds like the definition of nation building.
JENNINGS: I thought we had a ceasefire. Do we not have a ceasefire?
CARLSON: That is up for debate now, too.
ROGIN: We've got millions of Muslim-Americans who are not going anywhere, and we can either try to understand them and listen to them, or we can tell them that they don't know what's in there.
SELLERS: Actually, nobody -- but, first of all, nobody -- first of all, nobody's doing this, but what we are doing is saying elections are choices. And what we are saying is that if you are going to sit here and tell me today that the choice between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris was the same --
[22:30:07]
ROGIN: Nobody said that.
SELLERS: You are saying that.
ROGIN: No, you're not listening to me.
SELLERS: No.
ROGIN: What I'm saying is that Muslim Americans, not Josh Rogan, Muslim Americans said you can't vote for Kamala Harris because she won't say that she'll do anything different than what's happening now.
SELLERS: Let me divorce you -- let me divorce you from this. Let me divorce you personally from this. If you are articulating to me at this table that there is someone right now who withheld their vote or Donald Trump or voted for Donald Trump because they felt Kamala Harris and Donald Trump were the same when it came to it. That is what you're just saying. ROGIN: No, you're not listening. What I'm saying is that they
understood that Trump could be worse, but they couldn't bring themselves to vote for Donald Harris.
SELLERS: Do you understand?
ROGIN: They made a calculation that this was in their longer-term interest to not reward the Democratic Party for a policy that was both --
SELLERS: And so --and so --
PHILLIP: All right. Josh and Bakari, Josh and Bakari, we're going to go on a break. We could talk about this -- we could talk about this for a whole other hour. Josh and Bakari, thank you very much. Stick around. We could talk about this for another hour, it's very important.
But we have more breaking news tonight. The CIA has offered buyouts to its entire workforce. Big questions tonight about what that means about national security and America's role in the world. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:35:40]
PHILLIP: Is Donald Trump about to put all of America's spies out of work? A CIA spokesperson and sources familiar telling CNN tonight that the agency's entire workforce received buyout offers today. How does this work?
GRETCHEN CARLSON, JOURNALIST AND CO-FOUNDER, LIFT OUR VOICES: This is exactly what Project 2025 said.
POLUMBO: Oh no, not the Project 2025 talking point.
CARLSON: As much as we talked about on all these shows for months that Donald Trump said he knew nothing about Project 2025 and he didn't adhere to it, even though everyone that drew it up worked for him, this is exactly -- I went back and looked at Project 2025 tonight, eliminate up to one million federal jobs, cut federal workers daily in benefits, make it easier to discriminate against people of color, women, dismantle and privatize federal- agencies.
POLUMBO: No, they didn't do that.
CARLSON: They most certainly have done that.
POLUMBO: They have not done that.
CARLSON: They've made it easier to discriminate.
POLUMBO: He has not changed federal civil rights laws. He revoked an old executive order and then kept to place other protections.
CARLSON: It's coming. ROGIN: He just violated all of the rights and laws that protect
federal employees by putting everyone in the USAID workforce on leave tonight just before the show, recalling thousands of people who are in hardship positions in foreign countries who have people's lives in their hands and telling them they have to uproot their families and come back to the United States and abandon those people.
Which means a lot of people are going to die, innocent people needlessly for the stupidity of a process that cuts first and asks questions later. And this is the kind of crude and ignorant and sort of cruel policy that we see across the federal government.
I have friends in every department who don't know if they can pay their mortgages, don't know if their kids are going to be able to stay in school because they might have to move. And these are people who often are, in almost all cases, are patriotic Americans who signed up to serve their country.
POLUMBO: None of that's going to happen because of the CIA buyout. They can offer it eight months if they want it. About one percent of federal employees have taken the other buyouts.
ROGIN: You think we don't need the CIA?
POLUMBO: That's not what anyone said. A buyout is an option that they can take if they want and not an eight month pay leave.
SELLERS: How does defunding the CIA actually make us stronger? My question is like if you're going to go out and defund law enforcement and you gave us hell Democrats with that awful talking point that they ran around the country with four years ago. But if you're going to defund law enforcement, all right, how does this actually make us stronger around the world?
POLUMBO: This doesn't reduce the CIA's budget. They're offering people to take an out.
SELLERS: We're not talking about --
POLUMBO: And I think they can afford a one percent shave off the headcount at the CIA.
SELLERS: We're not talking --
PHILLIP: Just to people understand what you're talking about, one percent is what -- what we are being told at the moment has been the take-up rate.
POLUMBO: Yeah, how many CIA --
PHILLIP: It's not to say -- it's not to say that that is what they want. They have said -- DOGE and those folks, they said they wanted to be 10 to 15 percent of --
POLUMBO: And we could absolutely do that. PHILLIP: The question is if you just go ahead and say 10 to 15 percent of the workforce at the FBI, at the CIA go away. And you don't have a plan to replace them with different kinds of people, but you don't have a plan to do that. How does that make us safer?
JENNINGS: A. I don't think they want to replace them. I think they want to reduce the size of the government.
PHILLIP: So how does that make us safer?
JENNINGS: B. Well, I mean, I don't know that it makes us unsafe to have a slightly smaller government. B, on this buyout to cross the board. I think it's a -
PHILLIP: And I want to be clear. We're talking here about the CIA and the FBI. I'm not talking about the government.
JENNINGS: Yes, well, they are in the government.
PHILLIP: In broad terms, I'm talking about specific agencies that are tasked with national security and law enforcement responsibilities.
JENNINGS: I think, I think in those agencies and in every agency, for any Republican president, it is a fair assessment that most of the federal bureaucracy, a good chunk of it is openly hostile to your world view and your agenda.
POLUMBO: That is true. That is true.
UNKNOWN: That is absolutely true.
JENNINGS: But let me finish.
POLUMBO: Finish your point of view.
JENNINGS: And so you could walk in and say, everybody who doesn't support me leave, or you could walk in and say, I'm going to give you the option. If you don't feel like you can support my agenda, here's a pretty generous way out for the moment because you don't have the work.
Or you can say, to me, I think he's treating people. Let me finish. I think he's treating people who simply, and it's their right to have a political opinion, he's treating people who may not support his agenda in a fair and humane way if they don't feel like they can expect long- term.
POLUMBO: No, he's treated it fair.
[22:40:00]
SELLERS: May I please point out Scott and Brad's hypocrisy, just for one moment? Because here they're utilizing the talking point, saying that these agencies are bloated, that we can afford to trim it down, that we need to eliminate some of the fat, that we need to reallocate these dollars. Well, then, let's go back to the point that I made earlier about
defunding the police. When individuals were in these communities saying that police budgets were too much, that we need to reallocate funds, that we need to trim, that we need to cut back, that we need to put these funds in schools and other community programs and not allocate it to these bloated police forces.
These individuals who are sitting here, Brad and Scott, went out and said that that's anti-American, that's anti-police. This is something you should not do. But when we're talking about the FBI and CIA feeding into these concerns, those are actually different things.
POLUMBO: Local law enforcement and spooks are very different things. First of all, I'm not going to- We're talking about the CIA first in formulas.
SELLERS: I'm going to talk about the CIA and I'm going to talk about the FBI and I'm not going to diminish their role as law enforcement officers in keeping us safe. And all I'm saying is that out of one breath, if you're going to sit here and lambast people, because what I believe is that, I thought the defund the police movement was not in line with where the American public is. I also think saying that we're going to cut 10 to 15 percent of our CIA and FBI agents is not where the American public is.
POLUMBO: God forbid, you go back to 2012 headcounts or 2016 headcounts. The government -- the federal government has only ever moved in one direction in recent decades. And it's up and up and up. More employees, more of our taxpayer money being spent.
PHILLIP: What happened to doing this in a way that actually identifies the things that you want to cut?
UNKNOWN: That is valid. This is chaos. I agree. Here we go.
UNKNOWN: It's not an orderly way to do this. The beast needs to be tamed.
PHILLIP: Wait a second, wait a second. One at a time, please.
UNKNOWN: We were agreeing.
PHILLIP: Let me just finish my thought here, okay? Whatever happened to saying, maybe this is what you're saying. There are certain functions, maybe we should be doing less of. Certain departments -- maybe we should have a lot less of. Why not do that instead of just saying, let's just take a flag hammer to the whole thing?
POLUMBO: They've made it so hard with such intense projections for civil servants.
CARLSON: Who's they? Trump's been able to do whatever he wanted.
PHILLIP: Let me let you in. Here's what I think. I think it's just laziness. I think it's harder to do it the other way. And this way gets better headlines, but it's lazy, and it does not require any thought, it does not require governance, it does not require any leadership. And hey, it's easy, and you get the headlines you're looking for.
ROGIN: And it's harder to combat because it's so crazy and so fast and so illegal. But there's one point that Scott made that I really have to take issue with, that we're treating these federal workers humanely.
Because, you know, if you talk to any of them -- and I've talked to hundreds of them over the last few weeks -- hundreds. And I know hundreds of them. And I've known thousands of them over the course of my time living in D.C.
And what you fail to understand is that everyone who has a job in the federal government has an opinion. Everyone has a view. What we grant them is the respect of knowing that they can do their jobs and put their political opinions aside. Does it happen in every single case?
SELLERS: Some of them don't.
ROGINSKY: And so, but the vast majority pride themselves in serving America. And when you go in and you say you're either with Trump or get out, you're the one politicizing the federal government, not the people inside the federal government.
JENNINGS: These are not forced.
ROGIN: And what happens, Scott, when the Democrats get sober and goes in? Every agency says, okay, all the Republicans out.
JENNINGS: No Democrats. There aren't very many in the first place. No Democrats. You got your last word. A, no Democrats are going to shrink the government. B, they're not forcing anyone out. These are voluntary buyouts.
ROGIN: They just --no. In the CIA, it's voluntary. Every USAID employee in the country and the world. Administrative leave.
JENNINGS: Yes, they are reorienting the soft power bureaucracy. But that's different than the buyout program.
ROGIN: It's worse.
JENNINGS: They're not making anyone take a buyout. They're saying if you want to leave, go ahead.
ROGIN: Or you might get fired.
JENNINGS: And some will do it.
CARLSON: They're not saying Plan B. Plan B is that they're probably going to be let go after.
JENNINGS: Probably.
ROGIN: They're terrorizing Americans who are willing to get an offer. POLUMBO: Oh my gosh. You want the soft, the tiny violin out for the
people being offered eight months of paid vacation?
ROGIN: You may not care about CIA agents and FBI agents.
POLUMBO: Tell that to Americans who can't afford groceries. Eight months of paid vacation.
ROGIN: What does that -- it's got nothing to do with it.
POLUMBO: I'm terrified.
UNKNOWN: For me --
ROGIN: Because these people who buy groceries, too. They are Americans who buy groceries.
POLUMBO: And they're very well paid.
ROGIN: And they're losing their jobs.
SELLERS: I just want to circle back really quickly.
PHILLIP: One at a time.
UNKNOWN: Disrespect of the federal work force is pretty shameful.
SELLERS: I might get out of that portion because, you know, we can, I agree with Josh. But at the end of the day, no one around this table can answer that one simple question that we started with. Like, how does this policy initiative make us safer? How does --
JENNINGS: How does it make us unsafe?
ROGIN: Yeah, the board is on firing law enforcement and CIA.
JENNINGS: CIA is not law enforcement. They do not control the city and pick up the drug dealers outside your kids' school. They do not.
PHILLIP: In answer to your comment, Scott. We got to go, but in answer to your comment, Scott, one of the things that the CIA spokesperson said was that they actually want to reorient the CIA toward things that the CIA already does, which is look into places like Mexico and try to find intelligence about cartels and about drug dealers and all of those things. They already do that. They already do that. And so, when it comes to law enforcement --
[22:45:00]
JENNINGS: It sounds like we need to work a little harder.
PHILLIP: No, no, Scott, when it comes to, you just adamantly said they're not involved in law enforcement.
JENNINGS: Not domestically.
PHILLIP: But they are involved in the national security of the country, wouldn't you agree?
JENNINGS: Yes and I don't know that reducing a slight amount of headcount makes us less safe. And if the people who are working there don't feel like they can execute on the agenda of this administration, I question whether they would be working hard on it.
PHILLIP: So an ideological litmus test for everyone in the United States government. Stand by for us. Coming up next, as Elon Musk continues to steamroll over the government, Democrats are trying to figure out how exactly to fight him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. LAMONICA MCIVER (D- NEW JERSEY): Shut down the city.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[22:50:05]
PHILLIP: Tonight, Democrats versus Elon Musk. The tech titan may be a shadow president going full bane, the Batman villain is what we're talking about here, crediting himself for returning power to the people while at the same time dismissing any criticism of anything that he is doing, calling all of his opponents cronies of the radical left shadow government. Democrats agree that Musk is a problem, but listen to them today, and they have a pinata in search of a stick.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. AYANNA PRESSLEY, (D-MASSACHUSETTS): To our Republican colleagues. If you do not see the light, we will bring the fire. Resist.
REP. JASMINE CROCKETT (D-TEXAS): We are going to be in your face. We are going to be on your asses.
SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CONNECTICUT): We have days to stop the destruction of our democracy. We have work to do.
SEN. RON WYDEN (D-OREGON): Tell Elon Musk to take his hands off your money.
MURPHY: We don't pledge allegiance to the creepy 22 year olds working for Elon Musk. We pledge allegiance to the United States of America.
MCIVER: And God damn it, shut down the city. We are at war.
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D) MINORITY LEADER: We will win. We will win. We will win. We won't rest. We won't rest.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Gretch, Gretch.
JENNINGS: Yes. I'm so sorry. Can we play it again?
CARLSON: The Democrats need a real leader, okay? They need a real leader, which currently does not exist in the Democratic Party. And they have been caught completely flat-footed with the entire Trump presidency for the last two weeks. And Elon Musk.
I said on CNN months ago that Elon Musk would be the most influential adviser to President Trump and that is proving to be true, whether you like it or not. But Democrats should have had a plan for this. They knew it was coming. We say this every single night.
PHILLIP: Project 2025 is what you just talked about.
CARLSON: We knew it. Trump has said all of these things were going to happen. We saw him align with Elon Musk, which may go down as the smartest thing that any presidential candidate has ever done. From the young vote, to tech, to a million other things. So Democrats needed to have a plan, and it may be too late.
PHILLIP: Yeah, Bakari, are you fired up after this?
SELLERS: I'm fired up and ready to go. Can't you see it in my face? I, for me, I'm disappointed in the lack of plan. I am disappointed in the flat-footedness. I don't, but, you know, Josh and I just had this kind of robust conversation about -- about how we view this issue, about Israel and Gaza and relitigating November.
But I believe going forward, Democrats have to present at least a unified front with all wings of the party, all factions of the party, and actually have some energy that focuses on these bread and butter issues. I've told -- I've said it till I'm blue in the face.
Elon Musk having access to your social security number is an issue. The freeze on aid is an issue. That issue cuts across. USAID, do you know that they purchase billions of dollars of goods from American farmers? I don't want to hear Chuck Schumer saying, we won't lose and we won't rest.
I'd rather have a small business owner up there talking about the impact on them. I'd rather have somebody who was displaced, who's a black woman, who's worked hard to have her business out there chanting and talking about --
PHILLIP: But they need to pick their targets because there is a risk here that they end up going to bat over things that Americans are like, what does this have to do with me?
ROGIN: We know that the Trump plan is to flood the zone. What do they call it? You know, some sort of like strategy to throw so many things out to us that the press can only cover so much, the Democrats can only cover so much. And then that really points the flies under the radar. I think that's what's happening, spent all our time talking about Greenland, next thing we know USAID is gone and I was like, what just happened?
POLUMBO: But do you think the screaming, the Nazi rhetoric one of the Democratic congressmen literally called -- I think it was Ayanna Pressley but it was a democratic congresswoman literally called Elon Musk a Nazi. Do we really think that kind of alarmism is helpful? ROGIN: I totally agree with --
POLUMBO: Here's something Democrats would learn that just screaming hyperbole about Trump. America's rolling their eyes. They rolled their eyes in 2016. They rolled their eyes in 2024. It's all a bit much. They lose credibility.
PHILLIP: He's making a good point that if you're at 15 every single day, okay, people are going to tune out. No question about it.
SELLERS: But the fact is, like, look, I mean, the imagery is there. This is how we miss our moment. On the day of inauguration, sitting behind Donald Trump was Elon Musk, was the CEO of TikTok, where these billionaires who now have offices in the White House who are now going and affecting your -- then figuring out how you file your documents, your social security, all of these things, they don't speak for us.
JENNINGS: I think the highlight reel that you just played spliced with the highlight reel of all the people trying to run the Democratic National Committee at their organizational meeting ought to be put together and we ought to take money from the Republican National Committee and play it on a loop.
[22:55:00]
Ladies and gentlemen, the American left is so far off the rails are going to have to get Google maps to find their way back. They're way gone right now and it's glorious.
PHILLIP: Thank you very much. We'll be back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:59:52]
PHILLIP: When tens of millions of fans tune into the Super Bowl, they will not see this, the end racism slogan and the back of the end zone.
[23:00:00]
Instead, one end zone will say, choose love, and the other says, it takes all of us. The League explains that the change is about capturing the moment of time in the country and nodding to the turbulent past few weeks of fires, plane crashes, and tragedy. They don't mention, though, the VIP who is going to be attending the big game and that is Donald Trump.
Trump has made erasing every trace of DEI initiatives a focal point of his first few weeks in office. But that is something that the NFL for its part says it will not do. Thank you very much for watching "NewsNight". "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
