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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Smoke And Mirrors, Musk's DOGE Suffers Setbacks, Chaos; House Narrowly Advances Trump's Agenda After Drama; Musk To Attend Trump's First Cabinet Meeting Tomorrow; White House Announces Unprecedented Changes In How President Trump Is Covered; "NewsNight" Tackles Trump's Handling of Ukraine-Russia War. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired February 25, 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]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST (voice over): Tonight, Alexander was first. Now, it's Elon and his DOGE having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
Plus, the president's wish list faces a big test.
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): Let's just pray this through for us because it is very high stakes.
PHILLIP: That even a MAGA miracle may not bless.
Also, why the madman theory may be paying off in a lost Art of the Deal.
And Donald Trump's affinity for walls now extends to the free press.
KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: It's beyond time that the White House press operation reflects the media habits of the American people.
PHILLIP: The precedent breaking move being compared to Kremlin compliance.
Live at the table, Scott Jennings, Solomon Jones, Xochitl Hinojosa, Arthur Aidala, and Geoff Duncan.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening, I'm Abby Phillip in New York.
Let's get right to what America is talking about. Now if you thought Drake was having a bad month, check in on the world's richest man tonight. Here is what happened today alone. Nearly two dozen DOGE workers quitting in protest, refusing to dismantle public services, and warning that Elon Musk's team is made up of political hacks who have no idea what they're doing. Secondly, DOGE quietly deleted several of the spending cuts that it had just championed last week, falsely claiming that they led to tens of billions of dollars in cuts. Third, the confusion only gets worse. In Elon Musk's quest to get government workers to email five accomplishments that they did last week, agencies are now telling them it's okay to just ignore that email, agencies, of course, run by Trump's cabinet picks. And yet, here is what the president said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: It's somewhat voluntary, but it's also if you don't answer, I guess you get fired.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Voluntary, but you'll be fired. Which one is it?
Fourth, as we learned, Musk lost $52 billion in net worth so far this year. His company actually just scored another government contract, despite the obvious conflicts of interest there.
Now, this directly contradicts what was promised just two weeks ago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Will he secure any new government contracts while he is working on DOGE --
TRUMP: No, not if there's a conflict. If there's no conflict, I guess, what difference does it make? But we won't let him do anything having to do with the conflict.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: And fifth, in the span of just 90 minutes this afternoon, Trump lost three times in court. The case is all linked back to his efforts to freeze government spending and grants. And sixth, many Republicans are continuing to villainize government workers, the same ones that Musk wants to fire, a large part of whom are veterans.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: How do you resurrect your party? Though, by protecting red tape and the bureaucracy, by trying to gin up sympathy for federal workers who need to get real jobs in the real world, like most of America.
REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): Those are not real jobs producing federal revenue. Federal employees do not deserve their jobs. Federal employees do not deserve their paychecks.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, of course, gets her paycheck from, you guessed it, the government. And, finally, Democrats smell political blood as more Americans are raising concerns about these cuts and the chaos that is coming with it. And liberals are apparently not holding back.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: If you could speak directly to Elon Musk, what would you say?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (BLEEP).
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Well, here we are, Solomon. Apparently, that is the, that's the tone for the week. But on the DOGE stuff, I mean, I think the gist of what we learned this week was that, you know, there's no man behind the curtain here. Like DOGE is claiming that they have made, according to their website, $65 billion in cuts. They've really only substantiated less than $10 billion of that. And a lot of the cuts that they claimed that they had originally, $8 billion in savings from ICE, that was really $8 million, $655 million in cuts from USAID actually was counted three times, and, really, it was $18 million, $232 million in cuts from the Social Security Administration, really it was $560,000.
[22:05:12]
I mean, is this just smoke and mirrors?
SOLOMON JONES, AWARD-WINNING COLUMNIST, PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER: This is gross incompetence. They're like the kid who cheats off your math tests and cheats wrong and still gets a failing grade, like they're terrible at even counting. And I don't understand this because Elon Musk is the most successful businessman in the world. And so, my question is, who's working for you? Who's counting these numbers? Who's coming up with these figures? And who's really in charge? They said that they have a new administrator.
But, really, if Elon Musk is the guy walking around with the chainsaw, then he's the one making the cuts. It's not this woman who nobody's ever seen, nobody knows who she is, and they just put out her name today. So, it just seems just very disorganized and it seems like a big lie.
PHILLIP: Yes. After some questioning in the briefing, the White House then finally put out a name of someone who they said was running DOGE. Unclear if this person knew she was running DOGE. You see her right there.
But, Scott, I mean, you talked about transparency previously, and I guess it's some form of transparency, but it's not complete and it's not accurate.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, they have more work to do. And one of the things I actually think they could do is, over time, collect all their results, all their findings, all the things that they've Uncovered and actually go up to Congress and work with Congress on a hearing where they could maybe make a presentation to the people's representatives. I think that would be good practice and good politics.
PHILLIP: And they might actually have to do that.
JENNINGS: Yes. But --
PHILLIP: They can't just cut things with that.
JENNINGS: I think that would be fine.
I will say the politics of this are quite good for Donald Trump. The Harvard Harris poll came out this week, 72 percent of Americans want an agency dedicated to efficiency. 60 percent say DOGE is helping. 69 percent support cutting $1 trillion from the federal budget and 70 percent believe there is waste, fraud and inefficiency in the government. So, this is an issue that people know is a problem and they, I think, are giving Trump some political leash to go out and solve it through this DOGE effort.
XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: What I'll say on that though, is that you bring up this poll and you talk about, yes, everyone, if you ask an American, they're going to say, yes, I want my government to be more efficient. I think all of us around this table can agree on that. I think that when you have Elon Musk with a chainsaw cutting jobs across the country, these are moms, these are dads, one in three federal workers is a veteran, this means that Donald Trump's administration is firing veterans, people who have served our country.
And when you are -- what the Democrats should be doing is they should ads in all of these battleground states and states that are critical in the midterm elections with a chainsaw showing how many jobs have been cut and these are real people.
JENNINGS: I actually agree. I think the Democrats should run their midterm on being the party of bigger government.
HINOJOSA: No, that's not what I said.
JENNINGS: And Republicans should run on the party of smaller government and I think these ads would be quite effective.
HINOJOSA: There are two things -- there are two. What you forget is that when Trump was president last time around, what happened was that it was complete chaos. And what we had to do as Democrats is run on healthcare, run on how the government was chaos. And what happened? I think you tend to forget, Scott, because you guys lost. In 2018 and in 2020, you lost everything.
JENNINGS: I'm sorry. What happened in '24?
HINOJOSA: And so, what I will say is we are back.
JENNINGS: Because people are mad. HINOJOSA: He is back, yes, you're right, because people are mad. But this time around, Trump only cares about himself, and doesn't care about the midterm elections, and doesn't care about who wins in four years for the presidency.
And so I would --
JENNINGS: I don't agree with that.
HINOJOSA: Oh, yes, I think everything you've seen --
JENNINGS: Everybody wants to be followed by their own friends.
PHILLIP: Look, I also think that there's -- I mean, there's that polling that you cite, but there's also other polling that suggests that -- on when you ask them specifically about what Trump has actually done, not in general terms about whether they like, you know, a trillion dollars in spending cuts, which, of course, they do, they don't agree with a lot of things. They don't agree with the spending freeze. They don't agree with axing entire federal agencies. They don't agree with Elon Musk having this much power. That's also in the numbers.
ARTHUR AIDALA, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: I think a couple of things. People want to see government be a little bit more efficient and cut some of the fat out of it. And there's, you could do it with a chainsaw, you could do it with a scalpel. People could argue which way to get it done. Clearly, President Trump wanted shock and awe in his first month, and he has established that. It's almost like, again, the filthy garage, when you got to clean it out, do you clean it out piecemeal, or do you just pull everything out, put it on the front lawn, and then decide what you want to put back?
And, Abby, I know for firsthand, because they told me this, they want to get those 21 people who was hired, you know, resigned yesterday, they want them out. Those people at the Department of Justice who resigned from the Southern District, the Department of Justice, they want them out. They want a clean house. They want to get new people in there. So, they are accomplishing what they want with their goals.
[22:10:00]
JONES: But it's one thing if you're talking about junk in your garage, and it's another thing if you're talking about people. You're talking about actual people, with actual families, with actual bills.
(CROSSTALKS)
JONES: this is not a business though.
AIDALA: but that's what he brought in to do.
JONES: This is our country. This is a place where we're raising our children. This is place where we have property. This is the place we live. GEOFF DUNCAN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I've got a theory here. What if Donald Trump cares more about running a Ponzi scheme than he does running the country? Because that's what this is shaping up to be. This is about creating a system that's 5 percent shinier every week, shock and awe, so that you forget about the things that he promised last week. It's just like Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme. It's the same thing. Instead of dollars, it's votes, right?
Every time -- and Bernie Madoff and other Ponzi schemes proved us exactly what this is. You got to have a leader that has no moral fiber and you got to have street peddlers to push it. And that's what's happening here. There's nothing that's actually getting done. Donald Trump doesn't care about solving problems. He just cares about continuing --
AIDALA: Well, I don't know. Listen, he put in a czar for pardons. Alice, I think her name is Johnson. That was a promise that he made during the campaign. I'm going to look at pardons, I'm going to look at lawfare. He signed the thing, I know you and I spoke about, it's about IVF for women in executive work. I mean, so he's -- it's not just all smoke and mirrors.
PHILLIP: Let's take the top issues for Americans, okay? It's the economy, it's the border, maybe you could argue it's the federal deficit, even though that actually really didn't poll. But on the economy, as we've established, not a whole lot has been done on that, and consumer confidence numbers just came out showing Americans are actually really worried about this.
But when we look at the budget cuts, okay, like you talked about putting everything out on the garage, well, so far, according to DOGE, the amount that that constitutes everything, it went from $16 billion on February 17th to suddenly $10 billion on February 25th. They're just moving the numbers almost randomly.
DUNCAN: Just like Bernie Madoff.
PHILLIP: I mean, I guess --
JENNINGS: Maybe they're just revising it as they get more information.
PHILLIP: Yes, okay, sure. But the thing is --
JENNINGS: Would you rather them leave incorrect numbers up or put the correct numbers there.
JONES: How do you not know $8 million from $8 billion, Scott? Come on, man.
JENNINGS: I don't make that up. I mean, you seem to be mad that they're making corrections. Pull out the most correct information.
PHILLIP: It's not that we're mad that they're making corrections. It's that where are these numbers even coming from. And also when you're talking about a trillion dollars, are they going to get there? They're not even close. AIDALA: But it's 24 days -- I mean, whatever, 34 days into the administration.
PHILLIP: Yes, but this is the lowest hanging fruit, Arthur. Do you realize that it only gets harder from here to cut money?
JENNINGS: I actually disagree with that. It is very difficult --
PHILLIP: Do you realize it's harder to cut money after you get the easy stuff, the people, the grants, the programs? Then you have to start cutting services and the Defense Department. Then you have to start cutting Medicaid and Medicare and Social Security. That's the hard stuff.
JENNINGS: It's actually quite difficult to shrink government. I know this because no one ever does it. They're trying to do something that nobody ever does, which is reduce the size of the government in terms of expenditure and people.
PHILLIP: (INAUDIBLE) along with Congress.
JENNINGS: So, they're doing what they're trying to do administratively to start. The real cutting could come from Congress, and that process started today. The House Republicans passed their budget bill tonight, which I know we're going to talk about. But I think there's a --
PHILLIP: (INAUDIBLE) was actually a cut or not.
JENNINGS: I mean, this is the blueprint that they need to pass to move forward with their reconciliation plans, but they're trying to do something pretty serious. And that's shrink the size of a government that rarely gets smaller. It's hard to do.
HINOJOSA: I have an idea for them. Why don't they cut the $15 billion that Musk has received in federal funding? I mean, if he cares --
JENNINGS: What would you like to cut, specifically?
HINOJOSA: I would --
JENNINGS: Him rescuing our astronauts?
HINOJOSA: It's not about -- wait, no. He's not rescuing our astronauts.
PHILLIP: Hold on, hold on, hold on. So, Elon's programs are fine, but everybody else's programs --
JENNINGS: No, she said she wants to cut him out of the government. He does a lot of important things. I'm just asking, what do you want to get rid of? We need a space program, I think.
PHILLIP: Wait.
HINOJOSA: We're not talking about a space program. I'm talking about how Elon Musk, the wealthiest person in the world, is in the federal government making decisions about grants and about funding whenever he benefits from those things. He has people in a number of government agencies -- yes, it is true, including the FBI, in order to find ways to gain grants and to make more money. And are you okay with that? Is that something you're okay with?
JENNINGS: A, I think you're full of it. B --
HINOJOSA: I know I'm not full of it. I have sources at the FBI.
JENNINGS: He provides all sorts of services to the government.
PHILLIP: Scott, just a second. We just talked about how he's receiving a grant from the FAA for Starlink right now.
JENNINGS: Okay.
PHILLIP: So, to her point he is receiving a grant right now in agencies that he has his hands in through DOGE. That's actually what Trump said would not happen, but it's happening.
JENNINGS: Are you all saying that the government should not be able to contract with private companies for services?
JONES: No, the government shouldn't be able to contract with people who are actually working in the government.
JENNINGS: He's not making the grant decisions.
PHILLIP: Scott, that's an obvious --
[22:15:00]
JONES: We had to take ethics courses.
PHILLIP: That's an obvious conflict.
JONES: You can't do it. It's a conflict of interest.
JENNINGS: He's not making the grant decisions.
PHILLIP: How do you know that he's not making the grant decisions, Scott?
JENNINGS: I mean, they say he's not.
PHILLIP: He's over at the FAA saying, he's got his hands and everything in the government and his company gets a contract. That's a clear --
JENNINGS: How do know that he is?
PHILLIP: That's also literally --
JENNINGS: You're alleging that personally writing the grants for himself. I don't know if that's true. PHILLIP: We played the sound. Donald Trump was asked by Kaitlan Collins about that exact scenario. He said it wouldn't happen, and it's happening.
JENNINGS: You're alleging that he -- you two are alleging that he is in a government office, personally writing grants to himself. I think that is a major allegation. If you're prepared to make it, go ahead, but I think you're --
PHILLIP: Scott, hold on. Xochitl, just a second. Because, Scott, we're -- first of all, the kind of wild -- if you're making that allegation, it's almost like a threat. I don't think that's warranted in this situation. Ethics laws exist in this country, and they have for a long time. And they apply not just to people like Elon Musk, but just regular old staffers who can't go to a lunch and have someone pay for it for them because of conflict issues.
So, Elon doesn't have to write the check for himself, but his presence in the agency where he himself is receiving a benefit is a clear conflict. It's not an allegation of him writing a check to himself. It's just pointing out --
JENNINGS: You just said -- you just alleged he has a conflict.
PHILLIP: No, no, no.
JENNINGS: It is an allegation.
PHILLIP: It's just pointing out that, generally speaking, in the government, you are not allowed to oversee business where you profit.
JENNINGS: I don't think he's overseeing the FAA. There's a secretary of transportation.
PHILLIP: That's a basic principle of things.
JENNINGS: He doesn't oversee the FAA.
PHILLIP: And if you want to argue. about that, then, look, when you were serving in the government, didn't you have to take ethics trainings and sign ethics agreements that prevented you from doing that very thing?
JENNINGS: Are you alleging he's overseeing the FAA?
PHILLIP: Scott.
HINOJOSA: He never said that.
PHILLIP: Okay, we're going to move on.
JENNINGS: You make an allegation --
PHILLIP: The secretary of transportation literally invited him into the FAA to oversee the thing that his company is now profiting from. Those are all facts that are out there. JENNINGS: Wait a minute, you said he's overseeing the FAA. That's what you said.
JONES: No, she said the person that's overseeing that --
PHILLIP: Coming up next, we have a lot more to cover. Breaking news from Capitol Hill, there is some last-minute drama on the huge steps to advance Trump's agenda.
Plus, the White House is making a surprising move to control who is covering the president. We're going to debate that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHNSON: This is a prayer request. Just pray this through for us. Because it is very high-stakes and everybody knows that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Not 24 hours ago, Speaker Mike Johnson was living on a prayer, and tonight, he's halfway there. After some last-minute drama, the House has passed a major pillar of Trump's agenda, a budget, a blueprint that means deep cuts to taxes and spending. But as DOGE is hunting for ways to reduce the deficit, the cost of this plan would more than likely add to it. And what's concerning to some Republicans is who exactly is going to pay the price.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Can you say unequivocally that further down the line, there won't be any cuts to Medicaid programs?
JOHNSON: Yes. So, look, let me clarify what we're talking about with Medicaid. Medicaid is hugely problematic because it has a lot of fraud, waste and abuse.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: All right. Everybody wants to talk about fraud, waste and abuse, but let's talk about how much all of this is going to cost, because Scott was just saying in the last segment, and I promised we would get back to it that they're trying to cut spending. So, they're claiming that they're going to do $2 trillion in spending cuts, which even Elon says he may not be able to do you know, even with a sledgehammer or the chainsaw that he had. But then there's $4.5 trillion in tax cuts. That's money that they're spending, $4 trillion in a debt limit increase, also more money. How does that math work out?
JENNINGS: Well, the Republicans here are trying to fulfill Donald Trump's campaign promises. One was no taxes on overtime. One was no taxes on tips. That's number one. Number two, they're also protecting Social Security and Medicare. Number three, Medicaid is going to have to be looked at. And I don't agree with the term, Medicaid cuts, but I think the speaker is right, there is waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicaid. There are a whole bunch of people who get it who probably shouldn't get it. The program needs to be looked at hard. It doesn't mean you have to go through and indiscriminately cut. But getting able bodied people back to work and being responsible for themselves instead of on a government welfare program, I think that's something the American people will support.
AIDALA: But if you looked at that list that was just up on the screen, even if we -- the money that we cut, right, that Musk cuts, and then the money -- those tax cuts come out to be an even, a draw, people would be really happy. I'd be very happy. I'm looking at the providing salt relief. That's me. That's New York.
PHILLIP: Yes, New York and New Jersey and Connecticut would be very happy.
AIDALA: Taxes on Social Security.
PHILLIP: But it won't be a draw. It won't be a draw. It will cost more. And, yes, you're right, like Trump made all these promises. It's the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act extension, the SALT relief, which is for, you know, state and local taxes, no taxes on tips, no taxes on overtime, no taxes on Social Security, plus much more. It's just a lot of expenses and there's no pay for it.
DUNCAN: It's smoke and mirrors. It's smoke and mirrors, right? And I want to say this too. I've grown to really like Mike Johnson. I don't agree with his decisions and his absolute rubber stamping of everything Donald Trump does, but this guy is quite the actor operator inside Congress.
[22:25:04]
PHILLIP: Yes, he has really negotiated this.
DUNCAN: He's mild mannered. And to think about what his job looks like every morning when he wakes up, here's Donald Trump's wish list.
But I do think, from a budget standpoint, I mean, there's this oxymoron of cut taxes, increased spending. The debt grows. I mean, it flies in the face of exactly what I think most Americans want when this truly plays out. And you got to imagine these congressmen and women are just growing so tired of going back to their districts. I mean, Rich McCormick, I live in that district, to hear that heartburn, that is real. Those folks are sitting there.
JENNINGS: Real?
DUNCAN: Wait a minute.
JENNINGS: The AstroTurf town hall meeting, is that what you're talking about?
DUNCAN: Oh, you were at the grocery store? JENNINGS: I've read the reporting today about how these left wing groups organize the AstroTurf, but by all means, continue.
DUNCAN: It's because everybody's happy with it, right? Because here's how this plays out. These districts start to wake up to when this thing goes awry, right, when Donald Trump truly isn't the evil genius that he claims to be. And people start losing jobs, the market starts to fall, retirements start to fade away. Troops start getting sent to different parts of the world to defend Donald Trump's mouth, not the country. I mean, this is where the rubber meets the highway.
PHILLIP: I'm old enough to remember when Democrats claimed that the Tea Party protests were AstroTurf at the beginning. So, I would proceed with caution because things that might seem like they're invented. Underneath it is real angst and anger about some of the things that are hitting close to home. Because at the end of the day, what was happening in Rich McCormick's district is that people down in Georgia are affected by what goes on in Washington. They're affected by these Medicaid cuts. And to quote Steve Bannon, those are Trump's people that get affected by Medicaid.
JONES: Yes, absolutely. And I think when you look at this whole budget thing, so we're going to cut $4.5 trillion in taxes, that's your income, and then you're only going to cut $2 million in spending. Well, you got a $2.5 -- $2 trillion in spending, then you got a $2.5 trillion hole in your pocket. Where's the money coming from? So, you cut income by twice as much as you cut the spending by, but it doesn't make sense at all.
And then to say that Medicaid, it needs to be looked at because there's waste, fraud, and abuse, so it's Robin Hood in reverse. It's robbed from the poor to rich.
PHILLIP: And just to -- you know, we're talking about $500 million potentially even if they go into Medicaid, but the ripple effects of that could be very significant if they start to look at what the states -- what they're giving to the states in order to cover people. It could mean that entire swaths of the country stop having as much coverage as they do now.
JENNINGS: Well, it's tricky. I mean, the Medicaid program is tricky and that's why they have to be very careful in how they examine it and certain parts of the country and certain areas are going to be more impacted by it than others. It's totally true. It's got to be done extremely carefully. But no one here can say with any certainty that Medicaid is working just fine. There is clearly waste, fraud, and abuse in the program. There are clearly people on it who shouldn't be on it. And it has to be looked at. The welfare state has to be looked at.
PHILLIP: Scott, you're -- I mean, there's definitely waste, fraud, and abuse virtually everywhere. And certainly in a program like Medicaid, where you're dealing with people, who you know, maybe they qualify for the program at one point and then they continue even though they don't need it. However, I think one of the issues that a lot of members have is the lack of specificity around this stuff and people just throwing out the idea of waste, fraud, and abuse, and then who's it left to, to determine where those cuts actually come from.
HINOJOSA: Well, and if you're a frontliner and those comments from Johnson that where, you know, he talks about the waste, fraud, and abuse, I would just cringe, you know, because you're right, the town halls, people are coming out in town halls all across the country --
JENNINGS: You guys are buying this. It's unbelievable.
HINOJOSA: Do you not read the news? Or do you not see?
JENNINGS: Yes. I read the news where it says left wing groups are paying people to join. Yes, I read the news.
HINOJOSA: It's not left wing groups.
DUNCAN: Come spend the weekend with me, Scott.
JENNINGS: I read the news for you.
DUNCAN: Come spend the weekend.
JENNINGS: Come spend three seconds reading Donald Trump's 52 percent approval rating.
DUNCAN: Did he send you your talking script, Scott?
JENNINGS: I mean, the guy's more popular than he's ever been, you all act like people are --
JONES: Just because it's popular, it doesn't mean it's right.
PHILLIP: It's just cherry-pick the polls that you like and ignore the polls that you don't.
JENNINGS: I'm not. His polling average right now is about 50 percent. He's in great shape.
PHILLIP: There were several other polls showing that he's underwater all the time.
DUNCAN: Donald Trump will --
JENNINGS: His average is at 50 percent.
DUNCAN: (INAUDIBLE) thing this country's had in decades.
JENNINGS: What's the congressional Democrat job approval, by the way, Xochitl?
HINOJOSA: I'm not saying that the --
JENNINGS: 21 percent, 21. HINOJOSA: Congress's approval rating isn't great.
PHILLIP: And Democrats are extremely unpopular. But the question is, are all of these -- what, we were talking about, DOGE cuts, and now we're talking about a budget plan that doesn't balance itself. And maybe it'll make people happy, because, to Arthur's point, at the end of the day, if people get big tax cuts and none of it's paid for and the deficit goes up, maybe they won't care.
AIDALA: And, look, I'm not an economist by any stretch of the imagination, but if my parents are in their 80s, they're not paying taxes on their Social Security, they're going to have more money to spend on their grandchildren than they do right now. And I don't have to put that extra money, that money that I get killed on the salt deductions, and now I can get my kid a new bicycle, which I wasn't before. How does that help the economy? I'm not sure.
[22:30:12]
PHILLIP: All right.
AIDALA: But it's got to do with -
DUNCAN: But with house-pounding interest, your kids are going to have $87 trillion worth of debt. That's how we got here. That's exactly how we got here. Small-minded economics.
AIDALA: Well, they're already -- listen. Every administration is doing that. Every administration is doing that.
PHILLIP: It's funny how we don't talk about that quite as much, even with Republicans in control of Congress. Coming up next, the White House is announcing unprecedented changes in how the president is covered. But should any White House get to curate the way that he is ultimately covered? We'll debate.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:35:02]
PHILLIP: Tonight, meet the press or just the ones that you want to meet? Tonight, the Trump White House is shaking up who gets access to the president.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Moving forward, the White House press pool will be determined by the White House press team. A select group of D.C.-based journalists should no longer have a monopoly over the privilege of press access at the White House.
So, by deciding which outlets make up the limited press pool on a day- to-day basis, the White House will be restoring power back to the American people who President Trump was elected to serve.
(END VIDEO CLIP) PHILLIP: But the President himself has a more direct message.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: Karoline Leavitt, your press secretary, sent an earthquake through that briefing room earlier today announcing that the WHCA would not have any control over placing media in the seats.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We're going to be now calling those shots.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: They're going to be calling the shots on their coverage.
AIDALA: Well, as the lawyer here, you know, the First Amendment, it is the first one, right? They had a choice of how to put it. And, you know, one of it is government, protect against government interference, you know, regarding religion, regarding speech, assembly and press.
So, it's an area that I think we shouldn't be messing with too much.
PHILLIP: Yeah. Are you all comfortable with this?
AIDALA: I mean, it's part of a, I mean, you know, it wouldn't be cool if they, and I hope this is not going to happen. And I'm going to be an optimist and say, it's not just going to be Newsmax, Fox News, One America. I mean, I think they'll spread the wealth around. But you know, it is a third rail that we have to be very cautious of stepping on.
HINOJOSA: But it's not even --we're not even talking about individual outlets. I think we're talking about individual reporters, too. When Trump doesn't like a question, he doesn't like a story in "The New York Times". He doesn't like anything that someone says about him.
He can ban those individuals. That's something a dictator would do. That is something that is scary, frankly, because he's trying to filter. He's trying to filter the news. He's trying to filter the news of the American people, and that is what's concerning.
PHILLIP: This is the ex-posts, a tweet post from Peter Baker, who is a long-time foreign correspondent. He covers the White House for "The New York Times." He said, having served as a Moscow correspondent in the early days of Putin's reign, this reminds me of how the Kremlin took over its own press pool and made sure that only compliant journalists were given access.
JENNINGS: Okay, can we just address this dictator business? I'm going to quote from some statistics put together.
UNKNOWN: Which one, Zelenskyy?
JENNINGS: So, our old friend - our old friend Chris Cillizza who calculated that in the first month of the Trump administration, the president took 1009 questions. Hardly dictatorial behavior. Same stat for Joe Biden, 141.
And I would remind you all that in 2023, the Biden administration revoked the hard passes of 442 journalists and at the time, the White House Correspondents Association took quote, "a non-committal stance". So, if you're worried about transparency --
PHILLIP: Why were there --
JENNINGS: Trump is being far more transparent than any recent administration.
PHILLIP: Why were the press passes revoked?
JENNINGS: I don't know.
PHILLIP: Was it because they didn't go to the White House frequently because --
JENNINGS: They lost their access. They lost their access.
PHILLIP: -- that happens in every -- that happens in every -- let me --
AIDALA: The Biden people never call on James Rosen from Newsmax?
PHILLIP: Yeah.
AIDALA: He's a real legitimate reporter.
PHILLIP: But James Rosen was allowed in the White House.
AIDALA: The press room, yes.
PHILLIP: But let me just, not that I don't, frankly, I don't think this is necessarily about how the White House press corps works so much as it is about what the White House wants to do with restricting access.
But just so people understand, one of the reasons that there is a press pool is because the journalists who are --the news organizations that are in that press pool, in order to get the privilege of being in the White House, they have to commit to coverage. They have to spend money to cover the president at all times. That's part of the deal.
So, when people, they can come to the White House and they can sit in the press briefing room, but there are organizations that devote lots of money to actually being there at every waking moment when the president is working. And that is why the White House press organization organizes itself to decide who covers the president.
But fundamentally, this is really about why, I mean, we know why Trump wants only people he likes or who will ask softball questions to be around him. But the signal that this sends, I think, is very troubling. JONES: It is troubling and I think we have to kind of look at what the
Republican Party has been and what they have done and what they have said over the years. They're always talking about the founding fathers, but they spend a lot of time trampling on what the founding fathers wanted, right?
So, the press is the only profession that's mentioned in the Constitution and yet, you're trampling on the rights of the press. You're trampling on free speech. You're trampling on the people getting the truth.
[22:40:00]
And if the people don't have the truth, then you don't really have freedom. Because the truth is what sets you free.
AIDALA: But I also think that, what you said about Trump just likes to have people around him who agree with him, not really. He loves the sport. He loves giving Kaitlan a hard time. He loves --
JENNINGS: A thousand and nine questions so far.
AIDALA: I think you're right about that. But I also think, I mean, let's just play it. I mean, this is a sampling of some of what's been going on at the White House lately.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN ASHBROOK, CO-HOST, "RUTHLESS PODCAST": In your first briefing, the media went after this administration for supporting illegal immigrants they claimed were not criminals. The question is, do you think they're out of touch with Americans demanding action on our border crisis?
CHRIS PAVLOVSKI, CEO, RUMBLE: Can you describe what the administration will do to protect U.S. interests and values worldwide?
TRUMP: Brian, would you like to ask a question? Go ahead.
BRIAN GLENN, "REAL AMERICA'S VOICE" CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: The Harvard poll that came out had you up nine plus points in all of your agenda that you ran on, you're accomplishing that. If you could comment on the latest Harvard poll, I would appreciate that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Look, every president likes to dilute the questioning with things that are friendly. They go between hard balls, soft balls. But the White House is now saying, we're not going to let the press organize themselves. We are going to be the ones who decide who gets to be in the room.
AIDALA: Look, and it does break decades of precedent, but those news conferences that you just showed, that's not where Trump shines. That's not what gives headlines. That's not what makes the CNN clips at night. PHILLIP: Yeah, it actually might be not in their best interest to
even.
AIDALA: Yeah, I mean, it's -- Trump shines is when he does that sparring. Seventy-eight years old. He's good.
JENNINGS: I would just say he's, since he's been back in office, he is constantly surrounded by the press. He's live narrating every single thing he does from the Oval Office at a rate far higher than the previous administration. I don't think we have a problem with transparency here. This man is answering questions on a daily basis for minutes and hours at a time. It's a lot of access.
PHILLIP: Yeah, but I think that is different. That is different from what we're talking about which is about their desire to pick and choose. how they are covered, meaning the composition of the people who are around the president at certain moments.
DUNCAN: Yeah, I mean, those questions, those thousand and whatever, nine sounds like there's a bunch of them, those are mostly questions that he wanted to get. Those are questions that he wants to answer.
JENNINGS: He's getting them from Kaitlin Collins?
DUNCAN: When he gets a question he doesn't like, he berates somebody. So I think, look, at home, if you're doing math and you're adding up the things, in a matter of weeks, we've had a president that has supported Vladimir Putin, has called Zelenskyy a dictator. He's limiting the press. He's running up against court cases every hour, on the hour. He's pushing the envelope of democracy, right? And if that's what he wants to do, that's great. And America did. He won the election. But it doesn't mean he's the right leader for this country.
PHILLIP: All right.
JONES: And it doesn't mean he doesn't need to be covered.
PHILLIP: All right, coming up next, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy is suddenly heading to Washington as we hear that there is a new deal with the United States. So, is Trump's madman theory working?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:47:19]
PHILLIP: Has Trump's pressure campaign against Ukraine succeeded after weeks of Trump attacking both the nation and its leader? Word tonight of a mineral deal between the United States of Ukraine. Now, we don't know what the final terms of this deal are, but President Zelenskyy is expected to travel to Washington as soon as this week, and President Trump had this to say about the impending visit earlier today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I hear that he's coming on Friday. Certainly, it's okay with me if he'd like to. And he would like to sign it together with me. And I understand that's a big deal. Very big deal. It's a very big deal. It could be a trillion-dollar deal. It could be whatever. But it's rare earths and other things.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, I mean, look, Trump has been putting, you know, the boot on the neck of Ukraine and Zelenskyy for weeks now. He's been calling Zelenskyy a dictator. He's been suggesting that he might give away, essentially, Ukraine to Russia if they don't act right. But at the end of the day, he might have just gotten what he wanted, at least in terms of the kind of material benefits here, which is the mineral wealth that Ukraine has.
DUNCAN: I really hope this works out in Ukraine. I hope we get this right. I think this is probably the most serious situation that's on the president's plate, is getting this right. All the ramifications, unintended consequences.
I think it's important to understand, too, unintended consequences as a businessman end up in lawsuits and loss of earnings and drop in stock prices. Unintended consequences as the President of the United States ends up with people's lives and with economies. I hope he gets this right.
I hope that there is a deal in place and I hope President Trump takes back all of this -- this coddling of Vladimir Putin and actually supports with every fiber in this country's body supporting him and their efforts to move forward because he is not a dictator. He is doing the right thing and Vladimir Putin is on the wrong side of history now and tomorrow.
JENNINGS: The administration's stated position is that this should be -- this war should come to an end with a sovereign and prosperous Ukraine. That's the words they've used repeatedly.
Now, what we didn't play was Trump got asked directly, what's Ukraine get out of it? Three hundred fifty billion military equipment and the right to fight on and he pointed out that it was, Trump in the first term that gave him the javelins that they've been using to destroy Russian tanks.
Getting this mineral rights deal and getting Zelenskyy in the White House and getting him engaged with Trump, this is a good thing. This is how this is going to end peacefully. It's how the killing is going to stop and it's how we're going to bring stability to Europe. This has to end. This is moving the ball forward.
AIDALA: It's communication and Trump campaigned on it for over a year, "I'd end this war in the first day in office", okay, that hasn't happened.
[22:50:01]
But the communication is key. Face-to-face is the way to go. I think we all agree that them sitting in the same room, and look, Trump, it's all about the art of the deal. He wrote the book 40 years ago almost, maybe, if not 40 years ago, he's going to get something. He's going to save Zelenskyy. He's going to try to save him, give him the sovereign, whatever, but, Trump's going to get something out of it. He's going to get the mineral deal for America.
PHILLIP: Yeah, this is just part of the --
DUNCAN: Vladimir Putin might get something out of it, too.
HINOJOSA: Yeah, and I think that's the problem. And that's the problem.
PHILLIP: This is part of the picture here. We don't know how the story is going to end, right? And it might be a happy ending. Trump gets his mineral deal. Ukraine gets an end to the war, and maybe most of its sovereignty. I think most people agree that probably, some of the land is not going to go back.
But the question is how much? And that's really going to be important. What happens after this deal is signed? Does he back off? To your point, some of this praise of Putin, some of this attacking of Ukraine?
HINOJOSA: And I unfortunately don't think that he will back off of the praising of Putin. And I think that if Putin sees this as a win in any way, then it emboldens other dictators. And it honestly makes us less safe. And so again, I think we need to see what is in this, but his rhetoric over the last few weeks when it comes to Putin is frightening.
JONES: What it feels like to me is a carving up of Ukraine. Like the United States gets the minerals. Putin gets the land. Ukraine, you get to survive and keep your mouth shut. That's what it feels like to me. And if they can do that to Ukraine, my question is what happens with the other countries on their borders? What happens with Poland and these other countries?
PHILLIP: And you know, Trump -- Trump has said that he wants to change the paradigm of U.S. foreign relations. And that would be a change of the paradigm in recent history where basically we say, we get a little, they get a little, you know, no more, we're the good guys. We just get ours, essentially.
DUNCAN: The fact that we can't answer, or at least I can't answer, maybe Scott can. Maybe somebody else here. I can't answer what the United States would do if Russia flew a squadron of fighters and bombers right over Ukraine and into Poland, and then did a U-turn and came back.
I don't know what the United States' response to that would be. I know what it would have been previous to Trump coming in, or previous to this love affair with Vladimir Putin, but I couldn't tell you what it is now.
That not only scares me, but it scares NATO, it scares the rest of the European countries. It should never be in that situation. It should be understood beyond a shadow of a doubt where America stands. PHILLIP: All right, guys, coming up next, our panel is going to give
us their night caps. Weak parenting edition. What childhood custom has changed for the worse? There are so many.
(COMEMRCIAL BREAK)
[22:57:11]
PHILLIP: We're back and it's time for the "NewsNight" cap, "Kids These Days" edition. No, we're not old, but actually parents these days, the kids aren't making these decisions. Kylie Kelsey is the latest parent to speak out against this new viral trend for kids' birthday parties that I did not know existed.
So here is what happens. You'll get an invitation asking to bring a gift to the birthday boy, Jimmy, and the gifts for his siblings, Billy and Emma, so that they don't feel left out. Can you believe it? So, now you each have 30 seconds to tell us what childhood custom that's changed for the worst. Arthur.
AIDALA: The whole video game thing inside the house. You know, I still live on the block I grew up in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, where we played su-a-du-su-a baseball, su-a-du-su-a football, su-a-du-su-a hockey. But that was the gathering place. That's where we all socialized. That's how we learned to interact and handle our own problems.
And because we were all outside, we were all safe because we were all there together and that is gone. Like you know, you could drive all the streets in Bayridge, Brooklyn. There are no kids playing in the streets anymore.
PHILLIP: No kids outside. Yeah.
AIDALA: It's really sad.
PHILLIP: It is. I totally agree with that. I mean, I used to be outside basically, all day and all night in the summertime and only come home when the streetlights went out --went on actually.
HINOJOSA: Mine is a little similar here where we use the iPad as the babysitter and I know parents aren't going to love this because we all rely on the iPad in order for -- or their tablet-- in order for kids to get, you know, get our little piece of quiet.
But the reality is that once you're on the iPad, you get on YouTube. You start watching videos. You start watching kids playing video games. You start, you know, all of these crazy things and when kids really should be outdoors playing with their friends.
PHILLIP: All right, Geoff.
DUNCAN: This is going to sound a little sacrilegious because I played six seasons of professional baseball and I've coached all three of my kids in travel baseball. I wish we got rid of travel baseball.
AIDALA: And hockey. And hockey. DUNCAN: I just wish we went back to playing in, you know, rec ball and you pick the best couple of kids on each team and you put a couple hundred bucks in your buy uniforms.
PHILLIP: Bring back amateurs.
DUNCAN: You travel around the town and maybe you play in a tournament. But instead, you spend tens of thousands of dollars. You chew up 30 weeks of your year. You travel around. Coach Eddie, Coach Adam, I apologize, I'm currently coaching a 14-year-old travel team right now for Ryder. But I wish we didn't have travel baseball.
PHILLIP: Dang. Solomon.
JONES: All right, well, I want kids to lie more like we used to.
AIDALA: There we go.
SOLOMON: Stop telling me the truth when I ask you how my outfit looks. Stop telling me the truth about my scratched up old car. Like, you know, just lie more. Respect me enough as your elder, right -- to lie to me. That's what I want.
PHILLIP: Right. Go ahead, Scott.
JENNINGS: All right, back in my day, we carried these metal lunch boxes and you walk into the lunchroom with one of these, like this sweet bastard right here. You go in there with that lunchbox and you were the envy of your friends at the lunch table.
[23:00:00]
Today's lunchboxes have no character, no soul, even if they have better insulation. So, my advice would be bring back metal lunchboxes and that's a step in making the lunchroom and the school is a better place.
PHILLIP: All right, and mine would be, it's okay for your kids to be polite. This gentle parenting thing where you tell them they don't have to say please and thank you, that is not good, okay? Not good. Everyone, thank you very much. Thank you for watching "NewsNight". "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
