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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
White House Defies Courts, Won't Return Mistakenly Deported Man; Trump Open To Deporting Homegrown Criminals To El Salvador; Trump Admin Announces $2.2 Billion Funding Freeze For Harvard; Trump Administration Start Sweeping Tariffs For Semiconductors And Pharmaceuticals; President Trump Meets With El Salvador's Leader At The White House. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired April 14, 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, his own reality. The president's men aren't telling the truth, and his aides are openly defying the courts to deliver Donald Trump's immigration agenda.
Plus, the company Donald Trump keeps. The president hosts a South American strongman at the White House while rewriting history --
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: You don't start a war against somebody that's 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles.
PHILLIP: -- to put Russia first.
Also, it must be nice to have Trump on your side while Americans get ready to pay more for everything. Those cozy with Trump cash in.
And Harvard holds the line and rejects a Trump effort to tell the school what and how to teach.
Live at the table, Karen Finney, Scott Jennings, Ashley Davis and Jay Michaelson.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York.
Let's get right to what America's talking about, you can't make us. Tonight, that is the most basic way to describe what the administration is telling the court right now. The president and his senior most officials are publicly on the record saying that they're powerless to get Kilmar Abrego Garcia back home.
Garcia is the Salvadoran national and illegal U.S. resident who was mistakenly shipped to El Salvador. Now, here's the official line from the Homeland Security Department in a newly filed court document. DHS does not have the authority to forcibly extract an alien from the domestic custody of a foreign sovereign nation.
Now, that statement is in defiance of the Supreme Court, which ruled the administration must facilitate Garcia's return home. But listen to top Trump officials and El Salvador's president. They're insisting that there is nothing that they can do to fix this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NAYIB BUKELE, EL SALVADORAN PRESIDENT: How can I return him to the United States, like I smuggle him into the United States.
I don't have the power to return him to the United States.
PAM BONDI, ATTORNEY GENERAL: That's up to El Salvador. If they want to return him, that's not up to us.
If they wanted to return him, we would facilitate it, meaning provide a plane.
TOM HOMAN, BORDER CZAR: El Salvador would have to agree to release him. It doesn't sound like they're going to,
STEPHEN MILLER, WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF FOR POLICY: That would be kidnapping that we have to kidnap an El Salvadoran citizen against the will of his government and fly him back to America, which would be an unimaginable act and an invasion of El Salvador's sovereignty.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Now, saying that there are no available remedies is a clever attempt at an end round around the courts, saying that the courts can't rule on what the administration is actually constitutionally obligated to do is another.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARCO RUBIO, SECRETARY OF STATE: No court in the United States has a right to conduct a foreign policy of the United States. It's that simple, end of story.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Joining us in our fifth seat at the table is Immigration Attorney Raul Reyes. Raul, this is kind of like a wink and a nod. El Salvador says, oh, how can we possibly bring him back to the United States? Then the Trump administration says, well, El Salvador, if they don't want to bring him back, then obviously we can't get him back. I mean, I see what they're doing here.
RAUL REYES, IMMIGRATION ATTORNEY: Right.
PHILLIP: But is this -- is the court going to allow this to stand? REYES: I think the court -- so the courts so far are giving the Trump administration extreme latitude in terms of responding to the court's directive to provide daily updates on Mr. Abrego Garcia's, what their efforts to bring him back and as well the results of those efforts. But big picture, what both presidents are doing here is engaging in a type of say, like legal version of, let's pretend because it is not extraordinary for the U.S. government -- and remember, the immigration system, they're dealing with thousands of people. It is not unheard of for people to be deported in by mistake or an error, and there is a process to bring people back.
No one is saying -- no immigration advocates or his lawyers are not telling the president of El Salvador that he must return Mr. Garcia to the United States. That's not how it works. The process is the president of El Salvador, all he has to do is release Mr. Abrego Garcia. The U.S. then paroles him into the country, and then Mr. Abrego Garcia's family or supporters can fly him back here.
[22:05:01]
That's the process.
Generally, in immigration cases, the difficult part of this process is getting the government to admit there was an error. That's not the case here. So, they are just playing sort of a semantics game about what either of them can or cannot do. But there are legal procedures in place for this happen.
PHILLIP: And they've actually done it before for other people just in the last few months.
REYES: Democrats and Republicans, yes.
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, one of the interesting things about today's Oval Office moment was seeing how the administration operates with Trump behind the scenes. We saw it in front of the scenes. We saw Stephen Miller say, oh, the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 in your favor, and he described the court ruling in a particular way. There is a desire to sort of frame everything that is happening legally in a way that is favorable to Trump, even though that's not quite what's happening.
KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, but what was happening, Steven Miller was being incredibly duplicitous because the arguments that were made in the court were not the same thing as what he was saying, standing there in the driveway. The Supreme Court of the United States said, you got to facilitate his return. You got the president of the country right there. You could say, hey, man, can you let him out? We'll come get him, right? I mean, then Pam Bondi's sitting there saying, oh, and we'll send a plane. I mean, it was just such theater.
And I think the point of this was more about two things -- two big takeaways. Number one, it was more about pushing the boundaries against the Supreme Court of the United States and pushing the boundaries of the law. It was very performative. Everybody clearly had their talking points and what they were supposed to say. But, secondly, the terrifying thing that we should all be afraid of was Trump sort of throwaway comment about, you know, you should build more, five more, I think he said, or three more. And we're going to we've got some homegrown people that we want to send down there.
PHILLIP: Let's play the sound bite of Trump talking about homegrown people going to El Salvador.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: If it's a homegrown criminal, I have no problem. Now, we're studying the laws right now, Pam is studying. If we can do that, that's good. And I'm talking about violent people.
I'll tell you who's good. Whoever sends us those tapes that you get, they become sensations in this country, perhaps getting out of the planes. That's what people want to see, respect. They want to see respect. They don't have respect. They're starting to have it here too, but they don't have real respect here. Whoever does that does a great job.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: That last part, he's talking about the optics of it all, the shaving people's heads and the videos that he loves, the optics of these prisons. But he is repeatedly talking about sending Americans to El Salvador.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. He said they were studying the laws. I mean, there wasn't any definitive statement. Do you mind if we go back to a couple of the points that were made on the Garcia case? I think you guys need to understand, for the Trump administration, there's no version of this man's life that ends up with him living in the United States. Here's the way they view it. He's an illegal alien from El Salvador who came to the country illegally, who has a deportation order, who, in their view, and in the view of some immigration courts, has an affiliation with MS-13. They also believe on the Supreme --
PHILLIP: That's -- just to be -- that's not quite what it is. I think that the issue of the MS-13 thing is probably the most unclear of this whole thing. The administration has not provided that concrete evidence that they say they have as being part of MS-13, and he strongly disputes in court, right? So, this is not me saying it. He was disputed in court that he is a member of MS-13.
(CROSSTALKS)
REYES: Every time the Trump administration, any -- every official the Trump administration that has been in court on this case has attested to the fact that this was an error and it was a mistake. So, this, I think, you're speaking about their public view of a case.
JENNINGS: I'm telling you that their view of it is that, public, it's an El Salvador citizen who was sent back to El Salvador, who was in the country illegally, who, according to some people in his long process, which does include an existing deportation order, believes that he has an affiliation with MS-13. As I said, there's no version of this man's life where he comes back.
And let me say one more thing. The people that want him brought back need to understand something. If the president of El Salvador releases him and we do facilitate his return when he lands in this country, one of two things will happen. He'll either be arrested and then he'll either be sent to back to El Salvador where he is now or some other country that I promise you you don't want to go to. He's not going to be allowed to come back and live in this country as though he is a U.S. citizen. He's not --
JAY MICHAELSON, VISITIN PROFESSOR, HARVARD LAW SCHOOL: That's literally the definition of tyranny, right? So, here's what's going to happen. We're going to throw him in jail. No, there's a thing called the rule of law and due process, which has not been followed in this case. And if I have a slightly optimistic take on this. I actually think this is going to come back to bite the Trump administration. Because what's going to happen is the next time this goes up the court system, they have absolutely zero credibility to say, don't worry, you can file a habeas petition. You can get your person back.
[22:10:00]
The courts are not going to allow this to happen.
And the idea that the Trump administration has the right of fiat to just decide to ship somebody off to another country, that is fundamentally opposed to everything that constitutional democracy.
JENNINGS: They have the ability to deport people who have deportation orders.
(CROSSTALKS)
JENNINGS: He got due process. He has a deportation order.
FINNEY: But then why didn't make that argument --
REYES: His deportation (INAUDIBLE) withholding of his removal order. So, he was in the country of temporarily.
JENNINGS: Why did he have a withholding?
REYES: Because an immigration judge ruled that.
JENNINGS: But why? What was the argument? Because he was fearful of a gang that hasn't existed in El Salvador for four years.
REYES: Because he was fearful --
JENNINGS: there's more of that gang in Los Angeles than there is an El Salvador.
REYES: That's not for us to decide. That's the immigration judge decides that.
ASHLEY DAVIS, FORMER WHITE HOUSE OFFICIAL, G.W. BUSH ADMIN: Can I just tell everyone something right now? We are not talking about tariffs. We're not talking about --
PHILLIP: Oh, don't worry, we'll talk about it later.
DAVIS: No. I'm just -- let me just talk about this. This is the number one talking -- that everyone's talking about on every network tonight. The Trump administration is winning. This is exactly what he does. If you're living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, if you're living in Kentucky and you see that the Trump administration is sending people back home from this country that are here illegally, that's the number one issue that got him elected and he's being stronger than anybody on the board. No, I just --
FINNEY: It's one of the top issues that got him elected because inflation was number one.
DAVIS: My point is he's winning. He's winning this conversation right now. So, we can get into the legal aspects of it. There's an entire disconnect in this country with what people think about and everywhere else and what people think about New York, L.A. and Washington
FINNEY: I actually disagree in that. I think the more that he continues to try to push this idea of, well, like over the weekend, there was a story they're going to look at how do we denaturalize people so that we can deport them, and then this homegrown, From a man who's talking about violent criminals having let violent January 6th criminals out of prison himself, so he has no -- he -- and he also benefited from the laws of this country and due process.
I think the more we -- I agree with you on the specifics, but we've seen in poll after poll, Americans want our president to follow the law. See, this man is breaking the law. He would not. They did not go to the Supreme Court and say what Stephen Miller dared to say in front of the cameras. I dare them to go to the Supreme Court and make that argument because they're --
PHILLIP: It was very striking -- yes, they have not. They've said, as you pointed out, that it was a mistake. It was striking to me to see Marco Rubio in the Oval Office today defending all of this because this is a flashback from when he had written a book about his family and there was a biography written about him. Rubio's grandfather was ordered deported when he came to this country and ultimately actually was not deported. He was in the country illegally, was not deported and was retroactively given some form of asylum, which all that is to say he took advantage of a process that existed for him, just like many of these immigrants do.
Maybe they are in the country illegally, but they go to a judge and they make their case. And that's a process. It was a process that was --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: It was a process that worked for him. And he's sitting there in the Oval Office now saying that process should not be available to everybody else.
JENNINGS: Well, two issues.
MICHAELSON: You're saying the opposite of what the administration's saying. They admitted it was a mistake. You're saying it wasn't a mistake. So, was it a mistake?
JENNINGS: Two issues, on the secretary of state making a comment, the reason the administration believes they got a big win at the Supreme Court is because the district court was trying to compel the executive on foreign affairs. The Supreme Court threw that out. That's not what the Supreme Court has ruled. And what Marco Rubio is saying is true. The courts have long recognized that they cannot compel the executive on foreign policy matters. That's number one.
Number two, what they also believe is that, politically, the American people want them to be as aggressive as possible and pull all the levers they can pull to solve a crisis that has festered for years and, you know, that we keep calling this guy Maryland man in the press. Nobody seems to worry about the Maryland mother, Rachel Morin, who was murdered by someone that the previous administration let out of jail.
FINNEY: But not by this man, Scott.
JENNINGS: So, this is a visceral political issue.
FINNEY: It's incredibly dishonest to conflate these two people, not the same person.
REYES: All administrations, both parties, have paroled people into the country. And I think we did step away from --
JENNINGS: Why would we do that?
REYES: All administrations have done that --
JENNINGS: What is the compelling reason to put this person back in the country?
REYES: I think we did get off the topic.
PHILLIP: Let me let Raul finish.
REYES: I think we did get off the topic, though, of President Trump floating the idea again, as he has on multiple occasions, of sending American citizens, American prisoners to El Salvador. And just for the record, you know, we have the Eighth Amendment, we have due process rights, we have statutes on the books now that forbid sending people to foreign countries, let alone to a place associated with incredibly brutal conditions and terrorism. And he's floating this idea and bringing it into the mainstream.
PHILLIP: All right, we got to leave it here for that conversation.
Breaking news tonight, the White House is putting a freeze on federal funding to Harvard University after the university pushed back on its demands. [22:15:06]
We're going to discuss that.
Plus, the Trump administration is taking the next step to re-impose crushing tariffs on the tech sector after they got a temporary reprieve. Some special guests are going to join us at the table for that discussion.
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PHILLIP: A warning shot from the Trump administration to the Ivy League making a stand. Breaking tonight, the administration is freezing a $2.2 billion worth of grants and $60 million in contracts at Harvard University.
[22:20:00]
Now, that happened just hours after Harvard said it would not comply with the Trump administration's threats that would rewire how and what the school teaches.
Harvard's President Alan Garber writing, quote, the university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights. No government, regardless of which party is in power, should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue. Harvard is the first elite school to tell the administration no when confronted with federal demands.
This is important. This is sort of like the moment that I think everybody was waiting for when it came to the media lawsuits, like Disney and the law firm lawsuits. Harvard is saying no, and I think it will have a ripple effect. Let me just read to you a little bit more about what the Trump administration demanded. They want to eliminate DEI programs, institute mask bans, institute merit-based hiring and admission reforms, reduce the power of students and faculty administrators.
Now, keep that in mind, they also want to do this. Every department or field found to have lack of viewpoint diversity must be reformed by hiring a critical mass of new faculty within that department or field who will provide viewpoint diversity. Every teaching unit found to have a lack of viewpoint diversity must be reformed by admitting a critical mass of students who will provide viewpoint diversity.
So, which is it? Is it merit or is it quotas for particular viewpoints that this administration wants? You want to talk about that?
MICHAELSON: Well, yes. This is my home institution and I can say, you know, there's been a lot of tension on campus just waiting for this to happen. And I can only speak for myself and, you know, a few of my colleagues. But there's, I think, a little bit of relief that it's now happened, that Harvard has taken the stand. These demands are very different from what was put to Columbia. Those were pretty outstanding as well. But these are much more so, as you just read. But this is out of Victor Orban's playbook of demolishing higher education. This is out of Chris Ruffo's dreams of -- and Mark Andreessen's dreams of deconstructing higher education. And these demands, there's no point in being Harvard if you can't be Harvard, if you can't actually set your standards of academic excellence. And you have some, you know, bureaucrat overlooking -- you know, looking over all of your decisions and making life miserable.
PHILLIP: Why are they trying to tell private universities what to teach?
DAVIS: Well, they're actually trying to say this in regards to federal funding. So, I think the big story out of this, obviously, I understand your point of view, and I said this at the beginning, you have a $53 billion endowment. I understand how it goes and regards to how money is distributed, but you're going to get $9 billion cut from your budget. That's federal funding that comes from the federal government at the discretion of the federal government. So, they have the ability to do it.
And my question is, because of this, which is what happened during the protest last time, were, what big funders, the big board members, former students that are now the billionaires giving, or the millionaires giving, how much are they going to pull their funding, or if not?
PHILLIP: But I feel like -- doesn't that skirt the main -- I mean, the question that I actually asked, which is the -- yes we understand what the stick is, which is the money, but why are they using that as leverage or as a threat to try to control what is being taught? I think that's the fundamental question.
REYES: They're using it. They're using the pretext of fighting anti- Semitism on campus and based on what they see as past events that did take place at Harvard last academic year. That is the pretext for basically neutralizing the university.
And the fact is, look, generally, conservatives are against big government meddling in the day-to-day aspects of people's lives. This affects so many people beyond the Harvard community because money from the -- some of these funds that the federal government gives Harvard, it is used in hospitals, research facilities, labs. These are things that do affect people who are not necessarily have a direct affiliation with the community.
So, the administration is using this pretext to try, in my view, to stifle dissent and to meddle in, you know, hiring, admissions, leadership and governance of a private university.
MICHAELSON: Again, though, this isn't new, right? I mean, we've seen this in Orban. This is the authoritarian playbook. You go after the press, you go after the legal establishment, you go after higher education.
I do want to just engage on this for a second. First, this isn't discretionary, right? These are contracts, these are grants for medical research and so on. And so it's not actually within their discretion. And second of, the endowment, most of it is already contractually assigned to specific purposes. So, Harvard can't -- it's not a savings account. They can't just kind of dip in 70 percent and withdraw.
DAVIS: The reason is that the discretion of the federal government, the money that comes from --
MICHAELSON: No, they've signed a contract and they have constitutional restrictions on -- no, I mean, the freezes, the freezes, existing money.
DAVIS: Well, you can freeze it too.
MICHAELSON: It's a threat of the future money. And there are constitutional restrictions when you can't condition the government funding on viewpoint discrimination, that's a First Amendment violation. And so I think Harvard, because they do have somewhat deep pockets, can play a little bit the long game. They are going to win in court. MIT has also just joined the lawsuit. There's evidence that Princeton is likely to join the lawsuit,
FINNEY: But that's why it matters that a big institution like Harvard stepped up, because they can afford it, right?
[22:25:03]
They have the money to afford it.
But let's say the thing that I think you're trying to get to, I mean, this has actually been a dream of the right wing since going back to the 70s, frankly, going back to the -- you know, Nixon was, you know, complaining about the Vietnam War protesters. So, this has been in the playbook for a very long time. In this instance, they're doing it because they're trying to -- they believe that some -- too many of the conversations about culture have moved too far to the left.
Now, as someone who is the daughter of, you know, people who grew up in the segregated south, who were married in New York City when it was illegal in their home states, I would say it's forward, not left, that we actually believe black people should have the right to vote, women should be able to control their own body, and that we are evolving constantly in our core values of this country the rights and freedoms of individuals, that they have a different ideological view.
PHILLIP: I guess the thing is let's take Harvard out of it. Let's make it Liberty University. Let's make it some other institution that is more conservative-leaning, it doesn't really matter. The question is, should the government use the power of the purse to strangle institutions until they do what they want them to do, telling them, oh, you need to hire, to admit these students, you need to hire these people, you need to teach these courses, or get rid of that department, or add this department? I imagine you wouldn't want that either.
JENNINGS: I think that this is all about anti-Semitism. I mean, I believe that what's happened on these campuses in the Ivy League and in other places, mostly private institutions, has been an abomination. And someone has to stand up for these Jewish kids.
MICHAELSON: It's not going to be the rabbi at the table.
(CROSSTALKS)
JENNINGS: Someone has to stand.
MICHAELSON: It's not going to be my friends in Jewish studies.
JENNINGS: And until and until Donald Trump came along and his administration and decided to connect federal funds to stamping out the scourge of anti-Semitism on these campuses.
MICHAELSON: Like Nick Fuentes.
JENNINGS: Nobody --
MICHAELSON: Like the seig heil salute.
JENNINGS: Nobody was willing to stand up for them.
MICHAELSON: Like standing up for an Allianz fur Deutschland.
JENNINGS: And I think the American people don't want a private university with a $53 billion endowment to get a dollar while a Jewish kid is being discriminated against on campus.
PHILLIP: Listen, first of all, let me --
MICHAELSON: That's a joke.
PHILLIP: Hold on. Let just me just say --
MICHAELSON: What a complete joke.
JENNINGS: Why is it --
MICHAELSON: You guys are nowhere. You have white supremacists in your party and in your -- oh, Nick Fuentes, oh, whatever.
JENNINGS: He's not in our administration.
MICHALESON: Oh, Allianz fur Deutschland. Oh, it's not really a sieg heil salute. Go to CPAC. There's anti-Semitic conspiracies all over the place.
JENNINGS: Do you do not want these college campuses to do better? Do you condone what is happening?
MICHAELSON: That's what Harvard is going to do. They already agreed.
PHILLIP: Scott, I think the issue is not whether, you know, these universities should address anti-Semitism. The question is, how is the government using government power to do it? There is a complete distinction between the university addressing its own problems and the government forcing them to it in a particular way,
JENNINGS: The entanglement comes when you take federal money. If Harvard wants to give up the federal money, you can do all the anti- Semitism, I guess, you want at Harvard or any other school, but that's not the issue. That's not the issue.
FVINNEY: If this was really about fighting anti-Semitism, what they would've started with, just like with DOGE, is let's look at what they have done over the course of the last year and then go to Harvard and say, not enough, or, that was good, we want you to do that. Instead, it's all performative. This is all about Trump being seen as this tough guy standing up, you know, again, but they're also using anti- Semitism as a way to then also push a conservative ideological agenda and use research dollars, which, by the way, we all benefit from the medical and technical research that comes.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: It is a very good point that the research -- the dollars that we're talking about. I think it can sound like it's charity, but what is happening is that these universities produce a lion's share of the scientific research, of the medical research, of all kinds of different research that we then benefit from.
I'm not saying that every dollar, you know, ought to be given to Harvard. I don't know what it's all going to. But just to clarify what it's for, it's not just so Harvard can sit swimming in cash. And other universities will have to be able to pick up that slack and it's not clear that they will be able to.
REYES: This is what the administration wants, right. But, legally, they're going far beyond the limits of Title 6 in trying to impose restrictions on a private university. So, whatever you think of the issue, whether Harvard should have this money, whether it should go somewhere else, the administration hasn't provided specific legal justifications. They've provided ideological, but not specific legal basis for taking these steps.
PHILLIP: And I think that the reason this is so significant is because this will be the first step in this going to the courts and we'll find out how this works out.
[22:30:00]
Raul Reyes, thank you very much for joining us. Everyone else stick around, much more ahead.
Coming up, the Trump administration is taking a key step to put tariffs on the tech and pharmaceutical sectors. Some special guests are going to join us at the table to discuss what comes next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:34:57]
PHILLIP: Tonight, step one. The Trump administration is starting down the road to sweeping tariffs for semiconductors and pharmaceuticals. Notices that showed up in the federal register indicate investigations into both sectors have begun. Those probes are the precursor to the President imposing tariffs based on national security grounds.
Joining us at the table are our economic experts, Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics. And also with us, market strategist, Marc LoPresti. Mark Zandi, can you make sense of the back and forth between Friday and today about what they are really doing, what exceptions they're making? Because I think, it -- it is confusing to a lot of people.
Spencer Hackamet Meehan (ph) posted this earlier today, "In the last 48 hours, the U.S. has put on semi-conductor tariffs, removed semiconductor tariffs, given refunds on semiconductor conductor tariffs collected, and now plans to restart the same tariffs.
MARK ZANDI, CHIEF ECONOMIST, MOODY'S ANALYTICS: Yeah, I can't figure it out. It's up, down, all around. Which country, which product, over what period of time. I mean, it's creating a lot of havoc, chaos. I think businesses are shell-shocked, panicked by this. They don't know what to do. They're sitting on the -- I don't think anyone's cutting back yet. I don't think we're seeing any -- we're not seeing any layoffs.
We're not seeing, businesses cut investment at this point, but they're -- they're sitting on their hands. We're just waiting to see how this all plays out, if it will play out, you know, over some period of time. And it's causing, a lot of consternation among consumers. You can see it in consumer sentiment. But consumers are very worried about what's going on in the price increases that are coming.
And, obviously, investors are, you know, beside themselves. You could see in the equity market, but particularly in the bond market. So -- so far, the damage is in just the, kind of the general sense of things. People are very uncertain and unsure, and this back and forth on tariffs is just adding to that confusion and chaos and making people nervous.
PHILLIP: Yeah. I want to play what billionaire investor Ray Dalio said on "Meet The Press" yesterday about where he thinks this is all heading. He's been one of the most fearful about what cliff we are perhaps about to go off of.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RAY DALIO, FOUNDER, BRIDGEWATER ASSOCIATES: Right now, we are at a decision-making point and very close to a recession. And I'm worried about something worse than a recession if this isn't handled well. A recession is two negative quarters of GDP, and whether it goes slightly there, we always have those things. We have something that's much more profound.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: There is that risk, if this continues for a long time, and the problem is that there's no off ramp in sight for the biggest chunk of this, which is the exorbitant tariffs on China, and the fact that Trump keeps adding and taking away tariffs pretty much every day.
MARC LOPRESTI, CEO AND SENIOR MARKET STRATEGIST, MARKET REBELLION: Well, we know that this is part of President -- President Trump's negotiation strategy, right? Like it or not. And the markets clearly don't like it, Abby. Look.
PHILLIP: I don't think anybody likes it.
LOPRESTI: And -- and Ray Dalio, he is one of the smartest people. I have a tremendous amount of respect for him. He does tend to bring a little bit more of a Nouriel Roubini style of -- of bearish pessimism in times like this, so we take it with a little bit of a grain of salt.
But we were really hoping for a significant rally in tech on the back of President Trump's exempting the consumer electronics, microchips and semiconductors. We didn't really get it. The -- it looked great in the pre -- this morning. The market opened up a little bit, and then the tech rally largely fizzled at the end of the day. So, I think that's what --
PHILLIP: Yeah, because it's -- they know that it's all short-lived. I mean, why would you take that as gospel when every day it's changing?
LOPRESTI: Well, you -- you -- we try not to take anything as gospel as traders and investors, right, as marketplaces.
PHILLIP: But is it not the job of the political folks in this picture to offer some degree of certainty about what the policy is going to be?
LOPRESTI: Well, that's a good question. Certainly, as it relates to the stock market, we sort of have to pick a lane, right? I mean, either the President and the Executive Branch cares about what happens day to day in the stock market, which seems to suit some when that's -- with the policy that we're looking for. And sometimes, say, well, we -- we don't look at what happens in the stock market. That's not the economy. That's not what's hitting Main Street. That's just speculators and investors.
PHILLIP: How do you see it, Mark?
ZANDI: Well, I -- this is bad for business. I mean, why would any company locate and expand in the United States of America if they don't know what the tariffs are going to be? I mean, I just -- put yourself put out your CEO of a major global manufacturing firm, a vehicle company, and thinking about building a factory. It takes three years to build a factory to start producing cars.
To it -- to determine whether you're going to make that investment, you have to know what the tariffs are because these aren't -- these are big tariffs. These aren't small tariffs. This isn't one percent, two percent, five percent. This is 25 percent, 30 percent, 35 percent. And so, you -- you need to have some clarity on that.
But how can you get clarity? These tariffs are done under executive order. They can be changed with the stroke of a pen, and they may not even be legal. So, they can be struck down 18 months from now. So -- so, if I'm -- think I'm that CEO, and I'm thinking, should I build that factory? How can I possibly make that investment? And they won't. Here's a make that investment.
[22:40:00]
JENNINGS: Here's a statement from a CEO today, "Adding American manufacturing helps us better meet the incredible and growing demand for A.I. chips and supercomputers, strengthens our supply chain and boosts our resilience."
PHILLIP: You're talking about NVIDIA.
JENNINGS: The CEO of NVIDIA. How did they make that announcement?
ZANDI: But Scott, CEOs are going to make --
JENNINGS: Five hundred million --
ZANDI: Why wouldn't you make it?
JENNINGS: You just said they won't.
ZANDI: No.
JENNINGS: I'm saying they did.
ZANDI: Why would they would do it anyway? They -- they would do it anyway. And in many cases, they make the announcement then they don't. Foxconn is a great example of that. Go back to President Trump's first term. There was this big $10 billion investment that was supposed to happen in the state of Wisconsin. Go take a look at Wisconsin.
JENNINGS: NVIDIA's got sponsorship in Arizona.
ZANDI: That's Foxconn. But there -- why wouldn't you say that?
JENNINGS: And they say it's good for business to be in the United States because it's good for their supply chains and so forth.
ZANDI: Think about --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I just want to also make a note that -- that the -- the manufacturing policy behind bringing chips to United States originated in the Biden administration.
UNKNOWN: Correct.
PHILLIP: And Trump is taking advantage of some of that now. But the other part of the Nvidia announcement in that statement and a lot of what we're seeing is what a lot of people are warning is going to happen. If everybody gets exemptions, if they can just say nice things about the guy in charge in the White House. This is what Fareed Zakaria says is coming.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN ANCHOR: These tariff negotiations will inevitably result in an orgy of corruption. The American economy is being transformed from the leading free market in the world to the leading example of crony capitalism. A market economy functions best when there are limited constraints placed on it, but especially when these constraints are clear, fair and applicable to all.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: That is exactly the opposite. Fair, clear and applicable to all. That is the opposite of what is happening every day.
FINNEY: And so, here's a couple of things, right? Chaos and pain is what the American people are feeling. If you are someone who is a working person in this country, you're being told, I know you elected me because of inflation. Hold on a little longer. I need you to just take maybe another year or two. That is a betrayal of the people who elected him. And what's interesting, if we look at that CBS News poll --
PHILLIP: Which we have --
(CROSSTALK)
FINNEY: -- which we probably have as his approval readings on handling the economy going down. And the two top people that -- just to what Fareed just said, Americans believe benefit the most, 74 percent the wealthy, 71 percent, large corporations.
Now, whether it's Nvidia or whatever corporation, the point is he's losing the confidence of the American people. I think we're seeing that not only in the polls, but in the turnout at events where people are expressing their frustration of a lot of small business owners who also are very anxious. But also to all of this what's going on in the economy.
I think it's just building more anxiety in a country that said, we just want inflation brought down. We just want to know what things are going to cost. And he lied when he said that the cost of eggs has gone down. They have not gone down. And the cost of groceries and gas and rent still going up, not keeping up with people's status.
PHILLIP: If you are Apple, you're good. Things are looking maybe okay for you for now.
UNKNOWN: Oh, especially if you are just trading Apple. Yeah.
PHILLIP: But if you're -- if you're selling a product on Amazon or you're a mom and pop, you know, person who's doing that, you're -- you're kind of in trouble.
MICHAELSON: You know, I'm -- I'm on either side of me, people will know way more about the subject than I do. But what it -- what's good, I think, about this issue that you should bear in mind is that there are facts, right?
UNKNOWN: Yes.
MICHAELSON: The prices go up, the prices go down, right? So, no amount of rhetorical shading or look at this big fancy scandal over here or any of those sort of Roy Cohn moves are going to work because ultimately, not just -- not just the CEOs, but also the mom and pop consumers.
Then this is, you know, again, because I'm so critical of the administration on other issues, for me, this is a kind of almost good news because this really brings home the way that the duplicitousness and carelessness of the -- of this administration is actually affecting. Realize, when you've lost "The Wall Street Journal", and there there's a writer in "The Wall Street Journal" --
PHILLIP: They've been -- they've been gone for some time now on this issue.
MICHAELSON: This is okay. That's right.
PHILLIP: And they were actually the first to warn of this crony capitalism issue. I mean, they, in their op- ed weeks ago, said, this is going to be a boon for the lobbyists. It's going to a be a boon for the big firms that are rich enough to hire people. If you're Mark Zuckerberg and you can cozy up and buy a house in Washington so you can get close to the administration, that's what we're going to see more of for the next four years.
JENNINGS: You're saying we've never had influence peddling in Washington?
PHILLIP: I'm not -- I'm not I'm not saying I'm not saying we've never had influence peddling. What I'm saying is that the idea -- correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't conservatives supposed to believe in free markets where -- with less intervention from the government so that people can operate freely? And this is not --
LOPRESTI: Yeah, and I think --
PHILLIP: And this is not --
LOPRESTI: I mean, the President's ultimate goal here. I mean, part of what the problem I have with the conversation is we're talking as if this is a fair to complete. We're talking as if it's done. The tariffs are permanent. Recession is here. It's all over doom and gloom. As Warren Buffett famously said, it's only a loss when you sell.
[22:45:02]
I can tell you, Abby, I have not sold. I'm telling our advisors to stay the course. The game's not over the very last year.
(CROSSTALK)
ZANDI: Can I just say that PHILLIP: The very last word.
ZANDI: We're right on the edge here. I mean, another three, four, five, six weeks of this, and we're going into recession because businesses aren't going to sit on their hands forever, and they're going to decide, I am going to cut, and we are -- I am going to start to lay off. And at the end of the day, a recession is a loss of faith, and people are losing faith.
PHILLIP: All right. Mark Zandi, Marc LoPresti, thank you both very much for joining us. Everyone else, stay with us. Coming up, the Trump administration's world order embracing the self-proclaimed world's coolest dictator and alienating traditional allies. We'll debate what that means. Next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:50:19]
PHILLIP: Tonight, think about your friends and what they say about you, and now think about Donald Trump's friends and what they say about how he envisions America. The President hosted El Salvador's Leader today at the White House. You can call it a thank you visit for Nayib Bukele who has accepted these deportees from the United States.
Now, Bukele's political rise is built on brutality, a three-year-long crackdown in his home country. He's even given himself a nickname, the "world's coolest dictator". And then there is Trump doing Vladimir Putin's P.R. Today in the Oval Office, the American President put Putin pretty low on the list of humans to blame for the war in Ukraine.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The mistake was letting the war happen. That war should have never been allowed to happen. That war -- I went four years and Putin wouldn't even bring it up. When you start a war, you got to know that you can win the war, right? You don't start a war against somebody that's 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Why do we need to keep reminding the President that Ukraine did not start this war? I mean, that is just a basic fact that it -- underpins that statement. I don't understand why he's stuck on this and insistent on giving Vladimir Putin a pass.
JENNINGS: Well, he's in the middle of negotiating, hopefully, what will be an end to the war. It's not accurate to say that Ukraine started the war. Russia invaded Ukraine. I am sensitive to his position though and Mr. Witkoff, his emissary's position, they're trying to get this over with. They're trying to get the killing to stop. He knows the political will in the United States Congress is not there to continue to fund it. And so, I've been more than willing to give the President latitude on
this because this cannot go on forever. It should not go on forever, and the best thing that could happen in the short term is a ceasefire where the missile stop falling and the people stop dying.
PHILLIP: Well, he said it would end in 24 hours, and I think that, obviously, that has not happened. It hasn't happened in 24 days. And I think that one of frustrations that he's expressing is that that's not been the case. But shouldn't that also be an indictment on the strategy of getting closer to the bad guy here as opposed to aligning with the United States' allies?
FINNEY: Of course. Particularly when you consider that the Iranian foreign minister is going to Russia this week before we resume talks supposedly at the -- over the weekend about some deal in Iran. I mean, there -- Iran and Russia. I mean, there are other forces that are more closely aligned.
I don't think he is seeing the three-dimensional chess at times, particularly for these -- for many of these countries who live in thousands of years -- hundreds of years and see us as like, we can wait you out for four years or five years.
But, sure, it -- I think also the erratic behavior of the President. If I'm Putin, you I mean, you could say that who knows? Today, he's going to do this. Tomorrow, he's going to do that. Why would I think he's an honest broker of anything?
DAVIS: You know, so, I just have a little different -- first of all, I -- working for President and then also, I -- I just don't -- we don't know what we don't know because we don't have security clearances that's sitting in the oval right now. So, we don't know the three, different dimensions that are happening on happening or 10 different dimensions.
I actually think the bigger prize here is mitigating China. And so, is he talking to Iran so they don't become closer to China? Is he talking to Russia or, obviously, he's trying to get the ceasefire?
Is he trying to build these other allies or at least not make them as much as many as much enemies as they have been to try to offset the power of China. I mean, I just think that he -- there is a bigger -- this is one move in a larger chess game, and we'll see --
UNKNOWN: Yeah.
DAVIS: -- the chess match.
LOPRESTI: Yeah, I don't believe that Putin is controlling Trump in some weird conspiracy way. But if I did -- if I were Putin and I were controlling Trump, there's -- it's hard to find something that he's done that I wouldn't support, right?
I would want to alienate our allies. I would want to devastate our position as kind of economic dominance. I would -- would want to weaken the U.S. bond market. I would want to ensure that our allies can't rely on us, including cutting off USAID and all the other ways in which soft power used to be exercised. So, again, I'm not alleging a conspiracy, but it's quite a confluence of interests between the dictator of Russia and the dictator here.
PHILLIP: He's also I mean, the Bukele visit today was so fascinating because he's -- he is obsessed with what Bukele has been able to do. And that fascination with strongman obviously is nothing new, but it's -- it's taken on a new dimension now where he almost wants to make El Salvador an extension of the United States.
FINNEY: I mean, almost quite literally. Actually, given the conversations, and there have been supposedly conversations about potentially using private contractors to move, you know, Americans who are in prisons to El Salvador.
[22:55:08]
But it's interesting. It also has the same feeling of this 70 countries are -- are well, I'm doing deals. Like, he seems to really enjoy making -- having them come to him, sit with him in the Oval Office, get you know, they all say wonderful things about him, of course, because they know that's the -- that's the key to the kingdom. So --
PHILLIP: He's going to have to be some substantiation to the deals. If he says he's going to end the war in Gaza, it hasn't ended. The hostages are not back. He says he's going to end the war in Ukraine. It hasn't ended. The -- the killing has not stopped. He wants a deal with Iran, but, fundamentally, he's asking for the same thing that every single American president has been asking for since the dawn of time.
JENNINGS: He's got a lot of balls in the air right now, but, I feel like he inherited a world in chaos. The balls were already in the air. He's doing his level best to try to land them, and, I pray to God that he does because there's a lot of things that get well out of hand beyond what they are right now.
PHILLIP: All right. Is that not the truth? Everyone, thank you very much, and thank you for watching. Don't miss tomorrow night's "NewsNight". We have a special one-on-one interview with Melinda French Gates. But in the meantime, you can catch me anytime on your favorite social media -- X, Instagram and TikTok. "Laura Coates Live" starts right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
