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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Judge Scolds DOJ in Hearing Over Mistakenly Deported Man; Trump Says, I Would Love To Deport American Criminals To El Salvador; Trump Threatens Harvard's Tax-Exempt Status After Freezing Funds; Abby Phillip Sits Down With Philanthropist Melinda French Gates; Multiple Protesters Dragged Out of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's Town Hall. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired April 15, 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, a nation of laws or a nation of Donald Trump's desires. The White House substitutes its opinion for evidence and its policy preferences for court orders.
Plus, holding Harvard hostage, the president demands an apology.
KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: He also wants to see Harvard apologize.
PHILLIP: And threatens to hit Harvard with a tax bill if he doesn't get one.
Also, Democrats go on tour and find anger while small dollar donors show AOC the money.
And a NewsNight exclusive, Melinda French Gates gets personal about the role of billionaires in politics, her divorce, and much, much more.
Live at the table, Scott Jennings, Shermichael Singleton, Julie Roginsky and Daniel Koh.
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, contempt of court and for the courts. Tonight, a judge is warning the Trump administration of legal consequences if they do not provide her with evidence about why they say they can't return Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States. The judge saying point blank in a hearing, I've gotten nothing, nor have I gotten any legitimate legal justification for not answering the question. What she wants now is two weeks of discovery for the government to listen to her definition of what facilitate means, what the Supreme Court ordered the president's people to do to get Garcia back to Maryland from El Salvador. The judge adding also there will be no tolerance for gamesmanship or grandstanding.
Now, to Garcia's lawyers, what should happen now is pretty obvious.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RINA GANDHI, ATTORNEY FOR KILMAR ABREGO GARCIA: The Supreme Court was clear they must facilitate his release, not just his return physically into the United States, but his release. So, what have they done to do that? I hope that's what we'll find through discovery.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: But there is no clear sign that the Trump administration intends to make that happen. The senior most official in the government, they are repeating something that Garcia has never been charged with, nor has he been convicted of. They claim that he is a member of the MS-13 gang.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEAVITT: There is never going to be a world in which this is an individual who's going to live a peaceful life in Maryland because he's a foreign terrorist and an MS-13 gang member. Not only have we confirmed that, President Bukele yesterday in the Oval Office confirmed that as well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: The legal wrangling of Garcia's fate leaves his heart -- his family, in a heart wrenching limbo.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JENNIFER VASQUEZ SURA, WIFE OF KILMAR ABREGO GARCIA, WHO WAS MISTAKENLY DEPORTED TO EL SALVADOR: As we continue through Holy Week, my heart aches for my husband, who should have been here leading our Easter prayers. Instead, I find myself pleading with the Trump administration and the Bukele administration to stop playing political games with the life of Kilmar.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Joining us at our table in the fifth seat is Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig. He's a former federal prosecutor.
Elie, the judge is pretty fed up with all of this. And the idea, the administration is saying that they can't do anything, I mean, they can say that, but then they're also demonstrating that they're not trying at all.
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, either they can't or they don't want to, and I think it's pretty clearly they don't want to facilitate. Now that word, facilitate, we already heard it several times in the opening, that's what's landed us in this mess. And the reason that word has become so important is because that's what the Supreme Court said. They did not want to cross this line explicitly. They said, we do not believe it is the role of the courts to order the executive branch what to do when it comes to foreign policy, foreign affairs, immigration. So, instead, the Supreme Court gives this word, facilitate.
Now, what on earth does that mean? Has the Trump administration overtly defied that? Maybe not quite to the letter, but, boy, they are foot-dragging.
[22:05:02]
This is the weakest facilitation in the history of facilitating. They have no interest in playing by good faith. They have no interest in getting -- they could get this guy back if they wanted. You don't think one call they could get this guy back? They don't want to do it and they're playing political games with this.
PHILLIP: I also wonder, I mean, you heard Karoline Leavitt say there, he's a terrorist they have proof that he's an MS-13 gang member. Well, provide the evidence. I mean, I don't know. Just bring the proof and let's look at it.
DAN KOH, PODCAST HOST, THE PEOPLE'S CABINET: This is a guy, a father who was in a parking lot of an IKEA with his five-year-old autistic son when he was picked up and the son was -- the father was given ten minutes to have the son be picked up by his mother. This guy was never charged.
So, my question to everyone is, is this who we are as a country? I don't believe it is. And every single person who believes in the fundamentals of this country and believes in due process, that if you were ever accused of something, that you would have a chance to plead your case, should be concerned about this, Republican or Democrat.
JULIE ROGINSKY, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: And I think that's the key here, right, because it's not just about him. If this president and this administration can accuse somebody of being a terrorist and accuse any one of us of being a terrorist and deal with us what they will. There's due process that exists in this country for everybody. And the fact that this man had received no due process, it was effectively disappeared to a foreign country, a country which he came from, which he was basically got -- he got a asylum.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It's not a foreign country. He lives there.
ROGINSKY: Excuse me. No, he does not live there.
JENNINGS: Actually, he's a citizen of El Salvador.
ROGINSKY: Scott, excuse me. He got asylum in this country.
JENNINGS: He's a citizen.
ROGINSKY: Scott --
JENNINGS: Does he have asylum at --
ROGINSKY: Excuse me, let me finish.
HONIG: No, he is not.
ROGINSKY: No. It's that he -- sorry. It's not that he got asylum. He got a judge to say that he could not be rendered --
JENNINGS: Does he have a deportation order?
ROGINSKY: Excuse me, he could not be -- can you let me finish? He could not be, he could not be rendered back to El Salvador because he was at risk of being harmed in El Salvador.
JENNINGS: By who?
ROGINSKY: That is what a federal --
JENNINGS: By who? No, who was he at risk of?
ROGINSKY: Excuse me, that was what a federal judge said.
JENNINGS: No. Who's he at risk of being harmed by? I'm asking you.
ROGINSKY: Who could he be at risk by? I don't know.
JENNINGS: A rival gang.
ROGINSKY: No. Excuse, Scott, excuse me, stop, do you really believe that this guy's an MS-13 member because --
JENNINGS: I've got two heads of state telling me that they believe it.
ROGINSKY: Okay, you're heads of state.
PHILLIP: Let me address what Scott's saying because I -- maybe, Scott. Maybe you are correct. But the venue to litigate that very thing that you just said is in a court. That's where we should find out. Is his claim that his life is at risk a real one, one that should prevent him from being deported or is it not? The problem is that the administration tried to avoid doing any of that and they just took him out of the country, even though she's right, Julia is right, there was a hold on his deportation to El Salvador for a reason. The administration has acknowledged that they made a mistake here.
JENNINGS: So, here's what I think is going to happen. He's either going to stay there, or if he comes back here, he's going to be immediately arrested. And if he doesn't want to go back to El Salvador, he's going to wind up in some other place, Somalia, Gaza, I don't know where. He's not going to wind up living in the United States.
PHILLIP: Do you think that he should have a process afforded to him?
JENNINGS: I think he's an illegal alien with an existing deportation order. He had one.
PHILLIP: Do you think that he should have a process afforded to him?
JENNINGS: I think he went to immigration courts on multiple occasions and has an existing deportation order.
PHILLIP: Well, we discussed the outcome of that, which was that he was not supposed to be deported where he was.
JENNINGS: To El Salvador.
PHILLIP: So, do you think that process should be able to play out before the administration removes someone from the country?
JENNINGS: If El Salvador lets him go, I think what the administration should do is taken back, as they said they would, that's facilitate, in my opinion, and then, okay, you don't want to go back there where you're from, by the way, he's a citizen of El Salvador, where do you want to go, because you're not staying here. That is the outcome. This is how this ends.
PHILLIP: To Julie's point, I just want to play, again, this is Trump for the second day in a row now, talking about sending Americans to El Salvador. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Could we use it for violent criminals, our own violent criminals?
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I call them homegrown criminals.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, the homegrowns, could be they --
TRUMP: The ones that grew up and something went wrong and they hit people over the head with a baseball bat, we have -- and push people into subways just before the train gets there, like you see happening sometimes. We are looking into it and we want to do it. I would love to do that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Shermichael?
SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, look, I think he's saying that as a deterrence. But I want to go back to this conversation because at least let us start at a foundation. The guy came into the country in 2011 illegally. That's a federal offense violation of Title 8, Elie, correct me if I'm wrong. A judge did say a couple years later, I believe, 2019, that you can be deported now, not to El Salvador, but you indeed can be deported somewhere else. And so I'm not opposed to bring them back but he has to go somewhere else. This notion that people are entitled to break the law, stay in our country with no recourse, doesn't make any sense to me. There are very few countries, very -- hold on a minute.
[22:10:00]
There are very few countries in the globe, literally, I looked this up, very few numerically speaking countries that will allow you to violate their immigration laws and say, oh, well, I'm going to stay because of whatever reason, and then they don't have a recourse to remove you, that just doesn't make any logical sense to most people out there.
ROGINSKY: But this is a big red herring, right? Because you guys -- no, it is, because you guys keep talking about the fact that he could be deported somewhere.
SINGLETON: But a judge said that.
ROGINSKY: He was specifically not to be deported to El Salvador.
SINGLETON: I don't disagree with that. I just said that.
ROGINSKY: Where did this administration --
SINGLETON: I literally just said that.
ROGINSKY: Where did this administration --
SINGLETON: I just acknowledged that.
ROGINSKY: Where did this administration deport him to? El Salvador.
SINGLETON: And I literally just said, bring him back and send him anywhere else. That's fine.
PHILLIP: Let me Elie let get a --
ROGINSKY: Contravention a federal judge.
HONIG: There's a federal judge in the Fourth Circuit named Harvey Wilkinson, who's probably the most esteemed conservative, hardcore conservative federal appellate judge in this country right now. He called this a path to perfect lawlessness, in his opinion. Because what happened here is the Trump administration erroneously deported him. Yes, they could have sent him to other countries. They sent him to one place. He was not allowed to go. They initially owned up to it in court. And what'd they do with that DOJ lawyer? He's now fired for admitting that they did wrong.
And let me ask you this. Why wouldn't they have just said you can make mistakes? Why wouldn't the administration have just said, our bad, we'll bring them back, we're going to put them in the normal deportation process and whatever happens?
One last thing, the fact that this administration is wasting so much time on this guy, who at best is maybe a marginal some point in the past. There's one confidential source from 2019, like there are so many more dangerous people --
PHILLIP: Well, there's also a lot of questions about where that alleged information came from.
But, Elie, one more thing for you, because I think this is part of the conversation here. This administration wants to just get rid of people without ever having to prove things against them. They had this person that they said was an MS-13 leader. And rather than try him for his crimes, they want to just quickly deport him.
Now, court says they can't quickly deport him, but it's interesting to me because maybe this guy is an MS-13 leader, shouldn't he just be prosecuted for his crimes?
JENNINGS: Is the guy you're mentioning of an illegal immigrant?
PHILLIP: Scott, I'm asking if he is responsible for heinous crimes in this country, should he not be not prosecuted for the crimes?
JENNINGS: What? Do you want to send him away?
PHILLIP: I'm actually asking why he's not being prosecuted. That's my question.
HONIG: So, first of all, you don't have to be an MS-13 member to be deported if you are here illegally. But let me just give you my sort of experience, the benefit. Nobody at this table knows if the guy is a terrorist or not, myself included. But I can tell you this. When I was a federal prosecutor, if an FBI agent said, came to me, I was in charge of gangs and organized crime, and said, we got a big guy here for you, I said, oh, tell me. He goes, well, he's been in the country 14 years. He's never been arrested. Some source said six years ago, one guy said he was involved in a gang in New York. By the way, he lives in Maryland. I can't name anything bad that he's done, and also every year he makes an appointment with ICE and goes in and self- reports, I'd say, does not sound like a terrorist to me. And even if he is, we got much bigger fish to fry.
KOH: But this is why he's doing it. Trump has a very clear map of the slippery slope. He started with people with clear criminal records. Now, he's going to people who he questions the asylum, then he is talking about American citizens.
My question is, in the course of three months, he's done this, what's going to happen next month and next month?
PHILLIP: There's already been a lot of evidence that a lot of people are getting caught up in this. A Russian illegal immigrant by the way was coming back to the United States with some lab samples had her visa revoked, this is what The New York Times reports, and is jailed by ICE. I mean, there are people who are literally just being caught up in this dragnet just for being immigrants.
KOH: And it's becoming normalized. JENNINGS: Can I ask a question of you two, since you're so passionate about this? If the United States brought Garcia back, would you support the administration arresting him and sending him to another country that would have him, because I don't think there are many that would, yes or no?
KOH: I would support if he had due process and that were the case, yes.
JENNINGS: Well, he's already got a deportation order. So, you're saying that when he comes back and Donald Trump sends him to Gaza, you're going to come on to say, this was great?
ROGINSKY: To Gaza? Why would he go to Gaza?
JENNINGS: I don't -- you tell me who's going to take him. Do you think France is going to take him? I don't know.
PHILLIP: Look, we got to leave it there. But, you know, it is interesting to me --
ROGINSKY: I will you support due process, sure.
PHILLIP: It is interesting to me that the Trump administration continues to want to deport people not just to maybe their country of origin, but to a prison in another country without giving them the benefit of a process to determine whether they've actually even committed a crime other than coming into the country illegally.
SINGLETON: I'm not against -- quickly. I'm not against due process. I don't think most Americans aren't. But these people have violated the law. President Obama deported a ton of people out of this country.
PHILLIP: But he didn't send them to a prison in El Salvador.
SINGLETON: I understand that.
PHILLIP: That's a very different situation.
SINGLETON: But we should deport people who are breaking our laws.
PHILLIP: Okay. But they're being sent to a prison in El Salvador. That's a fact.
So, coming up next, President Trump is threatening Harvard's tax- exempt status after the university rejected his administration's demands.
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We're going to discuss what could come next in that situation.
Plus, my one-on-one interview with Melinda French Gates. She had a lot to say about politics and how billionaires, like herself, are involved. That's ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight, President Trump escalating his battle with Harvard University, threatening to go after the university's tax status, suggesting that it could lose its tax-exempt status and be taxed just like a political entity. Now, that threat comes hours after Trump froze more than $2 billion in federal funding. And in response, the university is rejecting his demands around curriculum and hiring practices.
[22:20:01]
Now, is Trump's latest threat really the road he wants to travel, to strip tax-exempt status? I mean, presumptively, this is because he doesn't like Harvard, but I guess he's claiming that there's political activity involved. But there are a lot of entities, I'm thinking specifically religious entities that skirt right up to that line of political engagement and they have their tax-exempt status. That seems to be a slippery slope.
HONIG: It's about so much more than that. It's hard to even know where to begin. Have you all seen this letter that the president sent to Harvard, with the 10 Commandments, I guess it is, 10? I mean, this is micromanaging speech and thought within an educational institution like I've never seen before.
I mean, one of the things that the Trump administration says they demand of Harvard is you need to go hire some outside firm. They need to audit your entire student body and faculty for ideological diversity, viewpoint diversity.
Now, look, I think viewpoint diversity is a great thing. I think it's a fact that Harvard leans hard left. But that said, it is no business of the government or the president to come in and say, you need to fix your viewpoint.
By the way, it contradicts itself in one paragraph. The letter says there can't be any litmus test. On the other, the next sentence or next paragraph says, and you need to hire more conservatives.
PHILLIP: He talks about merit -- they talk about merit-based admissions at Harvard, but then also says that if you don't have enough of what they call a viewpoint diversity, then you must, you know, admit certain people or hire certain people --
ROGINSKY: It's DEI for conservatives.
PHILLIP: Sure, yes. And the other thing is like, have they met college students? Do they realize that when you're 18, what you think at 18 might change between 18 and 21?
JENNINGS: Actually, according to the latest polling, 18 to 21 year olds are some of the most conservative people in the country.
PHILLIP: I think that is exactly --
JENNINGS: So, how is it that Harvard finds every non-conservative 18- year-old in the country?
PHILLIP: Well, Scott, you've been to Harvard too.
JENNINGS: I've been there.
PHILLIP: You know that there are conservatives at Harvard.
JENNINGS: A very few.
PHILLIP: But you also know --
JENNINGS: I was treated like an exotic zoo man when I was there.
PHILLIP: But you also know that undergrads change their viewpoints over time. Why is the government coming in and saying --
JENNINGS: well, it's not like Harvard has a --
PHILLIP: Why is the government coming in and saying, well, oh, if you don't admit this many conservatives, and then by the time you graduate, oh, what if there are fewer conservatives, oh, no, is Harvard going to lose their funding? What's going to happen, Scott.
JENNINGS: Look, I don't think you can set quotas for ideological testing or whatever.
PHILLIP: That's what they're asking for.
JENNINGS: That's obviously not what's going to happen. What I think this is all about has to go -- it goes right back to the issue of what these colleges allowed to happen on their campus, both in terms of admissions and in terms of the way Jewish students were treated. He also said Harvard should apologize, and I agree, they ought to apologize to these Jewish kids. They got terrorized after October the 7th, and they ought to apologize to the Asian students that were discriminated against.
PHILLIP: Did you know that Harvard actually had a settlement already with Jewish students and agreed to a lot of reforms on how they address some of these very issues? Harvard is an independent institution, right? Even The Wall Street Journal, what we've been -- hold on. The Wall Street Journal, who we've been quoting a lot here lately, because they looked at this and they basically said they are taking a risk here, the Trump administration, and pushing the boundaries of what they can and cannot do.
Part of what the Journal is talking about here is the idea that they are going to micromanage individual universities, try to force quotas, try to force them to handle their internal affairs in a particular way, and then hold federal funding hostage as a result.
KOH: And I think it's important to outline what's at stake with the federal funding, just to humanize it a little bit. Previous federal funding to Harvard helped fund childhood leukemia research that increased the survival rate from 10 percent to 90 percent. It helped fund key breast cancer research that extended the lives of women by 25 percent. It's just announced groundbreaking research on glioblastoma brain cancer patients.
So, we're playing politics with funding that's supposed to currently be going to Alzheimer's victims, stroke victims, diabetes victims, and that advancement can't wait for politics.
PHILLIP: Scott, I mean, I see you reacting. That's why I'm asking --
JENNINGS: Look, I think Harvard has a couple of choices. Number one, it could act right, or number two --
PHILLIP: What is act right?
JENNINGS: I stop having your student population that happens to be Jewish be terrorized.
PHILLIP: Okay. But what if I told you --
JENNINGS: Stop the discrimination against certain kinds of populations on admissions.
PHILLIP: What if I told you they have attempted to do that on their own without the help of the Trump administration and maybe perhaps it's not the role of the government to tell them how to govern themselves?
JENNINGS: Well, I think it is the role of the government to tell them that maybe these students are having their civil rights violated and a Civil Rights Act issue, is it not?
HONIG: On the anti-Semitism point look, I, you know, studied --
JENNINGS: It's not just Harvard, it's all the Ivys.
HONIG: I mean, look a lot of schools have dealt with problems with anti-Semitism, with racism, and especially antisemitism over the last couple years. I mean, I've studied this a bit once in a while, been subject to it myself. And I think there have been some important steps taken to combat anti-Semitism, and I appreciate that focus. But this letter, this demand has nothing to do with that. It starts from a pretext, a Trojan horse of we're here to fix anti-Semitism.
[22:25:02]
By the time you're on the second page of this, you're like, what on earth are they even talking about?
So, I like -- I appreciate the concern for anti-Semitism. I know you feel in a very heartfelt way, Scott, which I really do appreciate, but this letter ain't it.
JENNINGS: The other road is they have $53 billion.
HONIG: Well, yes.
JENNINGS: You know, they -- I mean they -- and they're asking for $2 billion. HONIG: That's a different topic, but, yes.
PHILLIP: Yes, that's a different topic. And also, I mean, I think that Dan's point is really important. There is a public good here that comes from America's universities, not just Harvard. Here's Ron Brownstein on this, Boston and Austin to Seattle and Silicon Valley, these elite research universities have served as catalysts for growth in the nation's most productive regional economies. In the global competition for 21st century economic supremacy Trump's wide ranging assault on America's top research institutions may come to be seen as a profound act of unilateral disarmament.
We are, is what he's saying, shooting ourselves in the foot by basically saying we're going to strip all the research dollars away so that Harvard can admit a hundred more conservatives?
SINGLETON: I mean, I think from my perspective as a conservative, there really is a real battle going on in the country right now between liberalism, conservatism and which of the two ideologies will lead the country and to the next 50 to a hundred years, particularly as we look at China and with their advancements and developments are, in terms of usurping U.S. lead globally. And I am not certain that every single liberal institution that's an Ivy League, I don't think they've really done enough to have intellectual diversity of thought on a litany of topics.
I mean, these places are really breeding grounds for some of the most abhorrent views, in my personal opinion.
PHILLIP: The race against China is not being fought on the grounds of domestic political discourse?
SINGLETON: Oh, I would disagree with that, Abby.
PHILLIP: It's in the scientific labs. It's in the A.I. labs. It's in the research.
SINGLETON: I would disagree with that. I think culture matters.
PHILLIP: Oh, yes, I get that.
SINGLETON: I think customs of behavior matter. I think norms matter. All of those things matter in terms of the health of a society.
PHILLIP: But if China is going to lap us economically and technologically, it is not going to be because there are five more Republicans at Harvard. It's going to be because there is no research.
SINGLETON: But you know why they also usurp us, Abby? Because the customs of behavior, the norms, the traditions of values that they value matter in terms of their success as a people.
PHILLIP: That is a whole --
SINGLETON: And we're lessening the importance of those things in our own country. That's why conservative ideals do matter. PHILLIP: I love that conversation because I think it's a great one about how American values right now stack up against what China's doing. I think that's a good conversation for another day.
Elie Honig, thank you very much for joining us. Everyone else, hang on.
Coming up my one-on-one with Melinda French Gates, her take on big money in politics and her fellow billionaire Elon Musk.
Plus, breaking tonight, stun guns used against protestors at Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's town hall in Georgia. We'll have more on that ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:33:36]
PHILLIP: Power always reveals, and Melinda French Gates argues that it is revealing something ugly about America's billionaire class. Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and others, see them there, they have tried to jar open the door to the Trump administration and the power that proximity brings with it. So, I asked her a pretty straightforward question. Is America becoming an oligarchy?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MELINDA FRENCH GATES, PHILANTHROPIST AND AUTHOR, "THE NEXT DAY": I sure hope not because I believe in a democracy and I cannot speak to those people's values who are on that podium. I can only speak to my values and my values say to me that to whom much is given, much is expected. You have a moral responsibility to give away at least half of it. And in my case, I'm trying to spend my energy and my time and my resources doing exactly that.
I think we are seeing some of their true personalities come out in the last few years. I think this has always been in the undertone of lots of people. I've met a lot of them. I know a few of them, but I've met them.
PHILLIP: This is all being led by Elon Musk. Do you think he understands the value of the government in doing some of this work that has already saved millions of lives?
FRENCH GATES: Well, all I can say is that a good manager doesn't just immediately cut something off. They go out. They understand the work. They see what differences have been made. And then you might say, okay, maybe 10 percent of it wasn't being spent well, or this five percent over here was wasted in some way.
None of us want that with our taxpayer dollars. But good management doesn't say you just cut something immediately and then and even all those U.S. employees are gone. I just -- that I don't understand.
(END VIDEOTAPE) PHILLIP: And the reason she says that last part, I think it's so important to know is that, you know, she was the -- the -- she was running the Gates Foundation with her now ex-husband for many, many years, and they had a very meticulous approach to charity. It was charity with results and so I think she sees this as sort of the opposite of what she's used to doing.
But it's also this contrast between what she has chosen to do with her wealth and what the Elons and the Zuckerbergs and even the Tim Cooks, they're all giving money into the bucket of politics so they can get something in return for their companies.
[22:35:07]
SINGLETON: Interest to them --
PHILLIP: Yeah.
SINGLETON: -- and we were talking about this on the break. I really think there's a difference in terms of younger billionaires and -- and how they interpret their role, generally speaking, in society compared to people like Gates, and --and Melinda.
I think there's just a difference.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: What do you think it is, though, I'm curious -- out of curiosity --
SINGLETON: I think younger billionaires are just more in touch with what is of interest and of importance to them as individuals and to society writ large?
PHILLIP: So it's a little bit more selfish in their approach. I mean, I think that's kind of the contrast, right?
SINGLETON: I -- I think so. And -- and even the -- the point, I think she said she believes you have a moral obligation to give away at least half of it. I really wonder how many people out there if they ever, you know, amassed a billion dollars would fill the moral obligation to give away half. I wouldn't. Maybe I'll give away a couple hundred million dollars but certainly not half.
PHILLIP: I mean, she's not talking about, like, $1 billion. She's talking about --
SINGLETON: Well, maybe we got 50. I would give away half. I'm just going to be honest.
PHILLIP: Like, on the verge of being the first trillionaire.
SINGLETON: Trillionaire. Why not?
PHILLIP: I think her position is a fair one.
SINGLETON: Why not?
PHILLIP: No human being can spend even $500 billion. So, I -- I think that's a fair point.
JENNINGS: Well, couple of things. One, when she said, well, maybe five percent was misspent or ten percent. I mean, we're talking about the federal government here. I think that's a little naive to think there's only five percent of waste in the federal government. So, what Elon is doing, I think, goes well beyond just, you know, the need to cut minor here and there.
But on the issue of spending money, I don't know why we're denigrating money being spent on -- on politics. Like, politics is a noble endeavor. It's worthwhile for people with ideas to engage in the political process.
She acts like that you have to give it all away to charity. I think politics is a worthwhile expenditure, whether you're a small dollar donor who are boosting some of these Democrats right now or whether you're a billionaire, these are all people who care deeply about the future of the country.
They have different values. They have different ideas about how it should go, but they're all investing their resources as they see fit. I don't see anything wrong with investing in your own speech, Tristan.
ROGINSKY: I don't think she's claiming that they're investing in anybody's free speech. I think she says that they're sitting there effectively begging Trump for favor, which is what they were all doing up on that stage.
And the reality is that she and MacKenzie Scott are the two people who have taken their immense wealth and are actually spending it in ways that truly and I mean, truly, I don't disagree with you, by the way, that politics is a noble endeavor. And you're absolutely right. I think it's if you want to donate to politicians on either side of the aisle because you want to improve the world and your worldview, that's a noble endeavor.
But the difference between a Jeff Bezos, who, by the way, is a peer of hers, he's not a young guy, he's roughly the same age as Melinda Gates, and somebody like his ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott, is stark, whereas he's spending money sending Katy Perry up to space for five minutes, she's spending money legitimately, tangibly improving lives of people in small communities who never otherwise would have had access to this money.
PHILLIP: And to Scott's point, just real quick. I mean, I -- I don't know that she's saying don't engage in politics because that's actually one of the things we talked about. She did engage in politics in this last cycle in a way that she had not before and I asked her about it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP: You talked about your daughters having fewer rights now than you did as you were coming up. You've also become more engaged in politics. How has that been for you? Has it been a comfortable experience to do that?
FRENCH GATES: Well, I've always been, as I've said, a voter on both sides of the aisle, Republican and Democratic. In different elections, I voted different ways. But I have become more political because there's issues that I care about advancing, like paid family medical leave.
We are the only -- the only high income country that doesn't have it and yet make such a difference for parents. And so, I definitely give to political leaders who have the same values that I have around some of those issues.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP: Yeah. It's not about not engaging. It's -- it's about values and also I think on top of what she's doing in politics, she's giving the vast majority of her wealth just giving it away to causes that are actually making impacts on people's lives.
KOH: Look, I think it's one thing to give money to candidates. I think there's a very different situation we have with Elon Musk. Let's be very clear. Elon Musk is CEO of a public company. His primary fiduciary duty is not to the government. It's to his shareholders.
And so, the fact that we have someone who is not bold into the government and to everyday citizens, but to a different entity, all up in everyone's data, cutting without any kind of due process on that is -- should be a concern for everyone.
So, look, we can have debate about the ethics of billionaires and age and all that stuff, but we should absolutely agree that there shouldn't be this kind of conflict of interest with this much power and resources literally shaping the way government is administered every day.
PHILLIP: And -- or at least do it in a way that actually, produces, you know, verifiable results because, I mean, Scott, you pointed out five to 10 percent of waste. Maybe it is. Maybe it's not. Elon hasn't produced evidence of even one percent of waste in the government, not -- not even one.
[22:40:03]
JENNINGS: I dispute this idea that Elon Musk has some outside -- I mean, he's not the president. He was not on the ballot. He supported the president and as a supporter of the president, it's his right as an American, as a patriotic American, to engage in helping the person that he supported.
He's a temporary government employee. He will be gone soon. But there's no question that the net benefit of Elon Musk to this country, to this president, to this government is vast -- is vast, both on the private side and in his ideas about kick starting a conversation about reforming our government, which is in store. ROGINSKY: You can ask for security people who are applying for social security in Arizona. You tell them about Elon Musk's favor for this president. I can't wait for you to have that conversation with him.
KOH: Scott, just like me, when you were in the White House, you had to sell your stock because it was important to show --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: But when I got hired, I had no stock. I was extremely poor.
KOH: Okay. Okay. Fine. But that's not the rule.
JENNINGS: Very poor.
KOH: It's important that we have rules to make sure that we don't have conflicts --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Don't get mad at him for doing well, Scott.
JENNINGS: I'm not. I'm happy about it.
PHILLIP: All right, breaking --
JENNINGS: I got to get financial planner co over here on my side.
PHILLIP: All right. Breaking tonight. Multiple protesters dragged out of Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's town hall. Sun guns were used on those protesters. We're going to show you the video and discuss that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:45:56]
PHILLIP: Tonight, if you're wondering where the energy is on the left, it's in Acworth, Georgia. That is where MAGA firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene held a town hall and ran into this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (voice-over): Protesters outside and protesters inside.
REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R) GEORGIA: Ladies and gentlemen, they're all inside the interior of the United States.
UNKNOWN: How about the KKK?
TAYLOR GREENE: All inside the interior of the United States.
UNKNOWN: To the terrorist group. Going after black and white --
TAYLOR GREENE: They can head out. The protest is outside. Thank you very much. Protest is outside. UNKNOWN: You butch body bigots. You butch body bigots.
TAYLOR GREENE: Protest is outside. Bye. Have fun out there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: If you didn't catch that, the protester said -- called her a butch body bigot, which is a reference to something --
UNKNOWN: That's a heated one.
PHILLIP: Something that she was told by another member of Congress not too long ago. There is that playing out. I saw another Chuck Grassley town hall. I mean, I know, Scott, you're like, these are liberal activists. I --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: Can you take the other Republican that was --
PHILLIP: I watched the Chuck Grassley town hall. The -- the guys yelling at Chuck Grassley were not liberal activists. I can tell you that. But in addition to that, we've also got, AOC and Bernie Sanders going on a tour across the country, bringing in 10,000 -- 15,000 people into arenas. And now, she's released her fundraising numbers saying she's raised $9.5 million in the first quarter of the year, which is a huge --
SINGLETON: That's a lot of money. I mean, look, AOC has returned yet again to be, at least right now, what appears to be the future of the Democratic Party. Julie, I don't know if you would disagree with that.
ROGINSKY: I agree with you, actually.
SINGLETON: But from our vantage point as Republicans, we would love that because I think most -- most American voters, especially those who self-identify as independents are probably to the center of the left or to the center of the right. They're not extremist progressives. And so, if the Democratic Party want to go down that path, I think it's going to bode well for Republicans in terms of our electoral success.
ROGINSKY: All right. Well, let me tell you why AOC is doing so well, and it's not because of that.
SINGLETON: Do you agree with her, Julie?
ROGINSKY: I -- no. Actually, I don't agree with her in a lot of things, but I will tell you why people support AOC, including me at the moment. Because unlike other Democrats, she's taking the fight to Trump, and that is what Democrats want right now.
And the bottom line is it doesn't really matter whether you agree with her in the Green New Deal or whatever other policies she has. She and Bernie Sanders, with whom I also don't agree on policy all the time, are the ones who are out there taking the fight to Trump in ways that that Chuck Schumer, Hakim Jeffries are not.
SINGLETON: Is there any worry that those ideas could define your party that all?
ROGINSKY: Listen, as opposed -- as opposed to the ideas that define the Republican Party at the moment, I'll take their ideas versus Donald Trump's ideas any day of the week, and so will most Republicans. She's raising money from people right now who probably don't even know what her policy views are --
PHILLIP: Yeah.
ROGINSKY: -- where they see that she's going out there and she's taking the fight to him, and that's what Democrats are.
(CROSSTALK)
SINGLETON: People would love a fighter. People would love a fighter.
PHILLIP: Let me just -- let me just, let me just introduce James Carville into this conversation because he had some things to say about progressives that I think will get on a lot of people's nerves, but listen to what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAMES CARVILLE, POLITICAL STRATEGIST: Maybe we could have a kind of amicable split here, and we'll go to post in 2026 because you don't ever run -- they never run against a Republican. Okay. All they do is run against other Democrats.
I don't quite understand why you're so anxious to have the word Democrat in the description of what you do, but maybe we can have a -- amicable split here. And you go your way and we go our way, and after the election, we come together and see how much common ground we can find.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: He's talking there about progressives.
KOH: Look, I think that if we are going to be the party that criticizes Donald Trump around his policies on diversity and equity inclusion, we as a party need to stand for diversity, equity and inclusion.
[22:50:00]
We need to bring diverse voices to the table. We should be focused on the future, and that means a lot of opinions and a lot of soul- searching that we have to do. The Republican Party has a different thing. They have a retrospective view. Make America greater again is a fundamental belief that the past was better than the future.
If you're going to look at the future being better than the past, you're going to have to have these conversations. So, to be honest, I don't think that comment's particularly helpful. I think there's a lot of soul-searching to do, but to dunk on progressives when they are bringing so much energy right now in red states and blue states would be a huge mistake.
ROGINSKY: With all due -- yeah. Let me just add to that because I think you're so right on this. With all due respect, and I -- I respect James Carville a lot, but I think he's dead wrong here. Because the people who are not doing what they're supposed to be doing is the establishment wing of the Republican Party.
They're not bringing the energy. God bless Chuck Schumer -- him standing there waving whatever he was, you know, on the Hill the other day, is not what people are looking for right now. And it's exactly the people that James Carville is dunking on right now who are out there, who are holding these town halls, who are holding these rallies.
And people are responding, including people in the establishment like me who's worked for establishment candidates my whole life, who all of a sudden is like, you know what? Maybe these people have a point because they're the ones who are going to get us elected in two years.
PHILLIP: I'm going to direct this at Scott because he was complaining. I was fussing at him in the break. You will like this, Scott. You will like this. According to NBC News, there is a growing number of voters who are identifying with the MAGA movement from January 2024, it was 20 percent. March 2025, it is 36 percent.
So, we're -- we're actually seeing the country kind of moving in -- in these opposite directions. Lots of fire and energy on the left, but on the right, more and more Americans are comfortable saying I'm MAGA.
JENNINGS: Oh, yeah. Well, I think a lot of people, a lot of Republicans used to think of themselves as just, you know, average Republicans, and they've really come to respect and appreciate what Donald Trump is doing. I think the immigration issue alone is causing a lot of people to feel closer to Donald Trump, than maybe they ever felt before. So, I'm not surprised by that finding.
I referenced it earlier, but there's also other polling. Very young people, 18 to 21, are feeling more conservative even as, like, you know, 21 to 24 are feeling less, so, there was a bit of a split in that generation. But you can see people flowing in different ways here, and it's quite -- quite interesting.
I actually think the common thread among it all is -- is if you perceive authenticity out of a politician, you tend to gravitate towards them. That's why Trump is popular. I think it's why AOC, is popular, too. She doesn't appear to be a scripted puppet, neither does Trump, and you can see the crowds they draw.
PHILLIP: All right, everyone. Thank you very much for joining us. Coming up next, more from my interview with Melinda French Gates, including her thoughts on her divorce and what it's like to break out from the Gates Foundation.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:57:17]
PHILLIP: Tonight, Melinda French Gates, as you've never heard her before, Gates is getting personal about her life in her new book, "The Next Day, Transitions Change and Moving Forward".
She's lived a prominent and very public life, building a charitable empire alongside her ex-husband, Bill Gates. Gates is now take -- taking those who have watched her from afar on a tour through her toughest moments, offering lessons about how to handle life's challenges. In a "NewsNight" exclusive, Gates talked about two of the toughest decisions of her life, to leave the foundation and to leave her marriage.
(BEGIN VIDETAPE)
FRENCH GATES: I left the Gates Foundation after 25 years of founding that institution. I think they're doing incredible work, but I wanted to split off and do my own work through Pivotal Ventures because I thought there were things I wanted to do in the United States that would be easier to do really under my own organization.
And one of the things that spurred me on was thinking about the fact that my two granddaughters who are ages two and five months, they don't have as many rights right now as I did growing up. And that just doesn't make any sense to me.
PHILLIP: Is there freedom in doing that?
FRENCH GATES: Definitely. Most definitely. Because, you know, I mean, we had a board, we also had -- there were two of us. There were co- chairs. And so we all, you know, we had to agree. But now, you know, doing it on my own, it just feels right. I'm -- can step fully into my own voice, use my own resources, make my own decisions, and that feels great.
PHILLIP: You have three beautiful children, and you experienced this divorce when they were -- most of them were older. What has it been like to go through an incredibly public separation and walk your kids through that process, too?
FRENCH GATES: I speak in the book a bit about this divorce and the only reason I did that is because my book is about transitions. And I didn't feel like I could talk about a transition without talking about this huge one I had, which was a divorce.
PHILLIP: Right.
FRENCH GATES: And it would be inauthentic to not speak about it. And unfortunately, so many American families go through it. All I can say is it's not something I would wish on any family ever. It's painful for everybody involved.
PHILLIP: You write about being with your daughter Phoebe and she was scrolling through her phone -- she was a little younger then, watching these headlines. You -- you also talk about how Bill, you said, betrayed your values. When you realized that for yourself, how did you explain that to Phoebe?
FRENCH GATES: She understood. She knew what had happened. She had enough information about what happened that she understood that I needed to move along.
[23:00:04]
And it was sad for all of us.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP: We'll have more from our interview tomorrow night, but you can watch the whole interview online right now. Scan that QR code in the corner of your screen for more. And thank you very much for watching "NewsNight". You can catch me anytime on your favorite social media -- X, Instagram and also TikTok. "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
