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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Lashes Out as Americans Give Him Bad Report Card; Report Says, Trump Averages a Biden Mention Six Times a Day; Trump Continues to Spin Economy While It Suffers. Maher Says "Curb" Comedian Went Too Far; Judge Barred Trump Pledge To Starve Sanctuary Cities Of Federal Funds. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired April 24, 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 ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, the president pitches a fit as the polls, all of them, tell a story of American angst with him.
Plus, Donald Trump tries to make two plus two equal five. The president brags housing is booming when the numbers show it going bust.
Also, should you have to prove your citizenship to cast a ballot? A judge delivers his vote.
And Bill Maher responds to Larry David's Hitler essay, mocking his MAGA meal.
BILL MAHER, COMEDIAN AND HOST, HBO'S REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER: I just think it's kind of insulting.
PHILLIP: Live at the table, Joel Fugelsang, Batya Ungar-Sargon, Arthur Aidala, Karen Finney and Dan Abrams.
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 is talking about, under pressure. We are days away from Trump's 100-day report card and the early science point to Trump getting a see me after class notice from voters. Markets have plummeted, consumer confidence are at record lows, and his trade war has largely caused more panic than praise.
Now, the latest polling from one of Trump's favorite networks, Fox News, has his approval rating at the lowest point for any president at this point, since at least George W. Bush. Now, Trump lashed out online claiming that Rupert Murdoch told him for years that he was going to get rid of the, quote, Trump-hating and fake pollster at Fox News. He also urged Murdoch to make changes at The Wall Street Journal. He says, it sucks.
But the problems facing the administration, it's not Trump's fault if you ask him. An NBC News analysis found that Trump has mentioned Biden, his family or his administration at least 580 times since he took office. That averages to six times each day.
Here is Trump just in the last three days.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Biden spent $350 billion on this. And it's a shame.
But this isn't my war. This is Biden's war.
He's keeping rates too high. He historically has been laid except when it came to Biden.
When Biden allowed energy to skyrocket, it just skyrocketed out of -- it was out of control.
He was spending hundreds of billions of dollars through Biden. Biden should have never let that war happen.
During the Biden administration, during that last year, was a horror show.
We were having hundreds of thousands of people a month come in under Biden.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Dan, Donald Trump seems to be coming to terms with the fact that the numbers are not looking good, that the places in the media that he usually turns to for positive coverage are not giving him that. Do you think that he's taking in what that means in terms of how voters are seeing his actions or is he just kind of in the blame game?
DAN ABRAMS, FOUNDER, MEDIAITE YOUTUBE: I don't think he's coming to terms with it. I think if you were to ask Donald Trump, he would say, we're doing great. But the polls are pretty clear. And the best polling to look at isn't just in isolation. It's to look at the same poll taken at two different times, right? So, there's another poll out from Pew, for example, recently that came out, one in April, one in February. He's down seven points, so it's clear that whatever the number is, right, he's definitely down to some degree.
But when it comes to the Biden stuff, right, yes, it kind of sounds ridiculous when you listen to it again and again clipped up like that, but it may not be bad politics, meaning I don't think that's the reason that he's down. It's not because he's mentioning Biden. I think that he's probably benefiting politically.
PHILLIP: But isn't he mentioning Biden so that he can, you know, deflect the blame for --
KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Here's what I would offer is the mistake and continuing to mention Biden, but he's making virtually the same mistake that the Biden administration made, and that is ignoring what the American people are telling you. They elected you to deal with inflation. You've done everything but. You have put your shoulder to the grindstone when it comes to Greenland and Panama and all these other things. What are you doing to lower costs? Zero. Consumer sentiment is down. People are feeling, you know, their finances are not where they want them to be.
And, remember, we went through this is one of my criticisms of the Biden administration, two years of them ignoring Americans saying, hey, it's not working for us. He's making the same mistakes.
So, I do think that him -- it's reminding people, oh, yes, this is how we felt about the last couple of years where we had a president who wasn't paying attention.
ARTHUR AIDALA, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: The biggest difference is Trump is using Biden's name. If you go back and you look. President Obama would just say, the prior administration. To be blunt, they were a little more classy about it than the president, than President Trump is.
Mayors do it all the time. Here in the city of New York, Rudy Giuliani, when he came in '93, he was like -- well, '94, he was like, well, I'm still dealing with Dinkins' mess.
[22:05:02]
I'm still dealing with Dinkins'. But when De Blasio came in after Dinkins and Bloomberg, he said, it's the tale of two cities. I'm dealing with their mess.
So, in that beginning period of time, I think they're making the point of what an uphill battle they have. The difference is Trump is just more crass and blunt about it than others are.
PHILLIP: So. Meantime, he's, he had a meeting today supposedly, that he announced himself with the vaunted Jeffrey Goldberg of the Hegseth Signal chat. After insulting Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of The Atlantic, and a couple of the other reporters who were going in for this meeting, he says, the story they are writing, they have told my representatives, will be entitled, the most consequential president of this century. I am doing this interview out of curiosity and as a competition with myself just to see if it is possible for The Atlantic to be truthful.
But it does raise a question. The most consequential president of the century, he's not the most popular, but is he the most consequential?
JOHN FUGELSANG, SIRIUSXM HOST, TELL ME EVERYTHING: He doesn't realize that, so let him dream. Please, let the man enjoy his moment, absolutely. And I think it's actually very advantageous for both him and Jeffrey Goldberg. This will allow Trump to believe he's neutralized the embarrassment of Hegseth, essentially planning military strikes in a booth at Hooters, and it's going to make it look like he's controlled the situation. But Goldberg can actually now recast himself and remind people that he's not this anti-MAGA figure, because you can imagine the hate mail he's had for the last six weeks. It's much smarter than blaming Joe Biden and reminding us all how calm and confident --
ABRAMS: But he gets some credit. Doesn't he get some credit for it? I mean, look --
PHILLIP: Who gets credit? Trump? Trump sitting down with them?
ABRAMS: Trump is inviting him in. And this is a guy who Trump has said again and again, he's the worst, he's terrible, and he's inviting him in to do an interview.
FINNEY: But that's probably what he's going to say. I mean, we can write the story right now. We can just do it right now.
ABRAMS: How does it neutralize?
FUGELSANG: It's going to allow Trump a little bit longer to pretend that he is in control of the situation. It's not a problem. I'm not threatened by this guy at all. Everything's fine, Pete Hegseth has my support --
ABRAMS: But then the article's going to come out and he's going to be upset about the article, right?
FUGELSANG: Maybe.
ABRAMS: There's no doubt.
FUGELSANG: We don't know if Goldberg's trying to get back into good grace of the (INAUDIBLE).
ABRAMS: Whatever. Oh, come on.
PHILLIP: This is more about Trump than Goldberg because Trump just -- he loves the accolades of institutions like The Atlantic. Everybody knows that. It could be The Atlantic, it could be The New York Times, it could be TIME Magazine.
FUGELSANG: Not getting the accolades, The Atlantic.
ABRAMS: It's not an accolade. What world are you living in?
PHILLIP: I mean, if The Atlantic is writing a story that calls him the most consequential president --
(CROSSTALKS)
FINNEY: I don't think that's the title.
PHILLIP: Well, okay, I was just going to say that we -- that is what Trump says the title is, yes. FINNEY: It's like big picture, right?
FUGELSANG: Cole Khan (ph) is the most consequential rule around Cambodia. You know, it's not quite the flex he thinks it is.
FINNEY: Watch him write --
PHILLIP: I mean --
AIDALA: Didn't he just do it with Bill Maher, though? Isn't it the same kind of --
FUGELSANG: Same thing, sure.
AIDALA: He walked into White House with 60 horrible things Trump said about him, and he had Trump autograph it. And then he did an hour show and saying, well, look, the guy was great when I hung out with him.
PHILLIP: I have no doubt that the Atlantic, you know, Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer and Jeffrey Goldberg are going to go in there and they're going to do some journalism. But Donald Trump wants to talk to them because he wants to talk about how great he is. The problem is that Americans are increasingly starting to say, wait a second, not so far.
To her point, what about the issues that he ran on, which is to bring down the cost of living, just make people's lives better right now?
BATYA UNGAR-SARGON, AUTHOR, SECOND CLASS, HOW THE ELITES BETRAYED AMERICA'S WORKING MEN AND WOMEN: I think there are certain things that we all around the table would agree on, that urgently needed a course correction in this country, which we're going to be very difficult to -- they're unpalatable for the nation. I think probably we could all agree that our relationship with China was deeply problematic, that when we relied on China for the very medications we needed to fight the pandemic that came from China unsustainable.
PHILLIP: And we'll talk a lot more about China in the next segment.
UNGRA-SARGON: That we rely on China to build the ships we would need, if God forbid we ever got into war with them, unsustainable, that the trade relationships we have with the rest of the world, unsustainable.
The tariffs are the reason that he's struggling in the polls, but he knew that this was going to be a period that is going to be very painful, and he still had the guts to do it. This is something that he deserves a lot of credit for because he knew that he was going to hurt and he did it anyway. He said the word tariffs --
FINNEY: I just -- he never said there'll be some pain.
UNGAR-SARGON: Of course, he did.
FINNEY: Never.
PHILLIP: Hold on a second. Let me just hit pause on this for a second, because we have a whole discussion coming on the economics of this. But on the politics of it, right, what I said was Trump ran on making the cost of people's lives today less.
[22:10:08]
It was pretty simple. I'm going to bring prices down. I'm going to deal with inflation. Tariffs is part of one of the things that he ran on. But the other part, the most salient part to Americans, that seems to be the part that he has completely ignored.
AIDALA: And that he's ignored it, or in a hundred days, you can't fix the biggest economy on the planet Earth.
PHILLIP: Or maybe he didn't -- he wasn't honest with the American people when he said --
AIDALA: Abby, you know, all politicians make promises and then (INAUDIBLE).
PHILLIP: He said, I'm going to bring prices down, and then he was elected and he was like, I don't know if I can bring prices down. That's hard.
FINNEY: But it goes back to -- I mean, as a narcissist, right, he believes he's the greatest negotiator on the planet, right? I mean, everything we're talking about, he -- so I believe that he thought, oh, yes, I'm just going to call Vladimir up and we're just going to get that taken care of, and I'm going to talk to Israel and we'll get that taken care of. And somehow he just thinks he can convince all of us that we're not seeing with our own eyes and experiencing when we go to the grocery store or fill up our gas tank. Gas is not $1.98 a gallon, by the way.
UNGAR-SARGON: No, but it is down from where it was last year.
AIDALA: It is down.
UNGAR-SARGON: Eggs down from (INAUDIBLE) $3 a gallon. So, it has come down.
PHILLIP: So, in this kind of environment --
FINNEY: What do you mean? People can see it, feel it in their own purse.
PHILLIP: In this kind of environment the Trump store is selling this, Trump 2028 hats.
FUGELSANG: That's good. I hated that emoluments clause.
PHILLIP: I mean, it's a great troll, but I also think that this -- it almost feels like something that maybe they should have launched, you know, 45 days ago when they were kind of riding on the post inauguration high. Now, it really just doesn't seem like they have that kind of goodwill, even if this were constitutional, which is not. ABRAMS: Well, putting that aside, right, they view it as getting the left wing angry, right? And if they can get them incensed, Trump, did you see the Trump '28 hats?
FUGELSANG: That's the service they provide.
ABRAMS: You know, can you imagine they put these hats, they say '28 on.
FUGELSANG: That's what they do.
ABRAMS: That helps him, right? Look at these crazy left wingers. They're going crazy about the 2028 hats, right? And that's the goal.
FUGELSANG: That's it.
ABRAMS: And to that extent, it works.
FUGELSANG: Also they're into pleasing -- he's into pleasing his customers.
PHILLIP: But I think that you're onto something here, because it's not just the hat. There's a lot of the first 100 days that's been about how can we poke the bear being the left.
FUGELSANG: Absolutely. But they don't have anything to offer their voters. They don't have anything to improve the lives of their voters, except we hate who you hate. And Dan's exactly right, it always works and it always scores. They're not going to do anything to improve the lives of the conservative brothers and sisters who cast a ballot for this man who is incapable of not lying to them. But he hates who they hates, whether it's academics or foreigners or liberals or unions or gay people, whoever you need this week. And then when he doesn't hate them the next week, he doesn't hate them. It works.
UNGAR-SARGON: Well, he's very popular with the unions right now. Both Sean O'Brien of the Teamsters and Shawn Fain of the UAW are solidly in his corner over the tariffs, so that's just not true at all.
PHILLIP: Only on the tariffs.
UNGAR-SARGON: On immigration, he completely secured the southern border, right, lowest record on record number of illegal people crossing the border. On foreign policy, he's getting Europe to pony up for NATO. On China, he is taking on the radical fleecing of the American working class by China. There are massive achievements from these first 100 days.
And I hate to break it to you guys, but the base is thrilled. Yes, there are problems with the tariffs. We're in a difficult period because we have a course correction that we all agree we had today --
FUGELSANG: Yes, but China's enjoying this.
PHILLIP: All right, we're going to ahead pause. We -- let's actually hit pause there, because when we come back, we're going to talk about that.
Trump is going to -- is continuing to lie about the economy as it does suffer from these trade wars, as one Reagan economist calls this moment the scariest that he has ever seen.
Plus, Bill Maher responds to Larry David's Hitler essay, mocking the comedian's meeting with Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAHER: I don't need to be lectured on who Donald Trump is.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:15:00]
PHILLIP: We were just talking about the pressure mounting on Donald Trump. When it comes to the suffering economy, he is resorting to fantasies, including this one about the housing market.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: They have very good numbers on housing today, extremely good numbers. And that's despite interest rates because, you know, if you look at what happened, everyone said, oh, I said I was going to get prices down, I did.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: But the report that he is referring to actually shows this, sales of previously owned homes in March fell to their slowest pace since 2009. And that is not exactly an economic report card that he wants to have today.
So, Batya, you were talking about the tariffs and defending them and we know that you are a staunch defender of them. The problem is that Trump did not run on 145 percent tariffs on China and tariffs of, you know, upwards of 40, 45 percent, almost 50 percent on the whole rest of the world, which is so different. I mean, I hate to -- I can't believe I'm saying this, but it's very different from 20 percent and it throws the world into a lot of chaos and I think people are starting to push back on that hard.
UNGAR-SARGON: So, he did run on decoupling from China. This was something that came up at every single rally. He talked a lot about the need to do what I think all of us can agree on, which is end this toxic relationship.
On the housing, there are 60 major markets in America that did see prices fall.
[22:20:00]
You're right, that the average went up, did not, but the prices found 60 major markets. And Zillow projects that by next March, prices will fall by 1.7 percent.
And I want to just make a point about inflation. We talk about inflation --
PHILLIP: I don't know that that's -- I'm not sure that's the defense that you think it is. Prices are falling in the housing market. I'm not sure that is a good thing. It suggests --
UNGAR-SARGON: Well, we want to get more Americans into homes. But I just want to make a quick point about inflation.
FUGELSANG: There's ways to do that.
UNGAR-SARGON: We act like, you know, inflation, of all things, are equal, and they are not equal. It is not the same. If a person who can afford a new iPhone every year has to pay $3,000 for it instead of $1,500, as it is if --
PHILLIP: Double the price?
UNGAR-SARGON: As it is if a working class person can't afford gas and food. Those are not the same.
PHIILLIP: That's true.
UNGAR-SARGON: We cannot measure those as the same.
PHILLIP: I mean, that is true but --
FUGELSANG: That's not a priority for this president.
PHILLIP: Okay. Hold on. It is true that the cost of an iPhone is maybe not as important as the cost of gas and food, but the cost of food is going -- is not going down either.
UNGAR-SARGON: The cost of gas is going down. The cost of gas has gone down.
PHILLIP: Yes.
(CROSSTALKS)
UNGAR-SARGON: But I'm just saying we have to measure these things in a way that reflect the goals of this president, which is to improve the lives of working --
FUGELSANG: But if we have tariffs on China, how am I going to be able to afford to buy all those Trump bibles? I buy them in bulk, and I'm not even going to be able to afford one at this point.
PHILLIP: Triple in price.
FUGELSANG: MAGA hats, I mean, they all come from there. What am I going to do?
FINNEY: They are, indeed. No, but also look America addicted to cheap Chinese merchandise. They buy it at Walmart, they buy it at Target. I'm not going to Target these days, but some people still are. And part of what's happening, though, like the explanation you're giving, even if I agreed with you, again, that's exactly what we heard from the Biden people for two years. They were trying to explain away the fact that people are saying, has, groceries, rent. My income is not keeping up with cost, period, full stop. I don't care that this market indicator or that market indicator.
But then this week, we literally had CEOs of major corporations. We had, you know --
PHILLIP: Trump donors even.
FINNEY: Financial experts, Trump donors, agreeing every -- when like everybody agrees except for Trump. It's not about, okay, it's $1.98 in 1 state out of 50.
ABRAMS: But what happens -- let me pose this. What happens if in three months from now, most of the tariffs have been either reduced or eliminated, right, and Trump comes out and he declares success and he says, I've made deals with this person and this person and this person, and most of the tariffs are now gone, except that there is a more even relationship, is that a win?
AIDALA: Of course, right?
ABRAMS: Does Trump --
AIDALA: He becomes the most consequential president, right? He gets the headline.
ABRAMS: Look, Wall Street, if you look at what's happening on Wall Street right now, it looks like Wall Street is starting to believe that that is a likely outcome, that the outcome will be --
FUGELSANG: If the tariffs are good, why are they dropping it?
ABRAMS: No, that the tariffs are not good, that the Wall Street is viewing it as tariffs bad, but now it appears that there are deals being made --
FUGELSANG: But your premise is that the tariffs will pay off.
ABRAMS: Well, no, it will go away in large part, but that he will have made some better --
FUGELSANG: Why will they go away?
ABRAMS: Because they're terrible, because everyone --
FUGELSANG: So, he'll drop them because they're terrible?
ABRAMS: Yes. And not just it's because they're terrible and other countries will -- right.
AIDALS: Dan's point is not that we are just going to drop them, that the other countries are going to drop them against us as well. And there's going to be more of an equal playing field.
PHILLIP: But isn't there a risk in all of this, that by the time Trump gets around to dropping these tariffs, it would've been too late, that if the economy is on economic razor's edge between, you know, where we are right now and stagflation or a recession, that it does -- they're not going to wait 90 days for businesses to make decisions to pull back, which is what I was going to say to you in your response to what you're saying was, I get it, right? But the pullback that is going to hurt Americans the most is when companies seeing lower demand because of higher prices and uncertainty, start cutting jobs. And then instead of, can I afford that F-150, can I afford groceries, do I have a job, is the question that a lot of Americans --
FUGELSANG: And don't forget the tourism as well.
UNGAR-SARGON: I agree with you. I think that that's a really important thing for us to keep our eye on. But right now, he already has three deals almost completely in place, India, South Korea and Vietnam. India and Vietnam have already agreed to put tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum. This is a huge win for our markets. So, it's already working and everyone's acting like because it hasn't worked yet, therefore it'll never work.
AIDALA: It's two weeks.
UNGAR-SARGON: But also no one has a plan for doing, again, what we all agreed he wants to do.
PHILLIP: I disagree with that because I do think that the radical agreement that actually has been in place, Democrats and Republicans, including the prior administration, agreed on taking on China. That's why they kept Trump's first term China tariffs in place.
But speaking of China, Donald Trump keeps saying that he is negotiating with China.
[22:25:00]
He said it again when he was asked by a reporter today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Can you clarify with whom the U.S. is speaking with China? They're saying it's fake news that trade talks are happening.
TRUMP: Well, they had a meeting this morning. So, I can't tell you. It doesn't matter who they is. We may reveal it later. But they had meetings this morning and we've been meeting with China. And so I think you have, Jeff, as usual, I think you have your reporting wrong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FUGELSANG: As usual.
ABRAMS: Well, the reporting was right. I mean, you can disagree with what the reporting was right, that China said that.
PHILLIP: Yes, China said --
ABRAMS: China said that. That part we know.
PHILLIP: Trade negotiations --
FUGELSANG: And, by the way, Dan, people in China did have a meeting today that is completely factual.
ABRAMS: Look, we don't know if China's lying or not, but I'm just saying that there is no doubt that there is a different story coming out of China.
PHILLIP: They said that they are not talking to the Trump administration.
AIDALA: Like all of a sudden, we're going to rely on everything that China says to a news outlet --
(CROSSTALKS)
UNGAR-SARGON: Why are you guys on China's side in this? It's insane.
FUGELSANG: How do you not trust China but trust Donald Trump is plainly what we're talking about. You trust ([h) very much.
UNGAR-SARGON: I think that's really sad that you trust our greatest adversary more than the president of the United States, who was elected by over 80 million of your fellow Americans.
FUGELSANG: The majority of people who showed -- excuse me, the majority of people who showed up to vote voted against him in 2016, 2020, and 2024. There's no mandate to speak of. I don't trust China but there is no reason --
UNGAR-SARGON: I'm sorry, you dispute that he won the -- you dispute that he won the election?
FUGELSANG: I tell you that the majority of folks who showed up to vote in all three elections voted against him. He never cracked 50 percent.
UNGAR-SARGON: You mean cumulatively?
FUGELSANG: He never cracked 50 percent. He has no mandate, whatsoever.
AIDALA: You can say that about a lot of presidents who've --
UNGAR-SARGON: To give preference to China over the president of the United States --
FUGELSANG: No, because it is not --
AIDALA: Same about Bill Clinton. FUGELSANG: Why should I believe that Donald Trump is telling the truth about anything at this point? How can our allies believe it? Who's going to enter into a deal with us after pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal, pulling out of the Paris Accord after this?
UNGAR-SARGON: Apparently, 130 countries are waiting to do just that.
FUGELSANG: we can't even get tourists to come anymore. People are deciding, you know what, this year, I'll try North Korea. Tourists aren't coming here anymore. Nobody wants to be in the U.S. because of this. But it's not popular, and he is not an honest man.
PHILLIP: Here's the thing, here's what I will say about this. I don't think we know. I don't think we know if Trump is telling the truth. I don't think we know China's telling the truth. All I know, based on what both sides are saying, is that there really are not substantive -- there's not substantive progress being made on that part of the trade situation, which is, frankly, the whole ballgame. The entire ballgame is the 150 percent tariffs essentially that will wreck a lot of economies.
FINNEY: We already are.
PHILLIP: Small economies of individuals and families and big ones too. There's no sign that there's progress being made right now.
FINNEY: 1,000 percent. And, look, these trade negotiations, they haven't gone to -- if you've ever done this work, they haven't gone to MOUs yet. It's an MOU. It takes sometimes years to get a final agreement. So, let's say he gets all of them. It's not going to be 90 deals in 90 days.
But there's something else we're not talking about that's really important. That's just one piece of the economic picture. Next week, they're going to start marking up that budget that they passed, the one that has a $4.5 trillion increase in the deficit, the one that may cut Medicaid, the one that may cut other services.
So, the way the American people are experiencing the economy, it's not just the tariffs. It's people losing their jobs, like 30,000 government workers in Kansas City, and all the businesses that supported those workers. And what does that do to Kansas City? It's also people who are having to wait a longer period of time to just get in touch with Social Security. It is also going to be whatever cuts end up having to be in this budget that they're trying to sell us so that they can give a tax cut to the wealthy and working people are not seeing it, they're not feeling it, and they know he's lying.
PHILLIP: Very quickly, you know, the part that you mentioned that we don't talk enough about is that the business community expected that Trump and Republicans would get the country's fiscal house in order. We know that that is not going to happen.
AIDALA: Wait, how do we know it's not? Because you said a moment ago you said we don't know.
PHILLIP: Okay. No --
AIDALA: And I agree, we don't know of what that --
PHILLIP: I'm talking about, I'm talking about the fiscal aspect of it. I'm talking about how much money the government is spending, how much they are putting out, and how much they are taking in.
AIDALA: Elon Musk is supposed to fix that.
PHILLIP: Elon Musk is --
ABRAMS: He's going back to Tesla.
PHILLIP: They are talking --
ABRAMS: The great savior is going back to Tesla.
PHILLIP: They're talking about they're talking about raising the defense budget by more than the amount that Elon has found in savings. So, we are not talking about the federal government finally getting control of the out of control spending, which is what actually the business community thought that they were going to at least try to do. And that's leading to some of this uncertainty.
AIDALA: But all of these things -- one relies on the other. So, the tariff piece of it has billions, trillions of dollars associated as well. I just think what you said a couple of minutes ago is like we don't know yet. We can't see yet. It's not even 100 days yet. Trump's got a plan.
[22:30:00]
His plan is either going to be tremendously successful, or fall flat on his face.
ABRAMS: Do you believe he's actually got a plan? Because I don't think he actually has a plan. I think he's kind of winging it.
AIDALA: I think -- I think --
ABRAMS: No. Am I wrong?
AIDALA: Here's what I think. I think since the day he got elected --
ABRAMS: Yeah.
AIDALA: -- until January 20th, I think he met with hundreds of people at Mar A Lago.
ABRAMS: Yeah.
AIDALA: I know he met with a hundred because he and he took in everyone's opinion. He processed it, and he came up with what he thinks he should do.
ABRAMS: And you think it's actually a road map of this goes to this, this leads to that.
(CROSSTALK)
AIDALIA: I don't think it's a road map.
KAREN FINNEY, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER, HILLARY CLINTON 2016 CAMPAIGN: God, I hope this is not a road map, sweetheart. Oh my God. Please.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: All right, well --
AIDALA: I don't think he's winging this tariff thing.
PHILLIP: The clock is ticking. A hundred days is just a few days away. Coming up next for us, did Larry David's essay mocking Bill Maher's dinner with Trump go too far after he invoked Hitler? Well, tonight, Bill Maher is responding. We'll debate.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:35:28]
PHILLIP: Tonight, Bill Maher wants the last word after Larry David mocked Maher's dinner with Donald Trump in a satirical essay in "The New York Times". Today, Maher says that the "Curb" comedian took it too far.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL MAHER, COMEDIAN AND HOST, HBO'S "REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER": Nobody has been harder about and on and more prescient, I must say, about Donald Trump than me. I don't need to be lectured on who Donald Trump is.
Just to use the Hitler thing, first of all, I just think it's kind of insulting to six million dead Jews, you know, like that should kind of be in its own place in history. And, you know, I know people can say, well, we're just comparing it in this way. Well, it's an argument you kind of lost just to start it.
(END VIDEO CIP)
PHILLIP: That's what you said a couple days ago, Dan.
ABRAMS: Exactly.
PHILLIP: Yeah, that, that just using the comparison, you lose people. You know, Batya, I want to -- your take on how that comes across to you as you are Jewish, and -- and a Trump supporter at that, but what -- what's your take?
BATYA UNGAR-SARGON, AUTHOR, "SECOND CLASS: HOW THE ELITES BETRAYED AMERICA'S WORKING MEN AND WOMEN: And a person who half my family was murdered by the actual Hitler. You know, in addition to it being deeply offensive to Jews, to call Trump Hitler is to call over 80 million Americans, 35 percent of Jewish Americans, 56 percent of Hispanic men, and the majority of Americans who make under $100,000 a year -- Nazis, because those are the people who gave Donald Trump his victory.
And I just have a pro-tip for any Democrats who are thinking about winning back the working class, those people who make under a hundred thousand dollars a year, who a majority from voted for Trump, you should have a visceral disgust for someone like Larry David, who's worth $400 million sitting there and smearing and smearing the hardest working Americans for refusing to co-sign their own disinheritance.
That's effectively what they are doing when these millionaires come out here and call Trump Hitler. They are calling working class Americans Nazis because they chose the person they thought would give their children back the future they were promised by this country, and it just has to stop.
And you know what? Honestly, I don't care if the Democrats get this or don't, but they should get this because this is a big part of why they have lost because they are -- they have these rich people. He's so wealthy. I mean, how different -
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I mean, they're all -- they're all wealthy, right?
FUGELSANG: Donald Trump is a billionaire and he -
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: -- But Bill Maher ---they're all wealthy.
(CROSSTALK)
FUGELSANG: He had Nick Fuentes and Kanye West over for Thanksgiving Dinner. He's not exactly a Nazi overt.
(CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: He's also -- the's also the father-in-law and grandfather of Jewish children. Come on, Trump has done more for Jewish people. I'm Sicilian who grew up with Jewish people around. I mean, he is fantastic, you know.
(CROSSTALK)
FUGELSANG: Trump has a long record of anti-Semitic comments. He's got a long record of it. Hang on.
AIDALA: But actions speak louder than words. He may have said some stupid stuff in the past. What he's been doing, cracking down on Harvard with their anti-Semitic policies.
FUGELSANG: That is a lie. You know it's not about anti-Semitism.
(CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: He cared how often he's treated Alan Dershowitz, who was there for 50 years. FUGELSANG: Alan Dershowitz has punched his own ticket, my friend. If
Donald Trump wants to root out anti-Semitism, he can go over to the Nazi chat room that Twitter has turned into. The fact is Hitler did a lot of awful things that were unrelated to the Shoah, and it is not unfair or inappropriate to compare the policies of this government to the policies of the right. He needs to measure up.
PHILLIP: Okay, okay. Let -- let me --
FUGELSANG: No, it's not.
AIDALA: It's insane.
FUGELSANG: Hitler banned abortion. Hitler persecuted LGBTQ. Hitler hated it.
AIDALA: I agree with Dan and Batya.
(CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: Hitler goes in his own category.
FUGELSANG: Hitler was more like Trump.
PHILLIP: Arthur and John, just give me one second because I want to take what you're saying, because this is an important point, I think, that gets lost in all of the yelling, to be frank.
FUGELSANG: I'm sorry for yelling.
PHILLIP: There was a lot of Hitler talk by Democrats in the campaign. Trump is going to be, Trump is going to do, Trump is going to, right? But -- but I think what they're saying now, Democrats, is a little bit different. Listen to Larry Tribe saying not what Trump has promised to do, but what Trump is doing or has done has historical parallels.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LAURENCE TRIBE, HARVARD CONSTITUTIONAL LAW PROFESSOR EMERITUS: Nice little university you have there. Be a shamed if something happened to it. That's what Hitler basically said although it sounds different than the original German when he sent it to the University at Frankfurt and then took them over.
[22:40:01]
That's what Orban has done in Hungary. That's what Erdogan has done in Turkey. It's a standard technique.
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ABRAMS: The comparisons to Hitler are a loser for the left.
FUGELSANG: I mean, oh, I agree, but I'm not saying they're not fair.
ABRAMS: Well, again, you -- you may think they're fair, but the problem is --
FUGELSANG: Policies.
UNKNOWN: Yes.
ABRAMS: I get it. But it's hard --
(CROSSTALK)
UNGAR SARGON: If Hitler had only just threatened universities, I would have met my great grandparents. Like, come on.
ABRAMS: It's very hard to draw that line.
FUGELSANG: I agree.
ABRAMS: To say, well, you know, I'm really just talking about some of the things that --
FUGELSANG: Authoritarianism has patterns.
ABRAMS: I got it, but there are other authoritarians to compare it to.
FUGELSANG: Great. Let's compare to Mussolini. I'd love to do that.
ABRAMS: But again, you won't get into much trouble as we look at you, right?
FUGELSANG: I agree with you. I agree. It's a third rail.
ABRAMS: Right. It's a third rail for a reason.
FUGELSANG: Yes.
ABRAMS: Because Hitler was uniquely bad.
PHILLIP: Yeah, yeah.
ABRAMS: He was uniquely evil.
PHILLIP: And I think that -- and, okay. And really, I think we should take seriously what Batya's point is about the true, pure evil of mass murder.
UNKNOWN: Right.
PHILLIP: That Hitler engaged in, which you can talk about a lot of other authoritarians and authoritarian behavior, and it's not that still.
UNKNOWN: Correct.
PHILLIP: Right? So, I guess the -- her question is fair. Why not just compare him to other authoritarians? FUGELSANG: I agree. I do it all the time. I'm just saying that
there's nothing that this administration has done in either term that compares to what Hitler did to the Jews of Europe, but nothing compares to Hitler. There are other really crappy things Hitler did that are not unfair to put on.
ABRAMS: Right, but it doesn't mean that you can't say, for example, oh, you know, when Hitler was leading up to Czechoslovakia, right, and how he went about convincing --
FUGELSANG: That's why we compare Putin to Hitler.
ABRAMS: No, that's what I'm saying. I'm saying, like, you can talk about historically specific things Hitler did --
FUGELSANG: Yes.
ABRAMS: -- that were comparable to other. But what you can't do is make broad comparisons.
FUGELSANG: Of course.
ABRAMS: But that's what Larry David was doing. Larry David is saying, when you're sitting down with this guy, and he didn't say it's like sitting down with Hitler, but that was the point of the piece, right, which was in effect, it has the same impact. And that's where you get into trouble. I think you can draw a line and say there's specific historical things you can talk about, but when you make the big picture comparison, that's when you get into some real trouble.
PHILLIP: Are they listening --
AIDALA: -- The "The New York Times" are printing it out fast.
PHILLIP: Okay --
AIDALA: You shouldn't be --
PHILLIP: All right.
AIDALA: The only letters to the editor they get all the time is --
PHILLIP: Do you want me to --
AIDALA: They don't -- they don't print.
PHILLIP: I don't want to --
AIDALA: That was one thing to be --
PHILLIP: Not to defend "The New York Times", I mean, they did write a whole explanation about why they did it. They said "callbacks to history can be offensive and precise or in terrible taste," which some people might argue this is, "when you are leveraging genocidal dictators to make a point." But Larry's piece is not equating Trump with Hitler. It is about seeing someone for who they really are and not losing sight of that.
ABRAMS: Not since "The New York Times" published an op ed from Tom Cotton has there been this much controversy at "The New York Times", you know. I mean, you know, I mean, it --
FINNEY: So, I I'll just say it and these are really important conversations and I think we should be always talking about all of the history because this is how we learn, this is how we grow. And it breaks my heart that we have a president who actually wants to erase a big part of what is my history as an African-American woman, as a mother who benefited, who -- who is a white woman who benefited from affirmative action.
Again, if we're going to have these tough conversations, let's have all of them. We're not going to say we're going to have this one and not that one. You get to be at the table and you don't. So --
FUGELSANG: I should also point out that, yes, Larry David did not directly compare Bill Maher to Hitler, but J.D. Vance did.
PHILLIP: No, not -- Donald Trump to Hitler.
(CROSSTALK)
FUGELSANG: To Hitler, yes. Sorry, Bill. I love both of these guys, so I'm trying to walk you carefully. But J.D. Vance did. So, let's not lose sight of it.
PHILLIP: J.D. Vance did, in fact, do that. Yes, in his -- in his past life. Breaking tonight, Donald Trump suffering three big losses in court on three of his biggest issues. We'll debate. Stand by for that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:48:29]
PHILLIP: It's only April and the baseball season is still young, but the Trump administration stepped into the batter's box today and struck out three times. A judge barred the Trump pledge to starve sanctuary cities of federal funds for limiting cooperation on immigration issues.
Multiple magistrates, including two Trump appointees ruled against the Department of Education's war on DEI, and a judge blocked Trump's efforts to require proof of citizenship to register to vote. And -- and on that last one, the judge said, "Our constitution entrusts Congress and the states, not the president, with the authority to regulate federal elections."
Dan, again, this is like throw the spaghetti up against the wall, but the courts -- Trump appointees or otherwise, are kind of speaking with one voice on a lot of this stuff.
ABRAMS: Well, look, this wasn't a particularly hard case, right? I happen to be someone who supports voter ID. I think it's ridiculous that I can go into New York and vote without any kind of I.D. That's my personal opinion.
That doesn't mean that the president has the power or the authority to go in and say, as a national matter, as an executive order, not a state, not supervised by Congress, that he can do it. So, they're trying to position this as we're just trying to get election integrity. The answer is if you want to do that, do it in the way it's supposed to be done.
FINNEY: But this is the problem that we're seeing time and time again with Trump. There -- and this is part of why there's an estimated, I guess it's like a hundred times courts between up until April 23 have put a hold on him and put it like said, slow roll.
[22:50:03]
This is not your purview. Time and time again he is trying to consolidate power.
UNKNOWN: Yes.
FINNEY: He is not following the law. Eighty-two percent of Americans want presidents to follow the law and listen to the courts. This is a hallmark of the -- of Trump. This is a hallmark of him as a business man, right? Like, he likes to go to the courts. The good thing that I think for Americans who are feeling frustrated, the courts are slowing him down. They are saying slow your roll.
AIDALA: Separation of powers at work. It's the -- the three branches of government is the separation of powers at work.
UNKNOWN: We hope. And if Trump wants to get these things accomplished, he does have a Congress in his favor. He's got to go in, pass the bill, and make it happen.
PHILLIP: A very underrated fact that you just pointed out. He does have control of the other branch of government politically speaking. Why on earth has he made no attempt to use it?
UNGAR SARGON: Well, on this front, actually, there is a bill called the Save Bill in -- that the house just passed, which actually is about voter I.D.
PHILLIP: Pass it in the second. Get it to the president's desk. I mean --
UNGAR SARGON: What percentage of Americans want voter I.D., want you to have to -- it's 84 percent of Americans.
AIDALA: They still come.
UNGAR SARGON: And I just want to read out there were only four Democrats who voted for this bill despite the fact that 66 percent of Democrats want there to be some form of vote voter ID.
This is the future of the party right here. It's Ed Case of -- of Hawaii, Henry Cuellar of Texas, Jared Goldman of Maine, and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington. These people understand, if an issue has 84 percent support of the American people and 66 percent of Santa Rosa, vote for it.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Let me just point out. I mean, this is also the bill that a lot of people are saying will make it harder for -- if you're a woman and you've changed your name.
UNKNOWN: Correct.
PHILLIP: People with a lot of different kinds of circumstances like that to -- to qualify to be able to vote when they are eligible.
FUGELSANG: I hate being the guy who's going to go up against voter ID, but let me because, it's a solution to a problem that does not exist. There is no problem with voter impersonation in any elections in this country.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: No, no, we do know that. That is true.
FUGELSANG: There has been an election in this country on the state or national level that was swayed by people voting pretending to be someone they're not.
AIDALA: How do you know?
FUGELSANG: Because it's only happened 26 times out of a billion. "The New York Times" did a 30-year research argument.
PHILLIP: A conservative think tank went looking for it and found, like, a dozen examples in 10 years. It is not a thing.
FUGELSANG: And if I may, Donald Trump is still pushing a lie that three million undocumented immigrants voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Undocumented immigrants have this thing they do. They don't want to get caught, so they don't show up to vote. If you cannot register to vote, you're not showing up to vote.
This is not a real issue. It's designed to do one thing, make it harder for some citizens to exercise their right. If you've got to spend money to get an ID, it's a poll tax. There's nothing about --
(CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: John, you cannot enter this building without ID. You cannot enter this building without an ID.
FUGELSANG: But to enter this building is not a constitutional right, my friend. Getting into this building --
(CROSSTALK)
FUGELSANG: You have to be a citizen to have no constitutional right. Getting into this building is not a right.
(CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: If you're from Sicily and you're not a citizen, you don't have a constitutional right.
FUGELSANG: If you're here from Sicily, you can't register in the first place, so you're not going to be voting. It's not a real problem. It's designed to make it harder for young people, college kids, low-income people, seniors, not even able to register to vote.
AIDALA: It's so easy to register to vote.
PHILLIP: That -- that's a good -- okay.
ABRAMS: I was just going to quickly say that there's also something just psychological about adding faith in the system where you say. Because I'll tell you again, a lot of people even in New York, where you don't have to show ID, who I talk to say it's so odd that it does make you question the sanctity --
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: -- of auditing every election against not solving any problems.
PHILLIP: A couple cycles ago, there were some Democrats saying exactly what you're saying, that the voter ID issue is really not that politically salient anymore. Most people agree that it's fine, right? Some form of ID. It just depends on what are the forms of ID. What are the forms of ID that people can use.
FINNEY: Right.
PHILLIP: And so, anyway, we got to leave it there, but great discussion, guys. Coming up next, a celebrity edition of nightcaps. We call this one the Gwyneth Paltrow. But first, this Sunday, Eva Longoria is back with an all-new culinary adventure. "Eva Longoria Searching for Spain" premier Sunday at 9 P.M. eastern and Pacific here on CNN.
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[22:58:48]
PHILLIP: We're back and it's time for the "NewsNight"cap. Gwyneth Paltrow says that she is sick of her Paleo diet obsession, so she's giving it up. You each have 30 seconds to vent about what celebrity obsession needs to go the way of the Gwyneth Paltrow. Batya?
UNGAR SARGON: I am sick of hearing the political opinions of celebrities. Keep it to yourself. You are already very rich, very gorgeous. You have a great job. You have a million houses. You can go on vacation, whatever you want. Stop telling us what you think about politics. You don't need our job.
PHILLIP: CC you. Larry Diamond (ph).
FUGELSANG: And you voted for a reality TV performer. Hi. Okay. Listen, Gwyneth, I'm so glad you're -- you're back on carbs. Girl, it's good for you. It's all my friends and I talk about is Gwyneth and Paleo. My what I'm tired of is, running celebrities for high office. How about that? I don't care. Celebrity should be political.
Celebrity's the dumbest thing we've invented. Use your capital to fight for what you believe in. Just -- if you're going to run, start local. And, if I may this weekend, we're doing a big pay per view, not the White House correspondent sitter with a bunch of comedians and pundits to make fun of exactly this.
PHILLIP: Okay, very fast.
ABRAMS: I'm going to get a lot of trouble for saying that I think it's time to stop with the sobriety. All right.
[23:00:00]
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: So, we got to keep it going.
ABRAMS: I'm just saying, I love my friends who are sober, but it feels like a lot of these celebrities are virtue signaling (ph).
PHILLIP: All right.
FUGELSANG: Keep giving it back, Dan. But, yeah.
PHILLIP: All right.
FINNEY: I wish we could just get over celebrity obsessions altogether. That wasn't fun enough. So, mine is celebrities who do commercials for low cost makeup and hair products like the kind you can buy at the Walmart -- at the grocery store, let's say. And you know that's not what they're using.
PHILLIP: All right.
AIDALA: I'm against you. I'll just join Dan. So, right surprise is overrated.
PHILLIP: All right, everyone, thank you very much. Thanks for watching "NewsNight". "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
