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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Blames Biden, Despite Tariffs, for Economy Sinking; Wall Street Journal Reports, Tesla Board Opened Search to Replace Musk Amid Chaos; Trump's Admission Jeopardizes DOJ's Deportation Case. "NewsNight" Panelists Debate On Deportations Under Trump Administration; Tim Walz Says Why He Was On The Ticket. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired April 30, 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 economy gets bad news, but Donald Trump channels Shaggy to insist it wasn't me.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: This is Biden's economy.
PHILLIP: Plus, did Trump blow the do j's argument on the man deported to El Salvador?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You could get him back. There's a phone on his desk.
TRUMP: I could.
PHILLIP: But that's not what they argued in court.
Also, the FBI dives into the archives in its war on woke, benching agents who took a knee at a George Floyd protest.
And as Kamala Harris breaks her silence tonight, Tim Walz reveals why she picked him to be her running mate.
GOV. TIM WALZ (D-MN): I could code talk to white guys watching football, fixing their truck.
PHILLIP: Live at the table, Ana Navarro, Scott Jennings, Shermichael Singleton, Dan Koh and Gretchen Carlson.
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, the buck doesn't stop here. Tonight, let's play a little of what if Joe Biden had done this? What if Joe Biden had purposefully upended the global economy with chaotic tariffs, sending the stock market on spiral, bleeding 401(k)s, making things more expensive, and in response, Joe Biden told Americans to just be cool, hang tough, it won't be easy, don't get yippy, don't get weak, don't be stupid, don't be panicking, someday you'll realize the greatness, just trust me? And what if after economists said that Christmas could be threatened, Joe Biden then told Americans, well, just deal with it?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: If somebody said, oh, the shelves are going to be open, well, maybe the children will have 2 dolls instead of 30 dolls, you know? And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: If Joe Biden had done and said all this, how would Trump react? What about the MAGA media?
The reason for this exercise is because after we learned that the economy had its worst quarter in three years, which economists blame on tariffs, the president blamed his predecessor.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: This is Biden's economy, because we took over on January 20th. And I think you have to get us a little bit of time to get moving. But this is the Biden economy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: In fact, Biden was mentioned 51 times in today's cabinet meeting, even though when the stock market was doing well under Biden, Trump actually took credit for it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The stock market's going up and I think the stock market's going up because I'm leading Biden in all of the polls.
It's only going up because everyone thinks Trump is going to win the election.
I believe the stock market goes up because I'm leading.
They think Trump is going to get elected. That's the only reason our economy's good. That's the only reason the stock market is up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: All the good things are his doing, all the bad things are Biden's fault. Scott, I mean, really, last year, when Joe Biden was sort of pushing aside all the inflation concerns, you rightfully said that he was out of touch with Americans. Donald Trump just said, you're not going to be able to buy your kids as many toys this year, deal with it, and, yes, those same toys are also going to cost more. How does that work?
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, look, first of all, to say what if Joe Biden had done this, Joe Biden did do this all through 2022, in fact. You could find quote after quote saying, just stick with me. We're growing jobs, we're growing manufacturing. All presidents say, I'm running my play, you need to stick with.
PHILLIP: I think that that's exactly the point. Joe Biden lost.
JENNINGS: He didn't even run.
PHILLIP: Well, Joe Biden didn't even run, actually. I think that's more to the point.
JENNINGS: And guess what? Donald Trump's not going to run either.
PHILLIP: And Democrats lost the election. So, why on Earth would Trump be repeating exactly what Joe Biden and the Democrats did in that you thought was such a disaster?
JENNINGS: In 2022, Democrats did a little better than people thought they were going to do, actually. Now, in 2024 --
PHILLIP: Do you think that was because of the economy?
JENNINGS: I don't know, but I'm just saying, you know, I don't think you can make predictions today in 2025 about what's going to happen in the midterms in 2026 after one quarter. And I think everybody ought to keep their pants on. Year-over-year, the S&P is up like 10 percent. You know, these investors and some of these people who are out criticizing over the market undulations today, if year-over-year, they're fine, they're not going hungry.
PHILLIP: I'm not even talking about the stock market.
[22:05:00]
I'm just talking about the cost of things that we're buying. I'm talking about what people are purchasing and what Trump says is going to cost more that they might not even be able to get. And he says, just deal with it.
SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: But we should not dismiss the stock market. And it is an important point, when you look at the PCE. Those numbers --
PHILLIP: Wait, you just said like two days ago that Americans are not invested. You were sitting right here and you said, Americans are not invested in the stock market. We shouldn't be paying that much attention to it,
SINGLETON: No, I didn't say Americans weren't invested in the stock market.
PHILLIP: You said a majority, and you said correctly --
SINGLETON: And 51 percent of their 401(k)s are in the stock market.
PHILLIP: You said correctly that a majority of Americans are not invested in the stock market.
SINGLETON: Yes. But about 51 percent of Americans have 401(l) has some type of investment in the stock market.
PHILLIP: I'm asking you about prices that people are paying and that Trump says, it doesn't matter right now, I just need more time.
SINGLETON: Well, this is what I know. The economy is stable and it is resilient. You look at the PCE, those numbers showcase continued economic spend. People are still spending. It's slowing somewhat, but they're still spending. You look at employment and growth. You're still seeing strong numbers there. You look at wage growth, you're still seeing numbers strong there. Though the market has for the past couple of days opened up pretty low, for the most part, it's still closed in the green.
You can ask anyone on Wall Street, they'll tell you, yes, we're kind of nervous about this tariff stuff. We want some stability. We want to know where this ultimately is going, but if the president can correct this, which I believe the White House is trying, the market absolutely will rally back. This just isn't my opinion. There are experts in this every day who are saying exactly the same thing.
PHILLIP: I think we should note that you also just said if the president can correct this. He broke it. I guess the question is why isn't he buying it.
GRETCHEN CARLSON, CO-FOUNDER, LIFT OUR VOICES: And the most important thing is the blame game, because one of the things that the president also said today that people should pay very close attention to is that it's not only Biden's faults in this particular GDP report today, in the last three months, but it's also going to be his fault in the next quarter. And why did he say that? Because two quarters of GDP underperforming means a recession. And Trump is already setting the stage to be able to tell all of his supporters and the rest of the world that the recession will be Joe Biden's fault.
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. But it's not going to -- they're not going to -- he can't sell that. We saw even supporters of his, like David Portnoy come out today and saying you cannot blame this on Biden. You own this.
Look, and let's remember that in 2022 when Joe Biden was dealing with some of this, we were in the middle of a global economic downturn coming out of the pandemic. Donald Trump, this has been so unnecessary, right? This has been singlehandedly done by Donald Trump. It's uncertainty and it's a direct consequence of his actions. And it's not just the market. It's consumer confidence. It's tourism into the United States. It's so many different factors that are leading to this. And when I heard him say that thing about the dolls today, you won't be able to buy your kid 30 dolls. You're just going to have to buy them two dolls and they're going to be a couple of dollars more expensive, that is such an let them eat cake mentality that he voiced, I guess, because he's a billionaire and maybe he did buy his kids 30 dolls. But most Americans are having a hard time buying eggs and buying groceries.
And it's not just the $2 that the dolls, which it probably won't be $2, it will be more expensive, it means that if there's less dolls, there's less people working in the ports, there's less drivers taking these boxes to the retail stores, there's less people putting them in the -- stocking them in the aisles. I mean, it's got such a trickledown effect over the economy that he just seems so unperturbed by it.
PHILLIP: Well, he definitely seems perturbed by it, which is why he's blaming Biden. Well, he seems agitated about the bad news.
DAN KOH, FORMER WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY SECRETARY, BIDEN ADMINISTRATION: He has a very easy solution to this. This is a one-to-one ratio of his actions to the impact on the economy. On February 2nd, he announced tariffs on China and Mexico. The market dropped 1 percent. On March 2nd, he announced that he was going to continue those tariffs. It dropped another 2 percent. Liberation day came a month later. It dropped 5 percent.
PHILLIP: We have a chart showing exactly that. I mean, you can track it.
JENNINGS: What happened in the last month though?
PHILLIP: Look, I mean, look at the chart.
JENNINGS: Oh, we're back at where we were.
PHILLIP: There's a big drop. No, look --
JENNINGS: At the beginning of April from liberation day.
PHILLIP: Okay. Scott, look at the chart, April 2nd.
JENNINGS: I am.
PHILLIP: Liberation day, we are not back, even to this day, we are not back to where we were before liberation day. Just look at the chart.
So, to your point, it has had a negative impact. And even though Trump actually said, this is not about me, this is about Biden, it's not about my tariffs, this is actually what Peter Navarro said, which you might be surprised to find, is the exact opposite of what Trump has been suggesting.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) PETER NAVARRO, WHITE HOUSE TRADE ADVISER: This was the best negative print, as they say in the trade, for GDP I have ever seen in my life. It really should be very positive news for America.
We had a 22 percent increase in domestic investment.
[22:10:01]
That is off the charts when you strip out inventories and the negative effects of the surge in imports because of the tariffs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: He said it, the negative -- he said, let's strip out all the bad parts of it and only focus on the good parts. But the bad parts are driven by tariffs.
SINGLETON: I mean, again, this is complicated stuff and I don't want to have a reductionist approach here. You look at the ECI, employment cost index, you're seeing steady income growth. The PCE still shows that Americans are still spending.
I understand the rhetoric, and I don't want to be hyperbolic and sort of fear-arguing here, but the numbers do showcase that the economy is resilient and is robust. And wait --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Hold on. I think the --
SINGLETON: And with the corrections, which the White House has announced they're trying to quickly move forward with, their marketplace will absolutely rebound. The stock market is strong. Again, this isn't just a matter of opinion. Everyone has been doing this forever, who are saying exact same thing.
PHILLIP: Shermichael is right, that the U.S. economy is incredibly resilient. And if you put aside the stock market for a second, there are other indicators that there is some resiliency in the economy, yes.
SINGLETON: I just cited two.
PHILLIP: Yes, I'm agreeing with you, okay? But I think the question that people are asking is for how long will that resiliency last.
I want to put a pin in this discussion for just a moment because there's some breaking news that came out of the Wall Street Journal just in the last hour that said that Elon Musk's company, Tesla, about a month ago, started looking for a new CEO as a result of the company not doing so well in the wake of his time spent on DOGE. This is coming just today, as he seemed to kind of be giving his farewell in the cabinet meeting.
But Tesla's performance dropping significantly down 71 percent in their last earnings call, DOGE, according to DOGE, has only claimed $160 billion in savings compared to the $2 trillion that they have promised. More than half of that, they have not substantiated, $97 billion. They have not substantiated with anything concrete, like where is that money coming from.
We're getting close to the point where there's a verdict to be had about DOGE and it's not particularly good.
KOH: We just think about the so many federal employees who have either been laid off or furloughed, thinking about special -- and how that plays out in our country, the special need kid in a school who's not sure where their funding is going to come from, the people who are looking for their student loans, who are on hold right now because of some game that Elon Musk is playing.
And what does he have to show for it at this point? He didn't hit his goal. His stock price is down 33 percent since he started DOGE. And this is just a continuation of the conflicts of interest that we see in this government, a private sector employee trying to play government like it's his own little play thing, and he's failed both in his day job and his night job.
JENNINGS: God forbid, private sector people decide to engage in public service. I guess it's only reserved for the government at least.
KOH: So, sell your stock and do it the right way. Don't have conflicts of interest and play poker with the entire country.
JENNINGS: You cherry-pick the stock. Anybody know what it is year- over-year? It's up 54 percent year over year. It's done pretty well over the last year.
PHILLIP: What is it since --
JENNINGS: Who cares? Year-over-year.
(CROSSTALKS)over
JENNINGS: No, they're starting a process of thinking of maybe looking for a new CEO.
Well, look let me tell you.
PHILLIP: Okay, which is, to be fair --
JENNINGS: I'll tell you something.
PHILLIP: Listen, but I think the point of the story is just so people understand, the point of the story is that the Tesla board grew so concerned about the performance of the company that he still runs, that they started -- they both confronted him about it and they started looking for a CEO, and Elon actually did not push back on it. And he is going back to his company because it does need a full-time CEO, which, I think, you know, great for Tesla. But the question, to Dan's point, is what does the rest of the United States government have to show for Elon's time in the government? JENNINGS: I actually spoke to a member of the cabinet today, and I asked him point blank --
PHILLIP: Was it Elon?
JENNINGS: Well, I did talk to Elon today actually. But I spoke to a member of the cabinet and I said, how has the DOGE effort gone in your particular department? I'm just curious. And he said something very interesting to me. He said, you know, apart from all -- the press focuses on the programs and the grants and all that, and that's sexy. But, you know, he said, the most interesting thing that these guys have been able to do for us is we inherited a massive backlog, a backlog of things that the previous administration left us and we were unable to really deal with it because of I.T. issues. And he said, these guys showed up over here and they made a huge impact on our I.T. infrastructure, which then allowed us to clear out a backlog of outstanding issues that we were just having trouble getting.
CARLSON: So, wait, this is now an I.T. issue?
[22:15:01]
No, wait. Wait a minute. Wait a minute.
JENNINGS: I mean, so actual constituents service.
CARLSON: America wanted to see actual cuts and now we're going to say that --
JENNINGS: No, he just said they don't. Which is it?
CARLSON: No. I'm saying most Americans actually did want to see --
JENNINGS: No, he said he's mad about the cuts.
CARLSON: Okay. I'm talking as Gretchen Carlson. I'm not talking as they, okay? I'm my own individual.
PHILLIP: She's allowed to have that.
CARLSON: And most Americans would agree that they want to get rid of fraud and waste. And now you're saying that the greatest accomplishment of DOGE was that they've solved I.T. problems?
JENNINGS: And I talked and I spoke to another cabinet secretary yesterday who said, this has been a, quote, wonderful accelerant.
CARLSON: So what?
JENNINGS: This continues.
CARLSON: Politicians whatever they say to be able to put on a good face.
JENNINGS: Why are you so angry?
CARLSON: I'm not angry. I'm frustrated.
JENNINGS: You look enraged, I don't understand.
CARLSON: I'm frustrated like most Americans, because we want to know where the cuts are.
PHILLIP: Gretchen, let me just hit pause here. I mean, look, people get worked up at this table, yourself included, all the time. Let's not, you call people angry when they're simply making a point.
JENNINGS: But she's very upset.
PHILLIP: Like I just have to say that because --
CARLSON: No, we're frustrated because you're blaming it on I.T.
JENNINGS: I'm not blaming anything. I'm saying it was a good byproduct --
PHILLIP: Scott and Gretchen, just give me one second, okay? Let's deal with the issues at hand. We don't have to, you know, say you're angry, you know, she's just making a point, okay?
CARLSON: Thank you.
PHILLIP: Unfortunately, we do have to leave this one there, on that note.
NAVARRO: And how many dolls does your daughter have?
PHILLIP: Excuse me?
NAVARRO: How many dolls does your daughter have?
PHILLIP: She has many, many, many dolls. Christmas is going to be expensive this year.
Okay. Programming note for you all, Erin Burnett goes one-on-one with the G.M. CEO, Mary Barra. The interview is going to air first on CNN News Central tomorrow morning, 8:00 A.M. Eastern. Set your alarms.
Coming up next for us, Did Donald Trump just blow up the DOJs case involving that man that was mistakenly deported to El Salvador? Another special guest is going to join us at the table.
Plus, very soon, Kamala Harris gives her first big speech critiquing Trump's presidency so far, but her running mate has made an eyebrow- raising admission. We'll tell you about it next,
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: Did Donald Trump just jeopardized his own DOJ's case involving deportations? Here's what he said when he was asked about the wrongful deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You could get him back. There's a phone on his desk.
TRUMP: I could.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You could pick it up, and with all the power of the presidency, you could call up the president of El Salvador and say, send him back right now.
TRUMP: And if he were the gentleman that you say he is, I would do that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: That would contradict the DOJ's argument that they can't bring him back. Trump seemed to soften that response today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Do you think President Bukele would turn you down if you made that request?
TRUMP: I don't know. I haven't spoken to him. I really leave that to the lawyers and take my advice from Pam and everybody that is very much involved. They know the laws and we follow the laws exactly.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Joining us in our fifth seat at the table is Immigration Attorney Raul Reyes. Raul, he seemed to recognize that he might have put them in a tough spot because he said basically, yes, I could get them back if I wanted to.
RAUL REYES, IMMIGRATION ATTORNEY: Right. You know, no matter what your viewpoint is on this case, I mean, I don't think anyone's going to deny that Trump's comments today are extremely problematic for the DOJ going forward with how they deal with Mr. Abrego Garcia, because they've had shifting stances in public about him, but their legal filings have pretty much been the same, that it was a mistake.
But now we see the president taking the public stance that suggests that they have decided not to bring him back. And the reason that's going to be so difficult for them moving ahead is that at the hearing on Monday before the federal judge about this case, they're going to have all these public comments that such as this from the president lining up against their original arguments that there was nothing they can do about it.
And what's I think, confusing for a lot of people is how the narrative has changed since March 14th. In the beginning, they couldn't bring him back because the flights had taken off. Then there was a narrative that continues about how he's a drug dealer or a gang member, allegedly a human trafficker. Then they said Bukele will not bring him back. Now, the president is saying he could bring him back or he could ask and do it, but he won't.
And from the DOJ's point of view, it's really hard to work with that. You could say at best the president is abrogating some of his executive authority to these unnamed lawyers, or, at worst, you can look at these statements and say, the president seems to be defying a court order from a co-equal branch of government,
PHILLIP: You know, it's getting to the point where I'm wondering how much time is being wasted here. I mean, the judge didn't say bring him back and set him free. They said just bring him back, put him through a process, send him to a place that he can be sent, they could just do that. And this would be over in like two weeks.
REYES: The judge didn't even say, bring him back. The Supreme Court didn't even say it. They just said facilitate --
PHILLIP: Facilitate, right, yes.
REYES: Facilitate the return, and they gave him some room.
PHILLIP: But, you know, my point is like they are fighting this tooth and nail when they could really rid of this problem by just doing it the correct way. It's a little perplexing to me.
NAVARRO: Yes. But it's hubris, it's arrogance, it's stubbornness of not wanting to admit error, right? Look, many moons ago, lifetimes ago, I was the lobbyist for the government of El Salvador. And I can tell you the relationship between the U.S. and El Salvador is like that between Goliath and I'm off, okay? If the president of the United States picks up the phone and tells Bukele to send that man back, that man is coming back. But what the president and Marco Rubio are telling him is, when you get asked, say you're not sending him back, because that's going to be our excuse.
[22:25:05]
I think this is so stupid. I mean, it's wrong in so many ways. But, you know, yesterday, when we saw the poll numbers on the 100 days or 2 days ago, his numbers on immigration, his approval rating on immigration have gone down.
They haven't gone down because of the way he's handling the border. I think most people are happy with that. They have gone down because of the lack of due process, because of the cruelty, because of the two- year-old, the four-year-old with cancer, U.S. citizen that was deported, because of the 20-year-old U.S. citizen, young man in Florida detained for 30 hours, because of the U.S. citizen's home in Oklahoma that was broken into by ICE and raided.
Those are the things that America is hearing about. And I think, you know, it repulses us. It repulses us and it worries us to see lack of due process, cruelty to see, you know, and no -- and defiance of judicial orders.
PHILLIP: 52 percent say, according to this new CNN poll, that -- and when it comes to, undocumented immigrants who are being deported by Trump, Trump has gone too far, that's 52 percent. Scott?
JENNINGS: Well, several things. Number one, the children that you mentioned were not deported. They went with their mothers. Their mothers requested that the children come with them. So, their mothers were deported because they were illegal aliens.
NAVARRO: They didn't get due process. And so they went -- so there's really two choices here. Split the family or keep the family together. The U.S. government's policy here was to let the mothers decide. The mothers decided to take the children. That's number one.
On the Garcia case, effectively, what you all are arguing for passionately and what Democrats are passionately arguing for is for the president of the United States to re-import a dangerous member of a transnational terrorist organization who has clear affiliations with a gang that commits heinous atrocities, that is not what he was elected to do. And whether you bring him back here or not, I'm just going to explain to you the politics of this, through telling you what the speaker of the House, Hakeem Jeffries, did today, which is that he told his members, please, for the love of God, stop going to El Salvador and dying on this hill.
The politics of this could not be worse for the left and worse for Democrats because the president knows he was elected to protect us from MS-13, and that is what they are doing.
REYES: The politics may be correct --
(CROSSTALKS)
JENNINGS: What do you say about the tattoos?
NAVARRO: I say that Trump said yesterday was an absolute lie.
JENNINGS: They're not photoshopped.
NAVARRO: Are you saying the MS-13 that Donald Trump claims are legitimate tattoos on this guy are true? Are you saying the photoshop is true?
JENNINGS: Are you a tattoo truther? I mean, I don't understand that.
NAVARRO: Wait, are you a photoshop denier?
REYES: You're getting away from issue.
PHILLIP: Hold on. Yes, we are getting away from the issue, Scott. The picture of his knuckles does not say MS-13. It has --
JENNINGS: They're symbols.
PHILLIP: Okay, yes. Let me just explain to people --
NAVARRO: That has not been proven either, Scott. None of the things he said --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Let me just explain to people what we're talking about here. There are symbols on his knuckles. None of them say MS-13. However, this administration has decided that they symbolize something related to MS-13, which is disputed by a lot of people.
JENNINGS: It's not disputed.
PHILLIP: I am going to move on. I'm going to move on, because this is not a conversation about the tattoos.
One of the other things that happened this week is that a California judge said that you can't just scoop people up and deport them without a warrant. And in that case, basically, the judge is saying, you know, you're basically taking anybody who's in a particular area. If they don't want to talk to you, you're taking them, detaining them and assuming that they are deportable, and that you can't really do that anymore.
REYES: What the judge is saying is nothing radical. This is basically comports with existing law. It comports with decades of decisions around this matter, which in like pure layman's basic terms, means that you ICE agents cannot go after people, arrest them and detain them solely on the basis of being brown, having brown skin and being working class.
And what was so interesting about this case for me is that the Border Patrol did not contest any of the allegations. They just said --
PHILLIP: And they actually claimed that they changed their guidelines.
REYES: Right. Their response was just that they were going to do better training. And this issue goes is right in line with Mr. Abrego Garcia. It's a question of due process. Whatever we feel about Mr. Abrego Garcia, it honestly is a relevant question for the immigration judge.
SINGLETON: On Mr. Garcia, we keep saying that there's no evidence that this guy belonged to a gang.
REYES: No evidence in the court filings.
SINGLETON: That's not true.
(CROSSTALKS)
REYES: That is not true.
PHILLIP: No, hold on.
SINGLETON: Why do we always have to play this game of interrupting people when they're talking?
PHILLIP: Okay. But you're saying --
SINGLETON: What is the point of me being on the show if I can never finish my freaking point?
PHILLIP: Okay.
SINGLETON: This is getting really annoying, Abby.
PHILLIP: Hold on.
SINGLETON: Everyone else has made their statements. I have yet to say anything.
[22:30:01]
PHILLIP: Hold on a second, okay?
SINGLETON: I mean, Jesus.
PHILLIP: Hold on a second.
NAVARRO: Why are you so angry?
SINGLETON: Because I want to say something and I have a point of view to make here as well.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLLIP: Everybody, just hang on just one second. Shermichael, let me -- let me ask you a question. The question is, has the government presented evidence in court that Abrego Garcia is a member of MSD?
SINGLETON: And in my response --
PHILLIP: And the answer is no. That has not happened in court. But it doesn't mean that they have not made those claims publicly. It doesn't mean that those claims are not in police reports.
SINGLETON: In 2019 --
PHILLIP: It doesn't mean that they're not in police reports. They're just not statements that were made in court cases.
SINGLETON: And in 2019, the immigration judge at the time believed that Prince George's County gang unit and the evidence that they presented before that judge at the time that mister Garcia did indeed belong to a gang. This is not my opinion. You can -- people can Google this crap. They can Google this. CBS reported on this. If a judge believed it in 2019, is it now all of a sudden not true?
PHILLIP: OK.
RAUL REYES, IMMIGRATION ATTORNEY: Granted him a withholding of removal.
SINGLETON: I -- I acknowledge that fact.
PHILLIP: Which is a different issue. Hold on. Hold on.
SINGLETON: But -- but the point remains that a judge found the evidence to be credible that Mr. Garcia didn't --
PHILLIP: OK.
SINGLETON: -- even belong to a gang. So now, all of a sudden, we're just not going to believe judges?
PHILLIP: OK. The judge found --
SINGLETON: We can have it both ways.
PHILLIP: OK. I don't -- I don't want to go too far down this rabbit hole, but my -- my only point is that the government has not presented beyond the -- the police report. They've not actually presented the evidence to prove that he belonged to the police.
(CROSSTALK)
SINGLETON: So -- so, police reports are not considered evidence before a court of law?
PHILLIP: The police report --
(CROSSTALK)
SINGLETON: Do judges not -- do judges not consider police reports?
PHILLIP: OK. Let's -- let's --
SINGLETON: What are we saying here?
PHILLIP: Shermichael, what is --what was the original --
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: Relevant. What is relevant.
(CROSSTALK)
SINGLETON: It absolutely -- it absolutely is relevant to the argument from the administration, which is that Mr. Garcia --
UNKNOWN: Well --
SINGLETON: -- belonged to a gang as one of the reasons of deporting him out of the country.
DAN KOH, FORMER WH DEPUTY CABINET SECRETARY, BIDEN ADMINISTRATION: But he --
SINGLETON: You guys have said there's no -- there's no truth to the Constitution. That's not true.
KOH: The Constitution is very clear. It does not say citizens. It says no person should be deprived of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness without due process. It doesn't matter what he's done in his past. SINGLETON: It doesn't matter?
KOH: The Boston Bomber -- wait a minute.
SINGLETON: Oh, come on.
KOH: Let me finish. The Boston Bomber had due process, OK? That's what this is about.
PHILLIP: Actually, yeah.
(CROSSTALK)
KOH: I gave you time. Let me finish.
SINGLETON: Yeah, go ahead, go ahead.
KOH: OK? This is a president who continues to twist the Constitution to adapt to whatever his vision is to the point of the two-year-old who was deported without due process, an American citizen. His father did not want him to go, and the only access he had to his daughter was listening to his daughter cry in the background in a one minute call.
That four-year-old did not get access to a doctor despite the fact of having stage four cancer, did not have his medication with him when he was deported, an American citizen to Honduras. This is what this president is doing. He is twisting the definition of the Constitution, and people like you are disparaging character to try to justify that this --
(CROSSTALK)
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I'm not -- I'm not --
(CROSSTALK)
SINGLETON: Due process -- due process does matter.
(CROSSTALK)
SINGLETON: But the idea that that Mr. Garcia has passed doesn't matter is ludicrous.
(CROSSTALK)
SINGLETON: We are a sovereign nation.
(CROSSTALK)
SINGLETON: And this idea that people can just come in to our country, do the heck what they want to do is absurd to me.
PHILLIP: Scott, I'll let you -- I'll let you respond.
SINGLETON: And if Democrats want to die on this hill, I promise you, you'll regret it politically, so go right ahead.
KOH: I want due process for Americans.
SINGLETON: Go ahead.
PHILLIP: Dan, let me let Scott --
SINGLETON: We don't want people breaking our laws coming into our country. That is a fact.
PHILLIP: Let me let Scott have a word, and then we'll move on.
JENNINGS: It seems to me that the -- the political analysis of this though is, and a lot of average people are looking at it this way -- why is it that we can let 20 million people into the country, just walk across whatever, and there's no real process for them to do that?
But then we have to individually pick out every single person and go through years, upon years, upon years of paperwork and this and that and the other, and all we're trying to do is send them back to where they came from because they came here illegally in the first place.
Twenty million in with no process, how do you get 20 million out with years and years of people fighting every single case? You could cherry pick any case you want, but the reality is the crisis that put Donald Trump in the White House was caused over years and years and years of neglect and letting people walk into here without any process at all.
NAVARRO: But that's not true. Listen.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: And now you're trying to gum up the works to keep them here.
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: OK. A lot of them -- a lot of them came in with parole. A lot of them came --
REYES: CNN poll -- CNN polling shows 54 percent of Americans want Mr. Abrego Garcia --
JENNINGS: November polling showed Donald Trump won the elections, so, I don't know -- November polling --
(CROSSATALK)
PHILLIP: All right.
SINGLETON: We are a sovereign nation and you cannot just come into our country --
PHILLIP: All right.
SINGLETON: -- illegally whenever the heck you want because we can't do it to any other country on the face of this earth. If you come in illegally, you have to leave. Americans are tired of that. We do not have unlimited resources. We have to care for our own people first.
NAVARRO: You know who was here illegally before the deportation order? Marco Rubio's grandfather.
PHILLIP: OK. All right. Let's --
SINGLETON: We're not talking about Marco Rubio.
NAVARRO: We're not, no. That's not relevant?
SINGLETON: It's not relevant. It's not relevant to this conversation at all.
NAVARRO: No, I'm talking about Marco Rubio because Marco Rubio used to be an advocate for TPS for Venezuelans, and Marco Rubio used to be --
SINGLETON: Well, I'm not Marco Rubio and I'm not Nicaraguan. And let me tell you my beliefs.
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: -- an advocate for Nicaraguans and Cubans. No, I know you're not.
SINGLETON: If you come to this country illegally, you are going home. Simple as that.
PHILLIP: OK.
[22:35:00]
SINGLETON: We do not have unlimited resources in this country --
PHILLIP: I think a lot of Americans --
SINGLETON: -- to take care of other people.
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: There's a hell of a lot other people other than the black people who were brought here as slaves who came to this country illegally.
SINGLETON: They are not the same as black people who were brought here against our will. They decided to walk their butts (ph) across the border.
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: That's exactly what I said. I said there is a lot of people --
(CROSSTALK) NAVARRO: -- other than the black people.
SINGLETON: There's a big difference. There's a big difference.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Shermichael -- Shermichael and Ana.
NAVARRO: You're acting indignant.
PHILLIP: OK.
NAVARRO: That's exactly what I just said.
SINGLETON: I'm not acting indignant.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Let me just -- Shermichael, stop. Ana and Shermichael --
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: There are a lot of people --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I think you actually misheard what she -- I think you misheard what she said.
NAVARRO: No. He pushed me.
PHILLIP: She said --
SINGLETON: That I purposely misheard? Now you're in my brain?
PHILLIP: Listen to me for a second.
SINGLETON: Is that is that where we're going?
PHILLIP: Shermichael --
NAVARRO: You think I will say I will have advocated for black people my entire life and say something like that?
SINGLETON: Because you've advocated for black people, great. Congratulations. Last time I checked, I'm black. You're not.
PHILLIP: OK. Shermichael --
NAVARRO: That's right. I'm Latino, and my people are being racially profiled.
(CROSSTALK)
SINGLETON: And do I have to remind you the history of my people?
PHILLIP: Shermichael --
SINGLETON: Do you want to go there?
NAVARRO: I don't --
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: I actually know the history of your people.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Raul -- we're going to go on a break. Raul Reyes, thank you very much for joining us. Everybody else, hang tight. We'll be right back.
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: History was not in place when I was studying history --
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:40:48]
PHILLIP: The war on woke hits the bureau. Five years after the killing of George Floyd, Donald Trump's FBI is demoting several agents who kneeled during a protest. The feds reassigned them as Kash Patel seeks to reshape the bureau in Donald Trump's image. The Justice Department has said its review of the conduct of more than 1500 agents is underway.
Gretchen Carlson is back with us at the table. What I find -- so, there's several things I found very interesting about this. One is the specificity of it. To go by one photo and find each of those agents and then individually suspend them all.
And then also the other part of it is that there's some revisionist history happening about what the reaction was to the George -- to George Floyd's death and the protest. And I just want to play Donald Trump reacting to this in May of 2020.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We all saw what we saw, and it's very hard to even conceive of anything other than what we did see. Should never happen, should never be allowed to happen, a thing like that. But we're determined that justice be served.
Very important, I believe, to the family, to everybody that the memory of George Floyd be a perfect memory. Let it be a perfect memory. The looters should not be allowed to drown out the voices of so many peaceful protesters.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, there he is acknowledging that there were peaceful protests and now people are being reassigned, which is widely seen as retribution for kneeling during that time?
GRETCHEN CARLSON, CO-FOUNDER, LIFT OUR VOICES: That might be one of the most empathetic things that I've ever seen Donald Trump say. I mean, it was highly --
PHILLIP: I think people forget that he said that --
PHILLIP: Yeah.
CARLSON: -- he did actually say that. Yeah.
CARLSON: I totally forgot that he said that. Look, I think that, you know, elections, were fair until they were rigged. News was honest until it was fake. Free speech is wonderful until you don't like it. I mean, that's sort of how we look at how this administration is now -- is now working, and they're going to come after people that don't agree with what their definition of free speech is.
And this is five, six years in the making, so, you know, the only thing I can think tonight is who's next? You know, who -- who are you going to come after next? And that's, back to my frustrating point of view earlier, I think it frustrates a lot of Americans and quite honestly, scares a lot of Americans.
KOH: I think he's sending a very, very clear message. If you bend the knee, you get promoted, and if you take a knee, you get demoted. This is a president, as Gretchen mentioned, who is trying to silence all dissension. And what is most ironic about this is that MAGA Republicans love to talk about how they're not included in rooms and that their voices aren't allowed to be spoken in rooms because of the liberal media.
But the reality here is that here's FBI and a few agents who are taking a peaceful protest act, and as a result of that, in a moment in which, at the time, as you point out, Donald Trump agreed, are now suffering consequences. So, peaceful protest is not okay. Any kind of dissension is not okay. What kind of country are we now living?
PHILLIP: Speaking of the people being punished, the other thing that we learned tonight from our Jake Tapper was that Chris Krebs, who used to head the cyber security agency, who was slapped with an executive order for saying that the election in 2020 was not stolen, has now reportedly been kicked off of global entry, which is like, I guess what you would expect, a punishment for like a maybe, might be a terrorist, like a criminal. I don't -- all he did as far as I can tell is say the 2020 election was free and fair.
SINGLETON: I -- I want to touch on the George Floyd thing. I mean, I don't think this is -- should be a necessary focus, by the administration. I mean, a lot of black men did vote for the president. This is definitely a sore spot for many African Americans, in part because of the history with African Americans in law enforcement.
Regardless of George Floyd's past, I mean, no one can deny what we all saw, and the president rightfully acknowledged that in 2020. So -- so, I -- I wouldn't -- I wouldn't do this. If they have some bad records in their work history, then that's a reason to suspend someone or to move them to a different division.
[22:45:04]
But politically, I -- I wouldn't advise this. You got some support, which is unlikely for a Republican to get the type of support the president received last year. Why potentially ruin that or put it at risk? I -- I just wouldn't focus on it.
PHILLIP: Scott?
JENNINGS: Yeah. I'd like to learn a little bit more about it, truthfully. I've seen a short report that's in "The Washington Post" and what I have found with this administration, in the early days here, is that we get an initial burst of, you know, a short report, and then we tend to find things out over the next couple of days.
So, I'm going to -- I think I'm going to reserve my hot take tonight until I get a little bit more information. I didn't see that anyone was fired. I see people were -- were moved around the agency. And so, I guess I'd truthfully like to -- to learn a little bit more about it, and see - and see what the attorney general has to say about it.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Go ahead, Ana.
NAVARRO: Donald Trump campaigned on being the retribution. That was that was actually a word he used. He campaigned on that he was going to be a dictator. Guess what? He's living up to what he promised, to be a retribution and to act as a dictator.
JENNINGS: Come on. Oh, come on, Ana. He did not promise to be a dictator.
NAVARRO: He didn't promise retribution?
JENNINGS: He didn't -- you just said he promised to be a dictator.
NAVARRO: Those were his exact words.
JENNINGS: Are you still -- are you still going with this?
NAVARRO: Scott, those were his -- I'm pointing it.
JENNINGS: You still don't get it. All these months later, the left still hasn't got it.
NAVARRO: Listen, I'm not going to shill for him even if it doesn't get me, I'm right.
PHILLIP: We're going to -- we're going to leave that one alone. I mean, we've litigated the dictator on day one.
JENNINGS: You're going to let it go?
PHILLIP: No, I mean -- JENNINGS: I'm insulted.
NAVARRO: What's the insult?
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: No, no.
JENNINGS: --You just said I'm not here shilling. You -- you --
PHILLIP: Scott, I am not letting us go down the rabbit hole. Trump said, I'm going to be a dictator on day one, but he was referring to immigration. So in a way, you are both correct, but the context is not exactly, you know, just a dictator, plainly. So, there you go. Is that okay, Scott? Good enough?
JENNINGS: Whatever you want.
PHILLIP: All right. There you go. Coming up next, Tim Walz says the quiet part out loud about why he was picked to be on the ticket. It involves football, trucks and white people.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:51:39]
PHILLIP: Any minute now, Kamala Harris is going to make her first major speech since losing the election last November. But her running mate is making headlines of his own. Listen to why Tim Walz says Harris picked him to run alongside her.
(CROSSTALK)
GOV. TIM WALZ, DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE FOR VICE PRESIDENT IN THE 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: I also was on the ticket, quite honestly, you know, because I -- I could code talk to white guys watching football fixing their truck, doing that, that I could put them at ease. I was the permission structure to say, look you can do this and vote for this. And -- and you look across those swing states, with the exception of Minnesota, we didn't get enough of those votes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: Oh, boy.
PHILLIP: I -- I think that the -- that the honest, response to that is that that was -- if that was true, it was an epic miscalculation on the party.
SINGLETON: A huge miscalculation. She should have chosen the governor out of Pennsylvania, and we all know why she did not. Because in my personal opinion, I should say maybe we don't all agree on this, but in my personal opinion, there is a fervor within a certain sector of the Democratic Party, specifically younger voters, who I would say are somewhat anti-Semitic. People may disagree with that. That's my personal analysis. So she
went with Walz. This guy had no outreach whatsoever to white guys that I know who are hunters, who are into sports, who are into cars. They looked at him and thought he was a doofus. This was a huge miscalculation on the part of the vice president and her team.
JENNINGS: I think -- I think when your signature move is jazz hands, you're not as up on the white guy code, maybe, as you think you are. I mean, every -- everything about this guy from the choice, which was made, I think Shermichael's correct, which was made out of weakness all through his campaign appearances. And now in the aftermath, I just don't think there's ever been anybody in recent political history in over their head more than Tim Walz.
NAVARRO: Oh, honey, so did you meet Dan Cleo?
JENNINGS: It is amazing to me -- it is amazing to me -- well, he served a term, did he not? And then --
NAVARRO: Yeah, and he lost the second.
JENNINGS: It is amazing to me that Democrats elevated this guy and that he continues to believe that he is going to be a leader of this party in 2028. The problems that the Democrats have with Middle America, White men, working class men have, if this is -- if this is the road we're going down mid, the code talker Tim Walz are only going to get worse for Democrats.
PHILLIP: I mean, there's also something a little condescending about describing it in that way, I have to say.
UNKNOWN: Well, so --
JENNINGS: We're not alienating --
CARLSON: --so, take out the word white, but as -- as a Minnesota native, we tend to be very honest and forthright. So, I think that I understand why he said it in that -- in that way. And I have to be honest, when she selected him, that's exactly what I thought before he said anything. If you remember, he took the phone call.
PHILLIP: That was the rationale.
CARLSON: That was the rationale.
PHILLIP: Yeah.
CARLSON: He had on the hunter hat. He had on his jeans and his flannel shirt.
PHILLIP: And he took reporters on a hunting --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: -- it was a hunting photo- op trip.
CARLSON: But it was a whole way to try and get the working class man to vote for the Democrats. It was.
KOH: Look. I think we should focus on the midterms in 2028 right now. And by the way, independents have an approval rating of Donald Trump right now, 31 percent.
SINGLETON: That's good, Dan. That's good.
CARLSON: That's important.
JENNINGS: Do you -- I mean, look. You -- you live through this election like the rest of us. Is it good for the Democratic Party for Walz to continue to be such an external messaging leader for the party? I'm -- I'm obviously dubious. So, what I mean, what's your opinion?
KOH: I -- I thank him as a governor, some of the things that he championed, making sure that everything -- (CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: I mean as a national spokesman.
[22:55:00]
KOH: Free meals, that they're not hungry during lunch. I think that's a pretty good thing, Scott.
JENNINGS: I'm asking you. Is this the message? Is this the message?
PHILLIP: Harris is also to be speaking in just literally in a few minutes.
JENNINGS: Oh, good.
PHILLIP: And this is going to be -- I mean, we'll be talking about it probably tomorrow.
NAVARO: I'm not sure that -- I don't know. I don't know. I -- I mean, I continue hearing folks say that the Democratic Party is leaderless, so I'm -- I'm not sure that anybody would say Tim Walz is the messaging leader. I think somebody like, J. B. Pritzker has probably got much more of leadership. J. B. Pritzker, the governor of Illinois.
CARLSON: Oh, gosh.
JENNINGS: Was it Crockett, you said?
NAVARRO: I don't know. It's not -- I thought -- I thought you just said it was Walz. I don't know who --
NAVARRO: Now it's Crockett?
JENNINGS: She's -- she's definitely the chairman.
PHILLIP: Everyone, thank you very much for being here. Any minute now, Kamala Harris will critique the Trump presidency in her first big speech since the election. Laura Coates is all over it. That's next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
