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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Is Donald Trump's Tariff-Laden Economy Defying Gravity; Justices Appear Weary of Trump's Birthright Citizenship Order; Supremes Appear Open to Limiting Nationwide Court Orders. NYU Suspends Issuance Of Diploma To Student Who Talked About Genocide In Israel In His Graduation Speech; Trump Faces Backlash On Luxury Jet From Qatar. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired May 15, 2025 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, the good news, Donald Trump's tariff-drunk economy may be defying gravity. The bad news, what goes up doesn't always come down.
Plus, born in the USA, but not a citizen.
JUSTICE SONIA SOTOMAYOR, U.S. SUPREME COURT: So, as far as I see it, this order violates four Supreme Court precedents.
PHILLIP: The Supreme's hear MAGA's case for erasing the 14th Amendment.
Also liberals in awe of the president's sway overseas.
Live at the table, Van Jones, Scott Jennings, Erin Maguire, and Congressman Jared Moskowitz.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York. Let's get right to what America's talking about, the good, the bad, and the economy. Right now in President Trump's global trade war, there are two kinds of trends playing out. First, the positive, new data showing wholesale prices sank last month by a lot. It's the largest monthly drop since COVID, and it comes just days after we learned that overall inflation dipped to its lowest rate in more than four years.
With Americans now paying less for everyday items, like eggs and cars and clothes, for a second there, you'd think that we weren't in the middle of Trump's tariff tit-for-tat. But then there is also the negative. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEROME POWELL, CHAIR, FEDERAL RESERVE: We may be entering a period of more frequent and potentially more persistent supply shocks, a difficult challenge for the economy.
JAMIE DIMON, CEO, JPMORGAN CHASE: If there's a recession, I don't know how big it'll be or how long it'll last.
I wouldn't take it off the table at this point.
DOUG MCMILLON, CEO, WALMART: We're positioned to manage the cost pressure from tariffs as well, or better than anyone. But even at the reduced levels, the higher tariffs will result in higher prices.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Joining us in our fifth seat at the table is Natasha Sarin. She is the president of the Budget Lab at Yale and a former treasury official in the Biden administration.
That last sound bite was from the head of Walmart. And the news out of Walmart today is that they are going to raise prices. The fact that they're going to do that is basically a sign that a lot of other entities that are much smaller than Walmart will probably have to do the same.
NATASHA SARIN, PRESIDENT, THE BUDGET LAB AT YALE: That's absolutely right. And so I think it's really interesting to think about the data that we got on inflation that you were quoting, Abby. That's almost telling us about the economy of the past. It's a backward-looking indicator that tells us what prices and what price growth was like in April. But the reality is, the stuff that's on the store's shelves today, that's telling us about things that have been in tariff policy that was in place two or three months ago.
The forward-looking indicators are what really matters, and the forward-looking indicators here are it's not just Walmart, it's Walmart, it's Procter and Gamble, and it is every single small business in this country who is frankly less well equipped to weather the tariff shocks than the largest retailers are.
And what you're going to see over the course of the many months ahead is you're going to see substantial price increases, and they're telegraphing that to you. The Budget Lab at Yale that I run, we've sort of crunched the numbers based on today's tariff rates, which are the highest rates in a century. We're going to see price increases of about $2,800 to the average American family.
PHILLIP: Scott?
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I'm just going to read you this headline. Hard data suggests tariff-driven inflation and recession fears may be overblown. Now, this is not from a right wing outlet. This is from Axios, noted outlet of data analysis and journalism. And they go through all kinds of things. Retail sales are up a little, spending on services is up, restaurants and bars spending up, producer price index showed little sign of tariff related price pressures that we've been warned about. And as you noted in the open there's a number of things that we've seen where prices are actually coming down.
So, the analysis here was that the apocalyptic doom and gloom that has been predicted may not be coming true.
PHILLIP: Yes. Well, let me read the rest of what that Axios piece said, because here's a quote from that Axios piece from an expert says, the brunt of higher import taxes looks likely to arrive this summer. Even with de-escalation in the last several days, and even as the underlying trajectory for inflation looks the best it has in four years, this is one of those things where obviously we do need to see what happens over the next few months, but it kind of reminds me of how it felt for a lot of the last four years when, in a lot of ways, like the data would kind of say something different from what expectations were, what people were feeling, and the response to that from people like Scott was, essentially, you're not listening to people and what they're actually experiencing in their lives.
[22:05:8]
JENNNINGS: What data are you talking about? The inflation data that kept going up and up during her administration? I mean, the reality is inflation was terrible and what was coming out was Biden saying, it's not terrible.
PHILLIP: Inflation was bad, for sure, but the broader economic data of the last four years was that there was an expected recession that didn't happen, that in an effort to get inflation under control, they did not have to push the economy into recession and push job losses up. So, all of those things happened at the same time that people were feeling like their lives were not getting better. And that's kind of how people feel right now.
VAN JONES, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look I am glad anytime there's good economic news, I'm for it, I'm happy about it, I have no problem celebrating it. But why are we having these problems? Like we have the bizarre tariff strategy that may -- we may -- this may be a ball bouncing down a hill as it's coming down. Sometimes it goes up a little bit. It may go back further down.
Most people are concerned. The amount of economic anxiety is high. Consumer confidence is low. Why? Because we have self-inflicted bizarre policies from the White House that nobody can track. When Jamie Dimon doesn't know what to do, when normal household people don't know what to do, when American manufacturers don't know what to do, when people are trying to -- this is not the right way to run a bodega, let alone the biggest economy in the world.
And so, yes, today, we got some good stuff. I'm happy for it. Hope we get more good stuff. But this is a nutty way to run a country.
PHILLIP: How many times, Natasha, has tariff policy changed?
SARIN: Tariff policy has changed 50 times since President Trump took office.
PHILLIP: That's amazing.
SARIN: And sometimes those policies have only been in place for a few hours or a few days before they're ultimately rolled back. And so I can -- we can talk about what tariff levels should be and make some arguments for what the right rate is, but the idea that the right way to implement on any sort of trade agenda is with this type of uncertainty that makes it impossible for businesses to plan or for consumers to plan is really striking.
And a piece about that data, Scott, when President Trump took office in January, recession risk was about 15 percent. That's what it is in sort of a normal year. There's never a 0 percent probability of a recession. Today, recession risk is closer to 50 percent.
JENNINGS: Well, we did inherit a mess. I agree with you.
SARIN: So, it's actually not an inherited mess though, because when --
PHILLIP: But to your point, Scott, the economy is actually showing a lot. The first quarter of this year was the economy that Trump in inherited, in large part, resilient, relatively strong. And everyone expected that that would continue until the tariffs.
REP. JARED MOSKOWITZ (D-FL): Well, I mean, look, since liberation day, we've had capitulation month. I mean, first of all, I mean, we've just been cleaning up his own mess. I mean, so I give -- do we give the president credit for cleaning up his own mess? But, look, if things are going well now, remember, this is Joe Biden's economy. The president told us that two weeks ago. This is Joe Biden's economy. So, this is the best news Joe Biden has had in a very long time if things are getting better.
PHILLIP: That's fair. That was literally two weeks ago that he said that. Erin?
ERIN MAGUIRE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST, AXIOM STRATEGIES: Well, that's if Joe Biden remembers it, lest we all forget that Joe Biden should not have been president during that term. But if we want to talk about the economy here, the problem for Democrats was, to Scott's point, them not listening, it was they were lying to the American people, saying that the economy was better than it was and that they shouldn't believe their lying eyes about inflation.
At least Trump is being level with the American people. He's like, this is going to be bumpy. This is not going to be easy. But we have to upend the system if we want to be competitive again, if we want a pro-American future, if we want to bring jobs and manufacturing back on shore. It's going to be bumpy. We're trying to put the plane together in the air. It's not the smoothest way to do it.
MOSKOWITZ: The plane in Qatar, is that the plane we're putting back on?
PHILLIP: Trump campaigned on really lowering prices, Erin.. He didn't campaign on this is going to be bumpy.
MAGUIRE: You just showed a graphic of prices going down.
PHILLIP: I know, but I'm saying Trump did not say. It's going to be bumpy. He did not say prices are going to go up. He said prices are going to go down.
MAGUIRE: And they are.
PHILLIP: As we've discussed the first -- this economic data is retrospective. The tariff impacts have not hit yet.
JONES: Are you not worried about that?
PHILLIP: So, I guess I'm just responding to your point about facts and the truth and who's telling the truth and who's not. It does seem that Trump has kind of flipped the script on Americans in a pretty dramatic way.
MAGUIRE: I just don't understand, like I'm not quite sure where you're going with that line of questioning there. If you're saying that he was talking about --
PHILLIP: I was saying, would you not agree that Trump promised to lower --
MAGUIRE: He has been talking about tariffs since the 80s. He's been talking about lowering cost and he did it successfully before.
PHILLIP: Would you not agree that Trump promised Americans lower prices, that that would be his number one priority was to reduce the cost of living in this country?
MAGUIRE: And in order to do that, it means we have to make an economic change in this world because doing the same thing over, he has been talking about tariffs for 40 years.
PHILLIP: I guess also from a logical perspective --
MAGUIRE: I don't know why all of a sudden this is so shocking that a man did what he said he going to do.
PHILLIP: Well, I guess the thing is that might make sense --
MAGUIRE: Maybe that's a different book for politicians.
[22:10:01]
PHILLIP: -- that increasing tariffs on Americans with lower prices, but they don't do that because they are tax.
MAGUIRE: He's not increasing tariffs on Americans. He's increasing tariffs on businesses.
PHILLIP: Okay.
SARIN: Just to be clear as like -- just to be clear a little bit about --
JONES: Well, you just said you really believe that's how tariffs work or is that like a talking point?
MAGUIRE: I actually believe that tariffs go to the businesses and the businesses handle it, how they handle it. It is not a direct link to the American people.
SARIN: So, that actually is a direct --
JONES: Now, we have (INAUDIBLE).
SARIN: -- the American people in a sense that there is the --
JONES: That's very rude and unnecessary.
SARIN: The empirical evidence tells us that when you experience a tariff as a company, it's like a tax, and that tax is passed down to consumers.
We can debate the precise magnitudes. Is it 80 percent or 100 percent? But the reality is this means higher prices.
And I actually agree with you. I give the president credit for being honest. He is telling people, you get fewer dolls. He's telling people you get fewer pencils. The reason is because the price of those things is going to go up.
JENNINGS: What were the impacts of the tariffs in the Biden administration, because he maintained the Trump tariff, and, in fact, I think he increased some of them towards the end in an effort to try to scramble on politics? What was the impact of them?
JONES: The targeted tariffs toward China? Is that what you're talking about though, the target ones, which he didn't move?
JENNINGS: Which seems to be the main concern here, is that because of the goods that come in from China?
SARIN: No. Actually, the main concern here is that we're talking about broad-based tariffs on our allies and our adversaries.
JENNINGS: We're also talking about broad-based renegotiation of all trade deals. U.K. has announced. China is at the table. More to come.
SARIN: What is the argument? I'm just actually -- I actually genuinely curious what the argument is for having trade policy that's going to result in higher prices for the American consumer that's going to result in a smaller economy, and that's going to result in job losses on the order of 400,000 to 500,000 people?
JENNINGS: This is your apocalyptic night wheezes (ph), but the reality is he is setting up leverage to renegotiate trade deals that are imbalanced and bad for American workers. The whole point of this is to put American workers at the center of our economic policy and not just Wall Street and not just people who deal in money. That's the point.
MOSKOWITZ: Hold on. That's fine as a concept, but his execution was terrible and I can prove that. Where's Peter Navarro, APB for Peter Navarro? I haven't seen him in weeks because --
JENNINGS: He's on our air like three nights a week.
MOSKOWITZ: Okay. The execution of this was awful. Had he just focused on China, he would've had a bipartisan coalition. We have a China caucus in Congress. We had a China select committee. It was passed by 400 members of Congress. Had he just focused on China and talked about on-shoring jobs, we learned that in COVID, right, that our supply chain is broken, had he done that, I think he would've -- we would've been way more successful. But, no, we tariffed friend and foe alike, the penguins, Antarctica, everybody. And ever since we've done that, all we've been doing is moving backwards and backwards. There's no factories, there's no robots. We're not building iPhones here. None of this stuff that, you know, we see the commerce secretary on T.V. every day big -- he talked about big, beautiful coal. I mean, are we building coal plants here again?
JENNINGS: I hope so. We need them.
MOSKOWITZ: Okay.
JENNINGS: And let me tell you something else. The energy needs in this country over the next four years are going to spike. We need coal, we need solar, we need wind, we need nuclear, and we need it now. I hope I'm not (INAUDIBLE).
PHILLIP: I think one of the key, one of the key data points here in whether Trump's own leverage strategy is working is that they went into a negotiation with China and basically, unilaterally lowered their own 145 percent tariff down to something that is still very high, but he negotiated himself down off of a hill that he climbed on his own. I'm not sure how that's creating leverage.
JENNINGS: Well, the leverage is getting them to the table.
PHILLIP: Yes. But China didn't get them anything, Scott. So, I think that's part of the problem is that you backing --
JENNINGS: That's not true. That's not true. They're already negotiating non-tariff trade barriers.
PHILLIP: Scott, backing down is not leverage. Backing down is just backing down.
JENNINGS: Getting to them to the table is leverage. I mean, this is -- if you hate Donald Trump, this is how you would describe it. There's a better way to describe it. I mean, the better way to describe it is bring these people to the table, get the trade situation with the tariff rates correct, but also the non-tariff issues that we have going on with China, which are legion, must be --
PHILLIP: Okay. None of which have been dealt with. That is a fact. Coming up next for us, Natasha, thank you very much for joining us, breaking news tonight, the Supreme Court hears Donald Trump's arguments to end birthright citizenship. Another special guest is going to be with us at the table.
Plus, an NYU student denied his diploma after he denounced Israel's actions in Gaza at his graduation. We'll debate that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:15:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, birthright citizenship goes to the Supremes, the high court taking up arguments on the President's bid to end birthright citizenship, and whether lower courts have the power to block the President's executive order nationwide.
And while they did not debate the details of the merits of Trump's executive order, the justices, including the conservatives, still seemed to wrestle with its potentially widespread consequences.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JUSTICE: KETANJI BROWN JACKSON, U.S. SUPREME COURT: Your argument seems to turn our justice system, in my view, at least into a catch me if you can kind of regime from the standpoint where everybody has to have a lawyer and file a lawsuit in order for the government to stop violating people's rights.
JUSTICE NEIL GORSUCH, U.S. SUPREME COURT: What do you say though to the suggestion, General, that in this particular case, those patchwork problems for, frankly, the government as well as for plaintiffs justify broader relief.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Joining us in our fifth seat at the table is Immigration Attorney Raul Reyes. Raul, this is a classic case of the court not really taking up the underlying issue, as salacious as it is for us to discuss, and we'll get to that in a little bit, but this question of whether or not you can have a ruling on whether you're a citizen or not, just in like one part of a state and not in the rest of the country.
[22:20:18]
I mean, that seems a little hard to believe. What did you think the justices said?
RAUL REYES, IMMIGRATION ATTORNEY: Right. Well, for me, what was interesting listening to the arguments today is many times with the Supreme Court, you know, they are removed from ordinary life. They are often in their world of principles and their ideology and legal theories. It's not often that they start wading into the very practical day-to-day matters of how is this going to play out? What will happen here and there? And that's what we saw this sort of skepticism.
And you're right, we're not looking at the issue of birthright citizenship itself. The only question they were examining, in theory at least, is whether and under what circumstances you can have these national injunctions. But at the same time, that larger question obviously hung over the whole court. And even with the Trump administration seeking this, it's already a huge ask going against the Constitution, 125 years of precedent. It's already a big ask. So --
PHILLIP: Part of the reason they couldn't get away from it because the issue was citizenship, frankly. I mean, maybe if it were about like, you know, anything else, they might have been able to do this more cleanly. But because the question is are you a citizen or are you not, it almost felt like they had -- the answer to the question is contingent on what the actual underlying issue is. And can you have a baby born in New Jersey that has citizenship and then that baby travels to, you know, Montana and then doesn't? I think that's a huge question.
REYES: And it was striking that Kavanaugh was asking, okay, if we took this side of the administration, the solicitor general, how would the government enforce these policies?
PHILLIP: Let me play that because it's such an interesting exchange. Listen, the government is the other voice that you hear here. Kavanaugh, is questioning him on how is this all going to work. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JUSTICE BRETT KAVANAUGH, U.S. SUPREME COURT: What do hospitals do with a newborn? What do states do with a newborn?
D. JOHN SAUER, U.S. SOLICITOR GENERAL: I don't think they do anything different. What the executive order says in Section 2 is that federal officials do not accept documents that have the wrong designation of citizenship from people who are subject to the executive order.
KAVANAUGH: How are they going to know that?
SAUER: The federal officials will have to figure that out essentially.
KAVANAUGH: How?
SAUER: So, you could imagine a number of ways that the federal officials could --
KAVANAUGH: Such as?
SAUER: Such as they could require a showing of, you know, documentation, showing legal presence in the country.
KAVANAUGH: For all the newborns, is that how that's going to work?
SAUER: Again, we don't know. (END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Man, I -- yes. You don't have to be a lawyer to hear the kind of like, are you serious, in his voice there, in Kavanaugh's voice, because, yes, how are you not going to know?
MOSKOWITZ: Yes, I love when the administration makes Kavanaugh reasonable. I mean, look, this hearing was somewhat of a mess for the administration. I mean -- and it's weird, like we live in a time when Antonin Scalia right, the late great Antonin Scalia is -- he's woke. I mean, he's clearly on video saying, the Constitution says persons, doesn't say citizens. And if you listen to Amy Coney Barrett, she could not believe the administration's position when it comes to, you know, not adhering to lower court rulings. They kept saying, generally adhere. And she said, what do you keep saying generally? And he said, well, that's been longstanding DOJ policy that we generally will adhere to a level court really. And she said, really?
And so it was a fascinating hearing. I don't think it went well for the administration.
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, at the end of the day, I mean, the birthright citizenship is going to be an uphill climb, but it's also very possible that this even narrower issues, Scott, will also be.
JENNINGS: Yes, I don't know how the 14th Amendment issue is going to turn out. I mean, I think there are good arguments to be made for it, but it doesn't sound like they made much headway on that. If they come back, however, and rein in these nationwide injunctions somehow that these individual district court judges are issuing all the time, that would be, in my opinion, a step in the right direction for this president and for every other president to come. Because right now, I think individual district court judges, regardless of your politics, regardless of how you feel about this president or whoever's going to be the next one, should not be able to have more power than the duly elected president of the United States. But that's effectively what happens. They put them out of business early. They grind their administration to a halt. They try to run out the clock, and it's too easy to venue shop these people and stop the executive branch from executing its duties.
MOSKOWITZ: Why aren't the Republicans doing it? They have the House, the Senate.
JENNINGS: I agree with you, they should do it.
MOSKOWITZ: Why aren't they doing it?
JENNINGS: They should do it.
(CROSSTALKS)
JENNINGS: And I hope they do it. They may do it.
MOSKOWITZ: They're not doing it because they know when they're out of power, they don't want it used against them. All of these attorney generals filed all sorts of cases against the Biden administration and sought the same injunctions.
PHILLIP: There's one a judge in Texas that is the favorite of -- no.
[22:25:00]
JENNINGS: It's not a good thing.
PHILLIP: Scott, listen, Republicans and Democrats have been complaining about this, okay? It's not -- that part is not partisan, particularly.
JONES: I think one of the things we have to deal with is that it is -- you do have people who are at the blunt end of these policies from the government was Republican or Democrat. And getting into court is difficult if you insist that people have to be able to bring a class action lawsuit, which I think people would maybe feel a little bit more comfortable with, as a practical matter, that's hard. It's very difficult.
And so you're going to make it a lot harder for people to prevail and often situation like this, listen, sometimes an individual is standing for a key principle. Sometimes an individual is standing for an important constituency.
And so I don't like the direction of the Trump administration in this regard. I don't like them trying to tell people that they don't belong here because of where their parents were born. I don't like that. And especially now, I think that individual judges standing up for what's right in the Constitution is a more of a good thing than a bad thing.
There's been a recent human cry about this. This is not a massive issue. It's not a massive problem. I disagree with my Republican friends who say that it is.
PHILLIP: The judges.
JONES: The judges. Look, why? Because there is an overall attack from this administration on the courts, on the media, on law firms, on campuses. And so I put it in that regard. And in that regard, I am much more supportive of these individual judges standing up.
PHILLIP: So, just one quick thing to Erin. I mean, the Trump administration wants to go to the Supreme Court on virtually everything. They've made that very clear. But I think we heard today we played Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett at one point kind of tag teamed with Elena Kagan to question the solicitor general and question him incredibly skeptically.
Is it a kind of, I don't know, a naive bargain that they're making, that they go up to the Supreme Court and they get everything they want? It seems like the justices are doing their jobs and listening to the arguments.
MAGUIRE: The justices are doing their jobs, and I think a lot of the legal strategy not working in the White House is to try and push this as far as they can to try and get the outcome they want. That's why the Supreme Court exists, so that you can adjudicate these things further.
I think that Scott's point is correct. I don't think that their 14th Amendment argument was necessarily their strongest argument, especially when it came to effectuating those changes. And the court brought that to light, and that is how the Supreme Court should work.
And I agree, venue shopping against lower courts to try and get an outcome, a positive outcome, does not keep the judiciary blind. It does not allow it to effectuate the way it should to balance the scales. And that should be a bipartisan reform that should be accepted in the country.
REYES: And that's what this case is really about, judicial power. And I agree with you. This is something -- judges issuing these national injunctions, that happened under President Obama, President Biden by Republican state attorneys general. It's something both parties do. So, the issue is bigger for me than just the specific, this time, birthright citizenship we saw in the past, for example, Republican attorneys general blocked the expansion of DACA in certain provisions of the Affordable Care Act. So, that's the issue.
And when it comes to birthright citizenship, what gets -- I think, something that's getting lost, if this administration wants that, wants to make that a priority, there is a process for them to do that, to go to Congress, to get ratification from the states and change the Constitution that way. And they're not pursuing that. Meanwhile, if this somehow did go through ending birthright citizenship, the practical result is we have more undocumented people in this country. We have a class -- like an underclass of stateless people. And that's really not a desirable outcome for anyone or whatever party you're in.
PHILLIP: Yes. If you don't like the Constitution, you can change it. It's possible.
Raul Reyes, thank you very much for joining us. Everyone else, hang on.
Coming up next, a student at NYU is denied his diploma after he spoke out against Israel during a graduation speech. Is this fair? We'll discuss.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:30:00]
PHILLIP: Breaking tonight, a student at NYU has been denied his diploma after speaking out against Israel during his graduation speech. It is a new flashpoint in the battles on campus across America. And of course, as the Trump administration threatens funding to universities, here is a section, the -- this section under fire.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LOGAN ROZOS, NYU STUDENT: The only thing that is appropriate to say, in this time and to a group this large, is a recognition of the atrocities currently happening in Palestine. (CROWD CHEERING)
(APPLAUSE)
ROZOS: I want to say that the genocide currently occurring is supported politically and militarily by The United States, is paid for by our tax dollars, and has been live-streamed to our phones for the past 18 months. I want to say that I condemn this genocide and complicity in this genocide.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: NYU says the speech was unapproved, which breaks their rules. The university apologizes and says the student lied, and -- and it strongly denounced his stunt, which they call personal and one- sided.
[22:35:04]
The school is withholding his diploma until they decide on a punishment. "The Times" hasn't been able to contact the graduate.
Congressman, I wonder what you think of this. The speech -- he was clearly very nervous saying that. A lot of people disagree with him, but do you think he has the right to say it?
REP. JARED MOSKOWITZ (D) FLORIDA: Well, first of all, as the university said, he -- because I did this. I was a graduate student. You have to give your speech.
PHILLIP: Right.
MOSKOWITZ: They have to see what you're going to say. So, he lied to the university. Second of all, he lied to everyone listening. There's no genocide going on in Israel. There is a war. It's unfortunate. And there are people in harm's way because of what Hamas did. And, yes, there are situations that I wish would improve, like, you know, getting food -- more food into Gaza.
But at the end of the day, that's up to the university whether they give him his diploma or not. You know? In fact, they could give him his diploma. It's not going to matter. Good luck getting getting -- getting a job. That was a stupid, selfish thing. He ruined the ceremony for -- for a lot of families.
PHILLIP: Van, what are your thoughts?
VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, look, you know, it takes some courage to speak up for what you believe in, and I think that he showed some courage. And then you have to take the punishment that comes along with that. Doctor King said if you're going to break the law, if you're going to break the rules, if you're going to do these type of things, then you have to take the punishment.
So, what you can't do is say, I am going to lie to my administration. I am going to give a speech that I know is going to be inflammatory. I'm going to do it as a matter of conscience, but I want no bad thing to happen to me. I wanted -- I want all my cookies and all my cake and all my candy, too. That's not how it works.
Also, I think it's important to recognize that, there are other people who, if this -- if this was going to be the subject of a graduation moment, then there are other people who feel quite differently, and they were not allowed to speak. They were not allowed to talk about the pain that they feel about what happened on October 7th and the rockets that are still being fired.
And I was just in The Holy Land. There were rockets being fired out of -- out of Gaza and out of Yemen every day. Those people were not allowed to speak. So, I do -- listen. I was on the left side of Pluto as a student. I demonstrated and protested everything and everybody, and I took my punishment, too. And so, I don't think you can do that and then expect no punishment.
PHILLIP: I have to say, we -- we haven't heard from the student. We don't know whether he is complaining about, I mean, he clearly knew there would be consequences because he was incredibly -- you could see there shaking as he was delivering the speech. But I -- I want to raise a question about you -- you brought up whether Jewish students or whoever might be able to take the other side of it.
Yeah. I mean, why not allow the other peep -- you know? I guess I'm wondering where is the world in which people on opposite ends of this issue? And he's not the only -- you disagree with his view on genocide, but he's not the only person saying that. Lots of people are saying that.
(CROSSTALK)
MOSKOWITZ: That doesn't make them right.
PHILLIP: I'm not saying that they're right. I'm just asking -- I'm asking about whether or not --whether if you believe that or you don't, you both have the opportunity and the right to say it -- to speak confidently.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Wait, do you believe that about every conspiracy theorist? Because we spend a lot of time on this show and on this network denouncing conspiracy theorists.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Well -- well, Scott, here's the -- the only thing -- the only thing --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: What this kid said is a total, uninformed conspiracy theory. And I just think he should not be using the platform because people believe it.
PHILLIP: The only thing I would say to that is that -- look. Let me actually play it because I think there was a United Nations official, the humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher, just this week during a U.N. Security Council meeting. I'm just going to play his remarks about what's happening in Gaza.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOM FLETCHER, UNITED NATIONS HUMANITARIAN CHIEF: And now --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I think we're going to -- and we're having some technical difficulties with that clip, but let me just read to you what he says. He said, and now the ICJ is - "The International Criminal Court is considering whether a genocide is taking place in Gaza. So, for those killed and those w whose voices are silenced, what more evidence do you need now? Will you act decisively to prevent genocide and ensure respect for international human law, or will you say instead that we did all we could?"
I raise this only because I think it's -- it's a debatable issue, and a lot of people take the other side of it. But it's -- it's not a conspiracy theory. I mean, he has been to Gaza. And, again, it's totally appropriate to vociferously disagree with him. But the student is saying what that someone said at the United Nations.
JENNINGS: Yeah. I mean, you're -- you're trying to get me to believe that this character at the United Nations or that court that you mentioned are valid resources.
PHILLIP: He is the U.N. Humanitarian Chief.
JENNINGS: Radically anti-Israel, anti-Jewish state, and in many cases, anti-Semitic. Flat out. That's number one.
[22:40:00]
Number two, I read this article. By the way, I agree with what the Congressman said and somewhat Van said, as well. There's -- there's issues at play here. I did read the last paragraph of "The New York Times" story. This kid describes himself as an actor and artist, an advocate for LGBTQ, a gay black trans man.
Now, I wonder what would happen if he went over there and encountered some of these Hamas folks. What do you reckon would happen to someone like him? How radically misinformed is this person to take the side of a bunch of people who would murder him on-site and blame the Jewish people for what happened on October the 7th?
I'm glad he's being punished because he clearly, according to the school, lied. He broke the rules. But more than anything, I think people who promulgate these kinds of conspiracy theories and anti- Semitism ought to be held accountable in public when they can't even understand that their own personal situation wouldn't permit them to step foot in this place.
PHILLIP: Do you think it's possible to have concern for Palestinian people without taking the side of Hamas? I mean, just to respond to what Scott is saying.
MOSKOWITZ: A hundred percent. There are innocent people in Gaza, and there are children, and they are caught in this. But it is not a genocide.
PHILLIP: I think I -- look. I think that that is exactly what a lot of people believe. The question is who gets to say what?
JONES: I guess --
PHILLIP: And I think you can disagree with people, but I'm wondering where does the free speech happen?
ERIN MAGUIRE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST, "AXIOM" STRATEGIST: The free speech -- it's not going to happen at that event and in that venue. If they want to have a political debate about Palestine and Israel and the war and Gaza and Hamas, absolutely. That was a graduation speech. There were very clear rules. He knew what he was doing. He lied to the university, play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
PHILLIP: Yeah.
MAGUIRE: And, ultimately, it's not about whether or not that conversation should happen. It should happen. We have robust debate all the time. There are networks built on robust debate on these exact policies. What that kid did was inappropriate because that was not the venue or the forum for that type of conversation because it would only be one-sided, because it wasn't like anybody else got to run up there and spew on behalf of the nation.
PHILLIP: It was a -- it was a --
JONES: I just want to say --
PHILLIP: it's a form of protest as Van pointed out, and there are -- there will be probably consequences.
JONES: Look. Look. I -- I agree with my --with my colleague. I think the debate needs to happen more, and I think people need to be able to stick up for the Palestinians without it being assumed that they are pro-Hamas. I think that's a mistake we sometimes fall into.
But this wasn't fair. It wasn't fair to people. If he said, listen. It is important to me as a matter of moral conscience that I speak out on this, let someone else give the counterpoint of view, but my generation is concerned, and I -- and then let the administration make that call.
I don't think that -- I don't think we've seen the last of this. I think we're going to see a lot of this over the rest of the year. I think you have young people who are very concerned. I think -- I think that, some of the young people are objectively, insensitive, I would put would -- would go so far as insensitive to the concerns of people who are very afraid of what Hamas is doing and frankly, other forces in the region. But if you're going to do this type of thing, you are going to get
punished, and you should take the punishment with pride as I did when I was a student protestor.
PHILLIP: I can't speak -- I can't speak how he's taking the punishment. I just want to be clear about that because we don't know.
JONES: Sure.
PHILLIP: But we do know what the university has said they're going to do, and so we'll see if they follow through on that promise. Coming up next, Trump has a whirlwind trip to The Middle East with multiple new deals. And former Biden officials are now saying they have reaction envy. We'll discuss that, coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:48:17]
PHILLIP: Tonight, Donald Trump is upending decades of Republican foreign policy, and liberals are in awe of it. To start the week, Trump accepted a $400 million jet from Qatar. He signed a $600 billion investment deal with Saudi Arabia and complimented its crown prince.
He announced he was lifting all sanctions on Syria. He met with the leader of that nation who The U.S. once listed as a terrorist, and Trump welcomed talks with Iran. And he announced a ceasefire with the Houthis and a hostage deal with Hamas, both without Israel.
The breakneck pace of Trump's deal making has forced Republicans to recalibrate decades of their own messaging. It's also left some former Biden officials in awe. One Biden vet told "Axios", "Gosh, I wish I could work for an administration that could move that quickly."
Another spoke to the implication saying, quote, "Trump has the ability to do things that -politically -- that previous presidents did not because he has complete unquestioned authority over the Republican caucus."
That part, I'm not sure anybody can disagree with. Trump does have dominance over the Republican, not just the Republican caucus, but, like, the Republican Party writ large, the voters, the elected officials, state and local levels. And because of that, he can kind of do whatever he wants, and he has done that this week.
MOSKOWITZ: Oh, yeah. Look. Trump has complete control of the House. There's no oversight. There's no pushback. Although, he's gotten pushback on -- on the plane. I mean, just for a second.
PHILLIP: A little bit, like --
MOSKOWITZ: Well, by the way, a little bit is a lot in -- in Republican. Just take a step back. Can you imagine if Barack Obama got a plane from the Qataris? I mean, Scott would be calling it the Barack Hussein plane. I mean, we -- it would be endless all day long. We would -- we would be seeing it. JENNINGS: No.
[22:50:00]
"Barack Huplane Obama".
MOSKOWITZ: Okay.
JENNINGS: That's what I would have done. Just to set the record.
(CROSSTALK)
(LAUGHTER)
MOSKOWITZ: Let me be fair. I think what the president did in -- I think what the president did in Saudi Arabia is a good thing. We got to make sure they don't go to the Chinese. I think that's a good thing. I think what the -- the President is doing with Syria is interesting. We got to -- we try to got to get them from the Russians, and so he's trying something different.
The most troubling thing is what the President's doing on Iran. Didn't get enough attention this week, right? It seems that between Vance, who's an isolationist, and Witkoff, who's an appeaser, they're trying to make a deal where they're looking at the JCPO.
I mean, it's literally almost like the JCPO. We were going to -- we were now going to limit the amount that they can -- that that they can have. The amount of uranium that they have. The amount that they can enrich when we should be saying no program whatsoever.
PHILLIP: Okay. So, Scott, if he signs an Iran deal, that's basically the JCPOA. Are you -- are you going to be cool with this?
JENNINGS: Yeah, I do not want Iran to have access to any nuclear material at all, specifically nuclear weapons of any kind, any way, shape or form. And so, I've heard the President say they cannot be permitted to have access to nuclear weapons.
PHILLIP: That's what every president says.
JENNINGS: And so -- and so, I trust that he will not permit them to incur. And I think he has sent them a strong, actually, hawkish message by attacking the Houthis, who are obviously their proxies and propped up by Iran.
JONES: And -- and then backing off.
JENNINGS: Well, I mean --
JONES: They're doing a unilateral -- and doing a unilateral deal with the Houthis.
JENNINGS: We made the point. We made the point.
JONES: Hold on a second. JENNINGS: The moment they said no Hamas.
JONES: So, but, though, hold on a second. So, he does a unilateral deal with the Houthis, the worst people in the region, even as bad or maybe worse than Hamas, without talking to Israel, without coordinating with Bibi Netanyahu, which basically says to the Houthis, you could attack all the Israeli ships that you want to, just not ours. How is that global --
JENNINGS: Israel is free to attack them, as well.
JONES: Well, but hold on.
JENNINGS: I'm sure we do have conversations about that.
JONES: No. But -- but hold on. This is a -- this is a massive change in the way that we do business. So, we don't talk to our ally. We do talk to our enemy. We tell our enemy don't shoot us, but if you shoot Israel we don't care.
That's not -- I don't -- I don't understand how this - yeah, we would just talk about how, you know, the Trump administration, you know, is this kind of, you know, standing up against anti-Semitism and yet throwing Israel under the bus every chance it can get. I don't get it.
JENNINGS: I don't think you're characterizing it correctly. I think -- I do agree with you that this is a change in the way we do business, and the change is we have a president who thinks about peace and war, not war and peace. And if you listen to his language, he has reset the way the Republican Party talks about that -- this issue.
And if you look at the imagery in his trip to the Middle East, when he went to the military base and they had a huge banner, it said peace through strength, which is what Ronald Reagan preached. And the strength here is -- the strength here is we actually have a president who is capable of staying awake long enough to go make deals with these people and create peace in the region.
(CROSSTALK)
JONES: Think of Democratic presidents. If Barack Obama -- President Obama had gone directly to the Houthis and cut a deal and left Israel on the side -- to the side like he did like that --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: You don't have to do hypotheticals --
PHILLIP: Okay.
JENNINGS: -- because the Biden administration took them off the terrorists' list --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: -- back on -- PHILLIP: As a former State Department official said, if the Biden administration had done something like this, Bibi would have gone out guns -- guns ablazing. We haven't heard much Netanyahu about this lately.
Coming up next for us though, the panel is going to give us their nightcaps. They'll tell us what artifact they'd love to have inspired by the rediscovery of a 700-year-old manuscript.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:58:02]
PHILLIP: We're back, and it's time for the "NewsNight" cap, treasure edition. Harvard Law School thought for years that it had an old copy of the Magna Carta. Today, the school revealed that testing proves it's actually an original manuscript from the year 1300, and it's one of seven that still survived. So, you each have a few seconds to tell us what artifact you would want to have. Congressman Europe?
MOSKOWITZ: Well, in light of senator Jennings last week talking about, Emperor Palpatine, I thought I would go back to Star Wars, and I want the Death Star plans and or just finished, it's season two. Okay. And in light of that, George Lucas, if you're listening, send me the Death Star plans big infrastructure project ultimate weapon.
PHILLIP: Infrastructure week back. Okay. Erin.
MAGUIRE: Yes. Mine is an iconic "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" item, the blue bunny that Kim Richards gave back to Lisa Rinna. If you know anything about Bravo TV, you know that this is an iconic item that has traveled the country on Bravo and lives in the clubhouse with Andy Cohen. If Andy Cohen ever wants to give up the blue bunny, I would gladly give her a place to live. Iconic.
PHILLIP: That one is probably worth a lie.
MAGUIRE: Oh, I would oh, I get it. Wise fans would spend to buy that.
PHILLIP: Seriously. That is -- that is more than an artifact. That's an heirloom.
MAGUIRE: Thank you.
PHILLIP: Van Jones.
JONES: May 16, 1983, Michael Jackson moonwalked, Motown 25. I want the glove. I want the glove from that May moonwalk from "Change The World".
PHILLIP: Speaking of things --
JENNINGS: You guys know history started before, like, 1983, right?
JONES: It's all of history.
JENNINGS: The Magna Carta we're talking about.
JONES: Michael Jackson we're talking about.
PHILLIP: You guys are talking about stuff that's not even real. So, I mean --
JENNINGS: That's true. That's true.
UNKNOWN: It's real money, Abby.
JENNINGS: I went back into history. I want the Ark of the Covenant, and here's why. First of all, sacred relic from the Old Testament. They carried the 10 Commandments in this, and according to a movie or a documentary that I saw, you turn this thing on, and it literally melts the face off of the worst people around you.
[23:00:04]
JONES: That wasn't documented.
PHILLIP: Okay.
JENNINGS: It might have been. And -- and I'm just saying, it seems like having this could come in handy. And so anyway, I'm going back into history. In all seriousness, I think -- I think this sort of history, could be a uniting kind of a relic. Now, there's a church in, I think, Ethiopia that claims to have it. But I think a tour in The United States, maybe passing through Kentucky, could be fun.
PHILLIP: Yeah. Well, I got to get some bodyguards for that thing. You know what Scott's going to do. Everyone, thank you so much, and thanks for watching "NewsNight". You can catch me anytime on your favorite social media -- X, Instagram and TikTok. "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
