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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Democratic Congresswoman Charged In ICE Facility Protest; Trump Admin To Pay Ashli Babbitt's Family $5 Million In Lawsuit; Capitol Officer On $5 Million To Slain Rioter, Infuriating Betrayal; Former President Biden Diagnosed With Aggressive Prostate Cancer; Tariffs Passed On To Consumers. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired May 19, 2025 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST (voice over): Tonight, a humbling diagnosis becomes a political football.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I'm surprised the public wasn't notified a long time ago.
PHILLIP: Plus, the bully pulpit revs up. Donald Trump makes an admission about his tariffs while threatening companies who dare tell the truth.
Also, she lost her life storming the Capitol on January 6th. Now, the Trump administration is paying her family millions. A former officer who was there responds.
And the president's personal lawyer turned us attorney charges a Democratic Congresswoman in that ICE facility protest.
Live at the table, Scott Jennings, Cornel West, Julie Roginsky and Joe Borelli.
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 breaking news out of the Department of Justice. Alina Habba, the MAGA lawyer who Donald Trump made U.S. attorney in New Jersey has just charged Democratic Congresswoman LaMonica McIver in that ICE protest in Newark.
Now, you might remember, McIver and two other members of Congress went to an ICE detention facility in Newark, New Jersey, to conduct oversight when chaos erupted. McIver, the other lawmakers and the agents are there in the center of the chaos. And then look at the second video that was released by DHS. McIver can be seen pushing in the crowd as she tries to get to the mayor. Habba is accusing McIver of assaulting, impeding, and interfering with law enforcement, but they dropped the charges against Mayor Baraka.
Now, McIver tonight calls the charges purely political, and they come after these red lines from liberal leaders.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): You lay a finger on someone on Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman, on representative -- or any of the representatives that were there, you lay a finger on them, we are going to have a problem.
REPORTER: What happens if they were to go and arrest these members or if they would try to sanction them during the House of Representatives?
REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): They'll find out.
REPORTER: What would you do though? I mean --
JEFFRIES: They'll find out.
REPORTER: What recourse? I mean, but doesn't that broach a --
JEFFRIES: They'll find out.
REPORTER: Doesn't that go across --
JEFFRIES: That's a red line.
REPORTER: What's the red line though? I mean, I know we have the speech --
JEFFRIES: It's a red line. It's very clear.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Joining us now in our fifth seat at the table is Newark Mayor Ras Baraka. Mayor, you were there. You were at the center of this. And tell us when you see that she's now been charged with these allegations, is that what you experienced? Is that what you witnessed?
MAYOR RAS BARAKA (D-NEWARK, NJ): Well, I think the Congress people went there to do their job, to have oversight. I think, you know, ultimately, this is not about even what happened there. It's about a fight in this country about due process in the Constitution of the United States.
I think there're some people who believe they could do what they want to do and violate people's rights in their due process. And there are people who are trying to provide oversight and it's causing conflict in this. I didn't see any of the things that were stated. I didn't see any of those things happen. So, I think that the congresswoman will be vindicated. And the videos are clear. Everybody can see those videos, they'll see the whole thing and they'll, and it'll be clear to me and it'll be clear to her in court.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I mean, the videos are pretty clear, are they not? I mean, she's shoving elbows, some punches. I mean, this is violent activity against law enforcement isn't.
BARAKA: Yes, it's a lot of pushing and shoving. I don't know if --
JENNINGS: Would a regular person, if they came and did that to a federal officer, get away with it?
BARAKA: A regular person --
JENNINGS: Like a regular, just a non-politician?
PHILLIP: They might get pardoned.
JENNINGS: If they showed up at a federal facility --
PHILLIP: They might get pardoned by the --
JENNINGS: But were they charged? Were they charged? Were they convicted in court?
PHILLIP: Let me --
JENNINGS: Would a regular person --
PHILLIP: You brought up what she was doing or not doing. On Saturday, my colleague, Victor Blackwell, had the DHS spokesperson on the show. The claim was that the congresswoman body slammed an officer, and he challenged her on it. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: So, you claim that Congresswoman LaMonica McIver body slammed someone. That was your term, not a term I introduced. I don't see that in this video. So, how do you --
[22:05:00]
TRICIA MCLAUGHLIN, ASSISTANT DHS SECRETARY: Victor, body slammed, body rammed, punched, shoved, pushed, whatever you want to call it, if you all want to white wash --
BLACKWELL: Not what I want to call it, what you want to call it.
MCLAUGHLIN: Look at that right there. If you want to -- viewers should watch for themselves if that's fitting for a city member of Congress to be assaulting ICE officers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, the congresswoman after this incident happened, she actually said that she was being pushed and shoved. One, she said there was one ICE officer when I was entering back into the gate to the facility where he was literally using his elbows, shoulders, everything, pushing against me not to let me in.
It may be one of those cases where there is a lot of pushing and shoving happening in both directions, is that you were there actually as well, right, for part of that incident.
JULIE ROGINSKY, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I was. I was there after the mayor was arrested.
PHILLIP: Is that enough to --
ROGINSKY: No, and let just --
PHILLIP: -- to justify charges against the congresswoman?
ROGINSKY: And let me say, because the construct of this is very interesting. These kinds of charging cases are not made by Alina Habba or any United States attorney in the district of New Jersey. If you're indicting an elected official, especially a federal official, it is made in Main Justice always. Pam Bondi is the attorney general of the United States. It is ultimately her decision.
Pam Bondi was the lobbyist for the geo group which owns Delaney Hall, which has a $1.2 billion with a B contract at Delaney Hall. And, of course, not --
PHILLIP: That's the ICE -- that's the detention facility that they were at.
ROGINSKY: And, of course, probably does not want her former client being impeded from having members of Congress performing their oversight responsibilities.
So, this thing is rotten from start to finish. This attorney general should never have been involved in charging anybody for a former client that benefits a former client, and they should have allowed --
JENNINGS: How does it benefit the client?
ROGINSKY: How does it benefit the client?
JENNINGS: How does it benefit --
ROGINSKY: Because Mayor Baraka does not give them a certificate of occupancy. And if these members of Congress --
JENNINGS: But what does it have to do with a clear video of someone assaulting a police officer?
ROGINSKY: That video clear to you, Scott? Was that clear?
JENNINGS: Yes, pretty clear.
ROGINSKY: There's nothing clear about it because --
JENNINGS: It's not a cheap fake, I can assure you with that.
ROGINSKY: Let me tell you something. If you took off your MAGA (INAUDIBLE) glasses and look at it --
JENNINGS: It's not a cheap fake. It's a real video.
BARAKA: It's not the whole video either. It's not the whole video.
JOE BORELLI, FORMER REPUBLICAN LEADER, NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL: With all due respect, you look like that meme of Charlie Day from Always Sunny in Philadelphia with all the strings and wires trying to connect the dot. You had a member of Congress, who, by the way, doesn't have an inherent right just to walk into a federal district.
ROGINSKY: Oh, yes, she does.
BORELLI: Oh, no, you don't. January, 2021, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz tried the same stunt, same stunt, it was a stunt, no offense, Mayor Baraka, it was a stunt. They don't have an inherent right to walk in the same and demand the front --
PHILLIP: They tried the same stunt --
BORELLI: The same student to visit January 6th prisoners. They were turned away because they were not welcome. But the point is this was a stunt.
PHILLIP: This is an important distinction. It is actually different. The law --
BORELLI: I had the same privilege here in New York. You don't get to just push --
PHILLIP: Hold on. No. We're talking talking about federal law here. The law explicitly states that Congress people are able to enter ICE facilities at any time, at any time. That's different from a federal prison. It's different from another detention facility. ICE facilities, in particular, that is what the law says.
BORELLI: You don't get to just walk in and demand to see people and push and shove. You just admit there was pushing and shoving. You don't get to go through the barricade of a federal facility and push and shove members of Congress. I saw it. Mr. Mayor, what happens --
PHILLIP: Let the mayor in for one more second then --
(CROSSTALKS)
BARAKA: Yes. The reality is they were going to have oversight or they were there for over an hour. That's the reality. The point is that, you know, it turned into something that shouldn't have turned into, you know, that people -- elected officials are being targeted in this country. And, you know, unfortunately the people there were being targeted. And that shouldn't have happened, right, over a fight over the Constitution. This was what's about. It's not about criminals, it's not about immigrants, it's about due process.
PHILLIP: Why do you think she dropped the charges against you? BARAKA: Well, I think that was the right thing to do for them to drop the charges. Obviously, we agreed to move forward but, ultimately, I didn't do anything wrong. There was no charges that should be brought against me in the first place,
PHILLIP: Dr. West?
CORNEL WEST (I), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And I think that's the crucial point. But I just want to begin. A hundred years ago, Malcolm X was born in Omaha, Nebraska, today. And he's one of the greatest prophetic voices ever produced in this country, no matter whether you agree with him or not. And what was his claim? His claim was, it's so difficult for black people and other oppressed people to be treated fairly and decently in a consistent way.
So, we have to have the facts and see what they are. We have to have the evidence and see what we are. But we're talking about long patterns here. So, when we look at what's happening with Brother Trump in the White House, and we see certain policies very targeted on this group, but not on this group.
He's not the first to do that. America's got a long history of that. We've had breakthroughs.
[22:10:00]
We've had backlashes. And when this brother here no longer has the charges, it's based on evidence and what is right.
PHILLIP: It also strikes me that the Trump administration likes to get these kinds of headlines in the moment, and it will be interesting to see whether they actually are able to prosecute this case because charging a member of Congress, there's a reason it's usually done in Main Justice, because that's a pretty high bar.
I also want to read the statement from Democratic leadership on Representative McIver. I'll skip to the second part, which is the most salient one. Everyone responsible for this illegitimate abuse of power is going to be held accountable for their actions. An attack on one of us is an attack on the American people. House Democrats will respond vigorously in the days to come at a time, place, and manner of our choosing.
JENNINGS: What kind of a threat is that? I mean, what are they going to do? I don't know what that means. He keeps saying it's a red line, we're going to do -- I don't even know what they can do here because of the video.
BARAK: They're not going to run into the Capitol.
JENNINGS: The problem is they have a video of it. They have a video of it, and it doesn't look great. If you -- if the argument is, oh, we're here to conduct legitimate oversight, is that what oversight looks like, pushing and shoving and elbowing and causing a riot at a federal facility? Is that what oversight looks like? BARAKA: I think what you're saying is incorrect and I think the video will play itself out. We'll see the entire video when the case comes and people look at the video, they'll see what happened. Right now, people are speaking about a small segment of a video that they've seen that are being played over and over and over again on repeat. When you see the entire thing, when it plays itself out, people will be able to have a right decision to make about what happened.
PHILLIP: One thing to know as well, and the congresswoman points this out, after all of that transpired, ICE officials gave Congresswoman McIver and the other two lawmakers a one hour tour of the facility. So, to then go from that to pressing charges seems hard to sustain.
JENNINGS: It's pretty reasonable for them to do that after the way they acted, was it not?
PHILLIP: It certainly does seem very reasonable.
JENNINGS: Can I ask the mayor a question, actually? Were you invited? Were you invited? I think did the U.S. attorney also, when they dropped the charges, you were invited to come and tour the facility, right?
BARAKA: She did put that in the --
JENNINGS: Are you going to do it?
BARAKA: Of course.
JENNINGS: Good.
BARAKA: Of course.
JENNINGS: So, here's the point. You got a tour for the members. He's been offered a tour. There's all sorts of accommodations being made here to people who didn't act right in the moment. I'm just --
PHILLIP: Well, listen, there's only one party here pressing charges, and it's the federal government. We got to leave it here for that conversation. We have much more ahead. Don't worry.
Coming up next -- Mayor Baraka, thank you, by the way, very much for joining us on that. Everyone else, stay with us.
Next as the DOJ charges this congresswoman, the Trump administration is paying $5 million to the family of Ashli Babbitt, a January 6th rioter. Former Capitol Officer Harry Dunn is going to join us in our fifth seat.
Plus, Joe Biden's diagnosis sparks the president to suggest a cover-up of his hell. That's ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:15:00] PHILLIP: Tonight, settlement shock. The Trump Administration has agreed to pay nearly $5 million to the family of Ashli Babbitt. She is the MAGA rioter who was shot and killed by police after she breached the Capitol on January 6th. The officer who was involved was later cleared of criminal wrongdoing.
In a statement today, the Capitol police chief said he's disappointed with the settlement and that, quote, sends a chilling message to law enforcement nationwide, especially to those with a protective mission like ours.
Joining us in our fifth seat at the table is Harry Dunn, a former U.S. Capitol Police officer who was there on January 6th. Harry, great to see you. Thanks for being here.
Look, this is unbelievable in a way, especially you were there, we covered it. To see this moment rewarded with a $5 million settlement, when we checked, we tried to see were there officers who were injured, those who died as a result of their injuries or other aspects of their service on January 6th, did they get anything? No settlements for those folks.
HARRY DUNN, FORMER U.S. CAPITOL POLICE OFFICER: Not even money, but just even an acknowledgement. I'm just thinking about Brian Sicknick. His mother still waiting from a call -- for a call from the president.
Look, under no circumstances, you know, should we anybody's death be celebrated or should -- somebody lost their daughter, somebody lost a sister or mother. And it's unfortunate that somebody lost their life there, but what message does it send, that an individual, if she lived, she would've been charged, she would've been charged with a crime, she would've been a criminal, what message does that send out there to not just everyday citizens, but to people who other criminals at the Capitol who may have been sprayed by police or may have been hit by police, do they get to sue and now be rewarded because their records clean with part Donald Trump pardoning in them?
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, those are important sort of downstream effects of all this. I mean, does this open the door, Scott, to all these other people suing the police officers that they assaulted?
JENNINGS: Yes. I mean, he raises legitimate questions. I mean, it's a tragic situation because someone died. And it's also a tragic situation because brave police officers were put in harm's way. I'm very defensive of police officers. I back the blue. I think police officers protect us and deserve our support and our admiration. So, that's my view. This --
PHILLIP: Could she get the settlement?
JENNINGS: This should ne this should have never happened. On the settlement, they were asking for 30, they got 5. I don't know all the facts internally. I've just seen the reporting about whether they thought maybe a jury would side with, I don't know.
[22:20:05] But I don't -- so it's hard for me to know what facts they were looking at internally about what litigation might have produced. But it is, in my opinion, a tragic situation for everyone, the person who died, the police officer who was involved, who, by the way, was vindicated in internal reports and internal investigations.
DUNN: What is the point that I'm going to make? So, how -- what -- it was a wrongful death settlement. What was wrong then if he wasn't charged? He was cleared in multiple investigations.
(CROSSTALKS)
BORELLI: I am a supporter of the police. But my supporter of the police doesn't only occur on January 6th. Are we not aware that these kind of cases happen all the time? In fact, New York City just settled a $13 million case after George Floyd protests, people that assaulted police officers here in New York City got $13.5 million.
DUNN: What does that make it?
BORELLI: No.
DUNN: Whataboutisms right now --
BORELLI: No, I'm not whataboutism. I'm not. I'm not a January 6th -- you know, I wish I was there. I'm not that at all, and I'm not saying that. I'm saying we should be clear that people who are the victims of police mistreatment have a right to sue. This sort of thing does happen all the time.
Cornel, you know routinely --
PHILLIP: I think that's the question. Is she a victim of police mistreatment?
BORELLI: People who are the victims of a police shooting, right or wrong, have a right to sue in this country.
PHILLIP: Okay. But is she a victim of police mistreatment?
WEST: Exactly.
BORELLI: According to the settlement, she is.
WEST: But see, the question here, though, is -- but it's not a question of just money. It is a question of what is right and what is wrong. If Trump is willing to pay this money, are you willing to say that Trump is wrong on this issue?
JENNINGS: Well, I don't know if the president was involved in it or not.
WEST: He's willing to pay them money.
PHILLIP: Well, let me just read to you what he said about --
WEST: Because, let me just say this --
PHILLIP: Yes.
WEST: -- part of the problem is it's hard for us to be able to generate the kind of bonds of trust that we must have if people are not willing to stand on principle and integrity as opposed to just being on one team and being hard on the other team and somebody else on the other team being hard on the other team, right and wrong cuts deeper than the team. She's (INAUDIBLE) on what's right and what's wrong.
BORELLI: Professor, does she have the right to sue?
ROGINSKY: She didn't sue because --
WEST: Sure, she has a right to sue. Of course, she has a right to sue.
BORELLI: She justified doing it?
WEST: She has a right to do it, and it goes through a process and we see whether it's right or whether it's wrong.
DUNN: No. What do you mean she wasn't justified? No, what do you mean? Wrongful death is what she sued or her state sued for. It was clear that --
(CROSSTALKS)
DUNN: I understand that, but I'm saying he was cleared in those investigations. So, that was wrongful. An investigation by the FBI and Capitol Police and Metropolitan Police turned up zero wrongdoing.
WEST: She had no evidence.
DUNN: So, what is wrongful about this settlement?
BORELLI: There's another case here in New York where an officer was -- the shooting was found to have been done by the book. The guy's name was Ramarley Graham. I don't think he should die. I don't want the guy to die. The police officer was not charged. It was done by the patrol guy of the NYPD and that guy got $4 million, okay?
I'm against massive police settlements for victims when the officer is not at fault. I'm with you on this. I just don't know why we're so shocked and appalled when this family, who was the victim of a police shooting, I don't think she should have --
(CROSSTALKS)
BORELLI: Does she deserves that?
DUNN: No.
ROGINSKY: No. Can I tell you why though? Because this insurrection was perpetuated by the same person whose administration settled this case. So, it's not like there was some jury, or there was some sort of independent body that gave her this money. This money was given to her by the man who even Scott Jennings at one point said incited this insurrection. His name is Donald Trump.
DUNN: Not from Donald Trump. It's coming from taxpayers.
ROGINSKY: Well, it is.
DUNN: Donald Trump should pay --
PHILLIP: Here's what --
ROGINSKY: Donald Trump is the person who allowed that to happen.
PHILLIP: And he has been on this issue for a long time. Here's what he said about the officer actually who shot Ashli Babbitt. He said the police officer thug, who had a very checkered pass to begin with, was not just doing his job when he shot and killed great patriot Ashli Babbitt at point blank range, and then he says that she was murdered. He called the officer a thug who was there protecting members of Congress, Democrat and Republican.
The thing about the Ashli Babbitt situation is that we actually saw it. We saw the tape of it. We saw that they were trying to break into the chambers where lawmakers were hiding for their lives, okay? That happened because he was protecting our elected leaders. That is not within question here.
DUNN: Republicans and Democrats.
BORELLI: Here in New York, routinely, Democratic-elected officials routinely call the members of the NYPD thugs, jack booted pigs.
ROGINSKY: That's not right either.
BORELLI: I'm just saying the point I'm trying to make is why do we all always treat this one incident with a different lens than the broader issue of the police being assaulted --
[22:25:07]
DUNN: Because (INAUDIBLE) assault on law enforcement in the history of the United States.
PHILLIP: But isn't being --
BORELLI: No, it probably isn't. It probably isn't.
PHILLIP: But, Joe, is it really being treated --
BORELLI: I'm not trying to (INAUDIBLE) you there.
PHILLIP: Is it really being treated with a different lens except by the people who are running for office on a back the blue platform?
BORELLI: You keep talking to me. I'm -- PHILLIP: I mean, yes. No, that's what I'm saying. I think that the only -- look, on January 7th, there was almost unanimity that this was an awful day, that the people who were involved in it should be prosecuted. Almost everybody agreed with that. The only reason that that changed is because Donald Trump wanted it to change. And because Donald Trump was on the other side of that issue, all the back the blue people have changed their stance. And that, I agree with you that people should be consistent, but I think the lack of consistency is not where you think it is.
BORELLI: I think there were definitely people who were completely overcharged for their participation. I think people that assaulted police officers on video, on camera, easily provable, should be punished and should spend time in jail. I'm consistent, right? I said the same thing last segment when we were talking about the congresswoman. I'm saying the same thing in the segment.
PHILLIP: I mean, look, if you were in the Oval Office, I think maybe we'd be having a different conversation, but Donald Trump is in the Oval Office. He has pardoned all of these people, including the ones who assaulted police officers. And now his Justice Department has handed down a $5 million settlement in this case.
WEST: But I think the sad thing is when you have larger patterns of might makes right of Pontius Pilate over Jesus, of Prosimithis (ph) over Socrates, people figure it's all transaction, it's all manipulation, it's all the survival of the slickest. Once you have that dominant in your society, after a while, it doesn't make any difference what's on the books because nobody has taken the book seriously anyway. Rule of law doesn't mean that much. Constitution doesn't mean that much. Quality relations doesn't mean that much.
PHILLIP: Harry --
WEST: conversations don't mean that.
PHILLIP: Do you feel that way, the rule of law has less meaning now?
DUNN: Last week being National Police Week, the White House tweeted out, tweeted whatever it is, we support and will never betray our men and women in law. Which ones? The ones that voted for you? Like this is about right and wrong. And like you could turn off all the talking heads. You can turn off all the news, everybody's opinion about January 6th, hell, watch it on mute.
Just press play. Just press play. Everybody watch and had a front row seat to watch what happened with Ashli Babbitt, to watch what happened everybody in the Capitol that day, you don't need anybody's opinion, just press play. And anybody that can side with those individuals, they got the nerve to call themselves patriots, and they were right.
They're attempting to rewrite what happened that day, and that continues with Donald Trump, with this Justice Department awarding Ashli Babbitt's family $5 million that is coming from taxpayer money. Ashli Babbitt wouldn't have been there if Donald Trump would've accepted that the election was not stolen. So maybe Donald Trump should pay that $5 million himself instead of the American people.
PHILLIP: Well, Harry, I always -- whenever I see you, I always say thank you for your heroism that day and for your service.
DUNN: Thank you.
PHILLIP: And thank you for being on the show tonight. Everyone else stay with us.
Coming up next, a serious diagnosis for former President Biden, leading to questions about the check in the presidency. An expert is going to join us at the table. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:30:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight, do we really ever know the truth about presidents and their health? It is a question that's come up over the modern history. And tonight, new concerns after a sad diagnosis. Joe Biden has revealed that he's battling an aggressive form of prostate cancer, and his successor is raising questions about how long Biden knew.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I think it's very sad, actually. I'm surprised that it wasn't, you know, the public wasn't notified a long time ago because to get to stage nine, that's a long time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Biden's office says the cancer was found just days ago and it has spread to his bones. But in the wake of his diagnosis, Biden's former COVID adviser is now raising the idea that the former president may have had it for years.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EZEKIEL EMANUEL, ONCOLOGIST, BIDEN COVID-19 ADVISER: It has been growing for years. It didn't just pop up in the last few days or the last few weeks or the last 200 days.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Joining us in our fifth seat at the table is Dr. Michael Grasso, the chairman of the Department of Urology at Northwell Phelps Hospital. Doctor, thanks for being here. I mean, look, everybody is talking about this because they want to understand how you get to -- my understanding, it's Gleason stage nine, which is almost as bad as it could be in the scale that -- that you all use as doctors. Without there having been any diagnosis, any sign for one of the most treated human beings in this entire country? MICHAEL GRASSO, CHAIRMAN, DEPARTMENT OF UROLOGY, NORTHWELL PHELPS
HOSPITAL: So, prostate cancer is a different disease based on the age you present. And I think that there's a little misconception here about prostate cancer in general and what's happening to the president.
An autopsy series of patients at a hundred years of age, they all have a small focus of prostate cancer. It's usually indolent, and that's why a lot of the major organizations say, okay, let's just not treat prostate cancer after 80. That's low grade prostate cancer. And we -- the Gleason scoring goes from like six to 10. Joe's at nine, ten. That's the most aggressive form of prostate cancer. It's only about five percent.
Those prostate cancers are exceptionally aggressive and they can progress very rapidly. Many of my patients with Gleason nines and tens within a year have significant bulk tumor and require very aggressive treatments. So, this argument that it's been there for four years is -- is kind of hollow. It's hard to believe that it's been there for four years. It seems like --
PHILLIP: So, you think that it has been more --- it could have been more recent?
GRASSO: In my practice, patients with Gleason nine and ten almost always present with metastatic disease. It's spread already. It's very difficult to treat. Cure rates are around 30 percent. So, this is a horrible disease. You know, we wish the president and his family all the best and we pray for them.
PHILLIP: Yeah.
GRASSO: Having said that, to believe that this was present four years ago, I mean, it's hard to believe.
JENNINGS: What about a year ago though? Is that possible?
GRASSO: Yeah. Possible, but very hard to diagnose.
PHILLIP: I -- I think one of the things people are wondering about is why did they not do a PSA test? Or maybe they did, but they didn't reveal the findings. President Trump had one this spring. President Obama had one. President Bush had one. Do you think it's likely that they would not have done it?
GRASSO: You would think that the President would have PSA test regularly? I would think so. You know, it's a little misleading, the actual number. We say that men 60, a PSA over four, considered potential for malignancy. But that's not exactly right. It's the rate of change of PSA that's important. You can have a PSA of point eight and go to three in a year, and you may have high grade prostate cancer, and you need to see a urologist.
And I don't think primary care doctors and medical doctors really understand that. It's not the number but the rate of change. So, if Joe Biden had a PSA of point eight, for example, a year ago, and then it went to three. The primary care doctor said, well you're under four, you're probably okay. No, you're not okay, actually.
PHILLIP: Well, we just, and I think part of it is we don't know.
(CROSSTALK)
CORNEL WEST (I) FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDUNKNOWN: But now the problem here is we --
PHILLIP: But you've been diagnosed also with prostate cancer.
WEST: Absolutely. I was 48 years old.
PHILLIP: Yeah.
WEST: I was told I only had a few months to live and I said I was blessed to be invited to the banquet of life to have an (inaudible). But I'm still here and that's just a mystery. But the important thing is the low level of trust is such that the Democratic Party cover-up of his cognitive decline leads many of us to think we don't know what the evidence really is. All these lies that have been told. So, you got team Democrat telling these lies, then you got team Republican telling their lies. How do we know what's the truth?
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Because there is a trust. There is a trust issue here.
WEST: Absolutely.
PHILLIP: And I think the American people are kind of caught in the middle because we don't know actually whether President Biden had a PSA done at any-- in any of the four years that he was in office. We may never know. Are we entitled to know as the American people for any president?
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: I think -- I think in his case, for a long period of time, he was serving as the president and also was a candidate for reelection. And so, yeah, I mean, I think if you're telling the American people for any period of time, not only am I competent to serve and capable of serving today, but I can serve four more years, you do deserve, as an American citizen, to know what is the health, full health situation of the president.
And as Dr. West said, you know, the number of lies that were told on his behalf by his White House staff and, his campaign and the whole Democratic apparatus -- today, whatever we hear today, by -- by default, the American people are going to say, well, they lied to us about one thing, they're never going to tell us the truth about this thing.
I'm, you know, I'm like you. I, you know, this sounds terrible. I'm not a doctor, but just hearing you talk, it sounds terrible, and I think we should pray for the President and pray for his health. And I hope he gets a miracle here. But as a political matter, I think a massive amount of trust has been lost, and a massive amount of credibility was spent on covering up for him, and it's going to be hard for the Democrats to get it back.
JULIE ROGINSKY, Are we forgetting here, and -- and I agree with everything that you said, and I agree with a lot of what you said. But are we forgetting here that Ronny Jackson, when he was the White House doctor for Donald Trump, said that Donald Trump was in good enough health to live to be 200, that he had such incredible genes, that he was going to live forever? That --
PHILLIP: We -- we are very much not forgetting that. That's exactly why I was literally. Yeah.
ROGINSKY: -- that he was 63 and 239 pounds. Why 239? Because 240 would make him obese, so he had to come in at one pound below that. I mean that is the problem.
PHILLIP: I think that this is exactly why I'm asking the question because I -- I think a lot of Democrats think that's a huge -- that was a scandal that Ronny Jackson maybe lied about President Trump's weight. And it could be weight.
[22:40:00]
It could be a lot of things way more serious than that. And at what point should there be, you know, we talk about HIPAA violations for regular people, but for the President of the United States, should we really have that same standard?
ROGINSKY: Yeah. What I what I would -- what I would love to do, actually, you're absolutely right, is to have somebody who's an unbiased doctor, not somebody who's the White House physician who obviously has a relationship with the President, to give us the full readout on the president.
And I agree that it would be a HIPAA violation, except I think if you run for president, that kind of HIPAA violation needs to be codified in some way that you are entitled, as an American citizen, to see what this mental and the physical condition is for whoever's in the White House regardless of who it is. I don't care if it's, you know, JFK at the age of 40, 41, 42. Or it's Joe Biden or Donald Trump, now the oldest president.
JOE BORELLI, FORMER REPUBLICAN LEADER, NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL: Nobody was fooled into thinking President Trump's going to live to 200 years old. Did they lie about the weight? I don't know. I lie about my weight when I put it on pretty much everything I possibly do.
WEST: No, no.
BORELLI: I know I do every single time. I do every single time.
WEST: You're too young to be lying like that.
BORELLI: The point is, I'll point out by the way, President Trump also offered to have a cognitive test as long as Joe Biden would have one the same. So, I mean, I think there is a little bit more --
(CROSSTALK)
ROGINSKY: I want to see that cognitive test.
BORELLI: I -- I think President Trump would have actually done a pretty good job.
ROGINSKY: Yeah. Let's see it. Let's see it.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I mean, being willing to -- to say you're one of the leaders that take the cognitive tests is not the same as we're actually doing.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: Are you arguing that Joe Biden was fine during his --
ROGINSKY: I'm not arguing that he was fine. I'm arguing that --
JENNINGS: You keep pivoting back to Trump, who's -- who's clearly fine.
ROGINSKY: I'm sorry. Let me tell you why -- let me ask you -- let me ask you a question.
JENNINGS: I'm just asking if you're arguing that something was not wrong with Joe Biden.
(CROSSTALK)
ROGINSKY: I'm so glad you asked that question because Joe Biden's no longer the President. Donald -- Donald --
JENNINGS: But he was.
(CROSSTALK)
ROGINSKY: Donald -- well, no, actually.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: And that's the -- the story tonight. He had all those covered up.
ROGINSKY: Donald -- stop, stop, stop.
(CROSSTALK)
ROGINSKY: Let me finish what I'm saying. Donald Trump is the President of The United States. I would dearly love to see a cognitive test from him because as somebody who's lived in the New York media market for the last 40 years, I can tell you that the Donald Trump that I knew in the '80s is not the Donald Trump that I hear today.
JENNINGS: So, your answer to the cover up is Trump.
ROGINSKY: My answer is --
JENNINGS: Your answer to every question is Trump.
ROGINSKY: No, my answer is --
JENNINGS: Cover up is the story tonight.
ROGINSKY: The president -- the president -- yes. The cover up is also the President of the United States who happens to Donald J. Trump today is not -- yeah. You could laugh all you want.
JENNINGS: I am definitely laughing. We are laughing.
PHILLIP: All right.
ROGINSKY: You know why you're laughing? Because you don't -- no, no.
PHILLIP: We're going to --
ROGINSKY: No, no, we're not laughing. You don't want to answer the question, Scott. Your president -
JENNINGS: Yeah. What -- what question?
PHILLIP: Julie, we're going to leave it there.
ROGINSKY: I'd love to see his cognitive test. I'd love to see his test.
JENNINGS: I'm sure he'll be fine.
PHILLIP: Dr. Grasso --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Hold on, guys.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Hold on, guys. Doctor Grasso at the table, I've got to let him go. Doctor -- Doctor Grasso, look. Actually, really quickly --
GRASSO: Yes, ma'am.
PHILLIP: What is President Biden, going to expect of the next couple of months?
GRASSO: All right. So --
PHILLIP: Real quick.
GRASSO: Patients with high grade prostate cancer and metastatic disease means that disease is in the bone here. And, untreated, bones will break down. You'll have a fracture, exquisite pain. It needs to be treated, okay? Hormonal therapy is the first treatment, and that's blocking the male hormone testosterone.
And so, it's either injection or a tablet or a combination. Once the testosterone level drops, a lot of the symptoms will resolve, but it's usually short term. It doesn't last forever. And with the highest grade prostate cancers today, it's a combination of hormonal therapy and chemotherapy. He's 82. You know, how's he going to tolerate chemotherapy? I don't know. It's just a good question.
PHILLIP: This is going to be very difficult. Michael -- Doctor Grasso, thank you very much for joining us.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Everyone else, stay with us. Coming up next, President Trump makes a big admission about his tariffs as he tries to bully companies. Telling the truth. We'll debate.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK))
[22:48:06]
PHILLIP: Tonight, Donald Trump makes an admission. His tariffs, which he promised would not impact American consumers, will, in fact, do just that. The President is now threatening companies like Walmart that are telling the truth about the tariffs raising prices. Trump is demanding that Walmart eat the tariffs and not charge customers anything. Then Trump's Treasury Secretary echoed that impact.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCOTT BESSENT, TREASURY SECRETARY: Walmart will be absorbing some of the tariffs. Some may get passed on to consumers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Now, if that sounds like a departure from Trump's no impact on Americans policy, that's because it is. Here's Trump's Commerce Secretary just eight days ago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HOWARD LUTNICK, COMMERCE SECRETARY: Don't buy the silly arguments that the U.S. consumer pays. Foreigners --
DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: So, who's going to eat the tariffs?
LUTNICK: -- finally have to compete. They're going to have to compete. What happens is the businesses and the countries primarily eat the tariff.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Joining us now at the table is CNN global economic analyst, Rana Foroohar. Rana, surprise surprise. We know that tariffs do get passed on to consumers. So, does it surprise you to hear them finally admitting that? RANA FOROOHAR, CNN GLOBAL ECONOMIC ANALYST: No, and I think it's --
it's the administration catching up with where the market has been and is, frankly. I mean, this is -- this has been something that the market and investors and consumers have been concerned about for -- for weeks and months now.
And I think, these last few days and when you combine, the concern about the tariffs with concern about debt and deficit, the Budget Bill, the fact that the bond market is once again saying, woah. We don't like this picture. We don't like the combination of all this. It really kind of forces their hand. I mean, you have to, at some point, catch up with reality. Otherwise, you know, people are just looking and throwing their hands up.
And when you have companies like Walmart, frankly, saying, that's it. We're going to have to raise prices. If Walmart, with its size and scale, can't cope with this, then you know that every other retailer in America and certainly a lot of small and midsize businesses, many of whom I've talked to, are already feeling the pain.
[22:50:00]
PHILLIP: Yeah. I mean, they're at the best position to protect --
UNKNOWN: Yeah.
PHILLIP: -- our customers from the impact, and yet they are saying they're not -- they're they can't. I mean, is Trump's threatening them going be the solution here? Is he going to do this to all of the companies that raise prices?
JENNINGS: I don't know. Look, I -- my -- my view on this is a lot of things go into why companies set prices at the rate that they do. It's not just tariffs. It's corporate taxes. It's energy costs. It's the cost of manufacturing the good. It's the cost of shipping it across the ocean. I mean, if we had real truth in pricing and we got a list of -- of everything that goes into making something cost what it does --
FOROOHAR: Well, Amazon proposed that. You know, I'm trying to make --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: But the conversation --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: -- called them hostile.
JENNINGS: The conversation everybody wants to have is what is the part that a tariff plays in a price increase? Nobody seems to want to talk about what part does everything else go into making something cost what it costs. And as everybody at this table knows, things went up dramatically in this country over the last four years.
And, you know, I just -- I just think that it's convenient to single out the tariffs today. But a lot more goes into it, and I think part of the president's overall economic programming is to maybe, hopefully, make the price of manufacturing go down, make energy costs go down, make the cost of doing business go down, so that ultimately you do get lower prices for things because we're lower the cost of --
(CROSSTALK)
WEST: I think part of the challenge is that you've got financialized capitalism operating. If you think you're in control of everything, looks like that we hear this from Trump, he thinks he's going to be in control of financialized capitalism. He's not. The irony is he's got these conservators around him.
PHILLIP: That's a different form of economics.
WEST: He's got Hayek. He's got free -- but they've read that. They were talking about free markets. We're not talking about free markets at all. This is command economy, and one person can't do it, and in fact, the underside of that is what? Sixty percent of Americans living paycheck to paycheck, and then the backdrop, of course, is the foreign policies with the war crimes in Gaza, and the war in Ukraine, and so forth. He -- he can't control that.
(CROSSTALK)
WEST: I appreciate the effort that he might want to make but he can't -- he can't control that. He wants to be top down on this economy.
FOROOHAR: He does. And it's interesting what you said about foreign policy and financialized capitalism because, actually, Walmart is kind of where the rubber meets the road there. Walmart actually had bargained, and Trump won. They had actually worked with China. They had put a lot pressure, and they've tried. In fact, Walmart and other big retailers have tried to put pressure on China to eat those costs. China's not doing that anymore.
This brings up the point that Trump isn't in control, and, actually, the U.S. is not completely in control of the global economy anymore. And what we're seeing now and -- and, Scott, you know, I -- I agree with you that it would be great. In fact, one of the reasons I was in favor of what, Amazon proposed is I'd love to see a nutritional label with, you know, what's the corporate margin that you're taking?
What's the tariff that you're taking? What's the cost in terrible child labor and environmental cost because you're producing in a country that doesn't pay a fair wage? It would be great to see all of that, And maybe that's something actually Democrats should be able to --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I'm not sure -- I'm not sure Scott's in favor of that because that's environmental and social --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: -- engineering that they want to get out of corporate America.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: We're having a debate about why things cost what they cost.
PHILLIP: Yeah.
JENNINGS: I'm just telling you, in this country, you guys can blame tariffs for certain things. Maybe that's legitimate, maybe it's not. But there's plenty of other reasons --
PHILLIP: Yeah.
JENNINGS: -- that things cost what they cost.
PHILLIP: My only -- my only point is that --
JENNINGS: The price of doing business in America is high.
PHILLIP: My only point is that certainly, conservatives are against that idea.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Joe, go ahead. And said, Amazon -- this is Amazon. They took one policy, a Trump policy, a tariff, and said we're going to add a price for this. As you pointed out, if they took Joe Biden's energy policy and put it on the -- the Joe Biden energy stamp, or - or the corporate tax stamp, I think president Trump wouldn't be as angry.
But I want to bring everyone 40,000 feet just to talk about -- you mentioned the -- the market went down and April's back up. So did, Trump's approval ratings. The approval spread closed four points since April. The -- his disapproval rating is 10 points lower than where Joe Biden was with the U.S. office.
PHILLIP: According to what?
BORELLI: That -- that was in politics average (ph).
UNKNOWN: Polling.
BORELLI: "The Economist" YouGov has him plus three since April.
PHILLIP: I'm just asking --
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: Economist YouGov plus three since April. Harvard Harris, plus two since April. And on the Harvard Harris poll, for the first time in four years, a majority of Americans say the economy is strong. Why is this happening? Because April came, the market sunk a little bit. Every network paraded on economists who said we should all panic. We should all get scared.
(CROSSTALK) PHILLIP: I mean, last week, we had a terrible consumer confidence number.
BORELLI: We should all --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I mean, I hear what you're saying but there are a lot of other indicators, too.
ROGINSKY: Let me just say this.
PHILLIP: Go ahead.
ROGINSKY: Look. When you have Mattel saying they're going to raise the costs on their choice. And you have Nintendo, Microsoft, and -- and Sony, and all the people making the video game consoles.
[22:55:02]
They're going to be raising prices, right? They're blaming tariffs squarely for that. You have Ford saying -- that they're going to raise prices on three of some of their biggest, models because they -- they're made in Mexico. It's going to be expensive to buy a car. It's going to be expensive to buy clothes because the de minimis exemption is not revoked again. So, let me just say this.
BORELLI: None of the trade deals happened. None of the trade deals came true.
PHILLIP: We got to leave it here.
ROGINSKY: Let me finish what I'm saying. Okay, maybe if Santa Claus shows up, that won't happen, too. But I'm going to tell you --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Guys, we got to go.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Julie, finish your point. We got to go.
ROGINSKY: It's going to be a very painful back to school. It's going to be an incredibly painful Christmas regardless of what deals are done because those orders are have to be made today. And what I'm telling you right now is watch those approval numbers when that happens.
BORELLI: You know how you're actually getting me already?
PHILLIP: We got to leave it there. We -- we do know prices are going up. Subaru just today said they're raising prices $750 up to $2000 per car.
Everyone, thank you very much for joining us. Coming up next, witnesses testified today about the alleged abuse and control that Sean "Diddy" Combs had over his then girlfriend, Cassie Ventura. Laura Coates has all of the details of the special edition of her show, the Diddy trial, after this.
(COMMERCIAL BRREAK)
