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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Leaving G7 Early After Telling Tehran To Evacuate; Trump Directs National Security Team To Convene In Situation Room; Trump On MAGA Criticism: I Decide What America First Means; Suspect Arrested On The Murders Of Minnesota State Representative Melissa Horton And Husband; Trump Orders Immigration Officials To Push For More Deportation In Blue Cities. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired June 16, 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]
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST: Good evening. I'm Abby Philip in New York.
We begin with breaking news as Israel and Iran escalate their attacks against each other. Tonight, a startling warning from President Trump, he is telling Iranians to immediately evacuate Tehran. He didn't say why. Just moments later, we learned that the president plans to return to Washington tonight, abruptly ending his trip to Canada for the G7 Summit.
Secretary of State, Marco Rubio is also en route back to Washington. Trump meantime is requesting his national security staff in D.C. to convene in the situation room tonight.
So, right now, the sun is about to rise over Israel as Iran carries out its latest wave of counterstrikes to cap off nine days of intense conflict.
CNN's Chief International Correspondent Clarissa Ward is live outside of the hospital in Tel Aviv. Clarissa, what can you tell us about what's been happening in the skies in Israel in the last couple of hours and what might be ahead?
CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Abby, I have to say it's been kind of a surreal night because while the rhetoric has been approaching a fever pitch, it's been relatively quiet here in Israel.
We did have sirens earlier on in the evening. Then there were no reports of missiles or interceptions. And then again, a few hours ago we had sirens and no pre-alert, which led people to be concerned that there was something big coming. And, again, no record of any impact, no record of any injuries. There were just, in the last hour or so, a flurry of missiles towards the north of Israel, and we've seen particularly the city of Haifa in Iran there come under attack a lot the last few days.
But, again, Israel's emergency services saying that so far there's no record of any landfall or impact or any casualties as a result that we know of so far. In Tehran, of course, there have been reports of explosions and reports of scenes of chaos, cars clogging the roads, trying to get out of the capital city there after President Trump issued this somewhat alarming post urging people in Tehran to evacuate.
But, certainly, despite the fact that it's been a quieter night in general around here, there's no expectation that this is quieting down or coming to a close. If anything, people here are starting to get used to the idea that this could be the new normal, potentially for weeks. As you know, it doesn't seem that there is a clear off-ramp for either side, and a big question mark now hanging around what President Trump plans to do or say or announce in the coming hours or day. Abby?
PHILLIP: Yes. And, Clarissa, you're there at this hospital. I mean, talk to us about the casualties so far in this conflict. It has, in fact, been deadly for Israelis. I wonder how that is being received, especially given the last, you know, 18 months of so much war and violence in the region.
WARD: 24 Israelis reported killed so far in these missile strikes, 600 injured. This hospital has essentially moved its entire operation two floors underground into a parking lot, which within the space of seven hours when this began, they transformed from being full of cars and motorcycles to a fully functioning hospital with hundreds of patients down there.
And, really, they don't have any sense, Abby, of how long they will have to stay down there because it's simply logistically too difficult to keep moving people back and forth to the shelter. And I think that applies across the country. There's a sense, of course, that it's exhausting night after night, all night, being awake all night, moving back and forth to the shelter, a huge amount of devastation and destruction as a result of some of these ballistic missiles, making impact and the casualties, as we already discussed.
[22:05:16]
But the mindset of most Israelis appears to be that this is an existential issue for Israel and they believe that this is the right thing to do and that the nuclear program of Iran must be dismantled. We don't really have a crystal clear sense of what Netanyahu's full objective is here, whether he is hoping to just curtail the nuclear program, whether it goes as far as full-on regime change. There's been a lot of mixed messaging coming from Prime Minister Netanyahu on that front.
But, yes, most people here that we talk to, not everyone, seem to be resigned to the fact that this, at least for the coming weeks, is going to be the new normal, Abby.
PHILLIP: Clarissa Ward, thank you very much, as always. Let's go now to CNN's Kristen Holmes. She's in Calgary at the G7. Kristen, it's been a somewhat dramatic evening for President Trump suddenly saying that he's going to leave the G7 that he just arrived at. What are you hearing from the White House about what is going on back in Washington that he has to get back so quickly? KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Abby. And he was supposed to have a full day tomorrow, give a press conference as well. But I was told that today, throughout all of his meetings, he was fixated on what was happening in the Middle East. He wanted to continually be briefed.
And at a certain point, it became clear as things were escalating in the Middle East, that he wanted to be back in Washington to deal with this, to be able to be in a place where he had all of his resources, administration officials in one place, likely they're going to be meeting in the Situation Room tomorrow to go over what exactly is happening.
But I do want to be clear, I just talked to a White House official who said their posture has not changed in terms of U.S. actions in Iran. They are still on the defense of posture. They are helping Israel with defending them, particularly from missiles. They have given me reason for that, saying that a large part of that is the fact that there are U.S. assets, military assets that are in Israel as well as U.S. citizens to the tens or hundreds of thousands who are there. So, they want to make sure they're protecting Americans as well. They are not at a place yet, despite what we have heard about rumors circulating where they are going to go on the offensive, and they want to make that very clear.
Now, Donald Trump himself has been wary of U.S. involvement. But one of the things that's very clear and what we've heard from a number of these administration officials is that he is still has his sights set on one now, a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, but also getting Iran to the table in terms of nuclear talks. One of the things that he has been doing for the last several days is encouraging his team to maintain contact with their Iranian counterparts, as well as with the Middle Eastern or global intermediaries that they have worked with in the past. They want a deal done. So, that's also part of the reason they don't want to get too aggressive on the United States front.
But obviously, again, Donald Trump heading back tonight a pretty big deal after we know he's supposed to spend an entire day here tomorrow, have a press conference and then head out.
PHILLIP: Yes, pretty extraordinary development there. Kristen Holmes, thank you very much.
My panel is joining me now here in the studio. And, Dan, is this Donald Trump's bluster or is there something else going on here? Because it's not -- I think the White House and the Pentagon has spent a lot of the last few hours calling fake news to people speculating about what this could be about, but that's because Trump said evacuate to Tehran. He said, get out now. And he was the one who put that message out.
DAN ABRAMS, FOUNDER, MEDIAITE YOUTUBE: So, there are three possibilities, right? Number one, Iran's planning an attack on the U.S. That would be nuts. Number two, the U.S. is planning to join in the attack on Iran. In my view, that would be equally nuts. It seems to me option three is the most likely one. And the French president, Macron, has just said in the last hour or so
that there's a deal on the table. He was asked by a journalist what happened? Why did Trump go back? And his response was, look, there's an offer that has been made indeed of meetings and exchanges. There's an offer that has been made, especially to have a ceasefire and to initiate broader discussions.
I have to believe that Donald Trump is going back in an effort to try to be the one to get that ceasefire done and to take credit for having accomplished that.
PHILLIP: So, why issue the threat.
ABRAMS: Pressure.
PHILLIP: Yes.
FORMER GOV. CHRIS SUNUNU (R-NH): I mean, I would say, no, it's all very intentional. There's a strategy there because with the, quote, threat of evacuate Iran was, you had a chance to make a deal and you missed the opportunity, now everyone should get out of Iran. And he knows the Iranians are reading it, right? That's who he's really tweeting it at more than anything else.
So, again, that delicate balance, there's implications that Russia or China could offer support to Iran.
[22:10:05]
If you let it go too long, that could actually happen. And now you're in to a much more serious world engagement versus maximizing your leverage and being available in the moment. And Trump did his meetings with the G7, he got what he needed out of the way. Being back at the White House is the absolute right move.
For whether it's a phone call or a deal to be made, my guess is most of this will happen behind the scenes before a lot of us hear about it. But the good news is -- I mean, I'm not saying is it a coincidence that there's nothing being fired tonight? I mean, maybe, but I find that hard to believe when you have all these rumblings of we're moving forward.
PHILLIP: I wouldn't necessarily go so far to say that nothing is being fired tonight. But, I mean, I think the other part of it, you said leverage, but doesn't Iran understand the basic politics of this all, which is that Donald Trump really doesn't want to get into a war with them? I mean, doesn't that kind of undermine the idea of leverage when they know that that's a step that he's not really willing to take?
ARTHUR AIDALA, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Yes. But this is -- well, everything's been happening in the last couple hours, it goes right into the Donald Trump playbook. And it's -- you know, this is what his entertainment thing is, right, like the drama. I'm with the G7. I'm with the most important people, but I have to leave you guys.
PHILLIP: This is a very important thing. It's not entertainment. AIDALA: But it's him. But come on, Donald Trump, he became president by being a T.V. star. He knows how to work the media. He knows how to work the public. He's like, look, I'm with the most important people in the world, right, the G7. I'm going to leave you guys to do something even more important. I'm going down, I'm putting my team together.
And Dan's right. He wants to appropriately, so he wants to take credit. He texted out a deal, needs to be done, or he tweeted out or whatever trumped out. A deal needs to be made. He does not want that deal to be made. And he's not in the thick of it saying, I'm the dealmaker who put peace in the Middle East, at least temporarily.
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, everything we're saying here is theorizing and speculation, right? We'll, with Donald Trump will know when we know. I happen to agree with Arthur. I think that in any role he's taking, whether he's commander-in-chief, he's president, whether he's watching a military parade or whatever he's doing, he is always also producer-in-chief, T.V. producer-in-chief.
I also suspect, you know, these G7 meetings might not be his cup of tea. It's a lot of these meetings, you know, there's a lot of people there who may not be his biggest fans and in countries that are not his biggest fans.
PHILLIP: Lots of trade deals not done in that room.
NAVARRO: And a lot of pomp and circumstance and picture taking and stuff that he probably would rather be in Washington and looking like a leader and looking important, looking in charge and doing all the things that Donald Trump likes to do.
PHILLIP: If they do, there is a prospect that they could the United States could decide to use these bunker busting bombs and go after this Fordow facility if they do that, already you're starting to hear from lawmakers saying, do not. Chris Murphy says, the president does not have the authority to make that decision. He says they would need to go to Congress. Do you think that Trump would -- you know, does he care whether or not Congress wants him to go?
DR. CORNEL WEST (I), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I see that's the that's the difficult question. We live in such a bleak moment. Today's Bloom's Day, you know, June 16th, 1904, the great novel about James Joyce Ulysses, where he had Stephen say, history's the nightmare from which I'm trying to awake, and many of us resonate with that formulation.
That's 1922. Here we are, 2025, meaning what? That we know Brother Trump reduces the whole world of transaction, manipulation and domination, so was Alexander the Great. We're not talking about Jesus. We're not talking about Socrates. We're not talking about Dorothy Day or Martin Luther King Jr. In such a moment, if you don't have high quality leadership with a moral compass, then whatever you come up with is going to be on principle.
And so we just had to begin with certain basics, right? Anti-Jewish hatred is as evil as anti-Palestinian hatred, as evil anti-Iranian hatred, as evil as anti-white hatred, as evil as anti-black hatred. And this is June 16th, 1976. This is the 49th anniversary of Soweto uprisings. 700 precious black children were shot down by South African police. You all remember that, Soweto, 1976? Mandela's in jail, hardly a mention of it. Why? Because these black folk don't count.
We've got to reach a point where Palestinians count, Israelis count, Iranians count, human beings count. And if we don't reach that point, then a lot of us --
PHILLIP: We have --
SUNUNU: You got to find --
WEST: Peace with justice.
PHILLIP: And we're going to -- we're actually going to talk about that very thing coming up, because, I mean, this is a big question whether Donald Trump, what his objective is.
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And, I mean, he says he wants peace, so we'll see what that's going to look like.
Up next for us, Trump is responding to his MAGA base criticizing him for backing Israel's action, saying that he is the decider of what America first actually means. We'll debate that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: President Trump's support for Israel's military campaign against Iran is deeply dividing MAGA with some suggesting that he's abandoning America first.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TUCKER CARLSON, HOST, THE TUCKER CARLSON SHOW: I feel like there aren't many people representing the. Well, hey, let's have less violence and focus on America's side of things.
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I think we're going to see the end of American Empire. Obviously, other nations would like to see that, and this is a perfect way to scuttle the USS America on the shores of Iran. But it's also going to end, I believe, Trump's presidency.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: In an interview with The Atlantic, Trump hit back at some of these critics saying he is the one who came up with America first in the first place, so he gets to decide what it means.
This is all -- I mean, we were just talking about peace, right? Like Trump, it feels like he's a little bit at war with himself. Because he's said all the time, I mean, he wants to be known as the peacemaker, the dealmaker, the guy who ends wars, and yet here he finds himself defending another war.
SUNUNU: Well, I don't know if -- I don't think Trump's defending the war Trump's defending Israel's actions. And within a week or two, he's going to try to find an off-ramp to bring it to peace. And as for Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon, they aren't -- they do not define what the MAGA or the conservative base is, These two idiot conspiracy theorists. The base, the MAGA base, the conservative base, believe me, they're all behind Trump, and that's it. He's the one that calls the shots on what kind of defines, you know, that MAGA base.
And he's not trying to get us into a war. He's trying to get us out of that war. And, yes, and he understands the political ramifications if it goes too long, if it doesn't work out. So, that's why I think he's back in D.C. doing everything they can to kind of cut a deal to end this within a --
ABRAMS: (INAUDIBLE) than the governor's given credit for. Meaning, I think that this is really a divisive issue within MAGA. I don't think everyone in MAGA is saying, okay, you know, we're with Trump on this. I think there a number, a good number of high-profile MAGA figures who are saying, this is not what we signed up for.
Now, does that mean they're going to stop supporting Donald Trump? No. But it means that on this issue, we're seeing a fracture that we have not seen up to this point within MAGA world. And that is a big deal.
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, Trump is supposed to have broken with the neo- cons of the world who -- you know, the Lindsey Grahams, who are pushing for the U.S. to get involved. And I think that there's a feeling of betrayal here. Marjorie Taylor Greene, another one of these very close Trump supporters, big backers of his, says, anyone slobbering for the U.S. to become fully involved in the Israel-Iran war is not America first MAGA. You know, they're put putting a line down and Trump is being forced to make a choice.
AIDALA: Yes. But we just saw a little clip. I don't know if you asked Steve Bannon straight up, do you think Iran should have nuclear capabilities? I'm pretty sure he would say no.
PHILLIP: No, he doesn't. But he doesn't want the U.S. to be involved in it.
AIDALA: Okay. But if unless the U.S. is involved in, we may have a big problem.
And the other thing, Abby, I think it made me a little naive not to recognize Donald Trump is born and raised a New Yorker surrounded by Jewish people, more Jewish people than anywhere else in the United States of America. His daughter is now Jewish, his grandchildren are Jewish. All his good friends are Jewish. And, as you just reported, there's thousands, tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of Americans in Israel.
So, it would just be a dereliction of duty if he didn't step in and protect American interest. We have military interest there. We have human being interests there and cultural interest there. They're the only democracy in that area. We need them to stay a democracy.
NAVARRO: Look, though, he was just in the Arab world. He's got a lot of friends there too. They just gave him a $400 million jet from Qatar, you know? So, I think a lot of people voted for Donald Trump because he told America that Joe Biden and the Democrats were going to lead to World War III.
He said that he was going to end wars on day one. Certainly, he said that about the Ukraine war. I think that -- and Ukraine-Russia war. I think that once he got in there, he's realized it's not as easy as he thought. That just by the fact that he swore in, things are not going to end and things are not going to change.
I think it's difficult for the MAGA world that can be -- there's a section, a faction of it that is very isolationist and doesn't want us to be involved in anything to accept that this is the reality of being the leaders of the free world, if we are still that.
PHILLIP: Yes, I mean --
WEST: You see, when you transaction all the way down, my dear brother, it means that you have only permanent interests, no permanent friends, no permanent enemies even. It's like Thrasymachus (ph) in Plato's Republic, you just go through the world believing you can have transactional relations with everybody.
It's a very sad way of being in the world, but that's not what we're talking about right now, which means that any minute he could betray any group, any group, my brother.
AIDALA: But when you're president of the United States, don't you have those types of relationships all over the globe, from North Korea --
WEST: Yes, that's true.
AIDALA: -- to Iran, to --
WEST: That's true. But he, as governor, you had to have some integrity that's not reducible to transactional.
SUNUNU: No, I only got --
WEST: Is that true? Am I right?
SUNUNU: And, look, I had relationships with everybody and I think Trump's approach is -- look, to put and make sure we're protecting America's interest, I think to Arthur's point exactly, it is in our interest to make sure, and it's in everyone's interest to make sure there's nothing nuclear in Iran.
[22:25:09]
And that is very much an America first in America's interest.
PHILLIP: Netanyahu made it very explicit. He said it's America first, not America dead, essentially. I mean, that's pretty stark.
ABRAMS: Yes. But I think we have to ask the question, how involved is the U.S. actually. I mean, my understanding is, yes, the U.S. has been involved in assisting in knocking down missiles that have been coming into Israel. Is that significant? Yes. Does that mean that the U.S. is at war with Iran? No. Does it mean that the U.S. is providing bunker busters to get rid of Iranian nuclear facilities? No.
And so I think it's an overstatement to say, oh, the U.S. is now involved with it, this is going to be the end of the U.S. Empire, American Empire, as Tucker Carlson said. I mean the U.S.'s involvement at this point has been pretty minimal.
PHILLIP: And it's about in line with the U.S.'s involvement in these conflicts vis-a-vis Israel over the many decades. So, yes, you're right.
NAVARRO: America first, not America dead. He wasn't referring to America playing dead. He was referring to, today, they're bombing Tel Aviv. Tomorrow, there could be nuclear --
PHILLIP: Yes, it's the threat of nuclear annihilation, yes.
WEST: Netanyahu said, I do not want you to do X, and Israel did it, he would be humiliated just like Biden, just like Obama, just like Bush. And the involvement of America in Israel is already so inseparable, right. You got the Hellfire missiles. That's just the peak of an iceberg. You've got the facilitating and the military equipment. And look what happened in Gaza. My God, they couldn't have done the --
PHILLIP: The truth is none of this support, none of this could happen without American --
WEST: The United States had to facilitate --
PHILLIP: Hold on, we got to leave it there for this. None of this, you're right, could have happened without American munitions, but not -- no, I'm talking about just those (ph).
All right, we got to leave it there.
Coming up next, a chilling new revelation about the assassin who targeted Democrats as partisans rush to blame. We'll discuss the epidemic of political violence in this country.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:31:54]
PHILLIP: One official says it's a frightening time that we're living in, and the way Americans talk to and about each other has raised the temperature to unfathomable levels. She's talking, of course, about political violence after a stunning set of murders in Minnesota. Tonight, we are learning more about the suspect's cold blooded plans
to target Democrats and Planned Parenthood leaders, and how he hunted the top Democrat in the state house. We are told that he visited the homes of other politicians with the intent to kill them before he shot and killed Melissa Horton and her husband. Officials say that they don't know yet what the motive was, but that hasn't stopped elected lawmakers and others from politicizing the murders and assigning blame.
Now, shortly after the murders, Utah Senator Mike Lee suggested that the suspect was a leftist and a Marxist, and he made light of the murders posting a "Nightmare on Waltz Street". Waltz as in the governor of the state, Tim Walz putting him on the board of business leaders, which happened at some point. So, on the left there, you see Senator Jeff Merkley clearly pointing the -- the finger.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JEFF MERKLEY (D) OREGON: I feel like Trump has really, popped the lid off of the rhetoric and the --the sense of hate and -- and violence and -- and promoted this type of an environment, is profoundly disturbing, for -- for all of us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Look, no question. This is disturbing. I -- I think the question though is, at this point, given all that we've seen, these assassinations -- assassination attempts against Donald Trump, political violence against Jews in this country, are we really in a place where this is about assigning blame or dealing with the source of the problem?
ARTHUR AIDALA, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Do we look back to 30 years ago when President Clinton was in office and the Oklahoma bombings took place to McVeigh? That was clearly a political thing. It killed us. To date, it's the worst domestic terrorism ever. I mean, those kids were killed. I went to the memorial. It's horrible.
You know, that's been going on for a long time. I mean, political speech is through the roof. It's horrible. It's disgusting. It's why I would never run for office even though I really wanted to. But I don't -- I mean, I think there's only so much you blame on Donald Trump. They're a nut job like this lunatic who decided to do this.
They're nut jobs like Tim McVeigh and Terry Nicholas who decided to do horrible, horrible things. And all the killings we've seen in between in movie theaters and rock concerts. I mean, it's --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Yeah.
AIDALA: I mean, schools --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: But I don't think you blame Trump for all of this. Every - we've had every president, over the last 30 years.
(CROSSTALK)
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: There's a difference between blaming somebody and holding somebody to a higher standard. I think that when you have a U.S. senator like Mike Lee making light and making jokes about what happened in Minnesota, he needs to be held to a high standard and it is despicable.
(CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: You're absolutely correct. You're absolutely correct.
NAVARRO: And I think that when you have Donald Trump saying -- just in the last week, look at the things that have happened.
[22:35:00]
He said that Gavin Newsom should be arrested for the crime of being elected. He said, you know, then we --we --
(CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: All right. That's silly.
NAVARRO: No. Okay. Well, it's silly, but it's true. And it -- it affects --
AIDALA: I know he said it, but that's --
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: Okay. When the president of The United States with the biggest bully pulpit in the world says something, whether it's silly or not to you, for some people, they take it seriously. Look at what happened last week.
They took Alex Padilla, the senior U.S. senator from California, made him kneel down, put -- threw him to the floor, detained him, cuffed him. This was the U.S. senator who was there speaking up on behalf of his constituents. It is despicable.
AIDALA: I agree with you. I -- I don't know who's going to disagree with you.
DAN ABRAMS, FOUNDER, MEDIATE FOUNDER: Well, look, you -- you got to look at these things--
NAVARRO: Oh, but you're saying we can't blame Trump. I'm saying we have to hold --
AIDALA: I don't think we --
NAVARRO: -- Trump accountable.
(CROSSTALK) CHRIS SUNUNU (R) FORMER NEW HAMPSHIRE GOVERNOR: This is not a high issue at all.
NAVARRO: Of course, it's a Trump issue.
SUNUNU: No, it's not because it could be on the political. Guys, this is a cultural crisis in America. You have CEOs that are being assassinated, judges that are being targeted. The -- the goalposts of morality, really since 2020, have moved where people think as long as it's in the name of my -- my self-righteous social -- social, justice it's okay. But -- it's --
(CROSSTALK)
ABRAMS: The only problem with that is there is an element of just sort of throwing up your arms and saying everyone does this, right? Everyone does this so none of this matters, right? I do think we need to evaluate it case by case and say is there blame to be attributed here? Now, in this case what was stunning is that as you point out it was the right, particularly the far right coming out early saying oh this here, Governor Walz appointed him to this case -- a Walz appointee.
And then you actually dig in and you realize this was just like a -- this council of advisors where the governor appoints 41 people, Walz had reappointed him to a position the previous governor had appointed him to. There's no way Walz knew this guy, right, based on everything we know. And the notion that oh, this guy was doing it because he was coming at them from the left is so absurd that that has to first be called out.
PHILLIP: Yeah.
ABRAMS: And then you begin the process of saying, okay --
PHILLIP: Yeah. And can I just say --
NAVARRO: And then can I just say --
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: -- getting close to, with political violence being where we are with school shootings where it's thoughts and prayers? Oh, and everybody needs to tamp down the rhetoric.
PHILLIP: I don't even think that it's thoughts and prayers. I think that's part of the problem. That Mike Lee post, was -- was not thoughts. That was quite the opposite, actually, where he was casting blame and his -- his colleague, Senator Tina Smith, who knew the victims here.
She literally confronted him about this in real life, which I think, if you listen to her describing this, she basically makes the point that, you know, you put all this stuff out on social media, and then someone talks to you about it, and suddenly, you don't know what to say. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. TINA SMITH (D) MINNESOTA: I wanted him to know about the consequence of his words. And I -- I went to him and I said, you know, your -- your message on social media showed the image of the man who killed my friend, potentially minutes before that happened. And -- and your message was, this is what happens? You need to take responsibility and accountability for what you were saying and doing out there in the social media world.
What he needs to do is he needs to apologize. I really think that he should take that -- that post down. I didn't get any of that from him earlier this evening, but I hope that what I said sunk in.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Yeah. It's like a culture of anything goes. I mean, I'm not saying it's all online, but the -- the callousness that it takes to write something like that, that you wouldn't say to a person, is part of what she's calling out there.
CORNEL WEST (I) FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's true. I think Sister Ana's point about responsibility, accountability, answerability of individuals, personalities, each and every one of us, our rhetoric and our actions no matter what color, gender, sexual orientation, or what have you. But it's true that America is a culture that historically has had pervasive violence.
The great last book by Richard Hofstadter -- violence in America. The frontier itself, the myth, vis a vis indigenous people, moral regeneration through violence, slavery, Jim Crow, lynching. Those are violent acts. Domestic violence.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I mean, he's right. It has always been there.
ABRAMS: There. But the point is that we can talk very deep. But in this case, we can talk about the lack of accountability.
WEST: That's true.
ABRAMS: The people who are making stuff up --
WEST: That's true.
ABRAMS: -- about this --
PHILLIP: Yeah.
ABRAMS: -- and trying to create a narrative, right?
PHILLIP: -- among them, Elon Musk, Bernie Moreno, a senator from Ohio, Mike Cernovich, asked if Tim Walz had, one of these lawmakers executed to send a message.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I mean, this is really violent stuff.
NAVARRO: I'm going to hold these conspiracy theories and people who like to troll for a living for the same standard that I am going to hold a U.S. Senator or the President of The United States.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Yeah.
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: And practically, in every case that I can remember after -- after a tragedy like this, the President of The United States has gone and called for our better angels. And that is something that Donald Trump has not done. Think about Paul Pelosi.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: He hasn't even called --
NAVARRO: His head batched in with a -- with a hammer.
[22:40:00]
PHILLIP: He hasn't even called Tim Walz, to your point.
NAVARRO: Exactly. And what the reaction was, how they were mocking that, how they, you know, how some of these people are mocking that. So for me, elected officials, you hold them to a different and higher standard because what they say matters.
PHILLIP: Why -- why hasn't Trump called Tim Walz? I mean, is it really that hard to make a phone call to the governor after something horrific like this happens?
SUNUNU: Well, again, I -- I think everyone brings up the same point. I -- and the most important point is on accountability. Why hasn't he called Tim Walz? I don't know. He -- Trump is going to call who -- who he wants to call, when he wants to call.
ABRAMS: Because he ran against -- he was the vice presidential candidate.
SUNUNU: Well, again --
ABRAMS: Why is he not calling? Of course --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Okay, well, when someone --
NAVARRO: -- incapable of being a decent human being --
(CROSSTALK) PHILLIP: When someone attempted --
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: -- who reaches across the aisle --
PHILLIP: Yeah.
NAVARRO: - - and puts things partisanship --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: When someone attempted to assassinate him, he got a call from the man who was running against him in that very moment.
NAVARRO: Yes.
PHILLIP: So, we have the capacity to do this, and I think it would say a lot to move past some of these moments. We do have to leave this conversation there. President Trump is directing ICE to crack down on democratic cities. Is this targeted enforcement or retribution for free political speech? We'll debate.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:45:49]
PHILLIP: Tonight, is Donald Trump punishing Democratic led cities? In a Truth social post, the President ordering immigration officials to push for more deportations in blue cities, including Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, writing, quote, "These and other such cities are the core of the Democratic power center. I want ICE, border patrol, and our great patriotic law enforcement officers to focus on crime ridden and deadly inner cities, and those places where Sanctuary Cities play such a big role."
A California governor Gavin Newsom hit back on this with a warning. He said, quote, "His plan is clear. Incite violence and chaos in blue states have an excuse to militarize our cities. It is illegal, and we will not let it stand. Arthur, this idea that Trump just wrote and said it out loud that he's just going to punish states and deport people just because they happen to live where elected officials are Democrats.
AIDALA: Yeah.
PHILLIP: Legal?
AIDALA: I think -- I think a couple of constitutional scholars like -- like Dan's father may have -- may have a couple of -- may have a couple of issues with that. And, you know, all due respect there, President Trump, New York City's crime rate is plummeting -- plummeting. We're -- we're on, right now, we're on the course for New York City to have the lowest crime rate ever in recorded history if the trend keeps on going. So, I will respectfully disagree with the President that ICE needs to
come in. Although, when I was in court the other day, there was a whole scrum of people down by arraignments, and I was like, what's going on? They're like, ICE is coming in for the first time. They come into arraignments right after someone gets arrested as they're coming --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: And -- and he's doing it because he wants to protect his red states and farmers and hotel workers. So, in order to get the quotas up, he has to redirect away from his people and toward people who happen to live in blue states?
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: One of the things that came out today from CNN study, research on this is that the vast majority of the people that have been detained by ICE do not have criminal records. Ten percent do have serious criminal records. Seventy five percent have zero criminal records. And many of the ones that have been arrested have criminal records when it comes to traffic stops.
But look, I don't -- I don't know how Trump plans to not affect red states and cities that voted for him when he's doing things like removing temporary protective status from Venezuelans, removing the parole program that helped Cubans, Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, and Haitians.
Most of those people live in Miami, and most of those groups voted for him overwhelmingly and today feel betrayed. I saw them protesting in Downtown Miami. People who voted for him, farmers who voted for him in South Florida who said, I'm -- we're losing our crop. Construction workers --
PHILLIP: Right.
NAVARRO: -- and construction firm owners who were supporters of his. The -- the head -- one of the founders of Latinas for Trump, who's currently a Florida state senator, a Republican, has come out and talked about the inhumanity that's happening when it comes to these immigration rights.
PHILLIP: Let me, to your point about the industries, I mean, the top three industries where undocumented workers -- work construction, 13% agriculture, and hospitality. So, first of all, I mean, it's going to be hard for Trump to make a dent in these immigration numbers as he's promised until he addresses some of those things, and those will affect his people, regardless of where they live in The United States.
WEST: For me, the good news in such a dim and grim moment is that there is an escalating fight back, and it's cutting across all the different political, ideological, religious, non-religious lines. The challenge for the fight back is going to be, if all they -- we have to offer is counter vilification as we're vilified, or all we have to offer is just a certain kind of hatred and demonization as we have been demonized, then we all slide down a slippery slope together.
So that I don't want to become preoccupied with Trump's transactional sensibility, or what I call his gangster activity.
[22:50:00]
And I say that as a Christian because I got a lot of gangster in me.
(LAUGHTER)
WEST: I was a gangster before I met Jesus and now I'm a redeemed sinner with gangster proclivity. But what I'm saying is that if we -- we have got to transcend and have some moral substance and spiritual content into what we stand for against any kind of crime, any kind of misbehavior, any kind of domination, any kind of oppression.
PHILLIP: So, are you saying just to understand, I mean, first of all, do you think the Democrats have -- it sounds like you're saying you don't think that they have a counter message.
WEST: The Democratic Party?
PHILLIP: Yeah. The people who are fighting back.
WEST: The Democratic Party is beyond redemption.
(LAUGHTER)
WEST: They're milquetoast, mediocre, complete --
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: The counter message is coming from Trump supporters like I just told you. I just saw a clip of Joe Rogan talking about the -- the you know, how can a parent, I don't care who you voted for and what your party is, not feel the pain of seeing children being torn away from their mother's arms? You know, I just saw Joe Rogan, a Trump supporter.
ABRAMS: But how do we know that some Trump supporters are concerned about this? We know this because they have pressured the President to stop enforcing this at farms and to stop enforcing it in restaurants and other places where they do business and they care about, right?
So whether, you know, whether you agree with the way he's going about doing this, it's very tough to justify saying, I'm going to call off the raids at -- at the farms, you know, we -- we got to give the farmers a break. And then to say, oh, we're going to -- we're going to really double down now --
UNKNOWN: Right.
ABRAMS: On big - I don't see how you --
(CROSSTALK) PHILLIP: Yeah, how is that, I mean, how is that not hypocritical to -- to say, oh, I'm going to protect my people from the consequences of this immigration crackdown, while then doing it to other people just because they happen to live in a blue state --
(CROSSTALK)
SUNUNU: Well, the cities he's targeting, he's not targeting just because they're Democrat-run.
PHILLIP: He literally said that.
SUNUNU: He's targeting because they're sanctuary cities.
PHILLIP: No, he said --
SUNUNU: They're holding --
PHILLIP: - he said because they are Democrats.
(CROSSTALK)
SUNUNU: The initial --
(CROSSTALK)
SUNUNU: -- was about sanctuary status and the fact that they're not willing to enforce law.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: No, no -- but no. I mean --
SUNUNU: So, therefore, they're going to make sure they --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: That is not what he said. He said those are the Democratic powerhouses because he has also said --
(CROSSTALK)
SUNUNU: But all in all sanctuary cities.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Hold on. Hold on. He has also said in a previous post that he believes that the reason that you need to crack down on these Democratic cities is because they, in his words, use illegal immigrants to --to goose up their, you know, political representation. So, it is about power. It is about Democrats having power that he doesn't think that they should have. He said that explicitly.
SUNUNU: Yeah. I disagree that he's going after L.A. so he can get more votes in L.A. They -- there's no votes for Donald Trump in L.A. That's not going to happen. That's not what it's about. You should talk about the sanctuary status of these cities, and that's what they've been talking about.
When they have --when the folks within those cities are not willing to enforce the law for folks that are illegal, that they're illegally, that they're going to go and do that, and that's where you see the highest proclivity of illegals being protected, so they're going to highlight that.
PHILLIP: Yeah. But hold on. I --
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: But he's going to hold out to L.A. because it's a place where there's a lot of undocumented immigrants. He's going after California, and he's going after their farms. It's funny, right? Because he wants to say that he's --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: He's not going after the farms.
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: -- free loaders.
PHILLIP: If he's --
NAVARRO: But they're actually -- what?
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: If he's worried about the farm -- listen. If he's worried about going to places where there are undocumented immigrants, he would be, sticking to his guns about farms, about meat packing plants and about, you know, all those other types of facilities that happen to be in red states.
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: You're saying that they're not going after farms.
PHILLIP: Well, I'm saying --
AIDALA: Well, he's just saying --
NAVARRO: He has not seen the video --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Hold on a second.
NAVARRO: Okay. Have you not seen the video of ICE?
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I know. Let me let me explain. Let me explain.
NAVARRO: In the fields?
PHILLIP: Let me explain his confusion, okay? Those videos that Ana's talking about is why Trump then said on social media that he wants those types of rates to stop because they're happening in places where the people that voted for him are the ones being affected.
So, maybe they have been stopped now. According to Trump, they've been stopped. But in -- but in the past, they were doing them. And logically, that's where you would do them if you were concerned about who's harboring undocumented immigrants. But instead he's saying, oh, we're just going to go into the cities where Democrats are running.
SUNUNU: I say, if you're going to do it, do it all across the board. You shut down the border, you -- you deal with the illegals, you deal with the criminal aspect as a top priority. But again, he's -- he's making it pretty clear, if you're here illegally, he's -- they're, you know, they're not going to let you go.
(CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: Illegals are such a viral -- vital part of our economy --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: And as --
(CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: -- of our whole economy, from New York City to the -- the farms out --
(CROSSTALK)
SUNUNU: -- Immigration Reform Bill, right? Which is why all of these loopholes and all these projects created this.
ABRAMS: There was an Immigration Reform Bill that was on the table.
SUNUNU: That was useless. That was a useless.
ABRAMS: I mean, it -- it's as close as this Congress has ever gotten in recent --
(CROSSTALK)
SUNUNU: -- Remain in Mexico policy.
(CROSSTALK)
ABRAMS: I mean that's the point.
(CROSSTALK)
SUNUNU: It was completely unnecessary because they said you needed that bill to shut down the border, but apparently --
(CROSSTALK)
[22:55:00]
ABRAMS: But you needed it to shut down the border and for it to be a long-term solution to the problem, not a band aid. Meaning --
SUNUNU: I'm just letting a million and a half people in a year part of the solution.
PHILLIP: We got to -- we got to let it go. But to Ana's point, I mean, it's worth repeating. According to CNN's analysis of this, only 10 percent of the people that have been detained so far and deported up in this administration have had serious criminal records. So, the vast majority of people are not those people, and that tells you a lot about how difficult this is.
UNKNOWN: But they are here legally. But they are here illegally.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: All right, everybody. Thank you very much. Coming up --
(CROSSTALK)
NAVRRO: -- feels grand --
PHILLIP: Coming up next --
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: -- deportation --
PHILLIP: -- more of our breaking news. President Trump is headed back early from the G7 conference in Canada after telling the Iranians to evacuate Tehran - Tehran. That's ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
