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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Questions Grow as Trump Maintains Total Obliteration; Trump Says, Democrats Have Crossed the Line After Socialist Wins; National Democrats Waver on How to Handle Socialist's New York City Win. "NewsNight" Panelists Debate on Possible Racism in Immigration; Trump Could Be Using Phrases and Claims Them To Be His Own. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired June 25, 2025 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, with skies on alert and smoke settling in Iran --
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: The site is obliterated.
PHILLIP: -- America's credibility is on the line over the troops and the spin of it.
SEN. MARK WARNER (D-VA): People are misrepresenting a line about the effects of this attack. Who's going to trust us going forward?
PHILLIP: Plus, is American politics being overtaken by its extremes?
ZOHRAN MAMDANI, NEW YORK ASSEMBLYMAN: Thank you, my friends.
PHILLIP: Will a socialist stunner become the norm beyond Gotham?
And a California official is under fire for telling street gangs to rise up against ICE.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Your hood's being invaded by the biggest gang there is. There ain't a peep out of you.
PHILLIP: Live at the table, Abel Maldonado, Ana Navarro, Dan Koh, Marc Short, Sabrina Singh and Jamaal Bowman.
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 impacts of the U.S. military strike against Iran. So its nuclear weapons program, is it totally obliterated or is it not? President Trump and his administration spent the day yesterday, tried to convince the world that it in fact is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The site is obliterated because.
PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Iran's nuclear program is obliterated.
TRUMP: They're obliterated.
HEGSETH: Devastated and obliterated.
TRUMP: It's been obliterated, totally obliterated.
But, no, the site was obliterated, just like I said it was.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: But those comments today don't match what the early intel report suggested. CNN was the first to bring you the details of that. Sources told us that the Pentagon's intelligence arm believes that the assault did not destroy the program, only set it back a few months, and that isn't sitting well with Donald Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: They said it could be limited or it could be very severe. They really didn't know other than to say it could be limited or it could be very, very severe.
The report said what it said, and it was fine. It was severe, they think, but they had no idea. They shouldn't have issued a report until they did.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Adding more confusion than clarity, Trump's Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said today, new intel supports the notion that Iran's nuclear facilities were destroyed, but she didn't provide any evidence. The Trump CIA director said the agency can confirm Iran's nuclear program was severely damaged.
So, which one is it, obliterated, severely damaged? Well, here's what the top Democrat on the Senate Intel Committee has to say about all of this mixed messaging.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WARNE: This is how you destroy trust with your friends and also with your foes. If people are misrepresenting and lying about the effects of this attack, who's going to trust us going forward?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: There was a time when Donald Trump himself was concerned about the intelligence misleading the American public. Here he is back in 2016 when he was running essentially as an anti-war Republican talking about what got us into the war in Iraq and Afghanistan in the first place.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We should have never been in Iraq. We have destabilized the Middle East.
They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction, there were none, and they knew there were none.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, this isn't about whether this one report is gospel, it's about whether or not there is allowed to be a report in the intelligence community that might disagree with what Donald Trump wants it to say.
MARC SHORT, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF TO VICE PRESIDENT PENCE: Well, sure there should be, but at the same time, Abby, I think that it was an incredibly successful mission. I think there's been a lot of presidents in the last few decades that have talked about, you know, sanctioning or providing cyber attacks and never really have an effect that Donald Trump has had on the nuclear program. And now we're actually not arguing about whether they're actually developing a nuclear program as even DNI Gabbard was suggesting a few months ago that they weren't.
[22:05:00]
So, I think it's been incredibly successful. I think it's a mistake to try to argue whether it's the DNI report, the Israeli report, the CIA report, because now you're getting off target and off message opposed of focused on the success of the program.
PHILLIP: Why is it a mistake to ask the question what do we really know? And why is it a mistake to say which one of these is correct?
SHORT: It's not. I'm saying I think it's a mistake for the Trump team to be focused on those various different in intelligence reports opposed to talking about the success of the mission overall, because now the media's focused on the different intel reports supposed to saying, hey, actually this is an incredibly successful mission. This is an amazing deterrence to know that America can do this in the dark of night when our enemies didn't even know it was coming.
SABRINA SINGH, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I don't disagree with Marc's point on that this was an incredibly successful mission, I mean, what our fighter pilots were able to do in 25 minutes, dropping 75 different types of munitions on different facilities all around Iran.
I think the issue that it comes back to that I'm sure you're going to get to as well, is the issue of credibility. You had the ODNI, Tulsi Gabbard, up on the Hill saying, you know, Iran is not closed to getting a nuclear weapon, and then all of a sudden the Trump administration is now trusting Israeli intelligence that, in fact, they're, you know, days, weeks away.
So, I think the question should be why are we trusting that intelligence and is there a gap in our intelligence? And then there's also the idea of accountability. I mean, they're talking about this leaked report. And at the end of the day you have the secretary of defense standing up there at the NATO summit saying, we have to find this leaker, and yet here's the same person that put, you know, very detailed classified plans into a Signal thread. So it, you know, it's a bit of pot --
(CROSSTALKS)
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think what you we're seeing the effect of the type of people that Donald Trump has around him in this second term, it is not a Jim Mattis, it is not a John Kelly. It is a Fox News host whose biggest qualification is that he is a very good suck up. And they go out there, and they -- let me finish. They go out there and they all use the same word, like trained parrot, right?
So, I think the American public, rightly so, those of us old enough to remember the weapons of mass destruction, those of us old enough to remember the banner that said, mission accomplished, on that Navy boat when it wasn't accomplished, have legitimate questions. And the way that Donald Trump handles is, you know, by sending his team, including Tulsi Gabbard, who just ten days ago he was saying was wrong and was questioning her credibility and her qualifications, now she's right.
DAN KOH, FORMER WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY CABINET SECRETARY UNDER PRESIDENT BIDEN: So, the question at a very high level is what credibility is this administration built up to merit us taking his word for it, right? This is an administration that continues to this day to say the election in 2020 was stolen. This is an administration that tweeted out a video of Senator Alex Padilla saying that he didn't identify himself when clearly he did on the video that they tweeted. There's a president who said that gas prices were below $2 when they weren't. And remember the line about eating the dogs and the cats during the election, right?
There is absolutely no trustworthiness of what Donald Trump has been saying to the American public. This is yet another example of what happens when you don't have that trust. People are skeptical and they're going to trust independent reports over the administration.
PHILLIP: Well, Miles Taylor, who once worked in the Trump administration, said, attacks on intelligence officials won't just damage those agencies. It will put American lives at risk if analysts are scared to speak truth to power. Power will stop seeing the truth, and that's when bad things happen.
SHORT: This is the guy I wrote the book, Anonymous, wouldn't identify himself when he criticized the administration.
PHILLIP: I think that's fair, but to what he's actually saying, I mean, we've actually lived through what he is saying, that when you have people in the government whose job it is to tell you what they believe to be true feel afraid to say something that might contradict what the principal wants to hear, that's literally how we get into messes.
FMR. LT. GOV. ABEL MALDONADO (D-CA): Well, Abby, if you look at what went on, I thought the mission was seamless and I thought that the mission was very, very successful. And you have a lot of people that are talking that don't know what went on, and then I believe there's people that know what went on that aren't talking. So, I think what we need to be doing is just sitting back a little bit and waiting to see reports that come out, Abby, that really tell the truth that went on. I mean, because we're splitting hairs with obliterated severely damaged.
PHILLIP: I don't think those are hairs being split. I think those are just different things. Listen, I think this is -- the reason this is important, look, nobody is saying that the mission was a failed mission, that it did not accomplish what the what the military objectives are, but successfully dropping the bombs doesn't necessarily mean that the political objective has been achieved, which is that the nuclear program is completely obliterated, which is different from being damaged.
MALDONADO: Look where we're at today.
PHILLIP: Those are different things, right?
MALDONADO: But look where we're at today. We have a ceasefire and the war is not going on at this time.
[22:10:01]
We have a situation where next week, President Trump or his administration's going to be talking to Iran. Look where we're at compared to where we were. I mean, they were killing each other and President Trump stepped in. Obviously, it took moxie to do what he did. He did it and everybody said, oh my God, the next day we're going to be in war all over the place. It didn't happen.
So, now I think President Trump has set the table for negotiations.
SINGH: I don't -- I think what Donald Trump did was take advantage of an incredibly weakened and isolated Iran, economically and militarily.
MALDONADO: Okay.
SINGH: I have no doubt about that. I think where the issue of credibility comes into on these intel assessments is DIA is one of a dozen intelligence agencies that does assessments. And what we haven't heard is U.S. Central Command, who actually conducted the operation, released their battle damage assessment.
Now there is this -- whatever this press conference will be at the Pentagon tomorrow, whatever that looks like. But, you know, I think you do raise an important point that this is one aspect of it, but the problem is here is now the administration continues to shoot credibility. They continue to shoot themselves in the foot. PHILLIP: And who in the Trump administration is now after all of this going to raise their hand and say, oh, Mr. President, we also don't think that this was effective? I mean, let's just play what Trump said in the Netherlands today basically equating any disagreement on intelligence that, by the way, has not been completed yet with disrespecting the troops. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: You should really say how great our soldiers and our warriors are.
And I got a call that the pilots and the people on the plane were devastated because they were trying to minimize the attack.
When I spoke to one of them, he said, sir, we hit the site. It was perfect. It was dead on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: They hit their targets. Nobody is disputing that. But, again, who in the government is going to now say, Mr. President, this is our assessment and it's different from what you want to hear after all of that?
SHOT: Look, Abby, as I said, I think that the mission was incredibly successful. I think it's a mistake from a P.R. perspective to get in bogged down in these various arguments about the various intel reports. As Abel said, let the intelligence come out, focus on the fact that many presidents have threatened to actually do something about the nuclear program, and he was the first one who did.
Whereas much as I have affection for Governor Maldonado, the one thing I disagree with is I think, I do think that the ceasefire has actually benefitted of Iran. Iran wants a pause in this. They want to be able to say, give us more time to basically regroup. And how many times the last 46 years since the Iran Revolution have we seen them lie and basically distort and then launch additional terrorist attacks against innocent westerners?
So, I feel like we actually had the Israel was on the offensive and now you've actually given them a pause.
(CROSSTALKS)
NAVARRO: (INAUDIBLE) a lot more serious than a P.R. mistake, right? This is not just P.R. This is decreasing our credibility with our allies. This is putting us in a difficult position, frankly, with Congress, the people that have to fund this, right? It's amazing to me that they have not gotten the briefings that they were promised that they were -- these briefings were canceled at the last minute. Congress --
PHILLIP: Trump is now going to limit how much he's briefing Congress.
NAVARRO: Right, whether Trump likes it or not, theoretically, constitutionally, they are a co-equal branch of government and they're the ones that give the money out for paying for these operations.
SHORT: I think America is stronger since the attack than before.
KOH: To the point of credibility, this is a president who dismissed 160 national security staff, who's now trying to rehire when he realized that he needed them, including the director of Israel and Iran. And if you want to talk about where we were versus where we are now, the JCPOA, Obama's original agreement, would've delayed nuclear capabilities until 2030 and the development of a nuclear bomb for a year, okay? So, it is a very fair question to understand that if indeed the delay was only a few months after this attack, then is that really better than what we had in the Iran deal? I think the answer is no, if that's true.
SHORT: I think he saw after the deal, they were continuing to develop nuclear weapons. That's why he had to --
SINGH: Their enrichment capabilities on uranium, which was a big-off ramp for the JCPOA.
PHILLIP: All right. Sabrina Singh, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it.
Next for us, the aftershocks of a political earthquake, is this the Democrats version of the Tea Party movement? Is the party headed towards socialism or is the New York race just an outlier? Another special guest is going to join us in our fifth seat.
Plus, an official in California is under fire for telling street gangs to rise up against ICE raids. We'll discuss.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:15:00]
PHILLIP: A stunning upset and one that could change the political landscape throughout the entire country for years. Democrats are trying to figure out how to navigate Zohran Mamdani's unexpected victory in New York City's mayoral Democratic primary. Does the party need to move further to the left? How do they capitalize on the enthusiasm he generated even if they don't agree with his platform?
The strategy for Republicans is pretty clear though. Paint him as the standard and not an outlier of the party. The National Republican Congressional Committee posted a picture of Mamdani with three vulnerable New York Democrats and they wrote this. Every single Democrat now owns Mamdani's radical socialist agenda.
Now, it's worth noting that none of these three Democrats actually endorsed Mamdani. In fact, Congresswoman Laura Gillen was not happy with the primary results.
[22:20:00]
She wrote that he's too extreme and the absolute wrong choice. Joining us is former New York Congressman Jamaal Bowman, who was with Mamdani last night. Jamaal, it's a big moment for New York, but is it something that is actually able to be extrapolated beyond this city, which is in a pretty unique moment? He's an immigrant in a city facing anti-immigrant, you know, policies from the federal government, there's an affordability crisis. There's a lot going on here.
FMR. REP. JAMAAL BOWMAN (D-NY): Yes, he's the perfect person to respond in this moment to not just the crisis in the city as it relates to immigration affordability, but the fact that the Democratic Party is on life support right now with like an approval rating of about 20-something percent.
So, as we talk about bringing excitement back to politics and democracy, his campaign inspired New Yorkers across the city. Turnout was much higher this election than in 2021. Young people, first time primary vote voters made up 25 percent of the turnout, and he crushed a political dynasty in Andrew Cuomo. And so we should lean into that excitement and we should do everything we can to learn from what he and his campaign did, which was exceptional, and see how it can be replicated in other parts of the country.
Now, let me say this, New York is a special place, incredible diversity of people, ideas, working class, et cetera. But when we talk about economic populism, he ran on affordability. Everyone's trying to afford to live. And so it's absolutely something that we should try to benefit from as a party and as a country.
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, so I want to talk about the policies in a second, but just for a moment, what you're talking about, kitchen table issues and a candidate that has a personality, like a pulse, right? Like that matters. And it seems like that worked pretty effectively for him in this race. He just was focused on saying he's going to make things more affordable for people, which, you know, the candidate of no taxes on tips and no taxes on Social Security understands.
SHORT: Well, I think it was more than just trying to make things affordable. I mean, he's embraced, you know, a $30 enforced -- government enforced minimum wage. He's basically embraced the government taking over grocery stores in New York. He's embraced legalizing sex workers. I mean, New York is a unique place. That's true. If Democrats want their numbers to go below 20 percent, they should keep following this guy. I think it's good for Republicans.
But I think, Abby, to your point, what's disturbing is I feel like the economic nationalism isn't just limited Democratic Party. Today Republicans have -- basically Republican senator have proposed a national minimum wage. Republican senators have proposed caps on credit card fees. These are not traditional free market ideas. These are ideas that both parties are flirting with of a much bigger government intervention into our economy.
PHILLIP: Which seems to suggest that voters actually are interested.
SHORT: I think it's less right-left, versus left. NAVARRO: I don't take anything away from Mamdani. And in terms of, I think the word you used, inspired, is the accurate word. He did inspire certainly and engaged the youth. He had incredible social media presence in a way that nobody else in that race could match and got him views and volunteers and votes.
But let's not also forget that he was running against Andrew Cuomo, who, I'm sorry, is damaged goods. He saddled with incredible political baggage. This is a man who has 13 accusations of sexual harassment against him and a scandal involving the nursing homes, which got a lot of play in New York State, including New York City. I have a lot of friends who told me they could not bring themselves to vote for Cuomo because of those allegations, women friends in particular.
So, is it a wakeup call for the Democratic Party? Absolutely. And I think Governor Hochul and I think Chuck Schumer need to be play paying close attention what's going to happen in their primaries. I think anybody thinking of running for president in the Democratic Party needs to learn about how to engage the young people, how to inspire a base, but also maybe, just maybe, running somebody with the kind of baggage, an albatross around his neck that Cuomo has, also not a perfect dynamic.
PHILLIP: Well, Mamdani at the moment is still sort of like the fresh kid on the block, but very quickly this is going to get -- I mean, it's already gotten pretty negative. It'll get even more negative. I mean, there's an old post from his on Twitter in 2020 where he says, what we need is to defund the NYPD, no to fake cuts, defund the police. That's just one thing. And he talked about some of the other policies around government subsidized grocery stores, which I don't think is like every grocery store, just certain ones that the government subsidizes for people in need, but nonetheless, this is what it is.
[22:25:09]
KOH: I just think that there are very few people in New York or around the country who don't think groceries are too expensive, that childcare is too expensive, that rent is too high, or that transportation is too cumbersome, right? And so I think people resonated with that, and on top of that, a positive vision, and he was a charismatic candidate. And, of course, the Cuomo thing is a consideration.
The thing that I think is important to note, though, as someone who was chief of staff to a mayor for four years, the most stressful part of the year is budget season. Because in order to do those kind of things that you want to do to deliver the government services, you need revenue. And in New York, 50 percent of the revenue comes from business-related taxes, right? So, you have to be thoughtful about how you engage the business community and not completely alienate them or else you're going to lose that valuable revenue for the services that you want to deliver.
MALDONADO: Well, Abby, you know, I'm a Californian and I get in the front row seat to what happened in this campaign, and I've seen a lot of these issues in California already. We saw them at the national basis when Kamala Harris was running, what they used against her, you know, the issues that some of these -- some of Mamdani's talking about.
But New York is a different place and it's new. I mean, you've seen -- but we've seen this before. Ocasio-Cortez beat Joe Crowley. He was a 20-year incumbent House Democratic chair. She beat him. Very charismatic, we know she can speak very well, happened here again. But when you go down the line and you start talking to people and you say, freeze rents, free bus rides, high taxes on millionaires, free childcare, city-owned grocery stores. I mean, I've been to city-owned grocery stores in Havana, Cuba. You don't want to go to those. Minimum wage, $30 an hour, I can go on and on and on. Those are issues that are tough. I don't see it. It sounds pretty good to a lot of people.
PHILLIP: I think we have to distinguish between the things that are -- free child -- universal childcare is not controversial. Let me just be clear. Like we walk down the street and ask New Yorkers whether they support universal child childcare, that is not controversial. So, you're going to have to distinguish between some of the other things that are more controversial and the ones that are really not.
BOWMAN: 100 percent. And when you talk about taxing the wealthiest Americans a little bit more, which comes to about $20,000 additional for each of the wealthiest Americans raising us billions of dollars to invest in universal childcare, invest in fast and free busing, et cetera, et cetera, this is something that working class people want to hear. Billionaires will be getting off scot free for many years.
Also let me just say one thing. Mamdani is just not a pulse. I know you didn't mean it that way. And Ocasio-Cortez is not just particular.
PHILLIP: What I meant was that --
BOWMAN: I just wanted --
PHILLIP: -- he has a pulse.
BOWMAN: He has a pulse, yes.
PHILLIP: He has energy.
BOWMAN: Yes, correct. I want to be very clear. AOC is a superstar. Zohran Mamdani is a superstar. He's exceptional. His team was exceptional. The dream campaign against Cuomo were exceptional. So, they ran an exceptional campaign with an exceptional candidate.
That is scalable. You could take that anywhere across the country and compete against any of the top Republicans --
PHILLIP: Okay. Can I disagree with you on that first?
BOWMAN: -- and destroy them. I just want to be really clear.
PHILLIP: Can I disagree with you on that for a second? In the only, in the sense that, I think, what we've seen when we have -- let's say he's an exceptional candidate. Exceptional candidates are exceptional for a reason, and it's because it's not actually that easy to replicate what they are, like a Barack Obama, who, God knows, I think Democrats tried for many years to replicate him and have not been able to.
But there is something to be said. I mean, I think you don't like it very much, the sort of strain of populism on the right, but Democrats are afraid of populism because they think it's too lefty, but Trump dabbles in it all the time. And now Republicans on Capitol Hill are legislating it. So, maybe it's not -- if we put the candidate aside for a second, the question of on the policy, are Democrats too afraid to actually embrace some of the things that might be controversial but popular?
MALDONADO: Jamaal, if I may say this, I've seen some of this in California, and they went after the millionaires. They went after the billionaires. Sylvester Stallone now lives in Florida. Mark Wahlberg lives you know where. Elon Musk is gone. Larry Ellison's gone. They're all gone. And now we have a hole this big on our budget. So --
PHILLIP: Are they really all gone?
MALDONADO: They're gone from California. They're still in our country. They're just not paying us in California.
SHORT: But why are we losing him as an example. I'm just telling you --
MALDONADO: He's the guy that went after the one percenters.
SHORT: Trump is a unique figure and he's won twice. But one of the reasons he won is because how radical Democrat Party has become. And we could just call this, you know, government services. That's like saying the Soviet Union provide government service --
BOWMAN: The government's responsible for providing basic needs.
PHILLIP: But I want to be honest. Like is that really why Donald Trump won?
UNKNOWN: No. Yes. Correct.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Because Democrat -- look. I think on social issues and on immigration. But when you talk about populist policy, okay, what is the government doing when it comes to giving things to people?
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Trump is literally --
(CROSSTALK)
MARC SHORT, FORMER WH LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS DIRECTOR, TRUMP ADMINISTRATION: You can't just -- PHILLIP: Trump is running --
SHORT: -- social issues.
PHILLIP: But Trump --
(CROSSTALK)
SHORT: You can't just dismiss it.
PHILLIP: No, no, no. But I'm talking --
SHORT: He's just putting it aside.
PHILLIP: Trump is running on -- he's running on handouts. He is saying we're going to make --
ABEL MALDONADO (R) FORMER CALIFORNIA LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR: No tax on tips.
PHILLIP: Yeah. All of those -- all of those things. And now,
(CROSSTALK)
MALDONADO: No tax on Social Security. No tax on overtime.
PHILLIP: Republicans are legislating those things, and they don't care how much it costs. So, is it really --
SHORT: I think that what's --
PHILLIP: -- about giveaways from the left or --
SHORT: I do you think, as my friend (inaudible) Democrat, is -- is -- has told me and I think he's exactly right in this. The debates become less right versus left and it's front versus back. Both parties are trying to say, we're protecting the grievances. Whoever's the most grievances, we're going to solve that with more government interaction. And I think that that's -- that does not lead us to success.
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: But in part also, Trump won because he was --
SHORT: Politically, I don't think he's --
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: -- he was -- in 2016, he was going up against what, 14, 15, mostly, establishment candidate who didn't take him seriously until it was too late. He was also judged by a different stick than most mortals are. I don't think any other politician that I know of could have gotten elected after we heard him boast of sexual assault on tape and video, but he did.
So, you know, I mean, and -- and, yes, I think he does you know, he was able to tap into what the base was feeling in a way that the establishment politicians simply missed.
PHILLIP: All right. Let's -- let's put a pin in this for just a second. We'll be right back. But another angle to this is some of the racist rhetoric, frankly, from the right. How MAGA stars are now delivering Islamophobic attacks on Mamdani over his win, including some in Congress and the White House.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:36:29]
PHILLIP: After state assemblyman, Zohran Mamdani delivered that major upset in the New York City mayoral race, MAGA World responded with an onslaught of racist and Islamophobic attacks against him. Ultra right- wing influencers like Laura Loomer and Charlie Kirk tried to tie him to a new 9-11.
We're also hearing from elected lawmakers like Congresswoman Nancy Mace who invoked 9-11, while her GOP colleague, Marjorie Taylor Greene, posted this doctored image of the Statue of Liberty and Trump adviser Steven Miller. Well, he mentioned a failure to, quote, "control migration." He says that this is the reason why we have, Zoran Mamdani as likely the Democratic Primary winner. I think the question for me about this is, will this all just backfire?
DAN KOH, FORMER WH DEPUTY CABINET SECRETARY UNDER PRESIDENT BIDEN: I think this is just one of another example of a trend of the Trump administration and his proxies othering people with their language, right? You saw, Vice President call Senator Padilla "Jose Padilla" intentionally.
You saw President Trump has previously asked Asian staffers, where are you really from? Matt Walsh, another -- another proxy for President Trump, made an implication that because of significant percentage of foreign -- of people in New York are foreign-born, that it's not an American city anymore.
This is an administration that has vilified the word diversity. So, for some reason, this administration has forgotten that the bedrock of our society is immigration and new Americans. It's not just multi- general Americans. It's everybody coming together to make the diversity of our country special. And this dog whistle and this signaling is candidly disgusting and has no place in America.
PHILLIP: Mamdani was, on MSNBC tonight, and he actually responded to some of this. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D) NEW YORK MAYORAL CANDIDATE: It's sad in that in one sense, it's unsurprising. In another, it is still deeply disappointing to see what politics has become in this moment. To have to deal with regular death threats where I'm told that someone is going to blow up my car and is going to kill me and my family and the people that I love. And --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I -- I just -- I mean, frankly, it's like, okay. You disagree with his policies, disagree with his policies. Why is it that the number one line of attack against him on the right is that he's Muslim?
SHORT: I don't know if that is number one attack, Abby. I mean, I think in our conversation tonight, we've been focused pretty much on the policy.
PHILLIP: I mean, you have. I'm not talking about you. Look, you're invited to this table. I'm talking about the people who, as we just showed, that -- that is what they say. He's a Muslim. He's an immigrant. This is what makes him unacceptable.
SHORT: I'm not going to sit here and condone it, Abby. I think the reality though is --
JAMAAL BOWMAN (D) FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE, NEW YORK: Do you condemn it?
SHORT: Yeah. Sure. And I -- but I think there's performative artists on both sides -- in both sides of politics today, and -- and as -- as intolerable as some of the rhetoric is, the reality is that the last two assassination attempts on Donald Trump were from leftist.
Assassination attempts on Brett Kavanaugh is from leftist. So, we condemn the -- the rhetoric on the right, but it seems like it's always focused on the right, and actually not focused on the actions on the left.
BOWMAN: You know, two elected officials in Minnesota were killed. They were Democrats. That wasn't an assassination attempt.
(CROSSTALK)
SHORT: Yeah, and I think it's still--
BOWMAN: They were killed.
SHORT: They were killed.
BOWMAN: Hold on. Let me finish.
SHORT: It's not a question about -- about the motive of the person who did it.
BOWMAN: These were two Democratic elected officials in Minnesota who were killed. The Tree of Life Synagogue shooting, killed. Christ Church, New Zealand, slaughtered. AME Church in South Carolina --
NAVARRO: Josh Shapiro --
BOWMAN: On and on and on.
SHORT: Catholic -- BOWMAN: This is America.
SHORT: Catholic Pro-life Ministry is bombed.
[22:40:00]
We are not dealing with America's original sin and its disease of hate and racism towards black and brown people, and sexism towards women, and anti-LGBTQ sentiment. We are not dealing with that. Your colleagues in the Republican Party do not hold each other accountable when it comes to the racism that comes from the party on a consistent basis.
SHORT: Congressman, I mean, where are you on -- assassination attempts?
(CROSSTALK)
BOWMAN: You can't be calm about this. I'm a black man in America. The reason why heart disease --
(CROSSTALK)
SHORT: I'm white. I can't come out of it?
(CROSSTALK)
BOWMAN: Listen to what I'm saying. The reason why heart disease and cancer and obesity and diabetes are bigger in the black community is because of the stress we carry from having to deal with being called the N word directly or indirectly every day. If --if your colleagues would listen and try to learn and engage and grow, and stop being so hateful, we could have a better country.
MALDONADO: Jamaal --
BOWMAN: But unfortunately, we're still here.
MALDONADO: Jamaal --
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: The hate is coming from one side.
MALDONADO: Jamaal, I feel your passion and I understand where you're coming from sincerely. I really, really do. It happens on both sides, Jamaal. You might think it happens more on your side?
(CROSSTALK)
MALDONADO: Jamaal, Jamaal, when I leave the show --
BOWMAN: We have --
MALDONADO: Jamaal, when I leave the show, when I leave the show, Jamaal, you should see my Twitter feed. I mean. (CROSSTALK)
BOWMAN: And they're acquitted. Rodney King, Abner Louima, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, black cops in Memphis. It's not the same and I don't -- I don't want to qualify or quantify pain. That's not what I'm talking about. Everyone goes through pain. But the racism in this country is the disease that will destroy us, and it's destroying us right now as we speak.
MALDONADO: You're a divided -- 100 percent.
BOWMAN: January 6th. Everybody was pardoned. Everybody's pardoned. Riots in L.A., they're insurrectionists. But we pardon everyone in January 6th.
SHORT: But Congressman, I was there in January 6th. I was evacuated in January 6th. That was not a racist incident. I don't know why you're -- you're making that connection.
BOWMAN: There were men who's walking through the Capitol with a Confederate flag.
SHORT: I was there. I was evacuated, Congressman.
BOWMAN: What does the confederate flag represent?
SHORT: Come on, Congressman.
BOWMAN: I'm asking you a question.
SHORT: This was not -- this was -- this was about a riot in the Capitol.
BOWMAN: When you suggest --
(CROSSTALK)
BOWMAN: -- the wooden cross in American history, what does that mean? Google black lynchings in the South and watch the images that come up with black people hanging from trees and white people looking and eating sandwiches. This is America whether we deal with it or not.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: OK. Let me -- let me --
(CROSSTALK)
BOWMAN: Why are you in denial?
SHORT: Stop it. I'm not saying --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Let me -- let me let Marc respond.
SHORT: You fought among yourself to free slaves.
PHILLIP: So, I mean, but what are you suggesting, Marc? I mean, I think, listen. I --I don't think it's helpful to be in a sort of pain Olympics around this stuff, right? However, I think it is both true that there is a lot of racist violence in this country today -- political violence in this country today.
The political violence does some -- sometimes target people on the left, sometimes it targets people on the right. But, I mean, I -- I don't think it's helpful to sit here and be like, well, it's more on the left because I actually don't even think that that's true.
UNKNOWN: I'm not saying that, Abby.
PHILLIP: I mean, I think we've seen -- we've seen plenty of examples of political violence coming from the right and I think acknowledging that is part of what the conversation is about.
SHORT: I did not acknowledge that. I've condemned it, as well. My point is that it seems like we can constantly focus on the rhetoric on the right when there have been significant actions of assassination attempts against Republican conservatives that get less --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Right, I mean I heard you say that but I think his point was, you're saying that it's about rhetoric on the right. He is saying that there has actually been violence on the right, and you cannot minimize it to just rhetoric when we've seen the violence.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: That's the point that he was trying to make.
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: But also, Marc, I think we need hold -- I think we need to hold elected officials, and people in public office to a different standard, right? They have a bigger bully pulpit. And what we see, like for example, let's talk about what's happening with ICE right now. All over the country, a lot of it in L.A.
You know, there's hundreds of thousands, over a million white people who overstayed their visa and are here undocumented. But I don't see ICE going to where the Russians are in North Miami Beach. I see them going to the Home Depots. I see them going to the farms. I see them going to the places where hardworking Latino brown immigrants are that they can easily spot. I see them stopping Latino U.S. citizens because they think they might be undocumented.
I see them stopping and detaining Latino legal permanent residents because they think that they might be undocumented. I see them beating the head of the father of three U.S. Marines on the ground repeatedly as they detain him -- a Latino man.
And so, that is racism. What's happening right now by the administration is racial profiling against the Latino community.
(CROSSTALK)
SHORT: That is -- that is --
NAVARRO: We are being hunted down in the streets.
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: A huge number of --
PHILLIP: Dan.
SHORT: The officers are Latino. You know that.
NAVARRO: I know that.
KOH: The assassination attempts --
[22:45:00]
NAVARRO: It's -- it's incredibly painful.
KOH: The assassination attempts on Donald Trump were deplorable, and the people who did it should face justice. No one asked what religion they were and tried to blame the entire people who belong to that faith on what that person did. There are two billion Muslims in this world.
The notion that we're stereotyping -- and by the way, it wasn't just a new 9-11. Charlie Kirk said -- tried to tie him to 9-11, right? And it just brings up so -- as an Arab American, it brings up so much feelings of otherness and the pain that people felt after the Islamophobic attacks that continue to this day that so many minority groups are feeling.
It just continues to trigger people with all of the kind of language that we're hearing from this administration. And it just isn't stopping. And it's the role of President Trump to lower the temperature, and the city just keeps hiking.
PHILLIP: And Mamdani is an immigrant and the -- the whole Stephen Miller of it all. I mean, he is essentially saying that because a Muslim immigrant can win an election in this country, that is a sign of how broken the country is.
MALDONADO: That's wrong because, I mean, that's just wrong. And I say that with all heart because Muslims, Jewish Catholics, I mean, we can go on -- voted for Mamdani yesterday. A lot across the board voted for him. So, this notion that if you are -- if you are -- if you're not a Muslim you can't be voting for --
(CROSSTALK)
MALDONADO: But Abby, Abby, I personally feel like it starts at the bottom, Abby. I really do. I mean, I've been to a couple T-ball games. Two parents argue over call it a T-ball game, and it just -- they want to fight, and it seems like everybody wants to fight, and that's a challenge. And --
(CROSSTALK)
MALDONADO: I don't know -- I don't if it's just Trump's rhetoric.
BOWMAN: Well, I don't want to fight. I just want to chill. I just want to not -- I was in -- I was walking down the street the other day, some white dude, bald head tipped. He looked me, called me a piece of shit to my face, said, I'm going to get what's coming to me. Why do I deal with that, dog? In Yonkers, New York.
NAVARRO: Well, can I tell you something?
BOWMAN: I'm not making that up.
NAVARRO: Stephen Miller needs to remember that the current first lady of The United States is also an immigrant.
PHILLIP: I mean, Donald Trump --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Donald Trump's grandparents were immigrants.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I mean, listen. I mean, I don't know who said it, but -- but we're all immigrants.
MALDONADO: Right.
PHILLIP: Right?
(CROSSTALK)
MALDONADO: What's really sad, Abby --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Exactly.
UNKNOWN: That's exactly different.
(CROSSTALK)
MALDONADO: Immigration reform is really easy to fix. Ana was involved in this early on. It's really easy to fix. Both parties don't want to do it. They don't want to do it. They use it as a football, and look what happens.
PHILLIP: Well --
MALDONADO: It really is. Give them a temporary work. I can go to Starbucks right now and get my credit card approved in 15 seconds. Why can't a worker have a card that says they're legally here to work and check it out in 15 seconds? Why?
PHILLIP: The -- the -- in this race, obviously in New York because of the issue of the -- the conflict in Gaza, Mamdani's stances on Israel are a -- a big part of the race, right?
NAVARRO: Well, because there's -- there's what, almost a million.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Yeah. More -- more Jews in New York than any place except for Israel, right? But it also seems that he can't ever fully address them because the fact of his being a Muslim is being used as evidence that he is anti-Semitic in this race right now. And I'm not sure that that's going to float with a lot of the New Yorkers who voted for him, who have complex views on this and don't want to be labeled as anti- Semitic.
NAVARRO: You know, if, I mean, if I, if I was a MAGA person --
(LAUGHTER)
NAVARRO: I can't even say it. But anyways, it -- I actually think I'd -- I'd shut up and let Mamdani hop in, right? Because if you're -- if you're a Republican and you think that he is as big a disaster as Republicans and -- and MAGA thinks he is, then the best thing that can happen to the Republican party and to the MAGA movement is for the -- the mayor of the biggest, most visible city in the world, New York City, to be the things he says he -- he is. So, what are you so afraid of with, you know --
PHILLIP: That -- that's a good question. I mean, they are dabbling in it.
(CROSSTALK)
SHORT: I don't know --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: It'll be interesting to see --
(CROSSTALK)
SHORT: -- and address Jewish issues because he's Muslim, Abby.
PHILLIP: I'm not saying that.
(CROSSTALK)
SHORT: You did say it just a minute ago.
PHILLIP: No. No.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I'm saying -- no, hold on, hold on. Let me -- let me just speak. Let me just --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Hold on.
(CROSSTALK)
SHORT: -- out there --
(CROSSTALK)
SHORT: -- those comments.
PHILLIP: I just want to be clear because I don't -- I don't want you to misunderstand me. What I was saying was that one of the accusations against him, not by me, but by other people is that because he is Muslim, he does not understand, you know, the feelings of Jewish New Yorkers, et cetera. Not --that's not my view. That's what other people say about him.
NAVARRO: And I think a lot of people hold that view. I mean, I -- I have a lot of friends who -- this morning -- told me they held their nose and voted for Cuomo because they thought he was an anti-Semite. If that is not accurate, and I don't -- I don't live in this in this city. I think it's something he needs to address.
BOWMAN: But the point that was also made is no matter how many times he has addressed it, and he has addressed it multiple times.
[22:50:01]
He is still painted as an anti-Semite because he happens to be a brown person who is Muslim, and he can never have the empathy. Even though he says, I'm for human rights, we're increasing funding for to fight anti-Semitism and anti-hate, and I meet my Jewish New Yorkers in their communities --
PHILLIP: All right.
BOWMAN: -- and we fight together. He -- he said this.
PHILLIP: Everyone, thank you very much for joining us tonight. Up next for us, who came up with the famous phrase that describes our nation today? According to the White House, it's probably Donald Trump. We'll show you.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:55:12]
PHILLIP: President Trump and his allies have the habit of throwing out nicknames or phrases and then passing them off as his own, except that many times they're not.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Nobody knows what it means to --to accomplish peace through strength better than President Trump. He --he is the one who came up with that motto and that foreign policy doctrine, and he successfully implemented it in his first term.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: The White House, of all places, says Trump is the one that came up with that motto?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RONALD REAGAN, 40TH U.S. PRESIDENT: We've heard the phrase, "Peace through strength" so often. Its meaning has become blurred through overuse. A time has come for America to recall once more the basic truths behind the familiar words.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: A phrase so common that even Reagan called it familiar and overused a half century ago. And since we're talking Reagan, Donald Trump in his first term was once impressed with his usage of "prime the pump" when talking about taxes, claiming credit. Quote, "I just came up with it a couple days ago, and I thought it was good."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REAGAN: The lesson of these failed policies is clear. I've said this before, you can't drink yourself sober, or spend yourself rich, and you can't prime the pump without pumping the prime.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, as we talk about trust during a crisis, exaggerations and lies, big or small, and which words are used can make or break one's credibility. We'll be back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
