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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Says He Doesn't Know Who Ordered Ukraine Weapons Pause; Trump Turns On Putin, Claiming He's Had Enough Of Him And His Antics; MAGA Outraged With DOJ's Epstein Findings; ICE, National Guard Descend On L.A.'s MacArthur Park; Trump Insists No More Extensions After August 1 Tariff Deadline. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired July 08, 2025 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST (voice over): Tonight, is the bromance over?
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: We got a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin?
PHILLIP: Trump sends more supplies to Ukraine and privately fumes at aides who tried to stop it.
TRUMP: I don't know. What don't you tell me?
PHILLIP: What does that mean for the war torn country?
Plus, MAGA backlash, the Epstein list that wasn't causes a rift between Trump and his base.
Also, ICE comes out in force at a public park? Souped up immigration enforcement prompts fury in L.A. as one cabinet member sees a new future for the American farm industry.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The answer on this is automation.
PHILLIP: And Trump really means it this time.
TRUMP: That didn't make a change.
PHILLIP: As the world and Wall Street shrugs, is anyone taking his latest tariff deadlines seriously?
Live at the table, Shermichael Singleton, Kelly Jane Torrance, Tiffany Cross and Julia Roginsky.
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. Trump is fed up with Putin. During his cabinet meeting today, he lashed out at the Russian president over the ongoing war in Ukraine.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth. He's very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: It is a remarkable reversal for Trump, especially since the president has long boasted about their bromance over the years.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: So now I like Putin. Now, Putin called me a genius, by the way.
They asked me, is Putin smart? Yes, Putin was smart.
I mean, Putin and I got along well.
He's a very smart guy.
I've always had a good relationship with Putin.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: And in yet another stunning shift, Trump said that he plans to send new weapons to Ukraine just a week after his own administration slammed the brakes on certain shipments. It was a move that Trump says he was not responsible for.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Putin is not -- he's not treating human beings. He's killing too many people. So, we're sending some defensive weapons to Ukraine and I've approved that.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: So, who ordered the pause last week?
TRUMP: I don't know. What don't you tell me?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, who was behind the pause? Well, sources tell CNN Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth authorized it but he didn't inform the White House in advance. And that has set off a scramble inside the administration to figure out what exactly happened here.
In a statement, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt backed up Trump's decision to send the weapons to Ukraine and added, quote, the president has full confidence in the secretary of defense. Joining us in our fifth seat at the table, Elise Labott, Edward R. Murrow press fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the host of Cosmopolitics on Substack. And as they say, if you have to say it, then, I don't know, maybe there's really a problem here.
The CNN reporting on this continues to say that Trump did not specifically direct Hegseth to halt weapons shipments to Ukraine as part of the review. According to three sources, that recommendation came from the undersecretary of defense for policy, Elbridge Colby. All five sources said, who has long been skeptical of sending large quantities of U.S. military aid to Ukraine.
Two parts of this are super interesting, one, that the pause happened and Trump didn't know about it, and, two, that Trump actually wants to send weapons to Ukraine.
ELISE LABOTT, EDWARD R. MURROW PRESS FELLOW, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Right. Well, there's a couple of things going on right now. First of all, Hegseth, I mean, is this going to finally be the moment where, you know, they can say that they have all the confidence in the world, but it's pretty clear that he doesn't. And it's pretty clear that any time there's some kind of national security crisis or emergency, Hegseth is behind it. This guy didn't have a lot of experience coming in.
He apparently thought it would be okay because this is in line with President Trump's America First policies. And that's the larger problem, that there is no kind of interagency process that's working well where President Trump talks with his advisers, they talk it out, they make recommendations, and then the president makes a decision.
[22:05:00]
And so I think a lot of people are doing what they think the president wants to do, or they're doing what they want to do because they know he is not paying attention, and President Trump really needs to get control of his cabinet.
PHILLIP: Because the whiplash is wild.
LABOTT: Yes. And it has national security implications.
PHILLIP: Shermichael, it is -- I mean, I think Trump obviously took the reins of it after the fact. But the fact that a decision of this magnitude was made and he wasn't even aware of it is stunning.
SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You know, it is interesting and I think you could tell there was some frustration in the president's response when Kaitlan Collins asked that question.
You asked a question about why has the president's posture changed on Russia, in general, and I'm willing to bet it's because of a litany of international successes that some probably would have argued months ago they wouldn't have foreseen. You see the facilitation of the DRC and Rwanda conflict coming to some type of an end, the strike against Iran and their lack of a retaliation against the United States, that appears to be moving in the right direction.
Hopefully, soon, we'll have a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, which I would imagine many individuals who have been calling for that, including many on the Democratic side, will probably applaud.
And so I think Trump is looking at this, wanting to figure out how can I resolve this conflict. I think -- I don't think Putin wants a World War III. You correct me if I'm wrong. I don't think he necessarily wants an end to his regime.
And so I think if you give him leeway, he will take it. But I think if we continue to supply Ukraine with munitions defensively, I think if you also put sanctions on Russia economically to constrict economic growth, then I do think you'd make this a lot more challenging.
LABOTT: I don't think that's going to happen, and I'll tell you why. Because I think the policy is really about how President Trump feels about Putin at any given time. When he is high on Putin, he doesn't support Ukraine. When Putin doesn't do things the way he wants them to, and it looks like Iran was, and Israel was and the others were, then he gets mad at Putin.
I mean, I don't think he really sees this in a strategic way about, you know, U.S. leadership in Europe. This is about whether Putin can toe the line with Trump or not?
SINGLETON: But would you agree with --
LABOTT: I don't think Putin wants World War III, but at the same time, I don't think that he's going to give an inch to Trump. He's testing Trump to see how far he will go. I think Trump will give defensive weapons to Ukraine. I don't think he'll put sanctions on --
SINGLETON: But we should, right?
PHILLIP: Hold on. Let me let Kelly --
LABOTT: We should, but I don't think --
PHILLIP: Let me let Kelly respond.
KELLY JANE TORRANCE, EDITOR-AT-LARGE, NEW YORK POST: I disagree in that Trump's policy is based on how he feels about Putin.
LABOTT: There's no policy.
TORRANCE: What we're doing again, and this has happened in this first term and it's happening a lot again, is we're paying all of the attention to Trump's words and not waiting for the actions. And, yes --
TIFFANY CROSS, AUTHOR, SAY IT LOUDER!: He's the president of the United States.
TORRANCE: He said --
LABOTT: His actions have been erotic -- erratic.
TORRANCE: And I've been very worried about what he said about Ukraine. I was there two years ago. I was, you know, in Kharkiv, which is, you know, not even 20 miles from Russia. I know a lot of people that I keep in touch with them every day. I've been very concerned. But what he's trying to do has been to negotiate. And, of course, he's going to say one thing and I think what's happened is he's finally realized that Putin is not going to do it.
But I do think what we need is a fall guy for what's going on here. Whether it'll be Pete Hegseth, I'm not so sure. Will it be Elbridge Colby? It took them so long and they, it was a big fight to get them confirmed. Maybe it'll be Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg who also okayed the decision.
PHILLIP: Here's one, just one. Since you brought up Elbridge Colby, I think it's worth noting that the vice president of the United States is one of the biggest, if not the biggest of supporters of Colby, but also opponents of aide to Ukraine. So, this is not some sort of ideology that's coming out of nowhere. It's coming -- the call is coming from inside the House. It's in the White House right now and Colby as his guy in the Pentagon.
JULIE ROGINSKY, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: There are a couple of things happening. First of all, Trump is what the Russians will call, (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE), which means a useful idiot in Russian.
SINGLETON: You speak Russian?
ROGINSKY: I do. I was born there, and actually I can tell you everything there is to know about the Russian mentality. And so let me tell you about the Russian mentality right now, so somebody who comes from the former Soviet Union.
Vladimir Putin cannot afford to lose this war. Vladimir Putin cannot afford to be embarrassed in this war. Because much like the czars before him and Mikhail Gorbachev, who pulled the Russians out of Afghanistan, he understands that the collapse of his regime will be predicated on losing face in front of his people.
The only way he survives as leader of the Russian Federation is if he can somehow create some sort of winning narrative for this war.
LABOTT: But Trump is trying to do that.
ROGINSKY: And Trump -- so what I'm trying to say is --
PHILLIP: Or at least he was. I mean, I guess that's a question right now is --
ROGINSKY: And the problem is this. The United States Congress the sign that especially by a vast, vast, vast, vast, vast margin, bipartisan margin wants to please sanctions on Russia. Trump has --
SINGLETON: We have to.
ROGINSKY: We have to.
SINGLETON: We've got no choice. We have to.
ROGINSKY: Trump has said consistently that he will not do that. And, in fact, he said that I read the Russian media to see what they're saying. In fact, they're saying that Trump is kind of saying, it's my decision, it's not theirs and I'm not going to do it.
(CROSSTALKS)
[22:10:00]
ROGINSKY: Okay. But to your point, but to your point, there is no strategy, whether he's weakened or he hasn't weakened. There's no Trump doctrine when it comes to Russia, right? And what's going to happen is that Putin's going to show up, he's going to say to Trump, you're a genius, you are -- he's going to flatter him to death. And Trump is going to flip again and say, Zelenskyy is a bum and he doesn't deserve our weapons, and so on and so forth. Because the problem with Trump is whoever the last person it is that is in his ear --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Hold on. Let me just make one note. I mean, because it is all -- it is sometimes who speaks to him last. It is also public opinion on this stuff. He knows where his base is. Republicans despite 63 to 34 margin, oppose providing weapons and aid to Ukraine. That political momentum against this war is one of the things that Donald Trump rode into the White House. And the reaction from MAGA world has been swift over the last 24 hours.
I did not vote for this, says one person. What the actual F, I did not vote for this. So, Trump's just said, we're going to support funding Ukraine's proxy war now? The White House announced they're going to send more weapons to Ukraine. This is -- the question is going to be how much of this politics is going to permeate Trump's mind (ph).
LABOTT: Okay. But we were talking the last time I was here about, is Trump running MAGA or is MAGA running Trump?
PHILLIP: That's a good question.
LABOTT: And if you see what happened with Iran and everyone in MAGA world was like, oh, I didn't sign up for this on Iran, and President Trump beat them back and said, you want to Iran to have a nuclear weapon? And all of a sudden Steve Baton and all those people came around and said, you know what --
(CROSSTALKS)
CROSS: Can I just say, yes, because I think when you say, is Trump running MAGA or is MAGA running Trump, I think it depends on who it is. Because he can threaten members of Congress, he can say, oh, I'll primary you if you don't do what I want. But his base, the willfully ignorant base that sings his praises no matter what he does, I think those people are -- they do have some influence with him. The fact that Laura Loomer, the extreme right wing extremist can influence his foreign policy should be scary.
I think Pete Hegseth, the fact that we're discussing whether or not who canceled this and win shows that there is a lack of solidarity among --
LABOTT: This cabinet meeting (ph).
CROSS: And discipline and how that looks on the global stage. He keeps threatening that he's going to sanction Russia. When? When has he ever done that?
LABOTT: Well, he is saying maybe now that they will sanction countries. That support --
CROSS: Which is very different though.
LABOTT: That support, it's different, but I think that might be as far as he's going.
CROSS: But when you look at what Biden did before he left office, he actually imposed sanctions. He sanctioned Russian oil. He had a $50 billion --
(CROSSTALKS)
ROGINSKY: It got them -- wait a second. It cut a tremendous amount of money, the Russians. It destroyed the Russian economy.
TORRANCE: Imagine if President Biden had sent F-16s at the very beginning.
ROGINSKY: I agree.
TORRANCE: This should look very different.
ROGINSKY: I agree. I will also say this to you. I will also say this to you. The Russian economy was teetering. And if Biden had stayed in and those sanctions had stayed in and have been strengthened, the Russian economy probably would be on the verge of collapse right now, and that's not happening.
(CROSSTALKS)
LABOTT: Trump kind of respects Zelenskyy at this point. He said today, he goes, well, no matter what you think it's unfair or fair that we gave them those weapons, those people are fighting hard.
SINGLETON: No. I think there's something about his ethos that respects sort of that warrior mentality. I think the question for many Republicans is not necessarily should we support Ukrainians against the Russians, it's for how long. What is that cost going to be? What is the clear strategy?
And I even had some critiques under the previous administration. I support supporting Ukraine. We should do that. I'm very anti-Russian. And that's historically been the posture of the United States for several presidents.
ROGINSKY: And your party.
SINGLETON: But until when, and that's the clear strategy that we're sort of lack.
PHILLIP: I think that some Republicans are asking that, but many Republicans are also saying, we should not be arming Ukraine, period.
So, that is also -- all right we got to leave this conversation there. Elise Labott, thank you very much for joining us for that.
Up next for us, MAGA slamming the Trump administration after the Justice Department contradicted conspiracy theories about the convicted pedophile, Jeffrey Epstein.
Plus, backlash in Los Angeles after ICE agents flanked by armed National Guard members descended on a famous public park. We'll discuss.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:15:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, MAGA is calling for accountability and answers after DOJ's memo asserted that convicted sex offender and multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein did not blackmail high-profile individuals, was not murdered, and, in fact, had no client list to speak of. For years, Trump allies have sought evidence of a conspiracy tying influential figures to the deceased financier's crimes. And after quickly embracing those theories after she was confirmed, Pam Bondi is now under fire for failing to deliver on her promise to release the damning evidence.
Elon Musk fanned the conspiracy flames on X today, calling out the administration, Pam Bondi and Donald Trump by name. Trump, though he's shrugging it off.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy's been talked about for years. You're asking -- we have Texas, we have this, we have all of the things. And are people still talking about this guy, this creep? That is unbelievable.
I mean, I can't believe you're asking a question on Epstein at a time like this, where we're having some of the greatest success and also tragedy with what happened in Texas. It just seems like a desecration.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Joining us at the table now is Dylan Ratigan. He's a strategic adviser at the trading platform, Tasty Trade, and chairman of Helical Holdings. [22:20:04]
DYLAN RATIGAN, CEO, EUFORIA SNEAKERS: Well, that's from 15 years ago. I couldn't believe I'd show up.
PHILLIP: I know. I read that and I was like, little did I know.
RATIGAN: I am the CEO of Euforia Sneakers from Mont, Italy. Thank you very much.
PHILLIP: All right. All right, Dylan.
RATIGAN: If we're going to talk about my companies, let's talk about the ones that I have. Anyway, it's nice to see you all. Thank you for having me.
PHILLIP: What are they -- are they talking about this in Italy? I'm just kidding. I mean, the reason people are talking about Epstein is not because we want to talk about Epstein. Lord knows I don't want to talk about him. Donald Trump's supporters want to talk about Epstein. And Donald Trump's cabinet members, they went, for years, talking about how they were -- the deep state was withholding this information. They were going to release it. Pam Bondi, in her job, said she was going to release it. So, I don't know. I mean, I guess is this just the natural consequence of fanning the flames.
RATIGAN: I think you have two completely different issues. One, you have the issue, obviously there's a list. It's impossible for this to exist and for there not to be a list. Obviously, they're never going to release the list ever because the list compromises too many people with too much power. So --
CROSS: What do you think is on that list?
RATIGAN: Names of people that were having sex with underage women, being -- running around with Jeffrey Epstein in the party voice (ph).
TORRANCE: I think he needed a list of it though?
RATIGAN: I don't think you -- no, I don't think you need a list, but I think the ability to compile a list is readily available by virtue of flight records.
PHILLIP: Meaning not a list Epstein could --
RATIGAN: It's doesn't mean Epstein's list, but I'm telling you that if you wanted to create a list of the people that were involved, it would be very easy to do. Technology alone makes that happen.
So, I think that it's -- one, this is a comment on power. Power has the ability to prevent information from being disclosed. It always has. It always will. It's also a comment on the culture of sex and power in society, in general. And we've come to a place in the world where sex has become a mechanism of power and exploitation as opposed to love and spirituality. And I think that what you're seeing is a desire to exploit both of these very -- both the primal aspect of trying to acquire power by saying who's on the list, it's you, it's you, it's you, which is the never ending political thing, and also at the same time the manifestation of the debasement of one of the most beautiful acts available to human beings as this sort of degraded mechanism of exploitation.
So, I think that it's attractive to talk about because it has the degradation and it has the ability to acquire power.
ROGINSKY: But I'm sorry, this isn't about sex. Let's be very clear. This is about sex with underage girls, which is --
RATIGAN: It's about sexual exploitation.
ROGINSKY: Well, correct. So, the problem here is not that somebody just cheated on their wife with some consenting adult. This is --
RAITGAN: I'm not --
ROGINSKY: No, I'm not saying this to you, of course, but I'm just simply saying is this is about something much more dangerous than, oh --
RATIGAN: This is about a culture of power and sexual exploitation.
ROGINSKY: Exploitation again of young girls, of young girls. They're not women. They're girls.
RATIGAN: Young girls.
ROGINSKY: And the problem here is that this is not just an embarrassing situation, as in, oh, maybe I slept with an intern who works for me in the White House, like Bill Clinton did, which in and of itself was not right. This is about --
RATIGAN: It's a criminal act.
ROGINSKY: It's a crime. And that's the part that we all have to keep an eye on.
PHILLIP: Look, I don't know if there's a list and I don't know who's on it but if multiple administrations, including Trump, twice, did not release said list, isn't it possible that there are some important reasons why that's the case? And that MAGA doesn't understand that because what they really want the list to say is high-profile Democrats so that they can weaponize it in the political context.
RATIGAN: Or they wanted to beat Trump at the poll, though.
PHILLIP: Well, no, they don't want to be -- they don't want to beat Trump --
RATIGAN: I know. But my the point is the interest in the list is not in protecting women, young girls who are being criminally violated sexually. The interest is to exploit power to acquire power.
CROSS: Yes. So, they dangled this before blood thirsty MAGA sycophants, right? And now that Pam Bondi's saying, oh, well never mind. Who cares? That was just for the campaign, just like all the rest of the B.S. that they said during the campaign. Now all of a sudden this list is the most important thing, and now you see that they're cannibalizing each other because Pam Bondi's like, oh, never mind. Who cares?
I'll be honest with you. This is probably the only time I will ever utter this sentence. I actually kind of agree with Trump about that we're talking about this list, to be honest with you. I do think that there are far more important issues happening currently. I anticipate that there will be Democrats and Republicans on this list that exist. If we want to make it a partisan issue, I think both sides will have egg on their face. If this phantom list ever comes to light, then both sides won't like it.
It seems more for the Beltway press and political, that they're salivating at gossips and not actually trying beltway to address the issues of child exploitation.
PHILLIP: But I have to say, it's not the Beltway press, it's these people, the Benny Johnsons and others of the world. Listen.
[22:25:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BENNY JOHNSON, HOST, THE BENNY SHOW: Right, this is absurd. Pam Bondi was talking about Epstein. Kash was talking about Epstein. Bongino's talking about Epstein. Elon Musk was talking about Epstein. Trump has been talking about Epstein. He started his presidential campaign in 2016 by linking the Clintons to Epstein.
JACK POSOBIEC, HOST, HUMAN EVENTS: She says that we don't need to hear about Jeffrey Epstein ever again. You know what this sounds like? I'm going to tell you exactly what this sounds like. Pam Bondi sounds like Hillary Clinton right now.
TUCKER CARLSON, HOST, THE TUCKER CARLON SHOW: Pam Bondi went on television, said, I have a videotape of kids getting abused.
Where are the rapists? Like why aren't they in jail? What -- this is the Department of Justice.
And I just think it's very dangerous to play around with this stuff, like very dangerous.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, look, you can't be surprised when you -- you know, the face-eating leopard is going to eat faces, okay, like you cannot be surprised when you feed and nurture that, and then it comes back to bite you. SINGLETON: I mean, but bigger than that, we know that Epstein recorded everything, at least from what we've seen in reports. And you're talking about child exploitation, you're talking about abuse of young girls, of young age women. Whether it's Democrats or Republicans, or someone who has a daughter, I want those people locked the hell up. We have a right to know if there are politicians and people in power who participated, who facilitated. Those people should be in prison.
And so regardless of your views of MAGA world or Trump, at a minimum, I would say, as a society, we don't want those people on the streets. I mean, I want to remind people --
PHILLIP: I totally agree.
SINGLETON: -- if you guys recall what, a year or two ago, you think about Bill Gates and his former wife and she was asked about why she divorced him, and one of the reasons listed was because her former husband was hanging out with this guy and she never understood why.
And so why should powerful, wealthy people, whether it's in politics or business, be absolved or being held accountable? I don't agree with at all.
PHILLIP: I don't think anybody suggests --
SINGLETON: No, I'm not saying that. But I'm saying we should know --
RATIGAN: Yes, that's one thing. It's a referendum on power.
CROSS: Right. Everybody --
RATIGAN: Because, obviously, anybody who has this discussion is going to reach the same conclusion, which is sexual rape, criminal exploitation of young girls is a crime. It should -- needs to be resolved. It hasn't been resolved, and it's being covered up. Everybody knows it and nobody can do anything.
TORRANCE: We're all making a lot of assumptions about what information is in there, what is available. I think Pam Bondi made a huge mistake when she did that interview and they asked her, the interview, asked her about the Epstein client list, and she said, it's on my desk. And she said today, oh, I meant the files along with those about RFK.
No, she, I think she was just talking out of her butt and really had no idea.
PHILLIP: She was trying to act like she had the information.
TORRANCE: She was -- well, really, she didn't know anything.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Look, we'd have to go, but, I mean, remember they had all those influencers at the White House and then gave them these folders and then said it was the file. So, I mean --
CROSS: She should be working on prosecuting, not necessarily, you know --
SINGLETON: Yes, I agree, prosecuting the people who may have been involved.
CROSS: The people who may have been involved.
PHILLIP: Up next for us, push back after members of ICE flanked by armed National Guard members descended on a public park in Los Angeles. Another special guest is going to be with us at the table to discuss that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:30:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight, show of force. Video capturing on Monday showing dozens of federal agents in tactical gear flanked by armed members of the National Guard swarming a Los Angeles park, MacArthur Park, in a heavily immigrant neighborhood in the heart of the city. A camera crew could also be seen right there following the operation closely on the ground.
LA's mayor slammed the operation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR KAREN BASS (D), LOS ANGELES: To me, this is another example of the administration rationing up chaos. Frankly, it is outrageous and un-American that we have federal armed vehicles in our parks when nothing is going on in the parks.
What happened to the criminals, the drug dealers, the violent individuals who were in the park today were children. It was their summer camp. They were ushered inside so that they didn't get exposed to the troops that were walking in formation across their playground area.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Joining us at the table is one of the nation's leading voices on immigration rights, Jose Antonio Vargas. He's also the author of "Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen."
Jose, this video, you kind of have to watch it a few times.
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS, YOUTUBE HOST, "DEFINE AMERICAN", AND AUTHOR, "DEAR AMERICA: NOTES OF AN UNDOCUMENTED CITIZEN": I've seen lots of it.
PHILLIP: And you see a lot of different things happening in them, you know, long guns, you're seeing people in tactical gear, you've got the military vehicles on the outskirts. What would be the point of something like this? VARGAS: "Superman" is opening this weekend, right? The movie, I felt
like I was literally watching a movie. I used to live about a mile actually from MacArthur Park. I used to live in downtown L.A.
And to me, one of my favorite columnists at the "L.A. Times," Gustavo Arellano wrote, it was like watching a photo op written in D.C. paid for by taxpayers. That's what that was.
PHILLIP: And it certainly does seem like the photo op was part of the point.
VARGAS: And in L.A., 900,000 undocumented people live in L.A. County. That's the population of South Dakota. That's like all of Indianapolis and Columbus, Ohio, right?
So the reality is, for people in L.A., when you're talking about illegal aliens and criminals, you're actually talking about their neighbors and people they go to school with, their co-workers.
[22:35:07]
So what was fascinating was all the superwomen and supermen who were showing up, recording all of it, telling ICE to get out. I thought that was really encouraging, and Gustavo wrote about that.
The fact that so many people showed up and said, wait a second, like, stop this, stop this.
Including the mayor. And I really, kudos to the mayor, for showing up in that way.
PHILLIP: So Kelly, why would the federal government use the National Guard in this way, even use ICE agents in this way at a time when actually ICE agents are doing what they're being told to do and are being put in situations that are extremely dangerous? And this is ratcheting up that kind of tension in the community as opposed to ratcheting it down.
KELLY JANE TORRANCE, "NEW YORK POST" EDITOR-AT-LARGE: Abby, I think there's a lot of questions that still need to be answered here, and the federal government has not answered them. It has said that the Customs and Border Protection led the operation, and ICE was just there in a supporting role. But I think it's also important to remember that the reason that there were just kids in the park is that flyers went out ahead of time warning that there was going to be a raid in MacArthur Park.
So people were aware--
PHILLIP: Isn't that a reason to not bring, you know, the battalion to the park?
TORRANCE: I'm guessing that the federal -- I'm guessing the federal government didn't see those --
PHILLIP: I guess what I'm saying, like, if you show up at a park and all you see are kids, why would you go forward with the operation? And the people that you, maybe they were, I don't know, they haven't actually said, to your point, they've said virtually nothing about this.
The ICE spokesperson told CNN the agency is not commenting on ongoing operations. We don't know if they were looking for someone. We don't know if they arrested anybody.
But clearly, whoever they were looking for, there was no one there but kids.
TIFFANY CROSS, AUTHOR, "SAY IT LOUDER", AND PODCAST HOST, "NATIVE LAND POD": I think this is the challenge I have with even talking about this. We are normalizing a government agency disappearing people. We are normalizing, we're talking about it like it's no big deal that they are kidnapping people and transporting them to concentration camps, both domestic and foreign.
TORRANCE: I think that's kind of insulting to Jewish Holocaust survivors.
CROSS: It is not insulting to Jewish -- I find it insulting that you could even fix your mouth to defend this disgusting behavior.
TORRANCE: Are there gas goblins at these camps?
CROSS: It doesn't matter. It's a concentration camp what they're doing. And they are disappearing people claiming that these are people who have committed the most harsh crimes. But according to the reporting, less than 10 percent of these people have committed harsh crimes.
So to do the Victim Olympics and decide who had it worse, I can tell you, I can participate in that too. And everybody who says, oh, this is not the America I know, I can guarantee you it is the America I know.
TORRANCE: Let's be absolutely honest.
CROSS: The fact that we're presenting this like it's political fodder that a government agency is disappearing people, it is not a political point. It has nothing to do with Jewish people because despite the fact that 20 percent of immigrants in this country are white, we do not see white people getting carted off to concentration camps.
So if we can just focus on the most people, the people who are harmed the most by this and not make yourself or somebody else the center of attention when that's not who's being impacted by this --
TORRANCE: I'm not Jewish, but I'm saying --
CROSS: -- or anyone else, the center of attention, they don't heighten using that kind of language. I think it's not because this B.S. administration is kidnapping people.
It has nothing to do with my language. It has to do with the actions that are being taken by this administration.
TORRANCE: And how many people have been disappeared that you've never heard from again? And we don't know anything about them or where they've gone.
CROSS: Thousands of people are never heard about them. Where they're going. Nothing really.
Are you a reporter? Are you not a reporter? Yes. Thousands of people, thousands of people
CROSS: -- in El Salvadoran prisons who, you know --
TORRANCE: I'm sorry. I just want to be clear. Are you defending what's happening?
CROSS: I am not defending.
TORRANCE: I'm saying let's be accurate about what's happening.
CROSS: I'm being very accurate. And it is very disgusting what this administration is doing. And ten, five, six months, 20 years from now, I hope that you can look back at this very clip and realize that you are on the wrong side of history.
If you're trying to remotely defend what's happening, there are fathers, mothers and young people who are being carted off to concentration camps. And less than 10 percent of these people have committed any sort of violent crime. They are coming up, people whose kids are in school, they are never to see their family again.
PHILLIP: Let me -- let Jose get a word in and then we've got to get these guys in.
TORRANCE: I do think the administration should focus on pardoned criminals.
PHILLIP: Can I just make, since you just said that, let me just make one note here. Today, this kind of raised my antenna.
The Customs and Border Protection sent this message out on X: "Attention, Green Card Holders. Under our nation's laws, our government has the authority to revoke your green card if our laws are broken and abused."
Also noted here that if you present at a port of entry with previous criminal convictions, you may be subject to mandatory detention.
VARGAS: This is the panic. This is the fear. And I have to say, by the way, this is what it means when you have now in the next four years, $170 billion of taxpayer money will be spent on enforcing all of this.
[22:40:05]
And for what? And as you just pointed out, they're going after nannies. They're going after Home Depot. They're going after college students.
We've had two dreamers arrested in traffic stops, one in Colorado and one in Georgia. Like, what are we doing?
CROSS: And they're dressing up as ICE agents. We've had three examples of people dressing up as ICE agents, kidnapping people. None of us should be.
SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR AND REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: I'm looking at this through two lenses. You do have to get rid of hardened criminals. I think everybody would agree with that.
Individuals who may not be hard criminals, but came into the country without going through the appropriate process. There needs to be a recourse to rectify that. Now, in the past, Republicans had the mindset maybe 20 years ago that those people should pay a fine or something, a very steep fine.
I would be willing to entertain that argument again. I think you've got to figure this out. And even the President, I think a week ago, because of the impacts on certain markets, was saying, well, individuals in farming or in hospitality, we may make exceptions.
So clearly there's a recognition of the implications of this. I think we've got to explore that a bit more.
PHILLIP: We do have to go, but I just want to note.
CROSS: 86 percent of fentanyl that crosses the border comes from American citizens.
PHILLIP: I just want to note, as you brought up agricultural workers, they're walking that back, now saying that we're just going to replace immigrants with A.I. and Medicaid recipients. So that's the new.
VARGAS: Can you replace the country's farmers who are undocumented with A.I.? How does that work? To your point, though, one thing that we have to talk about, how do we have a country where there's no undocumented people? That's what we should be talking about.
What are the actual solution to this instead of throwing billions of dollars of money to a problem that we've been having for decades?
SINGLETON: I think both sides could probably figure that out.
PHILLIP: Jose Antonio Vargas, thank you very much for joining us.
When is this tariff deadline an extension and not an extension? Apparently when Trump says so. We'll show you the shifting deadlines on tape, that's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:45:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) PHILLIP: Tonight, President Trump channels his inner Obi-Wan Kenobi when it comes to his tariff plan. He told reporters that these aren't the deadlines you're looking for.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: What incentives do countries have to negotiate? It seems that deadline keeps moving.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We didn't move, no. It's always been August 1st, that's when we're paying.
A statement was put out today and I put it out just to make it clear it wasn't a change. It was August 1st. We don't change very much.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Changes aren't just a piece of Trump's tariff plan. It has basically been a feature. Just take a look at what officials said about the larger strategy back in April.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: This is not a negotiation. This is a national emergency.
PETE NAVARRO, SR. COUNSELOR TO THE PRESIDENT FOR TRADE AND MANUFACTURING: Let me make this very clear. This is not a negotiation, this is not that, this is a national emergency.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: While Trump didn't even wait a full day before contradicting them saying this later that night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Tariffs give us great power to negotiate. Always have.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Dylan Ratigan is back with us. He is the CEO of Euforia Sneakers and "New York Times" bestselling author of "Greedy Bastards" and co-host of the podcast "Truth or Skepticism" on tastylive.
Okay, we got it right this time.
CROSS: I am going to be impacted by these tariffs.
DYLAN RATIGAN, CEO, EUFORIA SNEAKERS, AUTHOR, "GREEDY BASTARDS", AND PODCAST HOST, "TRUTH OR SKEPTICISM" ON TASTYLIVE: I am going to be impacted by these tariffs.
PHILLIP: The tariffs are coming for you. However, you may not know what the tariffs will be because they change all the time.
RATIGAN: I do not know. So here's the thing with the tariffs. We all watched this in April.
The tariffs were announced. The tariffs lasted, I think, a week. The tariffs were then they kicked the can to July, then they kicked the can to August.
But really what happened was in the middle of April, the bond market flipped upside down and said this will not stand. And the bond market is more powerful than the President of the United States or the President of the world or anybody else.
And so after the financial markets saw the bond market intervene and say no more, everything since then has been basically theatrical. Yes, there are still some tariffs in place that are very marginal, 5 or 10 percent. It's not a terrible, it's not a bad idea.
Trump's not wrong to want to rebalance trade. Trump is not wrong to want to bring jobs back to the United States. Trump is wrong in the way he is going about trying to accomplish it with a chaotic, wild, sort of unpredictable system.
PHILLIP: Your point about the theatrics of it all may be the most important part because the markets are like, okay.
SINGLETON: Sure, whatever.
RATIGAN: They don't believe it.
PHILLIP: They don't believe anything he says at all.
SINGLETON: The markets factor-- now the bond market is around 4.24 percent, the last I checked. We've recovered, what, $10 trillion, I believe, in the past several weeks, according to "The Street."
It's factoring this in, and I think the expectation is a baseline 5, 10 percent reciprocal tariff. That's the expectation. I think some of these higher numbers, if you talk to most analysts, they would probably say we're looking at this as more of a negotiating strategy or tactic.
I was just in London a week ago doing business, talked to a lot of business people. They're looking at this and they're thinking, yes, we don't really think that this is going to seriously impact our willingness to invest in the United States. And I think many other investors around the globe will probably see it the same way, which is why the market has been persistently strong.
[22:50:03]
JULIE ROGINSKY, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Because everybody knows he tacos out, right? It's become apparent now that he's actually not going to go through with it, if at the very least, because as you said, the bond market and then the stock markets will come in and stop him from doing it. And we all know he reacts with nothing more than to the markets.
RATIGAN: We stopped the factories in April and restarted the factories in May.
PHILLIP: Right, cause it's not real.
ROGINSKY: And this is going to continue to happen and continue to happen. So nobody's actually buying it. And when August rolls around, he's going to say, okay, I'll give it, what is it, two more weeks? This is the usual thing, right?
Two more weeks and I'm really going to be serious about this. Everybody knows he's not serious about this. The day he actually levies 145 percent tariffs on China, wake me up, or French or whatever.
RATIGAN: American jobs are a priority and he's right to want to focus on them and he's right to want to do this. These are the mechanisms.
CROSS: His reason for wanting to do this has been all over the place, though, honestly. And I don't know that it's just about the markets and how people are receiving it. I think a lot of these countries that he's targeting happen to be on the continent of Asia.
And I think Indonesia is looking like, how did I get in it? It's like, if this is how we're treating our allies, when you look at the rise of BRICS, these emerging world economies, and they're saying, hey, you can come rock with us because the United States is on something else.
And he is being petulant again. Like, if you even look at them, I'm going to add another additional 10 percent tariffs on you. I think all these relationships that we've spent decades building as the largest consumer economy on the globe, we are eroding that slowly but surely.
But at the same time, he's treating these countries like they all have the same purchasing power, which they don't. And he's eroding our relationships that we took decades to build.
TORRANCE: At the same time, he's also targeted Canada, of course, where I'm from originally, and the United Kingdom.
PHILLIP: Does that make sense to you?
TORRANCE: Yes and no. He wants to negotiate, he wants to do things. But guess what he did?
PHILIP: It doesn't make sense to target Canada, which is our number one importer of American goods. We have a trade deal, but he negotiated with them.
TORRANCE: Notice that Keir Starmer, the British P.M., immediately got on the phone when Trump announced the tariffs there and struck a deal. I'm surprised that more countries haven't done that.
PHILLIP: There's no deal with the E.U.
TORRANCE: No, with the UK, there is. Now, yes, and the E.U. is a work in progress. No, I agree that some of this is a bit crazy, but at the same time, there's so many scare headlines. You know, when Liberation Day, Trump calls it, April 2nd, the markets dropped, you've got all these scare headlines, all these billionaires lost all this money. And then, of course, a few months later, it's all back.
ROGINSKY: Wait a second.
PHILLIP: I have to say, we have to remember, when people say it's back, it's not because Trump actually carried out his threat. It's because he did not. It's because he did not.
SINGLETON: But with the Chinese, we're seeing movement in the right direction. With Vietnam, we're seeing movement in the right direction. Tariffs on Japan and South Korea as it pertains to car manufacturing is a good thing.
Look at Carvana stock, look at Ford, GMC, the other major car manufacturers in the United States. That's a good thing for their bottom line, for anyone who understands the market. So there have been some goodness out of this.
ROGINSKY: What right direction are we moving in? With China, I'm sorry, there were no ships coming into the port of Los Angeles.
SINGLETON: Well, even the Chinese have acknowledged that they're moving in the right direction in terms of trade negotiations.
ROGINSKY: Wake me up again when we actually have a deal, as I said earlier. But the problem is, we had all of this material not coming into this country, to the West Coast, for a really long time after Liberation Day.
Wake me up again when you go shopping for back to school in September and you see those prices go up. Let me know what's going to happen on Christmas when people who were supposed to be filling those supplies were not filling them because of Liberation Day.
SINGLETON: I'm skeptical about that. I'm very skeptical about that.
PHILLIP: We got to go. And obviously, very much to be continued on this topic.
Coming up next for us, though, the panel is going to give us their nightcaps. They'll tell us what else should change at the airport inspired by the end of a terrible era in the security line. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:55:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: We are back and it's time for the News Nightcap: Shoes On edition. After nearly 19 years, passengers will no longer have to remove their
shoes at the airport for security. You will each have now a few seconds to tell us what other airport practice should change. Kelly, you're up.
TORRANCE: The liquid limitations rule. I can't believe, you know, they sold it to us as temporary.
You cannot have any liquids more than 3.4 ounces. They have to fit into that quart-sized bag. It's a sexist rule because this really affects women more.
Now, Sherichael, you look great. You don't need a lot of products to look great.
SINGLETON: I appreciate that. Thank you, thank you Kelly. Thank you.
PHILLIP: Alright, Tiffany.
CROSS: I just want decorum back on the airlines. You know, I feel like people are in there barefoot and acting a fool. The flight attendants are rude and nasty because they don't know.
Because they've been treated by rude and nasty people. Just please, can we get back a little decorum? And speaker phones, do not be on my plane with your speaker phone.
SINGLETON: Oh, I hate that.
RATIGAN: I just joined the conversation. You just got to get right on it.
PHILLIP: Dylan, what's yours?
RATIGAN: -- it's an invitation.
Leave the laptops in the bag. The robots can figure it out. What are we doing?
PHILLIP: This is all theater. OK, go ahead.
ROGINSKY: If you're more than two or three hours late, Delta, refund me my money. Just because your pilots are too hungover to show up doesn't mean that I never whatever or I'm sorry, mechanical issues doesn't mean -- does not mean that I need to sit there and eat the cost when I get on the Amtrak to go back to New York from D.C. because you've canceled the flight.
Yet again, Delta.
[23:00:05]
SINGLETON: You're really calling them out.
I hate when you're going through and they say take off the puffer jackets but if I'm wearing a blazer, it's not a problem at all. I'm like, what's the difference between a little puffer jacket because I'm a little cold and the blazer? It's crazy.
PHILLIP: These are all very good questions. I would like us to take a closer look at airplane security because I think some of these things need to be revised.
RATIGAN: I want teleportation.
PHILLIP: Teleportation, thank you.
Thanks for watching "NewsNight." You can catch me anytime on social media. "Laura Coates Live" is right now.
