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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Says 25 Percent Chance That Putin Meeting is a Failure; U.S. Core Inflation Hits Three-Year High as Prices Rise. Producers Bear The Brunt Of Increased Tariffs; Masked And Heavily Armed ICE Agents Stage An Immigration Raid Outside Newsom Press Conference. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired August 14, 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, on the eve of his face-to-face with Vladimir Putin, is Donald Trump being bold or naive?
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I think President Putin will make peace.
Plus, the Jekyll and Hyde economy takes a concerning turn to the dark side.
Also, the feds crashed Gavin Newsom's event as schools spend their first day setting up safe zones against ICE.
And the California governor declares war on Trump's power play.
GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): They want to rig these elections.
PHILLIP: But may encounter famous resistance back home.
Live at the table, Batya Ungar-Sargon, Tiffany Cross, Arthur Aidala, Aftyn Behn and Terry Moran.
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. Are the goalposts moving? We are now less than 24 hours away from President Trump's historic summit with Vladimir Putin. It will be the first time in more than six years that the two leaders have met face-to-face.
But according to Trump, this isn't the high-stakes meeting that he and his team have been teasing for days. It's actually the next one that we need to look out for. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I think that President Putin would like to see a deal. I think if I weren't president, he would take over all of Ukraine.
Tomorrow, all I want to do is set the table for the next meeting, which should happen shortly. I'd like to see it happen very quickly, very shortly after this meeting. We're going to find out where everybody stands and I'll know within the first two minutes, three minutes, four minutes, or five minutes, like we tend to find out whether or not we're going to have a good meeting or a bad meeting.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: And after months of campaigning on ending Russia's war with Ukraine on day one, Trump is now lowering expectations even further.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRIAN KILMEADE, FOX NEWS HOST: Is there any scenario where Donald Trump will look at this meeting in Alaska and say, this was not worth it, I failed?
TRUMP: Yes, 25 percent. This meeting sets up the second meeting. The second meeting is going to be very, very important, because that's going to be a meeting where they make a deal, and I don't want to use the word, divvy things up, but, you know, to a certain extent, it's not a bad term, okay? But there will be a give and take as to boundaries, lands, et cetera, et cetera.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: That is music to Vladimir Putin's ears that they will be divvying things up, shifting boundaries, trading land. And Trump is also now trying to lower expectations in a lot of ways for this meeting. Is he changing the goalposts?
TERRY MORAN, VETERAN JOURNALIST: He is, and I think it's partly a result of a misunderstanding that happened when his negotiator, Steve Witkoff, went over to meet with Vladimir Putin. Witkoff doesn't like to use State Department interpreters, so he uses Putin's. And he came back and he said, Putin wants to trade two provinces. He'll keep two. And Ukraine needs to not join NATO and the rest of it.
And Trump announced we're going to have land swaps, we have a deal, it's on the table. And it turns out he didn't understand what he was being told, or Putin's interpreter was fooling him. This was reported in German press and in the Danish press. And so now they kind of have to improvise. Well, there's going to be another meeting, there's going to be another meeting, and it is, at the very least, chaotic, if not incompetent, which is not surprising.
PHILLIP: But the stakes are high, Batya. I mean, he has set up this summit with Putin, which is, A, what Putin wants, B, he's already said there's going to be a joint press conference, which is another thing Putin really wants, putting him on another playing field with a United States president, which Russia hasn't been on that playing field in some time. Is Trump just going to wing it on this situation when there's -- you know, I mean really the fate of the globe at stake in a lot of ways.
[22:05:04]
BATYA UNGAR-SARGON, SECOND CLASS, HOW THE ELITES BETRAYED AMERICA'S WORKING MEN AND WOMEN: Well, it's not just Trump who wants this meeting. I want this meeting because I want this war to end. And the war is not going to end until Putin has a sit-down with Donald Trump. There is going to be land swaps because Crimea is, at this point, de facto part of Russia. It's not going back to Ukraine. And the Donbas, at the start of this war, was also not part of Ukraine. It was under a civil war, and it had declared itself an independent republic. And so if Zelenskyy cannot accept those two facts, there's really nothing to talk about.
Trump saying that the real meeting is the one that includes of Volodymyr Zelenskyy that is new, and that is a recognition on Donald Trump's part that he cannot give away Ukrainian land in order to end this. That shows a real maturity in his thinking that I had not heard before, and so I was happy to hear that.
MORAN: I would just say that I was there in 2014, okay? The Donbas referendum was not free and fair. There were Russian troops on the ground at that time. I was in Crimea as well. My question is, why would anyone trust a word that Vladimir Putin says. He said, I'm not going into Crimea. They were there. Yes, he masses his troops on the borders of Ukraine. He says, they're making it up that I'm going to invade. He invades. Why would anyone do a deal with this guy?
TIFFANY CROSS, AUTHOR, SAY IT LOUDER!: That's why it's more of a symbolic victory for Vladimir Putin to even be on the stage with him. He is a would-be dictator, is talking to a dictator. He's given really no concessions and he's rewarded with an audience from the president of the United States. And so far we have seen nothing. He always TACOs on this issue as well. He chickens out at the same time.
The constantly capitulating, it feels like to me, Beltway media looked at him and he said, because he said bullshit, and then all of a sudden that was the -- ooh, he's got tough talk. But what does that mean? What does a tough talk mean if you can't bust a grape in a fruit fight if you're just saying all these things about him, but you're not actually following up on anything? They spoke in July. He always has these deadlines that don't mean anything. After they spoke in July, what happened? Putin pummeled Ukraine with over 530 drone strikes, and the war still continued.
So, they're being vague about the goals here, because if you're vague about the goals, if you don't have any tangible metrics for success, then you can't -- according to him, he won't have failed.
PHILLIP: There's probably a lot of that strategy happening where they don't want to even say what the objective is, because if they say that, then they have to be, you know, measured by it. But there's also a huge question mark about what Trump's actual position on Russia is right now.
You know, this is actually to your point, has there been a shift? European allies, according to CNN, say that the one who has changed so far is Trump, both in his level of comfort in his job and in his understanding of Putin. His approach in early January was naive, says one U.S. official. Now, Europeans say he finally gets it that Putin is a murderous leader. Do you buy that?
STATE REP. AFTYN BEHN (D-TN): Well, I think this is an excellent opportunity to talk about Trump's ego, which he has prioritized over our national security. And when that happens, Putin wins and the American people lose. And, Abby, I would just like to say that I do not trust Donald Trump to be in a room with Vladimir Putin because he will give away the store.
ARTHUR AIDALA, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, he has said, let me acknowledge, that he can't give away the store and he won't give away. He said, I will not concede anything without Zelenskyy being there.
But I just want to touch on question you asked a moment ago, you know, is he going to wing it? I am certainly not comparing myself to the president of the United States. However, I am a -- my job as a criminal defense attorney is constantly negotiating with people who have a lot more power than I do, the United States of America, the U.S. attorney's office, the district attorney's office. What Trump said in the Oval Office, I'll know in two or three minutes whether it's going to be a good meeting or not a good meeting, that happened to me yesterday. You could tell right away, you could tell by body language. You could tell if they're coming to the table in good faith and they really want to resolve something, or if they're just throwing you a bone because they feel like they have to.
So, to a degree, you have to wing it. There is no script. You have to use -- and here's where Donald Trump, and I can see the ego, but he's been negotiating his whole life. He is not George W. Bush. He's not George H.W. Bush. His whole life has been negotiating. That's how he's gotten to whether it's negotiating the contract for The Apprentice or negotiating a buying a building. So, he is a good negotiator.
And I think you have to do this face-to-face. You can't phone it in. I don't phone in a prosecutor and say, hey, I know my guy's facing life, can you give him 25 years? I say, can I come in and sit down and talk to you?
(CROSSTALKS)
CROSS: Negotiating (INAUDIBLE) for The Apprentice is very different.
AIDALA: It's the same skill set. It is the same -- it's the same skill set. It's the same skill set.
PHILLIP: There's something perhaps to what Arthur's saying, which is that, you know, first of all, you need to get people to the room. And there are two sides to this. So, let me read you one version of this, this interaction between Trump and Putin, according to a Russia expert. [22:10:01]
He says, Trump thinks he can look into Putin's eyes and get a deal. He believes his own talents as a negotiator. The problem is that Putin has been doing this his whole life and is going into this summit with the idea that he can manipulate Trump.
So, who is manipulating who? Because I do think, you know, Putin is a former KGB officer, he really does know his stuff when it comes to manipulating people. Trump, though -- I think, I'm just going to give him a little bit of credit here. I think Trump understands that Putin also -- Putin has an ego too. He wants to be at that podium with Trump. He's going to come into this meeting perhaps with maybe feeling like he has an upper hand, which might be just the thing that Trump needs in order to get him to the table.
UNGAR-SARGON: So, from the start of this war, there has been sort of two ways to view Vladimir Putin, okay? In one view, he's a murderer, a dictator, and a madman who doesn't believe that Ukraine exists as a separate country. He wants to be Peter the Great, he wants to restore the Soviet Union. In the other view of things, he is a murderer and a dictator, but he is not a madman. He is thinking logically, and he had a legitimate concern about western influence on what he considers to be his buffer zone and that he really had a legitimate reason to think that Ukraine was going to be included in NATO and that that would be a threat to Russia.
Now, in the second reading, which has been my reading from the beginning, and I believe also President Trump's reading from the beginning, this person who is a logical thinker would take an off-ramp as soon as it is offered because he's thinking logically. And so with every --
PHILLIP: See, that's where I think you lose a lot of people, right?
UNGAR-SARGON: And I think with Donald Trump, as with me, with every month since he was elected, that Putin has refused to come to the table, Trump has been sort of steadily moving from that second category into the first. Tomorrow's meeting is Putin's last chance to prove to Trump that he is a logical actor and wants to bring an end to this.
PHILLIP: Maybe. I saw you responding somehow. I mean, I'm curious what you think. Because I definitely think if you were paying attention in those months right after Putin sent those tanks into Ukraine, he was very clear that this is about his view of Russia, Russian Empire. That is not a made up thing. He has said it himself.
MORAN: He's been telling us this for almost 20 years. He thought the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century, set aside the Holocaust. It was the collapse of the Soviet Union, one of the worst tyrannies in the history of humankind. And there's something about Trump and Putin from the beginning. I was in Helsinki as well. Trump is an alpha male in every room he walks into until Vladimir Putin is there. I was there. You could feel it in the room. Now, I'm not saying that Putin has anything on him, but I think there's no question that he has trouble with this guy and Putin having a rational --
UNGAR-SARGON: It sounds like Russia gate hoax to me. I don't know.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: I don't think it has anything to do with Russia. It's more of an interpersonal thing between the two of them and you can't explain it.
CROSS: And I'm sorry I'm old enough to remember when (INAUDIBLE) was in the Oval Office. I mean, that's not speculation. That's something that happened. So, there is something nefarious. And even I have to respectfully disagree, I think you can call him an alpha male, depending on your definition of what an alpha male is. He's not an alpha male to me.
MORAN: He performs. He performs.
CROSS: He's insecure, very insecure little --
BEHN: (INAUDIBLE) he said that. Putin has been playing the long game for 10 to 15 years, and Trump has become the most perfect tool in his agenda.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: We're going to leave it there, guys.
UNGAR-SARGON: And yet Trump is the only person who we didn't take --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Coming up next for us, new red flags that the economy may not be as strong as it seems. More special guests will be with us at the table.
Plus, Border Patrol agents make a surprise visit just outside of Governor Gavin Newsom's press conference in California. Is it a coincidence or a P.R. stunt? We'll debate.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:15:00]
PHILLIP: After largely defying gravity despite President Trump's tariff uncertainty, the rollercoaster that is the U.S. economy just took a sharp turn, because tonight, there are some new numbers that show wholesale inflation speeding down the track at its fastest pace in three years. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, producer prices spiked nearly a full percentage point last month with both major categories, goods and services, surging significantly. Food prices saw one of the biggest jumps with veggies rising nearly 40 percent, eggs and beef, grains also up. It's just the latest warning sign for the potential jolt shoppers could soon feel in their wallets, but President Trump wants you to believe that there is nothing to see here.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: And now our inflation is down to a perfect number, a beautiful number, hardly any at all.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Joining us at the table is Marc LoPresti. He is the CEO and senior market strategist at Market Rebellion, and also with us, CNN Anchor and Business Editor-at-large. Richard Quest.
I'll let you two duke it out on this one, but, I mean, it seems clear to me that producer prices are sort of a leading indicator of what we will likely expect to see, which is that consumers are going to be paying more prices as businesses stop being able to swallow all of these price increases and uncertainty. What do you see?
RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS ANCHOR AND EDITOR-AT-LARGE: The reality is that the tariff increases are now feeding into the economy. Now, maybe not as much as we had thought because the tariff numbers were lower, as we discussed around this table before --
PHILLIP: Yes, and because they keep changing every three weeks.
QUEST: Right. But the reality is there, it is unavoidable, and it is, I would suggest with great respect, unarguable that the inflation is now coursing through the economy.
[22:20:04]
Whether it goes much higher or whether it becomes a one-off shock, the jury's out on, absolutely. But there is no question in economists' minds that the inflation is there.
PHILLIP: And the interesting thing about the food prices is that there -- I'm genuinely curious about what's going on here. Some of it, it does seem to be inflation. One economist said, that clearly tells me that the tariffs that were slapped on Mexican agricultural imports are coming home to roost. There's also the prospect that the immigration crackdown could be compounding this. So, you have a lot of things going on that are leading to when it comes to, you know, your tomatoes and your fruits and veggies and your coffee, higher prices that are showing up right now.
MARC LOPRESTI, CEO AND SENIOR MARKET STRATEGIST, MARKET REBELLION: Well, here's the reality also though, Abby. When we were last together just after liberation day and we were calling for catastrophe, and that we would be in a deep recession at this point by mid-July, or certainly by August. I'm not quoting anybody that might look like Richard, but it could have been Richard, it didn't come to pass.
PHILLIP: Okay. But, Marc -- LOPRESTI: It just came out of Q2 earning season.
PHILLIP: I want you to continue, but I'll pause you there, because we've had this discussion already, okay? Did liberation day tariffs go into effect when Trump announced them?
LOPRESTI: They did not.
PHILLIP: Yes or no?
LOPRESTI: They did not. So thank you.
PHILLIP: Okay. So, when you say --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: So, when you say that there was no recession, that's the end of the conversation, it didn't happen.
QUEST: Apples and oranges, apples and oranges.
LOPRESTI: Well, there are tariffs in effect, are there not? The trade war is real, is it not?
QUEST: The trade war is real, but not at the rates that you wish to ascribe.
PHILLIP: Okay. So, Marc, what is the rest of your point? Go ahead.
LOPRESTI: The rest of my point is that we have seen based on Q2 earning season, which we've just come out of, which has been nothing short of spectacular, 82 percent of companies beating or meeting expectations. We had a five-year average blended earnings per share growth, the highest in five years. Companies are not passing along the increased prices as a result of tariffs. They just are not.
QUEST: Yet, yet, yet.
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, listen, yet he's doing --
LOPRESTI: Remains to be seen, doesn't it? But as of now, the numbers that we have --
QUEST: Who's eating the tariffs?
LOPRESTI: Who's eating the tariffs? The corporations for the time being are eating the tariffs.
CROSS: For the time being.
QUEST: Which is profits, which is 401(k)s, which is dividends.
LOPRESTI: Well, let's not talk about 401(k)s. If we got interest rates in control, if we got the cut that we've needed for so long now, the corporate cost of capital would come down, Richard. You'd see an increased investment from corporations. You'd see an increased employment. It would offset a lot of the tariffs.
QUEST: Let me have a last one. If you are the Fed and your dual mandate is price stability for employment, you could not justify lowering rates when you have rising PPI and CPI.
LOPRESTI: Now, I also think you have to question the source. This PPI number also comes from the same folks that brought you up the jobs numbers. I'm sorry. Listen, seriously --
(CROSSTALKS)
CROSS: (INAUDIBLE) to say that the PPI I is not accurate. And then you have a president calling for Goldman Sachs to fire their economist because he doesn't like what he's saying.
PHILLIP: Something told me that you would say that about -- something told me that you would say that about the price. Listen, it is -- I wanted to say hilarious, but it's really not funny -- beyond belief that now when the warning signs are flashing, oh my God, don't trust the numbers, and when things were stable, it was like, everything's fine.
LOPRESTI: Oh, no, I don't agree with that, Abby.
PHILLIP: But let's take it together that maybe there is -- there are challenges with collecting this data. Let's note where some of those challenges are coming from. Inflation data threatened by government hiring freeze as tariffs loom, DOGE layoffs may have compromised the accuracy of government data, cuts to data collection may erode reliability of economic statistics and so on and so on.
I mean, listen --
LOPRESTI: This is not a Trump effect with the data collection, Abby. We're talking about data collection for the jobs numbers, for the --
PHILLIP: Yes, I get it. But actually --
LOPRESTI: They are mailers, phone surveys.
PHILLIP: Yes.
LOPRESTI: There's --
PHILLIP: But there are resource issues. That's not an opinion, that's a fact. There are resource issues that are affected by cuts.
LOPRESTI: We should have the same data.
PHILLIP: And those resource issues have been exacerbated since the DOGE cuts. Again, not an opinion, that is a fact of this reality of the situation.
But even with that being said, this is the data that we have, right. And you either, you know, care that data exists or you don't and you just go with your gut feeling. I don't know. LOPRESTI: There's no --
UNGAR-SARGON: Well, I would like to share a little bit of data, if I may? Do you know what the gas prices are right now compared to last month? Gas is down 2.2 percent. Do you know what it is compared to when Trump took office? It's down by 11 percent. Groceries, since Donald Trump took office, down by 0.46 percent.
[22:25:03]
The PPI report, a lot of it is in services, but we want services to cost more if they're being done by American citizens, not by illegal immigrants. Cars, the most impacted by tariffs, do you know how cars are doing? They're down 2.4 percent since April, since the tariffs took into effect.
I want to make one point. When there was greedflation after the pandemic, when corporations realized they could get away with raising prices on the American consumer, I was infuriated by that. What Donald Trump has managed to do is bring in $110 billion in tariff revenue, and consumer prices are up by less than 1 percent. It's coming from those same greedy corporations he has forced them to eat it.
Now, Abby, you're saying they haven't passed it on yet, okay, but can we just give him the credit right now for having done that? This is a huge deal.
PHILLIP: Let's just -- I just want to underscore what you're saying here, which is that -- and you are coming from an ideological perspective, not necessarily where Marc is coming from, but you think it is good and well that corporations eat these costs. If that's a position, I think that is fine. A lot of conservatives believe that corporations should not be put on by the government with basically taxes because it stifles growth.
LOPRESTI: But if you have --
PHILLIP: I mean, am I wrong about that? Do conservative not believe that when you tax corporations directly or indirectly, it stifles growth?
LOPRESTI: You're not wrong, but you're missing the other side of the equation. This is not the entirety of the president's economic plan. We have $12 trillion of investment commitment that's been made here. You have the government making direct investment for the first time in things like critical minerals, so we have the availability of the natural resources we need for -- to be able to manufacture both for defense, consumer electronics. You have the big, beautiful bill the ability to take a hundred percent accelerated deduction on machinery and things of that nature. If you give corporations the ability to be more profitable with a more favorable business environment and interest rates that make sense, they don't have to pass the tax of the tariff along --
QUEST: The problem is --
PHILLIP: I want make sure Terry gets in after you --
QUEST: The problem is --
LOPRESTI: What's the problem?
QUEST: The problem -- no. The problem is back to the data. The problem is that the president has questioned the integrity of the data, which he is perfectly entitled to do.
LOPRESTI: As do I.
QUEST: Well, but then --
UNGAR-SARGON: But I didn't -- respond to me. I used data. Respond to what I said.
QUEST: Well, how do I know your data's correct?
UNGAR-SARGON: I got it from the Treasury Department.
QUEST: Well, as we know, that's correct.
But my point is the correct thing to do would have been to set up a bipartisan commission to look at the data. No, you don't just fire the head of the BLS. You then appoint a stooge who's going to do the work for you, and then the entire --
UNGAR-SARGON: Just to my numbers. Come on. This is a distraction. You're punting.
QUEST: No, with respect -- no, look, I'll give you numbers. I'll give you numbers that things are good in those regards.
UNGAR-SARGON: Thank you.
MORAN: Set the numbers aside for a minute. Conservatives used to believe that character counts. Character counts when it comes to the economy too. And Donald Trump is saying -- by the way, you're saying the corporations eat it. He doesn't say that. He says, China pays the tariffs. He lies every single time he talks about the tariffs. You're talking sense. You're talking facts.
LOPRESTI: Thank you.
MORAN: He doesn't. The other thing is that it sounds like he doesn't like the jobs numbers, they're rigged, they're fake, he doesn't like the votes that come in, it's rigged, it's fake.
UNGAR-SARGON: Yes. I don't think he should fired that woman.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: I want to play this. I know we have to go, but let's play Peter Navarro because this is wild. Just listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) PETER NAVARRO, WHITE HOUSE TRADE ADVISER: There's going to be, some people are going to try to make it a tariff story, but if you peer beneath the hood of the numbers there's nothing in there to suggest that tariffs were responsible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Peter Navarro said earlier today, are tariffs, price hikes or tax cuts, he says, I say they are tax cuts. In what universe are tariffs price tax cuts, what universe? Your world? Your world?
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: I'm just saying there is something very disturbing going on in the White House if this is the economic advice the president is getting.
QUEST: The slippery slope that has now been started by questioning the data will have incalculable consequences.
LOPRESTI: Here's my point on the data, the government and economists should rely on the same data in real time that the largest financial institutions in the world do.
QUEST: Are you in favor --
LOPRESTI: You would have to subscribe to four data sets right now that all the hedge funds that I know, all the money managers that I know get real time economic data, not surveys in the mail.
[22:30:03]
QUEST: Are you in favor of suspending the jobs report Miran is?
LOPRESTI: I'm in favor of getting the right data behind the jobs.
QUEST: That's not answering it.
LOPRESTI: It's available. It is available. If it's determined --
QUEST: So, you now want -- you now want a Wild West of data providers?
(CROSSTALK)
LOPRESTI: No, Sir. No, not at all.
PHILLIP: Okay, Iet me -- I'm going to -- we have to go, but here's one thing I will say. I think you're probably right that yeah, the private sector has access to a lot of additional data.
LOPRESTI: And it's cheap.
PHILLIP: But I don't know that everyone would agree that it is, you know, the Bible accurate, right? But Goldman Sachs put out a report saying consumers are going to start paying the tariffs. And guess what the President said? Get yourself a new economist.
So, these are people looking at the same private sector data that you are talking about. And they are telling the world, prices are going to go up. And the President says, I don't like that data. Get rid of the guy. So --
(CROSSTALK)
LOPRESTI: That's one chief economist from one bank.
PHILLIP: Richard Quest, Marc LoPresti, thank you very much for joining us. Next for us, a made for TV moment or the new normal, border feds storm Gavin Newsom's press conference in a show of four. See how he's responding to that tonight.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:35:49]
PHILLIP: Tonight, is federal law enforcement playing to the cameras? Today, masked and heavily armed ICE agents stage an immigration raid outside of a press conference held by Gavin Newsom and an apparent show of force in Los Angeles. Now, at least one person was detained, but at the event, Governor Newsom said that the move came from the top.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D) CALIFORNIA: It's pretty sick and pathetic. And it just said everything you need to know, the setting that we're under, that they chose the time, manner and place to send their district director outside right when we're about to have this press con.
Should everything you know about Donald Trump's America, and that was top down, you know that for a fact, and they'll deny it, I'm sure. Maybe they won't deny it. Should everything you know about the authoritarian tendencies of the President of the United States, I said in a moment ago, wake up America, wake up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Kristi Noem for her part called the raid "business as usual".
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEC. KRISTI NOEM, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY: It's a case and an operation that has been planned because of who they think could be in that area and what they have for information that shows that there are illegal criminals there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Arthur and Aftyn are back with us. One of the things that struck me about this moment outside of the press conference and actually a lot of the activity of this week is the way that this White House uses Border Patrol and ICE as a department, almost like a personal police force for Donald Trump, show up when he wants to make a point, put them in certain cities when he wants to go after his political opponents. It's highly unusual, to say the least.
AFTYN BEHN (D) TENNESSEE STATE REPRESENTATIVE: Donald Trump wants you to look at the cameras. He wants you to be distracted so that you're looking away and not looking at your grocery receipts, right? And let's not even talk about the Epstein files that he's also, yes, here we go. We know what you were going to say.
ARTHUR AIDALA, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Here we go.
BEHN: But it's a distraction. It's an utter distraction from the fact that Donald Trump has not provided anything to the American people to lower costs, increase wages, and make sure that we have a prosperous way of living. That's just not happened under his administration.
AIDALA: May I retort? May I retort? I'm not a fan of this, and I think it is -- it is a P.R. stunt. However, however, if you looked at the issues in the last presidential election, we know, Abby, we've talked about it a lot. Immigration and migrants was, if it wasn't the top of the list, it was number two behind the economy. And part of deterrence in law enforcement all the time is a show of force.
In Manhattan, in Times Square, the cops on the horses, they're not really doing much except saying, we're here and you better not mess around. So, it's all part of the social media world. It's all part of the imagery that we live in.
TIFFANY CROSS, AUTHOR, "SAY IT LOUDER": No, no. That, I mean, this is frightening. I kind of disagree with you both. It's not a distraction. And the way we're normalizing fascism is frightening. I left D.C. today. It looked like Baghdad, the way that the National Guard has taken over, the way that they have militarized the police force there. It is scary.
And so, the fact that he -- he has previously threatened to have Gavin Newsom arrested. He had the -- Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security Secretary, I mean, for her killing puppies is business as usual.
She's not in any position to even be qualified to oversee a department with this. ICE does not have the authority to arrest anybody. He is deploying them like you said, like it's his own personal police force. And the fact that we're treating this like, this is just for social media. It's just for the cameras. It is not.
AIDALA: It's a deterrent. It is definitely -- it is definitely being used as a deterrent.
(CROSSTALK)
CROSS: We are raging our way towards a police state. And now is the time to call it out. This is a state of emergency.
PHILLIP: And you made a point about the politics of working for him in the last election, it did. But now, the picture is starting to look different. CNN poll asked, are Trump's immigration policies making the U.S. safer? Fifty three percent say no, 46 percent say yes. And one of the reasons is because of what these things have looked like in Los Angeles. This week, a U.S. citizen, 15 year old, was pulled out of his car.
[22:40:02]
Nathaniel Mejia, a 15 year old with special needs, was pulled from the passenger seat of his mother's car, handcuffed by federal immigration agents outside of a high school, and was only released when bystander intervened. They had the wrong person. That is also happening.
AFTYN BEHN (D) TENNESSEE STATE REPRESENTATIVE: I also want to push back because I live in Nashville. I represent Nashville. I'm a state legislator. We had a massive ICE operation in May. I went out and monitored ICE on behalf of my Hispanic constituents and Representative Andy Ogles called for my arrest and the Department of Homeland Security retweeted the video. So, this is a very real and salient
(CROSSTALK)
CROSS: Yeah.
BEHN: -- issue in my life and to my state. And -- but I do think it's a distraction.
CROSS: I take your point.
BEHN: Yes.
CROSS: Yeah, I just wanted to be clear.
BEHN: Yeah, I appreciate it.
CROSS: It is more than just a distraction that we are inching --
(CROSSTALK)
BEHN: People's lives are in danger.
CROSS: Yes, yes. So, I just, it's hard for me to treat it like it's political fodder. Like I'm wondering what is even the debate here? Like the fact that we're not looking at this like this is a state of emergency, let's not normalize it.
TERRY MORAN, VETERAN JOURNALIST: It felt like a step, a big step for me. It felt un-American. I would think that one thing we could all agree on is that the federal government should not send federal law enforcement to a peaceful political press conference being held by the governor of one of the 50 sovereign states of the union. And they were there for what?
Okay, they made one arrest, detained a guy, who was there every day because he sells strawberries. So they needed the district commander. This was a show of force against peaceful political activity. Don't think it wasn't and expect it in the --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Yeah, I mean this is one of those cases where --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: This is one of those cases where we have to put on our logic hats, right? Excuse me. They're saying that this was just a normal day, but clearly they were trying to make a point and the question is, as a country, is this what we want to see? Even when you disagree with this, Trump and Newsom have every right to disagree with each other, but should law enforcement be showing up as a threat?
BATYA UNGAR-SARGON, "SECOND CLASS: HOW THE ELITES BETRAYED AMERICA'S WORKING MEN AND WOMEN": Well, so this is a question of like fact, right? Like, either they were given an assignment to go and kind of make a show of force and bully Gavin Newsom or they weren't. We don't know if they were or not. Either it was or it wasn't. So we could speculate about that --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: -- my question to you is what is your -- I mean, I think this is --
(CROSSTALK)
UNGAR-SARGON: I don't think it's authoritarian.
PHILLIP: What does your logic cap tell you? I mean, he just laid it out, right? If they're going to go make an arrest of a guy who's delivering strawberries --
UNKNOWN: Selling.
PHILLIP: -- selling strawberries on the street, why would the section commander of border patrol need to show up?
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Why would a dozen or more agents need to show up at the exact moment outside of a -- by the way, museum in Los Angeles? Look, I'm going to just say it. I will say, what they are saying is that this was coincidental, that they were just going about their duty. But I think people at home and those of us at the table have every right to say, is that really what was going on?
UNGAR-SARGON: But I just object to the idea that this is like somehow a threat to American citizens. I'm not saying they haven't made any mistakes. There have been a couple of mistakes. Those people have been released. Let me finish. There have been a number of mistakes. Those people have been released. It is not a threat to you when there is a force charged with getting illegal alien --
(CROSSTALK) MORAN: Why are they at a peaceful political press conference?
(CROSSTALK)
UNGAR-SARGON: -- criminals out of our country. That is not a threat to you.
(CROSSTALK)
MORAN: It is meant to intimidate people who will oppose them.
UNGAR-SARGON: No, no.
MORAN: That's why they're at Gavin Newsom's press conference.
(CROSSTALK)
UNGAR-SARGON: Terry, that argument is to erase the distinction between citizen --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Why are they posting --
(CROSSTALK)
MORAN: Why is the federal --
UNGAR-SARGON: -- and non-citizen. And the reason you want to erase that distinction --
(CROSSTALK)
MORAN: No, I don't. I'm looking at the facts. You can't see what's in front of your face.
UNGAR-SARGON: -- is because it is you who don't believe in the laws of this country.
(CROSSTALK)
MORAN: No, no. The Democrats screwed up immigration. A disaster. What this reaction is and what you were talking about, this snatching of women from their children. They're showing up at courthouses where there are young children.
(CROSSTALK)
UNGAR-SARGON: This is what the American people voted for.
MORAN: They're Sunday best because they're doing the right thing. They did not. The American people are decent. They're not decent.
UNGAR-SARGON: They did.
MORAN: They did not do the right thing. UNGAR-SARGON: The majority of Americans want --
(CROSSTALK)
MORAN: Yes.
UNGAR-SARGON: -- every illegal alien deported whether they are a criminal or not.
(CROSSTALK)
BEHN: They did not vote -- they did not vote for people to be arrested, put in jail, and never heard from again.
(CROSSTALK)
UNGAR-SARGON: That was not a Donald Trump talking point. He never said the worst of the worst.
(CROSSTALK)
UNGAR-SARGON: He said again and again and again.
UNKNOWN: He said the worst.
(CROSSTALK)
UNGAR-SARGON: If that's the case then why don't we --
(CROSSTALK)
CROSS: We see white people being carted off? That's what every American voted for.
UNKNOWN: That's right.
CROSS: Why are every immigrant that we see is --
(CROSSTALK)
UNGAR-SARGON: Because that's majority of illegal aliens are from Central America.
CROSS: I got to say, immigrants in this country who are undocumented are white people. Why do we not see people cart going off to where white people gather, targeting them? If you're saying that's what every single person in America voted for, which is a lie, by the way.
UNGAR-SARGON: What percentage are white of illegal --
CROSS: Twenty percent.
UNGAR-SARGON: Twenty percent?
CROSS: Twenty percent.
UNGAR-SARGON: I mean, I've seen footage of people who are not Hispanic and not black being arrested by ICE.
CROSS: Yeah, okay.
[22:45:00]
MORAN: This way -- this way, the country will be ashamed of it and the people who defended it
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: Yes.
(CROSSTALK)
MORAN: -- will be ashamed in front of their grandchildren.
(CROSSTALK)
UNGAR-SARGON: So win an election, Terry. So, we had an election on this, you know?
(CROSSTALK)
MORAN: Your grandchildren will be ashamed that you stood up for him.
(CROSSTALK)
UNGAR-SARGON: I really, really doubt that.
PHILLIP: We got to leave that conversation there. Next for us, Governor Gavin Newsom just revealed his plan to counter Texas Republicans' attempts to redraw their congressional map. And it's setting off a face-off with former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. We'll discuss that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:50:08]
PHILLIP: Tonight, the redistricting battle is heating up. Gavin Newsom, he announced that he's looking to add his effort to redraw California's congressional map to the ballot as a ballot measure this November. Now, it won't be easy. He needs two-thirds of both chambers in the state legislature to approve a ballot proposition and that is before Californians get to vote on it.
A coalition that includes Arnold Schwarzenegger to oppose any kind of redistricting efforts is already starting to form. In his pitch, Newsom explained why the "when they go low, we go high" motto does not work anymore.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NEWSON: It's not good enough to just hold hands, have a candlelight vigil, and talk about the way the world should be. We have got to recognize the cards that have been dealt. And we have got to meet fire with fire.
It's not complicated. We're doing this in reaction to a President of United States that called a sitting governor of the state of Texas and said, find me five seats. We're doing it in reaction to that act. They want to rig these elections. And they want the power that gerrymandering provides because they know what Donald Trump knows.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Gavin versus Arnold. Let me read you what Schwarzenegger said. He says, "He calls gerrymandering evil and he means that. He thinks it's truly evil for politicians to take power from people." That's what a Schwarzenegger spokesperson said that he feels. "He is opposed to what Texas is doing and he's opposed to the idea that California would race to the bottom to do the same thing." I can't say he's wrong about that, in theory, but in practice.
AIDALA: But when you're from the state of New York, this is a big nothing burger. They do this all the time. They do it after every census. I mean, as I told you the other night, Abby, like, there's eight plus million people in the city of New York. There's one Republican, Malliotakis, in Staten Island.
So, it's -- maybe the timing is a little different, and it's going to be, he's got an uphill battle, presidential candidate Newsom, because he's got to get the chamber and then they can put it on the ballot. But it's been going on in the United States of America forever. I mean, it's -- this is nothing new.
PHILLIP: Tiffany?
CROSS: Well, I mean, gerrymandering certainly isn't illegal, but racial gerrymandering certainly is. And I think that's what you see happening, particularly in the Bible Belt. But even with Representative Emanuel Cleaver, his district is also in danger. I think we're seeing the impact of completely gutting Section three and Section five of the Voting Rights Act. And there's a reason why those pre-clearances were in place before they could do things like this.
But even that would have even surpassed gerrymandering, would have gotten through that. The Supreme Court has kind of cleared the path that not only will we see a shift because President -- the President has saddled his party with these very unpopular policies and he's looking at a very unfriendly midterm. So, not only will you see a shift in Democratic voters, but you will see a whitening of Congress, and I think that is --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: But do you think that it is right to fight fire or is he wrong --
(CROSSTALK)
CROSS: Yes, absolutely, he's right. I mean, I never supported that "when they go low, we go high", though. I love forever FLOTUS, but no, I don't think that works. I think it's painful to watch, you know, certain people fight from a playbook circa 2015 when that is thrown out. It's thrown out the window.
So, I think for the people at home who don't have power, who don't have a voice, they don't want to see polite chit chat. They don't want to see this. There's no longer an exchange, a healthy exchange of ideas and ideology. There is only a war on people's humanity, it feels like.
BEHN: It feels like, and it feels like Democrats are finally fighting for us, right? And Democrats are using politics right now to fight for people, whereas the Republican Party is using politics to enrich themselves and to prop up Donald Trump.
So, for me, this is a major issue in Tennessee. I don't know if you know, but we have a congressional district that was cut into three. Tennessee Democrats pulled in 38 percent of the congressional vote. Guess how many congressional districts we have? One.
CROSS: Wow.
BEHN: To dilute black and brown power.
CROSS: Aren't you running for --
BEHN: I am. I am running for one of those seats.
CROSS: All right. And you're the only woman running.
BEHN: I am the only woman running. Yes, but for me it's --
(CROSSTALK)
CROSS: Yeah. No.
(CROSSTALK)
CROSS: I can't remember if she mentioned it at all, but I think that's something relevant.
BEHN: Yes.
MORAN: We talk about norms and it gets boring and tiresome, but really, this is 2025. We shouldn't be redistricting. And the reason we are is because they want to game the system and it will be a race to the bottom. Gerrymandering stinks, right? It is, it does work to disadvantage and disenfranchise people even.
And this is the doing of Trump, really. He demanded that Texas do this. Well, if Texas is going to do it in 2025. And at the end of the day, I actually think the Democrats are on the short end of the stick, because the Republicans can redistrict more districts Republican if they really want to go all the way.
[22:55:03]
CROSS: And he's calling for a new census which is very scary on the way that he wants to --
(CROSSTALK)
MORAN: Not --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Well, they have -- they have always wanted to change the census so that it does not count non-citizens. So, that's definitely coming. I mean prepare yourselves.
MORAN: Despite the constitutional committee.
PHILLIP: Despite the fact that it's in the constitution. Last word.
UNGAR-SARGON: I support that, obviously. Last word is just the four districts -- four of the five districts Donald Trump is trying to create in Texas are majority Hispanic. So, they're not actually white, it's the GOP betting on Hispanic voters and it's amazing to me that Democrats aren't just like, you're never going to get these voters again.
We're going to win these voters back. Have them. Have at them. Create the districts. We'll win them back. It's almost like the Democrats are ceding to Trump that these are now his voters.
(CROSSTALK)
CROSS: I'm not --
(CROSSTALK)
CROSS: But they're doing that in Texas --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: All right. We got to leave it there.
CROSS: -- because those voters are friendly to the Republican Party.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Everyone, thank you very much for joining us. "Laura Coates Live starts right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
