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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Vance, Hegseth Heckled By Protesters Amid D.C. Takeover; Poll Shows 80 Percent of D.C. Residents Oppose Trump's Police Takeover; Target CEO Resigns After Customers Turn Away. President Trump Unprecedented Action on Corporate America; President Trump Pushing Resignation of Fed Reserve Governor; Obama Approves Redistricting Plan of California. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired August 20, 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, Trump officials visit the heart of the D.C. takeover and hear voices.
STEPHEN MILLER, WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF FOR POLICY: So, we're going to ignore these stupid white hippies that all need to go home and take a nap.
J.D. VANCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: This is your city. You should feel free to come and visit here.
PHILLIP: But we're learning fatigues in the streets aren't as popular as they think.
Plus, if it's go woke, go broke, what happens when you forego it? Target may be finding out in a surprising shakeup.
Also, the bleeding hearts are bleeding voters. Why registration numbers show the Democratic brand in crisis.
Live at the table, Scott Jennings, Alencia Johnson, Phil Williams, Adam Mockler, Sheila Kolhatkar, and Donte Mills.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York.
Let's get right to what America is talking about. The takeover show hits Washington, D.C. And in tonight's episode, hundreds of National Guard members from all over the country are now stationed all across the city. Troops are watching neighborhoods and military vehicles are patrolling the streets. And today's episode also featured an all star cast, J.D. Vance, the vice president, Stephen Miller, a top White House aide, and Pete Hegseth, the Department of Defense secretary. They were met with a not so welcome, warm welcome by D.C. residents at Union Station.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VANCE: I heard you buddy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: The chorus of protesters briefly drowned out their media moment, but they didn't seem fazed by it. They posed for pictures and took the troops out for burgers and had this to say about their fellow Americans.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VANCE: I think you hear these guys out outside here screaming at us. Of course, these are a bunch of crazy protesters.
MILLER: So, we're going to ignore these stupid white hippies that all need to go home and take a nap because they're all over 90 years old.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: At today's visit illustrates a stark divide between the Trump administration and D.C. residents. As city crime stats show that violence is declining, Trump has said that those numbers are fake. And new polling also now shows roughly eight in ten oppose Trump's takeover. But Vance, like his boss, is not believing that data either.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VANCE: I'm highly skeptical that a majority of D.C. residents don't want their city to be -- to have better public safety and more reasonable safety standards within Washington, D.C.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, now it doesn't matter, Scott Jennings, that voters are not happy with what Trump's doing, don't feel safer, all of that.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I don't care what they think. I mean, these are the same people who elected the mayor and city council that ran the city's public safety into the ground in the first place.
PHILLIP: You don't care what the residents --
JENNINGS: They don't know what's good for them.
PHILLIP: You don't care what the residents of D.C. --
JENNINGS: No, I don't. I don't. I do not care one bit. And I'll tell you something else.
PHILLIP: I feel like I've -- I do remember just a couple weeks ago you were saying, well, secretly, D.C. residents really want this because they know the crime is so bad. Now, we actually have the numbers that say, will Trump's federal takeover reduce violent crime? 65 percent say no. Just 20 percent say yes.
Would you -- do you feel like the presidents of federal officers makes you feel safer? More safe, 18 percent, less safe, 61 percent.
JENNINGS: Why would they say that? They're out arresting criminals. They're arresting illegal aliens. They're getting illegal guns off the streets. An MS-13 illegal alien was taken out off the streets the other night. They're obviously safer.
But, you know, there's another population that cares about public safety in D.C. It's all the people who visit there. We have people that go there, millions of people from all over the country, they deserve to go to a national capital that's not in disgrace and despair, and that's what they're doing in Washington. So, I don't really care about what they think, truthfully.
PHILLIP: Let me let Alencia, because she actually lives in -- well, in the D.C. area, let's put it that way.
ALENCIA JOHNSON, AUTHOR, FLIP THE TABLES: Yes. Listen, I live in the DMV area. I am from the area. And, listen, you can talk about the numbers that you all have reported on that crime has come down over the years. And, yes, there are people who have felt individual instances. But the bigger issue that a lot of folks are talking about in D.C. is this over-policing of black communities, black and brown communities. And we're seeing this as part of a bigger picture of what the Trump administration is doing across the country.
[22:05:02]
And so it's actually not making people feel safer. There are a lot of people who are staying home, the restaurants are feeling it, and people are really concerned.
And so I actually disagree with the statement that people don't know what they need when the city has actually come together and started voting people in office to help bring crime down.
DONTE MILLS, CIVIL AND CRIMINAL ATTORNEY: Let's talk about legally. So, the Home Rule Act of 1973 gave the president the authority to have a rule over the National Guard in D.C. There's also a section in there, Section 740, that allowed him and gave him authority over the police department in D.C. if he declares an emergency. He, in fact, on August 11th declares an emergency. So, legally, he has the ability to do this.
So, how do we address, everybody wants to be safer and feel safer? How do we address that point, but also address the point that you brought up where certain people are being targeted? I think this is a situation where we have to hope that the people that are deployed there understand that it's on them to make sure that they police fairly, that they treat people fairly because the general at the top may have an idea of why he wants people to be there. But we have to, in an effort to bring crime down, say these National Guards that are legally deployed there treat people fairly. You're supposed to be there as a deterrent. You shouldn't be making arrests. They don't really have the authority to do that. They don't have the authority to police the streets. That's not what the National Guard does. So, stay hands off, act as a deterrent. If the numbers come down, that's better for everybody, if the streets are safer, but do it in a manner that you're not targeting people.
PHIL WILLIAMS, HOST, RIGHTSIDE RADIO AND JUST RIGHT PODCAST: I got to jump in on this though. I've got 30 years of military service. A lot of that was in the National Guard. I have been activated for civil disturbance before. And the training that the Guard guys get is designed to actually put them on the streets with minimum show of force, use of force. They know what to do and how to do, and they're fully supervised in what they do.
And I feel very confident that the people they're targeting are not of a certain demographic, they're not of a certain skin color. What they're targeting there are criminals. That's exactly what they are there right now to provide a deterrent. And the police force is absolutely in favor of this. The police union is ecstatic over this. If you look at it, Mayor Bowser herself is really not resisting this. In fact, I think she welcomes it.
PHILLIP: But I think -- let me ask you a question, because you mentioned you were in National Guard service. I mean, what you're talking about is a civil disturbance. I think what Trump is suggesting that the National Guard is doing is policing. Those are not the same thing as far as what you just described. You seem to say -- well, you seem to say that they have a hands-off approach. That's different from what policing looks like.
WILLIAMS: I didn't say hands off, I said well-trained. There's a difference.
MILLS: No, they're not trained to --
WILLIAMS: So, they are absolutely trained. In fact, every one of those Guardsmen that got there, every one of them, no matter what state they came from, every one of them has a pre-deployment training they have to go through. I guarantee you.
PHILLIP: Oh, to do what?
WILLIAMS: To get on the streets and to know exactly how to do crowd control, to know exactly how to do roadside stops, to know exactly how to do augmentation of services for the police force.
PHILLIP: Yes, but these are not -- but there's no -- I mean, I guess what I'm saying is that --
WILLIAMS: They're not out there. They're not some hackney jack-booted group out there running streets.
PHILLIP: No, I don't think anybody's suggesting that. I'm just saying we've seen the National Guard being used when there are actual civil disturbances in 2020. We've seen them at a lot of these moments when there have been mass up uprisings or protests and we see them, seen them in action there. What's happening in D.C. is that this is a normal city where people are going about their lives every day.
And the National Guard troops are they -- what they're trying to do -- have them do what police are supposed to do, which is to proactively police and patrol cities, which is different from what you're talking about.
WILLIAMS: It's not.
ADAM MOCKLER, MEIDASTOUCH COMMENTATOR: Here are the facts. When you ask the residents that Trump is claiming to help, they say that they oppose it at a 79 percent rate. 61 percent of them feel less safe when you ask them what they care about the most, it's not homicides, it's not carjackings, it's Trump's occupation of D.C.
So, the question then becomes, who are we helping here? Who are we helping here? The idea that public policy isn't meant to serve the public in D.C. is absolutely absurd when Trump was claiming he was helping the public.
So, the question that I then want to ask is, why don't we mobilize a national guard to the eight out of ten red states that are the highest homicide states? If this decreases crime and that's sufficient enough to mobilize a National Guard against the explicit will of the people of D.C., why is the National Guard not marching --
WILLIAMS: Of course, they will. The people of D.C., the law, he was already quoted --
MOCKLER: I'm not talking about the law. I'm talking about --
WILLIAMS: We are talking about the law. But the other thing you all are doing is misreading the poll. I read the poll. The poll said that 50 percent of the people who had been polled had seen the security of those 50 percent. 61 percent said they weren't sure they were happy with it. You boil that down, that means roughly 28 percent of the whole doesn't like it, 28 percent.
JENNINGS: Again, you asked, who is it for?
PHILLIP: But I think that the -- hold on. The reason that they ask if you have seen it is because they want to ask people who have actually interacted with the issue as opposed to just people who have no idea that it's happening. So, that's one way to get to that.
But one thing, because what Adam just said was something that we asked here at the table yesterday, why not address violence in all these other parts of the country.
[22:10:01]
I'm not saying that President Trump should do it, but all these red state governors have the ability to mobilize their National Guards within their own states. Why aren't they doing it?
WILLIAMS: Right now, I don't think they feel the need to. But right now, the Home Rule Act --
PHILLIP: Even violence levels are higher in some of those states --
WILLIAMS: Those states don't have a Home Rule Act, but they do have a governor --
PHILLIP: No, but they have a governor and they have a National Guard that's under the control of the governor.
WILLIAMS: You're talking about D.C.
PHILLIP: They can deploy --
JOHNSON: Those cities have more crime than Washington, D.C.
JENNINGS: Do you not see the difference between our national capital and every other city?
MOCKLER: You're saying that the National Guard is defeater of crime, but then you refuse to endorse the National Guard being put in other states. You're going to say the National Guard is lowering crime.
JENNINGS: I'm arguing that the national capital, Washington, D.C., exists in a different federal Zone, as was pointed out, A, and, B, it's our national capital. It's -- I'm sorry, it is different than Memphis or whatever.
PHILLIP: It is only as it relates to Donald Trump's role in this whole thing. When it comes --
JENINGS: The president's role.
PHILLIP: When it -- the president's. That's what I'm saying. When it comes to the rest of the country, governors have the -- I'll let you get in. Governors have the authority to do what Trump is doing and they are not doing it.
MILLS: So, let me tell you what the difference is. The difference here is Donald Trump. Donald Trump has decided he wants to do this for show. And that's why my plea isn't to Donald Trump because he has the authority to do this. There's no way that you can stop him from deploying the National Guard D.C. because he has the legal ability to do it.
It hasn't happened where the National Guard was deployed in many places other than the Detroit riots or when MLK was shot. You know, extreme situations, desegregation of schools. Donald Trump decided to do this. He has the authority. That's why my plea is to those being deployed to say, please do it respectfully and don't target particularly --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: I want to make one note. I'm going to play a little bit more of Stephen Miller and we'll talk about it on the other side. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MILLER: Voices that you hear out there, those crazy communists, they have no roots. These demonstrators that you've seen out here in recent days, all of these elderly white hippies, they're not part of the city and never have been.
And, by the way, most of the citizens who live in Washington, D.C., are black. This is not a city that has had any safety for its black citizens for generations, and President Trump is the one who is fixing that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: There's a lot going on there, including that. I'm not sure when last Stephen Miller talked to the black residents of Washington, D.C. But I also just have to note, he's deriding elderly white hippies.
Now, if someone said that, any one of us at the table, we would be accused of racism. Why is it okay for him to say that about Americans?
MILLS: Because Trump set the standard. That's the bottom line. Trump set the standard about how you can talk about people and what you can say, and these people feel it's okay now to voice it.
PHILLIP: But just to be clear --
MILLS: And Trump started it.
PHILLIP: Just to be clear, he's calling American citizens who we -- look, we can see them with our eyes ourselves, not elderly. They are D.C. -- they're people from D.C. He's calling them crazy, elderly, white hippies use, and he's said that multiple times. Why is that okay, but if someone else were to say that, that would be -- you would be accused of being racist by Stephen Miller, frankly?
JENNINGS: I'm not sure I'm following your line of thought here. I mean, the fact is some of them are elderly and some of them are protesting.
PHILLIP: Okay. But because some -- and because they're white, they're not allowed to protest?
WILLIAMS: No. Is not what he's saying at all, but --
PHILLIP: Well, then why did he say that?
JOHNSON: Why is he saying --
WILLIAMS: He's having a good time poking fun at the people who are making fools of themselves.
PHILLIP: I guess --
(CROSSTALKS) PHILLIP: Listen. I'm old enough to remember baskets of deplorable, okay? I cannot imagine that it would be okay for any Democratic politician to say these crazy white Trump -- I mean, Republicans criticize --
JENNINGS: They say that all the time.
JOHNSON: Yes, but exactly --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: You criticize them for it all the time. All why is it okay for him to say that?
JENNINGS: I mean, I don't care what they say. But they say it all the time. You're acting like this is --
PHILLIP: I would say that is that's a -- I appreciate the truthfulness of that, that you don't care what Stephen Miller says. Because at the end of the day, what he's doing is something that if on the other side of the aisle was said about your voters, MAGA voters, you would be up in arms about it.
WILLIAMS: MAGA voters. Okay, so MAGA voters. I tell you both, the funny thing is --
PHILLIP: Not to describe you as a MAGA voter.
(CROSSTALKS)
WILLIAMS: On the basket of the deplorable --
JENNINGS: They call us Nazis.
WILLIAMS: We actually embrace the deplorables. We made hats out of it. You all are welcome to make a white hippie hat if you want to and embrace it, but I doubt you won't because the left is constantly getting offended.
PHILLIP: Okay.
WILLIAMS: And this is not a -- this is a nothing burger.
PHILLIP: Last point, Alencia, and I'm curious about your view of this. Look, it's common in politics to talk about black voters without ever talking to black voters.
[22:15:02]
And this seems very much to be an example of that, because they're the ones who are actually on the receiving end. I've seen the videos too, in black neighborhoods in D.C. on the receiving end of this heavy policing.
JOHNSON: I mean, it's a savior complex and it's also these white people who actually don't go and talk to black voters and see exactly -- or black populations and see exactly what they need. Because I quite frankly believe that communities know the solutions to help themselves out of whatever situation it is. Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, have some of the most racist policies ever. And for them to talk about that these policies or bringing the National Guard is to actually make it safer for black communities is actually insulting. Because what I know from the black communities that I am part of, that I know people who are native D.C.s for generations, this is doing nothing but causing even more fear and removing their agency from a city that, quite frankly, has always prided itself of the diversity and used to call itself chocolate city.
PHILLIP: Let me give you, Phil -- I know Phil wants to respond.
WILLIAMS: I was wonder if you've seen the level of integration in his administration. I mean, this is not an all-white administration weighing down on the oppressed. This is not that at all.
JOHNSON: Oh, it's not as diverse as many other administration --
MILLS: Donald Trump is not a savior. But we also do have to acknowledge, and your point is 100 percent correct. However, if crime can go down, we should be willing to accept that we have to figure out how to blend those two. If they're going to be there, let's make the most of it.
JOHNSON: We should, but we can't make the whole crime -- they're making the whole crime issue as if it's only black and brown criminals. That is what they are saying and that's who being targeted. That is --
JENNINGS: What do you mean by that?
JOHNSON: The neighborhoods, Ward 7, Ward 8, literally look at that.
MILLS: The crime is whoever you look for. Are you telling me that in white neighborhoods there is no crime? That doesn't make that --
JENNINGS: Well, first of all, there are crimes all over the city, but there was an allegation that they weren't even going to look into the Wards that had the most violence.
JOHNSON: Well, where was the outrage on January 6, 2021?
JENNINGS: So, you're saying because January 6th happened, we shouldn't catch murderers and carjackers there?
JOHNSON: I'm not saying that, but I'm saying there wasn't the same energy that there is right now.
JENNINGS: The point is they're looking at crime whoever and wherever it is.
JOHNSON: No, they're targeting black and brown people.
(CROSSTALKS) PHILLIP: We got to leave this conversation there. By the way, I just want to say we actually don't know totally that picture, and that's one of the main things that we need to find out is really what is happening in terms of who is being picked up in this sweep of arrests in Washington, D.C.
In the meantime, though, thank you to Donte Mills for joining us.
Next for us, did Target's elimination of DEI programs lead to its CEO's ouster? Another special guest is going to join us at the table.
Plus, a conservative host goes off on the Trump administration accusing them of socialism.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My God, people. What have we been fighting for for the last decade? You want smaller government? This expands it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, abandoned woke, go broke? That is how some progressives are describing the sudden announcement the Target CEO is now stepping down. The brand has taken a serious hit since rolling back its DEI efforts back in January. But unlike other companies who did the same thing, Target's commitment to diversity and inclusion programs has been ingrained in the core of its business for many years. And that included a goal to increase its black workforce by 20 percent after George Floyd's murder, a commitment to add more products from black-owned vendors to stores and pledging millions of dollars to black-led nonprofits.
But since its policy changed, Target stock has plummeted nearly 30 percent in sales. They have slumped for the third straight quarter. Black Lives Matter, their official X account, noted that black consumers hold $1.8 trillion in spending power before saying the boycotts will continue.
Joining us in our fifth seat is Sheila Kolhatkar. She is a staff writer at The New Yorker. And this is sort of the opposite of the narrative that everybody in corporate America is eager to cave because DEI is bad for business. Clearly, this really upset their customer base and Target is paying the price for it.
SHEILA KOLHATKAR, STAFF WRITER, THE NEW YORKER: Well, not every DEI program is immediately going to show up in increased profits, but in Target's case, yes, it was actually a big success. Their program promoting black-owned small businesses was a huge success. It drew a lot of consumers from new kind of demographic groups into the store.
But we're in this environment where a lot of CEOs are bumbling around, trying to figure out how to avoid drawing negative attention from this administration. They're not necessarily making business decisions based on what's good for their companies. They're trying to kind of preemptively please the president. And it's -- really, it's not good for business. And we're going to see a lot more stories like this where you have these kind of poorly-motivated decisions, political business decisions blowing up, and CEOs resigning as a result.
WILLIAMS: I think who they're trying to please is the shareholders. I think what you're finally seeing is a shareholder revolt. Companies that are not profitable but have shareholders, they have a fiduciary obligation to their shareholders. If they're not profitable and leadership's in the way of that, you get new leadership. That's the way of the world.
Corporate America is just watching their bottom line now where, for several years, they were told that ESG and DEI and CRT and everything else that you could virtue signal about was the way of the future, that did not affect their bottom line.
And so what we're actually seeing now is a return to actual free market capitalism. And if you're going to watch a company go down the tubes, at some point the shareholders are going to go, stop, we invested, we would prefer you make some better decisions, and they change out leadership.
PHILLIP: Well, I feel what you're describing is exactly the opposite of what happened to Target, because Target is actually seeing their business decline because they -- rather than listening to their customers and doing -- making business decisions based on that, they made business decisions based on political backlash.
[22:25:13]
Like that's actually the opposite of what you're suggesting. And the shareholders are paying the price for that.
I mean, when you look at Target's stock from January until now, I mean, it has plummeted 28 percent. So, most of that time, it is the backlash that is driven by the boycotts.
MOCKLER: Yes. Target turned on one of their huge consumer bases, which is the opposite of what Phil was saying, and it feels like conservatives spent a decade saying, go woke, go broke. Once the wokeness was removed, now Target is immediately going broke.
But, again, I think we'll see a lot of CEOs doing the same thing. We just saw U.S. bankruptcies at the highest rates since Trump's last presidency. We see the economy shuttering due to tariffs. We see vegetable prices going up 40 percent. There are a bunch of different --
JENNINGS: You know why?
MOCKLER: PPI just said that vegetable price going up 40 percent.
JENNINGS: Why? You know why? I'm asking if you know what.
MOCKLER: Not sure.
JENNINGS: Storms, weather, droughts all over the world.
MOCKLER: What about electricity prices going up 10 percent?
JENNINGS: It has to be.
MOCKLER: DO you know when liberation --
JENNINGS: I think if you're going to throw out Donald Trump is responsible for vegetable price, you should come and know what's going on around the world.
MOCKLER: Liberation day tariffs only went into effect --
JENNINGS: I don't know why Target's having a problem. I remember a couple of years ago, the conservatives were mad at them and now the liberals were mad at them. So, it seems like they swung --
PHILLIP: I know, but, Scott, we do know why Target's having a problem. Because they've been the target of a boycott because their customers are set --
JENNINGS: And a couple of years ago, the conservatives reminded them.
PHILLIP: Yes. But, clearly, the power dynamic is such that this particular boycott has had a very clear effect on their bottom line.
JENNINGS: Okay. I'm just telling you from a couple of years ago, they had a problem with --
PHILLIP: But I guess that's the thing. It's like if the premise is, to Adam's point, if the premise is that woke is bad for business, then why is Target struggling?
JENNINGS: Well, I think it depends on who you are and what your brand is. I mean, it was clearly bad for Bud Light when they went down that road. And so some corporations have certainly suffered when they've gone down that road. You know, I don't know how -- what Target's core marketing policies or principles are, but every company has to take a look at their, you know, customer base and how they make money and make decisions based on that.
It's not smart for corporations necessarily to swing wildly on the political pendulum. And if that is not core to your -- you know, what you're trying to do --
(CROSSTALKS)
JOHNSON: The boycott started because people felt as though Target did abandon a key part of its base, a lot of black consumers, that even before the George Floyd protests and the response to that, Target was putting black-owned businesses on their shelves and people saw themselves there and they were purchasing, they were using their dollars to show their power. And so this conversation around woke doesn't work, and I hate that we're using that term, but what you're trying to say is DEI policies aren't working. But the reality is, if we look at since January, the companies that have doubled down on their DEI policies, like the Costcos and the Delta Airlines and Apple, they're actually doing well.
And so here's what I'll say about this Target CEO stepping. That's kind of just like smoke and mirrors. They haven't changed their policies yet. So, do we know if this is going to reverse course with what --
PHILLIP: I don't that it's a sign, Sheila, that Target is changing course. It probably isn't necessarily, but it's a recognition that the company's performance is not what they would like it to be, it seems.
KOLHATKAR: Yes. You know, you don't have a CEO stepping down when things are going swimmingly. I mean, that is not typically what happens, but I think it's really hard to be a business leader in this environment. I mean, everything is upside down. You don't know what's going to happen from one day to the next. And I think a lot of them are being influenced by factors that are actually not related to what's best for their shareholders. And the other groups who have an interest in the company doing well.
They're trying to placate the president who seems to want to put himself in the middle of all of these private companies and sort of have an influence on how they're running themselves.
PHILLIP: That's a perfect segue to our next segment. So, hold your thought, Phil, because we have a lot more on that.
Next, a conservative host is saying that the Trump administration is adopting socialism by injecting the government into corporate America. We'll debate that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:30:00]
PHILLIP: Is President Trump dipping his toe in the socialism pool? Some of his recent moves have the government's hands firmly involved in a number of business dealings. For example, in an unusual move, Nvidia has agreed to give 15 percent of its revenue from chip sales to China to the United States government. And in June, Japan's Nippon Steel was allowed to buy out U.S. Steel, but only if the White House was granted a golden share that gives them extraordinary amounts of influence over a U.S. company.
And Trump has even leveraged his tariff policy to demand investment in the United States. And just last week, he demanded Goldman Sachs replace its chief economist over their tariff predictions. And yesterday, Bloomberg reported that the administration is discussing taking a 10 percent share in Intel to help rescue the company.
[22:34:57] But if you think calling any of this socialism is a bridge too far, well, conservative Erick Erickson thinks that that is exactly what it is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ERICK ERICKSON, HOST, THE ERICK ERICKSON SHOE: The U.S. government would become the largest shareholder of Intel. This is actual socialism happening by a republican administration. This is a horrible precedent. This is socialism. All you people were freaked out about Mamdani in New York City wanting government-run grocery stores and saying the people need to seize the means of production. That's what Howard Lutnick is doing right now, saying that the government must seize the controlling interest in Intel, the means of production in order to get government money. You can't just be against socialism when the left does it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Phil, can you respond to that? Because I think it is perplexing that conservatives would be okay with all of this.
PHIL WILLIAMS, FORMER ALABAMA STATE SENATOR: I don't think it's anything related to socialism. I disagree with Erick on that one. So the reality is what you're not looking at here is Trump invoking socialism. What you're looking at here is what I would call more of a public-private partnership towards economic growth. You can look back to Lincoln signing the Transcontinental Railroad Act to connect the two sides of the country. You can look back to World War II and the industrial base, the might of the U.S. industrial base helping to win the war.
I think what you're looking at here is the idea that Donald Trump's not going to have influence, that's silly. He's absolutely going to have influence, but he's not weighing in and destroying the free market. He's not doing what Biden did, which is going in and trying to reshape the entire auto industry in his image. What he's really doing right now is he's saying --
PHILLIP: Wait --
WILLIAMS: -- there are better ways, but the free market capitalist --
PHILLIP: Wait, wait, wait. Are you talking -- what are you talking about when you talk about Biden and the auto industry?
WILLIAMS: Oh gosh. Did not see what he did? There was no demand for EVs to the extent that the Biden administration wanted so they regulated it into existence. They funded it to make sure it had subsidies to survive. And then when the subsidies went away, the industry collapsed, which was a clear indication that industry was not ready for its day.
PHILLIP: So you're suggesting that that is bad, but Trump threatening companies with tariffs and taxes if they don't do certain -- make certain business decisions, taking actual stakes in private companies and taking money from those companies in order to allow them to do business abroad, you don't have a problem with any of those things?
WILLIAMS: The way you're describing is not accurate.
PHILLIP: I just read the whole thing. I mean, that is exactly what he is doing. Nvidia would -- in Order for Nvidia to do business it -- with China, they now have to pay the U.S. government a percentage of their revenue.
WILLIAMS: You know, the Keystone Pipeline was going to be a major job enhancer and an energy producer to extend through Canada. It was the U.S. government with Hillary Clinton involved that actually killed that so, yes. Don't think the government doesn't get involved in where things were approved for foreign use.
PHILLIP: I'm not defending either of those things. I'm just saying you seem to be saying that you're mad about the Democrats doing all those things you just described, but you're totally okay with --
WILLIAMS: And what you're describing is apples and oranges. Absolutely apples and oranges.
PHILLIP: Okay.
ADAM MOCKLER, MEIDASTOUCH COMMENTATOR: You keep citing the free market but politicizing companies and allocating capital politically is not the free market. Supply and demand is the free market. And you say that Biden reshaped the E.V. industry in his image.
WILLIAMS: Oh yeah --
MOCKLER: Trump is reshaping the entire tariff global order in his image. He's placing tariffs on countries that make no sense whatsoever.
WILLIAMS: If I told you, you had to buy a certain vegetable at the store and if you didn't like it, it was just too bad, that was the only one you could buy and I was going to subsidize that vegetable industry, and, oh, by the way I was going to regulate that by the time 2030 came along that's the only vegetable you could buy --
MOCKLER: If I told you I'm going to place tariffs on every single country with no discretion whatsoever and you're going to say he's not reshaping the global order when it comes to that --
WILLIAMS: Have you seen the budget that we had last year or last month we actually -- actually had a budget surplus for the first time ever. So tariffs are working.
PHILLIP: So Sheelah -- hold on. Sheelah, first of all, it is not true that you can't go to an auto dealer and buy a non-EV car so that is not an accurate description.
WILLIAMS: I never said that. I said he was reshaping the market.
PHILLIP: Yeah, but you described it as if you the government were telling people that they can't go get something else at the car dealership when they absolutely can't.
WILLIAMS: Have you seen California?
PHILLIP: But the other -- you can, you can. The other thing is, so here's a Wall Street Journal's chief economics commentator writing, "Trump is imitating the Chinese Communist Party." He says, "This isn't socialism in which the state owns the means of production. It is more like state capitalism, a hybrid between socialism and capitalism in which the state guides the decisions of nominally private enterprises." And by the way, Sheelah, it seems like the private enterprises are going along with this.
SHEELAH KOLHATKAR, STAFF WRITER, THE NEW YORKER: Well, that's what's really shocking is the fact that so few of them are pushing back or banding together to try and resist this unbelievable incursion. But it really seems to me that Trump wants to sort of insert himself like a bottleneck in between whichever major businesses and business transactions interest him, even if they're in the private sector, even if those companies are owned by private shareholders, not by the government.
And none of that leads to strong, healthy companies. That leads to cronyism. That leads to people getting jobs, not because of expertise or good ideas or their resume, but because of loyalty, as we're seeing with the individual running the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
WILLIAMS: You just described DEI.
KOLHATKAR: And I think there's a reason a lot of people feel uncomfortable flying on airplanes made in certain countries. I won't name them, because people can't feel confident that they won't fall out of the sky.
[22:40:06]
So, we don't want to end up in a situation where important companies are being run and the decisions are being made in order to please Trump and whatever he's thinking about on that particular day.
PHILLIP: So we've been talking a lot about the business aspect of this, but also today, Trump is trying to pressure a Federal Reserve governor to resign. He is alleging, or his administration is alleging, without evidence, by the way, that she is responsible for some kind of mortgage fraud. And Trump doubled down saying, Lisa Cook must resign now.
Again, this is something where he can't -- he doesn't have the power to actually get rid of her. So now I guess he's ginning up accusations against her and not even proven accusations, but just the accusation alone. I mean, that seems like a whole different level of the president using the levers of government to achieve a political end in a business space where he really does not have a role.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, he does have a role because the federal housing regulator is the person who has turned over whatever information they have to the Department of Justice on the mortgage fraud allegations. So, to say that it's without evidence or any kind of backing, I mean, they obviously gave documents and information to the DOJ.
PHILLIP: Trump is asking her to resign based on an allegation that has not been adjudicated, it has not been proven, just simply an allegation. You're okay with that?
JENNINGS: Well, look, I think he wants her to resign because he wants a Federal Reserve where it's going to lower interest rates.
PHILLIP: Right.
JENNINGS: I mean, that's the bottom line here.
PHILLIP: That's exactly right. He wants her to resign because he wants a certain policy out of the Federal Reserve. And in order to get it, he is accusing someone of mortgage fraud. I don't know if it's true or not, but he is using that accusation to get a (inaudible) out of the Federal Reserve.
JENNINGS: Well, if it is, she should think about her future. If she has engaged in this, she should think about her future. Can I respond to something we were discussing on the capitalism issue?
PHILLIP: I mean, I don't know, Scott. It feels to me that you're trying to change the subject.
JENNINGS: No. Look, if she's committed mortgage fraud, she should resign. I don't know whether she has, but they got it --
PHILLIP: Listen, if she has committed mortgage fraud, it should be proven and -- it should be proven, and then she should resign.
JENNINGS: And I also think --
PHILLIP: But I would tell --
JENNINGS: -- I also think the Fed should lower interest rates.
PHILLIP: Until then, is it okay for Donald Trump to use an accusation that comes from inside his own administration to try to push her out so that he can get a lower interest rate?
JENNINGS: I mean, lowering interest rates would help a lot of people in this country and that is his strong --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Does the end justify the means?
ALENCIA JOHNSON, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER, HARRIS 2024 & BIDEN 202 CAMPAIGNS: There would be -- it would be an uproar here if this was President Joe Biden, right? But here, because it's Donald Trump, it's a public private partnership.
JENNINGS: Joe Biden fired scores of Trump appointees -- JOHNSON: But I'm just saying --
JENNINGS: -- the minute he took office. He fired scores of Trump appointees.
JOHNSON: But the anger and the hypocrisy.
(CROSSTALK)
JOHNSON: I'm literally not saying that every president doesn't do this.
PHILLIP: Hold on.
JOHNSON: But I'm just saying the response to when Donald Trump does it is so different. There is a spin and these talking points around it. But when Joe Biden does it, it was egregious. All this to say, this government overreach is the issue that I think some people are having when it comes to what is -- what private corporations are able to do.
They're the conversation to be had there and it seems as though the right, when it works in their favor, tends to brush some of this under the rug. But when it's Joe Biden or when it's Democrats, it becomes a big problem.
UNKNOWN: Biden has never made a baseless allegation to fire someone.
PHILLIP: We have to leave it there. Sheelah Kolhatkar, thank you very much for joining us. Coming up next for us, Barack Obama endorses California's revenge redistricting efforts. As we learn, the Democratic Party is hemorrhaging voters. We'll discuss why next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:45:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, Texas is one step closer to redrawing its map to eliminate five Democratic seats, making it more favorable to Republicans. And as other states begin to respond in kind, including California, Barack Obama, the former president, is now backing Gavin Newsom's redistricting effort.
The former president says that he is against the mid-decade gerrymandering, but he calls this a responsible approach. This war comes as a "New York Times" analysis shows the Democrats are bleeding voters. Of the 30 states that track registration by party, Democrats lost ground to Republicans in every single one between 2020 and 2024. And that includes with men, younger voters and new voters, also Latino voters as well.
But just on the Barack Obama of it all, Alencia, it's a little bit of a pretzel to twist into to say, I oppose redistricting, I oppose redistricting -- redistricting in the long term, but this retaliatory redistricting I'm fine with. JOHNSON: Yeah, listen, it's a -- it's like a ping pong match, right?
One party does it, the other party is like, how do we respond to this? I think what is happening right now, you hear a lot of Democrats and some of the most prominent ones realizing that we have to play the same game as Republicans because what folks are seeing is that these redistricting maps are actually gutting the political power of a lot of our base, particularly black and brown voters.
It's going to eliminate some potentially congressional black caucus members. And so the Democratic Party is sitting here saying, how do we empower the voters that we need? And then also, how do we say to Donald Trump, you can't get away with this game of cherry picking how you want to maintain control of the House, and we're not going to respond.
[22:50:02]
The thing that I will say about all of this that's happening, Democrats, the base, have wanted to see leadership come to the fight the same way that the Republicans have. And what is happening now with Gavin Newsom and now that President Barack Obama is behind them, it's showing the fight that actually might help us bring some of these voters back in 2028.
PHILLIP: Do you see really that this trolling of Trump in social media, which is doing gangbusters for Gavin Newsom's social media accounts, what's the pathway to actually bringing voters back to the Democratic Party? Because the internet is not real life, that is the truth. And I'm not sure I'm seeing Democrats understanding that.
MOCKLER: Well, there is two parts to it. First, you have to drive the attention then you drive the narrative. So right now, he's getting the attention piece in the attention economy and he's doing it quite well. He's getting millions of views. I also don't agree that Obama's twisting himself in a pretzel. I think it's completely logical statement.
Norms in a democracy work a lot like consent. You can't have meaningful consent when only one side is engaging in that and you can't have meaningful norms when one side is engaging. So when Obama says we're okay with temporary redistricting, that's what it is, temporary redistricting proportional to what Texas is doing, I don't think that's very hypocritical. But when it comes to Newsom, get the attention, drive the narrative, that's what Democrats should do.
WILLIAMS: The bottom line is Democrats are hemorrhaging voters, and I think what's really happening is if you look at the gerrymandered maps around the nation, you will find that Democrats have been at this for a lot longer, and they're freaking out because Republicans have finally gotten onto the game. And so here we are looking at, you know, you can't do it, but we'll do it. That is a pretzel and I appreciate you saying that.
But the other piece of this is that what we're looking at is the Democrat party is going to have to find their feet sometime soon. They lost 2.1 million voters between 2020 and 2024. Republicans gained 2.4 million voters between the same time span. They are actually hemorrhaging right now. They lack leadership, they lack a plan, they lack a vision, and they lack a message. And so at some point, they're going to have to find their feet.
PHILLIP: Last word, Scott.
JENNINGS: I think the Democrats are hemorrhaging voters because they've chosen all the wrong constituencies. They seem to care more about illegal aliens than American citizens --
JOHNSON: That's not true.
JENNINGS: -- violent criminals than law-abiding citizens --
JOHNSON: That is not true.
JENNINGS: -- and the Palestinian flag more than the American flag.
JOHNSON: That is not true --
JENNINGS: And when you take -- when you take those positions on things like that, people tend to run to the other party.
MOCKLER: Is there one mainstream Democrat that says he likes illegal immigrants over -- over --
JOHNSON: And you know that's not necessarily true.
JENNINGS: Chris Van Hollen. There's one.
MOCKLER: He said that? Chris Van Hollen did not say that.
JENNINGS: He went to have margaritas and (inaudible).
MOCKLER: He met with Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia who was brought back to the United States. The administration conceded that he was sent there wrongfully so Chris Van Hollen was not --
JENNINGS: I mean, (inaudible) went down this road.
PHILLIP: All right, Alencia.
JENNINGS: You claim that Democrats like --
JOHNSON: Hold on, hold on, hold on. As someone who does a lot of messaging in the Democratic Party, we do have a messaging issue. But the real thing here is that we have to go to these voters and talk to them about the pain that they are feeling before we bring the policy solution because we do have the policy solution. We just have to figure out a better way of listening to our voters. And I think we are in this crisis right now where we are forced to do that. And I do believe that Democrats can come back and gain these voters back.
PHILLIP: All right, next for us, the panel is going to give us their night caps, what they want to say to their high school haters. But first, a programming note from us. Don't miss an all-new CNN Original Series, "Rebirth of the Superdome." It airs Sunday night at 9:00 right here on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:55:00]
PHILLIP: We're back and it's time for the news nightcap, reunion edition. The cast of "Dawson's Creek" is getting back together next month to raise money for cancer charities. So now you each have 30 seconds to tell us in the spirit of high school reunions, what would you tell your former high school haters? Phil?
WILLIAMS: My high school haters, to the extent that I had haters, I don't remember that, but to the extent that I had them, I think I would look at them and say I can still fit like three quarters of the way into the same pants I wore in high school. How do you like me now?
PHILLIP: See, Phil, you didn't have haters because you were the popular kid.
JENNINGS: Wait. You say you're going to only put your pants on three- quarters of the way.
WILLIAMS: Three-quarters. Maybe half.
PHILLIP: Okay, okay. All right. Adam?
MOCKLER: I was not the best student in high school. I graduated four years ago, but I'd say I'm now on CNN with Abby Phillip. That's what I'd say.
PHILLIP: That's a flex. That he graduated four years ago.
(CROSSTALK)
MOCKLER: Owning people twice my age. Sorry, Scott.
WILLIAMS: He aged us and he suck up to the host right there.
PHILLIP: Oh, gosh. Okay, let's see.
JOHNSON: You literally aged us. I would just say to all of my haters who said I had too many opinions and I talked too much, look at me now. That's it.
PHILLIP: Scott, you have many haters.
JENNINGS: I don't really. I'm going to be honest with you. I read this tonight and I was preparing for it and I can't really recall or have knowledge of anybody who I would put in a hater camp. I'm not aware of anybody presently that hates me. I have no knowledge of any of hating activity that goes on out in the world. I seem to be generally well liked and so I'm not going to speak to the haters.
I'm just going to speak to my fans or who I like to call my co- conspirators in common sense. And I just want to say thank you all very much for the support that you give us out here on this show and for what Abby's been doing. It's been just over a year since we've been doing this format and, anyway, I don't like to acknowledge haters. I like to acknowledge fans. And so I just want to say thanks to everybody who's supporting this show.
PHILLIP: There is -- there is a lesson in that for all of us. Just don't acknowledge the haters.
JENNINGS: Don't acknowledge.
PHILLIP: Just ignore them as if they don't exist.
[22:59:59]
And also, I would say to the haters, keep my name out your mouth.
JENNINGS: Don't feed the (inaudible) Abby. Don't do it.
PHILLIP: Everyone, thank you so much. Thanks for watching "NewsNight." You can catch me anytime on your favorite social media, X, Instagram and TikTok. "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
