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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Again Threatens To Send Troops To Chicago, Out Of Control; Trump Says, I Have the Right To Do Anything I Want To Do; Lawyer Says, Fed Gov. Lisa Cook To Sue Over Trump's Attempted Firing; Outrage Grows As Israel's Actions Push To The Brink of Isolation; Heather Honey Is The New Deputy Assistant Secretary For Election Integrity; SpaceX Launches New Starship Into Space And Returns To Earth. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired August 26, 2025 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST (voice over): Tonight, Trump's big muscle flex.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Not that I don't have the right to do anything I want to do. If I think our country's in danger, and it is in danger in these cities, I can do it.
PHILLIP: From arming the National Guard in D.C. to telling Chicago they're next.
TRUMP: I'm willing to go to Chicago. We have a governor that refuses to admit he has problems, huge problems.
PHILLIP: And to Baltimore's Wes Moore.
TRUMP: I'm not walking in Baltimore right now. Baltimore is a hellhole.
PHILLIP: What's the legal strategy to take the show of force on the road?
Plus, Trump tells Lisa Cook, she's fired.
TRUMP: She seems to have had an infraction and she can't have an infraction.
PHILLIP: But Lisa Cook says, no. What happens now in the face off between the president and the Fed?
Also protests in Israel over the war in Gaza. Is the country's military campaign leaving Israel all alone?
Live at the table, Scott Jennings, Xochitl Hinojosa, Kevin O'Leary and Ana Kasparian.
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, pushing the limits. Donald Trump is tightening his grip on power and his top aides are sowing the seeds of just how far they think that power expands, as the president threatens to bring military force to more cities across the country.
Now, already, Trump has ordered armed troops to take over the nation's capital, and he's vowed Chicago and Baltimore are next. But as the president digs in, he just flexed his executive muscle in a very big way.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Not that I don't have the right to do anything I want to do. I'm the president of the United States. If I think our country's in danger, and it is in danger in these cities, I can do it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Trump, it seems, is testing the waters here, almost normalizing the next steps in this playbook for broader control. And if you're wondering just how Trump plans to carry all of this out legally, well, the White House is laying out the groundwork right now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHEN MILLER, WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF: The president has the utmost authority here because he oversees federal law enforcement, which is supreme to state and local law enforcement. And all of these organized street gangs that are terrorizing these cities, that are dealing these drugs, that are trafficking weapons, that are engaging in organized theft, armed robbery, carjacking, all of them are doing business with, at some level or another, the transnational narco trafficking organizations. So, these street crews are engaged in material support for terrorism, which is the core function of the federal government to defend and protect.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Joining us now in our fifth seat tonight is CNN Senior Legal Analyst and former Federal Prosecutor Elie Honig. He is also the author of the book, When You Come at the King, which comes out next month.
Elie, I have been dying to ask you about that very sound bite from Stephen Miller. I'm curious what you think about that. He's basically saying we can designate these street gangs as terrorists because they are providing material support for foreign entities and use the military and use federal power for that reason.
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Okay. So, there's a lot going on here, but let's try to separate it into two buckets. First of all, there's the use of federal law enforcement assets, FBI, DEA, ATF. The president and DOJ can do what they want with those federal assets. If they want to deploy them into the cities, they can.
Ideally you would get together with the mayor and the police chief and do it cooperatively. I've been part of that from both the federal and the state side. That's the way it works best. But, legally, he can put the FBI on the streets if he wants. He can put the DEA. We can talk about whether that's a good idea.
PHILLIP: And they are on the streets, to be clear.
HONIG: Yes, exactly. I mean, and he can continue doing that.
Then there's the question of the National Guard. Now, this is a little trickier. So far, Trump has deployed the National Guard in D.C. He's allowed to do that. He is the commander-in-chief. He is also in charge of the National Guard in D.C. And he has done it in California, that too, was legal that went up to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. They found that he had properly invoked the Insurrection Act. Not that there was a rebellion, but under this broader catch-all, that's as if necessary to enforce federal laws.
But I do want to point this out. If Trump thinks he's going to be able to deploy the National Guard in Illinois, in Maryland, in New York, it's going to be much harder legally.
[22:05:03]
Because in California, the hook he used was the ongoing protests, which at times had turned violent and into riots. If that's not happening, I don't know whether just citing high crime rates is going to be enough according to the courts.
So, he's had success so far with the National Guard in D.C. and California, much tougher legal terrain in the other states.
PHILLIP: So, for the second time in two days, Trump has brought up the dictator word. Let me just play what he said today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: So, the line is that I'm a dictator, but I stop crime. So, a lot of people say, you know, if that's the case, I'd rather have a dictator. But I'm not a dictator. I just know how to stop crime.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Are people saying, Scott, that they'd like to have a dictator if it stops crime?
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think people are certainly saying that they'd like to stop crime, whatever you call it. I saw a Harvard-Harris poll today, think 54 percent of Americans thought what he did in Washington, D.C., was justified. 56 percent of Americans think crime is a major problem in larger --
PHILLIP: Did you say 44 percent of Americans?
JENNINGS: No, 54 percent.
PHILLIP: 54 percent.
JENNINGS: 56 percent thought major crime in large cities was a problem.
So, he seems to have some political support for this. And, look, I mean, it's kind of a bread and butter political issue that gets debated all the time. And what he has done here is he's put himself on the side of I want to, you know, do what I can do. And even if I have to test my authority to stop crime, and my political opponents are now out having a meltdown because I guess they want to support the ongoing crimes in their blue city.
So, he's created a real political bright line between the two parties. However, it works out legally, it's going to work for him politically.
XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, that's the bright line. I think that people want crime to go down. No one wants crime in their communities. That is clear. We saw that. We've seen that over the last few months. People don't want the National Guard in their communities. That's completely different. And just as you pointed out, there are other mechanisms for the federal government to come in and to help communities, and that is the FBI and DEA and providing grants to -- educational grants so that we are providing educational services to young youth to get them off the streets.
There are things like that that the federal government can do and that will actually help in the long-term reduce crime. It was already reducing crime in the Biden administration. Biden didn't go out and put the National Guard everywhere, but you know what? They did have a strategy to bring down crime and crime started to go down. And what's going to happen here is in one month, and once the National Guard leaves, crime will go up again. And --
JENNINGS: So, you're your admitting National Guard -- you're saying the Guard does bring down crime?
HINOJOSA: Well, right now, they're arresting everyone and anyone and trying to figure out what charges they're going to bring. They're trying to arrest everyone and everyone trying to figure out what charges they can bring against them.
JENNINGS: Well, not everyone, criminals.
ANA KASPARIAN, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER AND HOST, THE YOUNG TURKS: Well, they're not arresting everyone, in fact. And I want to just say in regard to that public opinion polling that you cited, I totally understand that sentiment because as someone who was a Democrat, I'm an in independent now. I was incredibly frustrated living in Los Angeles being gaslit about the reality of the disorder, the crime that was happening. So, yes, that's going to lead to people who are looking for solutions. And if the Democratic Party is gaslighting you and telling you, no, no crime's getting better, they're going to be more open to some of the shenanigans happening with Trump.
The problem with Trump, though, is I think crime is the cover story. I think this is a power grab. And the reason why I say that is because look at the specific examples of crime that he allegedly wants to go after. I mean, just recently, his FBI did a sting operation in Las Vegas and they managed to catch through the sting operation eight separate pedophiles that were trying to have sex with minors, okay? One of those pedophiles is an Israeli government official who his government allowed to fly back to Israel after he had been charged in that sting operation for using technology to lure a minor for sex.
And when it comes to the immigration issue, he loves to go after the undocumented immigrants, but not the employers employing the undocumented immigrants.
PHILLIP: You mentioned that Trump -- you described it as a cover story, but I think it's also worth noting that Trump has been talking about doing this for a long time. I mean, this is back in the campaign. And the context here is not crime in American cities. The context here are his political enemies, Democrats. This is what he's talking about. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within.
We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they're -- and it should be very easily handled by -- if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: He keeps talking about using the military domestically against American citizens. And we can parse all the ways that he can try to do this with this statute or that statute, but the broad principle is that the Constitution makes it much more difficult to do that for a reason, right?
[22:10:08]
And so why does it keep bringing that up?
KEVIN O'LEARY, CHAIRMAN, O'LEARY VENTURES: (INAUDIBLE) doesn't get caught up in the nuance that you're bringing forward. What they care about, we haven't even mention war zones like downtown San Francisco after 7:00 where I work, or Hollywood or Los Angeles, where I work two months of the year. They are war zones. You can't walk outside at night, period.
I don't give a damn if it's the army, the National Guard, the FBI. I couldn't care less. And I can guarantee you 80, 90, 100 percent of the people there don't care either. They just want to walk outside.
PHILLIP: I understand that people do want safety. I mean, there's no question about that. O'LEARY: Safety? You get beaten to a pulp in broad daylight in L.A.
PHILLIP: People want safety and security, but I don't think it's true that people don't care whether or not the U.S. military is --
O'LEARY: It's part of being pounded with a hammer in broad daylight.
PHILLIP: Fellow citizens. I mean, I think that's a general -- that's an important American principle that has its roots all the way to this country's founding, and it's also because the military serves a role to protect Americans, not to be used against Americans.
KASPARIAN: Exactly.
JENNINGS: You keep saying used against Americans. What kind of Americans do you mean? The ones that are murdering us, carjacking us, raping us, terrorizing our cities? I mean, you're saying like he's creating an actual war against American citizens, while he's actually creating is a war against criminals, and, by the way, illegal aliens who they are rounding up by the bucket load in Washington.
PHILLIP: Well, I want to let Elie speak, but, I mean, look, I don't -- I'm not saying he's creating a war against American citizens, but I also think that, first of all, even you have, you know, large amounts of armed military personnel on the streets, they're going to encounter a lot of Americans who've done nothing wrong. And those Americans have rights, as do the Americans who have done things wrong, just to be clear. But Americans who have done nothing wrong will get caught up and have gotten caught up in this. Go ahead.
HONIG: Not to be overly idealistic about all this, but there's a way this can work and I've seen it, and as I'm sure you have too, in your experience at DOJ. There have been many -- when I was in New Jersey, we had a crime problem in Newark. And what did we do? We teamed up the Newark P.D. with the feds and we surged into Newark and it made a big difference. And let me just say, as a parent who's about to two kids in college in the city of Chicago, I want as many uniforms out there as possible. And, frankly, I don't really care where they're coming from.
But both sides need to do better. I mean, there's a clip today of the mayor of Chicago who I think very highly of stumbling all over himself when he is asked point blank, is it better to have, you know, people on the streets to have uniform, people on the streets, and he goes, we need housing. That's a different issue. He needs to say, yes, but we need to work with.
And the feds need to cut it out -- Donald Trump needs to knock it off with that sort of over the top rhetoric. There's a way to do this constructively. I saw it done during the Bush administration. I saw, you know, Scott, you were part of it, I saw it done during the Obama administration. All it takes is let's get past the craziness, the rhetoric. If you work together, you can do it. I've seen it. You've seen it.
HINOJOSA: Well, and part of it is also that Democrats are waiting for Trump to come into their cities and bring the National Guard, and that is not a good solution and is not going to end well for anybody. If you're a Democratic mayor or a governor, what you should be doing is having -- requesting federal, whether it is the FBI, DEA, any sort of assistance that is not the National Guard that will actually work for your law enforcement and not bring in the National Guard.
PHILLIP: I think that would be -- I mean, sure, but Donald Trump was, just as an example, invited to come to Baltimore by the governor. He refused. He turned it down because he said that it was some kind of political trap, even though Baltimore is, A, great place for the president to see what's going on because they have done some things, including gotten tougher on crime, when it comes to juvenile crime in particular, that have worked. But Trump refuses. So, I mean, is it politics?
JENNINGS: Well, of course politics is going on here. I mean, you said that they should be asking for federal resources, but that would be an admission that they have lost control of their city. So --
HINOJOSA: That's not losing control.
JENNINGS: -- Brandon Johnson --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: The mayor of D.C. asked for federal resources too. She was --
JENNINGS: But Brandon Johnson, the mayor, Chicago, said, I don't want more police. And he even said, today, we don't even want to put people in prison.
HINOJOSA: But this is what I'm telling you. I'm telling you that Democrats should think about potentially asking for more resource. What I'll say here is that --
JENNINGS: I agree with you, but they won't.
HINOJOSA: But it's also not handing over the entire city to the federal government. What happens is that the mayor and the local law enforcement should be in charge, and they should have the federal law enforcement supplement and provide training as needed. It shouldn't be that the National Guard and federal law enforcement should take over a city that they do not understand, that they do not know, that the community doesn't understand --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Listen, when you've heard Stephen Miller talking about this, he didn't say, we want to work with local law enforcement. He said, we are supreme and we can do whatever we want. So, that really tells you everything you need to know about the approach that they're taking.
KASPARIAN: That's the problem. It's kind of an approach in like an adversarial way, as opposed to we care about this crime issue and we want to make the city safer.
[22:15:01]
That's the problem here.
PHILLIP: All right. Next for us, coming up, the Fed Reserve governor that President Trump says that he wants fired says, not so fast. What Lisa Cook plans to do next.
Plus, Israelis take to the streets to protest Prime Minister Netanyahu's strategy in Gaza. A special guest is going to be with us at the table. That's ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight, President Trump doubles down on his frustrations with the Federal Reserve moving to fire Lisa Cook, who has refused to vote to lower interest rates. Trump and his allies allege that Cook committed mortgage fraud, but they haven't charged her with any wrongdoing.
[22:20:01]
It is the first time in history that a president has tried to fire a Fed governor.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: She seems to have had an infraction and she can't have an infraction, and especially that infraction because she's in charge of, if you think about it, mortgages. And we need people that are a hundred percent above board and it doesn't seem like she would.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: In response, Cook has said that she isn't going anywhere with her lawyer telling CNN in his statement that President Trump has no authority to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. His attempt to fire her based solely on a referral letter lacks any factual or legal basis. We will be filing a lawsuit challenging this illegal action.
At this point, I think the question is going to be, first of all, how quickly this will get to the Supreme Court, because we know that's where it's all headed. But is it enough to just allege that someone has done something wrong and then say you're firing them for cause?
HONIG: So, that's a great question. That's the first question. Is this good cause? What we have here is an allegation put together by a federal agency, not DOJ, this finance mortgage agency. Is that enough? We don't have a charge. We don't have an indictment. We certainly don't have a conviction. That'll be up to the courts. I mean, what if the allegation was for something more dramatic? What if the allegation was she was running a Ponzi scheme? I don't know. Would that be enough? And, look, the evidence of mortgage fraud is completely ambiguous. I don't think anyone can say conclusively either way, she did or did not commit fraud.
But there's a bigger constitutional issue at play here, and I'll give you both sides some good news and some bad news here. The good news, Scott and Kevin, I think, for the conservative side is this Supreme Court has given several rulings expanding Donald Trump's ability, or the president's ability, I should say, to fire executive branch officials. Even if Congress has passed laws limiting it, Supreme Court has said, no, president's the chief executive, he is in charge of the executive branch. He can fire people for whatever he wants. So, it was a decision in May where the Supreme Court affirmed the president's ability to fire the head of the NLRB and the Merit Systems Protection Board. That's the good news for you guys.
The bad news for you guys, the good news for you two, is in that very decision, the Supreme Court went out of its way to say, but the Fed is different.
PHILLIP: Yes. Let me read it, Elie. It says we disagree, in this part of it. He says, the Federal Reserve is a uniquely structured, quasi- private entity that follows in the distinct historical tradition of the first and second banks of the United States. The for cause removal part of this for the Fed, they seem to be saying here is probably a different story. I guess the question will be to what degree.
HONIG: That sentence that you just read, Abby, tells me if I had to make a prediction that they are -- the Supreme Court, if and when it gets them and it will get to them, is going to actually rule against Donald Trump on this one. Why would they go out of their way? They took a detour there. They didn't have to talk about the Fed. They went out of their way in ruling for Trump to say, but the Fed's different. I think that's going to hold.
PHILLIP: Kevin, what do you make of this? I mean, markets were pretty quiet today and part of me wondered if it's because they -- even they might think that at the end of all of this, he won't be able to do this.
O'LEARY: There's an overriding issue that's more important than any one president, any one administration has been the success of the structure of the independent Fed for such a long time in global markets. And the reason 52 cents of every dollar around the world is invested in the American economy is trust and faith that the Fed does the right thing in terms of managing interest rates and inflation and employment. It's a dual mandate. It's a 2 percent inflation target. We're running at three right now.
The world trusts the independence of the Fed away from the executive. It's always been that way. However, Fed-bashing is always the purvey of every president. It's a sport. It's very important to get in there and bash the Fed your first day because you always want lower rates. And the Fed always smiles at you and doesn't give a poo-poo. And that's what works. That's what the market wants. That's what I want.
This is a new level of Fed-bashing. In the first time in my career in financial services where I lived my whole life, I have never ever heard a narrative where individuals that are getting involved in this debate are talking about which administration appointed which governor.
PHILLIP: Yes.
O'LEARY: Red -- or I have never -- I see that in the federal courts.
PHILLIP: I was listening to some of the financial T.V. broadcasts earlier today, and some of the people -- there was one individual that may be considered to be on the Federal Reserve Board, talking about it, he was talking about it.
O'LEARY: (INAUDIBLE), you realize that?
PHILLIP: Yes. But he was talking about it in a way that was like, everything is political. The Fed is political, everybody, right. I mean, and, actually, I mean, earlier today, Scott Bessent essentially said the same thing.
But on the FHFA director, Bill Pulte, who's behind a lot of this, he has been tweeting up a storm about all the mortgage fraud that he's referred to DOJ, but he's particularly referred Democrats, at least the ones he's talked about publicly, Adam Schiff, Letitia James and I'm not characterizing her as a Democrat, but Lisa Cook.
[22:25:04]
Noted in CNN's story today that Pulte has sent referrals for Schiff, James and Cook, but he has not taken any steps to respond to a July report from the A.P. that the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, a Republican claimed three primary residences in mortgage documents, which James' attorney claimed in a letter was evidence that the investigations against her were politically motivated. Why hasn't Bill Pulte sent that to DOJ?
JENNINGS: I don't know. I don't know Bill Pulte. I mean, and I only recently learned about this issue because apparently there's a bunch of rich people out there claiming primary residences all over their mortgage applications, which I don't know anything about either.
And so, look, I think if it's true that that's what they're doing, that they're trying to game the system, that is a problem. I read today that it takes the DOJ about two years to, you know, go through one of these cases. So, it could be a while if you're waiting for, you know, a conviction. It might not take that long for an indictment.
PHILLIP: I mean, Trump could prioritize it if he wants to.
O'LEARY: By the way, it's a national conviction.
JENNINGS: It's bad, yes.
HINOJOSA: Well, they haven't done it.
PHILLIP: Yes.
HINOJOSA: And it's interesting to me that this isn't the only place where they have gone after one side and started investigating one side, Democrats, or people who Trump disagrees with. You see that at DOJ all of the time. You see an investigation into Jack Smith. You saw what happened with Bolton just last week, but yet they haven't investigated Hegseth for classified information. They dropped the case against Walt Nauta whenever he helped, you know, Donald Trump obstruct in the classified docs case.
And so I haven't, and I've yet to see the Justice Department or anyone in this administration investigate, bring any sort of investigation of the person of their same party. In the Biden administration, you saw that constantly. There was an investigation of the sitting president. There was an investigation of Bob Menendez, you know? And it's based on the facts of law. But here, they don't do it.
PHILLIP: (INAUDIBLE) investigate a lot of Democrats. I mean, he did. Trump, on the other hand, has been very clear that when he wants to go after people who are on his list, he will use the levers of all these other agencies, the FHFA of all places, to try to find the evidence. I mean, that call -- I think a lot of Americans, that's kind of chilling.
HONIG: Well, let me tell you, just from my experience as a prosecutor. If you want to just catch someone in something, pull their mortgage files. This is very common. That people -- we did dozens and dozens of cases where people are doing exactly this, claiming vacation homes and second homes as primary residence.
JENNINGS: And what's the benefit? You get a lower interest?
HONIG: You get a lower interest rate. It saves tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. And so, really, to me, the big question that I don't think has been answered is where is Bill Pulte getting his marching orders? Why is he pulling the Adam Schiff file or Letitia -- I have no sympathy for Letitia James, but why is he pulling the Letitia James file and who's telling him who to pull?
I mean, it's not -- the thing that I would be concerned about is similar to the IRS scandal that we've seen -- I think it was the Obama administration, right, where they were pulling Tea Party and, you know, certain conservative buzzwords. If that's the same thing happening at this mortgage entity, that's going to be a big problem.
KASPARIAN: You don't think that Trump really cares about financial fraud? I mean, you know --
PHILLIP: I mean, Ken Paxton would like a word.
Anyway, up next for us, Israeli protestors have been holding a day of disruption, demanding a Gaza ceasefire and a deal to release the remaining hostages. So, is Netanyahu's military strategy in Gaza isolating Israel around the world? We have a special guest joining us next for that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:33:07]
PHILLIP: Tonight, outrage grows as Israel's actions push it to the brink of isolation. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets today demanding a hostage deal and a ceasefire with Gaza in a nationwide show of force. Now, the protests come after back to back Israeli strikes on Gaza's largest remaining hospital that killed at least 20 people on Monday.
Among them, five Palestinian journalists who worked for various outlets, including "The Associated Press" and "Reuters". Now, the Israeli military claimed without providing evidence that the double tap strike, as it's called, was aimed at what it believed was a camera positioned by Hamas to observe IDF activity. A security source told CNN that none of the journalists killed on Monday were targets. Meanwhile, the Palestinian people's suffering is deepening. Famine is declared for the first time in Gaza.
Joining us in our fifth seat at the table is Max Boot. He's a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a "Washington Post" columnist. And, Max, this is just a continuation of almost a snowball effect as the war has been being carried out, I think, like this for some time now. But the combination of the targeting of journalists and also the backlash inside Israel and outside of Israel is starting to worry a lot of people who are pro-Israel, by the way.
MAX BOOT, SENIOR FELLOW, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Yeah, including me. I mean, I'm a strong supporter of Israel, but I'm very concerned about what I'm seeing that the Netanyahu government is doing in Gaza. Because if you listen to what the IDF, the Israeli generals themselves said about a year ago was they had concluded their military objectives in Gaza. Hamas was no longer a threat to Israel.
And so, they were basically saying there is not much more that the Israeli military could do in Gaza and yet the offensive continues because for Netanyahu to turn off the war would be very politically perilous because he is really at the mercy of the far right parties in his own coalition.
[22:35:00]
And so he keeps on fighting, even though the cost is growing, not just to Palestinians, but also to Israelis. Because remember, there are a lot of Israeli soldiers from the front lines, as well. So, to my mind, this is a terrible tragedy, not only primarily, of course, humanitarian tragedy for the people of Gaza, but it's really a long term tragedy for the state of Israel.
I was just looking at a poll that showed Gallup showed that only 30 percent of Americans now support the war that Israel is waging in Gaza. This is going to cause an entire generation of Americans and countries around the world to turn against the Jewish state. And as somebody, again, who supports the Jewish state and stands with the Israelis who are out there protesting against the war, what Netanyahu is doing is horribly destructive, not only for Gaza, but also for Israel.
KASPARIAN: I would agree with that. And, you know, I don't believe for a second that those journalists were not targeted. I think journalists are being targeted in Gaza. They're not allowing international journalists to report on the ground to enter the Gaza Strip unless, of course, they're being accompanied by IDF soldiers. And hundreds of journalists have been slaughtered in Gaza.
Every single time it happens, Netanyahu comes out and says, oh, it was a mishap, and The United States just forgets about it and moves on, continues providing more bombs. Thank you for saying what you're saying because you are correct that people are losing their support for Israel over the conduct of -- I don't consider this a war at all. I do consider it a genocide when you have humanitarian aid workers being slaughtered, when you have every single hospital bombed, when you have the entire Gaza Strip leveled.
That's not a war. A war, you do targeted strikes and you go after the combatants. Seven twenty nine magazine, an Israeli publication, obtained IDF documents showing -- their data shows that 83 percent of the people slaughtered in Gaza are civilians -- 83 percent. Let me say it again, 83 percent. How are you going to call that a war against Hamas?
PHILLIP: This latest attack that killed the five journalists, the story is that there was a camera that was operated by Hamas. I'm going to play what, Barak Ravid, who is perhaps one of the best sourced reporters, in both The United States and Israel on this story. This is what he said last night about that story.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARAK RAVID, "AXIOS" REPORTER: At least from what I hear from some Israeli officials, there are serious questions about this version. And it is not at all clear that this was indeed an approved target, whether it was, you know, a Hamas reconnaissance outpost in the hospital or not. There's been a lot of arguments between the general staff, in the IDF headquarters and the southern command regarding targeting.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, Israeli officials said, that the journalists were not the targets, but they were in fact killed. They also said that there were terrorists who were in the group of 20 that were killed. But this is the type of thing that has caused the world to ask very serious questions about how they are conducting this war. That they would, if you take the story at face value, bomb on camera, kill 20 people as collateral, and then say, as Netanyahu said in a statement today, that this was a tragic mishap.
JENNINGS: Yeah, I think they said also six terrorists were killed in the attack. We've heard --
KASPARIAN: Twelve. Yes.
JENNINGS: -- we've heard -- how do you know?
KASPARIAN: I know it's BS because of the IDF's internal documents, documents, which indicate that 83 percent of people killed there--
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: You know for a fact -- you know for a fact that they weren't any terrorists --
(CROSSTALK)
KASPARIAN: I'm not going to even it here and regurgitate the lies from the Israeli government as they're conducting a genocide.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Even if there were -- even if there were six terrorists killed in the strike, there were 20 people killed total. So, there were a lot of people who were killed, who according to Israel where not terrorists. Five of those people were journalists.
The second strike occurred when there were aid workers coming to assist people who had been caught up in the strike. That's what I'm talking about. Putting -- I don't want -- I can't litigate the terrorists or not. But even based on their version of it, that is what I think is causing a lot of, concern.
JENNINGS: Sure. Look, it's a war. Tragic things happen. People that you hope would not be killed get killed, and you have -- in an active war zone, it happens in every active war zone for all of human history. I would note we've had four people talk and told me -- and not a single person has said the word hostage yet. There's still 50 hostages.
KASPARIAN: Right. Well --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: And the entire, I mean -- and the entire issue --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I - just to be clear, I said -- I said hostages because I was talking about the hundreds of -- the hundreds of Israelis who were in the streets today demanding a hostage deal.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: I know. And guess what?
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: And demanding that this war has to end immediately.
JENNINGS: And the deal has to be executed by the people who took the hostages -- Hamas. They're the ones holding them.
(CROSSTALK)
KASPARIAN: They accepted the ceasefire.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: They're the ones who have been holding them since October the 7th. They keep, you know, talking about possible cease fire.
(CROSSTALK)
KASPARIAN: They accepted the ceasefire -- Israel --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: Why don't they just really -- can you add -- one simple question.
[22:40:00]
(CROSSTALK)
KASPARIAN: They want to release the hostages.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNNINGS: All of them?
KASPARIAN: They -- yes.
JENNINGS: How many?
KASPARIAN: They accepted a cease fire.
JENNINGS: No, you're lying. They said maybe 10.
KASPARIAN: They want -- give us a 60-day pause in this war. We will return every single hostage --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: Why haven't -- why didn't -- why haven't they released --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: -- now?
(CROSSTALK)
KASPARIAN: Israel stands in the way every single time.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: There's no answer to this. Why are they holding the hostages?
(CROSSTALK)
KASPARIAN: Every single time.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: What is your view about this? Because this is a talking point that comes up a lot. JENNINGS: It's not a talking point. They're 50 lives down there.
PHILLIP: Hold on a second.
KASPARIAN: It is definitely a talking point.
PHILLIP: Hold on a second.
(CROSSTALK)
KASPARIAN: When you block humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip for three months straight, it not only impacts the Palestinians, which I know you couldn't care less about, but also obviously is going to impact the hostages. They're going to starve to death, as well.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: You're saying Israel is starving the hostages?
KASPARIAN: I'm saying -- yes. Yeah. When you block humanitarian aid for three months, where do you think they're going to get the food from? What a joke.
PHILLIP: Max, Israel -- and Hamas have been circling around a lot of different hostage deals -- ceasefire deals. They haven' t happened for a number of different reasons. And with the caveat, as we have said numerous times, Hamas is a homicidal terrorist organization that should never have hostages in the first place. But what is stopping a deal from actually happening to get these last hostages out? Because many Israelis think that the Netanyahu government is not doing enough to take a deal and get them out.
BOOT: No, I think that is ultimately the stumbling block not to -- not making excuses for Hamas, which is this evil genocidal terrorist organization, but they have indicated willingness to do a deal to release some of the hostages. There was a deal that was done earlier in the year that released a bunch of hostages. Most Israelis want to do that deal because most Israelis are convinced the only way the 20 remaining hostages who are still alive were going to come home is with a deal.
But Netanyahu insists on military action, which most Israelis see as endangering the lives of the hostages. And what Netanyahu was saying, he will keep on fighting until Hamas ceases to exist. Well, Hamas is not going to give up and so basically, that is consigning Israeli troops to perpetual war in Gaza with no end game in sight.
And Netanyahu refuses to make a deal with Hamas. He refuses to allow the Palestinian authority to come into Gaza to try to have some Palestinian governance, which is more responsible in law abiding than what they've seen in recent years. So, it's -- it's a disaster. There's plenty of blame to go around on both sides. But right now, I think there's a general sense in Israel that Netanyahu simply does not want to do the deal.
JENNINGS: You said end game. What is the Hamas end game? What is their stated goal?
BOOT: Well, they want to stay -- they want to remain as an organization.
JENNINGS: No, no. What's their stated goal as it relates to the Jews in Israel?
BOOT: They want to destroy the state of Israel. There's no question about it, but they're not in a position to do that anymore because the IDF has rendered them no longer a credible military.
JENNINGS: What's their stated goal as it relates to Jewish people?
BOOT: They want to exterminate Jews, but so --
(CROSSTALK)
BOOT: -- Scott.
PHILLIP: I mean, I don't think that that's --
BOOT: -- that doesn't justify what Israel is doing in Gaza.
PHILLIP: -- the point that he's making.
JENNINGS: You're acting like we're dealing with rational actors.
PHILLIP: No.
JENNINGS: We're not.
PHILLIP: No.
JENNINGS: There may not be a deal to be done with rational actors.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I'm not acting like --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: -- I'm not acting like -- I'm not acting like anything at all. But the question on the table for the entire globe is what is it going to take to, A, bring those hostages home and end the killing and the suffering of the Palestinian people? And at the end of the day, it has to be a deal between Hamas and the Israeli government. And that you -- Hamas is a horrible entity, but it has to be a deal.
JENNINGS: But you're saying you're going to leave them in place.
PHILLIP: And there will be a deal with them.
BOOT: No, the only --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: No, you're saying you're going to leave them in place.
(CROSSTALK)
BOOTS: No, the only way, Scott -- the only way --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I'm saying what? What, Scott?
JENNINGS: Are you saying that you -- you said we have to have a deal with Hamas. You're -- you're anticipating that we leave them in place.
PHILLIP: Scott, Scott, am I -- am I -- did I say anything of the sort?
JENNINGS: Yes. You just said we have to have a deal with Hamas.
PHILLIP: No, no. I did -- I did not say anything of the sort. In order to get the hostages out, go ask President Trump. He has been trying to broker a deal between Hamas and Israel. None of that is new. None of that is novel. None of that is even a --
(CROSSTALK)
BOOT: The only -- the only --
(CROSSTALK)
BOOT: Can I just --
(CROSSTALK)
KASPARIAN: Scott, can I ask you a question? Why is Israel annexing the West Bank right now? Why is Israel annexing the West Bank? Which, of course, is not governed by Hamas at all. Why are Israeli settlers allowed to just run Palestinians out of their legal homes, build thousands of illegal settlements? West Bank has nothing to do with Hamas. Why is Israel annexing it?
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: Why --
KASPARIAN: Why did Netanyahu say that his stated goal in an interview with "I 24 News", an Israeli publication, say that he has a religious need to pursue, the greater Israel project?
PHILLIP: Okay, I'm going to let Scott answer quickly, and then we've got to go. Go ahead.
KASPARIAN: Go ahead, Scott.
JENNINGS: My view is this. The hostages have been there for almost 700 days. There's a reason that Hamas is not working.
PHILLIP: Are you going to answer her question though?
KASPARIAN: He's not. He's not going to answer.
PHILLIP: Yeah.
JENNINGS: I don't work with the Israeli government. All I really care about --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Well --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: -- is that the hostages come home.
PHILLIP: Okay.
JENNINGS: And I have no belief that Hamas, that took the hostages, that murdered all these people are ever going to let them go --
PHILLIP: All right.
JENNINGS: -- unless they're totally erratic.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: We do have to leave it there. Max Boot, thank you very much for joining us. We're going to be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:49:21]
PHILLIP: Tonight, an election denier gets a government job to protect election integrity. Yeah. You heard that right. Heather Honey is now serving the Department of Homeland Security as the deputy assistant secretary for election integrity. In 2020, Honey misrepresented voter data and falsely claimed that Pennsylvania had more votes reported than voters, which was not true.
And a year later, she was involved in Arizona's partisan recount that spent months looking for fraud, but ultimately found that Biden won by a larger margin than originally reported. Elie is back with us at the table. Trump is literally putting election deniers.
[22:50:02]
I don't even know if that's a strong enough term for it, in the government to do election integrity? What are we doing?
HONIG: Is there any defense of this? I mean, this is ridiculous. And look, are we letting 2020 go or not? And if not, by the way, I would ask this, why has Pam Bondi not charged anyone with the greatest fraud in the history of electoral politics? We still have a couple months till the statute of limitations runs out. Greatest fraud ever, theft of an election, no charges, not -- not getting it there. PHILLIP: Trump literally brought this up today, I kid you not, today
in the cabinet room. Listen to what he said. He was talking to Tulsi Gabbard, the DNI.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: And you've also found many bags of information. I think they call them burn bags. They're supposed to be burned, and they didn't get burned having to do with how corrupt the 2020 election was. And --
TULSI GABBARD, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: Mr. President, I will be the first to brief you, once we have that information collected. But you're right. It's -- we are finding documents literally tucked away in the back of safes and random offices in these bags and in other areas, which again speaks to the intent of those who are trying to hide the truth from the American people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HONIG: Yeah. I can't wait for that.
PHILLIP: Yeah. I mean, I don't know what she's talking about, but I'm going to hazard to say that that is not true, right? There's no burn bags of election information that would prove that Trump won. Why would he put someone like this Heather Honey person in the government, in any role at all?
JENNINGS: Well, I mean, I don't know. I've never heard of this person, and I don't know why she got her appointment. I don't know whether the President personally appointed her to this job or not. And so, you know, and I don't even know what she does on a daily basis.
My view is actually similar to Elie's, if --and just listening to Tulsi Gabbard there, if you have documents, evidence, whatever, it should be collected, it should be organized, and it should be turned over to the proper authorities for action. That would be my advice to them.
(CROSSTALK)
O'LEARY: I can't believe we're still talking about this.
KASPARIAN: Yeah.
PHILLIP: Same.
(LAUGHTER)
O'LEARY: We actually, we actually have the technology today, and other countries have adopted it. It's called the blockchain. There is no voter fraud in Switzerland. They know how to do it. It involves paper and a blockchain and a check and an auditability -- it's audible. It's transparent. I don't know why we just don't adopt it. We are the most advanced nation on earth with this technology and we're still talking about voter fraud? PHILLIP: But we're not really talking about voter fraud.
UNKNOWN: Exactly.
PHILLIP: That's the problem, is that if we were talking about voter fraud there would be actual voter fraud to examine but there's none, that he is talking about.
HINOJOSA: Well, the reason why we're talking about it is because Vladimir Putin brought it up with him and so now, this is top of mind. But what I think is hilarious about this is Tulsi Gabbard needs to take a page from Pam Bondi's book. Remember when Pam Bondi said, oh, yes. The Epstein files, the list is on my desk. And what happened? That got her into all sorts of problem.
I suggest that Tulsi Gabbard read what she has in front of her and get briefed by her staff before going out there and promising something that isn't true. It gets us in a mission and trouble over and over and over.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: But you can't -- you can't tell this president the truth about the 2020 election. You cannot. That is a fireable offense.
KASPARIAN: Yeah, and by the way, I mean, he actually -- or I don't know if it was Trump personally, but this role for Honey was created, right? It's --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Yes, this did not exist.
KASPARIAN: Which is hilarious because I thought we were trying to lessen the number of government workers -- federal government workers. But okay.
O'LEARY: Wouldn't you like the results four minutes after midnight? Would you like it? You can get it. You have it.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Listen I totally would. Trust me. I'm with you on that.
O'LEARY: Thank goodness I'm here.
PHILLIP: There is a lot of room for improvement --
UNKNOWN: I agree.
PHILLIP: -- in terms of how quickly we can count votes in this country. But we also have a federalized system of elections. And even our kooky little federalized system of elections has not produced the fraud that Donald Trump has been looking for --
O'LEARY: Well, we don't have to have a kooky structure anymore. PHILLIP: Five years.
O'LEARY: We have the tech.
PHILLIP: I agree. I agree.
JENNINGS: Well, we -- well -- the states -- I think you have to be careful about having a national. I mean, we have 50 states for a reason.
O'LEARY: We've got the same technology in every state. You consolidate the results --
JENNINGS: I know.
O'LEARY: -- four minutes after every --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: It sounds really easy.
(LAUGHTER)
O'LEARY: It is really easy.
(LAUGHTER)
PHILLIP: Listen, and actually, Kevin, you know, actually Kevin, you know, there have been attempts to create grants that would give states the funding to do just that. And Republicans have opposed those things. So, rather than making federal elections more secure, giving states what they need in order to do that, we have people running around searching for non-existent --
(CROSSTALK)
O'LEARY: This should be a bipartisan agreement.
PHILLIP: When --
JENNINGS: A lot of federal money has been sent to the states to upgrade their election system.
PHILLIP: Yeah.
JENNINGS: Some have.
PHILLIP: Under Biden.
JENNINGS: Well, a lot of Republicans supported it, too.
PHILLIP: Under Biden.
JENNINGS: That's my point. And a lot and a lot of Republican secretaries of state have implemented, using these grants, upgrades to their system. But the issue is you have just 50 different systems, and you have 50 different state laws. Some states vote for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks. Some states only vote, you know, for a short period of time.
PHILLIP: Right, which is the main reason.
JENNINGS: It is a little bit of an issue.
PHILLIP: All right. Next for us, everyone, a big step for SpaceX and their new rocket finally launching safely and coming back to Earth. We'll show you the video. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:59:38]
PHILLIP: SpaceX has launched its new Starship spacecraft into space, and it has returned to Earth. A new scaled up version of Starship debuted in January, but it either blew up in minutes into -- minutes into its flight or spun out of control. And tonight, Starship struck -- stuck its landing, and it splashed down in the Indian Ocean.
[23:00:00]
Starship is the most powerful rocket ever constructed, and NASA hopes that Starship is ready in time to land astronauts on the moon by 2027. Who's going to be on it? Not me.
Thank you very much for watching "NewsNight". You can catch me anytime on your favorite social media -- X, Instagram, and TikTok. "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
