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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
White House Threatens Crackdown On Liberal Groups After Kirk Death; Trump, Allies, Conservatives Hail Charlie Kirk As A Martyr; Washington Post Reports, Trump Admin Orders National Parks To Remove Slavery Info; Appeals Court Denies Trump's President's Last Minute Push To Fire Cook; Trump Threatens To Pull Federal Funding From New York State. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired September 15, 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, the White House uses Charlie Kirk's murder as a pretense to punish liberal.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: The problem is on the left is not on the right.
STEPHEN MILLER, WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF: It is a vast domestic terror movement.
PHILLIP: While others in MAGA use the tragedy to call for a national divorce.
Plus, cancel culture, free speech, the debate over what you're allowed to say, who loses their job for saying it, and who's allowed to keep it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I apologize for that extremely callous remark.
PHILLIP: Also, vengeance for votes. The president threatens to deny funding to a state because he doesn't like a mayoral candidate.
And the new pope says the world's in big trouble when we're on the cusp of creating the first trillionaire.
Live at the table, Cornel West, Joe Borelli, Ana Navarro, Arthur Aidala, and Franklin Leonard.
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, hopes for unity in the wake of Charlie Kirk's assassination are going in the wrong direction. Tonight, the Trump administration is vowing that there will be hell to pay for the left.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MILLER: The organized doxxing campaigns, the organized riots, the organized street violence, the organized campaigns of dehumanization, vilification, posting people's addresses, combining that with messaging that's designed to trigger incite violence in the actual organized cells that carry out in a facilitate the violence. It is a vast domestic terror movement.
We are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people. It will happen and we will do it in Charlie's name.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Trump later told reporters that he would consider designating some left-wing groups as terrorists.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Do you plan on designating Antifa finally a domestic terror organization?
TRUMP: Well, it's something I would do, yes. We have some pretty radical groups and they got away with murder. I've been to look into that in terms of RICO, bringing RICO cases against them, criminal RICO, because they should be put in jail.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Just hours from now, the suspect is due in court for the first time. A lead official in Utah tells CNN that when he thinks more information about the investigation will be released, but the president and his allies are using this tragedy to paint liberals as being responsible for America's violence and hate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: He's a left. I have a lot of problems with the left.
J.D. VANCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: People on the left are much likelier to defend and celebrate political violence. This is not a both sides problem.
TRUMP: The problem we have is on the left.
The radicals on the left are the problem. And they're vicious and they're horrible.
DONALD TRUMP JR., DONALD TRUMP'S SON: And it is not going both ways. It is going one way. It's coming from those aligned with the Democrat Party.
TRUMP: We have a radical left group of lunatics out there, just absolute lunatics.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: The headline of today is the vice president, Joe, going on a podcast that he recorded from the White House and using that moment after a tragedy like this to say that this is about punishing them, them being the left, them being his political opponents. That actually, I think, is surprising to a lot of Americans because that's not typically what you would expect to hear from the White House after --
JOE BORELLI, FORMER REPUBLICAN LEADER, NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL: Well, let's talk about some polling that he used to justify those comments before he made them on T.V. YouGov came out with a poll three days ago talking about how each side feels about violence and support of political deaths. Liberals 16 percent believe it's okay to feel joy when your political opponent is killed, liberals -- very liberal is, 24 percent, conservatives, 4 percent, very conservatives, 3 percent.
Justifying violence, very liberal people have 25 percent answered, yes, it's okay, you justified the issue to do violence against your political opponents, liberals 17 percent, conservatives, 8 percent, and very conservatives, 3.
[22:05:04]
That means it is six to one times more likely in respondents to this poll on the left.
Now, I'm not saying there's exclusivity on the left. I'm not saying that. But there is certainly a problem where six times the amount of Republicans believe that it's okay to feel joy when your political opponent is killed, murdered, whatever, attacked, and that six to one believe that they are okay in justifying violence against political opponents. That's a problem. That's a cancer within the movement.
PHILLIP: That is a problem, but I think the question is, does it justify him promising there, and you heard Stephen Miller doing the same, that they would use the state to go after Democratic organizations and institutions purportedly who are organizing this crime but without providing any evidence that they are.
BORELLI: Purportedly is the important part. You're not going to use the federal government to go after someone criminally and or have any type of criminal liability in someone, unless they're doing what he specifically mentioned, organizing riots, doxxing people so that these crazy 16 percent of liberals, 24 percent of very liberal people, can get their information on where they live --
PHILLIP: Is it a crime to dox somebody?
BORELLI: It should be. It should be.
PHILLIP: But it's not.
BORELLI: If you are encouraging people, if you're encouraging people to do violence, and then you're giving them home address of that person, I think if that that's not a crime. Maybe it is in some state, maybe it's not.
PHILLIP: Look, I've been docxed. I know what it feels like. But I also remember -- I'm old enough to remember -- actually, this happens pretty much on a weekly basis. When a Democratic-appointed judge rules against Trump and his allies, that person's face, their family, sometimes their address is posted online by the president's allies. Is that something that we should make illegal now?
ARTHUR AIDALA, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, I, listen the moments after this happened in my law firm, I just said. America's going to change a little bit. Like this is going to make America change a little bit. And even, Abby, I don't want to make it too personal, but even for people like yourself, it's got to be scary out there. I mean, you're a very public person. People know who you are. There are nut jobs out there. There are copycat people out there. I mean, look at Justice Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court, right, they went to his house to threaten him.
I mean, I've spoken to some of the Supreme Court justices. I spoke to the newest Supreme Court justice. I asked her what's the biggest change in your life being on the court? She goes, I can't move. The security around me, I can't go to the store anymore. And, I mean, it's very sad that this is now how we're living and people of your stature and people of Supreme Court stature really have to like really look over their shoulder, scary.
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look I can quote statistics from UMD, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, that says that most of the political crimes that have been committed in recent years has been the right wing. But I think that's irrelevant.
BORELLI: It's not.
NAVARRO: And I think -- no, I do. I do, because -- no. I think it's a -- I don't want to spend the time saying, you know, it's that side and it's this side. Because I think right now, for me, it's an American problem. And the fact that the initial reaction of so many people is to try to prove that this killer was a left winger or some people looking to prove him to be a right winger, he was obviously a severely disturbed nutcase with an agenda. We don't know what the motive is yet.
But, you know, what I don't think we should allow as a result of this is the government, the Trump administration, weaponizing Charlie Kirk's horrible assassination and using it as a cudgel and as a weapon of fear to silence those who call out abuses by this administration. And, you know, when I see Donald Trump's reaction to being asked today if he should have lowered the flags for the Minnesota legislators, and his answer was, who, what, I'm not familiar with it, just --
BORELLI: He's seeking the death penalty in this case. The Trump DOJ is seeking the death penalty. But just so we're aware -- NAVARRO: But think for one minute how you would feel if you were one of the two children left orphaned, because your mother, Melissa Hortman, and your father, Mark Hortman, because they've got names, they're not just state legislators, they've got names, they've got children and their dog was killed, and you hear the president of the United States say --
BORELLI: I'm not part of the 24 percent of liberals who justifies that.
NAVARRO: No. Who are these people?
BORELLI: Just to correct the record, there were 20 incidents, according to the, you know, know of all things Wikipedia, 20 incidents of civil unrest in this country since 2020. One of them was January 6th. One of them was an Orthodox Jewish riot here in New York City. Frankly, I don't know how to handicap that one.
[22:10:00]
DR. CORNEL WEST (I), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: But I think, Brother Joe, what Sister Ana is getting at is a deeper issue in this sense. It's a matter of what kind of quality leadership emerges and quality voices emerges in a moment of such polarization.
62 years ago, four precious little black girls were blown up in 16th Street church in Birmingham. 14 years old, three of them. One was 11 years old. When Martin King gave the eulogy, what did he say? He didn't say anything that either one of the Republicans and the Democrats saying right now. He says, we've got a crisis of character. We've got a crisis of quality of leadership, and I'm speaking to the possibilities of love and justice as human beings. It's not going to be a question of one team and another team.
He could have stood up there and said, we need to create a black version of the Ku Klux Klan, because they didn't find who did it for decades, is that right? As a lawyer, they didn't find who did it, right? He could have said, we need to terrorize back. We've got to engage in hatred back. He said, no, we are loving ourselves. We are loving others, we're pursuing justice, and we recognize we're in a battle, but it can't be a battle that slides down a slippery slope to chaos.
Where are the voices?
(CROSSTALKS)
NAVARRO: And, no, I'll tell you there are voices because the four former presidents, including George W. Bush, so Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and George W. Bush came out and seeking unity and seeking to tone down the rhetoric.
WEST: Well, that's a wonderful thing, but I'm not --
NAVARRO: The governor of Utah has made some statements that are the same. Even in the House of Representatives, you have had moments of prayer or moments where there's a call to unity and lowering the rhetoric. So, there are those voices. The problem is it's not coming from the top.
PHILLIP: Those voices --
WEST: Yes. Well, that's true too, but not enough.
PHILLIP: And they're also being, frankly, shouted down by people on the right. I mean, here's Steve Bannon talking about Utah Governor Spencer Cox, you were just referring to, and criticizing him for calling for unity.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVE BANNON, HOST, THE WAR ROOM: This was an execution and now you know you got the symbology of this and we're just going to have this press conference and oh, okay, fine. And, you know, let's go, let's -- it's time for us to bring the unity together. No, they always want the unity after they do something horrific. Well, they ain't getting unity and there shouldn't be unity.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, there's that. Marjorie Taylor Greene also says, there's nothing left to talk about with the left. I want a peaceful national divorce. Our country is too far gone and too divided. It is no longer safe for any of us.
AIDALA: But, you know, who's got the power? I understand your criticism of the president. But hours after the execution took place, I foolishly refused to watch the video. My job, I got enough death, I watch videos of people getting killed all the time, unfortunately.
I went on Facebook, right? I'm an old timer, so I still use Facebook. And what people who I respect as lawyers, but they're left lawyers, right, they're legal aid guy (ph), what they were writing about Charlie Kirk, it was horrible. Basically, they were saying he deserved it. He deserved it. He deserved it. He deserved it. He deserve it.
PHILLIP: Wait. Did they actually say he deserved it or did they say, we disagree with the things that he said?
AIDALA: Oh, no. It was all about -- no. It was all about his stand on the Second Amendment and the fact that he had made a statement somewhere along the line and they were quoting him, if a few people have to die so that the rest of us can have our Second Amendment of rights, so be it. And they were like, well, Charlie, I guess you got you. I guess you're the one who had to die for it. And then it was, oh my God. I mean, I wanted to throw up. His body wasn't even cold. I'm like, this is a dad. I mean, you know -- and, by the way, if for me personally, it was on the other side, I'd feel the same way. I love Juan Williams. He's a dear friend of mine. If God forbid something happened to him and anyone said anything bad about him on the right, they're jerks also.
So -- but the unity thing is -- it's -- I mean, Joe Biden ran on unity. Everybody wants unity, but how do we achieve it?
PHILLIP: I do think that, obviously, here's the thing about the internet. It can elevate any old person who's talking to their friends on social media or whatever, or talking into the abyss on social media. And that gets elevated up. But I think that the question is, is celebrating a murder, which is horrible and reprehensible, the same thing as criticizing Charlie Kirk? Because they've been put on the same playing field by a lot of people, including by J.D. Vance, who thinks that anybody who criticizes something that Charlie Kirk said no is supporting domestic terrorism.
BORELLI: It isn't. Because one of the persons who exemplified this principle, and that was Charlie Kirk, right?
[22:15:03]
His whole shtick, his whole thing, his whole actual very important thing, similar to what we do here on this table every night is going to a college campus with a sign that says, prove me wrong, and he would say, who's ever -- whoever disagrees with me the most, come to the front of the line, right? That is encouraging people to disagree with him.
I don't think as a Republican Party, we should stifle people, criticizing people with views like Charlie Kirk. That's the whole point of the fight. But when you celebrate -- look, I saw Newsday, a very popular newspaper here in the state of New York, they ran a cartoon with that very saying over the tent that Charlie Kurt was in. It was a cartoon, a political cartoon, and it just had an empty chair with blood spattered on the back of a tent. If that's not inappropriate, if that doesn't rise to the level of just disgustingness, you know, if my grandmother was alive, she would've canceled her Newsday subscription, but I suspect she probably canceled it a long time before.
PHILLIP: But you're saying, I think, I mean, you're saying that nobody's doing that, but, I mean, let's just play J.D. Vance. He's accusing a liberal magazine of being funded by Democratic billionaires and, you know, he's kind of threatening to take their funding away. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VANCE: George Soros' Open Society Foundation funds this magazine, as does the Ford Foundation and many other wealthy titans of the American progressive movement.
The writer accuses Charlie of saying, and I quote, black women do not have brain processing power to be taken seriously.
Charlie was gunned down in broad daylight. And well-funded institutions of the left lied about what he said, so was to justify his murder. This is solace and evil.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NAVARRO: What is he claiming there was the lie?
PHILLIP: Just as a point of clarification, the nation says they don't get funding from George Soros, but the threat is that these news magazines, newspapers, or whatever, if they're funded by liberals that he doesn't like, they're going to find a way to target that because they don't like something that was written in that magazine about Charlie Kirk's past statements.
NAVARRO: But what J.D. Vance is saying in this clip, if I understood correctly, that it is a lie to say that Charlie Kirk said that about black women.
PHILLIP: He's saying, and I'll just tell you what he said he's saying. He's saying that Charlie Kirk was talking specifically about certain black women, like Ketanji Brown Jackson, and former First Lady Michelle Obama and others. He wasn't talking about black women in general, just the ones --
NAVARRO: But you see, I think that's so missing the point. Because there's, you know, some folks out there trying to sanitize everything that Charlie Kirk said that might be offensive to others. The governor of Utah called some of the statements by Charlie Kirk inflammatory, and he's taking a lot of flack from his own party for doing that.
And the point is, when I say people are missing the point is, look, let's acknowledge that Charlie Kirk wasn't out there spreading pixie dust and talking about unicorns, and that some of the things he said, to, quote, the governor of Utah were inflammatory and worse. But the point is, he has the right to do that in the United States of America, and I have the right to disagree and find those statements objectionable.
PHILLIP: I think that's --
NAVARRO: But by pretending that that's not what was said, we're not getting to the point that we are here talking about and defending freedom of speech.
WEST: But the sadness is that the contempt and distrust in the country is so deep that there's hardly any space left for people who want to deeply sympathize with Brother Charlie Kirk being made in the image of God, just like those four little girls and with his wife and his two precious girls, and then criticize things that he has said. And it might be the timing, because you give time -- people give time to grieve, but criticizing, you know, Martin Luther King was awful and calling the scumbag for George Floyd and the Civil Rights Act was a huge mistake, well, I thought that was breaking Jim Crow. What does it mean to say that's a big mistake? He has a right to say it.
NAVARRO: He has a right to say it.
WEST: And I fight for his right to be wrong to say it. But if you're going to present him as if he's some kind of modern Socrates or some kind of grand martyr for justice, then many of us are going to say, we sympathize with him and his family, but we're criticizing this. Why? Because we believe there ought to be robust conversation in public life and in the public sphere. There's no space in our culture harmony (ph) to think both at the same time and act on both.
PHILLIP: I do think you're hitting on such an important point is that politics these days, everything gets dumbed down to the extremes, frankly.
[22:20:05]
And most people are right there in the middle. They believe in his humanity. Some people disagree with him. Some people agree with him, and the idea that you just say. All of them over there are evil if they don't agree with everything that was said, I think, is not reflective of what's actually happening in this country in terms of what people really think about all of this.
But next, for us more breaking news tonight, the Trump administration is ordering national parks to remove information on slavery, including this famous picture of an abused man. Another special guest is going to join us at the table.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:25:00]
PHILLIP: Breaking tonight, President Trump's attempts to scrub parts of American history appears to be gaining steam. The Washington Post reports, the administration has ordered multiple national parks to remove information about slavery, which is part of Trump's order to eliminate, quote, corrosive ideology. But this latest purge includes the removal of history at Harper's Ferry Park in West Virginia, where the abolitionist, John Brown, led a raid to attempt to arm slaves for a revolt and also this iconic photograph known as the Scorched Back. It depicts a slave likely named Peter Gordon in 1863 and the wounds inflicted by his abusers.
Now, at the time, the picture spread quickly in the north and showed people the true cruelty of slavery, something many wouldn't have seen otherwise.
Franklin Leonard joins us at the table.
Now, many people have claimed that this isn't happening, that the whole purpose of this review is not in large part about scrubbing slavery and policing how slavery is mentioned by the parks, by the Smithsonian and others. But this report suggests that that might be the case. I will say a spokesperson for the Department of the Interior says that The Washington Post report is based on anonymous sources. They're cautioning that it's unverified.
FRANKLIN LEONARD, FOUNDER AND CEO, THE BLACK LIST: Yes, I mean, I think this is a piece with the broader project that the Trump administration has had for months. I mean, he tweeted in August about museums and wanting to remove images that weren't bright and spoke to hope and the future of the country.
And, you know, it's odd. I'm sitting here, I think as part of the story of slavery in America, you know, my family -- I am four generations removed from enslaved people in West Central Georgia, not far from where I grew up. And it's odd. I find it all very strange because, for me, what more great American story is there than the survival and triumph over enslavement Jim Crow, and the repercussions there from? You know, if the American identity is defined by hard work, grit, endurance, community, and using those things as a way to navigate all the obstacles that the world may throw at us, I don't know that there's a better definition of the American identity than the rise from chattel slavery, unless you don't like who the heroes and villains of that story are.
And I would posit that the reason we're seeing this rewriting of history and the removal of these images is that the Trump administration is not comfortable with who the villains and the heroes are in the story of slavery and they're trying to remove them.
And I think it's very interesting that this is happening simultaneous to the re-edition of Confederate generals being named to U.S. military bases. Because when those two things are simultaneously happening, it seems pretty obvious what the narrative thrust of the story is, at least being attempted here.
PHILLIP: I also think that it leads to some questions about just what is the federal government -- what is the president, not even the federal government, what is the president doing, tinkering in the National Park Service's Exhibits.
AIDALA: Well, who took Teddy Roosevelt off of the museum? I'm just curious. Who took -- who threw Christopher Columbus' statue in the water in New Jersey?
LEONARD: It wasn't the president.
AIDALA: Okay. But who got rid? Who got rid of Teddy Roosevelt in the Museum of Natural History?
PHILLIP: No. I'm asking --
AIDALA: I mean, he's the president of the United States, and, oh, he can't be there. We don't like that statue.
So, it swings -- my point, I agree with --
(CROSSTALKS)
AIDALA: I agree with every word that came into mouth.
PHILLIP: Arthur, I'm not familiar with this story. It wasn't the fact the president of the United States --
AIDALA: Well, I know -- put it this way. I know Joe Biden doesn't say, hold on, hold on, that's the president of the United States. We're not removing his statue.
PHILLIP: I mean, I think it's a legit question. Because like I think that's part of the conversation here. Here's what -- this is a University of Pennsylvania professor of history education says that this represents an enormous increase in federal power and control over things we learn, brought to you by the team that says education -- and say, we have to review every placard at Harper's Ferry, a historical painting that shows the horrors of slavery? I think it's a question, should the president actually be doing that?
AIDALA: Well, did you say though, in the beginning of the story, we're not 100 percent sure if this is actually happening, or do I mishear you?
PHILLIP: No. I'm saying that they're saying that.
AIDALA: The reporting is, right. So, we don't even know if this is a fact.
PHILLIP: I'm saying that they're saying that it's unverified.
But we do know two things. One, we know that Donald Trump has said that he thinks slavery is overemphasized in the Smithsonian. He said as much explicitly in a tweet. The other thing is that he issued an executive order that is to that point.
[22:30:04]
And here's a statement from the Park Service that says, interpretive materials that disproportionately emphasize negative aspects of U.S. history or historical figures without acknowledging broader context or national progress can unintentionally distort understanding rather than enrich it.
So, they are looking to -- they're looking to change some of these historical, you know, posters and placards. And I think the question remains, is this something that the resident should be doing? And why is he so fixated on slavery?
BORELLI: Look, I have no idea. If anything, I think the Republican Party should go on their front foot on slavery. I mean, you have a party that was founded by the abolitionists of this country. You had the Democratic convention of 1860, which was split on basically which faction of the Democratic Party wanted more slavery.
So, if I was leaving the Republican Party, I'd say let's go on our front foot on slavery. And I would find it hard to believe that you can eliminate slavery from a museum about John Brown. That said, not every time people want to go into the Smithsonian Museum with their seven-year-old kid, they want to be consumed by victimhood in every single display.
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: No, but things are often placed in a -- things are often placed in a social context where it's oppressed versus oppressors, and sort of, you know, that narrative and that scope and shape. I think sometimes it is okay to have a little bit more of a light-hearted, positive view of the country, especially when the federal government is paying for this.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: What if it's not exactly accurate? What if -
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: You're selecting things that go into a museum. That doesn't make the fact that you've unselected it to go into a museum. That's inaccurate. You're just saying --
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: When I saw that picture, it was in the Museum of African American History.
PHILLIP: I want to get Cornell --
(CROSSTALK)
CORNELL WEST (I) FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: No, but I just want to say, Brother Joe -- but frankly the point was this, that we, black people, it's true for poor people, working people, whoever have never been solely victims. When you're victimized, that doesn't mean you're solely a victim. The great tradition of culture, music, politics, community, church, mosque, synagogue, in black communities, true in other communities too, means they're responding to victimization.
But the Trump administration, part of their challenge is, and I don't want to criticize them solely because there's ways of deodorizing and other histories in various other ways. But the condition of truth is to allow suffering to speak. He does not want to see black suffering centered in that way. Part of the challenge of our country has always been the vicious legacy of white supremacy.
BORELLI: But as far as we know, he's not removing anything about black culture from the Black History Museum. He's not removing anything about black music from the Black History Museum.
(CROSSTALK)
WEST: But he's talking about scared of slavery.
LEONARD: But he's not talking about the sources of that culture. He's removing where that culture came from. And so, if you don't have the history of where that culture came from, if you don't have the photo of the whipped back, you don't understand, you can't contextualize the joy and the triumph that is black culture in the decades and centuries that followed.
And I think that, again, I think if you want to talk about heroism and the American identity, what better -- look I'm biased. I'm the descendant of enslaved peoples. But what better story, what better story of the American identity is there than we survived one of the greatest moral evils ever perpetrated on earth and have found joy and triumph here in this country.
NAVARRO: And love for this country. LEONARD: Exactly. And you can't tell that story without telling the
first part.
PHILLIP: All right.
LEONARD: Because otherwise, it's just entertainment.
NAVARRO: Not to mention that there's still so many people who don't know what happened, don't know these facts. I was -- I was perplexed. First time I went to the American -- to the Museum of African American history, by the amount of people who told me they did not know who Emmett Till was. People in my life who had not heard about Emmett Till. So, we need to have the historical truth.
PHILLIP: All right, let's leave it there. And next for us, Donald Trump calls the New York governor's mayoral endorsement shocking. And he says it could cost her a state federal funding. We'll debate that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:39:02[
PHILLIP: Tonight, vengeance for votes. Donald Trump is threatening to pull federal funding from the State of New York after Governor Kathy Hochul endorsed the Democratic Socialist frontrunner for New York City mayor. Her endorsement of Zohran Mamdani comes after months of dodging the question and as Trump seeks to consolidate opposition against Mamdani. The governor also made it clear that she has her reservations.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. KATHY HOCHUL (D) NEW YORK: Made it very clear that we have differences, but I also believe that he brings a sense of optimism in the can-do spirit, positivity that I believe our city needs at this time. So, you know, I disagree with many statements and I've said that. But also, I believe that we need someone who's going to be open- minded, and optimistic and have an attitude, a can-do attitude that I share.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Does it help or hurt Mamdani to have Trump threaten to pull funding from the State of New York over his election?
BORELLI: Well, I think Trump should pull funding from the State of New York because they're not following state law in terms of the cooperation with federal law enforcement and different things, the implementation of sanctuary city policies. I think you go back to almost every presidency, whether it was, you know, Barack Obama with race to the top funding, he cut from states.
He cut Medicaid funding. I think it was Medicaid funding from states in 2016 that were not allowing different genders into school bathrooms. So, this is not the first unprecedented - I mean, we tend to get caught up in Trump being unprecedented. Cutting funding from states is not unprecedented when the state's not following federal law.
NAVARRO: Over a -- of a political endorsement? Over a political endorsement?
(CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: Voters don't care.
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: -- adopting policies that are reversed to federal law -- 2015's --
(CROSSTALK)
LEONARD: But that's not -- but that's not what's happening here.
BORELLI: I know what he said, but --
(CROSSTALK)
LEONARD: But that's like -- but materially -- but that's not what's happening here.
BORELLI: I know what he said.
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: I know what he said.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I know, Joe. So, you can't be like, I know what he said, but here's what I mean. That doesn't --
(CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: It's not going to change one thing. It is not going to change one --
LEONARD: I tend to agree with that.
AIDALA: There is not one person in Brooklyn or in Queens who cares about any of that. What they care about is a 33-year-old kid who's got a can-do attitude. How's he going to handle the first three-foot blizzard with little kids who have to get to school because that's the only place they get a meal. So, how do you balance that out -- the safety of the citizens to get off the roads when it's snowing versus the hungriness of little kids in the city of New York who won't count on the breakfast and lunch.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I do want to ask that, Arthur. (CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: That's what we're all upset about.
PHILLIP: Yeah, yeah. I kind of get that. The reason I asked that is because, obviously, Mamdani has a pretty big lead at this point. And when the CBS-YouGov poll asked them about, for example, Trump's threat to send in the National Guard, he said -- they say the next mayor should support it. Thirty-seven percent say that of New Yorkers.
The next mayor should oppose it. Sixty-three percent of New Yorkers say that the next mayor should oppose what Donald Trump is threatening. So, Trump is clearly a character in this -- in this drama, but not in the way that he thinks, in the sense that New Yorkers are basically saying, we want the guy who is going to be the most opposed to Trump.
NAVARRO: Listen, I'm not a New Yorker. You all are. I'm here every week. But it seems to me that the last thing you should be telling a New Yorker if you're the President of the United States is what they should be doing and how they should be deciding. I think that's counterproductive. I'll also tell you, I think the governor's endorsement is fairly irrelevant.
PHILLIP: At this point.
NAVARRO: And part of me questions, if this isn't more to help her who is facing a reelection
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: Right on.
(CROSSTALK)
WEST: That's true. That's true.
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: -- and a possible primary challenge than it is to help Mamdani.
UNKNOWN: Right on.
WEST: That's exactly right.
NAVARRO: I don't know that it helps him at all. I don't know that it does anything with the huge lead he has.
(CROSSTALK)
WEST: And I think it's also a sign -- it's also a sign of a milk-toast Democratic Party establishment that cannot support a candidate, cannot get behind a candidate, that they themselves don't have control over. So, you got a spineless Democratic Party that has be so ambiguous about somebody who actually go back to ordinary people and convinces them to vote. Now, whether he can pull it off or not, I'm hoping and praying --
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: And Cuomo had every endorsement.
(CROSSTALK)
WEST: -- part of the challenge is the alternatives themselves are so low quality --
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: Cornell --
(CROSSTALK)
WEST: -- what even -- what else are you going to do?
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: Cuomo had every endorsement that there is to --
(CROSSTALK)
WEST: That's true. Up here.
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: -- from Democrats and he got beat at the ground.
(CROSSTALK)
WEST: And on the ground he got beat. Absolutely.
NAVARRO: So, I mean --
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: If you're running as the anti-establishment candidate, I don't know that you want all of these endorsements.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Kathy Hochul, what she did -- here's Tom Suozzi, another Democrat from New York. Here's what he told Manu Raju.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. TOM SUOZZI (D) NEW YORK: He's a socialist. I'm a capitalist. I agree 100 percent with his diagnosis of the problem. I just disagree with his solutions he's proposing. I think that socialism is bad for the democratic planet.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: This may be where he and Kathy Hochul will disagree. If she's using this as a, you know, a lifeline, she must think it's not so bad for her.
LEONARD: If I'm not mistaken, Tom represents I think one of the wealthiest districts in New York State, so I'm not terribly surprised to hear him use that language to try to differentiate himself from Mamdani. And look, to your point about whether he can, you know -- first of all, he's not going to be the one that's actually removing the snow from the city streets.
AIDALA: No, he's got to make those big decisions.
LEONARD: No, I agree but here's what I'd say about that. Yes, he's young. Yes, he's a relative novice compared to everybody else who's ever tried to run for the office before. But I would say, a year ago, if you would have said, this kid, Zohran Mamdani who's going to run for mayor, would you have said a year later, he's going to be the frontrunner --
(CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: Look, he ran a great campaign.
LEONARD: And so -- but my point is, you would have bet against him then and it sounds like you're betting against him to be able to run the city effectively. And so --
(CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: If he becomes my mayor I'm rooting for him. If he's the pilot of the plane, I am not rooting for the pilot.
LEONARD: Oh, there you go.
(CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: However, I think Eric Adams would do a much better job. I think Andrew Cuomo --
(CROSSTALK)
LEONARD: You are entitled to your opinion.
AIDALA: I think Eric Adams would do a better job than Zohran Mamdani. Period.
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: If he's successful --
(CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: -- four years ago -- today -- than we were four years ago.
BORELLI: He has an agenda. If he's successful on that agenda, I think that makes the city worse.
[22:45:01] So like, there's a different measure of success when you have someone --
(CROSSTALK)
LEONARD: Well, that depends on --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: All right.
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: -- who's implementing policies that you think are --
(CROSSTALK)
LEONARD: His goal is to make the city more affordable. And you're saying that making the city more affordable would make the city worse?
BORELLI: Yes, just like all the rent laws we have in New York City has made it worse. Yeah.
(CROSSTALK)
LEONARD: His goal is to make the city more affordable for New Yorkers. That is his goal.
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: Goal is not the question.
(CROSSTALK)
LEONARD: No, you said that he has a goal, he has -- and if he's successful in that goal, it'll make the city worse. His goal is affordability. He's been very clear about that from the beginning. So, you're saying that affordability will make the city worse.
(CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: That's how we make it great.
(CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: But that's how we get there.
UNKNOWN: Absolutely.
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: -- part of it.
(CROSSTALK)
LEONARD: You said, if his goal is successful, which was affordability, it will make the city worse. And what I'm saying is those two things strike me as pretty incompatible. But if you think that affordability is not success for New Yorkers, I think you have a very big difference of opinion. Again, not a New Yorker, but my sense of thing is --
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: You're focused on the goal, not focused on the plan. You're very focused on the goal word, and it's not the right word.
LEONARD: That was your word.
BORELLI: It was my word but it was taken out of context.
PHILLIP: Next for us, the Pope gives his first question and answer by CEOs to make so much money, and he's naming names about that. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:50:49]
PHILLIP: Tonight, the new pope takes on new money. In his first sit- down interview, Pope Leo the 14th was asked about polarization inside and outside of the church. In his response, he highlighted the current wealth gap and questioned if society has lost a sense of its values.
He said, "-- CEOs that 60 years ago might have been making four to six times more than what their workers were receiving, the last figure I saw, it's 600 times more than what the average workers are receiving. Yesterday, the news that Elon Musk is going to be the first trillionaire in the world, what does that mean? And what is that about? If that's the only thing that has value anymore, then we're in big trouble."
I think a lot of people agree with him, Doctor West.
WEST: Absolutely, indeed, indeed. And connected to our former conversation about Manhattan, you see, I live in Manhattan. Twenty- five percent of our precious brothers and sisters of all colors live in poverty. One out of 24 people who live in Manhattan are millionaires. That's grotesque wealth and income inequality. No democracy can survive with that kind of inequality.
That's true for Manhattan. It's true for the country. It's true for the world. So, I agree with the Pope on this. He knows that Jesus went into that temple and ran out the money changers, not because hated to (inaudible) he hated greed inside of all of us, too.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I have a handy Bible -- I have a -- I have a handy Bible verse for you, Arthur. That's from Matthew 19:24, "And I say unto you again, is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." Pope seems to be anti- trillionaires, just for the record. AIDALA: Listen, I mean, it gets to a point of absurdity. And I mean,
obviously, the capitalist spirit in America is what drives people. It's what gets people out of bed in the morning when the alarm clock goes off and you don't want to go, but you want to go to work and you want to make money and you want to provide for your family.
(CROSSTALK)
WEST: (inaudible) thinking about money, brother.
(CROSSTALK)
WEST: I'm trying to be a Christian, following love and justice.
AIDALA: But that's about when your three-year-old wants to go to dancing school and your eight-year-old wants to play the trumpet and you got to play the trumpet.
WEST: I got to work a little harder. You're right. You're right.
AIDALA: And your adviser tells you your 19-year-old wants to go to graduate school. It's going to cost $100,000 a year. I don't ever want to look at my children in the eyes and say they can't have piano lessons or they can't go to college because I didn't get my butt out of bed and work my tail off. Now, but is there a point that we can take an arbitrary number? Is it $50 billion is enough? Is $1 billion enough?
But, but you cannot stop people from that drive to be all you could be. And if -- I'm all about love, you know that. But there's a point, if my dad gets sick, which he did, I wanted to make sure he'd could get the best healthcare no matter what.
WEST: Absolutely.
AIDALA: I'd sell my last -- whatever I got to provide for him. So, I understand what the Pope is saying. I agree with what the Pope is saying. I don't think someone who works at Tesla should have any financial stress on their lives whatsoever, within reason. Within reason.
(CROSSTALK)
LEONARD: I don't think he's talking just about Elon Musk here.
PHILLIP: Yeah.
LEONARD: And I think that -- I think you're absolutely right. We want to be able to provide for our kids. We want to be able to take care of our parents. But I think we have to ask ourselves, why are we not able to? And I don't think it's exclusively because we don't wake up in the morning trying to get our hustle on. I think that there are structures within capitalism that are preventing well-meaning, hardworking people who are contributing to this society economically and otherwise from having enough to subsist. And it's interesting, look. I'm fascinated by Pope's -- generally, I
was paying attention to the Conclave not just because of movie last year. And I thought it was really interesting that the new pope chose Leo as his papal name. Because Leo the 13th wrote an encyclical in 1891 specifically about wealth inequality.
And actually, there's a quote that I want to read because, you know, it's sort of in this moment historically where, you know, Europe has been sort of interrupted by these paroxysms post the communist manifesto. And then also you have sort of the rise of industrialism and like robber-bearing capitalism. And the question of like, would people working in factories be able to survive?
[22:55:01]
And this is what he wrote. "The hiring of labor and the conduct of trade are concentrated in the hands of the comparatively few, so that a small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the teeming masses of the laboring poor a yoke little better than slavery itself."
And that's also notable because Leo the 13th also wrote an encyclical basically calling slavery the greatest evil of the world.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: All right, we have to --
NAVARRO: To me this was very interesting because we're getting to know this new Pope and we are seeing, I think, what is an American pope? Exercising his freedom of expression, also a very young pope. He just turned 70 this weekend and he is very in tune with what's happening in this country. He's also used his pulpit and take on some of the policies of this government.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Yeah, and if think this inequality is bad now, it's going to get a whole lot worse with the rise of A.I. and everything else.
(CROSSTALK)
WEST: This is --
PHILLIP: Everyone, we appreciate you very much. We have to leave it there. Thank you. We'll be back in a moment.
WEST: Absolutely.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:00:32]
PHILLIP: Just in, Appeals Court has denied the President's last minute push to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook over claims that she lied on her mortgage forms. This means she'll be able to vote on whether to cut interest rates at the next meeting. "Laura Coates Live" is right now.
