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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Pardons Crypto Convict, Who Helped Enrich Trump Family; Cuomo Invokes Fears of Mamdani's Muslim Faith in New York City Race. Trump Declares War Against Drug Cartels; Few ICE Agents Wear Masks. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired October 23, 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, quid pro crypto? President Trump pardons a crypto king who helped enrich Donald Trump and his family.
KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president is exercising his constitutional authority.
PHILLIP: Plus, Gotham's race dives into the mud.
ANDREW CUOMO (I), NEW YORK CITY MAYORAL CANDIDATE: God forbid, another 9/11. Can you imagine Mamdani in the seat?
PHILLIP: Andrew Cuomo suggests Zohran Mamdani would cheer another attack on New York City.
ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D), NEW YORK CITY MAYORAL CANDIDATE: It's also disgusting.
PHILLIP: Also, one Democrat calls it murder. Is the president's freewheeling war against boats with little evidence or oversight breaking the law?
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: We're going to kill them. You know, they're going to be like dead.
PHILLIP: And as raids intensify on America's cities, Trump defense ICE agents covering their faces.
TRUMP: I think it's very dangerous for them not to wear masks.
PHILLIP: Live at the table, Scott Jennings, Jemele Hill, Peter Meijer, Ashley Allison and Geraldo Rivera.
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. The partner-in-chief grants another this time. It's someone who helped Donald Trump get crypto rich and whose company will help Donald Trump get richer.
Changpeng Zhao, the founder of crypto exchange, Binance, pleading guilty to money laundering. That was two years ago. He spent four months in prison and paid $200 million in fines. He resigned from the company, which also agreed to pay $4 billion in fines. And despite all of that, Trump and his family decided to host their crypto empire on Binance. And that decision has earned them more than $5 billion since it was launched last September.
Now, that is more than all of the Trump real estate assets combined, but according to Trump, the mogul was just a victim of Biden's war on crypto.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Let me just tell you that he was somebody that, as I was told -- I don't know him, I don't believe I've ever met him, but I've been told -- a lot of support, he had a lot of support. And they said that what he did is not even a crime. It wasn't a crime, that he was persecuted by the Biden administration. And so I gave him a pardon at the request of a lot of very good people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Zhao praised the decision and he maintains that he didn't do anything wrong. But just remember what his company was convicted of doing. The Treasury Department says that Binance allowed Hamas to raise money on the exchange and failed to report that. They also allowed transactions with other terrorist organizations, like Al-Qaeda and ISIS. People in Iran, Cuba, Syria, and parts of Ukraine were able to exchange millions of dollars in violations of sanctions. And more than a hundred million dollars was transferred from a Russian darknet marketplace that sold hacking software and drugs, and it allowed more than 1,000 transactions dealt with child pornography.
This is serious stuff, but perhaps the implications for this idea of the Trump family getting rich off of this crypto policy is even more serious. And, Peter, I mean, I wonder what you make of this decision for Trump to do that when they are clearly right at this moment in business with Binance.
PETER MEIJER, CO-FOUNDER AND HEAD OF STRATEGY, THE NEW INDUSTRIAL CORPORATION: Yes. The pardon doesn't make a ton of sense to me because he's not in jail, right? This is one of those pardons that's more about erasing the record, about resetting.
PHILLIP: And do you mind if I just add one of the reasons that they're doing this is to allow Binance to operate in the United States. Because part of the penance for their conviction was that they couldn't operate here. Now, they might be able to. So, that's the --
MEIJER: Yes, so a slightly separate than the actual pardon of the former founder.
I am not going to pretend to have a great understanding of crypto. But, obviously, the challenges here and one of the reasons why they got into trouble in the first place is because they didn't follow some of those know your customer rules, that ability to kind of go in and say, hey, you know, let's understand who these folks are.
[22:05:02]
It's absolutely true that the Biden administration in both on the crypto side and also when it came to trying to throttle back some of the artificial intelligence movements, they were very much opposed and viewed that area with extreme suspicion. This is an area where I think, you know, the Trump administration is looking at it and saying, hey, this is an opportunity to reset the table. This is an opportunity for us to look at what the Biden administration did and to try to correct that record.
PHILLIP: But do you -- are you concerned about -- I mean, he -- Binance lobby. They hired a lobbyist to lobby the Trump administration to get this pardon. Again, Trump and his family are benefiting to the tune of billions of dollars from this company that has been lobbying them to pardon this man. I mean, that's the part. I mean, I understand the Bitcoin of it all. But if this were just a random Bitcoin company, we wouldn't be having this conversation, but it's not. Does that part concern you?
MEIJER: I think it's all concerning. I mean, again, this is the challenge when you have so many overlapping layers.
PHILLIP: Yes.
JEMELE HILL, CONTRIBUTING WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: Yes. I mean, this -- listen, this is probably the most corrupt pro president that we've had in American history. And when you look at the optics of this, they don't look good.
You mentioned the ties to Hamas and terrorist group, child pornography. There was nothing about this that made sense from why he would choose to pardon this person. It made financial sense. It made business sense. It made sense in the operating income of the Trump family, but I think it's just increasingly this feeling that a lot of Americans have that Donald Trump is treating America like Nino Brown treated the Carter Apartments. Those who get it will get it, all right?
And then so because of that, it's just this onslaught of constant favor pedaling, constant ingratiating, like he's treating America like a flea market. And I think that's the most concerning part about all of this beyond just the ties.
PHILLIP: Let me play, you know, as we know, because this has been repeated many times on this show and elsewhere, Republicans were very much up in arms about this idea that Biden was enriching himself off of the presidency. Just listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JIM COMER (R-KY): This committee is investigating President Biden and his family's shady business deals that capitalized on Joe Biden's public office and risked our country's national security.
REP. ELISE STEFANIK (R-NY): They have found over $10 million from China, Russia, Ukraine, and Romania funneled through the corrupt influence pedaling scheme to line the pockets of the Biden crime family.
REP. JIM JORDAN (R-OH): Millions of dollars from foreign entities flow through 20 different companies to benefit the Bidens. And what were they selling? What were they offering?
Access to the brand, and the brand was Joe Biden.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Where are all of these people now, Geraldo?
GERALDO RIVERA, PEABODY AWARD-WINNING JOURNALIST: The people who were so offended by unjust enrichment in the Biden administration? You know, I think that the president, God bless him. I think that he loves anything Biden hated. And I think he has a reflex response to it. Like I don't know about crypto. Crypto is inherently sleazy to me. You know, if you can go and be anonymous and make money dealing with drug dealers and child pornographers and terrorists, I mean, and what exactly are they selling? What is crypto, what is Bitcoin? I know that I'm stodgy and old fashioned in that regard, but to me, it's an industry made for sleazebags to make a lot of money.
And the fact that he pardoned the dude after four months or he did four months, you know, I don't get excited about it. I am mildly concerned that the Trump Organization apparently has done very well in this area. And the businesses run by the sons are really prospering dealing this commodity, whatever the hell it is.
PHILLIP: And everybody at the table is like, we're not going to save you from that one at all. You had to deal with that after the show.
But, I mean, Scott, look, this is not so much a story about Bitcoin and the pros and cons of Bitcoin. You can argue that another day. It's about whether the president is pardoning someone who was instrumental in building wealth to the tune of $5 billion, with a B, billion dollars for him and his family.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I disagree. I think that it is about the policy of crypto and Bitcoin in this way. There is a view in the party and there's a view in the Trump White House that Biden was inherently hostile to this and that hostility extended to what they would say overzealous law enforcement actions against this particular guy.
Whether they're right about that, whether they're wrong, I don't know. I just know this, Biden was, I think by all accounts, skeptical of this. He was in the Geraldo camp on this. And Trump and the Trump guys are very much progressive on this.
[22:10:00]
I mean, they're forward-leaning on this and, and they believe he fell into a bucket with Biden whenever after somebody agrees with this (ph).
PHILLIP: But don't you think the facts matter in this case? I mean, listen, conservatives have been pretty up in arms about people allegedly financing or being financed by Hamas. We're talking about Hamas, Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Iran, Cuba, Syria, I mean, Russia defying sanctions, child pornography. I mean, look, this isn't just about whether they were overzealous in sort of, you know, finance regulations about the flow of money here and there, it's about whether or not this platform was allowing itself to be a dark money platform for illicit, illegal, destructive activities.
Child pornography -- I actually want to read this because the White House in a statement said that they -- in their desire to punish cryptocurrency industry, the Biden administration pursued Mr. Zhao despite no allegations of fraud or identifiable victims. Look, I don't know if that's a technicality, but child pornography has victims, okay? So, I'm not really understanding how you can make that argument if you are Karoline Leavitt.
JENNINGS: Well, I think their view is that you have these new financial platforms, and I guess there's probably some debate about whether you can hold financial platforms fully accountable by, you know, what people use them for.
PHILLIP: We hold banks accountable for it all the time.
JENNINGS: And, look, it's a little bit -- but to me it's a legitimate question. I hear these things and, you know, if I were running some sort of financial platform, whether it was Bitcoin or anything else, I'd want to make darn sure I wasn't doing business with any of these people.
PHILLIP: That's not point. Should Trump have pardoned this guy, Scott? I don't -- it's not about whether you run -- how you would run a Bitcoin company. It's about whether Trump should pardon the guy who basically went and said, let me help you get rich, got him rich, and richer, I should say, and now gets a get out of jail free card, essentially.
JENNINGS: Well, it appears to me that in this case the president is using the pardon, not just necessarily for a personal issue, but to right what they believe was a policy wrong. It is within the purview of the president to do it. Should he have done it? I can't tell you that I am up on the details of the pardon enough to know, but that's --
PHILLIP: I'm sure you have a view on it, Scott. You just don't want to tell us.
Go ahead, Ashley. HILL: But you could be (INAUDIBLE) to crypto without having to do this.
ASHLEY ALLISON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.
PHILLIP: 100 percent, yes.
ALLISON: Okay. I just think there's like, to your point, so many layers here. Let's say that it is Hamas and Al-Qaeda and ISIS, like that should be step one, no. Like what world am I living in where Hamas has victims, Al-Qaeda has victims, ISIS has victims. I don't understand what Caroline Leavitt is talking about. Child pornography, there are victims. So, on that basis, we should all be like, this is disgusting and unacceptable.
RIVERA: But isn't that inevitable given this shady business?
ALLISON: Yes. I don't get.
RIVERA: What is that? What is it that they sold?
ALLISON: I'm not defending crypto at all. I'm on your train, okay. But let's say I did like crypto, I don't want crypto to be used to support those type of people.
RIVERA: But it is by definition, that's exactly what it is. It's built for that purpose.
ALLISON: I'm just trying to say --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: I think you're making a fair point in a way because I think, look, you can be open to crypto, you can like, I think it's the future, all that jazz, but to hold crypto to a different standard than you hold everybody else is really what's at question here?
You know, if you, Ashley, sent $50 to Hamas, you'd probably get a call or a knock on your door, and you would probably be prosecuted for it.
ALLISON: Yes.
PHILLIP: So, I don't understand why suddenly crypto will just do whatever you want.
ALLISON: I totally agree. So, let's just say that I agree with you that's what crypto does, like it allows for these dealings, but the other piece --
RIVERA: You can't buy dinner with it.
ALLISON: The conflict of interest here, right, we were talking the other day, the $230 million law suit that Trump put against the DOJ and wants to be paid, and I think you said that, Scott, that you think he should wait to adjudicate that until after he's out of office. Well, then he should have potentially waited or not do any business with this person until he is out of office because it is an extreme conflict of interest.
And I just want to like, do people understand how -- I don't understand how much money a billion dollars is, but you need a thousand millionaires to get to a billion dollars. It's hard to become a millionaire in this country, let alone pay your rent, let alone -- there's just -- it's just wow to me that this man is making so much money and so many everyday Americans are struggling.
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, and right now it's sort of like -- I don't know. It's kind of play money because it's not, you know, actualized.
HILL: It's crypto. You can't buy dinner with it.
PHILLIP: It's adding to their net worth on paper.
HILL: Yes.
PHILLIP: And it has to be taken seriously.
Next, the New York City mayoral race just got even nastier. Andrew Cuomo is being accused of a racist attack after suggesting that Zohran Mamdani might cheer on another 9/11. We will discuss that.
[22:15:00]
Plus, the U.S. is beating the drum for a conflict with Venezuela as Donald Trump defends its boat bombings that one Democrat calls murder.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: In the final days of the race for the New York City mayor, Andrew Cuomo is stirring up fears about his rival, Zohran Mamdani, by seeming to suggest that the frontrunner would cheer on another terrorist attack on New York City.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: Any given morning, there's a crisis and people's lives are at stake, God forbid, another 9/11. Can you imagine Mamdani in the seat?
[22:20:00]
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I could. He'd be cheering.
CUOMO: That's another problem. But can you imagine that?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. Listen --
CUOMO: If Mamdani was in the seat on 9/11, what would have happened in the city?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: The Democratic socialist candidate was quick to denounce his opponent's remarks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAMDANI: We're speaking about a former governor who, in his final moments in public life, is engaging in rhetoric that is not only Islamophobic, not only racist, it's also disgusting, and is his final closing argument with less than two weeks before Election Day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: His final moments in public life, that was quite the dig, Ashley. But, I mean, look, this is getting predictably very nasty and specifically along these lines of Mamdani's faith.
ALLISON: Yes, I mean it's disappointing. I actually am really disappointed that it wasn't like, okay, that's a bridge too far. It's similar to like when John McCain, when the person was like, he's not a citizen. It's like at some point you have to have the integrity to say, stop, especially in this moment that we find ourselves, we're talking about taking the temperature down.
Look, if Cuomo -- Cuomo's probably going to lose this race, like I don't see how he doesn't. And if he wants to attack Mamdani for not having experience for some of his positions, that's fine. But to do -- to engage in the -- now, he didn't say it, but he didn't say it was unacceptable to engage in that is -- it is disgusting. And I say it as Cuomo, even though he is running as an independent, as him being a Democrat.
JENNINGS: Well, he was talking about his experience. I mean, if you watch the debate last night, most of Cuomo's best moments were about Mamdani's experience. In this particular case, I think he was making two points, actually. One is, if you did, God forbid, have a massive emergency like that, would you really want someone in the mayor's seat who has never had a job, never run anything, certainly never run anything at this level.
ALLISON: And that's fine.
JENNINGS: And that's been his entire argument, number one.
Number two, it is true that Mamdani was taking a picture with an unindicted co-conspirator from the World Trade Center bombing the other day and called him a pillar of the community. Cuomo didn't make him take that picture. Mamdani took that picture and seems to be pretty proud of it. That's a legitimate thing to debate.
But I think in this case of the radio show, the core issue was Mamdani literally has no experience. And if you had a 9/11 scale event, would you want somebody who can't prove that they can do anything in the chair, legit question.
PHILLIP: Isn't it fair to say that he would cheer on 9/11?
JENNINGS: He's taken pictures with unindicted co-conspirators from the World Trade Center bombing.
PHILLIP: I mean, are you willing to say that you really think that he would cheer on 9/11?
JENNINGS: He's taking pictures with unindicted co-conspirators from the World Trade Center --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: But I'm asking Scott, because Scott seems to think that's like a totally above board line of attack. Do you think that that's true?
JENNINGS: I can only tell you what I see on my phone. I see a picture of Mamdani with a guy who was an unindicted co-conspirator from a terrorist attack in New York City.
PHILLIP: Yes, I mean --
JENNINGS: Do you think that was a good picture to take?
PHILLIP: Listen, he is an unindicted co-conspirator in that case, but just worth noting for context, in 2009, Bloomberg met with that same imam. The last mayor who just endorsed Eric Adams awarded him a -- apparently an award fairly recently.
So, I mean, your criticism is taken, but I also think that's a different point from saying somebody would cheer on a terror attack that killed thousands of people.
RIVERA: But is this the time to be taking pictures with this controversial imam? I mean, when people have such deep questions, my Jewish family is petrified as to what the future holds in New York City with Mamdani as the mayor. Why? They don't think that he's a terrorist, but there is a feeling that he won't protect the Jewish community, or he hasn't sufficiently, unequivocally condemned anti- Semitism in a way that could give comfort to Jewish people. And some of my best friends are Muslim. My driver from Afghanistan comes -- is my neighbor in Cleveland.
You know, we love Muslim people. Muslim people and Jewish people have a lot in common. But this is a point of extreme sensitivity where people worry with everything that's gone on, all the violence in the Middle East and everything that's gone on here, that when you have -- you don't have clear denunciation of hate speech that surrounds you. And I think he is guilty. Mamdani is guilty of that. He has not condemned it.
Could Andrew have more forcefully condemned Sid Rosenberg, the D.J. who made the offensive comment?
[22:25:05]
Yes, I guess so. But I was glad that Cuomo woke up finally. He's been asleep in this race. It was the first time he had the pulse.
PHILLIP: Let me just play what Eric Adams said today also about Mamdani, and, again, Eric Adams has endorsed Cuomo in this race.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR ERIC ADAMS (D-NEW YORK CITY, NY): Taking down Zohran, the socialist and the communist, you're darn right, I am.
New York can't be Europe, folks. I don't know what is wrong with people. You see what's playing out in other countries because of Islamic extremism.
We're fighting against a snake oil salesman that has sold a bill of good.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: See, here's what I don't like is that you talked about how your Jewish friends and how they feel as if they're fearful.
RIVERA: My Jewish mother-in-law.
HILL: Yes.
RIVERA: My wife and me.
HILL: Yes, your family, your friends, they're fearful. This is all rooted in sort of a perception and I think a very comfortable bigotry that's happening when we discuss Mamdani. It's like why is he always put in the position where he has to answer for every Muslim person that commits an extreme --
RIVERA: Because he's historic. He's historic. He's a historic figure.
HILL: But that only happens to him because of his fate. It's like when black people are asked to answer for things that other black people do, and we have nothing to do with it, but suddenly we are all lumped in together and we have to --
RIBERA: He has refused to condemn --
HILL: I've heard him condemn anti-Semitism.
PHILLIP: He did eventually condemn it.
HILL: He did condemn that.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: That's the best way.
RIVERA: Eventually is a long time.
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, when he was recently asked about it, he did.
HILL: And so that's my larger issue with this is like Andrew Cuomo isn't stupid. He knows that he's weaponizing his faith at a time where there is a lot of people who feel uncomfortable with someone who is Jewish being in this position and one of the most -- you know, one of the biggest cities in the world. RIVERA: The biggest news is that so many Jews are voting for Mamdani. That's the big news.
JENNINGS: We'll see. We'll see.
PHILLIP: That is -- listen, that is interesting and notable. I mean, look, this is a very diverse city, as you know, Geraldo, and a lot of people of different faiths, a lot of different, you know, ethnic backgrounds, racial backgrounds live here, and he is winning the race in this state. And I actually questioned the strategy of Cuomo's.
I mean, actually let me show you guys. This is an A.I. video that was posted very briefly on Wednesday night and was deleted very quickly after that. It shows a lot of different things, including some things that people have described frankly as being racist. There he is eating rice. There's a black man who was later shown with a pro-Palestinian scarf shoplifting, et cetera, et cetera. The Cuomo campaign says the video was a draft proposal that was neither finished nor approved, did not go through the normal legal process, and was inadvertently posted by a junior staffer, which is why it was taken down five minutes later.
And, Peter, I'm sure you're familiar with this political tactic, which is like, oh, some intern just posted that. And the point is, this is New York City. It seems like a really high chance that stuff like this can backfire.
MEIJER: Well, how often have we been sitting around the table thinking, oh, golly, I think Andrew Cuomo's going to make a fantastic mayor for the city of New York. I mean, it's all about, you know, that Mamdani's not prepared, that he's inexperienced, that he's maybe afraid of --
RIVERA: I think Andrew can be an excellent mayor. I think he'd be an excellent mayor. I think he was a pretty good governor. His fellow was a fantastic governor.
ALLISON: But the Democratic voters didn't think that, right? Like that's the thing, right? Is that there was a primary and he ran a race and Eric Adams dropped out of the Democratic primary because he didn't want to run a race and then eventually dropped out of the mayor's race because he knew he was going to lose, but Cuomo lost. He lost the race. And so then he said, I'm still -- I'm just not going to take the loss and I'm going to run again. The voters get to decide this.
And I just want to say, I hear your concern and I think you are allowed to have that concern.
RIVERA: Thank you.
ALLISON: I think though that Mamdani has an opportunity to have a conversation with the Jewish community, and I have seen him try that and he is most likely going to be elected. And the opportunity that Jewish New Yorkers have to do is take him to task and make sure that he does protect them. He has said in his policy that he is literally going to open an office of public safety around anti-Semitism. So, he has a plan, he does think that Jewish people --
RIVERA: Well, I mean, why did it took him so long for global intifada?
ALLISON: I don't know. What takes so many people, so many -- I mean --
RIVERA: Just to make my mother-in-law nervous?
ALLISON: No. Okay, so he might have got that wrong, but if he did condemn it, like is that -- what else is he supposed to do?
[22:30:04]
RIVERA: I condemn like the phrase, global antifa, just like I condemn the river -
(CROSSTALK)
ALLISON: But we just said that this guy is somebody that basically everybody is taking pictures with.
(CROSSTALK)
RIVERA: No. Bloomberg apologized after the fact though.
PHILLIP: Yes. Somebody that he said --
(CROSSTALK)
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I mean, knowing the issue swirling around his candidacy, if you were his consultant, would you have him out taking this picture? Knowing what people like Geraldo thought.
ALLISON: Honestly, until you said it, I didn't even know about that picture. I swear I really didn't because I'm not following the race that closely. But I just think that there's an opportunity here for he has said some things that I find problematic too. And when engaging with his campaign, I have said that to him and I say you have a responsibility if you are elected mayor to be the mayor of all people.
Just like I think there are a lot of politicians out here that say things that I find offensive that are they are representing me and I want them to be better and condemn some things, but they don't.
RIVERA: Just very briefly.
PHILLIP: Yes.
RIVERA: The 9/11 happens. Rudy Giuliani is there with Bernie Kerik by his side. Two people that New Yorkers know and rely on. They watch them heroically steer us through that trauma. ALLISON: Yes.
RIVERA: Imagine if it was Mamdani who's in the office of rookie, who has no experience, --
(CROSSTALK)
ALLISON: We'll check those out.
RIVERA: -- who has all of these issues like pictures with unfortunately, (inaudible).
ALLISON: I totally hear you on that. But imagine this, COVID hits. Andrew Cuomo is the governor. All the experience in the world, that did not go too good.
JENNINGS: Wait, I thought he was the hero of COVID.
PHILLIP: We got to leave it there.
JENNINGS: Are we now admitting he's no longer the hero of COVID?
ALLISON: I've been there.
PHILLIP: Hey, I mean, listen, I think that's Trump's position, is that he's not the hero of COVID. It's interesting.
JENNINGS: Yes, we were saying that at the time, not everybody would.
PHILLIP: All right, next for us. If they're dangerous enough to execute, why aren't they dangerous enough to detain? That question was actually posed to Donald Trump, and he suggests he's got the full authority to just kill.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We're going to kill them, you know? They're going to be like, dead.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[22:35:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight, another escalation in Donald Trump's war on alleged narco-terrorism. This morning, an American B-1 Bomber flew 50 miles from the Venezuelan coast in an apparent show of force. Trump is flat out denying it, but flight data confirms that the bomber was in the region, having taken off from an air base in Texas.
The demonstration comes amid rising tensions between the United States and Venezuela, and it follows the deployment of U.S. warships to the Caribbean.
Trump announced that he is now targeting drug smugglers in the Pacific now, saying he'd even consider striking targets on land without prior approval from Congress. And today, he elaborated on those plans.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Our sea drugs, as they call them, they use the term sea drugs, the drugs coming in by sea, are like 5 percent of what they were a year ago, less than 5 percent. So now they're coming in by land. And even the land is concerned because I told them that's going to be next. You know, the land is going to be next.
And we may go to the Senate, we may go to the Congress and tell them about it, but I can't imagine they'd have any problem with it. What are they going to do? Say, gee, we don't want to stop drugs pouring in?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Last night on this show, Democratic Congresswoman Sara Jacobs called the boat strikes murder.
Geraldo, I wonder what you make of this, this seemingly never-ending expansion of the scope of what they're trying to do here.
RIVERA: I'm all for it. I think it's a great deterrent. I trust the Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, when he says that they have intelligence. They know who's doing it, where the boats are leaving from, what the cargo is. They're not committing murder, but they are waging war.
I've had a lot of experience in Colombia and Venezuela and Ecuador and Bolivia. I understand it's a big dope creating machine. Americans shame on us for being the market for it, but I am all for it. War is hell. And these boats --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Shouldn't we be providing evidence though?
RIVERA: -- with four or three engines and no fishing poles and or submarines with no fishing poles.
PHILLIP: Yes, but --
RIVERA: I mean, they're farcical.
PHILLIP: Geraldo, two things. Shouldn't they be providing evidence of a, that what --
(CROSSTALK)
RIVERA: It's war.
PHILLIP: I mean, maybe it's war. But shouldn't they have evidence, shouldn't there -- that some of that be provided. And secondly, --
RIVERA: I have no doubt but that is --
PHILLIP: Is there -- does it need to be a threat to us or are we now just policing the Caribbean from drugs that are going anywhere.
JENNINGS: Wait.
PHILLIP: -- including to us.
JENNINGS: The drugs are a threat to us.
PHILLIP: No, no. I'm asking are the drugs coming to us because there's a lot of evidence of those boats weren't coming to us. That's what I'm (inaudible).
(CROSSTALK)
RIVERA: I don't think they're coming to us. I think they're going to intermediaries, those speedboats can make it all the way to New York and Florida.
PHILLIP: Exactly. So do we have to --
(CROSSTALK)
RIVERA: They're going to turn to Tobago and the East Coast.
PHILLIP: Yes.
RIVERA: Or Mexico on (inaudible).
PHILLIP: So that is my point, Geraldo. Do we need to substantiate a threat to the homeland because those drugs they are probably not coming to United States. They might be going to other, you call them intermediaries, they're also markets for drugs too, just like we are.
So, don't you have to prove that there's actually a threat to us and not just a threat to all the other countries in the Caribbean?
[22:39:54]
RIVERA: In a way, I think that the cowboy nature of these strikes, it makes it even more of a deterrent. And I believe the president, when he says there hasn't been many of these vessels and there's fewer and fewer because of this fatal threat that offer. Some things you can't telegraph to suggest, okay, all you boats, we're coming after you. It is preposterous. We've got to fight them.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: So, rules, okay.
RIVERA: I believe the president was --
PHILLIP: So, rules of engagement as we know Pete Hegseth doesn't like rules of engagement. The rules of engagement about who we can kill under what justification. Do you think that they come into play here?
FMR. REP. PETER MEIJER (R-MI): So, you mentioned it's a state of war. I mean we haven't had any authorization, right? I mean, this is part for the course of the way presidents have been treating the Constitution and their Article 2 war making responsibilities. So, in this way, Trump is no different than Obama, no different than Biden, no different than Clinton or Bush.
But the standard that we had during the war on terror, and again, you can agree with the standard or disagree, was that there was something called a signature profile, signature strikes. If there were military age men in an area that had known hostilities, we would probably drop a bomb on them if we saw a weapon.
Now, could those have just been herders or other folks who are carrying a weapon for protection, quite possibly, right, you can make mistakes. The reality, though, is when we're seeing these videos, those aren't fishing boats. Right. You do not have narco submarines that are being piloted by guys trying to catch tuna off of a long line. Right. I mean, this is clearly a --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: As far as I know I think only one of those boats was described as semi-submersible.
MEIJER: Correct. Correct.
PHILLIP: But there were other boats where there are individuals from the home countries who say that some of those people were on fishing boats. My only point is it's actually not to kind of parse every single incident, but just to ask the question, shouldn't we have evidence one way or another about all of those incidents?
MEIJER: It would be great to have that evidence. I mean, I'm sure there is a foundation for why these boats were targeted. There can be benefits to having more random targeting because then, you know, everyone is looking up trying to figure out if that's going to happen and that is a strong distance.
PHILLIP: Let me just play what Pete Hegseth said when he was asked about the two individuals who actually survived one of these attacks and then we just let them go.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Some alleged smugglers have survived some of these recent strikes and been sent to their home country.
TRUMP: Two.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If they're terrorists why not just arrest and detain them?
TRUMP: Go ahead.
PETE HEGSETH, U.S. SECRETARY OF WAR: Two points on that. First, when I served in Iraq in 2005 and 2006, we used to, sort of a gallows humor way, talk about the Iraqi catch and release program. The reality that we would catch a lot of people, hand them over, and then it would be recycled back through. We'd have to recapture them or attack them again.
And that's why changing the dynamic and actually taking kinetic strikes on these boats ought to change the psychology of these foreign terrorist organizations. In this case, those two, they were treated by American medics and handed immediately over to their countries where they came from, hopefully to face prosecution, which --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: That's a lot of words to not answer the question. Why not try them?
JENNINGS: Well, in this case, they handed them over for trial in their home country. I mean, look, we're --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I mean, there's no evidence that they're going to be tried. And he actually used the word hopefully, to describe what may happen.
JENNINGS: Yes. And maybe they won't be, but maybe they'll think twice before they get in a narco terrorist boat again. Look, I agree with Geraldo. We're fighting. And I agree with Pete Hegseth. We're fighting foreign terrorist organizations. We can't think of these things in any other way. If it was Al-Qaeda that had a boat, that had a bunch of material on it, that would kill 100,000 Americans, we'd sink it too.
We have to think of them the same way as we think of any other terrorists. And if we do change the psychology and people stop getting on these boats and they stop putting them in the pipeline where drugs can filter throughout the hemisphere and up to the United States, that is fundamentally a good thing.
And so, I think, politically, I think the American people are going to give him lot of latitude on this because they believe the government really hasn't taken this seriously.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, there's a reason I didn't ask about the political part of it. I asked about the legal part of it, the constitutional part of it, because I think that is actually also what matters here.
ALLISON: Yes, I also wonder, I mean, you said war a couple of times and I'm like, are we at war? Because to your point, we didn't get any congressional approval. And I think the question is, do we keep going further and further and further and then we actually enter into a war? There's a strike back at us or whatever the case may be for any of these countries and then what do we do.
And so, I'm not going to argue with you on whether the American people are going to be in favor. I think it could be a 50-50 issue, I think. But the question is the constitutionality of it. And if we are at war, does the president just have the permission to declare it without any congressional. PHILLIP: And a land war soon, apparently.
ALLISON: Yes.
[22:44:56]
JEMELE HILL, CONTRIBUTING WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: It's also a question of trust, too, because I think we all probably agree with the premise that we should be aggressive in fighting the flow of drugs. And I don't think anybody is going to debate that. I certainly do not debate that.
But then then question becomes like, do you trust that these two people who have given plenty of reasons not to trust everything that they say, that what they're saying is right? So, I think that evidence.
RIVERA: You mean Hegseth and the president?
HILL: Hegseth and the president.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: They are elected, duly elected.
RIVERA: What about the two fishermen?
HILL: Oh, so? You think they don't lie?
JENNINGS: You're saying the duly elected commander in chief and his designee for secretary of defense confirmed by the U.S. Senate, you're saying that they're not legitimate to make these decisions?
HILL: No, I'm not saying they're not legitimate. They're put in that place to do it. What I'm saying is that this is an issue of trust. Sometimes, you may have the right premise, but if your actions are too loud, I can't hear you. And so, because they are so often willing to behave so recklessly in so many other areas, it is hard to often trust what they say and take it at face value.
RIVERA: I heard one of the fishermen had the 30 prior arrests, was well-known narco terrorist that they were making $300 a month as a legitimate boat fisherman. They were making 30,000 as a dope runner. They're all doing the dope. You know, it's a whole ecosystem has built up. It is war. It's been war since the President Nixon in 1971 the war on drugs and Elvis days.
PHILLIP: That has gone. That has gone incredibly well.
RIVERA: Yes, well.
PHILLIP: I mean, look, I think --
(CROSSTALK)
RIVERA: As long as we're buying (inaudible). PHILLIP: Listen, we don't even have the time to deal with that, but I think we ought to perhaps have a conversation about that part. This idea of just bombing them out of existence has not worked in the past. I'm not sure what the justification is for saying that it suddenly (inaudible).
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: Have we sunk boats like this before?
PHILLIP: We have been engaged in the war on drugs as well.
JENNINGS: But have we done it this way?
PHILLIP: Since the 70s.
JENNINGS: Have we done it this way?
PHILLIP: We have been on the ground in Central and South America.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: No, I'm talking about drones, getting boats on TV.
PHILLIP: Yes, But Scott.
JENNINGS: I mean, this is a step-up measure.
PHILLIP: Listen, it's a different form of the war on drugs, but it's the same premise that if you just bomb a person here or there, that's going to stop the process. When 90 percent of the fentanyl is coming on the ground through Mexico, a large portion of which coming from Americans who are carrying it in, and then you have all those other illicit drugs, again, not coming by sea, but coming through other means.
So, if you're not going to address the big picture here of drug demand and drug supply.
JENNINGS: Well, --
PHILLIP: I'm not sure how far this is going to get you.
JENNINGS: There is (inaudible).
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: And I think that again, I'm not saying it shouldn't be addressed. I'm just saying we have to look at history and see is this really going to work or is this just something that makes them feel like they're doing something and they can write a headline.
JENNINGS: Well, I think on the fentanyl issue, which is you're raising a correct question about it. There is recent a government data fentanyl coming across the border has dropped massively since Trump took office. The border is closed but also and look, we've been back to the spring when he said he was going to pressure him into it. There is a lot of evidence that he and the Mexican government and the president are working extremely closely to pressure the cartels.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: That's all good news.
JENNINGS: It's very good news.
PHILLIP: But no fentanyl comes from Venezuela. It all comes from -- the vast majority comes from Mexico.
JENNINGS: Cocaine comes from Venezuela.
PHILLIP: And we have to deal with that problem. And again, if the border is closed and that's working, then say that. But I also think we should have a conversation as a country about what the war on drugs is really doing and how to adequately fight it. For another day, though.
Next for us, should ICE agents be wearing masks? The president weighed in on that debate, and so will we. We'll be right back.
[22:50:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Should ICE agents be allowed to wear masks on the job? Well, tonight President Trump weighed in on that. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I didn't have a big view on the mask, but I now understand why they should wear masks. I think it's very dangerous for them not to wear masks. They can do whatever they want. I noticed some do it and some don't. But it's pretty dangerous.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I notice the same thing. Some do and some don't.
RIVERA: I think wearing masks in law enforcement, there can be no honor in any job where you have to wear a mask to go to work. The FBI doesn't wear masks, sheriffs don't wear masks, cops don't wear masks, Marshals don't wear masks, nobody wears masks, only ICE. Only ICE. And why is it because they are embarrassed by the job they have been tasked to do and it's absolutely horrifying.
Masks should be banned in law enforcement. What kind of world can we have where cops come into your door and they're masked.
PHILLIP: Scott?
JENNINGS: Counterpoint, the reason they're wearing masks, which by the way, their director Todd Lyons, he doesn't want them to have to wear mask. He's against the mask. The reason they're wearing them is because you have a dedicated group of people out there and some of them unfortunately are Democrat political officials who are doxing them and their families and putting them in harm's way.
They face a thousand percent increase in violent attacks this year. These people are in harm's way every day and they are protecting themselves and their families.
PHILLIP: How do you explain why some of them do and some of them don't? I've seen plenty of videos where in this very same circumstances some ICE agents are not wearing masks at all and others, especially the ones who tend to be acting the most aggressively, are. So, I feel like that says something. If they all felt the same level of --
(CROSSTALK)
RIVERA: I agree.
PHILLIP: -- fear they would all be wearing masks and they're not.
ALLISON: I agree. I think you're right. I totally agree with Geraldo. I think it's scary when you have somebody who is approaching you with a mask. I mean, you're like what's happening? Are you --
(CROSSTALK)
RIVERA: A giant person.
ALLISON: Yes, and they have guns and whatnot. So, I don't think they should be wearing masks. I don't think they should be being doxxed if, but I don't think that's actually happening in overwhelming cases.
[22:55:06]
PHILLIP: All right. Everyone, thank you very much.
Coming up, an explosive scandal involving the NBA, the mafia and sports gambling. All the details ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:59:58]
PHILLIP: And before we go, quick programming note for you. This Sunday, discover the diverse breads that bond Sao Paulo. A new episode of CNN's original series, Tony Shalhoub Breaking Bread airs this Sunday night at 9 p.m. right here on CNN.
And 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.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
