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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Deadliest Day For Trump's Unchecked Boat Strike Campaign; Trump Fires Group In Charge Of Reviewing His Ballroom, Arch; GOP's Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) Says, Trump May Be Able to Go Around the Constitution; White House Fires Board Reviewing Presidential Construction Projects; Trump Admin Plans An ICE Shake Up. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired October 28, 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, more strikes, more secrets. The Pentagon forces officials to sign NDAs as the president is accused of using troops as props.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Wasn't much of a president either, to be honest with you.
PHILLIP: Plus, an ICE civil war, major shakeups, not over agents going too far, but not far enough.
Also, the no guardrail presidency is rolling over another curb. Donald Trump fires the group in charge of reviewing his construction projects, from the ballroom to the arch.
And a dream deferred.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We must come together, we lead (INAUDIBLE).
PHILLIP: How Jesse Jackson's unprecedented campaign laid the foundation for today's populism politics, both on the left and the right.
Live at the table, Bakari Sellers, Lydia Moynihan, Ana Kasparian, Betsy McCaughey and Julia Ioffe.
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 secret siege that's playing out in international waters, as President Trump escalates his war on narco-terrorism. Tonight, the Trump administration is taking a victory lap after it says that the U.S. military blew up four suspected drug smuggling boats in three different strikes in the Pacific Ocean. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted this video. He says that 14 people were killed and there was one survivor. The strikes mark the largest one day operation and the deadliest so far.
Trump has been building up his military strength in the Caribbean, targeting boats near Venezuela that it claims are trafficking drugs. But the administration has provided no evidence of this, and transparency appears to be merely a suggestion because Reuters is reporting that U.S. military officials involved in Trump's missions have been asked to sign non-disclosure agreements. CNN previously reported that he's office started requiring NDAs to prevent leaks.
Now, Trump is right now overseas in Asia on his diplomacy tour, and today he and Hegseth spoke to troops in Japan where they both seem to joke about blowing up boats.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: You've been watching what our missiles do to boats and ships and submarines. How about the submarine? They said, no, that was just fishing.
The only problem is nobody wants to go into the sea anymore. Even the fishing boats, they say, let's take a pass.
PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: I would not want to be in a drug boat in the Caribbean right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Before we get started, I want to mention Julia Ioffe's new book that just came out. It is called, Motherland, a Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Autocracy. Great to have you with us on the panel, Julia.
And also, you know, on this issue of what Trump is doing really in the region, I do think that that's kind of what this points to is people are seeing the boats being blown up and nobody disagrees with getting tough on drugs and drug smugglers, but there's also the question of whether there are all alternate aims, and I wonder what you think of that.
JULIA IOFFE, AUTHOR, MOTHERLAND, A FEMINIST HISTORY OF MODERN RUSSIA, FROM REVOLUTION TO AUTOCRACY: Well, I'm just surprised that nobody has tried a war on drugs before. I mean, right?
PHILLIP: Brand new idea.
IOFFE: Brand new idea, and it has never been tried. I'm sure it'll be successful this time. But I think that to be more serious, the secrecy, the fact that this is all televised, it's become theater, and with, if you zoom out even further, the way that there are ICE quotas, and now people in charge of these ICE offices are being swept out, the destruction of the East Wing, of the White House, all of this, to me, points to a broader, more alarming pattern, which is that what is this being done for? And the fact that the office of the presidency, which is already a very personal office, that it's all being personalized so highly that the state is being equated with the president, with the person of Donald Trump.
PHILLIP: So, what do you think it's being done for?
IOFFE: I personally think that an infrastructure is being built to allow Donald Trump to stay in office indefinitely. I don't think that what's being done to the White House, you don't do that if you think that anybody else is going to inhabit this thing after you and if you are planning on leaving power.
[22:05:02]
PHILLIP: Lydia?
LYDIA MOYNIHAN, CORRESPONDENT, NEW YORK POST: Well, on the Venezuela point, I just want to note in all of this, what's being lost is Venezuela is a foreign terrorist organization. It's been designated as such by the Trump administration. And so they see this ultimately is not even just foreign policy, but ultimately protecting the homeland. So, that's where all of this is coming from, and that is how they're justifying these attacks. These are terrorists.
And there was a 2025 FBI report that found basically Venezuela is exporting gangs, they're exporting the regime in an effort to bring crime and so chaos into America.
PHILLIP: But that's not why they're saying that they're doing these --
IOFFE: Well, they've fired intelligence analysts whose analysis and whose final product disagrees with that. So, when you say that the government has designated them this or says that they're terrorists, the way that they've hollowed out these institutions makes it very hard to --
MOYNIHAN: It was January '25 report.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: So, what Trump keeps talking about is that there was a report that was produced by the Trump intelligence officials who that basically countered this idea that there was sort of this government effort to, quote/unquote, invade the United States with gang members. There was no -- according to this report, they couldn't substantiate that.
But, again --
(CROSSTALKS)
FMR. LT. GOV. BETSY MCCAUGHEY (R-NY): (INAUDIBLE) in New York, and New York is being terrorized by these gangs.
PHILLIP: But Trump is saying that it's actually about drugs. And, look, I mean, if it's about drugs, why can't they produce any evidence to back that up? MCCAUGHEY: Well, they can. The nation is suffering from a huge number of drugs coming in across the southern border carried by gangs from South America, a hundred thousand Americans dying a year from these overdoses. And I can --
(CROSSTALKS)
MCCAUGHEY: Well, let me just finish.
ANA KASPARIAN, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER AND HOST, THE YOUNG TURKS: They want a regime change in Venezuela. This is what Trump has wanted since his first term. He tried to install Juan Guaido not once, but twice. It didn't work. So, now there's a military buildup because they want regime change. And the United -- I mean the Trump administration isn't even hiding it. So, why are we pretending like this is about drugs?
MCCAUGHEY: It is about drugs. And the fact is most Americans are very supportive of the idea of waging war on drugs. These people may not be wearing the uniform of a foreign country, but they are nevertheless combatants against --
BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, let me just also -- can I just insert something that is fundamental about this? These strikes are also illegal. And so whether or not we want to talk about that fact or not is something else. But while you're talking about --
MCCAUGHEY: I disagree with that.
SELLERS: Well, I mean, you don't -- you can. I mean, you -- but it's --
MCCAUGHEY: It's not illegal. Rand Paul is going to Congress to try to get a bipartisan effort to make them illegal.
SELLERS: But they are.
MCCAUGHEY: And to require --
(CROSSTALKS)
MOYNIHAN: Since 2011, drone strikes were widely used without Congressional authorization.
SELLERS: And does that make it legal? No.
MOYNIHAN: It's been widely used under Obama, under Biden, under Trump.
SELLERS: Does that make it legal? And I have a problem with Barack Obama's drone strikes. Does that make it legal is the question. The answer is no.
But also I wanted to just piggyback one quick point about deposing and, you know, deposing a leader in Venezuela. This is also about something that should make every American's blood boil because of our memories is also about oil. And we've been here before. And we've seen what happens when we go to war, wherever it may be, boots on the ground, that's where it's going next, and it's going to be about oil.
MCCAUGHEY: These conspiracy theories are just preposterous.
KASPARIAN: It's not a conspiracy theory. Venezuela has the largest oil reserve of any country.
MCCAUGHEY: That's right. But there is no proof that's why Donald Trump is doing --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Here's what else has been going on in addition to the strikes. They've also -- they've got an aircraft carrier docked in Trinidad and Tobago, another one moving toward Venezuela, 4,500 Marines and sailors in the area, so on and so forth. Look, it's a very long list of assets that are being moved into the region. And, again, if this is just about taking these, you know, fishermen or whatever carrying drugs, if they are carrying drugs out of the water, then why the massive mobilization?
MOYNIHAN: Well, look, Marco Rubio has been very clear since he came in as secretary of state that basically America first policy means also paying attention to what's happening in the Western Hemisphere. And that has been a long agreed thing in foreign policy going back to when Teddy Roosevelt was in office.
And so his first trip was to Latin America because he wants to enhance our relationship with our allies. And they've also been clear the fact that they're publicizing these strikes, right? There's not questioning if they're happening. The Trump administration is confirming they're happening, and that's clearly sending a message to Maduro.
SELLERS: But we are questioning who they're killing, right? And so there is a fascinating argument here that people are saying, and we just don't know because of NDAs and everything else,that there are some innocent people who've been killed, like some actual real life fishermen who've been killed.
MCCAUGHEY: Oh, the fishermen, just like the Maryland man.
(CROSSTALKS)
IOFFE: We just had one of these strikes and there were two survivors. If these were --
PHILLIP: And now there's a third from this latest.
IOFFE: Okay, and now there's a third. Why do we send them back to their country of origin if they're really drug smugglers and terrorists?
[22:10:02]
Why wouldn't we then take them and bring them back to the U.S. for questioning if they're --
SELLERS: Or due process.
IOFFE: Yes, or due process. If we're just letting them go back to their countries, maybe they're actually fishermen.
SELLERS: And this is like a -- I appreciate that you brought up Maryland man, because it kind of ties into the larger argument that is a huge difference between my friends to the right and myself, which is that there's nobody saying that you should not have deported the Maryland man, as you call him. But what we are saying is there are things in this country called due process.
And so what we're seeing right now is the erosion thereof. And so when you have things like innocent people and that question remains being bombed or exploded because of strikes in the Caribbean, that should cause chills.
IOFFE: Right.
MCCAUGHEY: Combatants do not get (INAUDIBLE) process.
MOYNIHAN: They are designated terrorists.
KASPARIAN: I'm old enough to remember when Donald Trump said, elect me because I don't believe in starting new wars. He's not only starting a new war with Venezuela but he has soured U.S. relations with Colombia, a longstanding ally to the United States. Just deciding to strike random boats in the middle of the ocean does nothing to stop --
SELLERS: The reason that I appreciate you being aghast when you started your statement is because the way that this is going to be framed in the larger dialogue, which is like I love looking at social media when we get off air, is that, for some reason, we are protecting or taking the side of drug dealers, which is the most intellectually dishonest argument that people make, and it's hard to have substantive arguments.
But the real thing that people are -- I don't want two things. I don't want the erosion of due process and I do not want to start another foreign war on the premise of oil or whatever it may be.
(CROSSTALKS)
IOFFE: Can I just chime in as somebody who's a refugee from the Soviet Union? When these things are shrouded in secrecy, when we take away people's due process and then we say, well, they didn't deserve it because we know that they were terrorists or drug dealers because dear leader told us so, before you know it, they'll start coming for you. And people who were on your side yesterday will say, well, I'm sorry, but the young woman in the yellow jacket was also a terrorist and a traitor, and she doesn't deserve due process.
MCCAUGHEY: But foreign combatants do not merit due process.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: (INAUDIBLE) ask you to respond to what she's saying on a fundamental level, which is that when the government just says, we can kill whoever we want because we're telling you that they're bad guys, isn't that a bad precedent to set?
MCCAUGHEY: That's a preposterous question.
PHILLIP: Not just for those people because I don't know who those people are.
MCCAUGHEY: These are foreign combatants.
(CROSSTALKS)
MOYNIHAN: Well, I don't think he would tell us. There's no transparency with the Biden administration. Trump is at least letting us know what's happening and they have promised more information. But, look, I mean, he had been designated --
PHILLIP: Lydia, last I checked, they didn't have this scenario in the Biden administration. I mean, I think everybody would be --
MOYNIHAN: We're finding all kinds of things out about the Biden administration now.
PHILLIP: Hold on. Everybody would be raking them over the coals if they were striking boats on a daily basis without providing a shred of evidence of who they were striking. What kind of drugs were they carrying? What organizations were they a part of? Where were they even -- where were they going? I mean, these are (INAUDIBLE) questions, don't you think?
SELLERS: Nobody -- you're like I'm just -- I'm curious because I've always wanted to know how people who are diametrically opposed to me on issues think. So, do you want to know if they had drugs? Do you want to know where they were going or coming from? Do you want to know who they were? Do you want to know who their --
PHILLIP: Betsy, do you want mean?
MCCAUGHEY: (INAUDIBLE) information is going to be provided. In the meantime, Rand Paul has gone to Congress and he's expecting to get, and I think he will get a bipartisan resolution asking Congress to give permission to Trump to conduct this kind of activity, and that's a good step. But nevertheless, Trump realizes, I believe, that his duty is to keep these drugs out of the United States.
PHILLIP: But what drugs are we even talking about?
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: But hold on a second. But what drugs are we talking --
MCCAUGHEY: I did mention fentanyl. One of our --
PHILLIP: Yes. But the reason that they -- hold on.
KASPARIAN: Fentanyl was not coming from Venezuela. Fentanyl comes from China.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Hold on. The reason that they're talking about fentanyl is because you said that the drugs that are killing all those hundreds of thousands of Americans, well, that drug is fentanyl. So, the reason I'm asking you, do you even know what drugs we're talking about?
MCCAUGHEY: I'd like the government to supply that information. But to suggest that Trump is becoming an authoritarian military dictator over this is preposterous. It's somehow linked to the White House ballroom. That's really whack.
KASPARIAN: I think what's ridiculous is that we're all pretending like this is about a drug war, when in reality it's about a regime change war. Secretary of State Marco has a bone to pick.
SELLERS: They tried it twice.
KASPARIAN: What they say out loud that we're supposed to pretend like we're not supposed to listen to.
[22:15:02]
Marco Rubio, secretary of state, has a bone to pick with Venezuela because he feels that they're providing material support to Cuba, and he wants regime change in Cuba because he himself is a Cuban American and doesn't like that the communist revolution happened.
MCCAUGHEY: I'd like to see regime change in Cuba too.
KASPARIAN: Okay. But that's not our business. Okay. We have people suffering here in the United States. I'm not interested in a regime change or --
MOYNIHAN: It is their business when they are coming into the U.S.
KASPARIAN: I'm interested in taking care of our country.
MOYNIHAN: When terrorists are coming into the U.S., it is our business.
KASPARIAN: What are terrorists? What are you talking about?
MOYNIHAN: MS-13, Tren de Aragua.
(CROSSTALKS)
MOYNIHAN: There are literally gangs trying to infiltrate the U.S. So, we would love to just --
KASPARIAN: I thought Trump was protecting our borders. What happened? He's not protecting our borders, that they're able to infiltrate our country, by killing random fishermen in the ocean?
PHILLIP: All right. Come on, look I think it's a really interesting point here that you're debating, which is Trump says the border is closed, but he's also saying we're currently being infiltrated. That doesn't check out. But, secondly, I mean, again, shouldn't he prove that these boat strikes are doing something about Tren de Aragua or whoever else? So far, there's been no evidence one way or another.
And I think it's just -- we can't make even past judgment on what's happening because we don't even know what we're talking about.
SELLERS: But it's also -- I mean, the arguments are kind of asymmetrical because you're talking about America first, and that's usually the through line of everything that people say. That's where they fall back. But then you don't have really an excuse for the $40 billion you sent to Argentina other than just, oh my God. But, I mean, if we're talking about bailing out Argentina, but we have people here suffering, then I'm not sure how your America first MAGA like thing works.
PHILLIP: All right. Next for us, a major shakeup in ISIS leadership, because DHS thinks that it's not going far enough with immigration arrests.
Plus, the White House is paving the way for Trump's triumphal arch by firing all the members of the commission in charge of reviewing that project. We'll discuss.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, President Trump is firing officials who could have slowed his big plans to reshape D.C. The White House sent an email terminating all six members of the Commission of Fine Arts, which is an independent federal agency charged with advising Washington, Congress and the president on matters of design and aesthetics.
Now, President Biden also removed Trump's appointees from the same board back in 2021, but these firings are coming as the president is tearing up the east wing to put in a massive ballroom, and he plans on adding a triumphal arch to D.C.'s architecture. That's something the commission is supposed to review as well.
So, you kind of have to give them credit for their efficiency here. They know where the roadblocks are and they're going right at them. You know, in a way you can't knock him for getting rid of the commission but I also think that now we know that the process is kind of rigged.
MCCAUGHEY: Well, I say first of all, good riddance to this commission. It's a group of elitist who don't share the aesthetic or artistic case of most Americans.
SELLERS: They're architects.
MCCAUGHEY: For example -- they are architects. And you know what? They're artistic --
IOFFE: I love the former lieutenant governor talking about elitist, but okay.
MCCAUGHEY: Billie Tsien, right, who was the chair of this commission until recently, is responsible for probably the ugliest public building in America, the new Obama Center in Chicago, which is this huge concrete, bulbous, misshaping structure that really mars the Chicago landscape. It looks like an ode to the gulag.
So, don't trust his taste and Trump is abiding by what most Americans want, which is public architecture that is monumental, maybe gold and patriotic. And I say, go for it. That's what people want.
(CROSSTALKS)
SELLERS: She came prepared and loaded for beer for this segment.
MCCAUGHEY: Oh, yes, I am so --
(CROSSTALKS)
IOFFE: Can I just say this all of this stuff makes me want to scream? Because at least if you're going to consolidate this much power, at least be original power. At least don't, you know, copy every single authoritarian who came before you who also did -- you know, every single one of them, Putin, Stalin, all of them say that --
SELLERS: It went through a federal review.
IOFFE: Say that I know what good taste is, I know what art is, I know what portraiture is, I know what poetry is,, I know what music is, and so I'm going to determine what the nation hears, because my taste is the nation's taste.
SELLERS: But it's also a direct --
IOFFE: The personalization of it is just so utterly unoriginal.
SELLERS: There is a -- I've used through line twice tonight, but there is a direct through line between just the destruction of impediments in their way and the fact that rules ethics don't really govern the Trump White House. And before you take a umbrage to it, let me tell you what my through line is. I think when you look at reports that Trump Corporation this year has made over $850 million already, $800 million just from a crypto coin that foreign governments have put money into influence what's going on in this country, when you look at the fact that they are Don Jr., for example, who doesn't necessarily have a skill set, but he sits on a board of a drone company that he invested $4 million in, which just won a Pentagon contract.
When you look at those things and you see that the ethics and the rules don't really apply --
MCCAUGHEY: It sounds like for Burisma. Remember that company?
(CROSSTALKS)
[22:25:00] MCCAUGHEY: Just like with the ballroom, right?
SELLERS: But it does, and that's my point. So, there are rules and regulations and regulatory bodies that the Trump family doesn't believe applies to them. And so when we're talking about the commission, when you get rid of the commission so you can push through things, I think that it shows that you believe ethics don't matter.
And so, yes, I'm glad you brought up Burisma because that was a talking point for four years. And you know what? If Hunter Biden committed something unethical, whatever, it was wrong and bad. But if I can say that, why can't you say that it's wrong --
MCCAUGHEY: I don't see anything unethical yet. I haven't heard anything.
SELLERS: You don't know that Donald Trump Jr. sits on a board right now that he invested $4 million and they got a Pentagon contract?
PHILLIP: What about the fact that the president just pardoned the head of Binance, and now, all of a sudden, that very same company now able to operate fully in the United States is promoting the Trump crypto platform? So that is also a thing that literally just happened.
(CROSSTALKS)
IOFFE: Or Donald Trump Jr. opening up an exclusive members only club where he and other Trump family members socialize, and the cost of membership is half a million dollars, speaking of everyday Americans who have half a million dollars to spare in club membership.
MCCAUGHEY: But let me ask you something.
IOFFE: So, is that okay?
MCCAUGHEY: Do you think that the president who's empowered by constitution to control the armed forces shouldn't have the power to build a ballroom?
KASPARIAN: He should have all the power. He should do whatever he wants. I think it'll be great.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Let me just play this because --
KASPARIAN: I think what's clear is that like none of the rules actually matter, right? Like how fragile are democracy --
MCCAUGHEY: Well, they matter for our perceived enemies.
KASPARIAN: Well, this is the thing. Like if the administration decides, you know what, we don't want to follow the rules, we're going to do whatever we want, there really aren't --
SELLERS: Guard rails. KASPARIAN: -- guard rails.
PHILLIP: So, Julia brought up earlier in the conversation, that she thinks that what this is all about is Trump doesn't want to leave. He's building, you know, these sort of edifices that he wants to enjoy for a long time. He's also been asked about and talked about having a third term, and here's what he said on Monday about that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I haven't really thought about it. We have some very good people, as you know. But I've had -- I have the best poll numbers I've ever had.
I would love to do it. I have my best numbers ever. It's very terrible. I have my best numbers. If you read it -- am I not ruling it out? You'll have to tell me. All I can tell you is that we have a great group of people, which they don't.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: As with a lot of things with Trump, he could just say, the Constitution bars me from having a third term, and he won't say it, which kind of feeds into what Julia was saying earlier today.
MOYNIHAN: I think he likes that we're talking about this right now. I mean, look, as far as the ballroom goes, Trump has had to be in his bonnet about this ballroom since the Obama administration when he said that he reached out to Dave Axelrod wanted to give Obama $100 million, a lot less than, you're talking about that earring. You wanted to give Obama money to build the ballroom. He's wanted to do it since then.
And in another Washington Post article, there was reporting that Biden and Obama staffers were saying, we need this. People were in porta- potties --
(CROSSTALKS)
MOYNIHAN: The outrage from the left, though, it feels extremely ironic that these are the same people celebrating statues being torn down of George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and now there's concern about erasing history, it kind of feels like the outrage is all over.
SELLERS: Well, I mean, let me just say that I wasn't a big statue taker downer. That wasn't my ministry. I wasn't a big --
PHILLIP: Speaking for himself.
SELLERS: I wasn't a big --
PHILLIP: I mean, here's the thing about -- here's the thing about the ballroom and this --
SELLERS: The Robert E. Lee doesn't belong --
PHILLIP: I wonder if there is any reasonable point to make that there should be somebody who has some context for history and for architecture that takes a look at a plan for a ballroom that is supposed to be bigger than the actual White House itself, and what that will do to the structure, to the landscape of the White House compounds?
(CROSSTALKS)
IOFFE: And that if Donald Trump wanted to give $100 million when Barack Obama was in office, great, but it's not his. It belongs to all of us. And the fact that it was you unilaterally changed --
SELLERS: But also I think that -- go ahead. I'm sorry.
IOFFE: The fact that it was unilaterally changed, the fact that it is done to one man's taste, also, Betsy, like is there one thing Donald Trump has done that you don't like?
MCCAUGHEY: I've made it clear there are many things certain.
IOFFE: Tell me one.
MCCAUGHEY: Support of a third term. And much more important than my view, the American people are never going to vote for a third term for any president.
KASPARIAN: I mean, it might not even be --
(CROSSTALKS)
MOYNIHAN: We have a Supreme Court.
SELLERS: Barely.
[22:30:00]
(CROSSTALK)
KASPARIAN: Sure, sure. And I want to be fair to the Supreme Court because they have passed down some rulings that surprise me. They don't necessarily go along with everything the Trump administration wants to do. So, I don't want to discredit the Supreme Court. There have been times --
(CROSSTALK)
IOFFE: They do it themselves just fine.
(CROSSTALK)
KASPARIAN: They did -- well, fair. But look, the point that I want to make is when it comes to the White House and when it -- just consider how young our country is, right? And I'm going to take the White House out of it for a second and put it in the context of real estate in California. Whenever there's like a historical house or something, I can't stand the fact that oftentimes that house will get purchased by some wealthy family and then they tear it down. And the reason why that bothers me is because you want history to like
remain, right? You want some historical buildings to stay the way they are. And I have no problem with remodeling the White House or making improvements to the White House. But the reason why the Commission exists is so you can maintain the historical relevance and structural intent.
(CROSSTALK)
IOFFE: But I think, I think -- what I think is incredible is that we would be, I think, two of our guests here would be much more upset if the White House tore down not the -- not the East Wing but a statue of Robert E. Lee, right? Like you care about some history but not other history.
(CROSSTALK)
IOFFE: It just depends who -- I think it just depends on who is tearing it down.
SELLERS: What I was going to say is that a lot of Republicans have made this argument about we need a ballroom. I heard it all, they were using the bathroom outside in port-au-potties and you miss the fact that people are coming because they enjoy the freedom that the White House represents. They're not coming because of the ornaments. They're not coming because of gold or ballrooms, or chairs, or China. They're coming because they want to breathe the air that represents freedom.
(CROSSTALK)
MOYNIHAN: Yeah, and they're still going to come and they won't have support a potty anymore.
(CROSSTALK)
MCCAUGHEY: And I would suggest that most modern governments have a ballroom.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: All right, next for us. The judge in Chicago rules that ICE agents can in fact use tear gas against protesters. Homeland Security is on a purge because some agents aren't going far enough in the tactics that they're using. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:36:38]
PHILLIP: Tonight, tensions are brewing between the White House and ICE because apparently, agents are not arresting enough people. Earlier this year, President Trump set a goal of 3000 arrests per day, but the agency is falling short of that number. Sources tell CNN that the administration now wants to reassign at least a dozen directors at ICE offices nationwide and that top officials believe that they are underperforming. Now, this is just the latest saga and it has to do with the fact that
there are many people in the Trump orbit Corey Lewandowski, Stephen Miller, who want a much more aggressive posture when it comes to this. And some of the reporting is that they're at least considering putting border patrol who has a completely different set of jobs in these ICE positions, so they can be much more aggressive. And Bakari, I mean, the biq question is, will this push them toward tactics that are, you know, illegal in some cases?
(CROSSTALK)
SELLERS: I mean, listen, we're already seeing the tactics being used. I mean, we see the images on the streets all the time. You see, you see, you actually see these agents surround people who are brown and simply ask them what country were you born in? Like that is happening on the streets of America. The things that are happening in Chicago, the babies, I mean, they're just people being pulled out of their home.
I mean, if we were to not have CNN below the logo or Fox News or MSNBC, you would think that you're in another country. But because we have to do this like intellectually, jousting -- intellectual jousting sometimes, I have to put people in the mind frame who are watching, like what if Barack Obama decided to send ICE agents into Louisiana where the crime rate is some of the highest in the entire country? Or what if he sent it into Greg Abbott's Texas or Sarah Huckabee's Arkansas?
If Barack Obama did this, you would be ready to depose him at the gates. Like they would be chanting at the gates. And so, I just find it to be decently anti-American. I think it's done under false pretenses. And I think that people should be outraged. But if, listen. This is also my point because I'm tired. If the American public is not outraged, if we're not marching in the streets, then I'm going to race and go to work every day.
KASPARIAN: Well, I mean -- sorry to interrupt you. But ICE has just been given tens of billions of additional tax payer dollars in order to expand their operations. First of all, I don't know where the 3000 from. It seems pretty arbitrary. I don't know why they set that goal. But we already know that ICE's tactics in an effort to engage in this mass deportation has led to American citizens getting detained, sometimes for days on, and begging the authorities to consider the fact that they're actually American citizens.
There was that marijuana farm in California that got raided, and it turns out that one of the security guards that works there is a United States veteran, obviously a U.S. citizen. He was detained for several days, and the only reason why he was detained is because he looks Latino. I'm worried about these actions infringing on the rights of American citizens.
It's one thing to want to deport people who are here illegally. It's another thing to deploy the types of tactics that we've already seen. And I'm worried that with this latest news, they're going to expand that and harm even more people. PHILLIP: So, in Chicago, there's a back and forth about the use of tear gas, which has been frankly rampant in the operation that's going on there. A district court judge, Sara Ellis, seemed to reference a reported tear-gassing incident in the old Irving Park neighborhood, Saturday, as a children's Halloween parade was getting underway, saying that the event shattered their sense of safety.
Kids dressed in Halloween costumes walking to a parade do not pose an immediate threat to the safety of a law enforcement officer or others. They just don't, the judge said. That is not how any of us want to live. And that seems like a pretty reasonable thing to say that, that, you know, ICE has been, can, should be targeting the people that they're going after. But one of the things about this change is that it suggests that they want people in those roles who are used to doing much less targeting.
MCCAUGHEY: Let me point out that Judge Sara Ellis's actions and opinions will be overturned on appeal because the law is very clear in the United States that the President has the authority to determine when the National Guard is used domestically.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: This is not in the case of National Guard.
MCCAUGHEY: No.
PHILLIP: This is dealing with -- the business dealing with federal officers, and Border Patrol that are on the ground.
(CROSSTALK)
MCCAUGHEY: The reason they're there is that ICE was being menaced and heckled by local protesters and the local police were told to stand down. There was a refusal by Chicago.
PHILLIP: You're mixing up several incidents here. I just want to be clear.
MCCAUGHEY: But I'm pointing out --
PHILLIP: I know, Betsy, but if you're going to say things, it's going to have to be more accurate because what you are talking --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: -- hold on a second. What you are talking about is a completely separate incident that occurred weeks ago in which there was a report of a stand down order. But there was actually no stand down order because there were Chicago police officers on the scene of that incident who were tear gassed.
MCCAUGHEY: You're ignoring the law.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Listen, I'm just talking about -- hold on a second. I'm just talking about what actually happened.
MCCAUGHEY: That's right, but this Judge Ellis is incorrect when she says it is within her purview to determine whether the actions are appropriate, whether the level of force is appropriate, because if the Supreme Court ruled in that case, then in fact it's the President who determines that, not a member of the judiciary.
(CROSSTALK)
SELLERS: Would you -- would you --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Are you talking about the National Guard?
MCCAUGHEY: I'm talking --
PHILLIP: What I'm trying to tell you is that this is not -- this is not about the National Guard.
MCCAUGHEY: I understand.
PHILLIP: This is about the conduct of Border Patrol and ICE and other federal agencies on the ground in Chicago.
(CROSSTALK)
MCCAUGHEY: All -- that's right. And it applies to them. Under the Insurrection Act, it applies to all these various federal officials.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: The Insurrection Act has not been evoked in this case.
MCCAUGHEY: Excuse me, that is true. The President has mentioned the Insurrection Act, but the principle behind the Insurrection Act which was expressed in this ruling in 1827, is that the President has the authority to determine what is appropriate use of force, not --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I think there's a perfectly reasonable, legal question to ask about whether, to what extent the judge can curtail the use of certain tactics by law enforcement. And she is allowing the use of tear gas in some cases. But she is also asking the question whether it is reasonable to willy-nilly deploy tear gas in residential neighborhoods in the presence of children if there are other strategies that can be used. And that seems like a fairly reasonable question to ask.
(CROSSTALK)
KASPARIAN: I guess it's okay.
MOYNIHAN: An important question to ask and I think in this case, the DHS always wants context because the issue is people find one clip, it's often fake or it's an old clip. And when you actually see, for instance, the reason that the head of CPP is going in to meet with this judge every single day, that was because of the clip where we saw him throwing tear gas into the crowd.
By the way, tear gas can only be used when you're trying to control a crowd and when these ICE officers are worried about their life. In that instance, there were people throwing rocks at his head. There were people with fireworks. There were people throwing bricks at these officers. That was the context. So, the folks I speak with at DHS are all for sunlight being the best disinfectant. They are happy to provide as much context.
They're as happy, you know, to meet with judges as needed because they feel that they are in the right. They know that Trump was elected to enact the largest mass deportation in history. That's what they're trying to do. And they want to do it to the extent that they can where they are also safe. That is all these ICE officers.
PHILLIP: We do have to leave it there for that conversation. Next for us, how Jesse Jackson's presidential campaigns laid the groundwork for today's politics including the socialist frontrunner. In New York, we are going to talk all about it, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:49:20]
JESSE JACKSON, CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST: Our time has come. We must leave racial battleground and come the economic common ground and moral higher ground. America, our time has come.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Before Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump, there was Jesse Jackson. In 1984 and 1988, Jackson shocked the political establishment by rallying the votes of millions of Americans with his populist platform, a message of economic populism that a new generation of politicians continues to channel, including Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani here in New York City. I explore Jackson's life and legacy in my new book that is out today.
[22:50:00]
It's called "A Dream Deferred, Jesse Jackson and the Fight for Black Political Power". And this book really is about where the kind of present-day conversation about economic populism and also social justice, where it goes from here because it started with Jesse Jackson and there are so many candidates who are still trying to figure it out in different ways.
SELLERS: It's not just candidates. I mean, you have people who are talking about it. I hope, like, people like, somebody I've never met but Ezra Klein who's kind of weighing into this battle actually picks up your book because I think that he and Bernie Sanders kind of missed the point about who Jesse Jackson really was.
And when I'm talking about it, I'm talking about his 1988 speech, which was just a bad ass speech when he talked about his grandmother's quilt and the fact that each American had a patch for that quilt, but it wasn't enough. And it took the patch of African-Americans championing civil rights and Hispanic Americans championing citizenship. And he talked about those things.
And today, we call it like identity politics or whatever, but it was, it was populism on a large level, but identifying the intricacies that one brought to the table because of their background and the color of their skin. Jesse was a bad man before his term.
PHILLIP: Let me play a little bit from the '88 speech.
MCCAUGHEY: Did you say a bad man?
SELLERS: A bad man. That's a colloquialism. That means good.
MCCAUGHEY: Well, I was --
PHILLIP: Can I just play -- I want to play a little bit from that '88 speech because Bakari is right about the threads of sort of like, you know, what we have in common. But here's the other piece of that speech about how the battle has shifted.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JACKSON: Leadership must meet the moral challenge of its day. What's the moral challenge of our day? We have public accommodations. We have the right to vote. We have open housing. What's the fundamental challenge of our day? It is to end economic violence. Plant closing without notice, economic violence. Even the greedy do not profit long from greed. Economic violence.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: And so, you know, Betsy, you know, I know you probably disagree with the Mamdani's of the world, but the common denominator in those messages, and even in Trump's message, remember? carnage, American carnage? This idea that the American middle class, the working class is being hollowed out, all of these politicians are talking about the same thing, fundamentally.
MCCAUGHEY: I think that's true. And it's brilliant that you've written this book. Congratulations. And Jesse Jackson is clearly a very important original figure in this trend. I think it's unfortunate that he's also identified as something of a conniver (ph), a blackmailer. For example, in 1998, when travelers and Citigroup wanted to merge, he opposed it vehemently until he got a $150,000 gift from them and then he changed his mind.
And I remember actually when I was running for governor as a Democrat, in the Democratic primary in 1998, I've met with Jesse Jackson in that front booth at the Regency Hotel and I got up from that meeting thinking, the cost us too much. I just felt too uncomfortable about the demands he made. And so, you know, I think that he's a complex figure.
PHILLIP: yeah.
MCCAUGHEY: He's a bad boy and yet he made a very, very important --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: What I'm asking about is when we look at today and we look at why Democrats have lost union voters and working class voters and why people like Bernie Sanders are fighting to get them back, there are a lot of reasons why a message about economic violence resonates.
KASPARIAN: I think with the Democratic Party -- you just touched on something so important, and polling reinforces this. The Democratic Party kind of moved away from the economic populist message and focused on purity politics
SELLERS: Correct.
KASPARIAN: Identity politics, but I even hesitate to say identity politics because it -- what Jesse Jackson was able to do was not neglect the issues that impact people who have been treated unfairly in this country for a long time based on the color of their skin, based on their identity. He was able to hold two important issues together simultaneously, right? Economic justice for all, not based on your skin color, not based on your background, but based on the fact that you are an American and this is supposed to be the land of opportunity.
SELLERS: But it's also the framing of the question that Abby just asked, which drives me crazy many times because of the fact that when we talk about and when my friends who worked with the left me or white Liberals talk about the working-class voters, right? Or they talk about union voters and they say Democrats are losing those voters They're talking about the white working class and they're talking about the white union voters.
And so, what I think we have to do is like Jesse did, hone this message together where we're weaving these fabrics together and say, yeah, there is a working-class black Detroit union worker that needs to hear our message, as well.
KASPARIAN: Absolutely.
SELLERS: And we also have this white guy who's trying to make those ends meet. And maybe if we can get them to sit down at a table together, we can have a more perfect union. But --
[22:55:01]
PHILLIP: Hey, we could talk about this for a lot longer. Everyone, thank you very much for being here. We will be back in just a moment.
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[22:59:51]
PHILLIP: And before we go, a programming note. Starting today in the United States, you can stream "NewsNight" wherever you want, right in the CNN app.
[23:00:00]
Scan the Q.R. code below or go to cnn.com/watch for more on this new experience. And thank you very much for watching "NewsNight". You can catch me anytime on your favorite social media -- X, Instagram, and TikTok. CNN's -- "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
