Return to Transcripts main page
CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Touts Economy In Pennsylvania, Calls Affordability Crisis A Hoax; Trump Says, Rep. Ilhan Omar (R-MN) And Her Little Turban Should Be Deported; Trump Administration Canceling Many Naturalization Ceremonies; Georgia House Republican Slams Trump For His Rhetorics Against Her; Trump Administration Seeks Control Of Foods, Education, And Private Businesses. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired December 09, 2025 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST (voice over): Tonight, the president hits the road to sell an unpopular economy. And just like rising prices, he's grading on a curve.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: A-plus.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A-plus?
TRUMP: Yes, A-plus, plus, plus, plus, plus.
PHILLIP: Plus, Donald Trump calls for the deportation of a sitting Congresswoman.
TRUMP: She should get the hell out, throw her the hell out. She does nothing but complain.
PHILLIP: Also the same Marjorie Taylor Greene lecturing Trump --
REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): So hateful and put so much vitriol, name-calling and really tells lies about people.
PHILLIP: -- has MAGA amnesia.
GREENE: The Democrats are now controlled by the jihad squad.
PHILLIP: And from media to vapes, to snacks and slacks.
SEAN DUFFY, TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: Let's try not to wear slippers and pajamas as we come to the airport.
PHILLIP: Is Trump turning the U.S. into a nanny state?
Live at the table, Cornel West, Kevin O'Leary, Laurie Watkins, Betsy McCaughey, and Jeff Flake.
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 Philip in New York.
Donald Trump's economy is so unpopular right now that he hit the road to Pennsylvania with the goal of sharpening his message. Except that look at all the topics that he talked about aside from groceries, you got autopen, trains, Joe Biden, Ilhan Omar, Somalis, the death penalty, the border, the weave, transgender people, critical race theory, the Electoral College, Fake News, Greg Gutfeld, Saquon Barkley, global warming, homeschooling, his indictments, his impeachments, murders, shithole countries, boat bombings, and the Gulf of America. And when he did finally talk about affordability, he denied that it's even a problem.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: But that's our message. They gave you high prices, they gave you the highest inflation in history, and we're giving you -- we're bringing those prices down rapidly, lower prices, bigger paychecks.
The only thing that's really going up big, it's called the stock market and your 401(k)s.
They have a new word, you know, they always have a hoax. The new word is affordability. So, they look at the camera and they say, this election is all about affordability. Now, they never talk about it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: And he's giving himself high marks for his performance on the economy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to talk about the economy, sir, here at home, and I wonder what grade you would give to your economy.
TRUMP: A-plus.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A-plus?
TRUMP: Yes, A-plus, plus, plus, plus, plus.
What you have to understand the word, affordability, I inherited a mess. I inherited a total mess. Prices were at an all-time high when I came in. Prices are all coming down. It's been ten months. It's amazing what we've done.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Now, many Americans would disagree with that grade that he gave himself. A Fox News poll found 76 percent of voters have a negative view of the economy now. That's six points higher than how they felt at the end of the Biden presidency. That's really saying something, Jeff. I mean, for the president to say that he gets, you know, it's like a 4.5 grade point average or something like that on the economy while Americans say right now they're rating the economy worse than when Biden left, that seems like a missed opportunity.
FMR. SEN. JEFF FLAKE (R-AZ): Yes. I mean, I was never an A student, an A-plus, plus. I had never got an A-plus or not many As.
FMR. LT. GOV. BETSY MCCAUGHEY (R-NY): Give yourself one.
PHILLIP: I mean, if any (INAUDIBLE) less in confidence, we should all just be --
FLAKE: But even this non-A student would know that this economy has some shortcomings and inflation is still there. This tariff economy has really led -- I mean, tariffs are inflationary. We've all known that and it's proven to be true. And so that's going to be a difficult thing. Even being a student trying to sell that one, that's a tough thing.
MCCAUGHEY: But let's face it, Biden inflation was as high as 9.1 percent, June of 2022.
PHILLIP: It was, yes.
MCCAUGHEY: Now it's 3 percent. The problem is once prices go up there, they stay up there. And even at 3 percent inflation, Americans are still suffering with gas prices and grocery prices they can't afford.
[22:05:07]
There's a difference between slowing inflation and actually lowering prices.
PHILLIP: Yes.
MCCAUGHEY: The latter is very hard to say.
PHILLIP: Well, you don't want -- I mean, you don't even really want prices to go down. But there's another element of this that I think is notable. This is how one of our analysts, David Goldman, put it. He's calling it the windchill economy. He says, paycheck gains are shrinking as inflation heats up again. Prices on items you can't avoid buying are growing much faster than overall inflation. So, this is the windchill economy. It feels worse than it actually is.
And I think that's an important insight because what's happening, Kevin, is that it's not just the sort of macro numbers, the CPI the entire sort of basket of things that people are buying. It's the things that they have no choice but to buy, the things that they have no choice but to pay for, the electricity that powers their homes, their groceries, you know, breakfast foods, whatever it is. That's why people are saying that --
KEVIN O'LEARY, CHAIRMAN, O'LEARY VENTURES: All fair comments, but you started with the list of the narrative inside of his stump speeches. It's clear to everybody that watches policy. I'm one of those that we are starting the midterm season a little early this year. He's on a midterm stumping speech, because that's what's going on here. And that's one part of the narrative. The victory tour on the economy is based on how strong the numbers are. GDP's pretty good and you still have $0.52 cents of every $1 coming in from around the world into the S&P 500, also very good.
But what you're bringing up, and you also mentioned input costs on tariffs are starting to hurt because we're a hundred basis points. The mandate for the Fed is 2 percent inflation, we're 3.1. So, all of these things you're talking about in terms of daily cost, gasoline and whatever else, that you look at, and mortgages too, they're up a little bit that's trying to herd in inflation.
And I agree that we have to fine tune before the midterms the final deals with China, India, places like Canada, other countries. While we've been job-owning those deals, it's still true that Switzerland has a 39 percent tax. Why do I own that? Watch this. I can't believe that it's still 39, even though he jawboned at the White House 15. They didn't get it yet. Canada's still 25. That's a problem for potash and for things like bauxite and aluminum. There's a lot of little details that have to be worked out here. But he's on a victory tour, and I know you're loving it, Abby.
PHILLIP: I don't know. You kind of lost me at the Switzerland bit of it.
O'LEARY: I just want to let you know that matters.
PHILLIP: I think people are a little bit more concerned about --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: The cost of their coffee, the cost of everything.
But I do want to bring up the issue of healthcare. Let me play what he said also to Politico's Dasha Burns about the fact that ACA subsidies are expiring and healthcare costs are about to skyrocket. Here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In the meantime, I mean, two weeks, Mr. President, people will see those premiums go up. So, will you tell Congress to extend those Obamacare subsidies while you work out another deal?
TRUMP: I don't know. I have to say, I'd like to get better healthcare. I'd like to have people buy their own healthcare, get much better healthcare. And what I want to do, very simple, I want to give the money to the people, not to the insurance companies.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So, right now, people are buying their holiday presents, they're planning for --
TRUMP: Look, don't be dramatic.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.
TRUMP: Don't be dramatic planning. Here's what I want to --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They're planning their budgets for next year, Mr. President.
TRUMP: I know, and what I want to do is help them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Don't be dramatic, he says.
LAURIE A. WATKINS, FORMER PENTAGON SENIOR ADVISER, OBAMA ADMINISTRATION: Donald Trump is not in touch with reality. You heard a couple months ago, he said, oh, so these Chinese tariffs, if a little girl has -- happens to have two dolls instead of ten dolls. These comments that he makes are not realistic to the average American person who is feeling the squeeze right now.
These healthcare subsidies, when they go away in the next two weeks, I'm a small business owner, none of these proposals that the Republicans are putting forward that would be a $2,000 infusion of health insurance money for you, that wouldn't apply to me as a small business owner, or the 24 other million people in this country who rely on their health insurance from the marketplace.
At every single stop, Americans are getting squeezed, whether it's the cost of their internet going up, their Wi-Fi, their cell phone bills going up, the cost of energy. You go to the store now and a package of bacon is like $10, okay? And I'm not even talking the organic kind. It's extremely expensive.
And his problem is, he keeps saying that everything is great. I'll go back to your point about Joe Biden was doing that, but people weren't feeling it. And that was an opening for Donald Trump on the campaign trail. And the reason why we're seeing this start earlier of the midterm campaign season is because he's in trouble.
PHILLIP: And Dr. West, I mean, on this healthcare piece, Trump has basically signaled to Republicans he wants to let them expire.
[22:10:02]
He's saying he wants to put money in accounts, but they're going to let them expire. People are going to see massive increases and they're going to vote on that probably sometime in the next week. The political implications of that, what do you think?
DR. CORNEL WEST (I), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I mean, I think that it's a very scary situation in terms of everyday people, 70 percent of our fellow citizens living paycheck to paycheck. And as these subsidies increase, they're going to be in deeper problem.
But I think the real issue for me here, when I look at Brother Trump's eyes and hearts and minds and souls, I see a weariness. He's very beleaguered. He's tired. You see even gangsters run out of gas sometime. And the spiritual condition of the country, his own spiritual condition, the moral character of the country, his own moral character, and, you know, I have a sympathy with him as a human being, but he is my political foe, but I'm a follower of Jesus, so I love my enemies, I keep track of his humanity.
But you see, hatred itself is a form of tyranny you can only hate for so long, tyranny of the soul with tyrannical policy, cruelty as policy. Revenge is a form of bondage. We understand this from our own religious tradition. It's a form of bondage. And Trump is captive to hatred and revenge spiritually, so he can only go for so long with repercussions for the larger society.
So, it's not a matter of demonizing the brother, but American society, American empire's in deep trouble no matter what kind of policy we end up.
O'LEARY: Man, that is heavy.
PHILLIP: You know what, I mean --
O'LEARY: That's heavy stuff.
PHILLIP: But this speech tonight --
WEST: Does it make sense to you?
PHILLIP: -- to Dr. West's point, felt like an old rerun of Trump's own --
O'LEARY: This guy's a great roller (ph), you know that?
WATKINS: An old playbook, yes. It felt like 2016, actually.
PHILLIP: Yes. It felt like Trump was just trying to rehash this old thing and run on a playbook that isn't relevant anymore. And while Americans are saying, hey, we need help out here, he's busy going down these rabbit holes. I'm not sure how that's going to work.
O'LEARY: Stay on healthcare. Stay on healthcare.
PHILLIP: Yes.
O'LEARY: All G7 countries are having a massive problem with healthcare. Everybody's trying everything.
PHILLIP: Yes, because people are aging.
O'LEARY: Nobody's got it right. But I know this for sure, and I think you have to decide, is it going to be the economy in the midterms or is it going to be healthcare or both? James Carville coined idea, it's about the economy, stupid, but healthcare, this time has to be bipartisan.
WATKINS: You can't separate the two. O'LEARY: It has to be.
WATKINS: You can't.
MCCAUGHEY: Yes. And I'd like to point out that if the Republicans agree to extend the subsidies for two or three years, would some Republicans do want to do it?
PHILLIP: Some do but that doesn't seem to be what they're going to do.
MCCAUGHEY: They should do it in exchange for improving what's really bothering people about Obamacare. It's not the price because 93 percent of the dollars that are being paid to insurance companies to ensure people on Obamacare are going right from the federal treasury to the insurance companies.
O'LEARY: So, that's not working.
MCCAUGHEY: Right. But let me just point out what's really bugging people is the enormous number of denials. It used to be that insurance companies denied 1.5 percent of claims. Now it's up to 15 percent. Now they have these prior authorization requirements. They never had those before Obamacare. And now they have these narrow networks. So, you think you are insured, but you get cancer and not one cancer hospital gets you covered.
PHILLIP: I will say this. I mean, maybe -- I'm not sure about the prior authorizations, but before Obamacare, they could deny you for coverage all together because of pre-existing conditions.
MCCAUGHEY: Just let me point out, the AMA says --
PHILLIP: But let me just give Jeff the last word here.
MCCAUGHEY: -- it's 1.5 percent. Now it's 15 percent. That's a big difference.
PHILLIP: Sure.
MCCAUGHEY: And we can approve in exchange --
PHILLIP: But you acknowledge that --
MCCAUGHEY: Let the Republicans get credit for the humanity for being good to patients, not just saving the $450 billion.
PHILLIP: Yes, I think you're right. I'm just saying pre-existing conditions was a big thing. If you had cancer in the past --
WATKINS: Or diabetes.
PHILLIP: -- or diabetes, you'd be uninsurable. That was an insane system that we used to just now, just had in the past. Jeff?
FLAKE: Republicans did well. I was one of them, voted against Obamacare initially because it threw a bunch of people off of their healthcare, and that was not popular. And Republicans made hay in the 2010 election and then 2012.
But now you're at the other end of the spectrum where if you don't extend the subsidies, you are going to kick people off of care that they have. It'll become unaffordable. So, Republicans --
O'LEARY: So, do you think it's the top issue in the midterm?
FLAKE: Oh, you bet. You bet it is. Republicans are right on the policy. This is not sustainable to continue these kind of subsidies. But on the politics of it, as long as President Trump is saying, well, we're going to give, you know, $20 billion to farmers out there and subsidize that, people are going to say, oh, why can't you just subsidize healthcare?
PHILLIP: Exactly.
FLAKE: And so the politics are toxic.
WATKINS: And this where you have --
PHILLIP: We're going to hit pause there on this conversation. We have to go to the break.
Next for us, the president calls for the deportation of a sitting congresswoman in that same speech, as the administration cancels even more naturalization ceremonies.
Plus, breaking news tonight, a Democrat has won a Miami mayor's race, breaking the Republican streak of 30 years.
[22:15:01]
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight, President Trump ratchets up the rhetoric against a familiar foe.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I love this Ilhan Omar, whatever the hell her name is, with a little shoe, the little turban. I love her. She comes in, there's nothing but bitch. She's always complaining. She comes from her country where, I mean, it's considered about the worst country in the world, right?
But she comes to our country and she's always complaining about the Constitution allows me to do this.
[22:20:02]
The -- we ought to get her the hell out.
She should get the hell out, throw her the hell out. She does nothing but complain. (END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: And that's not all. He also revived an old remark that he made behind closed doors back in 2018 about shithole countries. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Okay. Why is it we only take people from shithole countries, right? Why can't we have some people from Norway, Sweden, just a few? Let us have a few from Denmark. Do you mind sending us a few people? Send us some nice people, do you mind? But we always take people from Somalia, places that are a disaster, right, filthy, dirty, disgusting, ridden with crime. The only thing they're good at is going after ships.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Now, I just want to remind you that when those comments were reported by CNN, by the Washington Post, by other outlets, the White House, Trump denied it. Let me just play that denial.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Did you see what various senators in the room said about my comments that weren't there?
No. No, I'm not a racist. I'm the least racist person you have ever interviewed, that I can tell you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FLAKE: I remember that. Well, I --
PHILLIP: You were there, yes. I remember.
FLAKE: And there were some senators that were at the White House that day and came back and reported what he had said that --
PHILLIP: Dick Durbin and others.
FLAKE: Yes. And that was, that's the difference between the first term and the second term. The first term, he would deny, no, I never said that.
PHILLIP: Right.
FLAKE: Say it, but you wouldn't admit to saying it. Now, it's just out in the open.
PHILLIP: It is out in the open. I'm thinking about what you were saying in that last segment because this feels like exactly what you were referencing.
WEST: No, it's true. And, of course, a hundred years ago, they were saying that about precious Irish brothers and sisters, Jewish brothers, Italian brothers, Polish -- no, Samuel Beckett forever. So, this is just a cycle. It's a human thing. You know, we're all human beings. We got to keep track of the organized hatred and weaponized greed and institutionalizing difference toward the weak and vulnerable. These moral and spiritual issues are perennial. Every generation has to come to terms with it.
Thank God a hundred years ago, voices that were moral and spiritual spoke out against it and called it for what it was. It's just hatred. It's a revenge. This is xenophobia. But when you say that, you don't put them outside of the human race. They're still continuous with us. They're just the worst in us because that same hatred and same greed is inside of us. It's in the Civil War, in the battlefield of our own souls every day. We have to fight it every day. And if we don't die every day, as biblical text says, you got to die, you got to fight that greed and hatred every day. If you don't, you're going to slide down a slippery slope.
PHILLIP: Isn't the American project supposed to be about treating people as individuals, not as representatives of where they came from, about who their parents were or whatever, but about who they are and what they can individually contribute to this country? However, what Trump is doing there is basically saying you are worthless if you come from a part of the world that he doesn't think has value. Is that really what we're doing in the United States of America?
O'LEARY: That's not true in America? That's not true.
MCCAUGHEY: No. We in America, we do treat people as individuals and appreciate them as individuals. It's one of the greatest things about this country.
On the other hand, and I am no fan of Ilhan Omar, and she is in a lot of deep doo-doo now because she's very tangled in this billion dollar Somali Medicaid fraud scandal in Minneapolis and she may be touched by this. And, of course --
PHILLIP: I'm not -- I haven't seen any evidence of her being --
MCCAUGHEY: Well, I have.
PHILLIP: Except for her being Somali.
O'LEARY: Let me tell why this --
MCCAUGHEY: Excuse me. Abby, there is evidence.
O'LEARY: This kind or rhetoric doesn't matter because the economy, the American economy is based on entrepreneurship. I'm just one random investor. There are millions like me. We don't give a damn where you came from. We only ask, do you have executional excellence? I hire everybody regardless of where their origination was or their race, religion, their skin color. I don't give a -- it doesn't matter. If you can actually execute, you fit in an American company.
And that exists today, regardless of who's the executive. I don't agree with those comments, but it's the economy that saves us all. The 200 years of success, the number one economy on Earth driven by every race and color and religion because of executional skills, nothing else. That's it.
PHILLIP: Yes, I could not agree more. But in this moment, what is happening, the government policy right now is that if you are from a list of countries, I think right now it's 19, but they want to expand it to 30, you are going in, you've gone through the whole immigration process, you're going in, you take your oath of allegiance to the United States and become a citizen, and they're pulling you out of line.
[22:25:22]
The executive director of an immigration organization says, we have 15 clients whose oath ceremonies have been canceled. They were fully vetted and approved. We have others whose interviews have been canceled. They're all from those 19 countries.
How is that not punishing people for things that they themselves did not do but that other people from who happened to be from the same country might have done?
WATKINS: And this is all political. It's a distraction. I'll go back to your comment about the economy. People that were watching that rally, even the people standing behind, at the end of the day, all they care about is the economy. Can they pay their bills right now? Can they afford the squeeze that they are feeling every single day?
Donald Trump doesn't like to tackle things that are difficult, healthcare, inflation, tariffs, dealing with foreign countries. These are tough issues, policy issues. So, what does he do? He makes fun of people. He goes after people, particularly women and particularly women of color, which is just so offensive on so many levels that he goes after female journalists, he goes after members of Congress. You see him doing it with Nancy Mace, with Marjorie Taylor Greene, and I'm naming Republicans right now. It's a perpetual problem and pattern that he has, and it's a distraction from the economy, which he's failing on.
MCCAUGHEY: I do believe that people coming in from certain countries that have posed terrorist risks to us in the past should be more adequately vetted. And if listing the countries and saying people coming in from these countries must be more thoroughly researched, more thoroughly verified before they're admitted to this country, I have no problem with that because the president is also responsible for the national security of this country.
WEST: But the thing is, though, you see that even all the gold in the world, no matter how many golden cash you have, you can't have an economy unless you're also rich in the things money can't buy, integrity, honesty. You can't even have a contract if you're dealing with gangsters. You can't even have a relationship if you're dealing with thugs. You can't have a capitalist economy without some notion of contract with people that you engage in, you have some trust in. That's the kind of stuff money can't buy, Brother Kevin.
O'LEARY: This is judged by those rules every day.
MCCAUGHEY: That's right, rule of law.
O'LEARY: They're judged by -- if you are in a moral issue or -- and you don't believe in your customers and you do things that are not right with them, you get canceled in two seconds.
WEST: But even your own partners in business, if you can't trust them, if that person's of integrity --
O'LEARY: I think that's why the economy works. It's very transparent.
WEST: But there's a spiritual and moral dimension of that that's not reduceable. It's just having money.
MCCAUGHEY: That's why you're at the table.
O'LEARY: Excuse me, you're telling me you can live without money?
WEST: I'm not saying that. I'm saying that --
O'LEARY: I'm having a problem with that one.
WEST: I'm not saying that. I'm saying that no economy can survive without some notion of trust and integrity that allows --
PHILLIP: I don't think you may disagree with that, right?
O'LEARY: I'm sorry. The U.S. economy's really surviving. It's the number one economy on Earth.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: I don't think you would disagree with what he's saying fundamentally, which is that everything (INAUDIBLE) is based on trust, right?
O'LEARY: Yes.
PHILLIP: That business is based on trust, that's what he's saying.
O'LEARY: Let's jump into the system. But anytime -- listen, I love the narrative you're going with, but I keep reminding people, it's a very simple metric, extremely measurable, cannot be denied. $0.52 cents of every $1 on Earth every day comes to America for only one reason. People want to invest in this economy. With all of its faults, all of its problems, it is the number one destination for money from everywhere. So, if they had concerns about trust, they put it in North Korea or maybe Cuba. How about Venezuela? I love that place.
So, the whole point is there's a reason you can measure this. You don't have -- you can debate it. I love that.
WEST: Right.
O'LEARY: But the numbers don't lie, number uno, every year, for 220 years.
PHILLIP: And one quick thing --
O'LEARY: I rest my case, your Honor.
PHILLIP: One quick thing on the immigration piece. Tonight, CNN called the Miami mayor's race for Eileen Higgins. She's a Democrat, the first Democrat in 30 years. Republicans hemorrhaging Cuban support because Cuba, alongside Haiti, alongside Somalia, are on that list. And it's not just that, but also they're being targeted, some of them say, because of their skin color.
Politically, this feels like a deepening problem for Republicans as they go into the midterms.
FLAKE: Oh, I think it is. Yes, I think it is. I mean, if you look at, you know, the off-year elections, leading up a couple of special elections here, it's just one hit after another against Republicans and for the Democrats. So, I think it's going to be difficult. If you lose Cuban Americans.
[22:30:01]
And I'm not suggesting that a majority of Cuban Americans, that's a group that has traditionally supported Republicans, and they still will, but any diminishment of that support just really adds to Democrats' favor.
PHILLIP: We've got to leave it there next for us. Speaking of rhetoric, Marjorie Taylor Greene, she's slamming the President for his words against her, but given Greene's own history, does it only matter now because it affects her? We'll discuss.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:35:10]
PHILLIP: Tonight, Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of Trump's most loyal supporters, is at one point digging in and refusing to stop calling out the President's behavior.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): I feel very sorry for President Trump. I genuinely do. It has to be a hard place for someone that is constantly so hateful and puts so much vitriol, name-calling, and really tells lies about people in order to try to get his way or win some kind of fight.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Greene also revealed death threats that she'd received since her spat with Trump, including direct threats to her son. She's voiced regret and apologized for her long recent history of stoking flames, but is it only because she is now being affected by it that she actually cares? (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TAYLOR GREENE: There is an Islamic invasion into our government offices right now. According to him, many in our government are actively worshiping Satan.
That's another one of those Clinton murders, right?
Q is saying that they participate in pedophilia and spirit cooking. There's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cable of Satan-worshiping pedophiles out. Saudi Arabia, the Rothschilds, and Soros, he says, are the puppet masters that fund this global evil.
And the so-called plane that crashed into the Pentagon. It's odd. There's never any evidence shown for a plane in the Pentagon.
The Democrats are now controlled by the Jihad squad, led by AOC, the little communist from New York City.
She's not an American. She really doesn't embrace our American ways.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
And that's just a little sampling of it. I mean, she's harassed Parkland survivors. She has harassed AOC outside of her office, calling her names, and so on and so forth.
So, I mean, should we really be taking cues from Marjorie Taylor Greene in this moment?
BETSY MCCAUGHEY (R), FORMER NEW YORK LIEUTENENANT GOVERNOR: No, I've never been a fan of Marjorie Taylor Greene. But what disturbs me now is the suggestion that somehow rhetoric is responsible for death threats or assassination attempts. I mean, the fact is that nobody blamed Bernie Sanders when Steve Scalise was shot.
PHILLIP: I mean people blamed Bernie Sanders when Steve Scalise was shot.
MCCAUGHEY: And the fact is, the extreme rhetoric, which I hate, I'd love to see it toned down, is not the same as the crazies who go out and kill people. So she shouldn't be accusing Trump of being responsible for these death threats.
PHILLIP: You recognize that Trump himself blamed rhetoric, for example, for Charlie Kirk's assassination. He blamed rhetoric for his own assassination attempts, even though there's no evidence of a political motivation for the person who attempted to shoot him.
I actually agree with you, too, because I do think that this whole idea that words are violence has been taken way too far. But she is experiencing threats because Trump has attacked her. He's not physically attacking her, but he is definitely encouraging his supporters to criticize him.
FLAKE: I can tell you, I was on that baseball field dodging bullets for eight minutes, Steve Scalise that I don't know what caused that person to go off, but I know that I had a lot of death threats, and my family had a lot of death threats, and my family had a lot of death threats.
Sometimes after a rally where somebody had mentioned my name in a derogatory way, which gave somebody license to come to my church and look for me. And so extreme rhetoric does cause some people to move out. And that's why those elected officials and anybody in a responsible position ought to tone it down.
Now, perhaps Marjorie Taylor Greene has been pretty inflammatory herself. I hope that she is genuine when she's saying what she's saying now.
But yes, we need to tone down the rhetoric. Anybody, from the right or left.
MCCAUGHEY: And we all agree, but there are a lot of crazies out there.
LAURIE A. WATKINS, FORMER PENTAGON SR. ADVISER DURING THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION, AND FORMER DEPUTY POLITICAL AND POLICY DIRECTOR FOR OBAMA CAMPAIGNS: And tonight's display, an example of that town hall, if that's what you want to call it. If I was Representative Omar, I would be terrified tonight. You saw those people chanting violence to her, chanting, you know, harm to come to her.
PHILLIP: Is that what they want? What they were chanting.
[22:40:02]
WATKINS: But he was also saying about her turban and just making such inflammatory and derogatory comments towards her that were about her culture, her race, making up lies. I don't know this new thing that's out about marrying her brother and whatnot, which I don't believe is true.
This is crazy talk. And it does lead to inciting violence and it could lead to death. And yes, if I was her, I would be terrified tonight based on what I saw.
And unfortunately, I don't wish this on anyone, but Marjorie Taylor Greene now understands what it's like to be on the other side of Donald Trump, what it's like to be criticized publicly, to have death threats called against you and your family, to where it was such an impact in her life that she decided not to run for Congress anymore.
MCCAUGHEY: Come on, guys. I mean, this is serious business.
PHILLIP: Well, let's talk about her responsibilities. (Inaudible) considered apologizing to some of the people that she has harassed.
MCCAUGHEY: Correct.
KEVIN O'LEARY, CHAIRMAN, O'LEARY VENTURES, AND "SHARK TANK" INVESTOR: Let's try and learn something from it. Number one, I teach my students social media. CNN will create a reel, which you just did there, any network would.
And so she got fried with that. She said those things and they're on the record. Don't do crazy chicken stuff.
Number two, the cost of free speech is 2.5 percent lunatic fringe. You cannot stamp it out. You have to know it exists, whether it manifests itself in somebody crazy shooting at you on a baseball field, it's horrible.
Do you give up free speech? We haven't.
All right. Number three, she's roadkill in the Republican Party now. She did it to herself.
Trump herds cats and he's done it now for over 10 years by doing this to people. If you don't know that by now, don't challenge him that way. That's how he's keeping his cohort in order.
And if you don't get it, don't do it.
PHILLIP: All right.
DR. CORNEL WEST (I), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE, PHILOSOPHER, AND AUTHOR OF "TRUTH MATTERS": Yes, but I think for me, there's two issues. I do believe that people can change.
That's one of the great things about being human. You can actually go another way.
You see a racist like George Wallace. He changed his mind. He went another way.
He went away of helpfulness and love and justice. He did not for hate at the end of his life. He done a lot of damage.
We'll see whether this is tomorrow. These changes real or not. But in moments like these, we have to raise our voices to be in solidarity with Sister Omar. We have to say that we all are Somalians. Those Somalian brothers and sisters are just as American as I am, and I've been here
for 12 generations, 400 years of 244 years of enslavement, barbaric enslavement, then neoslavery under Jim and Jane Crow.
But they're just as American as I am. And we had to just say that. And you're going to have that 2.5 percent lunatic friends.
You're right about that. But so what? The question is, what kind of integrity do we bring to the dialogue? Margie can become a force for good. When she threatened the Obamas, she was wrong as two left shoes.
And I pray for the Obama even though I'm critical of Barack and Michelle. But I loved him, but I now pray for Omar's family, and I pray for Sister Marjorie's family. They're under threat, too.
WATKINS: Sure. WEST: Absolutely.
PHILLIP: Thank you, everyone.
Next for us. The Trump administration is once again trying to change what people consume and how they behave. This time, dressing nicely at the airport and doing pull-ups while you're waiting for your plane.
Is the U.S. turning into a nanny state? We'll discuss that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:45:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: From telling you what to watch to how you should dress, when you should go to the airport, is the Trump administration now running the risk of becoming the nanny state that it apparently so hated?
In the past 10 months, the Trump administration has sought to exert influence over all kinds of things. Which celebrities Americans support, what's taught in American universities, what's shown in museums, what foods people should eat, the logos of classic American brands, access to the media, and impact on cultural institutions.
And now Trump's Transportation Secretary, who said Americans should ditch the pajamas and slippers when they're traveling, suggests installing pull-up bars at airports amid a push to Make America Healthy Again.
Michelle Obama is wondering, what was all the drama about?
MCCAUGHEY: Why'd you rip up my garden? Right, why'd you rip up my garden?
PHILLIP: We were just trying to get kids to not eat pizzas, like, whole foods in schools.
FLAKE: I'll do pull-ups if I can skip the security line. Is that part of it? 10 pull-ups, you just walk on through, or what?
WATKINS: Yes, so I'm going to read, I was, the comments are always my favorite on the tweets.
Ellen Streif says, "so don't wear yoga pants and hoodies to travel. Put on your Sunday best, then bust out a dozen pull-ups while breaking into a smelly, sweaty sweat, boarding, before boarding or making a connecting flight. That's what they're asking to do."
But I'll bring this back, Abby, to the economy.
When people see this on T.V. and on the news, they're like, this is what our secretaries are focusing on. This is what they're doing. Instead of trying to help the economy, this is what they're focused on. PHILLIP: I mean, I think this is like, I don't know
WATKINS: The SFO has had a yoga room since 2013. This is nothing new or innovative.
PHILLIP: These things are terribly, are bad. It's just that, again, these are the same people who said that that was, this is all government overreach.
"Wired" had an interesting story about Dr. Oz giving advice to employees.
[22:50:00]
CMS issued a statement saying that "Dr. Oz knows it's not easy balancing a healthy lifestyle and a demanding job. That's why he offers and welcomes tips and encouragement to hardworking CMS team members to stay healthy while they work to ensure millions of Americans access quality health care, which is entirely appropriate."
MCCAUGHEY: I have to tell you, I love the Trump administration's emphasis on healthy eating. That whole part of MAHA is, Make America Healthy Again, is very encouraging, the emphasis on foods without too many additives and dyes.
And the thing I liked about the airport program was this, the play areas for children. I remember taking my three children, four, two, and a newborn on a flight to Florida. And by the time I got off that plane, I was so wet, so frumpled, it looked like the plane had crashed.
So any mother would be delighted to go into an airport and see a play area for children.
PHILLIP: But why did they, why did they then give Michelle Obama such a hard time about this if it was so great to encourage Americans to eat healthy?
MCCAUGHEY: That's to encourage our children.
PHILLIP: Oh, really?
WATKINS: Let's not SNAP, let's not cut SNAP benefits. Ensure people have health care, I mean, that's absurd.
O'LEARY: May I interject one fact that we should consider?
PHILLIP: Yes.
O'LEARY: If you're 24 to 28, that's the cohort I teach, I'm amazed to find out they drink less or don't drink at all.
PHILLIP: That's right.
O'LEARY: They actually count how much they sleep. They exercise every day and they really care about what they're eating. We didn't do that when we were 28, we didn't give a poo-poo about it.
Now they really care. They're into something, as you now know, called longevity.
They're planning for lives past 100 by actually caring about what they put in their bodies and how they exercise and how they sleep. 28 years old.
So that's why vodka sales have gone flat, that's why wine sales are bad.
MCCAUGHEY: Four and a half years, no alcohol right here.
WEST: You're talking about the upper middle classes.
O'LEARY: No, I'm talking about high schoolers.
WEST: On the reservations, poor whites. They're not planning to be 100 years old, they're trying to live a week. But the next month, the next year, is a class issue.
O'LEARY: I'm not just teaching rich guys, okay? I'm telling you, within youth today, no matter where you are in the strata--
WEST: Where do you teach, Brother Kevin?
O'LEARY: I teach at places that bring in students--
WEST: What's the name of the institution?
O'LEARY: MIT, Harvard.
WEST: MIT and Harvard. You've got the masses of poor people going to MIT.
Spare me, my brother. Spare me.
O'LEARY: You think they only let rich people in. You are wrong.
WEST: Do you think MIT is overrun with brothers and sisters and siblings from the hood?
O'LEARY: Hey, I do not agree with Trump's policy of not bringing in people from around the world. It's not based on wealth. You can't get in on wealth.
You have to get in on merit. You've got to be good enough to get in.
WEST: Merit plays a role, but--
O'LEARY: Hey.
WEST: We got a grand expert. We got the brilliant one. We got the sophisticated one.
But we know at Harvard, we wasn't overcome. At Columbia, you know what overcome, what deployed. Let's be honest about this.
PHILLIP: We'll be right back. The panel's going to give us their nightcaps, Feeling Youthful edition, speaking of. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:55:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: We're back.
He played his last NFL game nearly five years ago today, but quarterback Phillip Rivers is back on the field at 44 years old. Rivers just signed with the Colts.
So for tonight's news nightcap, what's something you're never going to be too old to do, Betsy, you're up first.
MCCAUGHEY: Be romantic.
PHILLIP: That's right.
MCCAUGHEY: Yes.
PHILLIP: You got to keep it going. Hi, Dr. West.
WEST: Oh, I would say love. When Luther Vandross wrote a song called "Once You Know How," you just never forget how to love. So show love thing, been tested, found true.
PHILLIP: You guys are like mind melding tonight. All right.
FLAKE: Well, no NFL teams are calling or basketball teams. So I'll settle to watch sports. And tonight, just moments ago, watched BYU come back from a 21-point deficit at Madison Square Garden to beat Clemson with a buzzer beater.
BYU sports, watching that. I can do that as long as I live.
WATKINS: Well, five years ago at the age of 40, I started going on T.V. So, you know, if he can still throw touchdowns, I can still throw punchlines.
PHILLIP: Okay, you're definitely never too old to come on T.V. for the most part.
For the most part. Maybe there is an upper age limit. I don't know.
Not here. But go ahead, Kevin.
O'LEARY: You're never too old to dream. That's it.
PHILLIP: To do what?
O'LEARY: Dream. You got to dream. What's the next big thing? You always got to be dreaming every day. Get up. Think about what's new because you dreamt it.
That's it.
PHILLIP: All right.
O'LEARY: Works for me.
PHILLIP: Okay everyone, you guys did that really fast tonight.
What am I never too old to do? Maybe, I don't know.
FLAKE: Break up fights.
PHILLIP: Never too old. Never too old to moderate disputes among friends. What is left on your dream list, Kevin?
O'LEARY: I got to get better playing guitar. I'm not practicing enough. I'm not traveling with two guitars, an acoustic and electric, I force myself.
PHILLIP: You are traveling with both.
O'LEARY: Yes. I'm forcing myself to practice at least an hour every day. And I'm getting way better than I used to.
[23:00:06]
PHILLIP: And you picked up acting as well.
WATKINS: I know. Did you hear this?
PHILLIP: You're in a new movie.
WATKINS: He's in a movie.
O'LEARY: Oh, "Marty Supreme."
Yes, go see it.
L.A. premiere last night. I came from that lineups around the block and on the 16th here in New York City is the big one. This film will exhaust you.
PHILLIP: All right, everybody, you heard it here first. Thank you so much for watching "NewsNight."
You can catch me anytime on social media - X, Instagram and TikTok. Laura Coates Live is right now.
