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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
U.S. Seizes Oil Tanker Off Venezuela in Major Escalation; Trump Threatens Another Leader, Says Colombian President Next; Democrats Keep Winning Races Across Nation, Including in Florida and Georgia. Trump Echoes Jimmy Carter With An Economic Advice; Trump's Aide Says U.S. Excels After Taking Immigrants Out of the Test Scores. Aired 10- 11p ET
Aired December 10, 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, escalation. The U.S. seizes an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Large tanker, very large, largest one ever seized actually.
PHILLIP: As the president teases a potential invasion.
Plus, Democrats keep winning across the nation, leaving Donald Trump at a loss for words.
TRUMP: Usually I can figure things out, but I don't know why.
PHILLIP: Also, be happy with less. Why 47's economic message is echoing 39's.
JIMMY CARTER, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Simply by keeping our thermostats, for instance, at 65 degrees in the daytime.
TRUMP: You can give up certain products you can give up pencils.
PHILLIP: And the immigration debate turns to victimhood.
STEPHEN MILLER, WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF FOR POLICY: If you subtract immigration out of test scores, all of a sudden our test scores skyrocket.
Live at the table, Ana Navarro, Joe Borelli, Deja Foxx, and Noah Rothman.
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, a dramatic escalation. After months of tough rhetoric and boat bombings, the U.S. has now seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela. That's a move that could inflame tensions even further in the region. The attorney general posted this video of the takeover saying that the feds executed a seizure warrant for the tanker. Pam Bondi says it has been used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela to Iran, which ultimately benefited terror groups that the president is fighting against. And here's what he said about that today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: As you probably know, we've just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela, large tanker, very large, largest one ever seized actually.
REPORTER: The oil tanker, who owns that oil tanker.
TRUMP: You'll get that information later.
REPORTER: Okay. And have you spoken to Maduro since your last conversation?
TRUMP: No.
REPORTER: Haven't had one conversation on that?
TRUMP: No.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Now, just a reminder, Trump has been teasing potential land strikes while saying the President Maduro's days are numbered, but Maduro is taking that threat in stride, it seems.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NICOLAS MADURO, VENEZUELAN PRESIDENT: Don't worry, be happy. Don't worry, be happy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: What to make of all of this? Well, joining us in our fifth seat is former Pentagon Official Alex Plitsas.
Alex, you know, the ship's seizure is something that seems to be fairly above board. But when you put it in the broader context of the military buildup in the Caribbean and Trump's rhetoric, what do you think is going on here?
ALEX PLITSAS, SENIOR FELLOW, ATLANTIC COUNCIL: So, it's definitely an escalation and a sign to the regime. This was executing a federal warrant as far as I was told. So, in that case, it wasn't necessarily military action, which we explain why they were Coast Guard force involved operating under Homeland Security authorities and federal law enforcement. And they were accompanied by U.S. Marines for security purposes.
So, to-date, you know, all of these strikes have been against drug and narcotic boats that were out there. This was carrying 1.1 million barrels of Venezuelan crude oil. It's been part of a shadow fleet that's been helping to avoid sanctions with Iran, Russia, et cetera, the whole network. And at this point, it appears that this is the first operation that's really targeted state assets at this point in terms of Venezuela. So, we haven't seen land strikes. But if you're going from cartel, you know, narcotic smuggling boats now after crude oil, the next logical step would be something inside Venezuela, so definitely a step in that direction.
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, and you've talked about being no fan of Maduro, but is this really, you know, actually taking steps to push him out, maybe using the military to do that? Is that really something that you think Trump is ready for?
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Out of all of the things they've done, this interdiction of this tanker is the one that makes the most sense to me. Because for three months now, they have been trying to convince us that the fishermen in these little boats that may or may not have been transporting drugs, because they did not show us the evidence, are narco-terrorists, despite the fact that those drugs were not coming to the United States, they were going to Trinidad and Tobago and from there to Europe, whatever.
[22:05:05]
But they've been, you know, creating this narrative surrounding drugs and trying to justify the droning of these boats for three months. That has made absolutely no sense. We don't get fentanyl from Venezuela. It just doesn't pass the smell test this.
There's a statutory authority. There's OFAC, the Office of Foreign Asset Control Authority. And I do think that it is one more tool in the kit in order to pressure Maduro out. I think Donald Trump, under the advice of Marco Rubio and others, thought getting rid of Maduro would be easier. Frankly, a lot of dictators would've already packed their bags, you know, after they've fleeced the country, like Maduro has done with his corruption, would have left into exile, to go live out the rest of his life on the billions of dollars he has stolen from the Venezuelan people. Maduro hasn't done that. He has resisted now for 20 weeks.
PHILLIP: And it makes you wonder what it would take for him to actually take further steps.
NAVARRO: But the difference though is that a lot of the things he's done until now and the things he's threatening to do, he would need Congressional approval for. Whereas for this oil tanker interdiction --
PHILLIP: Because I'm not sure he thinks he needs Congressional approval for a lot of things. But I just want to expand this a little bit because Trump is not just threatening Maduro. Here's what he said about the Colombian president that he's actually been in a bit of a back and forth with as well.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Have you considered talking to the president of Colombia, who you called a drug leader?
TRUMP: No, I haven't really thought too much about him. He's been fairly hostile to the United States.
Colombia is producing a lot of drugs, a lot of -- they have cocaine factories. They make cocaine, as you know, and they sell it right into the United States. So, he better wise up or he'll be next. He'll be next too. I hope he is listening. He's going to be next.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Is that -- I mean, what is that? An empty threat?
NOAH ROTHMAN, SENIOR WRITER, NATIONAL REVIEW: It could be an empty threat. It could be a very full threat. This is the definition --
PHILLIP: Really?
ROTHMAN: It's the definition of mission creep. If you're going to talk about intervening in nations that covertly or overtly export narcotics abroad, you're -- the scope is going to expand dramatically to include allied governments, partnered governments, as well as adversarial governments. This interdiction of this oil tanker, which is infinitely preferable to just blowing something up and killing everybody on board, we actually have evidence now associated with a criminal investigation.
And it speaks to the administration's logic here, such as I understand it, which is that we have a hostile government, which is destabilizing this country, destabilizing the hemisphere, and providing a footstool for anti-American powers, our near peer competitors in China and Russia, and a lifeline, an economic lifeline to Cuba, which has been a thorn in our side for 70 years.
Here's how we get at the real money that's propping up all these regimes and it goes to a national security strategy that I think Congress could comprehend, if they went to Congress.
NAVARRO: You know, but there's a big difference between Petro and Columbia and Maduro. Maduro stole the election. The elections were won by Maria Corina Machado's party. Maria Corina Machado, who is an Oslo receiving the Nobel Peace Prize that did not go to Trump. Petro was democratically elected. I don't like the guy. He is anti-American and we are anti him. There is drug trafficking and cocaine production in Colombia for decades now. The U.S. government has been working in collaboration with the Colombian Governments to try to stop and eradicate some of that stuff.
But we can't just go around -- believe me, I have a whole list of people in Latin America that I would like to be out of the country, Ortega in Nicaragua, Diaz-Canel in Cuba. I mean, but those are illegitimate leaders. Petro is a legitimate leader. We may not like him, but he was elected by his people.
ROTHMAN: The president doesn't make that distinction.
PHILLIP: So, Ana's point, Trump is -- and to your point, Trump is not making that distinction. I mean, is he just throwing his weight around in the region because he can?
JOE BORELLI, FORMER REPUBLICAN LEADER, NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL: No. I mean, he was asked a question about Colombia and he was responding to that. That wasn't an original thing said by Trump deliberately. He was asked that question. But, look, this is the Monroe Doctrine, you know, 2.0. This is the Monroe Doctrine 2.0.
PHILLIP: Just to be clear, he's asked, have you considered talking to the president of Colombia, and he answered, he better wise up or he'll be next. He'll be next. I hope he's listening.
BORELLI: Yes. So, it was a response. It was response.
PHILLIP: He was asked, are going to take out the president of Colombia? He could have talked to the guy.
BORELLI: Going back to Maduro, you have the United Nations, the U.S. government, the International Criminal Court, all saying, this guy, as Ana pointed out, is a murderous dictator who is accused of international crimes, narco trafficking amongst them, torturing his own people amongst them. And we've had feckless intervention for the last God knows how many years, five years, ten years, right?
So, if we are aware that there is only two sources of revenue for Maduro's regime, which is narcotics and oil, I'm happy that the president is escalating this to actually cut off the larger of those two pots, which is this shadow fleet of oil.
[22:10:06]
The U.S. Navy buildup, that's not a buildup just to take some drug boat people down. That's a buildup to actually isolate this shadow fleet from actually doing business. This is going to number the days of the Maduro regime and this is going to be another win for Donald Trump.
NAVARRO: The U.S. naval buildup is to scare Maduro.
BORELLI: Yes, but --
NAVARRO: The droning and bombing of boats --
BORELLI: And the seizing of the ship today --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: I guess they can seize the boats. They don't actually have to blow them out of the water. They demonstrated that they can do that. DEJA FOXX, FORMER CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE, ARIZONA: But blowing them out of the water, I think we also have to ask the question, what is the perception, right. It almost feels like we're watching an action movie in real time in these tweet or X clips. And as I watch them, I think about a president who's throwing his weight around and showing young people especially who are watching that this is a tough guy, that he doesn't back down. And these are in some ways easy targets.
ROTHMAN: And that's what the administration has to be worried about. As far as I understand it, the force posture that we have in the region is not conducive to a land invasion. It is conducive to executing strikes on military targets and regime targets inside Venezuela.
The assumption being that this is a rotten edifice that'll crumble with just a tiny push. I've heard that a lot. I don't necessarily know if it will be a long campaign.
PHILLIP: What do you think about that?
PLITSAS: So, I think Noah's characterization is correct. So, if we take just all the politics out of it, just look at the military footprint. Nearly one third of the deployed U.S. Navy is off the coast or somewhere in the Caribbean to be able to strike fighter jets and bombers as well, Marine Expeditionary Unit with some small special operations capabilities within it. Then there is a commercial cover platform that's out there belonging to U.S. Special Operations Command that you can find it online.
But that wasn't used today. All of that footprint suggests, as you mentioned, naval and airstrikes coming in, potential special operations, targeted missions, and then Marines coming into like specific sites. So, the only way you can't depose somebody from the air, not in this type of context, right? So, there would have to be some sort of ground element. It speaks to something within Venezuela itself because the U.S. footprint isn't there.
What I've heard from inside the administration from folks is that there's a general consensus that Maduro needs to go, much to Ana's point, right? So, as we're looking at that, how is that going to happen? Is it going to happen by force? The president's gone back and forth several times on this. There has been phone calls made to Maduro to see if he will step down. My understanding was he had offered to step down, offered all kinds of economic deals to do so, but that he wanted his underlings to remain in power with amnesty.
And that was seen as an attempt by him to retain power when he was out of office, which was seen as a non-starter. And then the reasoning behind this is twofold. One, to supposedly stem the drug flow coming out of there, whatever that looks like. And as you mentioned, that evidence you know, whatever, that'll come out at some point. And the second is an open up for trade. It's the wealthiest economy in South America that's been run into the ground and is under sanctions. And if Maduro is gone, now that's available for trade.
PHILLIP: I mean, I think that while you just laid out suggests that, at some point, that ought to be a conversation with the American people about what that looks like. Because it's not just about Maduro, it's also about our forces who would be involved in.
NAVARRO: It's about regime change, which American people, the most American people do not agree with. But also we've changed what we're talking about. Instead of talking about the war crime without a war that committed on these two shipwreck survivors and the video that hasn't been released that they refuse to release, we are talking about the interdiction of an oil tanker that we need more details, but could very possibly have some regulatory and statutory authorization and makes sense.
PHILLIP: Yes it makes a lot more sense compared to some of the other stuff. Alex --
NAVARRO: Oh, that's a low bar.
PHILLIP: Yes, thank you very much for joining us.
PLITSAS: Thank you, Abby.
PHILLIP: Next for us, Democrats keep winning races across the nation, including in many Trump districts, and the president says that he can't figure out why.
Plus, the Fed chair is blaming Trump's tariffs for elevated inflation as the president's message sounds more and more like Jimmy Carter's,
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:15:00]
PHILLIP: If the recent string of elections is any indication of what is to come in the midterms, Republicans better brace for impact. Miami's newly elected mayor, Eileen Higgins, broke a 30-year streak of a Republican holding that office. And in a Georgia special election, a Democrat, Eric Gisler, was able to flip a district that Trump won by 12 points.
Now, Democrats are hoping to ride a blue wave from the recent sweep on Election Day into November, and President Trump can't seem to figure out why all of this is happening.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Are you worried at all about the Democrats winning a couple more things in Miami, Georgia?
TRUMP: I don't worry.
For whatever reason, and nobody's been able to give me an answer, when you win the presidency, you seem to lose the midterms. Usually, I can figure things out, but I don't know why.
(END VIDEO CLIP) PHILLIP: Well, he better figure it out pretty soon because the midterms are coming and there are a bunch of things that are suggested by these results. I mean, the Miami thing is very significant because of the immigration factor, but probably other things as well. But Trump seems to be in denial about the fact that he will be responsible for how bad it is. I mean, yes, there are some broader trends, but the scope of it will be on him.
NAVARRO: Well, he's also responsible because he's chosen to insert himself in these races that traditionally are nonpartisan races, even in name only. But like in New York, he inserted himself in the Miami race. He supported the Republican candidate. He endorsed him. He tweeted for him, called him fantastic, asked people to go out and vote for him.
[22:20:03]
And so when people go out and vote against this guy, that is a rejection of Trump.
It's also very significant because, look, I've lived in Miami-Dade for 45 years. When I first was there as a kid, it was a blue county, then it became a purple county. Now it's been a red county. Donald Trump won Miami-Dade by 20 points in the last election. The city of Miami, which is within Miami-Dade, was pretty much tied. Kamala Harris won it by like half a percentage point.
Yesterday, Eileen Higgins, a progressive leaning liberal woman, Anglo in a 70 percent Hispanic city, won that race by 20 points. So, it was a 20 point shift in the city of Miami against Republicans and against Donald Trump for his stupid mistake of getting in the middle of what he --
PHILLIP: So, let me just play what Susie Wiles said, though about the Trump of it all. And then I'll let you get in, Noah. Go ahead.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SUSAN WILES, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: Typically, you know, in the midterms, it's not about who's sitting at the White House. It's you localize the election. And you keep the federal officials out of it. We are actually going to turn that on its head --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good.
WILES: And put him on the ballot. Because so many of those low propensity voters are Trump voters.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
WILES: I haven't quite broken it to him yet, but he's going to campaign like it's 2024 again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Interesting. (CROSSTALKS)
BORELLI: No, this is great because Ana Navarro and Susie Wiles are saying essentially the same thing. You pointed out, Trump is the vote getter in so many of these districts. The solution to this problem is what Ana was saying --
(CROSSTALKS)
BORELLI: He won Miami-Dade, which is not the city of Miami, but he won Miami-Dade by 20 points. Susie Wiles pointed out that these are low propensity voters who are staying home. The solution is not less Trump, it's actually more Trump.
You know, you look at where Trump is in terms of his approval number, right, he is more popular than Bush and Obama at this point in their second term.
NAVARRO: He's at 36 percent approval.
BORELLI: Nope. Actually check Reuters today, he's at 41 percent. Reuters went from 38 last month to 41. And the approval he's gotten actually increased on the economy.
So, the solution to this problem, and Republicans have a problem, the solution is not avoiding Trump. It's actually double downing Trump.
(CROSSTALKS)
NAVARRO: He's down 30 to 40 points with Latino voters.
PHILLIP: Okay, go ahead.
FOXX: And it seemed to me that Republicans are unpopular, especially in a race like this because they fail to run on the issues that everyday families are worried about, like affordability. But when I look at this race, this is the first time we've seen a win like this in Miami in 30 years. That's my entire lifetime. I'm 25 years old. You've seen that change over generations.
BORELLI: (INAUDIBLE) actually never had a real opponent, like he -- and I liked the guy. He's a friend. He never actually had a real opponent.
PHILLIP: Look, he was a bit of a figurehead role, but I think Ana's broader point about what happens politically in that geographic location, also what it signifies by the broader politics about what Cuban Americans are doing, I mean, that seems like a bad sign.
And I think Ana's real point was that Trump endorsed, he got into this race and it did not help.
ROTHMAN: I don't know how Susie Wiles' strategy of putting the president out there, making him a focus of the midterms departs dramatically from 2018 when Donald Trump did exactly that, tried to reverse what was essentially the effect of his creation of a working class party, which we understand means low propensity voters. There's a direct tie in between levels of income, levels of education and age and your propensity to vote. And we decided -- Republicans decided to say, okay, we're just going to trade in these voters who typically do very well for us in off-years, specials, midterms. And we're going to get these other voters who do really well every four year, they vote every four years and don't every other year.
To Ana's point, you know Miami so much better than I do, and I think Republicans have a real problem with Hispanics. But I'm looking at this map and I see first of all, Brickell, which is dark red, which is kind of funny because Brickell is just office buildings and hotels, but it was farther out west, once you get out towards Fountain Blue, once you get out towards Doral, where there's a big Venezuelan expatriate population, look, we know Hondurans, Nicaraguans, Cubans, they turned against the Republican Party here, but not in these not vote-rich.
NAVARRO: Yes, but that's not the areas you're talking, which what you're saying is correct, is Miami-Dade, it's not City of Miami.
ROTHMAN: No, not Miami (INAUDIBLE), but we're talking about the broader lateral, the broader landscape.
PHILLIP: Well, I think one of the reasons that he inserted himself into this race, other than the fact that he can't help himself, is because that's where he wants to put his library. And his family are right now trying to do a land grab of incredibly valuable land owned by Miami-Dade Community College in downtown Miami, and he could really benefit from a friendly mayor who would grease all the wheels for him as he tries to go through the process of getting this land and getting this library.
PHILLIP: That's right. The newly elected mayor, Eileen Higgins, she didn't -- she wasn't super negative about this prospect.
[22:25:05]
She kind of said some positive things about it. So, it is possible that she might support it at the end of the day as well.
FOXX: And we know this is a president who is at his core self- interested, right? He wants buildings with his name on it. This is his backyard in a lot of ways. I'm sure this feels personal.
NAVARRO: Hell, no, it's not his backyard. His backyard is in Palm Beach, two hours, two and a half hours up.
FOXX: Nonetheless, I'm sure it feels personal to him since he makes everything about him.
But what I think is interesting about this particular president is that he's not someone or his administration, his MAGA party, who changes policy, that changes course. They're more interested in being unpopular in changing the rules to win. And as I look at 2026, that's really the worry that I have. ROTHMAN: We can overanalyze any one individual race, and we've seen Democrats basically overperform in specials and off-year elections this year to the tune of double digits. But there are some Democrats who underperformed the Democratic overperformance, Tennessee 07, Democrats nominated a candidate that wasn't a good fit for the district, and she did very well, but she didn't do as well as other Democrats have.
Republicans can insert Donald Trump, make him the focus of the race, that will hurt you in some districts as well as help you. But if you end up nominating the candidate you want to face, if you pick a candidate who you think appeals to the progressive activist class, the fundraising base, and not the voters in that district, I'm looking at Texas' Senate race and Jasmine Crockett's entrance into it, and the efforts by Republicans to get her into that race and force out more electable candidates. That's the sort of thing that can save you from the bottom (ph).
BORELLI: Well, this is the problem. And to his point, you know, the issue is that the Democratic Party has momentum. The problem is which Democratic Party is it? Is it the party of Zohran Mamdani or is it the party of Abigail Spanberger? Those two people could not win elections in each other's districts. So, you have to pick which direction you're going on.
PHILLIP: Yes. Well, I don't know --
BORELLI: You can plug and play Marco Rubio and he could win 20 districts, Republicans.
PHILLIP: I don't know if that's a right analysis. It's what is the right candidate for the right place. Because, yes, they couldn't. Locations and win each other's races, but each of those candidates was right for the place to --
BORELLI: Who's winning the primary? It's going to be a jack --
PHILLIP: So, I think that's ultimately what they have to sort out. We have to leave this there, though.
Next for us Republicans have called him the worst president ever, but Jimmy Carter's infamous economic message and starting to sound a lot like Donald Trump's. Another special guest is going to be with us at the table.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:30:00]
PHILLP: The President's economic message so far, prices aren't that high and settle for less.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP. PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: You know, you can give up certain products, you can give up pencils, because under the China policy, you know, every child can get 37 pencils, they only need one or two, you know, they don't need that many. But you always need, you always need steel.
You don't need $37 for your daughter, two or three is nice, but you don't need $37.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: The message echoes the same one from a man Trump once called the worst president in American history, Jimmy Carter.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIMMY CARTER, THEN-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: All of us must learn to waste less energy. Simply by keeping our thermostats, for instance, at 65 degrees in the daytime and 55 degrees at night, we could save half the current shortage of natural gas.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: That speech from Carter, asking Americans to make sacrifices during an especially cold winter and a natural gas shortage, has been mocked by Republicans for decades. Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy actually called it one of the reasons that he became a Republican.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA), THEN-SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: I was in the sixth grade, I turn on the T.V., I watched Jimmy Carter have a sweater on and tell me to turn the heater down, that the best days were behind us. That as an American, I had to accept less. That wasn't how I was raised.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: CNN global economic analyst Rana Foroohar joins us in our fifth seat. Rana, it is a tough message to give to Americans to just suffer a little bit more.
RANA FOROOHAR, CNN GLOBAL ECONOMIC ANALYST, AND GLOBAL BUSINESS COLUMNIST AND ASSOCIATE EDITOR, "FINANCIAL TIMES": No, absolutely.
I remember that speech that Jimmy Carter gave. One thing I will say about Carter is he was being honest. He wasn't saying, oh, inflation is down, prices are just fine.
He was saying, look, we've got an energy crisis, we've got double digit inflation, you're going to have to turn down the thermostat. He was actually pretty prescient about energy in America, I would say. Unfortunately, it wasn't a political message that could be delivered easily.
It's not something Americans like to hear. We have to do a little bit more with less.
And yes, the macroeconomics of that time and this time, very similar. We might be in for a period of stagflation. You know, we are seeing tariffs combined with health care increases, combined with softening job market.
A lot of people think that there probably is going to be a big market correction within the next year. So pretty similar situation to what Carter was dealing with.
JOE BORELLI, FORMER REPUBLICAN LEADER, NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL: Can we talk about why these comparisons are crazy? Let's paint a visual picture for the audience at home. You can look at the chart of inflation over the last 50 years, right?
And you'll see two big bumps, two big bumps. On top of those big bumps are Jimmy Carter and Joe Biden. And those cliffs that fall off are Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump.
[22:35:01]
Your dollar is worth 20 percent less right now today because of 21 percent CPI inflation under Joe Biden. Your wages are $3,000 less because your average salary and your real American wages went down by $3,000. That's a Joe Biden thing.
DEJA FOXX (R), FORMER CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE FOR ARIZONA, DIGITAL STRATEGIST, AND REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS ADVICATE: Okay, what's crazy is that a man who's never even done his own grocery shopping is over here lecturing families like mine who've had to make hard decisions in a grocery checkout line, who saw threats to snap in just the last few months.
That is what is crazy. From a gold ballroom, he tweets at us and tells us to do less. He sounds like a bad boyfriend asking you to settle.
And girls, I'm telling you, leave him.
NOAH ROTHMAN, SR. WRITER, "NATIONAL REVIEW": But doesn't this make the point of Trump's critics that Jimmy Carter was saying, you have to suffer for my policies. I can't have the monetary policy that would reduce inflation, which was reduced under Volcker in two years hence.
Then the geopolitical policies that would make energy more abundant, that would force our enemies to retreat and not blackmail us with energy policy. That's the sort of thing that Americans resented because they thought it wasn't true. And it proved it wasn't true in 1982 and 1980.
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SR. POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Also, listen, probably while Jimmy Carter was telling you to be cold during the winter and turn the heater down, he was probably sitting in his very little humble house in Georgia being cold and wearing the sweater. Whereas Trump is telling you not to buy your kids the dolls, not to buy pencils, at the same time that his family is grifting billions off of the presidency. BORELLI: If Jimmy Carter might have done something like President
Trump, might have acted on that inflation. Again, look at the bump I pointed out.
PHILLIP: What did President Trump do?
BORELLI: Energy prices low, wages up.
PHILLIP: You mean gas prices that are six cents lower than they were?
BORELLI: We now have four cents.
PHILLIP: Six cents a gallon lower than they were. Are you talking about energy prices for electricity that are going up? What has Trump done exactly?
BORELLI: Energy prices are going up primarily in blue states that have enacted ridiculous laws, like here in New York, the CLCPA, which have done ridiculous things to me.
PHILLIP: Let's talk about what Trump has done, because what he has done is instituted the largest tariffs in some hundred years. Here's what the Fed chair Jerome Powell says the impact has been on the economy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEROME POWELL, FEDERAL RESERVE CHAIRMAN: The story with inflation, and we're well aware that this is a story at this point, is that if you get away from tariffs, inflation is in the low twos, right? So it's really tariffs that's causing most of the inflation overshoot.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: You know, if Trump could have had a great story this year, Rana, that is the thing that always gets me about this moment, is that it could have been a good story.
FOROOHAR: It could have been a good story.
PHILLIP: Taxes lowered and the economy just humming along, but he chose to do something different.
FOROOHAR: You know, I think this goes to something that a lot of people within the White House, within his own close group of advisors would say, which is that, okay, tariffs on China, fine. Change the global trading system slowly, fine.
Everybody all at once with no differentiation between allies and adversaries, and then walking back things so nobody really knows if they have a deal or not. It's just not been good for the economy. It's not been good for America's long-term relationships.
One thing, one point I want to make though, I feel like I make this point often when we give credit or when we criticize presidents for the economy. The fact is that inflation rates, structural inflation rates, don't have a lot to do with what any single president does, one or two actions.
We have had in this country, we had a big pivot point in the 1980s where we had essentially trend-falling interest rates for 40 years, and that was because Congress actually passed the ball to the Fed on both sides of the aisle. Republicans and Democrats said, you know, it's easier just to keep interest rates low. Let's keep pushing money into the economy.
We don't want to have guns and butter decisions, but we are at the end of that period. I actually think that for starters, we're turning into what is cyclically going to be a four-year uptick in inflation. Inflation tends to go in four-year cycles.
We're turning into an uptick. And then going to what you said, tariffs, but also look at A.I. build-out. Even things that, you know, maybe all of us would like to see, like more expenditure on factories, CapEx, that's inflationary.
So this is something we're going to be living with for a while.
ROTHMAN: It's inflationary if you, if you pair back, inflation is just too much money chasing after too few goods. If you were to create more supply-side economics, as this President is somehow, sometimes inclined towards, then you would see, I think, as if you pair back these tariffs, you would see this economy boom.
[22:39:45]
To Joe's point, the energy policies that this administration have pursued are great, and they are for increasing supplies by removing the restrictions that the Biden administration placed on the notion that any industry that benefits tangentially from fossil fuels should be stripped of taxpayer funds, opening up federal lands to drilling leases, which sends signals to the market that more sources are coming online, allowing liquid natural gas to be exported abroad, creating terminals that allow these things to be exported abroad.
All of this creates new supply, which puts downward pressure on prices. It's the tariffs that are pushing upward pressure on prices. And if you got rid of them, you would see a lot more consumer confidence, which would fall.
NAVARRO: What was very rich and ironic to me was that he was accusing, and as he was talking about the made-up term of affordability, he was accusing Democrats of having created the problem and then now pretending that they want to fix it.
BORELLI: That's exactly what's happening.
NAVARRO: Okay, well, this is the same guy who created the problem for the soybean farmers and the American farmers, and this week tried to fix it with a $12 billion, 100 percent.
PHILLIP: We're going to end it there.
BORELLI: It's 9 percent inflation higher than 3 percent. NAVARRO: Meanwhile, Argentina is selling their soybeans to China. Sending the house on fire and then trying to piss on it to put it up is not a way to run a company.
BORELLI: Is 9 percent inflation or 3 percent inflation?
PHILLIP: Next for us, the President's advisor, says America's test scores, health care, crime would all be better without immigrants. We'll debate that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:45:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight, the immigration debate again turns to grievance, fear-mongering and victimhood. Trump advisor Stephen Miller suggesting this week that immigrants are the cause of many of the major problems facing America, education being among them.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHEN MILLER, WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF FOR POLICY: You talk about test scores. Well, if you subtract immigration out of test scores, all of a sudden our test scores skyrocket. If you subtract immigration out of health care, all of a sudden we don't have near the size of the health care challenges our country faces.
If you subtract immigration out of public safety, all of a sudden we don't have violent crime in so many of our cities. Issue after issue, we talk about these things, they just happen to us. The schools just suddenly fail.
Violent crime just suddenly explodes. The deficit just suddenly skyrockets. These are a result of social policy choices that we made through immigration.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Now, we know Stephen Miller doesn't like immigration much, but it is interesting that now all of a sudden, all of the woes of America are to be blamed on someone else other than us.
FOROOHAR: I find it stunning in so many ways. I've always found the economic arguments against immigration baffling because here are the facts.
The fact that U.S. GDP is about a percentage point higher than Europe's on trend in any given year is down largely to immigration. The fact that we had the strongest post-COVID recovery is down in part to the fact that under Joe Biden, immigration was keeping the economy afloat.
I'm going to come clean. I am the daughter of an immigrant, a Muslim immigrant actually, that was educated in this country, started a business in rural Indiana. I grew up in Trump country. I know red states, I know a lot of people in my county, in my high school that voted for him.
But this kind of hate-mongering is just wrong and it's not who we are as Americans. And also, I'd like to break down those test scores because I look around me in New York City and I think it's the immigrants that are hiking the test scores up here.
PHILLIP: There are studies about this. I'm sure Stephen Miller doesn't care, but studies that show that test scores are not negatively impacted by immigration. According to Brookings, no adverse effects of immigrant students on the academic achievement of U.S.-foreign students.
But also Stephen Miller himself, he comes from an immigrant background.
In 2018, his uncle wrote this op-ed saying, "Stephen Miller is an immigration hypocrite. I know because I'm his uncle. If my nephew's ideas on immigration had been in force a century ago, our family would have been wiped out.
He is an American because of immigration, because of chain migration. His family came from what I guess Trump would now call a shithole country or a shithole part of the world, war-torn, fleeing persecution, and now he is slamming the door behind him."
NAVARRO: All of us, with the exception of Native Americans and slaves who were brought here against their will, are immigrants. So when he says, if you take immigration, because he's like in the middle of the White House lawn having an interview with Will Cain and screaming, right?
So if you take out immigration from test scores, so where do we start to take off immigration? Should we do it before or after the Mayflower? Should we do it when brown people started coming here or when it was Italians and Irish coming here?
ROTHMAN: Well, that's what he was trying to say in that interview. The whole interview was a wild ride.
He was essentially saying that the 1965 Immigrate Repeal of the 1924 Immigration Act was a mistake, which is essentially saying the immigration could only come from Northern European countries in 1924. He's saying that was wrong.
But what prompted the conversation is what happened in Minnesota with the Somali groups who were defrauding COVID funds. About a billion out of the 250 some odd billion that were defrauded when the COVID spigots were open.
It goes into collective guilt. That's wrong. The notion here that individuals who remained in charging documents, we can generalize a broad ethnic class, that's wrong. [22:50:05]
However, there is an adjacent conversation to be had about this assimilation and the encouragement of it, which he, Stephen Miller, is a terrible ambassador for. I will concede that.
Nevertheless, in American cities, where there is a multicultural social compact, which doesn't necessarily regard assimilation into the American society as being a good thing. Maybe you should preserve your individual ethnic characteristics.
PHILLIP: Can I just ask, what do you mean by assimilation? Like, in this context, what do you mean by assimilation?
ROTHMAN: Acculturation, learning the language, ensuring that your children can navigate schools.
PHILLIP: I'm curious, in the context of Somalis in Minnesota, what do you mean? What is the relationship between assimilation?
ROTHMAN: I don't know if there's Somalis anywhere, any ethnic enclave. We've had ethnic enclaves in this country throughout its history. Outside the ethnic enclave, it's very difficult to navigate if you don't know English, if you don't know the culture, if you don't understand how to navigate society.
FOXX: Let me talk to you about difficult things.
These are the kind of people who are willing to work really hard. I am from Arizona, where I was born and raised and ran for Congress this last year, and the district I ran in represents hundreds of miles of the U.S.-Mexico border.
I went down to Yuma and I sat with students who queue up on the other side of the border for three to four hours. I mean, these kids wake up at two in the morning to get to high school on time. And those are the kind of people we need in this country.
ROTHMAN: They are, and what I'm saying is that the Democrats who welcome them into our country, as I do, should have enough confidence in the American system to say, yes, you should integrate.
PHILLIP: I guess the part I don't understand is why are you assuming that assimilation is not happening? Because when Stephen Miller's ancestors came here in the early 1900s, they didn't speak a lick of English, okay?
They were working factory jobs. There is a generational shift that happens, where sometimes the first generation, they don't speak English, but they have children and those people are Americans and they become people who are no different from you or you or you or you.
So why are we assuming that assimilation is not happening? All the evidence suggests that assimilation actually is happening and does happen. BORELLI: I think schools are a bad indicator because I think children
should not be blamed for anything. I think singling them out as some indicator of an economic, or immigration group rather success is probably a bad thing. In this rush to defend the Somali settlement in the past couple of weeks, in the rush to defend the Somalis in the wake of the scandal about the fraud, there were some people out there saying the Somalis contribute $67 million in taxes to the state of Minnesota, right?
And you look at that in the big context, that actually averages out to about $1,000 in state and local taxes, which is an eighth of what Minnesotans pay. Minnesotans pay about $8,000 per person in taxes.
Then you look at the social programs, right? 47 percent of the Somali people here in Minnesota were on some type of social welfare program. How can we point to that community at large? And I admit there are, I guarantee, you could find successful people.
PHILLIP: I don't know. Joe, do the same thing in Appalachia. Do the same thing in rural Alabama.
BORELLI: 100 percent.
PHILLIP: No, but for real, like, why are you? Listen, there are people of different socioeconomic statuses in this country.
BORELLI: We should vet them based on their ability to have success.
PHILLIP: Yes, absolutely.
BORELLI: They should be vetted.
PHILLIP: But I don't understand why are you suggesting. But just, okay, Noah just made the point. We don't do collective guilt here in this country.
The individuals.
BORELLI: Correct, that's why they should be vetted.
PHILLIP: The individuals ought to have an opportunity to prove themselves.
BORELLI: When you give blanket TPS or open the border to work, you're not vetting people. You're actually not evaluating people based on their ability.
FOXX: I guess, I don't have a ballot, but making the joke.
BORELLI: There's probably a lot of Somalis, I know there are, that are doing very good things and being productive.
PHILLIP: Why are you making a broad claim about the group as opposed to dealing with individuals?
BORELLI: We opened the border, the southern border during Joe Biden, and we allowed people to come in unvetted.
PHILLIP: Hold on a second. Do you know that the population of Minnesota Somalis are not necessarily people who have come here in the last four years? They're people who have been here for decades and decades.
That they, that not, and it's not, it's not open borders from Joe Biden, it's decades of policy that have allowed people to come in, fleeing war, fleeing all kinds of things and to build lives for themselves. It's -- this is not a simple story of just Biden let them in.
But here's the point, here's the real point, here's the real point that I'm trying to make.
When we talk about groups and we say that they are or are not allowed to pursue the American dream just based on where they come from, that seems pretty darn anti-American to me.
ROTHMAN: I completely agree.
PHILLIP: Italians were told the same thing, Jews were told the same thing, and guess what?
[22:55:03]
FOROOHAR: They also tend to, I want to make one point, they also tend to be told this at times when there's economic hardship, when there are other things going on. In 1924, the economic situation, we were leading into what was going to be the crash of 29 and a Great Depression. There was a lot of tension, a lot of technological change, a lot of job market change.
It's not an accident that we're hearing this kind of nativist rhetoric now when there are outside problems.
PHILLIP: Yes, we absolutely have to have--
NAVARRO: -- nativist rhetoric targeting brown and black people.
FOROOHAR: 100 percent, and in 1924 it was the darker Europeans.
PHILLIP: The panel is going to give us Nightcap's classic phrase edition. We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
Dagon it, let's freaking go. That was 44-year-old quarterback Philip Rivers' reaction to coming out of retirement to rejoin the Colts.
[23:00:05]
And so for tonight's news nightcap, what is your favorite old school phrase that you want to bring back? Noah?
ROTHMAN: Got the morbs. It is a Victorian expression that means a little sad.
PHILLIP: Deja?
FOXX: Stay woke. I feel Millennials and MAGA have taken this over. Please don't mean me here.
PHILLIP: That's how you know we're old. Go ahead, Ana.
NAVARRO: Poppycock, whatever the hell it means.
PHILLIP: Joe?
BORELLI: Merry Christmas. Trump's president now. We can take it.
PHILLIP: All right, everybody. Thank you very much.
Thanks for watching. "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
