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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Judge Says, Top DOJ Officials May Have Pushed To Prosecute Abrego Garcia; HHS Says, Freezing All Childcare Funds Amid Viral Video Fallout; FBI, DHS Surging Resources In Minnesota Fraud Investigation; WSJ: Trump Kicked Epstein Out Of Club After He Pressured Staff For Sex; How Trump Is Trying To "MAGA-fy" The World. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired December 30, 2025 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[22:00:00]
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, a twist in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case. After denying any involvement in his Tennessee prosecution for alleged human smuggling, internal DOJ files suggest otherwise. Will it help Garcia's claim a vindictive prosecution?
Plus, mounting pressure in Minnesota against Governor Tim Walz. DHS and FBI investigators surge to find fraudsters and the MAGA YouTuber who sparked the new interest talks to CNN about his viral video.
NICK SHIRLEY, INTERNET PERSONALITY: I am 100 percent sure I'm true.
PHILLIP: And a new year is coming and so is a new mayor for New York City. The Democratic socialist takes office on New Year's Day and says, when it comes to working with the Trump White House --
MAYOR-ELECT ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D-NEW YORK CITY, NY): I will look to have a conversation with anyone and everyone.
PHILLIP: But will his big policy promises really take hold live at the table for a special two-hour NewsNight, Scott Jennings, Maria Cardona, Pete Seat, Tiffany Cross and Josh Rogin.
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.
And we begin with some breaking news tonight. A federal judge is indicating that top officials in Washington may have worked with federal prosecutors in Tennessee to bring charges against Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Now, you may remember that's the most high-profile case in President Trump's immigration crackdown. And a newly unsealed order reveals that high level DOJ officials pushed for this indictment only after he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador and then ordered a return to the United States. The judge says that the decision to prosecute Abrego may have been a joint decision with others who may or may not have acted with an improper motivation. We've learned that ICE did not plan to detain Abrego Garcia again as long as this judge's order banning it stands. He's pleaded not guilty to the charges of human smuggling, but he's trying to get that whole case dismissed, alleging that the prosecution is vindictive. He claims that he was singled out over the Trump administration's embarrassment that he was mistakenly deported.
Now, Senator Chris Van Hollen spoke to CNN earlier today and he said that's exactly what this is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D-MD): This looks to me like a smoking gun against the administration, making the point that this was a vindictive prosecution. As you were just discussing, the Justice Department decided to bring these charges against him because he asserted his due process rights when they illegally shipped him off to CECOT in El Salvador. So, yes, this looks like another example of the Trump administration. But sometimes manipulating the facts here, bringing a vindictive case against Abrego Garcia,
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PHILLIP: CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig is with us in our fifth seat. Elie, you know, there have been, I think, a lot of problems with this human smuggling case from the beginning. What do you make of what the judge is saying here? Could this really kill the case?
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Oh, it absolutely could. Now, I want to be clear. There's no scandal in DOJ bosses, Todd Blanche or Pam Bondy, working with local federal prosecutors in Tennessee consulting about whether to bring a charge. That happens all the time. The problem here from DOJ's perspective is they are quite clearly using DOJ's prosecutorial power to settle a political score.
Let's remember the sequence, right? Abrego Garcia wrongly deported. Everyone agrees he could not be sent to El Salvador, he was sent to El Salvador, challenges that in court and wins essentially all the way up to the Supreme Court that says this was done wrongly. Only then, only after that does DOJ go ahead and indict him. And that is essentially the definition of a vindictive prosecution.
And let me pose this to you. What if the administration had correctly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia? They could have done it back in March. Rather than send him to El Salvador, they could have sent him to Mexico. Is there any chance on this green earth that DOJ would've said, well, here's this guy, we've properly deported him, now he's in Mexico, but let's indict him on driving across the state line with an illegal alien and bring him back and prosecute him, and then re-deport him?
[22:05:02]
I trust I will answer my own question. I worked at DOJ, no chance in hell.
So, that's his argument. If he can show that this prosecution is being brought to pay him back for exercising his rights, he's going to get the case dismissed.
PHILLIP: And the judge points to this exchange with Todd Blanche from back in June where he seems to suggest on Fox News that that's exactly what happened. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TODD BLANCHE, DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: In this case, we had a judge in Maryland tell us that, oh, no, there's not any evidence that he's a member of MS-13, you had no right to deport him. And so we -- what should we do as a Department of Justice when a judge is accusing us of doing something wrong? We have an obligation to everybody, including you, to investigate it. And that's exactly what we did.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HONIG: Okay. That is why the link to DOJ bosses matters, because there you have Todd Blanche essentially saying straight up, the reason we opened this criminal investigation is because he challenged us in immigration court. And if you can loop Todd Blanche in that statement into your case as Abrego Garcia, you got a good case for it to be dissolved (ph).
PHILLIP: It's a little keystone cops, Pete, what's going on here, because they could have done this the right way, to Elie's point. And, honestly, Abrego Garcia might just be deported had they gone through the right process. They made some mistakes, they refused to own up to it, and now here we are.
PETE SEAT, FORMER WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMAN, PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: They can at times act haphazardly. That's certainly the case. I am glad though, Elie, first that you clarified, because I think some of the reporting on this has been inaccurate or, let's say, loose in trying to say that it is abnormal that DOJ would work with local prosecutors. So, thanks for clarifying that.
Beyond that, this whole thing, honestly to me, is kind of hard to follow. I mean, it dates back really to November of 2022 when he was pulled over by Tennessee Highway Patrol and then referred to the Biden Department of Homeland Security for potentially human trafficking. Nothing happened. We don't know what happened from that point until March when the Trump DOJ or Trump officials then arrested him. And this whole thing kind of snowballed to where we are today.
So, I'm still trying to figure out what happened in that two and a half to three years and perhaps the judge is getting at that as well, but that's what discovery is for in a process like this, is to get to the bottom of it, to uncover the facts. And if Abrego Garcia is correct and this was politically motivated, then he'll clearly win.
PHILLIP: I'm also wondering how hard could it be to prove, as they've claimed, that he's some high ranking MS 13 member. I mean, we've been talking about this case for like eight months. Where's the proof?
MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: And I think that is one of the most important points in this case, Abby, because you know what's not hard to follow is that that is one of the biggest points that has been made by -- not just by Abrego Garcia's legal team, but by those who actually believe that due process is important in this country, even for non-citizens. And the Constitution actually gives people in this country that right, the due process, right, which DOJ and this administration has consistently ran over. And that is what is not hard to follow. And that's why you're seeing that a lot of the American people who see this and other cases see vindictive prosecution.
And even the judge said this vindictive prosecution is tough to prove. But in this case, he sees that this could be something that Abrego Garcia could prove because of all of the screw ups that DOJ has gone through in this process.
TIFFANY CROSS, PODCAST CO-HOST, NATIVE LAND: You know, I think it's really challenging. It's like you said, we could follow this. But I think it's beneficial to your audience watching, Abby. If we make this about Abrego Garcia, then it seems like, oh, that's something that happens over there to this person that doesn't involve me.
The key point here is ICE illegally held Abrego Garcia without a removal order, the basic legal document needed. And so when you look at that, it could happen to any of us. Moreover, ICE just recently signed a contract -- yes, it can happen to any of us.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Are you an illegal alien?
CROSS: I just recently -- I don't know what -- I don't --
JENNINGS: You're not.
CROSS: People aren't illegal. So, undocumented --
JENNINGS: You're a citizen of the United States. He's not.
CROSS: Well, if you don't have the opportunity -- if you don't have the opportunity to fight, to have due process, then how can anybody say that?
JENNINGS: Is he an illegal alien or not?
CROSS: I don't call people illegal aliens. I think that's a slur.
JENNINGS: Is he an illegal alien? Is he in the country illegally?
CROSS: Is he here undocumented? Yes.
JENNINGS: Is he an illegal alien?
CROSS: But if I may have the professional courtesy to finish my point more, even more concerned, I'm not the liar at the table, believe me.
JENNINGS: Just be honest about it. You're lying right now.
CROSS: I'm not lying. But please if you can give me the courtesy to finish my point, I think it's very concerning that ICE has signed a contract were $25 million. Well, for a smorgasbord of all types of activities where they can follow your social media, do cell phone tracking, all, if you just disagree with their policy. So, this includes people who oppose what they're doing, people who post on social media about them. That is a concerning point. I don't know what -- there is a debate about that. That is red flag, everybody.
[22:10:00]
This is a government agency run amok, that disappears people and does things illegally.
PHILLIP: Scott?
JENNINGS: Well, obviously they don't disappear people. This is the most undeportable illegal alien in the history of illegal aliens. Elie, is he in the country illegally?
HONIG: Yes, he is in.
JENNINGS: Okay, number one. Number two, does he have an existing deportation order?
HONIG: Well, he did not. They got caught without one. They tried to --
JENNINGS: He got one. They said he couldn't go to El Salvador. So, let's admit a few things.
HONIG: Right, there's a withholding order preventing him from that.
JENNINGS: Let's admit a few. They shouldn't have sent him to El Salvador. But they shouldn't have sent him to El Salvador. Okay. I admitted this.
HONIG: They should not have sent him to El Salvador.
JENNINGS: This case, I don't care about. All I really care about, this guy's been living illegally in the United States for 13, 14, 15 years and take everything else out of it. How is it that our government, our bureaucracy, our justice system, our sovereign nation cannot get rid of a single deportable illegal alien for 15. It's crazy.
PHILLIP: I don't, that's really about --
HONIG: Let me take this real quick.
PHILLIP: I don't think that's really about the law. I think that's really about the incompetence of the process that went forward.
HONIG: That's not a good reflection on this Trump administration because, two things --
CARDONA: They're the ones who screwed up in the beginning. HONIG: They could have sent him to any country on the globe aside from El Salvador.
JENNINGS: Where are they trying to send him now?
HONIG: They're trying to now, but they created this --
JENNINGS: And Garcia is saying he can't -- his lawyers say whatever country they say he should go to, they then say, oh, that we can't do that either, we can't do that either. And then you had a U.S. senator who are fighting harder for an illegal alien than they would ever fight.
CARDONA: They're not fighting for him, Scott. They're fighting --
JENNINGS: Chris Van Hollen --
(CROSSTALKS)
HONIG: You send him to Costa Rica, he's out of here. Here's another problem I have with what DOJ is doing here. They're all talk, but they're not backing it up. So, you hear DOJ talk, you hear Pam Bondi call a press conference and say he's a gangster, MS-13. Is he charged with RICO, Scott? No, he is not. They say guns and drugs. Is he charged with guns or drugs federally? No, he is not. He's charged with driving an illegal alien across a state line, a real crime. But DOJ needs to knock it off with these accusations, writing these checks that they cannot cash. It undermines their credibility.
JENNINGS: Didn't other countries, didn't El Salvador say, yes, he was a member of MS-13? Didn't they --
(CROSSTALKS)
CARDONA: This is the point that his legal team has been unable to prove in court over and over and over again. You know, the proof that they offered? That he wore a hoodie, that he wore a Chicago Bulls T- shirt. Because the -- I think that was A.I.
JENNINGS: No, it wasn't. They're definitely on there.
CARDONA: So, they have not --
JENNINGS: Come on, don't --
CARDONA: They have not -- no. They have not been able to prove this, Scott, which is why DOJ has been caught with their pants down.
JENNINGS: Is he an illegal alien?
CARDONA: The point is --
JENNINGS: Is he in the country illegally?
CARDONA: He -- yes. And so he could have been removed if this Department of Justice had reached due process. But you know what the problem with this Department of Justice is, Scott? They are so focused on this particular undocumented alien that they did not care about his due process. And this is what Americans do care about.
And, by the way, to Tiffany's point, U.S. citizens have been detained. U.S. citizens have been grabbed from the street. Yes, they have. You need to admit that.
JENNINGS: He's not a U.S. citizen.
CARDONA: It doesn't matter.
JENNINGS: He's been in the country illegally for 15 years.
CARDONA: It doesn't matter. The problem that this Department of Justice has is that they are rolling over due process rights of people.
JENNINGS: How long should he be allowed to stay here? How many more years? How many more years?
CROSS: 20 percent of people who are not here legally are also white people. You do not see this kind of aggressive tactics disappearing white people, and I don't see you being as concerned about that, Scott.
PHILLIP: All right. Elie Honig, thank you very much for being here, as always.
Next for us, the Trump administration is freezing all childcare payments to the state of Minnesota. That's amid fraud allegations, including at a daycare center. And now Republicans are calling for Tim Walz to step down.
Plus, he says he doesn't want to be the world's policeman, but he appears to be getting intimately involved in other country's domestic politics. So, is Trump trying to MAGAfy the rest of the world? We'll debate that.
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[22:15:00]
PHILLIP: No more federal funds for Minnesota childcare, the Health and Human Services deputy secretary saying that today. Federal dollars for those programs have now been frozen after a viral video claimed to find widespread fraud at Somali-run childcare centers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Intrepid journalists have made shocking, incredible allegations of extensive fraud in Minnesota's childcare programs. We believe the state of Minnesota has allowed scammers and fake daycares to siphon millions of taxpayer dollars over the past decade.
Starting today, we require a justification receipt or photo evidence before we make a payment. (END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Small Business Administrator Kelly Loeffler says that the SBA is also pausing $430 million in annual funds to the state, and the FBI and DHS have been surging resources to the area.
But here's the thing. According to Attorney General Pam Bondi, 98 individuals have already been charged stemming from fraud allegations in Minnesota with some of those charges dating back to 2022 under President Joe Biden's DOJ, all of that before the YouTube expose.
Now, Josh Rogin is here with us. This has been a sort of perfect storm for MAGA, in many ways, to do what they've really always wanted to do, which is to make this not just about illegal immigration but also about legal immigration, and then also to zoom in on one particular community. And, by the way, we should not ignore it. There is an active, potentially governor's race that Republicans want to compete in. And maybe they don't want the, MyPillow guy to win, as Pete said yesterday, but all of that is playing here.
JOSH ROGIN, LEAD GLOBAL SECURITY ANALYST, WASHINGTON POST INTELLIGENCE: Sure. Well, setting the politics aside here, because there are real lives on the line and real families and communities at risk, and I think we need to acknowledge that, although no one's for fraud, everyone's against fraud.
[22:20:08]
What's going on here is very clear. It's a targeting of the Somali and Somali American communities that was directed by the president of the United States in public on television repeatedly. He called them garbage. He said they should go back to where they came from. And then all of a sudden you've got the treasury secretary, HHS, DHS, the FBI, and you know, every MAGA YouTuber flooding the Somali community in what can obviously be known as a targeted attack on this community, which is, by the way, overwhelmingly the vast majority are American citizens.
And that's not the way that law enforcement is supposed to work. Law enforcement is evidence-based, not identity based in the country of the United States of America, as far as I'm aware of. And so once you have this overtly cruel and massive attention of what I call abusive law enforcement resources, to target one small community for where they come from, when they came to America, the color of their skin, and the fact that they don't, you know, match the president's politics for whatever reason, and the president's perception, that's the wrong way to do it, in my opinion. That's not the way that America's supposed to work.
That doesn't excuse the fraud. It just says that we should apply law enforcement colorblind. And once you start targeting these communities, which are American citizens, by the way, I think we're going down the wrong moral and ethical approach. And it's bad politics because, by the way, these people vote. All Americans vote and Muslims vote.
PHILLIP: And that's -- honestly, that's part of the --
ROGIN: That's not the important thing right now.
PHILLIP: That's part of the problem for a lot of conservatives, but evidence-based, not identity-based is what Josh said. That is supposed to be how the law is supposed to work. Why is it that right now everything seems to be about whether or not the people involved here are Somali, even though one of the biggest people who were involved in one of these frauds was not Somali at all? She was a white woman. So, respond to that.
JENNINGS: Doesn't that disprove everything he just argued?
PHILLIP: Well --
JENNINGS: They're obviously rounding up --
(CROSSTALKS)
ROGIN: The answer is no.
JENNINGS: They're rounding up everybody who is involved in fraud.
PHILLIP: Nobody's talking about her. They're all talking about Somalis. That's the point.
JENNINGS: I want them to round up anyone who is involved in defrauding American taxpayers of what apparently amounts to $9 billion in a very, very small state. Somali, whether they're citizens, immigrants, white, I don't care.
ROGIN: You don't care if they target one --
JENNINGS: I want the fraud to stop.
ROGIN: But do you support the targeting of this one community or not?
JENNINGS: I support the targeting --
(CROSSTALKS)
ROGIN: But do you support the targeting of the Somali American community as directed by the president of United States based on their ethnicity?
JENNINGS: If they're engaged in fraud -- that's not what he said, A.
(CROSSTALKS)
JENNINGS: If they were engaged in fraud and because they're American citizens, should that make them immune?
ROGIN: That's a straw man argument.
JENNINGS: No.
ROGIN: Just answer the question.
JENNINGS: I did.
ROGIN: Should we --
(CROSSTALKS)
JENNINGS: Anyone involved in fraud.
ROGIN: But not based on their ethnicity?
JENNINGS: I want it based on whether they're involved in fraud.
ROGIN: Is it really so hard to answer that question, Scott?
CROSS: Yes.
JENNINGS: I want it --
CROSS: Yes.
ROGIN: Is it so hard to sit there and say, we shouldn't target people based on their ethnicity?
JENNINGS: The only criteria I have is fraud.
ROGIN: Can you say we shouldn't target people based on their ethnicity? I can say that. Can you say that?
CROSS: I can say that.
(CROSSTALKS)
ROGIN: but Scott Jennings won't say that. Why won't you say that, Scott?
JENNINGS: Because I don't agree that's what's happening. I don't agree with your policy. I don't agree with your stupid --
(CROSSTALKS)
ROGIN: Ad hominem attacks are the lowest form of arguments, Scott.
JENNINGS: The lowest form of argument is to come out here and accuse me of some kind of race-based argument. There's $9 billion of fraud and you don't care.
ROGIN: That's the main problem.
PHILLIP: So, look, hold on a second.
ROGIN: I think we've seen what Scott thinks about this.
PHILLIP: Hold on a second.
JENNINGS: Yes, I think we've seen clearly that you don't care about $9 billion.
PHILLIP: Yesterday, we had some tweets from the vice president, J.D. Vance, who made this all part of a conspiracy of Democrats to import voters and have them become Americans and then obtain political power because of that. So, that's part of the conversation that's happening in conservative circles. But the other part of the conversation, I think, that is not happening is they're throwing around this 42-minute video as proof, rock solid proof that, that there was fraud. And Whitney Wild, one of our colleagues here at CNN, spoke to Nick Shirley about this earlier today. Listen to what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: How do you know that all the allegations that you're making are true?
SHIRLEY: How do I know that they're true? Well, we showed you guys the -- we showed you guys what was happening, and then you guys can go ahead and make your own analysis.
WILD: We're coming -- so we can make our own analysis. Are you 100 percent sure you're true?
SHIRLEY: Yes, I am 100 percent sure I'm true.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, he goes to the facilities. Some of them had already been closed for some time. Minnesota officials say that each of the facilities that he visited had been visited at least once in the last six months.
[22:25:02]
And so far, they found no evidence of fraud. So, shouldn't he have to provide actual evidence of fraud before just walking up to a building and saying fraud is happening here?
CROSS: Who is he? Like who gave this guy license to go around and say, I couldn't get in the daycare centers? The doors were locked. Like nobody should be able to walk into a daycare center because the doors are locked. These random vigilante justice, something that people in this country know a lot about, these random vigilante justice seekers who ordained themselves like some sort law enforcement expert, like he's a random YouTuber.
And I just find it laughable that the party of the self-proclaimed pro-life people are celebrating cutting off funding to children. The white evangelical crowd who purports to uphold these Christian values are celebrating targeting communities because of their ethnicity and cutting off care to children. It's utterly ridiculous.
And I have to say only a deplorable human being cannot decisively say it is wrong to target this community. We all heard what Donald Trump said from the White House. To pretend that this is some sort of opinion versus this opinion, no, we hear this right now. And so we have to call these things out with outrage, with righteous indignation that this type of thing, one day it's the Somali community, the next day it's another community. What is hard about saying this is awful? What is hard about saying we should all care about children?
CARDONA: And it's not just racist and xenophobic, it's actually dangerous. Because what Donald Trump is doing in targeting this community, it's putting American citizens in danger, because it is putting a target on their back.
But there's something else that I think is really disturbing, to your point about who this YouTuber is, and that all of a sudden because he made this video that has gone viral, now DHS and FBI are putting resources into this community, all of a sudden?
PHILLIP: Well, they're not. I mean, because they actually had already --
CARDONA: But this --
PHILLIP: Well, that's the thing. I mean, those videos that we were showing, those are performative.
CARDONA: But they're pretending like they just found this out.
PHILLIP: They're walking into a deli and asking questions and then saying, have a nice day. That's not how you investigate fraud.
CARDONA: Correct.
PHILLIP: Actually, to the credit of DOJ, they have been investigating fraud. They have been prosecuting people the way that you actually prosecute people, not sending people to --
CARDONA: Right, even under Joe Biden's DOJ.
ROGIN: And there's other targeting of the Somali community before this, I mean, the Trump administration removed the temporary protective status for Somali refugees. So, there's already been a series of steps. This YouTuber is just the rooster taking credit for the sunrise, okay? And it -- the organized government effort to target this community, it was well underway. And as a parent of a three-year- old in daycare, I can tell you, the doors should be locked, okay? You got to lock the doors. I pay thousands of dollars. I can't get into that daycare center. If I go up, it's locked, okay? And I actually have a reason to be there. So, you get -- you better lock the doors.
And, by the way, they're definitely locked when the school's not on. And the guy went there before the school opened and then he is like, how come they won't let me to the school? It wasn't even open, okay?
PHILLIP: So, Pete, just real quick, I mean, cutting off HHS dollars to Minnesota, cutting off SBA dollars to Minnesota, politically, that feels like it could backfire.
SEAT: Yes. Republicans are winning this argument right now. I don't know if that's the best decision to make. I think it's an overreaction. Hopefully, it's overturned, or at least the legitimately operating daycare centers receive the funds that that are appropriated to them.
But a couple things here, shining a brighter national light on this story is what may finally bring fraud to an end in the state of Minnesota. The Fox affiliate in Minneapolis, St. Paul, today rehashed all the investigatory work that they have done dating back to 2013. This has been happening since 2013, at least.
CARDONA: And it's being covered since 2013.
SEAT: And (INAUDIBLE) governor since 2019, Tim Walz, who is the conspiracy is incompetent leadership. He has been overseeing a state that is allowing fraud to happen rapidly all across the country.
PHILLIP: I'm glad that Republicans have woken up to the incredible investigative work that's been done by local journalists and national journalists on this story for many, many years. So, I'm glad. I'm glad that that's finally something that they're paying attention to.
Next for us, some breaking news tonight, a Wall Street Journal report about why Jeffrey Epstein was banned from Mar-a-Lago. The details on that in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:33:41]
PHILLIP: Breaking news, "The Wall Street Journal" is out with a new report describing the fallout between President Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. "The Journal" reports that a spa worker from Mar-a-Lago often made house calls to Jeffrey Epsteins home two miles away, even though Epstein didn't pay dues, according to former Mar-a-Lago and Epstein employees.
But those house calls, quote, came to a halt in 2003 after an 18-year- old beautician returned to the club from a house call to Epstein and reported to managers that he had pressured her for sex, according to former employees. They report that from there, the HR manager faxed Trump a letter suggesting that the club ban Epstein and Trump agreed that he should be kicked out, which does mirror the president's own public comments about why he cut ties with Epstein.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: For years, I wouldn't talk to Jeffrey Epstein. I wouldn't talk because he did something that was inappropriate. He hired help and I said, don't ever do that again. He stole people that work for me. I said, don't ever do that again. He did it again, and I threw him out of the place, persona non grata. I threw him out and that was it. I'm glad I did if you want to know the truth.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: The White House is responding to "The Wall Street Journal" writing, "No matter how many times this story is told and retold, the truth remains President Trump did nothing wrong, and he kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago for being a creep."
[22:35:07]
They're not entirely the same, because stealing an employee and, sexually harassing an employee, or maybe even assaulting them, not quite the same. But this does sort of add to more of a sense of what was going on between Trump and Epstein at this time.
HONIG: Yeah, the stories aren't quite identical, but it's pretty close. I mean, this new reporting generally supports what Donald Trump has been saying for some time now, that they had a falling out over Jeffrey Epstein's gross conduct towards young Mar-a-Lago employees. So, I don't know why the White House is pushing back so hard.
I mean, I'm not a PR person, but I think I would say good. Yeah, this is -- this is more or less --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: They're not pushing back. They're saying it corroborates the president's story, which it absolutely does. And the president has said this. His staff has said this. Weve argued this out here many times. He cut ties with Jeffrey Epstein long before Epstein became a convicted sex offender. A lot of Democrats didn't. A Democrat toadies did not, but Donald Trump did. That's always been the president's story, and it is corroborated by "The Wall Street Journal" tonight.
HONIG: I mean, there's a really important date, but to Scott's point, a cutoff date in my point, which is 2006, '07, '08, which is when he comes under investigation by the feds in Florida, he ends up taking a plea. A state level softball plea to soliciting a minor for prostitution. So, people have a different set of answers, questions to answer if they were hanging around him, pre-2006 versus post.
JENNINGS: And this happened in 0303.
PHILLIP: Can I -- I mean, not to quibble too deeply with this, but it is interesting to me that Trump -- he doesn't ever mention the conduct toward women, which is at the heart of the whole Epstein thing. That's at the heart of these the complaints that came to him from a manager, which is that not that he was trying to take the employees, but that he was propositioning them. Some of them were very young.
And the president doesn't ever seem to mention that or anything about that. And all the times that he talks about Epstein, I'm confused about that. I don't understand why he finds it so hard to just acknowledge what we all know, which is that Jeffrey Epstein was a creep and that he was molesting girls, and that's why he was prosecuted for it.
SEAT: That's what we all know in 2025. We don't know the extent of the knowledge that the --
PHILLIP: That was -- I mean, it's -- SEAT: Private citizens Donald Trump --
PHILLIP: Those comments are 2025. I mean, he's -- he was asked about it so many times this year and he doesn't really ever talk about that.
SEAT: But he's also talking about the past. And when he has talked about this situation. Yes. "The Wall Street Journal" has some new details, but this is essentially what Donald Trump has been saying for months that Jeffrey Epstein was stealing Mar-a-Lago spa employees. And that's what the reporting today is about spa employees.
CROSS: But I think if you're kicking somebody out of your club, that you would make the point that this guy was sexually assaulting or is accused of sexually assaulting girls, I wanted nothing to do with him. He doesn't do that.
And I think part of the reason is because he has also made questionable comments about young women. When he was running the Miss Teen USA comments, he made comments about -- he -- first of all, he would go in the dressing room where girls as young as 15 were getting dressed and he made jokes about having to sleep with some of the contestants.
I think energy attracts, and so this became a huge story because they thought the Clintons were attached to the Epsteins. And then you come to realize it actually is not a political story. This is a story about young women being abused. I think when you have people who constantly try to say, oh, but the Democrats didn't do this, what are they trying to pull attention away from? How in the world is this a political story?
SEAT: We're trying to remind everyone that the Democrats did absolutely nothing for four years.
CROSS: Maybe we should remind people that young girls are being sexually assaulted, and maybe that should take priority.
SEAT: They were sexually assaulted when --
CROSS: To your point --
SEAT: -- Joe Biden was president, too.
(CROSSTALK)
CROSS: That's the point.
CARDONA: It's not a political issue.
CROSS: It's not something to laugh about either. I don't --
(CROSSTALK)
SEAT: They didn't care for four years.
(CROSSTALK) CARDONA: Here's the point, Pete.
CROSS: A lot of people care --
CARDONA: Donald Trump -- Donald Trump is absolutely unable to recognize and acknowledge the suffering of the survivors of the victims. The other day, when he talked about the latest whatever came out of the Epstein files, you know, last week he talked about how reputations of men were being ruined. He was never able to say the survivors deserve justice.
And the problem with everything else that he's saying, that he never did anything wrong. And, you know, which is what the White House just said in the statement, then why haven't they put everything out? This is what the American people constantly come back to.
If Donald Trump has nothing to hide, he should have put everything out from the very beginning and not had a court order or the Congress say you have to put everything out. That makes him look guilty as hell.
(CROSSTALK)
SEAT: Just 30-day deadline.
HONIG: So let me pick up on that. So here we are. It's December 30th. Those documents were due. All of them. The law says all by 11 days ago, by December 19th. Now DOJ has botched this right.
[22:40:00]
They started on the 19th.
But I want to draw attention. Yeah, they're late. And yeah, the search bar didn't work. And yeah, the rollout has been messy. That's not great.
The bigger problem is DOJ is not following the letter of the law that was passed for 427-1 in the House, unanimously in the Senate, signed by Donald Trump. The law says two things that they're ignoring. One of them is that you cannot redact out names of people because it might harm the reputation. Ordinarily, you would do that, but this law says you can't do that, and they're just ignoring it.
The other thing is the law says DOJ has to produce their internal memos, their prosecution memos. What are the strengths and weaknesses of this case? Should we give this guy a deal or not? And you know, why not?
Now again, ordinarily at DOJ you'd never produce that. But this law, which everybody except one person voted for or signed says they have to do it. But Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche and Kash Patel have decided were going to ignore those provisions of law. I don't know what Congress is going to do about it, or the president who signed this law himself.
PHILLIP: Probably not a whole lot. HONIG: I would guess.
PHILLIP: But we'll see in the New Year.
Donald Trump's foreign policy focused end to the year is not over yet. What it shows about how far he thinks he can extend MAGA's reach. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:45:36]
PHILLIP: MAGA may mean "Make America Great Again", but is President Trump appearing to spread his doctrine to the rest of the world? The recent strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and a dock on Venezuela's coast revealed just how Trump hopes to use his influence to bend countries to his will.
Weve already seen it all in the corners of the globe in Trump's second term. In Argentina, he's using the economic bailout as leverage to help his MAGA ally, Javier Milei, remain in power. Trump boycotted the G20 summit in South Africa this year and banned the country from next year's summit in Miami. He did all of that over unfounded claims that white South Africans face, quote, genocide.
And Trump called European leaders weak for not controlling migration. Now it seems that Trump is touching every corner of the globe, and it's a far cry from what he said during his first term.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We are not the policeman of the world.
We more and more are not wanting to be the policeman of the world. And we're spending tremendous amounts of money for decades on policing the world. And that shouldn't be our priority.
I want to help all of our allies, but we are losing billions and billions of dollars. We cannot be the policeman of the world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Josh Rogin is back with us. But I guess we are policing at least some of the world now.
ROGIN: Right. I mean, to be fair to President Trump, American presidents interfering in the internal policies of foreign countries is not new. Every American president has done that. It's kind of our thing, for better or worse. What's different this time is, as you pointed out, is that he said he wasn't going to do that.
And also, he seems to be doing that on behalf of a very specific, politically aligned or financially aligned set of leaders. Some are more right wing MAGA-y kind of leaders, and some are just dictators who are willing to give him planes. And if you can give him a plane, then you get the policy you want. Or if you're going to be the kind of right wing politician, then you can also get the policy you want.
So, there's a balance between the American interest and what the president wants. And now that balance is way out of whack. And the Venezuela example is pretty instructive here, because we know that the justification is flimsy because it changes all the time. The president says it's about drugs. And then the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, goes on the record and says it's about regime change. So does she know something that he doesn't know? Does he know something she doesn't know?
The bottom line is that if there is a Trump Doctrine, that doctrine is inconsistency and that doctrine is unpredictability and chaos. And it's not all bad. Sometimes good things happen. But in terms of any other country in the world, especially our allies, it's pretty disastrous.
SEAT: I think the difference is he does it with a megaphone. When previous administrations meddle in the internal affairs of other countries, it's clandestine. They don't want people to know. It's done under the radar.
Donald Trump -- nothing just stays in his head. It comes out of his mouth. So, if he thinks it, we're going to find out about it.
ROGIN: That's not a good thing.
SEAT: But I think -- but I think, well, there's a lot of people who like that transparency.
ROGIN: Yeah. Like Putin.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I'm sure the CIA. I'm sure the --
SEAT: -- every single day, I mean, let's be honest, Josh, Americans love the fact that he says what's on his mind. But also what's different, I think, is he came in and it took him some time --
(CROSSTALK)
ROGIN: Those are Americans, too. They don't like it.
SEAT: Can I finish? It took him some time to get acquainted with the fact that America commands the largest presence on the world stage. And when we speak, people listen. When we send a meeting invitation, people show up. When peace happens, it's typically because America is at the table.
Donald Trump finally came to realize that. And what does he love more than anything else? Being the decider, being the decision maker, being the guy that makes things happen.
And globally, presidents have a lot more latitude to do that than they do domestically, where they have to deal with Congress and governors and state governments. CARDONA: But the problem with the way that he's doing it is, you know,
Abby, you talked about how he's trying to bend everyone to his will. That's not how you run a -- the focus on global peace, right?
And what my question is to the people who know MAGA is he promised during the campaign to not start any additional foreign wars or frankly, meddle into other people's issues.
[22:50:03]
And number -- the other thing I would say, number two, is when he gives, for example, Argentina $40 billion. And people here can't even make ends meet, that is not a way to get people politically on your side.
JENNINGS: It's a currency swap. We didn't give them --
CARDONA: Our allies.
JENNINGS: It's a currency swap that we made a profit on --
(CROSSTALK)
CARDONA: Our allies -- our allies also around the world are laughing at us behind his back. Sure, they praise him. They give him fake peace prizes, but behind his back, they are laughing at him. And they are -- they are playing him like a fiddle.
PHILLIP: As part of this turnaround of Trump's. I mean, a little bit to your point, he's also authorized a number of airstrikes just in the last year. Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, Iran, the Caribbean, the eastern Pacific.
Again, MAGA feels like they were aligned with Trump because he was not going to be doing things like that. He was not going to decide that there was a problem in Nigeria. He needs to fix it by dropping bombs. And now, all of a sudden, that's happening. But where does it end?
JENNINGS: No. MAGA very much wants him to defend the Christians who are the subject of a genocide in Nigeria. That's number one.
Number two, Trump's never been an isolationist. I know that's sort of the popular mythology about him. And some people have tried to ascribe this to him. He was not an isolationist in his first term.
He's never really ascribed himself isolationist tendencies. He's more than willing to engage when he felt like it made sense. When he engaged to take out the Iranian nuclear weapons program, righteous attack.
In terms of the western hemisphere, he has multiple goals when it comes to Venezuela. Obviously, the drugs are part of it. The oil is part of it. Also, China is a big player in the oil situation down there. And you do want American interests at play. He's got that to balance. Also, we don't even recognize Maduro as the legitimate leader of
Venezuela. And so, he's got -- he's got a lot of things going on in his own backyard that he did promise the American people. He was going to do something about, starting with the drugs, which is a real thing. And he's got massive political support.
ROGIN: You know, I agree with you, Scott. He's not an isolationist. If anything, he's kind of like a neo realist. And he believes in a world where, you know, we divide the world into three spheres of influence, and we get in the western hemisphere and China gets the Asia and Russia gets Europe. And that made a lot of sense in the 18th century, when oceans were borders and not highways.
But in the 21st century, it makes no sense at all. They call it the new Monroe Doctrine, in the new national security strategy. Some people call it the Donroe Doctrine. And this is a very kind of bastardization of what President Monroe actually thought.
But setting that aside, the bottom line is that bombing drug boats is the most showy and least effective way to fight the drug war.
CARDONA: Exactly.
ROGIN: And bombing and sending a bunch of Tomahawk missiles into some camp in Nigeria, that's not even the part of Nigeria where they're killing the Christians is not defending the Christians. So, it doesn't make any sense. It's just for show.
CARDONA: They're all fine.
ROGIN: And, by the way, we shouldn't have a foreign policy that defends one religion over the other because we have a secular country that doesn't choose religions. Even if MAGA wants to choose religion, our government and our military is not supposed to do that.
CROSS: And this, this --
ROGIN: This could go on.
CROSS: But this is the biggest military buildup in the western hemisphere since the Cuban missile crisis. This is a very serious issue that we're looking at. And so, when you say like, oh, you know, they rally behind -- MAGA rally behind him because of these foreign policy issues, maybe, just maybe, that was not the reason they rallied behind him. Maybe they used that as an excuse.
I would dare to ask some of these middle America people that apparently are the only real Americans. I imagine those people probably don't look like me. When you think middle America and real Americans, I would imagine -- let's ask them, what do you think of Trump's foreign policy? Or better yet, can you point out Venezuela on a map? Can you name Iran's proxies?
SEAT: So, you're attacking your fellow Americans now saying that they're dumb?
CROSS: I'm calling --
SEAT: Number one.
CROSS: Yes.
SEAT: Number two, they trust Donald Trump.
(CROSSTALK)
CARDONA: Do they?
SEAT: Yes!
(CROSSTALK)
SEAT: -- out to Indiana --
(CROSSTALK)
CROSS: If I'm not clear about that, let me be clear. I'm calling for people --
PHILLIP: All right. We got to go here.
Coming up next for us, remembering a member of the Kennedy family who wrote just last month about her grueling battle with a rare form of blood cancer. Tatiana Schlossberg has died at 35. Her words and her legacy just ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:58:47]
PHILLIP: Some sad news tonight. Tatiana Schlossberg, an environmental journalist and the granddaughter of President John F. Kennedy has died. Her family announced today.
She was 35 years old. In November, Schlossberg penned a deeply moving essay about -- in "The New Yorker" about her battle with a rare and aggressive form of blood cancer. She would ultimately succumb to it. It was entitled "A Battle With My Blood".
Schlossberg wrote of how she learned of her diagnosis following the birth of her daughter in 2024. That piece drew sympathy around the world for how it grappled with unimaginable loss.
Now, reflecting on her diagnosis, she wrote, "I did not -- could not believe that they were talking about me. I had swum a mile in the pool that day before, nine months pregnant. I wasn't sick, I didn't feel sick. I was actually one of the healthiest people I knew. This could not possibly be my life."
Before her illness, Tatiana Schlossberg had been preparing to write her second book on climate change and its effects on the world's oceans. She is survived by her parents, her siblings, her husband George Moran, and their two young children. My deepest condolences go to the Schlossberg and Kennedy families
tonight.
The second hour of NEWSNIGHT starts right now.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP (voice-over): Tonight, live at the table, Scott Jennings, Joel Payne, Tiffany Cross.
