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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Says He's In Charge Of Venezuela After Ousting Maduro; Oil, Drugs, Democracy, Trump White House's Shifting Reasons For Venezuela; Trump Threatens Other Nations After Venezuelan Incursion; Pentagon To Punish Senator Mark Kelly Over Seditious Video; Minnesota Governor Tim Walz Ends His Reelection Bid Owing To A Fraud Scandal, Blames President Trump. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired January 05, 2026 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST (voice over): Tonight, oil, drugs, or democracy. Donald Trump's conflicting reasons for the brazen capture of Nicolas Maduro.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: We are in charge. We're going to run it.
PHILLIP: Plus, the president puts other nations on notice, warning they may be next, forcing critics to sound the alarm on international law.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Abandoning it would carry consequences of the gravest kind.
PHILLIP: Also warranted or un-American. Pete Hegseth punishes Mark Kelly for a similar message the defense secretary once issued about illegal orders.
And the Democrat who's become the right's favorite punching bag is getting out of the ring.
GOV. TIM WALZ (D-MN): So, I've decided to step out of this race and I'll let others worry about the election.
Live at the table, Bakari Sellers, Batya Ungar-Sargon, Congressman Jason Crow, Caroline Downey, 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.
Let's get right to what America's talking about. You break it, you buy it, the question on the minds of Americans tonight after the Trump administration's audacious incursion into Venezuela. So, after Nicolas Maduro's capture, who exactly is in charge of that country? Well, Donald Trump says he is.
The declaration comes as Maduro pleaded not guilty to drugs and weapons charges inside a New York City courtroom today, saying he was kidnapped and that he's still the president of his country.
While the administration has been taking a victory lap, the reason for the intervention depends on who you ask.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHEN MILLER, WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF: We're not going to let tin pot communist dictators send rapists into our country, send drugs into our country.
PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: And then, of course, the drugs and the cartels, the poisoning of the American people, the violence Tren de Aragua that it brought to our shores.
SEN. MARKWAYNE MULLIN (R-OK): Venezuelan people want to get back to a democracy.
MARCO RUBIO, SECRETARY OF STATE: We all wish to see a bright future for Venezuela, a transition to democracy.
SEN. TOM COTTON (R-AR): What we want is a future of Venezuelan government that will be pro-American.
KRISTI NOEM, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: So, we're looking for a leader that will stand up beside us and embrace those freedoms and liberties for the Venezuelan people.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is about preserving America's independence and freedom.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Of course it is.
TRUMP: Nobody has ever stolen our property like they have. They took our oil away from us, all that infrastructure's rotted and decayed. And the oil companies are going to go in and rebuild it.
What we want to do is fix up the oil, fix up the country, bring the country back, and then have elections.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: All of that in the last 48 hours or so. The president says he's running the country. Marco Rubio says, actually, no, we're not. We're just giving guidance and hoping that they go along based on the threat of military action. Then it's a question of is it about the oil, as Trump says, or is it about all those other things? And if it were about democracy, where's the democracy? Does this make any sense to you, Congressman?
REP. JASON CROW (D-CO): Abby. No, it doesn't. I am haunted by the ghosts of Iraq and Afghanistan here, where we spent 20 years, trillions of dollars, thousands of American lives, decades of lost credibility, and the American people have had enough with interventions like this. They've had enough of nation building. They've had enough of focusing on things other than the cost of living, the cost of housing, the cost of healthcare. Nothing that happened this past weekend is making the lives of Americans better, right?
And if you want to talk about drugs, which is a huge problem, by the way, a huge problem, it's devastating and it's destroying our communities and our children, it's fentanyl that's largely driving that, you know, not cocaine largely, but fentanyl. And Fentanyl does not come from Venezuela.
JOSH ROGIN, LEAD GLOBAL SECURITY ANALYST, WASHINGTON POST INTELLIGENCE: Yes, I think it's obvious that the administration is talking out of both sides of his mouth. If the secretary of state says, we're not running it, and the U.N. ambassador says we're not running it, and then the president says we are running it, obviously, they're not on the same page. And so the fact that we've taken this very risky, very aggressive move to arrest a foreign leader and then determine that it's our job to determine the political and economic future of this country with zero people on the ground, and we can't even get our story straight is not a good sign.
[22:05:11]
We're in day three of this thing and it's a total mess, okay? And anyone who's being honest has got to be admit that it's a total mess. And the hypocrisy is obvious because if he says it's about law enforcement, then why are the ships still there because we already got the guy? And if he says it's about oil, well we don't use our military to grab oil from countries. We don't use our military to settle disputes. And, by the way, it's not our oil, it's their oil, okay? They -- it's the Venezuelans' oil. And if they violated a contract, then that's not what the U.S. military is for. So, it's kind of a disaster, to be honest.
PHILLIP: Let me play a little bit more of Trump because, I mean, this is part of a pattern of Trump really not taking anything off the table, even while his aides might be trying to do their -- do that on the side over there. Here's what he said on Sunday about whether he's willing to put boots on the ground again in Venezuela.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: You always say, boots on the ground. Oh, so we're not afraid of boots on the ground if we have to have. We had boots on the ground last night at a very high level actually. We're not afraid of it. We don't mind saying it. But we are going to make sure that that country is run properly.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Batya, I just wonder, first of all, A, how is he going to make sure that the country is, quote/unquote, run properly, and, B, is that now on the table, boots on the ground in Venezuela again beyond just the operation to get Maduro out? BATYA UNGAR-SARGON, NEWSNATION HOST, BATYA!: It's very funny to me because it seems like you guys are acting like, because a simple operation that was very successful could have accomplished many goals, therefore, it couldn't have accomplished any of them.
I say this with all due respect, sir. I'm so grateful to you for the service you've provided to this country, but Venezuela is not Afghanistan. 25 years ago, there was a functioning democracy there. It's just apples and oranges to compare it. There is no way Donald Trump is going to put boots on the ground there. That's what the ships are there for to not have to do that.
What they're doing right now is beyond brilliant because instead of rushing in and appointing Maria Machado, for example, they're saying, let's wait and see where the Venezuelan people are at. Let's wait until we can have an election. You can't just do that overnight. And so they are sitting there and watching and calibrating and making sure, by the way, that the Venezuelan people, as well as now the new president, understand that whatever they do, this better be good for the United States because we're not afraid to use our power --
(CROSSTALKS)
ROGIN: He doesn't care what the Venezuelan people think.
BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: We actually had an election in -- well, they had an election in Venezuela. So, that's a moot talking point.
And let's just tick down the list real quick so we're very clear about it. This isn't about drugs. Because the president of the United States, he just pardoned Juan Hernandez, who was convicted by an American jury, who's the former president of Honduras, okay? He was indicted and convicted by an American jury. And he was convicted of moving over 400 tons of cocaine into the United States of America. And the president said, go free, my brother, go free. So, he -- that's not about drugs.
It's not necessarily about regime change either. I think people are missing the mark, because Maduro's entire team is still there. His military is still there. It's his vice president. So, it's not about freeing Venezuelans, because if you wanted to do that, then you actually would put in a new government, you would install a new government, or, better yet, you would install the opposition leader, which he chose not to do. This is about one thing and one thing only, which is why your comparison is accurate and it strikes a chord with the American people. This is about oil. This is about oil and dollars.
And I'm tired of the president of the United States he chooses Caracas over rural health hospitals, right? He chooses Venezuelans over soybean farmers, which is --
(CROSSTALKS)
UNGAR-SARGON: Did you oppose the Biden administration putting a bounty on Maduro's head as well? SELLERS: No. Maduro's a horrible person. He needs to be shackled.
UNGAR-SARGON: But what does --
CAROLINE DOWNEY, COLUMNIST, NATIONAL REVIEW: Because Trump just acted on it.
UNGAR-SARGON: Exactly. What do you mean? Like you approve of Biden putting the bounty on his head, but not of Trump actually going out and arresting --
SELLERS: There are vastly -- those are diametrically opposed. First of all, I don't think anybody here is trumpeting that Maduro's a great person. If you are, raise your hand. See, the table is silent. So, that's first. He's oppressive. He deserves to be behind bars. I'm not arguing that point. But what I am arguing is that what we did was ill- advised on the global scale, there are other ways to go about doing that, and I am tired of America, just like many people on the left and the right, believing that we can go in and just implement our free will, utilize resources, utilize American troops, implement regime change or whatever it may be, and now we're doing it over and over again for oil. Don't lie to me.
(CROSSTALKS)
DOWNEY: No troops suffered as a result of this operation.
ROGIN: No, several troops were injured, first of all.
DOWNEY: American troops all in all unscathed. What this is, it's not about oil, to your point.
ROGIN: Many U.S. troops were injured.
DOWNEY: That's a side story. Although I do find it rich that progressives keep saying that this insinuation that we're going, you know, seize their oil because I didn't hear --
PHILLIP: That's what Trump said.
[22:10:00]
CROW: I bristled, by the way --
DOWNEY: I didn't hear a peep about --
CROW: Listen, bristled --
PHILLIP: I don't think it would be on the table if the president hadn't put it on the table.
ROGIN: And what does seize their oil mean? It means we give -- that we force them to give American oil companies preferential treatment. That's what seizes the oil means, because oil is traded on international markets by corporations. So, what Trump is going to do is he is going to pick and choose American corporations that get beneficial rights in Venezuela, and he's going to do that by threatening to kill the new leader of Venezuela, who's a Maduro apparatchik, by the way, his right hand mind --
DOWNEY: Yes. But, you know, Trump is exercising --
ROGIN: And that's a huge opportunity for --
(CROSSTALKS)
DOWNEY: But Trump is exercising --
SELLERS: Apparatchik?
ROGIN: Apparatchik.
SELLERS: Okay.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: One second, guys. Let me let Caroline finish her thought.
DOWNEY: There's one word that was not mentioned anywhere, which is strategic deterrence. It's a phrase, actually, two words. And what this was not about oil, it wasn't about drugs. That's all side stories. It was another show masterfully of Trump basically showing that he can keep Iran and Russia and China and all of our adversaries at bay. He showed that he wasn't bluffing. It wasn't empty saber- rattling.
(CROSSTALKS)
CROW: The opposite is going to happen because what clearly happened on Saturday was a message was sent the strong men and autocrats and dictators and our adversaries around the world that says if you have a big army and you have a weak neighbor, or you want something from another country, you can go and take it, and nobody's going to stop you. America's not going to stop you. The rules based order that we erected for 80 years after World War II is no longer going to stop you. It is a much, much worse --
DOWNEY: So, is it your position that our foreign foes should expand their foothold in South America? Is that your position? Because what Trump did --
CROW: No, that's not --
DOWNEY: -- was basically said, look, guys, you actually can't expand your influence over this region.
SELLERS: I don't think that that is the -- I don't think that's the proper extrapolation that he's making, and I don't mean to speak for you, Congressman. But what we are saying is that things like China and Taiwan, for example. What is to prevent that from just going off the rails now? Or Russia and Volodymyr Zelenskyy --
DOWNEY: What do you mean? ROGIN: He's undermined the idea that big countries shouldn't be able to trample on small countries, because we're a big country who just trample on small countries.
DOWNEY: A small country with an illegitimate leader.
ROGIN: Anyone can say --
(CROSSTALKS)
UNGAR-SARGON: So, your theory of the case is that China was sitting there and thinking, should I take Taiwan? Oh no, I won't take Taiwan because I never saw Trump go in there and arrest a guy who was flooding the United States with drugs and illegals and gang members.
ROGIN: Well, I would put it this way --
UNGAR-SARGON: But now that he's done that, we're going to --
(CROSSTALKS)
UNGAR-SARGON: Our adversaries are howling exactly the way that you are.
ROGIN: I disagree.
UNGAR-SARGON: Russia and China and Iran are howling because they lost access to their --
ROGIN: They didn't actually lose it, but what he's saying is not true because they actually still have the access and there's no reason to believe that Trump's scheme the way he thinks is --
UNGAR-SARGON: You can't have it both ways that he's both giving preferential treatment to American oil companies --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Batya and Josh, let me actually play what Trump said on Sunday about why the oil matters, because he has been the one talking about this. This is not just made up out of thin air. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Any commitments from oil companies?
TRUMP: They want to go in so badly.
REPORTER: Did you speak with them before the operation took place?
TRUMP: Yes.
REPORTER: Did you maybe tip them off --
TRUMP: before and after. And they want to go in.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CROW: Yes.
PHILLIP: He said that, okay? So, the oil matters because Trump thinks, it seems, that this is a get out of jail free card. He said repeatedly over the weekend that this is not going to cost the United States anything because the oil is going to pay for it.
Meantime, there's not a lot of indication that there's much value to the United States companies to drilling oil in Venezuela rather than being energized by Trump's drill, baby, drill chance at pep rallies. This is what one analyst says, the U.S. oil industry has gone into retreat. Many U.S. oil giants, like Chevron, Exxon, ConocoPhillips, Occidental, have been forced to lay off thousands of workers over the last year. Many producers are waiting for oil prices to increase before they raise production.
So, there's not really a lot of supply and demand, not a lot of interest in adding more demand onto the marketplace of global oil. But --
(CROSSTALKS)
UNGAR-SARGON: (INAUDIBLE) oil conglomerates. But if you're the American people who want affordable energy, yes, of course, we want more production.
PHILLIP: Hold on a second. Yes, but production isn't being done by the United States government. Production is being done by for-profit corporations who are not going to do things to reduce their profit. So -- but Trump --
UNGAR-SARGON: You're saying they don't want in even though they said they do?
PHILLIP: Trump doesn't seem to understand any of that, and this has now become one of the reasons, the principal reasons in his mind why this --
SELLERS: A point of clarification for Batya is that it would cost these oil companies hundreds of billions of dollars to go in and rebuild the infrastructure necessary for them to go in and refine the oil necessary for it to be used.
[22:15:07]
We're talking about American companies. And so I think what we're seeing right now is Donald Trump, the president of the United States, Republicans love to sit around this table and tell me, don't believe what the president says, like don't believe your lying eyes, right? He tells you the reason he's doing things over and over and over again. And when I repeat them, you're like, oh, you have Trump derangement syndrome. No, I can just hear and repeat, right? But oil companies, although he says this is for oil, I articulate that this is for oil. Oil companies say that this can't be for oil because it would simply cost too much and ruin our bottom line. ROGIN: I thought all these MAGA people were supposed to be against using the military to steal oil from other countries.
CROW: That to me is the key point.
ROGIN: He tries to do it and everyone flips. And I actually agree with that now, and now I'm on the other side.
CROW: But this a key point.
(CROSSTALKS)
ROGIN: Oh my God, now we got to take all their oil and we're going to kill the president of the country if he doesn't --
CROW: We're sitting here talking about whether it's feasible or not opposite, whether it's feasible to do this or not, oil this, oil that. Listen, this is not the conversation that Americans are having. Americans are over it. They do not want this type of intervention. They don't want the type of nation building quagmire that we just spent 20 years and trillions of dollars doing. We've never been good at it. We've almost always failed at it.
DOWNEY: There's no evidence this is going to escalate into that. There's no evidence of that.
CROW: Well, there was no evidence in Iraq and Afghanistan here, but we --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Let me hit pause on this conversation because we actually have a lot more on this very topic coming up. Listen, there's a new doctrine apparently on the table. It's not just Venezuela. Trump is now threatening other countries, including a NATO ally now. But who would actually stop him?
Plus, Mark Kelly responds to Pete Hegseth's punishment for telling troops to refuse illegal orders. We'll debate that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, the world is on notice emboldened by the military strike in Venezuela and the capture of its leader, Nicolas Maduro. President Trump is now threatening several other countries. He's warning that they could be next.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We need Greenland from a national security situation.
Colombia's very sick, too, run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States. And he's not going to be doing it very long. Cuba looks like it's ready to fall. I don't know how they -- if they're going to hold out.
You have to do something with Mexico. Mexico has to get their act together.
If they start killing people, like they have in the past, I think they're going to get hit very hard by the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: It's all part of Trump's bid for the Western Hemisphere dominance, but just how far is he willing to go to achieve that?
Here's what his top White House Adviser Stephen Miller had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MILLER: The United States is using its military to secure our interests unapologetically in our hemisphere. We're a superpower. And under President Trump, we are going to conduct ourselves as a superpower. It is absurd that we would allow a nation in our own backyard to become the supplier of resources to our adversaries but not to us, to hoard weapons from our adversaries, to be able to be positioned as an asset against the United States rather than on behalf of the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Now, just imagine that he was talking about China and then you see Taiwan is gone.
SELLERS: I just said that earlier.
DOWNEY: How does that make any sense though because China and Iran and Russia, they just lost a strategic partner in the --
PHILLIP: Well, let explain me why it makes sense. Let me explain why it makes sense. His rationale is we're a superpower. We can do whatever we want in our hemisphere. China says we're a superpower. We can do whatever we want. Why would we let Taiwan sell natural resources --
DOWNEY: Wait. You're talking about the Iran whose nuclear facility was just neutered and World War III did not.
PHILLIP: I'm talking about China and Taiwan.
DOWNEY: This is the triad.
PHILLIP: I didn't say -- hold on.
DOWNEY: This is the new axis of evil, right? They all work together. They're all in cahoots.
PHILLIP: Hold on, Caroline. Just -- let's just take one at a time, okay? You're Taiwan, and suddenly China says, we're not going to let you sell chips to the United States. Why would we let you sell chips to an adversary? You're in our hemisphere, you're in our backyard. We're a superpower. We're going to just take you off the map. That's the -- he seems to be laying the predicate there, Stephen Miller, since he's making policy in this White House. He's laying the predicate there for any country that sees itself as a superpower to do exactly what we just did. So, how do we stop that?
DOWNEY: But, again, you're forgetting that those adversaries you just mentioned are already neutered by Trump's very strategic --
PHILLIP: China is neutered. How?
DOWNEY: China's neutered because now one of its partners, Iran, is neutered, because they all work together. They all collaborate pretty well.
PHILLIP: China is neutered because Iran is?
DOWNEY: Do you think the message of this operation is that China will be empowered to attack Taiwan --
PHILLIP: I'm just asking you to take what he said to the logical conclusion.
ROGIN: The logical conclusion, according to President, Trump is that he thinks we're in a new Monroe Doctrine, where we control the Western Hemisphere, China gets Asia, Russia gets Europe, and we split the world into three parts. Now, that makes no sense because in the 21st century, oceans are highways, not borders, but it's also a bastardization of what James Monroe -- James Monroe must be turning in his grave right now because the whole Monroe Doctrine was about anti- intervention. It was about anti-colonialism. It was about Latin American countries being independent and sovereign.
DOWNEY: Wait, how is this imperialism? How is this colonialism or imperialism? We don't exercise any --
ROGIN: He said we're running the place and we're going to take their oil. That's the definition of it.
DOWNEY: No, he's exercising leverage over Maduro's deputy, which is a good thing, because as you pointed out, rightfully. She has a lot of skeletons in her closet and she's very much part of the regime.
ROGIN: So, the point is when China goes into the third world, they come with economic offerings and benefits and infrastructure and we say, if you don't give us everything you got, we're going to kill you, okay?
[22:25:06]
Which of those do you think is going to work over the long-term?
SELLERS: But, I mean, can we just back up --
ROGIN: We're driving -- do you know the Colombian president's polls numbers have gone way up in the last week?
SELLERS: Can we back up just a little bit?
ROGIN: He's the most popular leader now because of what Trump did. He's actually bolstering his enemies and driving them into our enemies arms.
SELLERS: Let's back up just slightly because you're right. But also one of the --
ROGIN: That's the opposite of what he wanted to do.
SELLERS: but that's also one of the problems with this foreign policy that dates back -- nothing happens in a vacuum. And when we go back and we look at Elon Musk, for example, and we look at USAID, one of the problems that many people had when we talked about foreign policy was the fact that we actually had some soft power, right? We would go into these countries, we would do things like develop these programs, things that China is doing in this hemisphere that they still will be doing, things that China's doing in Africa, which we've advocated. We pulled ourselves out. So, where is China growing their influence?
Now, is China weaker because they lose 10 percent of their oil reserves? Yes. What does that have to do with the debt that China -- that our debt that China holds? Not much of anything. Is China still a superpower? Hell, yes. Will they flex their muscle against Taiwan? You bet against that, if you want to. But I think we also have to look at a foreign policy that's run by tweets. We have a foreign policy that is disheveled. We don't even -- you all don't even have talking points about what the objectives were for kidnapping Nicolas Maduro.
And the last part about it is, to your point, Democrats have to hammer this, hammer this, hammer this, and stop writing these long-ass tweets and essays. Like he is choosing Venezuelans over Americans, he's choosing Caracas over the needs of these people, of our soybean farmers. We are actually talking about Greenland instead of inflation. Like we're talking about defending other countries.
CROW: Well, on Saturday, he said -- on Saturday, he said, we're going to spend billions of dollars rebuilding their infrastructure, right? This is a man who campaigned largely as an isolationist, who campaigned about pulling back in ending conflict. And in the first year of his administration, we've bombed Iran, Yemen, now we've gone after Venezuela as well as many others. I mean, this man doesn't see a problem that --
SELLERS: Nigeria.
(CROSSTALKS)
CROW: He doesn't think he can bomb his way out of or use the military to do.
And, frankly, I'm sorry, as a three-time combat veteran in Iraq in Afghanistan, I bristle when a five-time draft dodger bangs the war drums in Washington, D.C., because when elites bang the war drums in Washington, D.C., what happens is some young kid in a rural town, in middle America, in places where I grew up, has to pick up a rifle, jump into a tank, jump into a helicopter, and do the tough thing. It's never Donald Trump. It's never people like Stephen Miller. They never have to do this tough -- the tough stuff. It's people like me and the people that I grew up that have to do it.
And America, again, is over all of this, right? They want peace. They want restraint. They want people to be smart about the use of power. Yes, they want toughness, but they want smart toughness.
PHILLIP: Let me play a little bit more from Stephen Miller. This is where he decries that after World War II we've been abiding by, you know, the rules that we created after that war. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MILLER: For years, we sent our soldiers to die in deserts in the Middle East to try to build them parliaments, to try to build them democracies, to try to give them more oil, to try to give them more resources. The future of the free world, Jake, depends on America being able to assert ourselves and our interests without apology.
This whole period that happened after World War II, where the west began apologizing and groveling and begging and engaging these vast reparation schemes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I mean, it's hard to know exactly what he's talking about, but he seems to be lamenting the idea that after World War II, we created a global order in which we said, hey, countries, don't run around invading each other. Don't depose people just because you can. Why is that such a bad thing that he wants to be gotten rid of?
UNGAR-SARGON: So, again, I say this with all due respect to your service, sir, and the perspective that you bring to this table, which I truly admire. But I really think this comes down to whether, you know, the world, that post-World War world order was working or whether it wasn't. And if you were part of the elites in America, it was really working for you. And if you were working class, it really wasn't.
Look at how far China got under that rules-based order. Look at what has been done to this country, the mass migration, the fleecing of the American --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Hold on. Before you jump in, Bakari, and before you jump in --
UNGAR-SARGON: It comes down to whether you think that to crime and drugs and mass migration were bad and an emergency or not.
PHILLIP: Batya, let me ask you to answer your own question. How has the United States done since World War II? How have we done? UNGAR-SARGON: Well, we did great until 1971.
PHILLIP: No. How --
UNGAR-SARGON: And starting in 1971 --
PHILLIP: No seriously, answer your own question.
[22:30:00]
UNGAR-SARGON: The elites got very wealthy, and they ate up 60 percent of the GDP.
PHILLIP: How are we doing right now vis-a-vis the rest of the world?
UNGAR-SARGON: I don't care about the rest of the world, Abby. I care about the American working class and the American people. I'm answering your question, let me answer your question.
PHILLIP: You just suggested that it was such a bad thing for the United States.
UNGAR-SARGON: Yes. Deaths of despair.
PHILLIP: We are the number one superpower in the world.
UNGAR-SARGON: Cratering life expectancy for working class people.
PHILLIP: We are the top economy in the world. We are the guarantor of peace in the world.
UNGAR-SARGON: Not everybody enjoys that, the top 10 percent have eaten up 60 percent of the GDP.
PHILLIP: Listen, income inequality is a huge problem. But there is no question, none at all, for by any objective measure, that the United States was not the greatest beneficiary of the world order that we created after World War two.
UNGAR-SARGON: Tell that to your mom whose kids died of a fentanyl overdose, Abby.
BAKARI SELLERS (D), CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR AND FORMER SOUTH CAROLINA STATE REPRESENTATIVE: Respectfully, we're not asking.
UNGAR-SARGON: I'm sorry.
SELLERS: Respectfully, we're not asking.
UNGAR-SARGON: But it has not been great for everybody.
PHILLIP: Bakari, can you just give me a second?
SELLERS: Sure.
PHILLIP: Thank you. Batya. UNGAR-SARGON: Yes.
PHILLIP: Listen. There is income inequality in the world. There are drug overdoses and deaths in this country that are way out of control.
But we're talking about the big picture of where we were at the end of World War II and where we are today. And the United States has guaranteed peace, prosperity, and security around the world for that entire period of time. And we have done it and been the primary beneficiary. Not China. But us.
UNGAR-SARGON: I want to answer.
PHILLIP: So the question I'm asking you and Stephen Miller is what time period exactly are we going back to? Are we talking about colonialism? Do we want colonies? Do we want to invade Greenland? We want to steal it from a NATO ally? We want to dissolve NATO? What are we doing?
UNGAR-SARGON: All right. So starting in 1971, working class wages stagnated. So working class people are making around the same amount of --
PHILLIP: And you think that's because after World War --
UNGAR-SARGON: Can I -- I want to answer your very good question. I want to answer this very good question, Abby.
PHILLIP: But you think that's because after World War two, we told countries to stop invading each other?
UNGAR-SARGON: Starting in 1965, we implemented a policy of mass migration to where the percentage of foreign-born Americans right now is higher than it's ever been in American history. That led to the disinheritance of the American working class that is very tied to our foreign policy.
PHILLIP: So your code word of policy of mass migration is really what you're talking about, is that we stopped saying that only Europeans could come to the United States.
UNGAR-SARGON: No, we offshored manufacturing to China.
PHILLIP: I'm just trying to decode for the Americans that we don't--
UNGAR-SARGON: We offshored manufacturing to China.
PHILLIP: I'm not into the euphemisms here. If you're talking about 1965 and mass migration, what you're talking about is a policy that said that you don't have to be from Europe to come to the United States. You can be a talented person, a person with potential from anywhere in the world.
UNGAR-SARGON: No Abby, all the immigration restrictions before that were on Europeans, like Jews, who they didn't want to let in. So that's not right. It's not about race at all, it's not about Europe. It is about the difference between being an American and not being an
American. And we sold that difference out through that post-war world order. And that is why people vote for Donald Trump.
SELLERS: The question is wrong, respectfully for the past conversation, is because people at this table are attempting to articulate that somehow the working class in America has had a rough go at it, right? That's your argument. The working class.
My question to you is, how does a presence of America in Honduras, in Colombia, in Cuba, or in Greenland, help working class Americans?
UNGAR-SARGON: Well, I can answer it for Venezuela.
CAROLINE DOWNEY, "NATIONAL REVIEW" COLUMNIST: Okay, well, I'll answer it for you. If the regime is more stabilized, and I just said before that we do have a large amount of leverage over Maduro's deputy, even though she still represents a communist regime.
But if it's more stabilized, there will be less migration pushed by poverty. I mean, they might have a chance at prosperity now.
SELLERS: But you didn't even do regime change, right? And you just articulated what we went through.
PHILLIP: What do you mean by stable? What do you mean by stable?
SELLERS: It's the same government.
PHILLIP: It's Maduro's government. So what's more stable?
DOWNEY: But we have leverage over that government now because we just abducted the dictator and took him to the United States.
PHILLIP: But you recognize that the problem with the Maduro regime wasn't just Maduro, right? It's the whole regime that's predicated on oppression, violence, narco-terrorism, the whole thing, right?
DOWNEY: Listen, I don't think it's long-term sustainable to keep the deputy there. However, we've already seen Maduro's deputy say that she's going to start possibly putting resources on the free market, maybe implementing market reforms. That means communism could eventually end in Venezuela, which means less migration to America, which means less downward pressure on Americans' wages, which means less disenfranchise of the working class in America.
SELLERS: Oh, so now they're taking our jobs.
DOWNEY: Wait a minute.
SELLERS: But hold on. Can we back up real quick?
DOWNEY: Batya, they're taking your job.
SELLERS: Can we back up one second?
UNGAR-SARGON: They're not taking his job. They're taking my job.
SELLERS: One second.
DOWNEY: You call our working class jobs, which is very important.
[22:35:08]
SELLERS: Your argument to the hardworking middle class American in, say, Detroit, Michigan right now, right, who is struggling for groceries, right, whose car insurance has gone up, whose health care prices have gone up, who don't have access to quality care, whose schools are failing, is that by going into Venezuela and taking the leader and abducting him, right, then maybe actually having pressure on the regime that he had installed in Venezuela will change something in Venezuela, thereby eliminating some of the migration and migrationary pressures is going to help you survive in Detroit.
DOWNEY: It's less competition. You know, there are five conflicts. And also, it's not just competition. It's strained on our social services and resources.
Migration does cost Americans a lot, especially when it's unfettered like it was under the Obama administration.
SELLERS: So let me ask you, would you like --
DOWNEY: Hospitals, schools, public services--
PHILLIP: We do have to go to break. We do have to go to break.
Next for us, it's the secretary of defense against a highly decorated Navy veteran and senator, how the Pentagon now wants to make one of its own pay for speaking out against the White House.
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[22:40:00]
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PHILLIP: The Pentagon is seeking to punish Senator Mark Kelly for speaking out against Trump. The Navy veteran was one of six Democratic lawmakers who took part in this video, reminding U.S. troops about their duty to defy illegal orders.
Now, Pete Hegseth called Kelly's statement seditious, and he issued a letter of censure. He said the department is going to cut Kelly's retirement pay.
In response, Kelly called Hegseth the most unqualified Defense Secretary in history. And he added that he will not be intimidated and plans to fight back.
Congressman, you were also part of this video as well. What do you make of this move to punish Mark Kelly? REP. JASON CROW (D-CO), MEMBER, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE AND HOUSE
ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE, AND FORMER ARMY RANGER: Let's call this what this is.
This is Donald Trump and his cronies in the administration weaponizing the federal government to punish political opponents, to silence dissent and opposition. That's what's happening. There's no merit to the allegations.
They are simply trying to seek vengeance on me, Mark Kelly, and others for speaking up, but they've picked on the wrong people. We are people that have taken an oath to this country. We are not going to back down ever.
We're going to double down, triple down if we have to, because we are dedicated to the Constitution and to the rule of law. What we did and what we reminded our service members of is the simple obligation that they also have an oath to follow the rule of law.
PHILLIP: By the way, Pete Hegseth also reminded service members of, in the first Trump administration, before he backed Trump, when he was worried that Trump would issue illegal orders, should he be worried that the next President might court-martial him, censure him, dock his retirement pay?
DOWNEY: Well, look, I'll say, I was reading Jonathan Turley, he's a legal scholar, and he says the Brits are the ones who gave us this idea of sedition, and we definitely use that too loosely. Not everything is sedition, not everything is a punishable crime, and this video, I believe, was protected speech, and it does not constitute such a high crime.
And I want to thank you for your service, Congressman. My dad was a captain in Vietnam, and he taught me a thing or two about chain of command, and when I saw this video, I was shocked, because it felt reckless. It felt like it was undermining the chain of command of good order and discipline among troops and service members, so I want to ask you honestly, why the video, why make a video when most service members already are aware that they can object to illegal orders if they find them to be that way?
So, was it a P.R. stunt, because it certainly came across that way, it poked all the right buttons with the Trump administration, and I'm not saying that what they're doing against Mark Kelly is justified, but I also think it was pure resistance theater, and I don't think that was a very productive use of your time as six very honorable former service members.
CROW: Let me answer your question with a story. Before I deployed to Iraq with my platoon of paratroopers, I knew that these young men, 18, 19, 20 years old, were about to be thrust into a very foreign, very volatile, very scary situation.
So I gathered them around in our main room in the barracks, and I showed them the film "Platoon." And in that movie, there is a scene where that platoon, under extreme duress and fear, ends up committing a massacre. It actually was an illustration of the My Lai Massacre, which really happened in real life.
And then I led a discussion with my paratroopers, and I asked them, how did this happen? How did they lose sight of their humanity? How did they lose sight of who they were as people?
And they become the aggressors. So it was that discussion that led the groundwork, that laid the groundwork so that when we were in combat, when we were in the fog of war, and they had to make split-second decisions about what was right and wrong, and whether to shoot or not, they had already received the training.
If you wait until the last minute, you have failed them. We started a conversation about what the law and constitution requires of our soldiers, and that's what every commander should do.
So instead of undermining the chain of command, it actually reinforces the chain of command and what the obligation of our soldiers are morally, ethically, and legally. And I will never back down from that obligation, because we have a commander-in-chief who has threatened to use the military to shoot protesters, threatened to send the military to polling stations, which is a violation of U.S. law, which committed a second strike in the Caribbean, which I think was a violation of law.
[22:45:10]
All of these things give me grave concern right now, and that is why Mark Kelly, I, and others are reminding our service members and standing by them that they have an obligation to follow the law.
PHILLIP: Quick response, Caroline.
DOWNEY: And I hear you on that, but I will note that one of the senators in the video, when asked what specific instances of illegal military orders were you alluding to, because it wasn't specific, it was very ambiguous, which I also thought was irresponsible.
If you're going to make these accusations that Trump, as commander-in- chief, is giving illegal orders, maybe name one, two?
CROW: I literally just answered that. That's what I just described, that we weren't talking about orders in the moment, but do you want--
DOWNEY: Just a general sort of vibe.
CROW: That's the training.
DOWNEY: Hey, by the way, you have this right, even though they are told they have that right?
CROW: That's what I literally just illustrated in the story.
DOWNEY: Yes, no, it's a great story.
CROW: Is it possible for me and others to shoot a video when we think an order is being given that somebody has five seconds to execute that might be lawful or unlawful.
Is that possible? No, it's not, right? What we were doing is starting a discussion about what the obligation of service members are, right? So when they're in the moment and they have to make that second decision, they've already thought about it.
PHILLIP: All right. We've got to leave it there.
PHILLIP: Next, for us, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz ends his campaign for re-election and he is blaming Trump, not the fraud scandal involving his state. We'll be right back.
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[22:50:00]
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PHILLIP: Just 16 months ago, he was nominated as the Democrats' candidate for Vice President. Now he is ending his re-election campaign for governor.
Tim Walz is blaming President Trump and MAGA for putting Minnesota under attack. And he says that he needs to focus on that. Now, let's keep in mind, Walz's state is in the middle of a massive fraud scandal involving the Somali community.
So Bakari, did he just hand Republicans a huge gift going into this next gubernatorial race?
SELLERS: No, not at all. I mean, Amy Klobuchar is going to be the next governor of Minnesota. The crazy thing about Amy Klobuchar is she won her last three races by 30 points or more. And when she wins, she gets to guess what? Appoint the successor in the United States Senate.
So absolutely not. I mean, he took himself, who could have been wounded by the scandal, who could have been wounded by the fraud, who could have been wounded by all of this, out of the race, put in a pristine workhorse-type candidate who gets to make sure that Democrats don't lose a seat in the House.
PHILLIP: But it's an acknowledgement that he couldn't weather this.
SELLERS: Oh, I mean, whenever a politician tells you, I want to go spend more time with my family, they're probably lying to you, respectfully. But it does mean that if he could have thought he could win this race comfortably and govern, then yes, he would have run.
But having a dogfight and trying to figure out this scandal, I mean, it's impractical for him to be able to do both successful. He does have one thing that most politicians don't have, which he proved today he was self-aware.
PHILLIP: Batya.
UNGAR-SARGON: To me, this is a lot like the Biden situation to where I think this is actually a gift to the Democrats, like Bakari is saying, because now it looks like this whole fraud scandal is just his problem. But I think it's actually much more systemic than that. I think the Democrats overall have a big problem with fraud, especially when it comes to immigration, as we were talking about before.
And so, but this allows them to say, well, this was a Tim Walz thing. And we're sort of like pushing, you know, big, the big hook has come out and pulled him off stage the way they did with Biden, which kind of allowed them to sort of recover in a way and say, well, that was, you know, all of these books about like Biden and the cover up and whatever was a kind of a way for the Democrats to recuperate and say, well, that was a Biden cover up story. We don't really have a more systemic problem.
JOSH ROGIN, LEAD GLOBAL SECURITY ANALYST, WASHINGTON POST INTELLIGENCE: I think every politician starts their career at the height of their popularity and ends their career at the lowest point in their popularity. It's inevitable. He's had a good run, he was governor for eight years.
Amy Klobuchar is clearly a stronger candidate. I think it's a very pragmatic move.
I agree with Bakari. I think she's a very strong candidate and he saw the writing on the wall. Plus, once the Trump people sort of and the MAGA people directed the full force of the U.S. government, the Treasury Department, the Homeland Security Department, DHS, FBI, CBP and every MAGA YouTuber on--
UNGAR-SARGON: On massive fraud.
ROGIN: -- on the target, the Somali community. I don't think it's funny.
UNGAR-SARGON: Massive fraud.
ROGIN: The Italians are not to blame for the mafia's fraud. And the Somalis are not to blame for the isolated incidents of some of their community members. And the targeting of that community is a shame.
UNGAR-SARGON: How would you distinguish between targeting and actually just the--
ROGIN: The President said on national television, these people are garbage. They should go back to where they came from. So he did it, he targeted.
UNGAR-SARGON: But of all of the people in this area, the arrest indictments are a disproportionate share of the population.
ROGIN: But the indictments of mafia indictments are disproportionately Italian, but we don't blame the whole.
DOWNEY: You know what I'm saying? It's a share of the population.
ROGIN: All I'm saying is that. SELLERS: Respectfully, on January 6th, there were a number of white
folk running up, destroying the Capitol, taking property, running down the Capitol halls with Confederate flags. But I'm not asking you-- because it does you don't blame the whole community.
I'm not saying we're their fathers.
UNGAR-SARGON: It's a pretty documented assimilation problem.
ROGIN: I just totally agree with that.
UNGAR-SARGON: I want all of those different.
ROGIN: Anyway, this is why I can't run because of this entire scandal with--
PHLILLIP: The panel is going to give us their nightcaps status symbol edition. We'll be right back.
[22:55:07]
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PHILLIP: A $3 bag that's become a status symbol. The Trader Joe's canvas bags now being carried internationally and listing on some sites for up to $10,000.
So for tonight's news nightcap, what unexpected item would you pick as a status symbol? Congressman, you're first.
CROW: Socks make the outfit, novelty socks. I've got a pair of axolotl socks, pickle socks, flying pig socks. Plenty to -- plenty to choose from.
These are my multicolored Dr. Seuss socks.
[23:00:01]
DOWNEY: Mine is a French press manual coffee making instead of a Keurig
ROGIN: Ring watches. There it's a ring.
It's a watch. It does two things at once. It's going to be a thing.
You heard it here first.
PHILLIP: I've never seen that before.
SELLERS No, it is a thing.
I don't know why it's a thing. But people who put their dogs in like the little stroller thingies, that bothers me. It concerns me for the country and the world.
CROW: You want to know? UNGAR-SARGON: And mine is a book because logging off is about to
become the biggest status symbol.
PHILLIP: All right, everyone. Thank you very much.
Thanks for watching "NewsNight". You can catch me anytime on your favorite social media -- X, Instagram and TikTok. "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
