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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Walks Back Threats Against Greenland; Trump Claims Greenland Deal, But Details Are Vague; Trump Mixes Up Nations in Speech, White House Tries Denying. Trump Mixes Up Greenland and Iceland In Davos Speech; ICE Arrests Suspected Illegals Without Warrants. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired January 21, 2026 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, breaking the ice. Donald Trump backs off his Greenland threat.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: It's a long-term deal.
PHILLIP: But is it worth the price of isolating America's allies?
TRUMP: They should be grateful also, but they're not.
PHILLIP: Plus, from strange claims --
TRUMP: without us, most of the countries don't even work.
PHILLIP: -- to mixing up nations --
TRUMP: Iceland's already cost us a lot of money.
PHILLIP: -- Gavin Newsom poses this question about Trump's acuity.
GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): And no other president -- he's held to the current, he's graded on a current.
PHILLIP: And protesters in Minneapolis confront ICE agents about stopping people based on race.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They are not going up to white people asking for papers.
PHILLIP: Live at the table, Bakari Sellers, Batya Ungar-Sargon, T.W. Arrighi, Anna Navarro and Tara Palemri.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening. I'm Abby Philip.
NATO was on the brink, the western alliance was being threatened, the U.S. flirted with an invasion of an ally, markets fell and suddenly Donald Trump went Nirvana and said, never mind. After weeks of making it clear that he really wants Greenland, President Trump appears to be giving in.
Today, he announced the framework of a deal and that he's pulling back on his threats to tariff all European allies.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We have a concept of a deal. I think it's going to be a very good deal for the United States also for them. And we're going to work together on something having to do with the Arctic as a whole, but also Greenland.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A deal of ownership, a deal --
TRUMP: It's a little bit complex, but we'll explain it down the line.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not specific enough to know at this point how long this lasts. How -- whether it's --
TRUMP: Forever.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Forever?
TRUMP: It'll be forever.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: While that is quite a change of tone, especially given that a week ago he warned NATO that it should be leading the way to put Greenland in the hands of the United States and, quote, anything less than that is unacceptable.
Well, the details of the framework are still unclear tonight but CNN is learning a little bit that the potential deal could include increasing U.S. military presence in Greenland.
Max Boot is joining us in our fifth seat. He's a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a Washington Post columnist.
Max, do you hear anything, any whispers of anything that sounds all that much different from the 1951 treaty that already gives us the right to be in Greenland and to defend it?
MAX BOOT, SENIOR FELLOW, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Oh, there might be some slightly expanded U.S. military presence. There's rumors that the U.S. might get right of first refusal on mineral rights in Greenland, but the reality is we're not getting anything that the Danes would not have been happy to give us without all of this pressure, without these threats to invade Greenland without this blackmail of an ally.
And so I'm very -- you know, I'm very glad that Trump is backing off his threats. I think we're all enjoying or hoping of TACO today, which, of course, is the now famous acronym for Trump Always Chickens Out. He doesn't always chicken out. In this case, I think he has, because, primarily, the market pressure, the market meltdown that we were seeing, and I'm very glad that he did.
But I'm not -- I don't want to hear Trump fans saying that he's playing some kind of eight-dimensional chess and he's gotten tremendous gains and so forth, because, clearly, that is not the case. He's gotten a concept or a future framework agreement whose details remain to be filled in. And meanwhile, our European allies are reeling, they are in shock because they cannot believe they were facing an actual threat of territorial invasion from the United States.
And what Trump has done is he's basically undermined the NATO alliance because he's basically saying that the United States will not defend territory that it doesn't own. Well, guess what? That is the basis of the NATO treaty, is defending other people's territory. And if we're saying we're not going to do that, then what are U.S. guarantees worth to the European countries, to Ukraine or to anybody else?
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, right at this moment, we have an obligation to defend Greenland. So, all of this seems to have been circling around this issue for what exactly?
BATYA UNGAR-SARGON, NEWSNATION HOST, BATYA!: Well, we now have two sources suggesting, one of them in CNN, that one of the things that is potentially included in this deal is ensuring that Russia and China never gain a foothold economically or militarily in Greenland, that there will be provisions barring Beijing and Moscow from operating in Greenland. This was -- a source told CNN this. And then Mark Rutte, the head of NATO, said this again on Fox News.
That is epic. That is a very, very big deal.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Pardon me, Batya, but that is not epic. That is something that could have been hashed out in one of the many ways that Trump had --
UNGAR-SARGON: Then how come nobody did that before? How come we didn't get to have --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: I'm asking the question, why is --
UNGAR-SARGON: What I'm saying is, I, to me, we see it exactly the opposite. The week started with Trump making maximalist claims that he had no intention of ever following through on because that is how he does deals. That's literally what the book, The Art of the Deal, is about. You make a maximalist claim, you scare the heebie-jeebies out of everybody and then they capitulate to you and you show up. And that is exactly --
PHILLIP: So, let me get this straight. Let me get this straight. It is epic that Trump got the Danes to agree to something that they were -- that they had no intention of doing in the first. He threatens NATO, he threatens until this -- until today, he threatened military action. He did all of that to get them to say that they're not going to let China and Russia on to their territory?
UNGAR-SARGON: To bar China and Russia economically from their rare earth minerals. I'm sorry, that's a pretty big deal. All he had to do was tweet about it for a week. But come on, that's great.
BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: The reason it's not epic is because it further alienated the United States from its allies, one. Two, it actually pushed one of our closest allies, Canada, into the arms of China. So, the reason it's not epic is because while you actually prevent Greenland from --
UNGAR-SARGON: That's bad for China.
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Not only that.
SELLERS: What are you -- I mean, that makes -- so --
NAVARRO: Think about what has happened --
UNGAR-SARGON: (INAUDIBLE) with China over us --
NAVARRO: Okay. Batya, think about what has happened in the last week, which is that the president of the United States has been releasing private text exchanges with the leaders of some of our allies. How does Macron trust him again? How does the premier of Norway trust him again? And, by the way, and sounding absolutely insane in these texts and tweets, where he is blaming Norway for not having given him the Nobel Peace Prize, which is why that explains his position on wanting to attack over Greenland.
I'm sorry, but in the last few weeks, the president of the United States has appeared clinically insane.
T.W. ARRIGHI, VICE PRESIDENT, PUSH DIGITAL GROUP: I think we're clouded here. I think we're clouded. Donald Trump is the same Donald Trump he has been forever. This has always been his negotiating style. He talked poor about European leaders in the first term, they increased NATO spending.
I think this is a failure on the large scale to understand the geopolitical moment we are in. For the first time in history, this summer, China sent a manned submarine into the Arctic. Since Russia planted a flag in the North Pole in 2007, Russian warships have been all over the Arctic. China has their idea of an Arctic silk road.
The fact of the matter is Trump sees this as a real estate deal. He said it in his speech, why would we operate under a lease if I could get better than that? He wants the ownership of it. Yes, the minerals have a little bit to do with it, but, geopolitically, it is a good idea, just like it was a good idea --
(CROSSTALKS) PHILLIP: Hold on. Let me -- hold on. Before you move on, let me just play -- this is the NATO secretary general talking about what was and was not discussed in the conversations with Trump over this issue. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRET BAIER, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Greenland still -- is it still under the Kingdom of Denmark in this framework deal?
MARK RUTTE, NATO SECRETARY GENERAL: That issue did not come up anymore in my conversations tonight with the president. He was very much focused on what do we need to do to make sure that that huge Arctic region, where change is taking place at the moment, where the Chinese Russians are more and more active, how we can protect that. That was really the focus of our discussions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, according to Mark Rutte, it didn't even come up. So, this purported real estate deal is not even being put on the table anymore. That seems to be clear that Trump has abandoned that idea because it's not going to happen. The Danes are not going to let it go.
UNGAR-SARGON: But that was never his goal --
PHILLIP: So -- hold on, hold on. So, that's off the table.
Now, the 4D chess theory is always that Trump must do the most extreme thing in order to get the least outcome out of a negotiation when he could have just put this on the table in the first place and perhaps just gotten this outcome without threatening NATO, without creating a cleavage between the United States and its allies. I mean, I don't see why it's better to threaten the world and then get a little bit then just ask for what you want and get it.
[22:10:00]
BOOT: That's exactly right, Abby. When I hear about what a genius dealmaker Trump is, my thought is, you know, don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining, because it's pretty clear what he wanted out of this was Greenland. He wanted ownership of Greenland. He was -- just a couple of days ago, he was tweeting a picture of himself planting a U.S. flag on Greenland. He thought of this as a big real estate deal. He's not getting what he wanted and now he's climbing down because of all the pressure from the markets, from the Europeans, and he's trying to market it as a huge victory, but he can't even say what we agreed to.
So -- and there's nothing that we agreed to, I'm sure that we couldn't have done with the Danes without all of this crisis atmosphere.
NAVARRO: Don't you think part of this was a direct result to Venezuela and him feeling now like he's Charlemagne --
BOOT: Yes. He's empowered right.
NAVARRO: -- out there conquering the world? To me, he has turned into that character from Mary Poppins, Admiral Boom, the guy who thinks he's an naval officer and sets off a cannon from his window in a townhouse in London at 8:00 in the morning every day. Donald Trump is Admiral Boom with these delusions that he's some sort of a military leader that can just go and take possession of different countries.
SELLERS: There's also something else that claim came from this, which I rebutt your position that this is the same Donald Trump. There's nobody today that would say that when they watched that speech in Davos that he was -- the mental acumen or acuity was there. You saw the aging man. You saw him stumble. He doesn't even -- he called Greenland Iceland a few times throughout his speech.
PHILLIP: Well, we'll talk about that.
SELLERS: But also the second part of that is. That the reason that this isn't some type of 3D, 4D chess, as people like to get themselves in pretzels on this show and other shows to say, this is what Donald Trump really meant, don't believe what he writes, the reason that it's not is because if you want to actually protect the Arctic, which I believe is a noble goal from Russian ships or China or whomever it is, one, you don't push allies, that's why it's not epic. You don't push allies into the arms of foes. That's why Canada, doing business with China should be a problem for you.
The other thing you do is you don't go at it alone. Right now, this is the weakest NATO alliance we've had probably since its inception. The person who comes in after this is going to have to rebuild so many relationships that Donald Trump has fractured. And the problem with the fracturing, Max and others, is that he's done it via tweet. I mean, he's done it with asinine, childish behavior. And I think the best example was the one that you said, which we need to state again so people are clear, that one of the reasons that he did this was simply because he did not get the Nobel Peace Prize. And I'm not making this up. He literally wrote -- I mean, he -- somebody left him in the room to write this to another foreign leader. Are we ignoring that?
ARRIGHI: There's no doubt Donald Trump has a fixation on the Nobel Peace Prize and would like the Nobel Peace Prize. I think --
NAVARRO: He's got one.
(CROSSTALKS)
NAVARRO: The woman who has been the opposition leader risking her own life for decades in Venezuela had to show up at the Oval Office, schlepping the Noble Peace Prize so that the toddler-in-chief that is in the Oval Office can satisfy his very strange fixation.
ARRIGHI: A great woman.
NAVARRO: I mean, I really think all of us should pull together every trophy we have gotten, I've got some honorable -- (CROSSTALKS)
ARRIGHI: Let me just -- can I just for a second. Donald Trump doesn't trust Europe. I actually don't think it's as weak as you say it is. I think their security is as good as it's ever been. If we have Greenland under U.S. control, it will be even stronger. But, look, he doesn't trust Europe and he doesn't like the way we've handled foreign policy in the past, the failed JCPOA, the --
SELLERS: The first thing you just said, you're not getting that. You're not getting that.
PHILLIP: I have questions about why he doesn't trust Europe. But since Canada's been brought up a couple times, I do want to play this. This is from Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who's basically saying we're in the middle of a divorce. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK CARNEY, CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER: American hegemony in particular helped provide public goods, open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security and support for frameworks for resolving disputes. So, we placed the sign in the window. We participated in the rituals. And we largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality. This bargain no longer works. Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.
The middle powers must act together because if we're not at the table, we're on the menu.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, I'm not going to play because we don't have that much time, but Trump's response was, they should be grateful to the U.S. Canada lives because of the United States.
Why are we picking a fight with Canada? And how can you argue that he's wrong, that Trump really is pulling us back from these rules of the road that we created and that have created so much stability and prosperity around the world?
UNGAR-SARGON: The problem is that all of these people need us more than we need them, and they have taken advantage of us while we have been the ones subsidizing them. And what the president is saying and what the entire Trump administration went to Davos to say is that this world order, in which you globalize everything, you ship good jobs overseas to China, you import millions of people to undercut workers here is over.
[22:15:11]
We're done being your patsies. We're done being in a situation where NATO needs us more than we need them, and yet somehow they are dictating the terms of the relationships. That is over.
BOOT: Let's be real. I mean, you're doing a very good job of repeating President Trump's rhetoric, but let's be realistic. For 80 years, we have built and led this international security system and we have been the biggest beneficiaries of it.
UNGAR-SARGON: And our working class has been immiserated as a result of it and no more. That is the whole point.
BOOT: We're the richest, safest and most powerful country in the world.
PHILLIP: All I will say, Max, is good luck in making that argument to Batya because I have said this to her many times.
(CROSSTALKS)
NAVARRO: There's a lot of working class hotel owners and restaurant owners in places that border Canada that are reeling from the laws of tourism from Canada.
PHILLIP: Maybe actually the biggest trading partner that the United States has. We do a huge amount of business with them. That's the first thing.
But the second thing, as Max has been pointing out, there's a major flaw in your argument, which is that Europeans are calling the shots. Europeans are making the rules. Actually, we are calling the shots. We made the rules. We call the shots. We are richer than all of them. We are more prosperous. We have a bigger military. We are winning. I mean, if you want to put up --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Hold on. Batya, just on a factual matter, if you want to put up us up against Europe, we are winning. And so when -- if your argument is predicated on us being the losers, you have to actually prove it, prove that we are losing on the world stage?
ARRIGHI: Can I make a quick point? You surrender the moral high ground if you are Carney, when you put the for sale sign and you immediately go to China. China in their spy games there, you know, animosity toward the west, you surrender the moral high ground, similar to how Germany surrendered the moral high ground --
(CROSSTALKS)
SELLERS: Well, what if I don't disagree with you at all? But the fact is we pushed them away. And you know why we pushed them away? So, Batya could have a couple more military bases in Greenland because you're not getting the land.
ARRIGHI: Well, then he's a foolish leader if that was his choice, Carney.
SELLERS: Oh, I didn't know which one you were talking about.
PHILLIP: Okay, guys, Max, we appreciate you. Thank you very much for joining us. Next for us, President Trump says in his speech in Davos, and it's getting rave reviews from his administration. But according to Gavin Newsom, Trump is the only president in history who has been graded on a curve.
Plus, ICE exercises sweeping power in Minnesota to forcibly enter people's homes without a warrant, as protesters are accusing the agents of targeting people based on their race.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You all are throwing race into all of this. Nobody's throwing race into this.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You profile people for how they look.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: President Trump filled his speech today at the World Economic Forum with his usual laundry list of false claims, you know, rigged elections, stopping eight wars, and then he peppered in some fictional figures to just straight up strange things. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: domestic steel production is up by 300,000 tons a month.
We've secured commitments for a record-breaking $18 trillion.
More than $19 billion in fraud that was stolen by Somalian bandits.
You know, they're pirates.
Windmills all over the place destroy your land, destroy your land.
Without us, most of the countries don't even work.
Without us right now, you'd all be speaking German and little Japanese, perhaps.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: As he speaks in a German speaking part of Switzerland, but okay.
Most notably, though, this was the flub that got a lot of attention.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I'm helping NATO and I've -- until the last few days when I told them about Iceland, they loved me. They called me daddy, right, last time. They're not there for us on Iceland, that I can tell you. I mean, our stock market took the first dip yesterday because of Iceland. So, Iceland's already cost us a lot of money.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Iceland. Well, here is Trump's arc nemesis, Gavin Newsom, and his take on it,
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NEWSOM: And no other president -- he's held to the curve. He's graded on a curve. I mean, it's really some jaw-dropping and remarkable statements that just, you know, fly in the face of facts and evidence and common sense.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Tara Palmeri is here with us at the table. Tara, is he graded on a curve?
TARA PALMERI, PODCAST HOST, THE TARA PALMERI SHOW: Oh, yes. That is just like mental sludge. I don't -- no one that goes to the World Economic Forum speaks like that, you know, just off the cuff, blasting out, just complete false stats and just insults everyone. I mean, it's just a very refined crowd. I mean, it is the elites, but they come prepared. They're not just like riffing. I mean, this was just stream of consciousness, insanity, and we're supposed to be taken seriously?
PHILLIP: T.W., how do we explain this?
ARRIGHI: That's Donald Trump. That's the reason he got 77 million votes and was twice elected.
PHILLIP: So, if Joe Biden had done that and mistaken Greenland for Iceland, you guys would have been calling the 25th Amendment, you guys would have been calling for his impeachment.
[22:25:03]
ARRIGHI: If he did his Trump impression?
PHILLIP: If he gave, word for word, the same speech that Donald Trump gave today --
ARRIGHI: It would be the most backed --
PHILLIP: -- you don't think that Republicans would be --
ARRIGHI: -- show in front of a large international --
PHILLIP: -- calling for his ouster?
NAVARRO: Men white uniforms would have rushed the stage and put him into a straight jacket and put him in a padded room for the rest of the day. ARRIGHI: Well, I'm not going to go there with Joe Biden's mental acuity or whatever.
PHILLIP: But hold on. But, for real, T.W., honestly --
ARRIGHI: Yes.
PHILLIP: -- the president of the United States on four separate occasions mixed up Greenland with Iceland, he made up statistics about all sorts of things, how is that not something that is of concern to everybody in this country?
ARRIGHI: Because this is the same speech he would have given last year, the year before, the year before that. This is his brand. This is the type of a leader --
PALMERI: He wanted to invade Greenland and he called it Iceland. They looked at lands. They're talking about a framework for how go back to --
(CROSSTALKS)
PALMERI: These are serious conversations.
SELLERS: The disappointing part about the tenor of this conversation is that we laugh it off and we excuse it as just Donald Trump or he's something he would've done before. The comparison I look at is that Donald Trump's mental acuity, even before he aged, was mediocre at best, is somebody who came from a failed business background, is somebody who believes that they were born -- that they hit a home run, they were born on third base. His daddy gave him a million dollars to start his business, right?
This is somebody who's failed and failed and failed. The people around him, Lindsey Halligan can't even call herself a United States lawyer anymore, mediocre at best. Dr. Oz is making decisions about CMS. Elon Musk has no idea about bureaucracy. Let me finish. Elon Musk has no idea about bureaucracy in government, you let him disassemble USAID. You're talking about RFK, the man who says he has a worm that ate his brain, is now having a measles outbreak in South Carolina because he is over our Health and Human Services.
See, my biggest problem is that Barack Obama, for example, Barack Obama had to be editor-in-chief of the Harvard Law Review. Barack Obama had to be a United States senator. You all gave Barack Obama hell because he had a selfie stick and wore a brown suit. But yet, and still, this man comes on stage in front of the world and he rambles and he misspeaks and he says this and he -- I mean, he could have said that we solved the war between Wakanda and Namor. And Republicans would've been like, oh, yes, I'm glad we stopped that African country.
PALMERI: Can we just agree that men over 80 start to ramble and sound crazy? And that is why we also got a lot of slip-ups from Biden?
NAVARRO: He's been rambling for a lot longer than normal.
ARRIGHI: How long would these ramblings go on --
PHILLIP: This is Ty Cobb, Trump's former lawyer, talking to Erin Burnett tonight about what he saw today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TY COBB, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE LAWYER: This is a man who is demented and his narcissism has run amok. And I don't think there's anybody outside the boundaries of the United States who believes for a second that Trump is sane at this stage of the game, and those in the United States are merely in denial or so invested in him, and they can't accept what their lying eyes don't.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: And some of those people that he's talking about are also telling Americans not to see what they actually saw. Karoline Leavitt flat out denied that he mixed up Greenland and Iceland. He said, his written remarks referred to Greenland as a piece of ice because that's what's in it. You're the one mixing something up.
NAVARRO: He was calling Greenland an ice land.
PHILLIP: Yes. Look, I'm just -- I don't know, I'm sorry, but like Karoline Leavitt is straight up lying there. Is she expecting Americans to believe that the piece of paper said a piece of ice and then Trump said Iceland four times?
UNGAR-SARGON: It's funny, like, and, obviously, everything you've said is correct. He messed up. He called it Iceland. I've never once heard him say the word Azerbaijan correctly, but that doesn't mean that he did not bring peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Like the fact that he cannot be bothered to pronounce it correctly doesn't mean that the record isn't there. It doesn't mean that he didn't cut our deficit by 20 percent in one year. It doesn't mean that he didn't actually bring $18 trillion committed.
PHILLIP: It actually does mean -- I mean, look --
UNGAR-SARGON: No, it doesn't.
PHILLIP: -- the White House's own -- hold on. The White House's own website, Batya, says that major investment announcements during this Trump term was $9.6 trillion. So, even his own administration is saying that is not true.
UNGAR-SARGON: No. That's the website. But, I mean, I can tell you who has made the --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: I don't know what to say. All I'm saying is that --
UNGAR-SARGON: They are built into the actual trade deals, like South Korea, Saudi Arabia, the UAE.
PHILLIP: And that's a bit of a problem.
UNGAR-SARGON: I'm literally reciting facts to you of things that he's done and you're telling me like can I -- I wanted to recite the actual list of accomplishments.
[22:30:05]
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: But here's the thing. This is not-- this is not -- hold on. This is not a debate about his accomplishments.
UNGAR-SARGON: For example,
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: But hold on, Batya. It's actually not a debate about his accomplishments. It's a debate about whether he can give a speech while actually telling the truth. That's the question.
(CROSSTALK)
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: What Gavin Newsom said was that he gets graded on a curve. And I think that there is no discussion that Donald Trump gets away with doing things and saying things that no other normal president or human being would get away with. He's amassed a --
(CROSSTALK)
UNGAR-SAARGON: But that is because --
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: He's amassed a $1.4 billion --
(CROSSTALK)
UNGAR-SARGON: That's the record that you guys won't let me explain.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: You're absolutely correct about that. I remember that from fifth grade. Iceland is green, Greenland is ice.
UNKNOWN: Knowledge.
PHILLIP: Just remember that everybody. Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States. Up next for us, escalating ICE tactics as officers are forcibly entering homes using special warrants that are not seen by judges. It's raising lots of concerns and constitutional concerns about it. We'll debate that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:35:48] PHILLIP: Tonight, an unprecedented escalation in Donald Trump's immigration crackdown. Federal immigration officers are asserting a sweeping power to forcibly enter people's homes without a warrant, contradicting ICE's own written guidance. In a memo obtained by the "A.P.", the acting ICE director instructs officers to forcibly enter residences based solely on administrative warrants. These are typically never seen by a judge.
So, a whistleblower report has highlighted that this memo has not actually been widely shared within ICE, but its contents are being used to verbally train new officers. It's unclear how broadly the directive has been applied, but video from earlier this month shows officers bearing only administrative warrant and ramming the front door of a man.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(ICE RAID)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, this whistleblower complaint, I think, really explains some of what we've been seeing, Bakari. And it also suggests that there's some surreptitiousness happening even within ICE, where people are being told not to actually write them down, not to keep the directives, but to read it and then return it. What do you think is going on here?
BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I mean, think ICE has run amok. I think that's what we're seeing. think that the fact that they only trained 47 days, that should, one, outrage everybody. I mean, the fact is most barbers in the United States of America, most beauticians, all have to have more training than that.
They're going out on the street. They're disregarding the law. They act as if they're above the law. You have the little short guy who like runs ICE, marching in the street looking like the head of the Gestapo. I mean, this is not what America is.
And then I want to quote Kavanaugh, which is rare for me to quote. But he says, "The officers must not make interior immigration stops or rest based on race or ethnicity." This is was a footnote in one of the opinions that he wrote. And that's not, I mean, we literally are seeing ICE agents go out there and stop people because of what they look like.
NAVARRO: To the point where they are stopping Native Americans. They're African Americans. They're stopping U.S. citizens.
(CROSSTALK)
SELLERS: And not only that. But they're stopping police officers. You saw the Twin Cities. And this is -- this is frustrating to me because even when I served in the General Assembly in South Carolina, you got to a point where Democrats and Republicans were able to look at each other and say, look, this is some bullshit. This is cool. Whatever. You know, we understand.
There was a point in which we were South Carolinians or Americans first. Now, you have limited government Republicans running around and they're okay with warrantless searches. How does that make sense? This is an abuse of power.
PHILLIP: The people who on the right in particular who are typically concerned about things like, you know, the government overreach searches and seizures, et cetera. Does it give you pause that they are expanding the view of what they can do to break into people's homes?
UNGAR-SARGON: Well, first of all, not without a warrant. It's an administrative warrant. And what the memo actually says is if a judge has issued a final order of removal, meaning that this is an illegal who has gotten a lot of due process already and exhausted every single legal avenue to challenge their deportation.
(CROSSTALK)
UNGAR-SARGON: So, on that front, I don't have a problem with that.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: It's I guess, the only reason -- let me just pause you there because I just don't want people to be confused. The administrative warrant is not a warrant that a judge sees typically in the United States. In order for authorities to break into your home without your permission, they need a judge to see it and to say you can enter because you're looking for something.
UNGAR-SARGON: Right, because citizens have constitutional rights.
PHILLIP: But, yes. But that man, for example, that we just played the video of, he might have lived in that house, but that house was also, in that house also resided other American citizens. So again, where are the people on the right who are typically concerned about constitutional rights? Are you not at all worried that they can just break into your home?
(CROSSTALK)
UNGAR-SAGRON: They're concerned about constitutional rights for American citizens. We have different standards of what due process is owed to an American citizen, and what is owed to a non-citizen.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Well, let me give you a -- okay. What about this scenario?
UNGAR-SARGON: We all support that.
[22:40:00]
PHILLIP: What about this scenario?
(CROSSTALK) UNGAR-SARGON: We should want a higher level of due process and constitutional rights that are guaranteed to us as American citizens, not to the illegals.
PHILLIP: But hold on.
UNGAR-SARGON: Because it's supposed to mean something to be an American.
PHILLIP: Hold on. Hold on. But there are lot of problems with that. I mean, there are constitutional rights that, like, just basic constitutional rights that don't change based on whether you're a citizen or not.
SELLERS: Yes, but that's -- you're wrong, Batya. Because yes --
UNGAR-SARGON: No, they have a right to due process
SELLERS: No.
UNGAR-SARGON: -- but that standard is much lower than what --
(CROSSTALK)
SELLERS: You're wrong. The fifth and 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution provide that everyone, even non-citizens, have a right to due process.
UNGAR-SARGON: Yes, to due process, but the standard of due process for expelling an illegal is much lower than the standard that we would have if were accused of crime.
(CROSSTALK)
SELLERS: We are talking about entering one's domicile. One's abode.
UNGAR-SARGON: They have a final order of deportation.
SELLERS: Batya, you cannot utilize military or law enforcement in the United States of America to enter one's home colloquially willy-nilly. You just simply cannot do that because of the fundamental guarantees we have under the United States Constitution.
UNGAR-SARGON: Yes, that we have as American citizens.
PHILLIP: One way or another, there's no question that this is going to be challenged because prior to this moment, this actually has not been the DHS's policy because they don't -- that previously to this new determination for whatever reason, they believed that it would have been unconstitutional to enter a home forcibly without a warrant.
T.W. ARRIGHI,VICE PRESIDENT, PUSH DIGITAL GROUP: Yes, and we will see what the court rules. I'm a big fan of warrants and I don't -- I'm not a lawyer so I don't -- I can't like go -- what's the difference between administrative and a regular one? I don't know. So, I don't want to speak out of school here. But the courts will rule. Similar to how you saw Trump act in the last Supreme Court ruling and pulling National Guard out, not very dictator-like, I'll be honest. We hear he's a dictator and then he listens to the courts. I don't think Hitler did that much.
But look, I like warrants as usual. But my concern mostly is why people with deportation orders dating back to 1996, rape, multiple counts of homicide, et cetera, et cetera, were allowed to re-enter the streets in Minnesota, didn't do anything about it. And why they don't listen to Tom Homan and let them get him in the jails so we don't have to --
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: Nobody is arguing against grabbing the
SELLERS: Correct.
NAVARRO: -- worst of the worst. The rape --
ARRIGHI: But then the question is why?
NAVARRO: If he was actually doing that, I think everybody would be applauding him.
UNGAR-SARGON: they won't let them in the jails. Of course people are --
NAVARRO: Can I finish my thought for a minute? I think Barack --
SELLERS: Jesus --
NAVARRO: Excuse me --
SELLERS: Is this Donald Trump?
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: I think Bakari is completely right that they have run amok. Right now, as we sit here, it was just found that a Cuban immigrant who was being held in an El Paso jail, the medical examiner has found that he was killed in ICE custody in a detention center. There have been more deaths since Trump took office, over 30 deaths in ICE custody.
And I think, we, as Americans should be setting an example to the world of how we treat people, even when they are detained. And there is such performative, emboldened cruelty that is happening because this administration is encouraging it.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: All right, you guys. We have to hit pause --
UNGAR-SARGON: If everyone supports it, why won't they --
(CROSSTALK) NAVARRO: Nobody supports that. Nobody supports that. Look at these numbers. Look at these approval numbers on immigration.
UNGAR-SARGON: I'm saying why won't they let them in the jail?
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Next for us, the question -- is ICE targeting people based on their skin color in Minnesota? Protesters, they are not holding back their thoughts on that. We're going to debate it ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:48:33]
PHILLIP: Tonight, as the legal battles begin between the Trump administration and local officials, protesters are accusing federal agents of stopping people based on their race.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: That is straight out of Nazi Germany.
UNKNOWN: No, look, listen, if there's a lady from -- if there's somebody, a gentleman or whoever from U.K. and they look like her, they're going to arrest her, as well and they'll get deported. It's simple. It's straight simple. They can look like me, you, her, him. If you're legal or illegal, you'll get deported.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, Bakari alluded to this in the last segment, but this is one of the main things I think the protesters are pushing back on because we have seen a lot of the videos and interactions in which ICE seems to be making these random stops and doing so predominantly to people who are black and brown.
TARA PALMERI, "THE TARA PALMERI SHOW" PODCAST HOST: Right. And they're often picking up people who are Americans and just targeting them because of their race. And they're destroying communities because of it. People who worry that they don't look, quote, unquote, "American" as in white Anglo, you know, they're not going to the Home Depots. They're not leaving their houses. This is the problem. I mean, you can't, you're racially profiling communities and now you don't even need a warrant to do it anymore.
NAVARRO: And you know what I always -- I look at this and night after night we see the excesses by ICE.
[22:50:00]
And what pisses me off is I never see them detaining the employers, the people who are employing undocumented immigrants, the people making money off of exploiting many times undocumented immigrants. Where is the fire? Where is the energy for those folks is what I want to know. (CROSSTALK)
PALMERI: Are they at least getting fined?
ARRIGHI: I believe a few in North Carolina actually do get in trouble for that when they raided their --
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: Well, there's a hell of a lot more of a few. The reason that so many people come to this country is because they find employment.
ARRIGHI: I agree they're getting the magnets off all the time -- all the time. And look, first of, I think that ICE officer handled himself pretty well.
PHILLIP: It would have been --
ARRIGHI: I think --
PHILLIP: It would have been a much nicer interaction had he not had like a mask on.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I mean, I agree with you. I think it was actually very respectful, but it was -- it was strange because they're having a conversation.
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: He looked like a Mexican "lucha libre" wrestler.
ARRIGHI: Even though, you know, people of the European descent, which I would have presumed those women are, I don't know, I'm guessing, they only make up three to four percent of undocumented immigrants. ICE has deported people from Boland. They've picked up people from Ireland, 99 of them. They've picked up people from all over the case. So, it happens. It just so happens that most of them --
(CROSSTALK)
SELLERS: Do you think that ICE -- do you think that ICE is picking up people because of the color of their skin?
ARRIGHI: I hope they are picking them up because they are here illegally and have committed a crime.
SELLERS: I mean, the problem is that it's a yes or no question and the evidence bears out yes.
ARRIGHI: If they are innocent --
SELLERS: Because what happens is --
NAVARRO: Over 70 percent of the people that are being detained don't have a criminal record.
ARRIGHI: And I have made the point many times over if there is a mistake made or if there is any wrongdoing, it ought to be rectified.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Just to this point that we're having, Chris Murphy, the senator, he was in San Antonio at an immigration court and he talked about what he saw when he was there. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D) CONNECTICUT: I got to talk to the ICE officers. I said, who are you prioritizing? Their answer, everyone. I said, wait, I thought you were prioritizing criminals. They said, no, we're looking for anyone that walks in to legally present themselves before the court and we're putting them into detention.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, people walking into court, trying to do what they're supposed to do under the law to either address their status, to file for asylum, whatever it is. There are a lot of reasons that you can be in a courthouse. And according to Chris Murphy, they're just being swept up because the directive is to just pick everybody up.
UNGAR-SARGON: Well, first of all, I want to say about that interaction. What you guys cut off the clip before you showed was one of those white women calling that black ICE officer a race traitor.
SELLERS: Black?
UNGAR-SARGON: She accused him of being reading at a level of an eighth grader and called him a Nazi. So, it was actually respectful until they became absolutely disgusting and said completely inappropriate things to him. Seventy percent, according to DHS -- 70 percent of those who have been picked up have a criminal record, have some criminal charges against them or an actual conviction.
So, 70 percent, that's a very good number. But also, the American people voted Trump in on a promise that he would carry out the largest deportation effort in American history. Fifty seven percent of Americans on 20 different polls said they want every single illegal migrant deported.
(CROSSTALK)
UNGAR-SARGON: So, this idea of the worst of the worst. I understand why that's now what Democrats are willing to admit, that they're willing to deport. The problem is that's not what Trump ran on and it's not what he got elected on.
SELLERS: The problem that we have, think you brought up an amazing point, is that it's fracturing and ripping away communities. And I mean, what we're talking about here is that um you, T.W, you, can walk down the streets of Minneapolis right now and feel safe that you'll go from point A to point B, and not be harassed, and not the threat of anybody pulling you over because of the color of your skin. That is what America should be.
UNGAR-SARGON: This is only happening in Minneapolis because it's a sanctuary city and they will not cooperate with ICE.
SELLERS: First of all, it doesn't matter if you are in a sanctuary city in Minnesota, or you're in a sanctuary city in Kansas, like racism, racism flat out has no place in this country. But I was going to say if Ana and I walked down that same street, they're going to stop us and they're going let the white people at this table keep going.
PHILLIP: All right, we got to go.
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: And I think that's ridiculous. It's factual. It is what's actually happening that you don't think is happening is ridiculous.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Next for us, the panel is giving us their nightcaps, "Extreme Home Makeover" Edition. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:59:04]
PHILLIP: This week as New York City's new mayor moves into Gracie Mansion, Zohran Mamdani revealed one of his first wish list items, a bidet. So for tonight's News Nightcap, what's a must have luxury item that you're going to request in your home, T.W.? You're first.
ARRIGHI: Sure, it'd be nice to have a golf simulator, but I want my own private T.W. version of Margaritaville, maybe like a mudslide though. We had a bar in my hometown of Bridgewater, Massachusetts called North Key West. That's a good working title.
PHILLIP: Okay, Ana.
NAVARRO: Listen.
SELLERS: I like that.
NAVARRO: We got to be quick.
NAVARRO: When I got married, got a "Toto" toilet as a wedding gift. So I have one. I want them in every bathroom. These things, I could marry it.
PHILLIP: It's like a bidet on steroids.
NAVARRO: Oh, it's everything. It blows air. It blows water. It gets warm.
PHILLIP: All right, Tara.
NAVARRO: It talks to you in different languages.
PALMERI: Okay.
PHILLIP: Tara, go ahead.
PALMERI: Infrared sauna, steam room.
PHILLIP: All right.
SELLERS: A towel warmer and for my kids, they love TVs and mirror screens in the bathroom.
[23:00:02]
PHILLIP: Those are the worst TVs, though. They just don't know.
SELLERS: They're seven.
PHILLIP: All right.
(LAUGHTER)
PHILLIP: Go ahead, Batya.
UNGAR-SARGON: I think this is going to be a unifier, a view of the ocean.
PALMERI: Oh yes.
PHILLIP: Yes, the ultimate luxury.
UNGAR-SARGON: Ultimate luxury.
ARRIGHI: Boat-sitting out front.
PHILLIP: Yes, that's right.
SELLERS: You can tell that -- the coastal elite.
PHILLIP: Some combination between the two of your wish list items. All right everybody, thank you very much. Thanks for watching "NewsNight". "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
