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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Supreme Court Strikes Down Trump's Illegal Tariffs; Trump Announces 10 Percent Global Tariff After Supreme Court Rejection; Trump Goes Off On Justices For Rejecting Tariffs, I'm Ashamed; Homan Says Bovino Should Be Investigated. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired February 20, 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 ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, liberated no more.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I'm ashamed of certain members of the court.
PHILLIP: The Supremes reject Donald Trump's tariffs and ignite uncertainty about the future of his signature agenda item.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If they thumb your nose at the Constitution, you have to clean up the mess.
PHILLIP: Plus, the president undermines the court and bashes his handpicked judges.
TRUMP: I think it's an embarrassment to their families, if you want to know the truth.
PHILLIP: Also the Trump administration has a truth problem on its hands that's now facing the long arm of the law.
And --
TOM HOMAN, TRUMP BORDER CZAR: If a judge declared he lied under oath, he needs to be investigated.
PHILLIP: -- the border czar hits the ousted border commander.
Live at the table, Scott Jennings, Keith Boykin, Angie Wong, Justin J. Pearson, Elie Honig, and economists with opposing views.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York.
Let's get right to what America's talking about, President Trump's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Trump is fuming tonight after the Supreme Court stood up to him and said it was illegal when he used the emergency powers to slap sweeping tariffs across the globe on his so-called Liberation Day. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion saying, in no uncertain terms that emergency powers should not be treated as some kind of cheat code.
The decision is a severe loss for Trump, and it throws the future of his signature policy into limbo. And as you can imagine, he didn't take the news well.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: To show you how ridiculous the opinion is, however, the court said that I'm not allowed to charge even $1, I can't charge $1.
But I am allowed to cut off any and all trade or business with that same country. In other words, I can destroy the trade, I can destroy the country. I'm even allowed to impose a foreign country destroying embargo. I can embargo. I can do anything I want, but I can't charge $1.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: But the president has a backup plan, which he says he signed into as an executive order tonight, and that's going to be to re- impose his tariffs at least for the next 150 days.
The big question now is, though, what happens to that $134 billion in tariff money that the government has already raked in? Well, the courts didn't really say what would happen with it, but the battle is just beginning, as states and companies and Americans start to demand their refunds.
This seems to be an unexpected but pretty clear ruling against the president on a statute that has really never been used the way Trump attempted to use it. Elie, what do you make of just how clear and I thought simple, frankly, the Robert's ruling was, and the fact that it was 6-3.
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: So, this is a what goes around comes around moment in the law. If you applauded when the Supreme Court struck down Joe Biden's student debt program in 2023, you can't boo this. Because the legal theory that was used here is almost exactly the same, which is if Congress is going to delegate some of its power over to the president, which they can do, they have to specifically say what they're authorizing him to do in the law they pass if the president's going to then use it to do something of massive economic or political impact.
And the 6-3 ruling, by the way, people hear 6-3, they think, oh, it must be the typical 6-3. This was not the typical six three. You had Chief Justice Roberts, you had Neil Gorsuch, and you had Amy Coney Barrett joining with the three liberals to form the majority.
So, whatever one thinks, you guys will get to the economics of it and the politics of it, but, legally, this is a sound decision according to the precedent that's already been set. PHILLIP: Well, let's get to the economics of it because, essentially, they're just saying, look, this is not the statute to do what you want to do. And particularly, if what you want to do is just random tariffs on every country in the world at whatever number you want it to be, there are other things that you can do, it's just not this.
ANTHONY ESPOSITO, PODCAST CO-HOST, POLICY AND PROFITS: Yes. So, let's back up one second. This is strictly having to do with a IEEPA. This does not have to do with a sweeping tariff rebut from the Supreme Court. IEEPA only enables the president to block trade or stop trade with countries he cannot gain one single dollar from the IEEPA ruling.
[22:05:08]
The other tariffs in place, which are about half of what's in place, has not been touched by the Supreme Court. He has a constitutional right to have those tariffs in place, and he's now going to replace the IEEPA tariffs that were put in place, which, by the way, were put in place mainly with China, Mexico, and Canada, in order to secure our borders and stop the flow of fentanyl into the country. This was part of his negotiation.
So, we're going to take the IEEPA away, which the Supreme Court ruled on today. He's then going to use Section 232, Section 301, Section 122, which, by the way, he already enacted Section 121 tonight with a sweeping 10 percent tariff, and just replace the IEEPA tariffs. That's really what we need to focus on here. This was not a sweeping rebut of President Trump's tariff. This was IEEPA only.
NATASHA SARIN, PROFESSOR, YALE LAW SCHOOL: I guess I disagree on a host of dimensions. One dimension that seems really important is, well, it's true that you're already starting to see the president talk about other trade authorities and in fact invoke other trade authorities to try to replicate some of these IEEPA tariffs that were struck down this morning.
The reality is there is a lot more process that is required to be able to effectuate those other types of trade authorities. The existing 10 percent across the board tariffs that were levied tonight, those are only going to be in place for 150 days and only will stay in place if Congress authorizes them to continue.
So, this is a really significant ruling and it's a really significant ruling because, from a legal perspective, you had a court who stood up to the president and said, the power to tax and the power to spend rests with Congress and Congress alone.
I do agree with you from an economic perspective if you think about what this ruling really means. There have been about $140 billion of IEEPA tariffs that have been levied in the last year. Those tariffs have fallen through to consumers in the form of higher prices. And if and when we see any refunds, and, again, the decision isn't clear about exactly what process that would undertake even if they were to do refunds, those would go to firms and not to the American consumers.
And so I actually do think this is quite significant from the consumer's perspective because they're unlikely to see any relief.
ESPOSITO: Well, let's -- let me just take two quick points. First, from the consumer perspective, we have not seen any inflationary pressures from tariffs. That is null and void.
SARIN: That is definitely not true.
ESPOSITO: That is very true.
SARIN: And my estimates --
ESPOSITO: The true inflation numbers are below, are close to 1 percent right now. So, let's just let's leave that on the table. I just want to say one thing.
The semantics of attacks versus a tariff is a question here, right? The president has the constitutional right to tariff, not to tax. And the cons -- the --
PHILLIP: The Supreme Court settled that issue, or they answered that point today, and they made it very clear that in this case, a tariff is a tax that is -- and both are in the hands of Congress.
ESPOSITO: And that is not true. A tax and -- that's semantics. They --
PHILLIP: How is that semantics?
ESPOSITO: Because we already have -- we have the tariff law of -- the Tariff Act of 1962 and 1974, which gives the president the right to control imports via tariff.
PHILLIP: But what is a tariff?
ESPOSITO: A tariff is --
PHILLIP: What is a tariff?
ESPOSITO: A tariff is a fee charged to another country.
PHILLIP: No.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: A tariff is a what?
ESPOSITO: It is a fee charge. We cannot tax a foreign country. We can tax citizens.
PHILLIP: A tariff is a fee charged to who?
ESPOSITO: A foreign country.
PHILLIP: No, it is not, okay?
HONIG: I'll tell you -- I'll answer that. I'm not even an economic expert. The importers, I have a friend who imports T-shirts and sneakers from overseas, he pays the tariff, not China.
PHILLIP: Where -- give me -- is there any evidence -- I can't believe you just said that -- any evidence that a foreign government has paid Donald Trump's tariffs?
ESPOSITO: We're talking about producers in foreign countries.
PHILLIP: Okay.
ESPOSITO: We're not --
PHILLIP: Tariffs are paid by who?
ESPOSITO: Tariffs couldn't be paid by many. They can be paid by the importers.
PHILLIP: They are paid by companies. Some of them are foreign companies, but some of them are American companies. Here's one corporation. This is actually the plaintiff in this case. Here's what he says he wants to see.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICK WOLDENBERG, CEO, LEARNING RESOURCES: And they know exactly what they took from us, when and why and how much. And they can just reverse the gears and send it back to us. It's our money. They took it unlawfully. They have to return it. And I'm not crying for them, that they find it inconvenient.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: They said they spent $10 million paying Trump's tariffs that we now know are illegal. And on top of that, just to circle back to what we were talking about, the CBO -- this is not -- this is one of many reports on this, but the CBO just recently said, U.S. businesses will absorb 30 percent of the import price increases by reducing their profit margins. The remaining 70 percent will be passed through to consumers by raising prices. So, the net effect of the tariffs will be to raise consumer prices by the full portion of the cost of the tariffs born domestically, 95 percent.
So, look, at the end of the day, he's a business owner.
[22:10:01]
You can't tell him he didn't bear the cost of tariffs. He wrote the check.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, which is it? You said all of it was passed through to the consumers. You said that most of it was absorbed by some of the companies. It sounds like maybe it might be a little bit of both. I mean, how you refund this? I have no idea. I mean, this is a total mess. You're talking about massive amount of money.
PHILLIP: How did they charge it? JENNINGS: And --
PHILLIP: They can refund what they charge.
JENNINGS: I guess. But if you want to go into the treasury and start writing checks on this, it feels, and the court acknowledged that it feels like it's going to be a bit of a mess. I assume, Elie, there'll be massive litigation about this over the next couple of years.
I'll just say, you know, politically, today, you know, it was a big breaking news day, but I just think we ought to acknowledge something. This is a properly functioning government today. The president of the United States, the head of the executive branch, made a policy decision. The Supreme Court, it renders legal opinions about these kinds of decisions, made a decision, they said, you can't do that. The president of the United States said, okay, I agree and I will acknowledge your decision. I'm going to use a different statute to try to do what I want to do. This is properly functioning government.
I'll tell you one more thing. For every Democrat and every media person that has gone on for the last year or two about how this Supreme Court is a wholly owned subsidiary of Donald Trump, that it's not independent, that it does whatever he says to do, obviously, that narrative was obliterated today.
So, to me, I thought this was actually -- I thought the ruling was sound. I think the president is sound to try other statutes. And I think the narratives about the court not being independent and the president not obeying the court were totally blown up today.
KEITH BOYKIN, FORMER CLINTON WHITE HOUSE AIDE: That was a very charitable explanation of what took place today, Scott. You should be paid a lot of money from the Trump administration for helping to --
JENNINGS: Well, I get paid a lot of money here, to be clear.
BOYKIN: And in other places too. But you should be paid by the Trump administration for what you said, because the reality is that the president didn't just accept the ruling, like you said he did.
JENNINGS: Yes, he did.
BOYKIN: He -- no. He got up there.
JENNINGS: He acknowledged and he accepted it.
BOYKIN: He got up there at the press conference today, and he attacked the U.S. Supreme Court justices. He said that they should be embarrassed for their families for making a decision that stood up to him. He attacked them and said they were disloyal and unpatriotic. He said they were disloyal to the Constitution even. That's more than disagreement. That's irresponsible rhetoric.
And the problem is, Scott, even though today the Supreme Court did the right thing, according to everyone here at the table, apparently, except maybe you, Anthony, the truth is that this is the first major decision where they have actually disagreed with the president on any of his priorities.
So, yes, we got -- they got one right, but that doesn't negate everything else that they've done. Donald Trump doesn't like to govern. Donald Trump likes to rule by decree, and the Supreme Court finally stood in and said, you can't do that on this one issue.
HONIG: Quickly, if I could, I mean, the reason there's not National Guard on the streets in Chicago right now is the Supreme Court blocked that too, and I think Trump's about to go on a bit of a losing streak with the court, I mean, between today. He's going to lose birthright, I believe, birthright citizenship, eventually. I also think he's going to lose his effort to fire Lisa Cook off the Fed.
So, I think what -- to Scott's point, I think the narrative that the Supreme Court is automatically in Trump's pocket and always has been, I think it is overblown and I think they're disproving that now and will continue over the next several months.
PHILLIP: Yes. You know, it's interesting because they do push the envelope on this stuff, you know, and they could easily have -- to your point, I mean there are all kinds of different statutory authorities for the president to do all kinds of different things, and he's going to use some of them now, and they could have tried to do it that way.
I don't know. Do you have a theory? I have a theory, but I'm curious if you have a theory about why the Trump administration decided to do it this particular way.
SARIN: Yes. I have a bit of a theory, which is that of all of the trade authorities that exist to support the president's agenda, this is the one that has the least set of requirements attached to it. It is the one where, with a stroke of a pen on any particular day, and, in fact, we've seen it on 60 days so far in this Trump administration, you are able to change tariff rates because you see a commercial you don't like or your adversary or ally does something that you don't agree with.
And I think the challenge with all of these other approaches, some of which would actually require the president to go to Congress and try to legislate the trade agenda, as has always been done historically, don't afford you that same flexibility.
And I think that flexibility might sound like it's attractive, but, actually, Scott, to your point, I think today you did see government function and our institutions function the way they're supposed to. But something that you also saw was the reintroduction of incredible volatility into our trade policy. What are businesses supposed to be planning for? What is the tariff rate likely to be next week, next month, six months from now? How do consumers plan for that? And how do our allies think about us in negotiations when it's not at all clear what authorities or well, the extent to which they're legally viable pathways this to effectuate some of these policies?
[22:15:01] JENNINGS: I think the last point you made is one of the most important for how the president moves forward here. Because if you talk to him about this beyond just the economics, he believes these tariffs and the ability for him to unilaterally do it is his biggest diplomatic tool. He thinks that it's been huge in trade negotiations. He thinks it's helped him solve some of these peace agreements. He thinks it gives the American president in any room that that person is in, you know, this massive cudgel against other countries to extract outcomes that we want on a number of fronts. I think the last point you made is very true.
PHILLIP: And he's wrong about that.
JENNINGS: Why is he wrong about it?
PHILLIP: Chief Justice Roberts said this. The president asserts the extraordinary power to unilaterally imposed tariffs of unlimited amount, duration, and scope. In light of the breadth, history, and constitutional context of that asserted authority, he must clear -- identify clear Congressional authorization to exercise it. He's pretty crystal clear. That's the scope.
There's a reason that, according to Chief Justice Gorsuch and six other Supreme Court justices, Congress does not give that power to the president. And it has to do with the fact that, as we just discussed, tariffs, like taxes, costs people money. Money comes out of their pockets and goes to the Treasury. And that is a power that belongs to Congress. And if Congress, which is, you know, controlled by the president's party, supports the president's agenda, and if these tariffs are so popular and such a key to economic prosperity, two questions, why are they so unpopular? Why do Americans say 56 percent say they hurt the economy? And why won't Congress just codify them?
ESPOSITO: So what I would say that, first of all, Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution gives the president the right to work on international affairs, manage international affairs and trade, period, hard stop. He has the right to implement tariffs. That's not the question here. The question is IEEPA.
To loop back to the benefits that we've seen --
PHILLIP: Did you hear anything that I just read?
ESPOSITO: I did, but it's exactly not accurate.
PHILLIP: I mean, listen, I understand what you're saying in the --
JENNINGS: They just ruled on the narrow statute, by the way.
PHILLIP: Just a second. I understand the context of what you're saying in that they're ruling on IEEPA. But what Chief Justice Roberts is saying is that what Trump is asserting is that using national security as a justification to impose tariffs of any size, scope, and duration is not constitutional. He says that very clearly here.
ESPOSITO: That is IEEPA. That's fine. But -- PHILLIP: Okay. So -- okay, so we're in agreement on that. The president has limited authorities that are delegated by Congress to impose trade restrictions under certain circumstances, under other statutes. But it is not broad, it is not unlimited, and it is not forever, correct?
ESPOSITO: No, that's actually not correct. He has Congressional authority to issue and implement tariffs under Section 122 enacted --
PHILLIP: Under limited --
ESPOSITO: Each have their own limits and their own --
PHILLIP: -- scope that is delegated by Congress. That is the only point I'm making.
ESPOSITO: Section 232, for example, gives him the ability to put tariffs at 50 percent across the board.
PHILLIP: The only point that I am making is --
ESPOSITO: They're substantial. You have --
PHILLIP: They only point that I'm making is that Congress determines what powers he has in those --
ESPOSITO: They've already determined that as well.
HONIG: Anthony, you're making the argument that might have been okay yesterday, but today it lost. So, it's not the law anymore.
JENNINGS: He's saying that there's statutes that already exist. The president's going to pivot to --
HONIG: Which is fine.
JENNINGS: -- other statutory authority. Now, if he does that --
SARIN: No, Abby's right, those are narrow.
JENNINGS: Maybe somebody ends up challenging that and they are --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: You have to actually meet the requirements of those statutes. You can't just say, I want 50 percent tariffs on the whole world. I'm just going to put it under this statute. If he could have done that, he would have done it, but he didn't. Those statutes are narrow. He has to meet certain requirements. And those requirements are dictated by Congress, not by the president.
HONIG: Think about it this way.
PHILLIP: So, that's the only point.
HONIG: IEEPA, the law that he tried to use today, would have been a sledgehammer for him to put in tariffs. Instead, that's been taken away and now he's going to have to use a ball peen hammer instead. The statutes that are left for him still are much more restrictive, still painful and still effective, but much more fine, much more limited in their scope.
ESPOSITO: And I think --
PHILLIP: Let's hit pause real quick because there's more on the other side.
We'll talk about the choice words that the president had for his own handpicked justices, calling them an embarrassment to their families.
Plus the administration has a truth problem, especially when it comes to ICE. And now judges are calling them out for it.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, it appears that the honeymoon period between President Trump and his handpicked Supreme Court justices is over, at least for two of them. Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch are now officially on Trump's bad list after they sided with the liberal justices to torpedo his tariffs.
Now, Trump took that personally and didn't hold back his frustration.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: And I'm ashamed of certain members of the court.
They're just being fools and lap dogs for the RINOs and the radical left Democrats.
They're very unpatriotic and disloyal to our Constitution.
They don't want to do the right thing. They're afraid of it.
The court meant it because the court doesn't show great spirit toward our country, in my opinion.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Real respect for the institution there on the part of the president. The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board blasted Trump tonight in an editorial, President Trump owes the Supreme Court an apology to the individual justices he smeared on Friday and to the institution itself. Mr. Trump doubtless won't offer one, but his rant in response to his tariff defeat at the court was arguably the worst moment of his presidency.
[22:25:07]
Scott, I think you were right, that this is a moment that illustrates, yes, the wheels of democracy are still turning, but the president, according to The Wall Street Journal just showed his, you know, other side.
JENNINGS: Well, he gets very upset about this topic. I mean, I've talked to him about it, interviewed him about it, and he's certainly spoken about it publicly. This is his longest and most closely held political view, that tariffs are good, that they help the president effect positive outcomes for the country, and the idea that it would be restrained from him is hateful to him. I went back and listened to an interview I did with him on September 2nd of last year, and he was talking about how weak and poor this would make the United States if this ruling were to come down.
I listened to his entire press conference today. I was thinking about if I were advising him what I would've told him to do, I almost think I wouldn't have done anything. I think I would have just said, okay, thanks, and signed the executive order for the other statutory --
PHILLIP: You would've told him to do nothing?
JENNINGS: Yes. I think I wouldn't have said a word because they had a plan B. And if you listen to the arguments when they were made, it was obvious the court was headed in this direction. And so part of the way you could have played it today is to simply have done nothing, said, thank you Supreme Court, by the way, here are my new statutory authorities and we're going to re-implement these tariffs. And I believe the way it all shakes out, the rates are all roughly the same. And so that would've been maybe a cooler and more confident way it played out.
PHILLIP: They're the same as -- just to be clear, same as before.
SARIN: Yes. My colleagues and I at The Budget Lab at Yale, we actually just crunched these numbers and they're coming out tonight, so I can tell you basically the effective tariff rate as of this morning before this decision was something like 16.9 percent. Now, it's something like 13.3 percent. So, you're like roughly in the same space.
But remember, Scott, this is only for 150 days unless Congress authorizes these tariffs. And so you are at a roughly similar level, but you're not really likely to be there because Congress is already shown explicitly that they're not really likely to go along with this president.
PHILLIP: And I would also say, and I know you have some responses to him, but just on that, I mean, there are some tariffs that are significantly higher than that. So, we average things out and it looks the same. But for certain parts of the world or certain products, it might be a significant difference in rate.
SARIN: Absolutely.
HONIG: Yes. I wish the president would've received and followed your advice, Scott. It would've been vastly preferable to what he did. Plenty of presidents have been plenty disappointed by Supreme Court decisions before, but we've never seen someone lash out quite like this, calling the justices individually embarrassments to their families. I couldn't believe he said that, disgrace to the nation, lapdogs, right? We've never had a president talk like that before.
I guess my question, Scott, maybe you would know, why would he do this? I mean, is it just a temper tantrum? Like he's not going to influence the justices? There's no way the next time around Amy Coney Barrett or Chief Justice Roberts is going to say, you know, he really intimidated me there. I mean, they have life tenure. They don't care, tight? Why does he do this?
BOYKIN: I don't know if I agree with you on that though, even though I know this is a question for Scott.
HONIG: I want to hear it.
BOYKIN: I do think he thinks he can intimidate them, and I do think some of them may be intimidated because even though they have life tenure, they also are getting threats. There are judges who are getting threats from his supporters out there, and they're aware of the political climate in which they live. So, I don't know if that's part of what he's doing, but I think that -- I don't think that he can just assume -- you can just assume that he's saying that.
PHILLIP: J.D. Vance also called it lawless, which, you know, to me, raised a question of what law does he think is above the ruling of the Supreme Court?
JENNINGS: Well, look, they have a strong political and legal disagreement. It's why they levy the tariffs. It's why they fought it out. It's why they argued what they did in court. And so -- and, again, this is more than just another ho-hum policy decision that the president made and a stack of other decisions. This is the thing that he cares about the most, which leads to the emotional outbursts that he had.
It's not true that the justices are simply getting threats from the right. I mean, Justice Kavanaugh was attempted murder by someone from the left. We had Chuck Schumer stand on the front of the Supreme Court and threaten justices by name, you'll reap the whirlwind, if you all will recall. So, this is hardly the first time someone's taken on the Supreme Court or raised a specter of threats.
I don't think he should attack the Supreme Court. I don't think they can be intimidated. I don't think it works. And I think the court itself, because, A, it has a number of his appointees on it, and, B has, I think, distinguished itself as a functioning part of government, I don't think they deserve this kind of abuse.
But if you want to know why he did it, it's because he's pissed. This is his number one thing. There's no backing down. He believes in it. He's never wavered on it. He ran on it. This is the thing that defines him apart from other presidents.
BOYKIN: It's a (INAUDIBLE), he's the president though.
JENNINGS: That's why -- and that's why he did it.
BOYKIN: Justice Gorsuch made a comment in his concurring opinion today where he basically said that if you want these tariffs, if you want these policies, go through the proper legislative process.
JENNINGS: He did, Yes.
[22:30:01]
And I think there's a lesson for Trump. If this is his top priority, why not govern responsibly? Why not try to lead the way presidents are supposed to lead? Why just issue executive orders all the time? It almost feels like he doesn't want to do the hard work of being the president. He just wants to the quick -- to sign the pardon or rename the building or something.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Let me ask Anthony one thing. I heard earlier tonight, a Republican Senator, I think John Kennedy, suggests that if the money went back in -- to the hands of corporations, it would be a massive economic boon for the United States. It could be a win-win situation for President Trump. What do you think?
ESPOSITO: First of all, I don't know if logistically, the money can go back in the Supreme Court.
PHILLIP: Well, just to be clear, Scott Bessent last month said they have the money, it's in the Treasury. If they needed to do it, they could do it. So --
ESPOSITO: It would be difficult. They're redistributing to I think 3000 recipients or over 3000 recipients. So, look, the money's in the country, right? So, would it be an economic boom? Would it help if we cut the debt and deficit spending? We're doing that. That helps with inflation. That helps with growth.
PHILLIP: It's really not doing that, though, like --
(CROSSTALK)
ESPOSITO: Again --
(CROSSTALK)
ESPOSITO: -- I'm watching the application number.
PHILLIP: That's a drop in the bucket, right?
ESPOSITO: No, but we're moving in the right direction. If we were to decrease the trade deficit, all right, which we're doing, we're decreasing the amount of dollars.
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: The trade deficit is up, isn't it?
ESPOSITO: The trade deficit is coming down.
(CROSSTALK) PHILLIP: The trade deficit, we have it, actually --
ESPOSITO: Exports is actually a huge input to GDP which is --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: The trade deficit, according to 2025 is virtually the same as it was in 2024. The trade deficit for goods is higher than it was before the tariffs. So, I'm not seeing where Trump is economically winning here, but I guess the question was, if you give companies back the $130-something billion that were taken out of their balance sheets, could that actually help reverse some of the weirdness in the economy that we've been seeing over the last year?
JENNINGS: I guess in theory if the money was going back into the economy and not being sent overseas, sure. That could be --
SARIN: I mean, just to be clear, it -- I can answer a version of this question. So, the way that these tariffs are collected, they're collected by those at the ports by those who are actually bringing in goods into this country, that is American companies.
And so, like, if you believe that if you cut taxes for American companies, you see an investment boon, then you believe a version of what Senator Kennedy said, which is that as a result of refunding potentially $140 billion in tariffs, that's going to trickle into the economy in ways that are going to grow it.
The thing that pushes in the opposite direction of that is that these tariffs have ultimately been passed down to the American consumer, at least in part, Scott. And that's what estimates say. Somewhere between 50 to 70 percent of these tariffs are falling on the American consumer in the form of higher prices.
That's inflationary. That's bad for the economy. And that won't be negated by any small investment types of increases that you're seeing on the margins as a result of these importers ultimately being able to profit.
PHILLIP: All right, everybody. Natasha and Anthony, thank you both for being here with us tonight. Next for us, the Trump administration's troubled relationship with the truth. Now, DHS is having to dial back some of its amped up claims when it comes to ICE. We'll discuss.
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[22:37:52]
PHILLIP: Tonight, Donald Trump's notorious habit of lying is rubbing off on his administration. And it's catching up to them in the court of law. Just consider this week alone. First, DHS admitted that its website featuring criminals it calls the worst of the worst was rife with errors. The website lists about 25,000 people, many of whom were only linked to minor offenses. And after receiving questions from CNN, the Department changed the site. Second, the Department of Justice announced that it violated orders in
New Jersey after a judge told them at least 50 times that they did it in the last 10 weeks. And then its immigration crackdown. Third, a judge held a federal attorney in contempt for the first time in Trump's second term.
Now, these credibility problems, especially apparent at DHS, as their accounts of incidents have fallen apart based on video and other evidence. And that includes the cases of Renee Good, Alex Pretti, shovel attack, Greg Bovino claiming he'd been hit by a rock, an assassination threat, a car ambush, a teenager's arrest, a gun claim, and a college student accused of supporting Hamas.
Angie Wong and Representative Justin J. Pearson are here with us. This is adding up to a lot, I think, for the American people right now. And let me just show you what they think. Alex Pretti, 61 percent say that the Trump administration did not give an honest accounting of the shooting. Fifty-eight percent say Kristi Noem should be removed from her job. I mean, that's something you would normally see just from partisans, but it's permeated.
ANGIE WONG, MIAMI GOP COMMITTEEWOMAN: Maybe, maybe. Oh, look, the media is trying to paint DHS and ICE as reckless constantly, right? And it's -- and people are buying it. I don't know if that's necessarily the case. Trump received a mandate back in November 2012 to remove illegals from this country. It was never going to be pretty.
There was going to be "oopsies". There was going to be things that happened that not everyone's going to like. But what are you guys doing? You're looking at their website, looking for errors? I mean, come on.
[22:40:00]
PHILLIP: Should we ignore the information that they're putting out? Should we ignore what the judges say they're lying about?
WONG: No, I think that why didn't we call this out during the Biden administration when Mayorkas said the border is closed when we all had two eyes and saw millions of illegals coming in.
PHILLIP: Okay, yes. We talked about that. We reported on it. We debated it, all --
(CROSSTALK)
JUSTIN J. PEARSON (D) TENNESSEE STATE REPRESENTATIVE: Let's be -- let's be clear here. It is not an "oopsie" when Alex Pretti is dead, when Renee Goode is dead, when Keith Porter is dead, when Dr. Linda Davis is dead, and just recently they learned another gentleman, Ruben Martinez, is dead due to what this administration is doing.
It's not an "oopsie" when a place like Memphis, which is under occupation by the Trump administration right now, has seen over 700 people separate from their families or deported. This is not something that is normal, and we're not going to normalize it or allow for language that dehumanizes people who are suffering right now all across this country because of what ICE is doing.
And the consequences of this are both immoral but it's also economics. The reality is we are facing the truth where hundreds of billions of dollars are contributed to our economy by immigrants, both those who are documented and undocumented, and you, and so many other people are continuing to push a narrative to try and separate and to divide.
WONG: It's not a narrative. It's the law.
PEARSON: And that's not something that we need to be supportive --
WONG: You're here illegally. That's not a narrative.
HONIG: Let's talk about the law for a second. DHS has made itself a major credibility problem. They've earned it, right? There have been over 50 cases when judges appointed to the bench by presidents of both parties have found on the record that DHS made untrue, misleading statements.
And let's just be specific about one of them, right? The shovel attack -- alleged shovel attack happened mid-January, right? DHS's initial statement was that was an attempted murder, okay? What happened now? DHS to its credit has admitted that the agents who gave that testimony gave, and I quote, "false statements" and their statements were contradicted by video evidence and they dismissed these attempted murder charges. That's a major screw up and that's one of many of them.
Now, Tom Homan to his credit has taken this issue on, has acknowledged that there is a credibility problem. Someone's got to fix it. It is real hard to build your credibility. It's real easy to lose.
JENNINGS: Not only did they admit it. I believe they're investigating these agents and they may face criminal charges for lying or giving false testimony. So, that's a good thing. It strikes me that -- especially on the cases where you have interactions between officers in the public, one of the things that's going to solve this is body cams.
And they're sending -- I guess they send body cams to Minnesota. I don't know if that's going to be applied broadly, but I think it should be applied nationwide because this would eliminate all doubt when you have interactions going on between law enforcement and the public. If you have body cams, the more video evidence you have, the more certainty you can have about how these interactions occur.
PHILLIP: Body cams are overwhelmingly popular. Ninety-two percent of Americans say they should be wearing them, but also, 61 percent say no more masks.
UNKNOWN: Transparency.
PHILLIP: And on top of that, I mean would just add that body cams have been funded for ICE for a while now since the so-called Big Beautiful Bill. Why they haven't been deployed, I don't understand, but that seems to have been a decision that was made that it wasn't that important to have accountability as they were fanning out these agents all across the country.
BOYKIN: I mean, ICE is the largest law enforcement agency in the country right now. With that type of budget and those resources, they have a responsibility to get some confidence of the public. You don't do that by lying to us about what we can see on video. We saw the video with Alex Pretti. We saw the video with Renee Good. And we have a 13-year-old kid who was detained by ICE in Massachusetts. They said he had a gun. There was no gun found.
How often can you lie? Call people domestic terrorists and then find out that they're just driving their cars and expect the American public to believe that. If you want to retain and restore the credibility of ICE, it starts at the top. That's the President of the United States, ICE director, the Homeland Security directors, not just the people on the street.
JENNINGS: Do you guys think Kristi Noem done a good job? Do you want as conservatives, Republicans, you want to see her stick around?
WONG: I think they've removed a lot of legal about this country in a very short period time. It's historical scale. And we're talking about --
HONIG: Do you Kristi Noem to stay? Do you believe she's credible?
WONG: I think she's -- I think she's qualified enough because guess what? I don't want to go through another Senate confirmation hearing.
PEARSON: Kristi Noem and all the people who have been leading this attack against people in our communities that have been deployed all need to resign or all need to be fired. I think that needs to happen. That should have been happening.
WONG: No, not at all.
PHILIP: We're going to a pause here and we'll continue after a quick break. We'll be right back.
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[22:49:11]
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SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: I have to ask you, in November 2025, a federal judge found that U.S. Border Patrol Chief, Greg Bovino, quote, "admitted that he lied during a deposition about being hit in the head with a rock before deploying tear gas at protesters in the Chicago area". Should Greg Bovino be fired or charged for lying?
TOM HOMAN, WHITE HOUSE BORDER CZAR: If a judge declared he lied under oath, he needs to be investigated. I think that if anybody acts outside the policy, then the Internal Affairs will open its investigation. That's the way we handle it.
(END VIDEO CLIP) PHILLIP: That was Tom Homan, Trump's border czar, basically throwing the man he replaced in Minneapolis under the bus, but also raising some really important questions about this accountability issue as we were just discussing. There is lying happening, and in this case it was by one of the top officials.
[22:50:02]
Shouldn't there be accountability for that?
WONG: I love Tom Homan. He said it just right. He perfectly pitched it because he understood the politics of it and the on the grounds optics of it, and he completely de-affiliated (ph) the media's narrative that we don't hold our own people accountable. He's holding his own --
(CROSSTALK)
WONG: -- accountable.
BOYKIN: -- except that Tom Homan himself has not been held accountable for the $50,000 he collected from an undercover FBI agent in a Kava bag and yet he's still up there running this Department. Where is the credibility when you -- when you have people who are themselves -- who should be under investigation? We're telling the American public that other people will be investigated.
PHILLIP: There's also the case by the way of that woman who was shot five times by federal officers and there was body cam footage. They still lied about it. They tried to charge her with crime and it was only revealed when the judge looked at the footage and said they threw out the case. So, have those officers been prosecuted? No, not that I know of.
PEARSON: That's right. This administration cannot be trusted and they can be trusted to hold themselves accountable, even after the killing of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. They didn't want to share information about what was happening, which is why we have to abolish ICE.
We have to abolish the customs and border patrol in the way that they currently exist and replace them with something that actually does the work that we need for them to do, which is why we need a Congress that works and that is effective at holding at holding these people in this administration accountable. I'll tell you what the work is not. The work is not killing American citizens in our community.
JENNINGS: I'm interested in your opinion. What is the work that we need them to do?
PEARSON: Absolutely. One, the work is not killing American citizens.
JENNINGS: What is the work we need them to do?
PEARSON: Well, first let's look at what they don't need to do. They don't need to go into communities like Memphis, Tennessee where they're currently terrorizing and traumatizing our communities.
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PEARSON: What we also need to make sure is that we have elected officials who are creating a pathway of opportunity for people who are currently undocumented.
(CROSSTALK)
PEARSON: We need a federal law enforcement --
JENNINGS: Do we need a federal law enforcement agency to deport illegal aliens, yes or no?
PEARSON: We do need a federal law enforcement agency that deals with immigration that doesn't kill people.
JENNINGS: Deport illegal aliens.
PEARSON: What we do also need is laws that make sure that people who are undocumented --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: Is there undocumented work?
PEARSON: You know, there is -- this is what I need you to focus on. This is what I want you to focus on. There are a lot of people in this country and in this community, in our communities that have done so much to make them better and we need to be prioritizing our --
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JENNINGS: One. Is there one? So, the answer is no? Is this the Democratic position in '26 that there are no illegal aliens that should be deported?
PEARSON: The Democratic position in '26 is that we don't terrorize American citizens, we don't terrorize people and we don't kill people like Alex Pretti and Renee Good.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: -- the Democrats in '26, would you advise them to answer this question this way but you can't say that there are so many illegal aliens that should be deported by the federal government.
PEARSON: What is shocking to me is that you think you can narrow the challenges of immigration --
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JENNINGS: It's not narrow, it's broad. There's 20 million here.
(CROSSTALK)
PEARSON: -- that you can challenge the issues of immigration into one yes or no question when the reality is the policies and practices of this administration have led to the deaths of American citizens and has not produced results --
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PHILLIP: All right. Okay.
JENNINGS: No deportations. That's the Democratic position.
BOYKIN: This was fascinating as an exchange. But, you know, Scott, the "gotcha" questions.
JENNINGS: It's not "gotcha". It's legitimate question. What do you think about it? I'm interested in his opinion.
BOYKIN: I don't represent the Democratic Party. I represent my own interest. What the Democratic Party does is up to them. But I actually agree with what Justin said. I think that there is a role for immigration enforcement, obviously, in this country. But I don't think we need to use ICE to be doing that. We were able to do this in this country before ICE was created. And we don't need them in the future.
But having said that, I object to the whole time that you use illegals and you use illegal aliens. I don't think
WONG: What's the right term?
BOYKIN: I don't think they're undocumented people. They are human beings. They're not illegals.
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JENNINGS: They're in the country illegally. It's in the law.
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BOYKIN: That's dehumanizing terminology that you're using. Regardless of what the law says, it's dehumanizing terminology.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Okay, we got to go and got to leave it there. Everyone, thank you very much for being here. This Saturday, don't miss a special CNN and Variety Town Hall event. Timothee Chalamet and Matthew McConaughey talk craft and career, including the possible impact of A.I. Here's a preview.
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UNKNOWN: How do you think the film industry will change with the rise of new technologies such as AI? What steps do you think will be taken to ensure that artificial intelligence doesn't replace creatives, but is rather used as a helpful tool?
TIMOTHEE CHALAMET, ACTOR: Wow, that's a great question.
MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY, ACTOR: Yes. Let me kick that off. So, first off, it's coming. It's already here. Don't deny it. Don't just creative world. It's not enough. It may be for you, but it's not going to be enough to sit on the sidelines and make the moral plea, the moral plea that no, this is wrong. It's not going to last. There's too much money to be made and it's too productive. It's tear, all right?
[22:55:00]
So, I say, get your own -- own yourself -- voice, likeness, et cetera. Trade market, whatever you got to do.
CHALAMET: So, you did that.
MCCONAUGHEY: Yes, get own -- own yourself. So, when it comes, not if it comes, no one can steal you.
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PHILLIP: Tomorrow night, tune in for a new episode of "Have I Got News for You". Here's a sneak preview.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROY WOOD JR., COMEDIAN: Question, which retail giant is part of a lawsuit to recoup their lost tariff money?
AMBER RUFFIN, COMEDIAN: J.C. Penney.
(LAUGHTER)
WOOD JR.: I said giant.
RUFFIN: Oh.
(LAUGHTER)
LARRY WILMORE, COMEDIAN: It's probably Costco because everybody goes to Costco.
WOOD JR.: It's Costco.
(APPLAUSE)
WOOD JR.: Costco. A bunch of companies have already joined a lawsuit to get their money back including Costco, Revlon, Bumblebee Tuna, and Kawasaki.
[23:00:00]
UNKNOWN: Oh.
WOOD JR.: I am no Bumblebee Tuna had that gangster in him.
(LAUGHTER) WILMORE: Kawasaki sneaking in there. We're made in America.
(LAUGHTER)
WILMORE: Kawasaki, yes.
WOOD JR.: The irony of it is that Costco is the one place where you can get tuna and a Kawasaki.
(LAUGHTER)
JORDAN CARLOS, COMEDIAN: That's true.
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PHILLIP: You can catch the full show tomorrow at 9 P.M. on CNN and on the CNN app. Thanks for watching "NewsNight". "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
