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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Administration Expands Immigration Enforcement Mandate; ICE Arrests At U.S. Airports Happening More Frequently, Attorneys Say; Trump Urges Supreme Court To Overturn E. Jean Carroll's $83 Million Verdict; Charlamagne Tha God Appeals To Democrats Ahead Of The Midterms; Trump Predicts The Economy Would Be Better Than His First Term. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired July 28, 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 VIDEOTAPE)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST (voice over): Tonight, time runs out and fears of ICE raids escalate for Haitians.
GOV. MIKE DEWINE (R-OH): Have them not be able to work anymore and possibly, you know, taken out of this country is frankly a blow to Springfield.
PHILLIP: And a new federal rule fast-tracks deportation proceedings for nearly half a million asylum seekers.
Plus, the $83 million question, the president asked the Supreme Court to overturn the defamation verdict in the E. Jean Carroll case.
Also, a warning for Democrats.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can literally make a list of all the things the Trump administration is attempting to do to undermine the midterm elections.
PHILLIP: Is the fight over Democratic socialism taking all the attention from a bigger problem?
And --
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: We have an amazing economy.
PHILLIP: -- the president projects an economic boom as soon as the war is over. But do Americans have that kind of patience?
Live at the table, Isaiah Martin, Marc LoPresti, Terry Schilling, Christine Quinn, Elie Honig, and Kmele Foster.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York.
Tonight, the Trump administration is expanding its mandate on immigration from targeting the so-called worst of the worst to changing DHS procedures, pursuing new immigrant populations, and identifying new frontiers for its operations.
Today, the Trump administration reintroduced a new rule to accelerate deportations with the goal of reducing what it's calling a backlog in the asylum system. Under the new rule, officials can now refer asylum seekers to immigration judges without a formal interview. It's a change that could affect as many as 450,000 cases, and it effectively bypasses a step in the asylum process.
The change comes as the Trump administration is making plans to target, arrest, and deport Haitian migrants on a massive scale. That's after the Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration last month. Hundreds of thousands of Haitians and Syrians living in the United States lost their temporary protective status this week.
Now, according to CBS News, an expanded ICE operation includes plans to deport Haitian migrants in Ohio, where Haitian communities in cities, like Springfield, which you might remember, have been targeted by the Trump administration.
But as fears of imminent ICE actions in Ohio communities grow, the state's Republican governor had this to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DEWINE: Well, it's a mistake. It's not good for the United States and it's not good for the state of Ohio. These are people who have helped Springfield really come back. Springfield has been making a real comeback.
The Haitians who are living there and employed there, they came there to work, and they came there because there were jobs that were not being filled by other people. And so if you talk to the employers in Springfield who are employing Haitians, they will tell you that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Now, before we open it up to the table here, I want to invite you at home to join the debate. Head to cnn.com/abby. You can weigh in there. We'll get to some of your comments throughout the show.
Christine, I want to start with you on what they -- how the strategy is shifting, because just a few weeks ago, remember, a couple of ICE- involved shootings that left multiple people dead. The administration was kind of on its back heel. Now, they seem to be really redirecting their attention to people who they are making illegal, like TPS holders who came here legally and are now without status as of this week, and also, we'll talk about this a little bit later, but expanding deportations and arrests to airports where people who are in pending status are being arrested as well, no longer the worst of the worst. CHRISTINE QUINN (D), FORMER SPEAKER, NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL: Right. I mean, they- that's all we've heard repeatedly throughout this administration is, we are going to target the worst of the worst. The Democrats want to keep dangerous criminals in this country. But that all proves what we've all been saying. That's not true. They just want to make these target numbers that they've come up with.
And if you think about this, about what they're doing with the Haitians and Syrians and others, we're going to send people who were here legally back to countries that are plagued with violence, that they are in extreme danger if they go back to these countries.
[22:05:00]
And these folks are working and contributing to the economy. This has nothing really to do with keeping Americans safe or rooting out career criminals. It has to do with meeting some made-up mandates that the president has been put out there. And it all, I think, also relates to trying to distract from what happened in Minneapolis and what happened with those two murders.
And there's real questions about whether those individuals were here legally or not, and whether they should have even been targeted. And the asylum process is one that has worked well in this country. It is not easy. I work with folks who are trying to get asylum. It is not an easy process. And to circumvent that undercuts kind of what is at the foundation of this country, that you can come here seeking freedom if you're in need of it.
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, Elie, the asylum issue has been a target of conservatives for a long time. They think that it's too easy to claim asylum. And maybe they are right to some extent that the asylum system is so broad and the, the adjudication is so slow that it does leave this massive backlog. But what they're doing now is basically putting all of those people before these immigration judges who are part of the Justice Department.
And I think people might forget that months ago, the Trump administration, they purged a lot of immigration judges who they thought were too willing to grant asylum. So, they're going toward a group of folks now who are very much aligned with the Trump administration's vision for cracking down on asylum.
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: There are many problems with the asylum system. They have existed for many years. However, what the Trump administration is now doing is really treading right on that line of no due process. Because what they're doing now with this rule change is essentially saying, Of the 1.4 million or so pending asylum claims, we're going to take 440,000 of them who have been here for more than a year, and we're essentially going to take you out of the normal system, put you in front of a judge who can summarily dismiss your asylum case, and then you'll be gone.
And the thing I want to point out is the decisions that the administration makes and the Supreme Court makes have immediate and vast consequences. And we're seeing that now in the asylum context. We're seeing that now with the temporary protected status decision as well. And to Christine's point, there is a fundamental, not just tension, but conflict between, on the one hand, we're going to deport the worst of the worst, and on the other hand, and here's a daily quota, You have to deport 2,000 people a day. Those two things do not mesh.
PHILLIP: Right. Yes, I mean, that's an important point. I mean, when you have quotas, you're basically saying a dragnet is okay.
TERRY SCHILLING, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN PRINCIPLES PROJECT: Well, look I think the results speak for themselves. This is one of the areas where President Trump is doing strongest and Republicans are doing strongest is on crime. They have a 14-point advantage over the Democrats when it comes to cracking down on crime --
PHILLIP: But we just discussed that we're not talking about criminals here.
SCHILLING: But this is all part of the concerted effort.
PHILLIP: And we're talking about people who are --
QUINN: Really? Those Haitians?
PHILLIP: -- who are not criminals actually, by any stretch of the imagination.
QUINN: There's no evidence that there is a significant number, if any, of the Haitians who are here on TPS who are the worst of the worst or criminals. This isn't about crime.
SCHILLING: There is plenty of evidence that there is crime related to all of this.
ISAIAH MARTIN (D), FORMER U.S. CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE, TEXAS: Really?
QUINN: Really?
SCHILLING: By the way, this is --
PHILLIP: Where's the evidence?
QUINN: Where's the evidence?
MARTIN: You know what's really interesting about this?
PHILLIP: Terry, where's the evidence?
MARTIN: You know what's so fascinating --
SCHILLING: This is putting so much stress on our entire system, on the healthcare system --
MARTIN: You know what's fascinating about this?
SCHILLING: Well, if I could speak -- QUINN: Where's the evidence of the crime?
PHILLIP: So, you just switched from crime to healthcare --
(CROSSTALKS)
SCHILLING: No, because it's all tied. You can't say that immigration does not impact all of the other sectors.
PHILLIP: All I'm saying is, where's the proof?
SCHILLING: What I'm saying --
PHILLIP: That's all I'm saying
SCHILLING: We just said that we're bringing in people from very violent countries. We have increased crime under the Biden administration during those four years, period. I don't think this is really up for debate.
PHILLIP: It's very much up for debate.
MARTIN: here's the reality here, because there's this thing in this world called facts, and the facts are is that only 5 percent of the people that you're deporting are violent, convicted criminals, those people that are the worst of the worst, violent rapists, gang members inside of our country. Everybody agrees that those people need to be deported. But you're only deporting 5 percent of violent convicted criminals.
Let's go compare that to when Barack Obama was in office. 92 percent of the people that were deported under interior removals were convicted criminals, and of that 92 percent, 81 percent were deemed by the federal government as the worst of the worst. So, we went from deporting that many of violent people inside of our country to only 5 percent. You guys are not focused on the real violent threats that are inside of our country and that's evident.
SCHILLING: Yes, we absolutely are.
MARTIN: Well, then --
PHILLIP: So --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Hang on a second.
SCHILLING: It was about education. It was about the healthcare system.
PHILLIP: Terry, just a second.
SCHILLING: It was about --
MARTIN: Now he's talking about education. PHILLIP: What we're talking about here and as I pointed out, the group of immigrants that we're talking about here are highly vetted, asylum seekers, TPS seekers.
[22:10:03]
And in the case of what they're doing at airports, these are people who have pending immigration cases. According to The New York Times, they're going to these airports, and according to an immigration lawyer, they're casting a net for the people that they want to detain that is far wider.
This lawyer has four clients who were detained at airports in the last ten days, including two women who recently married Americans and are in the process of obtaining permanent residency through their spouse. One of the husbands was with his wife when he was taken into custody in Burbank, California.
These are people who are basically waiting for the federal government to adjudicate their legitimate pathway to a green card and citizenship, and the Trump administration, because it's easy and frictionless, is just picking them up at airports. Again, how is this addressing the issue of crime or the worst of the worst?
MARC LOPRESTI, CEO AND SENIOR MARKET STRATEGIST, MARKET REBELLION: Well, I think the issue, Abby, is the scope of the problem with Biden's open border policies. We did allow a lot of people that should not be here, in unprecedented scale, to come into this country.
PHILLIP: So, why are --
LOPRESTI: I'm a descendant of immigrants to this country. I believe that we are founded on this country on -- can I just --
PHILLIP: Hold on.
LOPRESTI: Let me -- I believe that people should be afforded, people are actually, that are under TPS or asylum status. They are afforded certain elements of the Constitution and due process. I think that should take place. But what happens is when the pendulum swings in either direction, Abby, too far, the response is often commensurately too far, and I think that's what we're seeing right now.
PHILLIP: So, is that what you're -- I mean, sorry, I mean, look, I'll just --
LOPRESTI: Not a justification. It's an observation.
PHILLIP: I'll take your acknowledgement that this is too far. Is that what you're saying?
LOPRESTI: I think in some instances it is, but I also don't think that we should just automatically assume that there will be a wholesale deportation of those 450,000 Haitian immigrants.
MARTIN: Well, what happens when you revoke their status? LOPRESTI: There's going to be a review on that.
MARTIN: What do you think happens then?
LOPRESTI: There would be a review.
MARTIN: But what was the reason for doing that?
QUINN: If there's no interview, how is there a full review?
LOPRESTI: As I said, when you have a problem that is exacerbated by the open border policies --
MARTIN: What is that open border policy? Can you define what that means?
LOPRESTI: I can tell you that there were over there were 3,000 murders committed by illegal immigrants.
MARTIN: I'm asking you what specifically --
LOPRESTI: And talk to the families of Laken Riley. Talk to the families of some of these people that should not be dead right now and are because of those policies.
MARTIN: Can you define what that means? What policies?
LOPRESTI: Letting people flow over the border --
MARTIN: How did they let? There were still immigration officers. What are you talking about? Define the policy.
LOPRESTI: That they were instructed to allow those people to come into this country --
MARTIN: But define the policy, though? Are you saying that immigration officers weren't there along the southern border during the time that Biden was in office?
(CROSSTALKS)
MARTIN: You can't name the policy.
LOPRESTI: I think it's well-established that the restrictions were less --
PHILLIP: But the fact that we're getting -- we're mixing a bunch of different issues at the same time, right? Because what we're talking about today are specific groups of people. TPS holders are people who are here because they are fleeing a terrible situation in their home countries.
Now, as we pointed out, the United States has a level four travel advisory for Haiti. We are telling Americans don't go there because of the risk of crime, kidnapping, terrorism, unrest and limited healthcare. In the midst of that, the Trump administration has revoked status for TPS holders, basically overnight made those people ineligible to work, essentially made them illegal in this country, and is now saying, You got to go back to that country that you were fleeing from even though the situation has not changed.
SCHILLING: So --
PHILLIP: That is what we're talking about.
SCHILLING: Well, let's go back to what TPS stands for. I think everyone should know it stands for temporary protected status. It's not meant to be a pathway to citizenship. It's not meant for any --
MARTIN: Do you think they should go back?
SCHILLING: Yes, they should go back and fix their countries.
QUINN: To Haiti?
MARTIN: Why?
SCHILLING: What's wrong with Haiti?
MARTIN: Why do you think they should go back?
SCHILLING: What's wrong with Haiti?
MARTIN: We have a level four travel advisory. What do you mean, what's wrong with Haiti?
PHILLIP: According to the State Department, there's a do not travel advisory for Haiti.
MARTIN: The State Department said it's not safe to go.
SCHILLING: Okay. So, America has to let anyone come here --
MARTIN: This is a specific amount of individuals on TPS.
SCHILLING: These people have -- the Syrians, right? The Syrians --
MARTIN: No, we're talking about Haiti right now.
SCHILLING: It's been over for almost two years.
MARTIN: We're talking about Haiti.
SCHILLING: We're talking about all -- we're talking about TPS right here. You keep trying to winnow the window of what we're talking about.
MARTIN: Just because it benefits you.
(CROSSTALKS)
SCHILLING: Yes, and we're bringing them over. They've been here. We've given them protection temporarily. PHILLIP: But, Terry --
MARTIN: So, do you think they should go back to a country that the United States is saying is not safe?
QUINN: The situation in Haiti hasn't changed. If anything, it's gotten worse. You give temporary protective status when things like that happen. If things in Haiti were different, then you might have an argument. But we're sending them back to a --
SCHILLING: When does it stop?
QUINN: When the situation changes.
SCHILLING: We're taking people from these violent countries into our borders just because they claim asylum. I just don't understand.
QUINN: They claim temporary protected status.
PHILLIP: Okay. Terry, I'm going to stop you there because, again, you keep mixing things up. Temporary protective status and asylum are not the same process.
[22:15:02]
They're not the same thing. I also want to read this viewer comment from cnn.com/abby that says, a person having temporary status does not equate to a person who is a criminal. And I think that is a response to what you were saying. But go ahead, Elie.
HONIG: When you win the presidential election, you get an awful lot of power and control over the way we do immigration enforcement, about what DHS does. Courts have recognized this. People who are subject to deportation proceedings do not get the same due process rights as a criminal defendant would, as a civilian would, and a citizen would in a court. That's just a fact.
There's a separate question, though, about is this a smart use of limited federal resources, right? This administration has more than doubled the number of ICE enforcement street agents. That's their prerogative. And now that we're there, now that we have this influx of resources, I think the policy question is, is this a good and efficient use of our resources, to be picking off people in the airport who are pending the process, to be taking people who -- some -- many of whom have been here lawfully under TPS, not all, but many, and to say, well, we're going to throw you out.
Wouldn't you rather -- well, let me throw it out there. Would you rather have our resources dedicated to throwing out ten law-abiding people, other than the fact that they're here illegally, people who've not committed crimes, or one person who's here illegally and has committed crimes? I'd rather have one criminal thrown out.
QUINN: Yes.
MARTIN: And that's the same argument that Barack Obama made when he was in office, and that's specifically why there was such a strong focus on getting rid of violent convicted criminals. That's what he did. And so, ultimately, again, we deported more people under Barack Obama, and we were focused on violent convicted criminals.
I think it's common sense to grab the people who have committed violent crimes.
PHILLIP: And I would also just say -- let me just make one note. I mean, we played the Mike DeWine sound from the beginning, but here's a Republican governor making an economic case for his own state that this doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make sense for their economy. It doesn't make sense for their communities. Why is that not a factor?
SCHILLING: Well, let's back this up. Isaiah, how does --
PHILLIP: No, I mean, are you going to answer my question? We're not changing the subject. We only have a couple of seconds left.
SCHILLING: Look, I dismissed Mike DeWine. He's not a very popular governor. You know, look --
PHILLIP: So, you're dismissing what he has to say because you don't like him?
SCHILLING: No, I'm dismissing it because he's not a successful governor, and we have these serious problems --
MARTIN: Oh, that's ridiculous.
QUINN: Successful and unpopular.
SCHILLING: I want to understand real quick, real quick.
MARTIN: So, the economic effects don't matter?
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: We have to go. We have to go, and you're not answering my question, so we're going to leave it right where it is, okay?
Next for us, the president asked the Supreme Court to overturn the $83 million defamation verdict against him in the E. Jean Carroll case. Is he immune just because he's president? That's what he's claiming to the nation's highest court.
Plus, Charlamagne Tha God says the Democrats are moonwalking to the midterms and not focused enough on the threat that Trump poses to elections. We'll debate that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: President Trump is urging the Supreme Court to once again step into his messy brawl with E. Jean Carroll. In a new appeal, he's asking the justices to overturn the $83 million defamation judgment that he was ordered to pay to Carroll, claiming that he's immune from this litigation after the high court's 2024 decision granting the president wide immunity for actions taken while in office.
Now, Trump's lawyers argue that this is the first case in our nation's history in which a court has imposed damages, liability on a president for his conduct in office. Yet in upholding the judgment, the Second Circuit never even decided whether presidential immunity applies.
Now, Elie Honig, this has your name written all over it, but is it -- could it be that President Trump is immune from this judgment because he just was president at the time?
HONIG: Well, any time we're talking about will the Supreme Court take this case or not, you're better off betting on no, right? Just statistically, the Supreme Court takes 2 to 4 percent of all cases presented to it. That said, there is an open legal question here. To be clear, there's a separate $5 million verdict that's already done. Trump's already lost. That money's already been paid to E. Jean Carroll. Now we're talking about --
PHILLIP: And the court has already said they're not going to take that up or review it at all.
HONIG: Right. He tried to stop the payment, lost, the money's out the door.
This now is the $83 million judgment. And his argument is this relates to defamatory remarks that Trump made in 2019 while he was president. And he's saying, well, in 2024, we all remember the big Trump immunity case, they said I could not be criminally charged for anything I did within the scope of the presidency.
And so now the question is, well, were those comments, which have been judged to be defamatory by a jury, that he made in 2019, E. Jean Carroll's not my type, she's lying, et cetera, were those somehow in the course of the presidency, the job of the presidency? If so, and you all will argue about yes or no, then he would have an immunity argument. The Supreme Court may take the case.
PHILLIP: Just a follow-up question. Is this defamation judgment a civil or a criminal case?
HONIG: Right. So, that's another wrinkle, right? The immunity decision was you're criminally immune. Here, he's saying, I should be civilly immune. But civil immune is a less big deal than criminal immune, right? I mean, it's a bigger deal to give someone criminal immunity.
LOPRESTI: But it's still broad, though.
HONIG: It's different. It's different. Yes.
PHILLIP: But, I mean, I guess, isn't it a different kind of relief that is supposed to be a lower burden of proof intentionally so that people can take each other to court and say like you defamed me, and you don't have to prove beyond reasonable doubt?
[22:25:01]
LOPRESTI: I mean, of course it's a lower burden of proof in a civil context than, versus a criminal context, thank God. But the question is whether or not it's appropriately within the scope of presidential immunity. And, Elie, I mean, I would argue that is pretty broadly -- historically has been pretty broadly interpreted to protect presidents from all forms, both criminal and civil, during their presidency.
PHILLIP: But you're saying historically, but the Supreme Court just ruled on this in 2024.
LOPRESTI: That they ruled on it -- it's a distinction that is important, Abby, it's a legal distinction, but there is a distinction between 2024 and what's being considered right now.
PHILLIP: Well, what I'm saying is, my point is, to me, it seems like the reason they're bringing this is because it's kind of a novel issue under this ruling that they just made. And that's why it's an open question.
LOPRESTI: I don't know that I would agree that it's a novel issue. Presidents are able to broadly apply or claim presidential immunity for conduct while in office.
HONIG: Let me, yes, let me pick up on that. I mean --
LOPRESTI: Please.
HONIG: -- the scope of immunity has been interpreted very broadly, right? We think of what are the president's duties, right? Okay, signing legislation, and vetoes, and making the State of the Union address. However, there was a moment when Merrick Garland actually decided that Trump was acting within the scope of his job as president when he made these comments.
He took it back, but for several months, the finding of the Biden DOJ was that he was in the -- and the rationale, and, again, people will disagree, is while he was being asked questions as the president by the press, he was defending himself and the integrity of the office of the president.
So, my point is the scope of the presidency, as defined by the courts, is quite a bit broader than people might define it in normal conversation.
LOPRESTI: And that was kind of my point. You may not like it but we're talking about what the legal standing -- I know you're shaking your head, but, I mean --
PHILLIP: It may include allegedly defaming someone who accused you of wrongdoing.
MARTIN: Isn't it extraordinary that we have lawyers at the Department of Justice arguing this point. Don't you think that folks at the DOJ should be more focused on going after smugglers, white collar crime, people who defraud America. LOPRESTI: My friend, that's exactly part of the reason for the presidential immunity clause to begin with. Presidents should not be distracted with frivolous civil litigation.
MARTIN: Frivolous civil litigation, in which he defamed somebody?
LOPRESTI: Listen, Elie, what is the typical award in a civil defamation case? Hundreds of thousands, maybe a million dollars --
MARTIN: The president of the United States is immune from defaming someone who already has been found by a jury of being guilty of doing.
LOPRESTI: Listen, you may or may not like it, and that's not what I'm trying to argue here is whether or not we like it. The question is what does the law say, and is it within the scoop -- or the scope, excuse me, of presidential immunity? That's what we should be talking about.
PHILLIP: So, one more thing to consider, a circuit judge in April had already said that, quote, presidential immunity was not raised for the first three years of this case. No other defendant would be permitted to move to substitute the United States in his place 15 months after trial and the entry of judgment against him. So, there is an existing judgment that has basically said hey, it's kind of too little too late for this, right?
HONIG: This was a problem in the lower courts. It's the doctrine of too late, so sad. I mean, he could have raised this before and didn't.
QUINN: Right.
LOPRESTI: And that may be the reason why this doesn't work, by the way.
MARTIN: This is where our tax dollars are going, man.
PHILLIP: What does it mean -- I mean, this is just another question about the consequences of this Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity. What does it mean that a president -- I mean, I think there are a lot of -- there's a category of things that could be criminal that a president could do, for sure. But even the idea that a president can freely defame whoever he wants is, I think, something that would surprise a lot of Americans.
QUINN: Yes. And just doesn't seem correct, right? I mean, why should the president be able to say whatever they want without being held accountable, particularly if you're defaming someone, if you're lying about them? And, you know, whether this ends up being legal or not, it's just a sad state of affairs, that we have a president who has been repeatedly charged of sexual assault and sexual misconduct, and courts have repeatedly ruled in the favor of the survivors, and that the president continues -- talk about taking down the image of the president. It's him continuing to fight when he's been proven guilty.
MARTIN: And how does that actually fit the duties of the presidency of the United States? PHILLIP: Well, there is a whole --
(CROSSTALKS)
SCHILLING: This is all under the umbrella of attacking -- the reason why we hadn't had to have the Supreme Court rule on this until 2024 is because no other president has had this type of lawfare thrown against him.
MARTIN: No other president has gone forward and been found civilly liable for sexual assault.
SCHILLING: We're talking about defamation.
MARTIN: What are you talking about?
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Hold on, Terry. Let me --
[22:29:59]
SCHILING: Civilly liable for sexual assault does not make sense. That's a jump.
MARC LOPRESTI, CEO AND CHIEF MARKET STRATEGIST, MARKET REBELLION: I've never even heard of criminally liable for sexual assault. There could be a defamation after what happened.
PHILLIP: Hold on, guys. Hold on one second. Terry, you're describing this as lawfare.
SCHILING: Yes.
PHILLIP: Even though this is an individual bringing a suit against another individual.
SCHILING: Without any evidence, there was no police report. There was no --
PHILLIP: My understanding of lawfare is this idea that it's the law that is, you know, the institutions of the government.
SCHILING: No, it can be weaponizing the government.
PHILLIP: It can be weaponized against an individual. This is a person who has an allegation against the President.
She took it to court. It was heard by a jury. And this was the judgment.
So what part of that was rigged against him?
CHRISTINE QUINN (D), FORMER SPEAKER, NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL, AND EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN, NEW YORK STATE DEMOCRATIC COMMITTEE: : Apparently the juries thought they were. SCHILING: Right. You can cherry pick juries. You can cherry pick courts that you choose to fight here.
This was all lawfare. And yes, private individuals can absolutely weaponize the legal system against people in power like President Trump.
I find E. Jean Carroll's claims to be crazy, I think she's kind of crazy, frankly. Like, if you see her house, she's been paid. But the whole thing is that he pulled up a lawyer.
PHILLIP: You might find it to be that, but a jury didn't.
SCHILING: If I was falsely accused of this, I would be fighting this the same way.
PHILLIP: So unfortunately in our system, that's how this works. You go before a jury, and they decide whether or not they find the allegations to be credible or not. And it's not a criminal case.
So the bar is not, you know, is he guilty of a crime? The bar is something much lower than that. Let me give Elie a quick word --
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: This was a jury that was careful because they actually rejected E. Jean Carroll's top charge, right? They said there was no full sexual penetration, but they found her believable on the lesser allegations.
So the jury wasn't just, like, inflamed by emotion. They went through it carefully, found the first allegation unproved, the other allegations proved.
PHILLIP: All right. Next for us, are Democrats spending a little too much time looking inward and not enough time paying attention to what the President is doing before the midterms. We'll debate.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:35:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight, with 98 days to go until the midterm elections, podcaster Charlemagne Tha God has a message for Democrats and a warning about President Trump's push to reshape how we vote. Take it seriously.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD, HOST, "THE BREAKFAST CLUB": Why does it feel like we're being so nonchalant about what's going to happen during the midterms? Like you can literally make a list of all the things the Trump administration is attempting to do to undermine the midterm elections. And it feels like we just, you know, moonwalking right into it like it's nothing. All the signs are right there. I mean, you're going to wait. You're going to wait till the day of, you know, be fake outrage on social media for 48 hours and then still go on about your life even after they steal the elections.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
PHILLIP: In a speech on Monday night, President Trump repeated some familiar and false claims.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Hopefully there will be no mail in ballots. Mail in ballots are inherently corrupt except for illness, disability, military deployment or travel.
If you're in the military, you're far away. Absolutely. But mail in ballots have proven to be a disaster.
We're the only country in the world that in this form does them. There's no other country in the world because they're crooked.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Trump also asked the Supreme Court to green light an executive order that would curb mail in voting ahead of the November elections.
Kmele Foster is joining us at the table. Is Charlemagne right that this is the bigger threat to the midterms than even this idea of are the socialists winning or are they not?
KMELE FOSTER, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, "TANGLE," AND PODCAST HOST, "THE FIFTH COLUMN": I'd say that this is an important issue for Democrats to talk about. Not that they haven't paid a lot of close attention to elections shenanigans thus far.
I think the issue, though, is the President at the moment is appealing to the courts and appealing to other official mechanisms here. He's not doing anything that is overtly illegal. There have been some orders that I think are constitutionally dubious.
But to the extent the courts knock them down, that's what the courts are there for. That's what they're supposed to do. I think Democrats do themselves a disservice when they hyperventilate about these issues, when they talk about them thoughtfully in a very substantive way, when they're talking about policy in a substantive way.
That is better for them than, oh, my God, he's going to steal the election. That would be aping exactly what the worst of what the Republicans do on these issues.
PHILLIP: What do you think, Isaiah?
ISAIAH MARTIN (D), FORMER U.S. CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE, TEXAS: You know, what I think is really interesting is that ultimately I think Trump is having flashbacks of the 41 seats he lost back in 2018. He's trying to do everything he can to go cast out. Look, I think it's important that people are paying attention to what's going on.
But ultimately, look, I think you're correct that if there's something illegal, they're going to go to the courts and the courts are going to decide. And I think that if we look at the track record, Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania won 61 straight cases. He won 61 and 0 against Trump on these election-related cases.
So, look, I have no doubt that in states across this country, Democratic A.G.s and Democratic governors across the country are going to be fighting back against a lot of the stuff that we're seeing for sure.
SCHILING: Well, we see it already with Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey to cooperate with the DOJ. I don't happen to think that she has the authority to do that. I think the DOJ is within the scope of its authority to request those records under the Civil Rights Act but you certainly are seeing Democratic governors push back.
[22:40:06]
I just don't think, to your point, that there's widespread evidence, and far be it for me to disagree with Charlemagne Tha God. I don't have a title like that, although I'd like to look into how I get one. But I do not think it behooves the Democrats to make those kinds of salacious allegations.
PHILLIP: Well, one of the reasons that he's saying that, well, there are several. The President just put in, he just got to the end of his term, Bill Pulte as the director of national intelligence explicitly, according to the President, to look into voting.
Then Jay Clayton was just confirmed today as DNI after refusing to say that Biden won. He sent his last DNI to Georgia to go seize ballots from Fulton County, where he still is falsely claiming that he won in that county and in that state.
So he's doing some real things and there is actually quite a lot that he can do to not just sow doubt, but also to actually mess with how elections are functioning. I mean, they're threatening states. You don't change the way that you conduct elections will withhold money from you, there are practical things happening.
QUINN: Yes, I mean, look, there is no question that President Trump is obsessed with what happened in 2020 and obsessed with this idea of election fraud. And he's going to use every lever he can possibly do to make changes in the election process that will affect the midterms, because he knows, like most Republicans, that they are losing.
So I think, you know, the Democrats, we need to take this seriously. We need to respond, we need to be aggressive, we need not make it the only thing that we're doing right, we have to have policies and plans. We can't just be, you know, anti-Trump, we need to be something else.
But I think that, you know, we need to walk and chew gum in this case. We need to take these things seriously, because for some states, the threat of losing money would be so significant to their budget, their leaders might have to think about making decisions they would not otherwise make. And that's a terrible, almost kind of like extorting type behavior for the federal government.
PHILLIP: I also wondered, on the Republican side, the President seems to be extremely fixated on this. I mean, you could argue maybe Democrats aren't paying enough attention.
Well, Trump is focused. He talks about it virtually every day, he thinks it's the number one issue, curtailing mail-in voting, changing the way states conduct their elections. Why is that the number one issue to him and not actual policy issues that matter to voters, like the economy, like cost of living?
SCHILING: Well, I disagree with the framing of that. I think he is concerned about all of that. But I don't think you have to go back to 2018 or even 2020, I think you have to go back to June, with what we saw in the L.A. mayor's race, where Spencer Pratt was leading, and then weeks after that, he lost.
MARTIN: Oh, here they go again.
SCHILING: Okay, well, let's see.
PHILLIP: Hold on a second. Just to be clear, I know there's a lot of polling going on, but that was a multi-way race in which Spencer Pratt was not leading.
QUINN: Right.
SCHILING: Absolutely. He lost.
PHILLIP: No.
SCHILING: He lost.
PHILLIP: Let me just disabuse you of this notion. He was running against two liberals who each had a share of the vote that, if you add them together, were greater than his share of the vote. That is not leading.
SCHILING: I have a question.
PHILLIP: That is not how this works.
SCHILING: How is it possible that Florida is --
PHILLIP: Spencer Pratt, in that same state, the Republican who was on the ballot for governor proceeded to the runoff. So, again, there is zero evidence.
SCHILING: It's interesting how that works.
PHILLIP: There is zero evidence that anything went wrong. I can't even believe you would raise this. No evidence. SCHILING: Why would you raise a case to court? Why would you raise a case to court, then? Do you think there's something bad?
PHILLIP: You brought it up.
SCHILING: First of all, I think --
PHILLIP: You brought it up.
SCHILING: I did bring it up, and I would bring it up a hundred times more.
PHILLIP: Offer proof.
SCHILING: Why has Spencer Pratt not gone to court about this?
Florida is able to count 10 million votes and get those election results out the same night. Why can't L.A. and all these other Democrat states do it?
There is something shady about it. There are a lot of questions that other people have. I think elections should be so transparent, no one has any questions about it.
MARTIN: Why did he not go to court?
SCHILING: He didn't want to answer that question. There's a reason for that. I don't know why Spencer Pratt hasn't gone to court.
MARTIN: Because there was nothing shady that was going on. That's why he didn't do it. Maybe he thinks the legal system is broken.
FOSTER: I think you're illustrating the party's vulnerability here. To the extent you guys are talking about, oh, we have to do something about all these ballots, the way that I would talk about this, if I was a national Democratic leader, is why are they afraid of the American people? Why are they afraid of them casting their ballots?
That is what ends up happening if Republicans keep talking about people voting in what has become a pretty conventional way as something potentially dangerous.
[22:45:01]
PHILLIP: All right, we're going to leave it there. Coming up, for us, the President claims that the best is yet to come when it comes to the economy, but polls show that the American people's patience is running thin.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: As Americans struggle with the skyrocketing costs amid the ongoing war in Iran, President Trump is now predicting an economic boon. We just need to wait to find out.
[22:50:05] (BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
TRUMP: With the best economy in the history of our country in my first term. This is going to be better as soon as this little situation gets worked out.
I believe it's going to be better. It already is better. Just today, we're hitting new stock market highs every single day.
401Ks are the highest they've ever been. So, I mean, we have an amazing economy. And, frankly, when this gets done, there'll be nothing to compete.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, Marc, a couple days ago, we were talking about this. You brought up corporate earnings. And I said people want to know how much their groceries and their gas cost.
And you hear Trump say that. He's kind of saying what you were saying, but it does kind of sound a little tone deaf.
LOPRESTI: So, look, there's no question that people are still feeling pain from elevated gas prices. War and conflict are, by definition, inflationary. There's no question about that.
We have Kevin Warsh as the new Fed chair with the first rate announcement under his administration coming tomorrow, expecting, by the way, that the Fed will hold pat, not raise rates, not lower rates.
And there is, unfortunately, Abby, there's a little bit of a lag between corporations doing well, which is important for the economy and the GDP, and consumers, people, to feel the benefits of that. It doesn't happen overnight. We need a little bit better messaging in that regard because the President is 100 percent correct.
The economy is doing very well., GDP is doing well, Inflation is getting in check. It's going in the right direction.
PHILLIP: Is it a message problem or is it a reality problem?
LOPRESTI: It's a messaging problem because, as I said, there is a lag. And I don't want to get into a habit that's not Wall Street mainstream.
PHILLIP: But some people would argue that it has been completely decoupled, that we are in an economy in which corporations have been doing really well for a long time and regular people are not.
MARTIN: 100 percent. And your whole point about better messaging is exactly why the Republican Party is cooked because it's direct actions of this President that has made things more expensive.
Getting rid of ACA subsidies directly led to a 26 percent increase in health care premiums. Getting rid of clean energy projects led to a 13 percent increase in energy bills. You're seeing this all across. Why would you go put tariffs on a country like Canada that we have free trade with? That resulted in farmers having to pay 13 percent more on their inputs, which led to more farm bankruptcies in the first quarter of last year than all of the previous year combined.
The reality is they're direct actions of this President that's increased prices for the people of this country. So going to go and brag about Wall Street doesn't take effect.
LOPRESTI: It's not a brag about Wall Street.
MARTIN: The people of America are the ones that are suffering under the policies of this President.
LOPRESTI: When you go to the lowest common denominator and do a Wall Street, Main Street narrative and haves and have-nots narrative, you lose my focus.
MARTIN: These are direct policies. I'm sorry.
PHILLIP: Let me play what the President said when he was asked about tariffs this morning.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
BRIAN KILMEADE, "FOX AND FRIENDS" CO-HOST: Are you worried that the tariffs that you put forward over the last couple of days will hurt the economy as they adjust in bringing manufacturing home?
TRUMP: No, because it's bringing hundreds of billions of dollars. It made the country rich, and it stopped eight wars. I would say five of them because of tariffs.
These tariffs, it's the greatest thing, and only the really smart people or the people that are nonpolitical and that get it talk about it.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I mean, I don't know. If you're a conservative, you understand the mechanism by which tariffs work. The consumers will pay, and they have paid. Prices do go up.
SCHILING: Yeah, and you know who's paid way more than these latest prices are the Midwesterners who have had our factories shuttered, who are now suffering deaths of despair at rates we've never seen before. I'm from the Midwest,I'm from the Quad Cities area. We've had factory after factory closed down.
PHILLIP: What about the farmers in the Midwest who also have been paying the consequences of these tariffs?
SCHILLING: You should fix that. But what I'm telling you is that getting rid of these tariffs have obviously led to a decline in the American working class. During COVID, we had toilet paper shortages because we don't make these anymore. MARTIN: I hope you understand that private sector spending to build new manufacturing facilities is down ever since Donald Trump has been in office. So your own argument is just simply not accurate.
SCHILING: I would love to see those farmers. But I want to tell you I see it.
PHILLIP: We do have to go. We've got to leave it there.
We're at the end of the show nearly because next our panelists are going to react to your feedback from cnn.com/abby. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:55:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: And now viewer feedback from cnn.com/abby.
This one is from Jennifer. Her husband is a retired doctor who now has Parkinson's disease. She's a retired nurse, and she says, I can attest to the extraordinary service of the Haitian immigrants performing in the health care field.
They staff our nursing homes, rehabilitation hospitals, and care for the elderly in numbers that cannot be matched by American workers. They take care of the parents and grandparents and all of us.
And a second viewer comment says, "why is Congress not fixing the immigration system?" That is where the problem lies. Seems fair.
[23:00:01]
QUINN: I mean, the first point is very well taken. I mean, if you look at the health care system throughout this country, I know it can speak to New York. It is comprised tremendously of women of color and particularly immigrants and a large number of the Haitian community from home health aides to staff.
And if these folks are sent back when you're on TPS, in addition to the damage it's going to do to them, that is going to be very destabilizing, particularly for our parents and grandparents.
PHILLIP: All right, that's the last word for us. Thank you for watching "NewsNight." "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
