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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Was the Thanksgiving Flap a Midterm Lesson for the Left; Establishment Fights Back, Upsetting Socialist Surge in Race; Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) Gets Political Watchers Talking About Potential Run. ICE to Outfit Electric Shock Gloves to its Officers Despite Democrats' Criticism; Washington Post Reports Trump Administration to Spend $900 Million for White House Construction Projects. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired August 12, 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)
LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, Thanksgiving lives to see another year. Why the cold turkey may be a lesson for the left to save their midterms.
Plus --
REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): I'm on my way to do my last strength training.
Don't be weird about this.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: -- what is up with AOC? And will the liberal star keep trying to revoke her woke?
Also, as another ICE encounter surfaces on video --
CAROLINA MOLINA, RECORDED ENCOUNTER WITH FEDERAL AGENTS: He got out with a gun, pointed it to my head.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: -- agents may soon get gloves that deliver electric shocks.
And the price tag of the president's pet projects at the White House is nearing $1 billion from you, the taxpayer.
Live at the table, Scott Jennings, Bakari Sellers, Lydia Moynihan, Sarah Matthews, and Josh Rogin.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GARCIA-NAVARRO (on camera): Good evening. I'm Lulu Garcia-Navarro in for Abby Phillip.
It turns out talk of canceling holidays isn't popular with voters. Who knew? The progressive left licking their wounds after a swing and a miss in battleground Wisconsin. And it's raising questions tonight about who voters really want.
In the state's Democratic primary for governor, the establishment- backed David Crowley narrowly defeated Francesca Hong, a Democratic socialist.
Hong was hoping to capitalize on a string of recent progressive wins across the country, and all signs pointed towards her victory. But she spent the final weeks of her campaign facing questions about her past controversial statements and even reversed course on a 2020 social media post in which she called for canceling Thanksgiving.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FRANCESCA HONG (D), CONCEDED WISCONSIN GOVERNOR PRIMARY: But Thanksgiving is also a time that's incredibly painful for many people in our communities. And so I think there I wanted to make sure that people understood that there are multiple views.
My favorite holiday is Thanksgiving because I love Thanksgiving.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There you have it.
HONG: Yes. I don't want to cancel it. I actually love it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Crowley's victory is a stunning upset that opens a new chapter in the ongoing battle for the identity of the Democratic Party. Listen to how Jon Stewart framed the missed opportunities.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JON STEWART, PODCAST HOST, THE WEEKLY SHOW: When you don't know the difference between Chuck Schumer and Mamdani, and you don't know how to square that circle, and you don't have anybody who can unify that message, like how the (BLEEP) they haven't come up with their own contract for America or some -- even if it's a gimmick to centralize the general complaints of a public thirsty for some actionable ideas and leadership is malpractice bordering on criminal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Before we open it up to the table here, we invite you at home to join the debate. Head to cnn.com/abby and weigh in. We'll get to some of your comments throughout the show.
But, Bakari, I'm going to start with you because I'm assuming that you are going to say, I told you so, or something to this effect.
BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. First of all, it's not a stunning upset, and I kind of push back on that narrative. I think that we do a couple of things which are just incorrect. First, we label DSA and progressives all in one category, and that's just fundamentally inaccurate. You have a lot of progressives that don't espouse the same views and are not in the same political party as DSA. That's first.
Second, it's not an upset. The recipe has been the same. And what we saw last night in Wisconsin is the same thing that we saw in Detroit to a lesser extent, but we've seen it throughout the South where DSA's been rejected. The fact is black voters matter. Like you know how James Carville said, it's the economy stupid? Like it's black voters, stupid. Like it's not rocket science. Rural voters matter.
We saw that, and we saw rural voters -- and this is what's going to have to happen in Michigan when you look at Abdul El-Sayed, is the simple fact that he did extremely poorly with black voters. He did extremely poorly with rural voters. Right now, DSA is a party that's centralized with suburban white voters who have a certain upper crest, and it's in the -- it's in New York and it's in the Pacific Northwest. They haven't been able to cross that hump.
And so we spent a lot of time trying to make this a mainstream-type argument, and it's simply not that.
[22:05:01]
And you saw the repudiation of that last night. And, honestly --
GARCIA-NAVARRO: But was it just that she was a weaker candidate?
SELLERS: No. Abdul --
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I mean, when we're thinking -- I mean, I'm --
SELLERS: Abdul is a political animal.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I mean, I just wonder if this is not just that she --
SELLERS: He's a political athlete and she is not, and you saw those things.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Who's known for Thanksgiving.
JOSH ROGIN, LEAD GLOBAL SECURITY ANALYST, WASHINGTON POST INTELLIGENCE: Yes. I think a lot of people are missing the story here. It's not that she lost, it's that weak candidate without any establishment support almost won. She got 39 percent of the vote in Wisconsin, okay? And that's not the state where the DSA is supposed to win. And but for those stumbles in the final weeks, she would've won.
And that is the trend. It's not that she didn't win the race, it's that that message, that progressive whatever it is message, is gaining steam even in Wisconsin compared to yesterday, compared to last year, and will continue to gain steam. And in effect, she didn't lose because of the message, she lost because voters questioned her electability.
SELLERS: Yes. I mean, so the message --
ROGIN: And so the message is actually on the rise. So, I think if Democrats were smart, they would pay attention to the fact that she came within 0.5 points of becoming the nominee.
JENNINGS: And did it without AOC, and did it without Bernie Sanders. You could make an argument had they engaged with their fellow socialist --
SELLERS: But, I mean, the larger message for Democrats is, like, don't be weird, like they -- simply like on simple issues. Like let's not have candidates -- because for a long period of time we ran circles around Republicans in terms of candidate quality.
I can literally remember the days of Todd Akin. I can remember the days of Katherine O'Donnell saying, I am not a witch, right? And I know who Ken Paxton is, like I've seen the corruption surrounding Ken Paxton. We cannot run candidates who fundamentally are not ready --
GARCIA-NAVARRO: But, Bakari, just one second.
ROGIN: I mean, the Nazi tattoo, alleged rapist guy, that was a bad idea.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: One second.
SELLERS: Correct, and we repudiated him.
ROGIN: But, eventually, progressives will find --
GARCIA-NAVARRO: One second. Bakari --
SELLERS: Yes, ma'am.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: -- I just want to interrupt. That sounds fine, I think, but the fact of the matter is that she was running against someone who literally just came in three weeks ago, and running against a divided group of people. And so, you know, this was not a very concerted effort to take her down. And so what you're seeing here is, I think, a very divided Democratic Party.
SELLERS: No. I mean, you want it to be that because that's a better story. What you're seeing is the same thing we've seen over and over again, which is, fundamentally, DSA candidates do not do well in rural communities, they do not do well with black voters, point-blank, period. They have not been able to win in the South. They actually had an election. And Abdul is not necessarily a DSA candidate, but we saw the repudiation of black voters. We saw the repudiation of rural voters. I mean, that is what you'll see continuously. Until you make inroads in those communities, you're not going to win Democratic primaries.
JENNINGS: You know, Abdul's got, he's got Thanksgiving problems. 2019, just a reminder this Thanksgiving, this country was built on the systematic annihilation of indigenous peoples whose ancestors suffer some of the highest rates of homelessness, joblessness, and mortality. We owe so much more than thanks. Time for reparations. So, the problem with --
(CROSSTALKS)
JENNINGS: The problem with don't be weird is that all these socialist or socialist-adjacent or communist-adjacent or whatever candidates all spent a fair number of years tweeting weird things that put them in the same bucket as Hong. You said he's a political animal. He's got a lot of the same beliefs --
SELLERS: Athletes probably the --
JENNINGS: He's got a lot of the same beliefs.
SELLERS: But he's more -- I mean, he's more nuanced.
But I will tell you this, Scott, he has work to do. When you want to -- if we want to say, Oh my God, DSA's making inroads because of what happened in Wisconsin with the election, you have to realize that over 50 percent of voters in Michigan, they didn't vote for Abdul El-Sayed.
LYDIA MOYNIHAN, CORRESPONDENT, NEW YORK POST: So, Bakari, I think it's interesting you're talking a lot about where Black voters are going, and we're seeing Abdul El-Sayed needs to make more of an effort for that, because Mike Rogers is making a play for more moderate voters. And I kind of reject your notion that you think essentially more establishment Democrats are going to continue to lead the party. That's simply not true.
SELLERS: That's not what I said, though.
MOYNIHAN: Especially because we're seeing the Democratic Party is basically absorbing all of the far left ideas that the DSA is putting forward. And so even the so-called moderate who won isn't really moderate. He doesn't want to work with federal law enforcement, ICE. He wants an open border. He wants all of these very far left things. He's just not quite as crazy because he doesn't want to cancel Thanksgiving.
SELLERS: First of all --
MOYNIHAN: So, I think that's a question, even if he isn't DSA, they're still absorbing far left ideas. And I think that's going to repel black voters.
SELLERS: Let's actually say if people, if we want to make sure that everybody has access to quality healthcare or first-class education, or we want to take Mamdani approaches to affordability, things that matter to people --
MOYNIHAN: Like rent is in a new all-time high?
SELLERS: -- then that's something --
MOYNIHAN: That's going well.
SELLERS: That's something that people actually care about. I'm talking about the fact is people aren't necessarily talking about defunding the police.
If you want to talk about ICE, we'll talk about that a little later, but to say ICE does --
MOYNIHAN: Lots of people are talking about defunding the police, like Abdul El-Sayed.
SELLERS: I'm saying that voters, I'm saying that moderate voters, the voters you're talking about, pragmatic voters, Democrats are not necessarily looking for the next great messiah.
[22:10:02]
What we're looking for is someone who can win. What we're looking for is we're tired of losing elections, particularly in November when our rights are on the ballot.
SARAH MATTHEWS, FORMER WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY SECRETARY, FIRST TRUMP ADMINISTRATION: But Wisconsin -- I will say Wisconsin voters got it right by factoring in electability when it came to this race. Because, like Ron Johnson himself said it, that this is now a more formidable opponent that they will be facing this November, because Francesca Hong, she did have candidate quality issues. And so we can argue about the DSA and we can argue about the DSA and whether it's making more of an impact and whether the Democratic voters want candidates like that in rural or urban areas.
But I will say, though, that I think that voters in Wisconsin, these Democratic primary voters, recognize the threat that is Tom Tiffany and electing him as governor. Because if we have a disputed presidential election in 2028, it's going to be governors like him who are making decisions about that election.
And so it is important that we're not putting up an election denier to fill that governor's seat.
JENNINGS: There was another election on Tuesday. It was in Minnesota, and the socialist over in Minnesota, Peggy Flanagan --
SELLERS: She's not a socialist.
JENNINGS: Okay. The radical lunatic, Peggy Flanagan, decided -- she won over the moderate, Craig. I mean, that did happen in a state with a lot of rural voters.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: So, hold on one second. This speaks to the conflation that's happening that you hear that everyone is now a socialist when we're talking about Democrats.
But, actually, Lydia, I want to ask you something because if you look right now at Mayor Mamdani, who is the most famous Democratic socialist, his approval rating is going up, which is unprecedented. I mean, if you look here, 45 percent in June, now 47 percent. New York City, 58 percent, now 69 percent in New York City.
He is trying to show that Democratic socialism is actually something that can work. How do you explain that?
MOYNIHAN: Look, it's a good question. I think he was a very skilled marketer, which is why he got into the mayor office in the first place, and he's continuing to do that. He's very good at the photo ops. But if you look at the numbers, those are telling a completely different story. Rents are at a new all-time high. So, I think, eventually the, the data and the reality of the policies he's implementing are going to catch up with him.
MATTHEWS: I do think, though, that there are New Yorkers who are happy with him, not because he's a member of the Democratic socialist party. They're happy with him because he was talking about affordability and addressing their top priorities. They're happy with him because he's following through on campaign promises. You look at filling potholes or fixing drinking fountains. These are things that New Yorkers care about.
MOYNIHAN: He fixed one drinking fountain and it's because somebody tagged him on Instagram to do that. A functioning government doesn't need somebody to be tagged on Instagram to fix something.
ROGIN: I talked to a lot of young Democrats and young progressives, and they all say the exact same thing. They say that they're dissatisfied with the leadership of the Democratic Party because the grievances that underpinned those tweets and statements in 2020 have not been addressed by Democratic leaders six years later. And those grievances were real, and people forget that we had on the left the biggest movement, protest movement of the century in 2020, and it was based on real grievances, and none of those have been addressed.
So, people who speak to those grievances will win inside the Democratic Party, and people who show results on those grievances --
SELLERS: It's also generational, and we're seeing that --
ROGIN: And it is generational.
SELLERS: We're seeing a lot of that as well. But we're seeing it across party.
ROGIN: That's going to matter in 2028, and Democrats ignore it to their peril.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: All right, everybody stand by.
Next, AOC is sparking buzz both in politics and in her personal life. Is there a strategy, and can she distance herself from the woke era?
Plus, as more street encounters with ICE pileup, we're now learning that agents will be getting gloves that deliver an electric shock. We'll discuss.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:15:00] GARCIA-NAVARRO: Okay. What is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez up to? The New York congresswoman making headlines both politically and personally in what seems to be a calculated strategy. First, she told and showed the world that she's freezing her eggs. She's documenting her exercise routines. She says she's not ruling out a presidential run, and she's trying to distance herself from the woke era of Democratic politics that have become fodder for the right wing.
In an interview, she laughed off that era as crazy, saying that the policy debates were fruitful. Conservatives say she and the left shouldn't be let off the hook that easy. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani reacted to her comments today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: You yourself have walked back defund the police. Do you think Woke 1 was crazy?
MAMDANI: Each person has a responsibility to tell New Yorkers, to tell Americans when they're running for office what they believe. And sometimes what you believe can change. It can develop. It can grow. And I know that there are some for whom they still believe in that. I've made very clear that I do not believe in defunding the police, that I will not be defunding the police.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: All right, Scott, I'm going to start with you. AOC, I know she's your favorite politician. You're a huge admirer of her. I mean, what do you think her tactic is here, and do you see it being emulated successfully by other Democrats who want to distance themselves perhaps from some of those comments that we've talked about earlier today?
JENNINGS: My perception is that other Democrats aren't in the same position as her, and that position is she quite likely is the frontrunner for president for 2028. I assume it'll either be her or Kamala Harris. It'll be one of the two. And in order for her to be viable in a national general election --
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Why do you say that?
[22:20:00]
Why do you think she's viable?
MATTHEWS: I actually disagree. I think it's going to be a man that Democrats are going to nominate, sadly. I have no problem with it being a woman but I'm just saying that they've nominated women back- to-back. So, I would think that it's more than likely that the Democratic Party --
JENNINGS: And one won the national popular vote. And, I mean, look I, she is the leader, she is the heir to the Sanders socialist movement. She is clearly the inspirational leader of that movement. That energy in the Democratic Party is on the move and that's helpful in some primaries. To be viable in a national general election, you would have to get away from Woke 1 and try to laugh it off, although I don't think that tactic is going to be successful.
My suspicion is Harris is going to try to co-opt this lane as well. I know she's already making calls to some of the socialists to try to get in with them. But to me, it's AOC or Harris, and she's far more talented and a much better -- has a much better understanding of modern communications than Harris does. I would not discount the probability that AOC will be the standard-bearer for Democrats in '28.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Lydia, do you think she's formidable? I mean, do you think Republicans would like to run against her or afraid of running against her?
MOYNIHAN: I think Republicans want to run against Kamala Harris, who has a bad habit of putting her foot in her mouth. I think most recently she said voter I.D. was a terrible idea because people would have to show who they say they are, and most people responded with, okay.
AOC has an ability to dominate the news cycle that I think we've only really seen with Donald Trump. I mean, people have been now obsessed with talking about her egg freezing journey. She's caused a lot of controversy. Conservatives have gone after her. She sort of rage- baited and controlled and owned the news cycle and she comes across as somebody who's very likable, right?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Likable?
MOYNIHAN: But I think the issue with the, the whole Woke 1 is crazy thing and why she's going to have to do more than just laugh it off is she was the one who led this movement, right? I mean, that's like saying, oh, the first, you know, Salem witch trial, that was crazy. No you have to explain, or as the woke people say, do the work, and explain why you're trying to distance yourself from that. You can't, as a leader, fall prey to something and say, oh, oops, and then be expected to be trusted with responsibility once again. That's not how it works.
ROGIN: Yes. I mean, we're talking about how conservatives view her, but the comments that we're talking about here she received criticism from the left, not from the right. That's the story here is that she was getting attacked by the progressives and the DSA people because she was abandoning what they saw as their platform based on 2020 grievances that she was elected to help repair that they don't feel that she's delivered on. So, she's got more of a problem on the left than a lot of people realize.
But I also think that because of what you said, because she's a lightning rod now, there's nothing she can do without getting criticized by everyone. I mean, I come from an IVF family and, you know, my wife has written a lot about of our IVF journey. And I've come to know for sure that this is an area where there's not a lot of really good information for women, and where there needs to be a lot of taboo-breaking and a lot more demystifying, and that's what she was doing. But everyone attacked her for it. I thought what she did was brave and she just got a wave of misogyny and hate from everyone. So, I think that this is what it is. She understands the territory that she's in, and she's doing what she -- she's navigating the best she can, but there's no way she can win.
JENNINGS: But do you think she's a frontrunner for '28?
SELLERS: No. So, I think that she's --
ROGIN: I think she's in the mix. She may be a king maker, not a king or queen.
SELLERS: So, like I think that there's -- I think that there's a great deal of audacity for a lot of people to be discussing, you know, a 36-year-old career woman, how she's navigating and maturing throughout this process, balancing Washington, D.C., the wants to have a family, things that women go through and deal with those pressures day in and day out. And I just think that the audacity of a lot of people, you know, these people who sit in their basement, tweet all day, and eat Cheerios off their stomach, criticizing her for her IVF journey --
ROGIN: Guilty as charged.
SELLERS: -- is like a weird- -- it is a weird thing that happens. And so I applaud her for having the audacity to be true to herself.
Now, this whole thing about her being a front runner is just absent the reality of what the Democratic process is. And so now let me just educate my friends on the panel about what the map is. It's South Carolina, it's New Mexico, it's Nevada, it's Virginia, and it's Michigan. And so the politics of DSA, the politics of the progressive movement, are not necessarily something that are going to bode well in those first few states whereby you have to go and talk about the moderate voters that we just --
GARCIA-NAVARRO: But this is what the pivot's about, right?
SELLERS: And so what I'm -- that's what I'm saying, however, to Scott's point somewhat, is that it's very difficult to shed your brand right now to run for office. And so her brand is that queen of the progressive movement, and that's what people know her for. And she's going to have to lean into that because when you get in between, then people start questioning what you stand for. And I think the map is a very real reality for a lot of people.
JENNINGS: Well, who's opposing Harris?
MATTHEWS: I will say though that I think that if she wants to be a serious contender, she does need to shed these bad policies because they are bad policies.
[22:25:05]
Defund the police, bad policy. It's radioactive. And so if she means it and is truly authentic with it, and voters buy it, then she could be a serious contender.
And I'm willing to give her grace that if she truly has seen the light and thinks, okay, this is a bad policy, then I'll do that. Because look, J.D. Vance was someone who said that Trump was America's Hitler, and he went on to be his vice president. So, I think that we can extend that grace to her, that if she is truly moderating her positions, but it does seem like there is a political motive here that she knows to be a serious contender, she has to do this.
SELLERS: If you look at --
ROGIN: There is gambling in the casino.
SELLERS: If you look at cross-sections of who are front runners right now, because you asked the question, I mean, you have to look at somebody -- I'm not a fan of, like Gavin Newsom. But you also have to look at the people like Wes Moore, for example. You have to look at Jon Ossoff. You have to look at Scott Jennings' very best friend in all of politics, Andy Beshear. I mean, these are -- these are individuals -- Andy Beshear is a winner, right? Wes Moore is a winner who looks like a president, and Jon Ossoff as well. You have Josh Shapiro. You have all of these --
JENNINGS: J.B. Pritzker.
SELLERS: J.B. Pritzker. You have all of these individuals. So, to crown someone to be the frontrunner simply because they are articulating who they are, and she communicates extremely well --
ROGIN: I mean, they're doing that for a reason.
SELLERS: I know, but I get it.
MOYNIHAN: But I think what she -- it's not enough to just say, ha, ha, that was crazy, and move on. She's actually going to have to explain some things. What does she think is woke? Is she no longer in favor of children being transitioned, right? Does she think -- I mean, there's comments from 2020, you know, teachers union saying the push to open schools is sexist, racist, and misogynist. Does she no longer believe that? Does she no longer believe America's a racist -- like she's going to have to explain --
SELLERS: But that's also kind of -- that's decently fake. So, let me explain to you what being woke is, because --
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I'm going to bring in a comment, though, from a viewer. MAGA would love to run against a woman in the next presidential election. Reaction. Do you think that's true?
SELLERS: Yes, I mean, I think -- yes, I mean, I think --
(CROSSTALKS)
JENNINGS: No, my view is --
GARCIA-NAVARRO: It'd be three for three, I guess. JENNINGS: My view is that we want the brightest possible contrast between the people who love America and the people who think it's rotten at the core and ought, think it ought to be ripped out root and branch. She represents this group of people who fundamentally dislike the pillars of American culture, and they want to change it, and we want to run against that. So, whether it's her or whether it's -- I don't -- the gender is irrelevant. To me, it is, what is your outlook on American values?
SELLERS: Yes.
JENNINGS: That's the contrast that we want to run against.
SELLERS: And I just have to call -- I have to call that what it is, because it's just it's not true, and this is what happens when we kind of wage into these debates. First, the most qualified person to ever run for president was in 2016, and she got beat. That's Hillary Clinton. She's the most qualified person to ever run.
JENNINGS: She won the national popular vote.
SELLERS: But, yes, she did. But she -- you know, she -- man or woman, she's the most qualified person to ever run, and she got beat.
However, when you're having conversations about woke, which the right has taken and bastardized, and when you're talking about people hate America, that's not the case. Like my grandfather went to war for this country. I criticize her all the time because I believe that she did not fulfill the promises necessary to everyone under the sound of our voice, right, or regardless of who you love or who you pray to or what you look like, this country has issued bounced checks to different groups of people year in and year out.
And so it's not about hating America. In fact, my criticism of this country is she can be so much better. And the fact that I believe she can be better makes me more American than those people who simply say, I hate it.
ROGIN: I wouldn't discount a possibility that there's a woman on the Republican ticket in 2028 either.
SELLERS: Nikki Haley.
ROGIN: I was thinking Sarah Sanders.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Do you think Sarah Sanders?
JENNINGS: Well, I think J.D. --
SELLERS: That actually makes more sense.
JENNINGS: I think J.D. Vance is quite clearly the frontrunner, but Sarah Sanders I think is one of our top three or four most competent, popular, articulate possibilities for the national ticket. I think you're exactly right.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: All right, everybody stand by.
ROGIN: I want that in writing. Scott said I'm exactly right.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Everybody stand by.
Next, ICE agents will soon be able to shock people with their hands. We'll discuss.
Plus, Donald Trump's pet projects at the White House are now said to be costing taxpayers close to a billion dollars. More ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:30:00]
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Dramatic new video shows a federal agent pointing a gun in a woman's face after he claimed she tried to run him over. The encounter happened on Monday in Northern Virginia as Carolina Molina, an American citizen and a licensed counselor, was visiting immigration lawyers. Molina says she saw agents walking two Latino men in handcuffs towards an unmarked vehicle leading to this confrontation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: Yes, you recorded us. You almost ran us over.
UNKNOWN: I didn't.
UNKNOWN: You almost ran us over. Stop playing.
UNKNOWN: You are full of (expletive).
UNKNOWN: You're not funny.
UNKNOWN: You're not funny.
UNKNOWN: I will arrest you. Keep it up.
UNKNOWN: I'm a legal citizen.
UNKNOWN: I don't care.
UNKNOWN: Oh my goodness!
UNKNOWN: -- lock you up!
UNKNOWN: Okay. For what?
UNKNOWN: He's the one that tried to run us over.
UNKNOWN: Run you over? When?
I got recording, I got dash cam. That's a lie.
(END VIDEO CLIP) GARCIA-NAVARRO: As DHS faces criticism over its use of force and its credibility, ICE now plans to spend $20 million on gloves that can deliver electric shocks to compel compliance.
[22:35:02]
Josh, this is near where you live. We've seen a lot of these types of videos and I think what a lot of law enforcement has said when they watch this is you are seeing this agent, and of course we don't know the full context of this, what happened before this video was taken, but we see him exit the vehicle with his gun pointing it in the face of Carolina Molina. What does this say to you?
JOSH ROGIN, LEAD GLOBAL SECURITY ANALYST, WASHINGTON POST INTELLIGENCE: Right. To be fair, I just moved to this neighborhood yesterday, but I do live five minutes from where this happened as of yesterday, and a lot of things went wrong there. He's pointing a gun at someone's face.
He clearly is threatening the person. The justification that he used was, you tried to run me over, was the exact same justification that ICE agents used, in that case falsely, before they shot Renee Good to death in Minnesota.
So that's not an idle threat, that's not a random thing to say, you were about to run me over. That's clearly a threat against this driver. And that's scary, that's thuggish. That's, in my view, un- American.
There are a lot of societies where they have mass secret police that point guns in people's faces, despite the fact they've done nothing unlawful, and that's not how this country was designed, and I don't think that's how this country will end up.
But that video shows that actually the truth will win out. I think there's plenty of video to show that what the ICE agent was saying was not true, and until more evidence emerges, I think that's the preponderance of the evidence. And I immediately bought two dash cams for our cars as soon as I saw that video.
And because I live in that neighborhood now, and God forbid me or my family members should be in that situation, I want to make sure everything is documented. And it's sad that we live in a society where that's necessary, but here we are.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Scott?
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, FORMER SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH, AND RADIO HOST, "THE SCOTT JENNINGS SHOW" ON SRN: Well, I don't think we've seen near enough to pass judgment on it one way or the other. I think in all these instances, and I don't know whether this is true here, body cam footage from the point of view of the officer would be useful.
That would show you the entire encounter, and then you could maybe pass some kind of reasonable judgment on it. I know they're trying to deploy those, but to me, that's one thing here that would be helpful in almost all these cases.
You get an A to Z video of the entire encounter. I do find it strange. We see people showing up.
They're in their cars, and they're somehow in very close proximity to people.
ROGIN: You're allowed to take the police?
JENNINGS: I know, but you're not allowed to threaten them with a vehicle.
ROGIN: And you would have to ignore all of the what happened in the last 18 months.
JENNINGS: You would have to ignore the fact that we have seen a massive spike in violent acts committed against ICE and other federal law enforcement. These guys wearing the badge and enforcing our laws feel like their lives are under threat every day.
ROGIN: There's a real good answer to that, which is that they should operate under regular rules of transparency and rule of law that every single other law enforcement agent in the country has operated in since the time immemorial. They don't do that.
JENNINGS: They're facing an environment and rhetoric from Democrat politicians in this country that have put a target on their backs.
ROGIN: You set up an army of masked thugs running the streets and rounding people up and then blaming people for reacting. It is just gaslighting.
SARAH MATTHEWS, FORMER WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY UNDER FIRST TRUMP ADMINISTRATION: Riddle me this. Obama was able to deport more than 3 million people without all of this chaos, without having to give agents these shock gloves, and there weren't murders of American citizens in our streets. And he was able to do it. So it seems like there can be immigration enforcement.
JENNINGS: What murder are you talking about?
MATTHEWS: I'm talking about Renee Good, Alex Pretti.
JENNINGS: Have there been convicted murderers in these cases?
MATTHEWS: We've seen the video evidence, which shows a very -- No, they were overly aggressive.
JENNINGS: Is that what you're saying, for the record?
MATTHEWS: I'm saying that they look like they murdered those people in cold blood, in broad daylight.
JENNINGS: I'll say it one more time. They murdered her, is that right?
MATTHEWS: Hey, I'll say it. It looked like those agents murdered those innocent American citizens in our streets. And there's a way to do immigration enforcement without all of this chaos, without all of this violence.
JENNINGS: If people would interfere with law enforcement, there wouldn't be chaos.
MATTHEWS: But why then are masked agents going into communities and terrorizing them?
JENNINGS: I agree with you that Barack Obama was able to deport millions upon millions of people. The difference is now the Democratic Party has changed.
Back then, I guess they were fine with it. Today, they instruct people to go interfere with federal law enforcement.
BAKARI SELLERS (D), FORMER MEMBER, SOUTH CAROLINA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AND CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: That's not actually true.
JENNINGS: They do, because they train activists to do it.
SELLERS: The culture of ICE has changed exponentially.
MATTHEWS: Yes, because we're not training them adequately. We're not even training them adequately, and now we're going to give them a new weapon and give them shock gloves? What could go wrong?
SELLERS: The culture has changed simply because we're seeing mothers being separated from their children. We're seeing masked agents come into communities where they're not even telling you who they are or showing you their badges.
You're talking about people being run over by cars. And what you're seeing is you're seeing ICE agents actually put themselves in the line of danger.
[22:39:58]
And if you talk to the Seth Stoutons or the Jeffrey Alperts or these experts in law enforcement training, etc., they will tell you that a law enforcement officer should never put themselves in the line of danger. When you're talking about Pretti and you're talking about Renee Good, were they murdered? The answer is yes. The fact is they were murdered in the street.
And, you know, the answer that we probably cannot agree on is, you know, was it malice of forethought, all those things? But we can probably agree that they should still be alive today, and we can probably agree that whatever crime they committed was not a death penalty crime, if, in fact, they committed a crime at all.
The culture of ICE has changed, and the problem is ICE has no leadership. I don't blame those officers on the street, I blame the fact that there is absolutely no leadership at ICE, no one who has the fortitude to make sure that you have a culture, rules in place. And then if we want to talk about policy, we can talk about qualified
immunity and how that's run amok so you have officers doing the B.S. that these officers are doing.
You know what that officer did? That officer escalated the situation. That's what that was.
That's not protecting yourself. That's called escalation.
JENNINGS: Oh, wait, they're not murderers? Is that what you're saying, Lulu?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I'm saying that they're --
LYDIA MOYNIHAN, CORRESPONDENT, "NEW YORK POST": That incident that we just watched on camera was alarming, and I think there's going to be a full investigation. We're going to see what went awry. I agree with Scott, we need body cam footage.
But just one time, I would love to hear about a far scarier incident. In the last 24 hours, we learned that Todd Stewart was murdered by an illegal immigrant who was let out by a California judge who had already committed a crime.
Why is there never a segment or footage shown of American citizens who are killed by illegal immigrants?
MATTHEWS: We should be targeting illegal aliens who commit crimes. I agree. And that's what the Trump administration said they were going to do.
But then we're deporting people who are law-abiding citizens -- not citizens, but law-abiding residents, who are contributing to their community. They're contributing to their community. And it said those are the people they're targeting.
And then innocent Americans are getting caught in the crosshairs.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I mean, there's two things here. First of all, there is a credibility gap with ICE. I mean, we have seen the government and ICE themselves and the agents say that things have happened that are then shown not to have happened.
We have seen that in many instances. I mean, look here.
A man shot by an ICE agent in Minneapolis was charged with aggravating assault. And then, of course, that didn't turn out to be the case. There was that other case.
JENNINGS: The shovel case.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: It wasn't just the shovel case. There are ones over and over again. And it seems that there is a tactic where some of these officers, some of these agents are saying things that are not true. And the Trump administration is backing them up before there is any
evidence to the contrary. And so what we see in polling now is that something that the President was very strong on.
People supported his immigration objectives. He is now underwater on that issue because of what has happened in places like Minneapolis.
MATTHEWS: Because they've gone too far and I agree that body cam footage would be great if we're actually enforcing it when law enforcement uses it and doesn't use it. But, unfortunately, that doesn't seem to always be the case with ICE when they seem to, oh, we just didn't happen to have our body cameras on.
And it cuts both ways. It would incentivize law enforcement to act better, but it would also make the case for if that use of force was necessary. So we need to be enforcing it and holding these people accountable when they're not. But there doesn't seem to be accountability there.
JENNINGS: Actually, in the cases, some of the cases you mentioned, I know in the shovel case, you're right. The officers didn't tell the truth. And then the agency immediately admitted it, and they moved on disciplinary proceedings after they realized.
So there was a story, it was a bad story, it was a false story.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: And then it was repeated at the highest levels of the Trump administration.
JENNINGS: I'm trying to agree with you. Then the agency said, we looked into this. The officers didn't tell the truth.
And then the White House and the upper levels of ICE said, yes, this was a mistake. We're moving on them on disciplinary. That's what they should have done.
MATTHEWS: Has the White House ever apologized for calling Alex Pretti a domestic terrorist?
JENNINGS: They're having hundreds of thousands of interactions across the country. It is unreasonable to assume that 100 percent of them are going to go smoothly and swimmingly. And it's also unreasonable to assume that the police are at fault in every single one.
But that seems to be what we do around here.
ROGIN: I mean, everybody knows that.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Did the White House, though, prematurely call him a domestic terrorist?
ROGIN: Yes, that turned out not to be true.
JENNINGS: If I were in their shoes, I would not prejudge or pre- describe anything, particularly when you don't have body cam. Now, after you get body cam footage and you're going to have instant evidence, I guess we can all hop on our jump to conclusions mats with a little bit more stability.
[22:45:03]
But in these cases where you don't know, and in this case we just played, you don't know what happened before that interaction. Maybe she did get too close to them with a car. You don't know that yet.
MATTHEWS: Well, thank God she was filming it, at least.
JENNINGS: And you only have her footage. You only have a clipped piece of it.
ROGIN: Basically, in order to buy Scott's defense, you would have to ignore what everybody knows, which is that they set up this ICE system in a hurry with billions of dollars by hiring thousands of unqualified people and not denying them the proper training to do that job, and then giving them these quotas for arrests, and let them loose on these communities in a systematic way.
The direction came from the top. The system was designed from the top, and it functioned as designed, which was to terrorize these communities. And everybody knows that.
And the abuses are a predictable and predicted outcome of that system from the very beginning. And everybody knows that.
JENNINGS: You're arguing that everybody who's been hired is unqualified. You said it. You said thousands.
ROGIN: Thousands are unqualified, but there's hundreds of thousands.
JENNINGS: How many exactly?
ROGIN: Well, I would love for those of us who care to know --
MATTHEWS: I think we saw the video evidence that shows that they're unqualified and not following proper procedures or tactics.
ROGIN: We need a lot of law enforcement to identify themselves before they arrest people. How would you know?
SELLERS: If we go back to the video, I can tell you that the officer who pointed the gun at this young lady is unqualified. I can tell you that the black guy who came in from the side and yelled at this young lady, although he wasn't a part of the incident, unqualified.
Under-trained. I mean, I can literally look at the video and discuss and articulate what the issue is.
MATHEWS: People wanted immigration --
JENNINGS: -- to know immigration enforcement.
MATTHEWS: No, people wanted immigration enforcement. That is so false. People wanted immigration enforcement.
They didn't want the violence. They didn't want the chaos.
SELLERS: Why would the argument doesn't go well? Do we make these sensationalized signs?
JENNINGS: It's what your candidates are only. No immigration enforcement.
MOYINIHAN: That's what the moderate in Wisconsin believes.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Next, we'll react to your feedback from cnn.com/abby. More in a minute.
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[22:50:00]
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GARCIA-NAVARRO: Tonight, Donald Trump's pet projects at the White House are significantly more expensive than he's let on, and the American taxpayer is footing the bill.
The "Washington Post" reports the administration is planning to spend at least $900 million for White House construction projects. Instead of getting approval from Congress, they're effectively piecing together funding from other agencies. It's worth noting the White House has not disclosed the cost nor the sources of the funds it's assembled.
Sarah, I'll start with you. Obviously, you spent time at the White House in this administration previously. What do you think about this? I mean, this cannot be good for Donald Trump.
MATTHEWS: Let me just say that it seems like Trump missed his true calling, which was to be First Lady or First Gentleman, so he could actually take the time to focus on these types of pet projects of decorating the White House. But instead, he's President of the United States. These should not be his priorities, but spending almost a billion dollars on this is not what voters signed up for, especially when we're facing an affordability crisis.
Voters don't want to see him playing with these pet projects and designs of the new ballroom and all of these things. And the main issue here is, too, that he's focusing on this instead of other issues facing our country. He's also stealing taxpayer money to pay for it and funneling it from other funds.
And one of those being the Secret Service. He's taking over $400 million in funding that was appropriated by Congress for Secret Service to hire and train new agents. So it's just appalling to me that this is what he's doing.
He should be going through the process of getting Congress to appropriate these funds for these renovations. He tried and he failed, and now he has to steal it from other funds for the taxpayers. SELLERS: You know, I think we've seen the result of it. I mean, many
times the Trump administration is giving out no-bid contracts to donors and friends of the family, etc.
We saw how that worked with the reflecting pool. Isn't that what it's called? The big reflecting pool? I mean, you give out contracts to people who are ill-equipped to do the work necessary.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: It's not just the reflecting pool. It's the columns, it's the ballroom, it's also the helipad, it's the Rose Garden.
ROGIN: The golf clubs in D.C.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I mean, there's a huge number of projects here.
SELLERS: I don't know what happened to conservatism. I mean, I remember when Republicans used to be conservative.
ROGIN: I don't know what happened to separation of powers. At some point, Congress is going to have to reassert its role in our democracy, but it's not going to happen under the current circumstances. And I also have an issue with this case.
You know, I live in D.C., and all that yellow gold stuff is gaudy and tacky.
JENNINGS: Now you live in Virginia.
ROGIN: That's true. Thank you. Good point.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: It's a real thing.
ROGIN: I work in D.C.
JENNINGS: I don't mean to fact-check you.
ROGIN: No. I sit corrected, but, you know, all that yellow gold everywhere, it's tacky.
MATTHEWS: And he's also out of touch because it's a slap in the face to voters who are dealing with affordability right now.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Just briefly, Scott, who should replace Karoline Levitt? Obviously, she is stepping down. And who do you think?
ROGIN: Are you throwing your hat in the ring?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yes, well, first of all, are you throwing your hat in the ring?
ROGIN: Will you serve, Scott? Answer the question.
JENNINGS: No, look --
ROGIN: Answer the question. JENNINGS: -- I don't know, but I'll tell you this. Karoline Levitt has been maybe the greatest White House press secretary in the last 30 years at least. She's been nothing short of brilliant, she's done it while raising a young family.
[22:55:09]
I think it's great that she's going to go spend time with her family, but I don't know a single Republican in the country who isn't in awe of and in appreciation of Caroline tonight. So Godspeed on your journey back to your family. You've done a great job.
ROGIN: Do you want the job or not?
SELLERS: Let me help, Scott. Democrats are afraid of Scott Jennings becoming press secretary. There you go. Now you've got the job.
JENNINGS: You know, Obama renovated the complex. $376 million, which is about $570 million.
MATTHEWS: Didn't use as much gold.
JENNINGS: I'm just saying, it's not unprecedented for presidents to spend a few hundred million renovating the White House complex.
ROGIN: Some presidents would knock down the East Wing without telling anyone.
JENNINGS: It'll be better when it's done.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Everyone, thank you so much for being here, and thank you for watching "NewsNight." "Laura Coates Live" starts right after this.
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