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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Inflation Accelerates, Half Can't Afford the Basics, But the President Doubles Down; Blackburn's Kendrick Lamar A.I. Video Gets Backlash; Judge Limited DOJ's Access to Omar's Records; Is Trump Abandoning Ukraine? Aired 11p-12a ET
Aired October 14, 2026 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[23:00:00]
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ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR AND SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Tonight, inflation accelerates, half can't afford the basics, but the president doubles down.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We'll bring the prices way down.
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You know, we've already stopped the inflation.
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PHILLIP: Plus, we're learning why the Fed searched the home of a sitting congresswoman just three weeks before an election. Also --
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UNKNOWN: Do you feel betrayed by what has been happening?
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE: Really, yes.
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PHILLIP: Ukraine says Donald Trump has chosen a side in the Russia war. And we're answering your questions, your feedback, so don't hold back.
Live at the table, Scott Jennings, Ashley Allison, Lauren Wright, Isaiah Martin, and Lulu Garcia-Navarro. Welcome to another special hour of "NewsNight."
Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York for a special edition of "NewsNight." Twenty days to go until Election Day, and President Trump and Republicans are facing a bleak economic landscape. New polling reveals that the costs of living concerns are weighing heavily on voters, with six in 10 saying it's a top issue, and Trump's approval on inflation sits at just 22 percent while his handling of the economy and tariffs aren't doing much better.
Americans are right to be worried. The final inflation report before the midterms is officially out, and it is not pretty. It shows prices rising faster than expected last month, bringing the annual inflation rate to 3.7 percent. Driving those numbers is the energy shock from the Iran war as fuel costs continue to climb. Gas prices have been stuck at or above $4 a gallon for 166 days now. That shatters a grim Biden-era record. And despite Trump's much-hyped Russian oil deal, analysts warn that diesel could reach all-time highs in the weeks ahead because the number of barrels is just not enough.
Tonight, Trump hit the campaign trail in Arizona and Montana as he continues to drum up support for GOP candidates, but how much is this midterm pitch really resonating with Americans when this is what he has been saying for the last few months?
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TRUMP: We've already stopped the inflation.
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TRUMP: All your prices have been tumbling down.
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TRUMP: The inflation is coming way down.
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TRUMP: We're the ones bringing down the price.
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TRUMP: We've brought down prices, and nobody can believe what's going on.
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TRUMP: We have the best economic numbers.
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TRUMP: Oil prices now are coming down very rapidly.
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TRUMP: I know more about inflation. I know more about everything than anybody in this room, anybody anywhere in the world.
We have almost no inflation.
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PHILLIP: So, that's not true. And what's worse is that for the last three months, inflation has been going up and up and up year over year. That is the opposite of what Americans elected him to do, and Trump isn't even vaguely acknowledging that.
ASHLEY ALLISON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, it does feel like a runback from the Biden era where, at least, Joe Biden's economic indicators were suggesting that the economy was getting better even though voters were saying this type of report is not suggesting that.
And so, the fact that he is out on a campaign trail telling people your prices are going down and they're still going to the grocery store and they've just gone up.
The fact that it takes -- you know, I filled up my car $60 for half a tank of gas, like, that is outrageous for the average American, and keep going out and saying it because it feels like you're disconnected with the truth, with the reality, and you're not saying you're going to do anything to change it, you're just saying what you're doing is right, which could leave voters, particularly independent voters who might not always turn out but are feeling this crunch, enthused enough to go out and say, I don't want any more of this.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, FORMER SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH, SALEM RADIO HOST: The number, the top line number is not good. It's mostly driven by gas energy. Let's talk about groceries. Anybody know the grocery number year over year? One point eight percent. Grocery prices actually edged down in September. You mentioned groceries. And grocery prices are still high.
But when the president talks about taming inflation, he actually has a point on groceries. Now, the gas prices are killing him. Diesel is a major problem, and we've certainly debated out here the antidote to that and all the different ideas that are floating around out there.
[23:04:58]
But when it comes to food inflation at the grocery store, he actually has a point. That may sound cold comfort to people who saw massive price increases during the Biden years, but after two years of Trump, the grocery inflation is actually less than the 20-year historic average, and in the last month, it edged down a bit. ISAIAH MARTIN, FORMER TEXAS CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: The point is that that number is actually in spite of everything that Donald Trump has done because it has been because of Donald Trump's tariffs that he has put on everything that has raised the cost of inputs for farmers by more than 13 percent. That's a real impact.
JENNINGS: See, the grocery inflation number has a real impact.
MARTIN: No. What I'm telling --
ALLISON: I think that number might be lower --
MARTIN: That number would be substantially lower if Donald Trump did not go do these intentional acts to go and raise these prices. That's what I'm saying. Do you have a rebuttal to the fact that your president put these tariffs in place to raise our prices?
JENNINGS: So, we had prices that went here under Biden, and then the rate of inflation on food has now lowered than the 20-year historic average.
MARTIN: I love that you want to try to compare this to a point in which we were at a global pandemic.
PHILLIP: Just to be clear, the year-over-year inflation in this report shows that it ticked down slightly. But over the course of the last 15 or 16 months of the Trump administration, inflation on groceries has at times been high and actually rising. And some of that, I think Isaiah is right, has to do with tariffs and the input costs.
You know, there was a -- what you're looking at there is a New York Fed report that shows that's the differential between what prices would have been if Trump had not put in the tariffs and what they are now because of the tariffs, 2.9 percent higher.
And what's interesting is that it's not just on imported goods, it's also on products that are made in America. Roughly two-thirds of the effect is from imported goods, but the remaining one-third arises indirectly. Tariffs increases the price of goods made right here in the United States because producers pay more for the imported parts and materials and because producers raise their markups when they're competing against imports that cost more.
So, it is -- I mean, to put it simply, one of the biggest, maybe if you put the Iran war aside, the biggest self-inflicted wound that the president made.
LAUREN A. WRIGHT, POLITICAL SCIENTIST, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: Yes, they are. And so, you know, I don't actually think it's a big debate about whether there are self-inflicted wounds or not. I think there are. I would have said the same exact thing, and I did during the Biden administration, when there was already high inflation and then he shoved through $6 trillion in spending, that made it even worse.
MARTIN: What? How did he do that? WRIGHT: Through COVID relief policies.
MARTIN: That's not true. The American Rescue Plan was not $6 trillion.
WRIGHT: Yes, it was.
MARTIN: It was $2 trillion.
WRIGHT: With all of the other stimulus plans, it was.
MARTIN: Like what? Name them.
WRIGHT: Hold on. Can I just finish my point really quickly?
PHILLIP: OK. So, you're adding all of the total COVID stimulus --
WRIGHT: Yes.
PHILLIP: -- which includes some under --
WRIGHT: Which, depending on the measure, it was six to eight.
MARTIN: The CARES Act and the American Rescue Plan are too different.
PHILLIP: Hold on. They don't want us to get too bogged down in this. It is true that there was a Biden COVID relief plan that costs a lot of money. That is --
WRIGHT: Yes, plus other economic stimulus like the -- it was supposed to be the Inflation Reduction Act even though he said, never mind, I named it wrong.
MARTIN: That was a surplus.
WRIGHT: Let me go ahead. The debate is not about whether there's inflation or Trump contributed to it. It's bad in a lot of different ways. One of which, and James Talarico talked about this, is how it's driving up the cost of Social Security and entitlements because we have to adjust those benefits for the seniors receiving them. They get inflation adjusted benefits. So, it's so much more expensive. It's crushing the economy.
What's interesting is I haven't heard a drop from Democrats about how in reality they're going to fix these things.
MARTIN: First of all --
WRIGHT: On debt reduction, on Social Security and retirement, on benefits.
MARTIN: First of all, I think that it is downright --
WRIGHT: I would like to hear what the solutions are because I think you guys are going to get Congress back, anyway.
MARTIN: Number one, we want to end the ridiculous broad-based tariffs. But I want to go back to something that you said.
WRIGHT: OK. So, just --
MARTIN: You came forward and talked about the whole COVID situation.
WRIGHT: Yes.
MARTIN: Let's get the numbers correct. It was $2.5 trillion for the CARES Act, $2 trillion under Biden. I think it is downright pathetic that you guys, as conservatives, are trying to compare inflation numbers after a global pandemic in which two presidents printed $4.5 trillion on top of that with supply chain issues and the war in Iran.
WRIGHT: I agree. Trump also -- he also had stimulus that I did not agree with at that time, then he promised people $2,000 individual checks that I did not agree with --
MARTIN: So, to try to go --
WRIGHT: -- at the time and neither did Mitch McConnell.
MARTIN: Wait a second.
WRIGHT: So, I am actually very consistent on this.
MARTIN: We were dealing with a once-in-a-generation pandemic. And to try to go and compare a self-inflicted war, self-inflicted tariffs, to a point in time in which we had a global pandemic, I think that is downright shameful, and I think that is pathetic.
ALLISON: I think it is fair.
WRIGHT: I actually think when we compare the same issue across presidents, it checks the quality of our thinking. That is actually how you tell --
MARTIN: To compare a global pandemic --
WRIGHT: -- if you are being partisan or you are being political.
MARTIN: To compare a global --
PHILLIP: Well, let me just ask you about what he is saying, because I think this is actually important and maybe kind of at the heart of what is driving the dissatisfaction.
[23:10:03]
The American people weren't happy with the cost of living in the post- COVID years. But there was also a pandemic. There was -- there was an existential event that occurred at the time. This president inherited a situation that was actually getting better --
MARTIN: That's right.
PHILLIP: -- and then made active decisions that made it worse. WRIGHT: I agree with that.
MARTIN: That's right.
PHILLIP: And that is, it seems to me, to be -- it seems to me to be a completely different situation. These are not actually apples --
WRIGHT: Joe Biden's only justification at the time was we did not go big enough in 2008 --
(CROSSTALK)
-- and there was no mathematical justification.
PHILLIP: You are not answering my question.
MARTIN: Right.
PHILLIP: You said comparing administration to administration, situation to situation, apples to apples.
WRIGHT: Yes.
PHILLIP: It is not apples to apples.
MARTIN: Right.
PHILLIP: Isn't this Trump choosing to do something --
WRIGHT: It's the closest to the --
PHILLIP: -- that he didn't need to do --
MARTIN: No, it's not.
WRIGHT: It is the closest we have since the last president.
PHILLIP: Not in response to anything existential, but just simply because he could do it.
MARTIN: That's right.
WRIGHT: I disagree with the policy.
MARTIN: That is why you cannot compare the two, Lauren, because we are at completely different --
WRIGHT: Why? We're not allowed?
MARTIN: We had a global pandemic --
WRIGHT: We are never allowed to question the Democrats.
ALLISON: I think we are.
MARTIN: -- compared to a point of inflation that is 2.7 percent the night of the president --
WRIGHT: Ashley just talked about the strategy --
MARTIN: He went forward --
PHILLIP: Ashley?
WRIGHT: -- and she made a very even-handed remark.
ALLISON: I don't think it is apples to apples. I do think when you have an inflection point like a global pandemic that none of us have ever lived before, you have to put that in consideration.
WRIGHT: We should have been more thoughtful about the policy.
ALLISON: However, I think what we -- Scott, I hear you. One point eight, yes. We dropped numbers in Joe Biden's administration. The reality, though, is that people don't think either party is actually helping them feel heard, seen, and get relief.
Now, you asked what some policies are of the Democrats. They want to get private equity out of housing so people can afford more housing. Across the board, folks are going into one of the questions tonight on the town hall. It was, like, I can't afford, you know, a house in Texas. You know why? Private equity is coming in and buying all of it.
Data centers, taking jobs away, running up utility costs. Most Democratic candidates want to put a moratorium or a pause on data centers, but it is not driving up utility costs.
WRIGHT: How are we going to pay for all that if there were no data centers? Go ahead.
ALLISON: But there are policies that Democrats are, and that is the discussion. Can I just say --
JENNINGS: Who builds the data centers?
ALLISON: Here is the thing -- well, hopefully, union workers.
JENNINGS: Working class Americans.
PHILLIP: OK. Let me play -- I just want to play this quick ad. This is in a Mississippi democratic Senate race. It's about the issue of affordability. It uses the sound from the Republican opponent, what they say voters should do about how much things cost.
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UNKNOWN: The price of beef continuing to go up.
UNKNOWN: You have so many proteins to choose from.
UNKNOWN: Pick another protein? I'd rather pick another senator instead.
UNKNOWN: Pick another protein? She done lost her damn mind. I'd rather pick another senator.
UNKNOWN: Pick another protein? What the --
UNKNOWN: Pick another senator instead.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ALLISON: This is good.
PHILLIP: The policy options on the right are also not great.
ALLISON: Yes.
LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR, JOURNALIST FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES, PODCAST HOST: Yes. You know, what's really sad about this entire discussion is that everyone says, no, it was Biden, no, it's Trump. I mean, the fact of the matter is people are fed up --
ALLISON: Yes.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: -- and they are living with what has been now six years of really tough economic -- really tough economic situation. And what they see is a political class writ large that is struggling to meet the moment. And the fact that there is no debating that Donald Trump has made decisions that have made that worse, whether it be tariffs or whether that be the war in Iran. And there is also no debating that Democrats are going to struggle to remedy this. Why? Because the underlying issues now are very deeply embedded.
When you have inflation that has gone on this hard, it is very hard to bring it down, the first thing. The second thing is, we have a deficit that is like wildly out of control.
MARTIN: Because of the taxes.
PHILLIP: Whoever's fault it is.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: This is my point. My point about this is, like, sure, you can assign blame, but at this point, whoever is going to take this over, some very tough and bad decisions are going to have to be made that are going to make nobody happy. We are going into a period of great economic instability.
PHILLIP: Right.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: That's all I'm saying.
PHILLIP: Switching gears for us to the campaign trail, Republican Marsha Blackburn is channeling Kendrick Lamar in an A.I. video to promote early voting. Watch this.
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[23:15:00] (END VIDEO CLIP)
ALLISON: Oh, please.
PHILLIP: After that video went viral, CNN affiliate WZTV in Nashville asked Blackburn about it today, and here's what she said.
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SEN. MARSHA BLACKBURN (R-TN), TENNESSEE GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: There is a county commissioner that made the video and put it up. I think Congressman Burchett reposted it. We reposted it. And it's a fun thing. Everybody, get out and vote.
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ALLISON: Please.
PHILLIP: The genre choice is notable. Many MAGA voices panned Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl performance in 2025. And Blackburn herself has made her feelings about hip-hop very clear. Here she is back in 2007 before a hearing with rappers Master P and David Banner. Listen.
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BLACKBURN: I cannot and will not begin to read back many of the lyrics written by the two gentlemen that are going to be on the second panel. They are obscene regardless of when they were written and to what audience they were directed. And, in my opinion, they do not deserve the dignity of this committee's time. It raises a good question, though, for these individuals. Where and how did society fail you to the point that you would choose to write such filth? I find it very sad.
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PHILLIP: All right. Ashley --
ALLISON: OK. Listen. I think what she doesn't understand is she's Drake in this situation. OK? That's number one. Number two, that's cultural appropriation. She probably has never heard the song before. Number three, keep Kendrick Lamar, keep rap out your mouth.
I think the real filth is some of the policies that Marsha Blackburn actually proposes, to cut public education, to continue to ruin the economy. This is pathetic. It's like just she's out of touch. Stop retweeting stuff. You don't understand what you're doing. Just stop.
JENNINGS: Don't you want people to vote? It's like encouraging people to vote.
ALLISON: OK. But you know what? When Megan Thee Stallion got up on stage with Kamala Harris, you were, like, how disrespectful it is. Democrats want to bring rappers out to get Black people to vote. And now, this is OK?
JENNINGS: It's an internet video asking people to vote.
ALLISON: And if she even knew, because I was at that Super Bowl performance. If she even knew what that performance was actually about, she'd be mortified.
JENNINGS: This is an animated --
MARTIN: To be honest --
ALLISON: You should be embarrassed for her. You should be. She is Drake.
JENNINGS: I don't even know what that means.
ALLISON: She loses.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I know you don't know what that means.
ALLISON: And that's the point. That's the point.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I know you don't know what that means.
MARTIN: You know, to be honest with you, as a 28-year-old, I thought it was cute.
ALLISON: No.
MARTIN: It is because --
JENNINGS: See?
ALLISON: No.
MARTIN: I don't think you can get the answer you like, Scott. It was cute because it was emblematic of everything wrong with the Republican Party and why you guys have a 29 percent approval rating.
WRIGHT: I actually thought --
MARTIN: -- never focused on substance. Tennessee ranks 50th in the nation for quality of life. Number two, when it comes to rural hospital closures, only behind Texas.
WRIGHT: Oh, yes.
MARTIN: Number three, when it comes to gun deaths per capita, that's what Tennessee is. And if you look at Marsha Blackburn's ex-feed, none of it talks about policy.
WRIGHT: Why do you think that Democrats are so far behind?
MARTIN: None of it talks about policy.
WRIGHT: OK.
MARTIN: You know why? Because it is true that Marsha Blackburn is not like us because she doesn't focus on anything that anyone cares about.
WRIGHT: I thought she looked like an old person dancing in it. And I was impressed by the choice of the dancer. It looked like it would have been Marsha Blackburn inappropriately dancing to a song she doesn't know about.
PHILLIP: It also just -- I mean, I'm sorry, but this is like the type of thing you do when you don't know anything about culture or technology.
ALLISON: That's right.
WRIGHT: Maybe we're not anywhere thinking it.
ALLISON: Here's the thing. Here's what I'll say. If Nancy Pelosi would do that, I'd tell her to sit down, too.
PHILLIP: Who is this supposed to appeal to?
MARTIN: But that's the point. It is that they --
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Let's not forget Chuck Schumer and his dance. I mean, this is people of a certain age trying like trying to connect and it's just like it's embarrassing.
ALLISON: And it's awful.
MARTIN: This is about Marsha Blackburn as a whole. I really took some time to go scroll down her feed. Scott, do you believe that Marsha Blackburn is right to run a campaign on no substance and no issues? Can you tell me one policy that she's running on as the governor of Tennessee?
JENNINGS: I know she is very focused on education reform and continuing to improve Tennessee schools.
MARTIN: What does that mean?
JENNINGS: I think -- I think you all are dramatically overblowing this. There are tons of internet meme-type videos out there every single day. People make them. They make the rounds for a few hours.
(CROSSTALK)
ALLISON: I thought it was fake. I saw that this morning. I literally saw --
JENNINGS: It is fake.
ALLISON: But she retweeted it. But she retweeted it.
WRIGHT: State that she retweeted.
ALLISON: Yes. I had no idea that she would actually put that on her feed, so we got it in our topics today.
[23:20:00]
PHILLIP: The other thing that I think is interesting about --
ALLISON: Got to stop it. It's absurd. It's ridiculous.
PHILLIP: The other one, I think, is interesting about this and also what I've seen a lot from the Trump accounts --
JENNINGS: I'm going to retweet it.
PHILLIP: -- is that they like to utilize black culture a lot --
ALLISON: Yes.
PHILLIP: -- in a lot of these memes and these internet videos and posts. And it's very discordant with not only some of their policies, but also what some of their own voters believe about Black people in America. And I think that's the other thing that rubs people the wrong way, is that you're going to trash rap, but then use rap --
ALLISON: Use it, yes.
PHILLIP: -- as part of your pitch to voters.
MARTIN: And the very target audience of those songs are the people that her policies are most set to hurt.
ALLISON: Yes.
MARTIN: And that's the real root of the issue, is that, again, Marsha can talk about and share whatever she wants but, at the end of the day, she has no record, she has no agenda, and I think that's what's the real shame.
WRIGHT: Why are people moving at such high rates to Tennessee if it's such a hellscape?
MARTIN: Well, what do you think about 50th for quality of life? Do you think that's a good thing? Do you think that it's a good thing?
JENNINGS: I don't think the people moving there believe that. They're going there because they have low taxes. They believe in the economic development, environment.
MARTIN: They are number two for rural hospitals that have closed down.
JENNINGS: Tennessee has been a growing state under Republicans, and it's mostly because they've reduced taxes and they've reduced the barrier to entry when it comes to --
MARTIN: Do you think that it is good that --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: People are moving there because people seem to like it. MARTIN: They like rural hospitals closing down?
JENNINGS: I'm telling you --
MARTIN: What is the solution for Republicans?
WRIGHT: We're just talking about the numbers.
JENNINGS: They are growing. Nashville is a growing place.
MARTIN: So, what is the solution for that, Scott?
JENNINGS: To growth? More growth?
MARTIN: More growth! You have hospitals closing down.
ALLISON: I don't think that's great.
(CROSSTALK)
Can I just say on Nashville expanding, I actually would like to know the demographics of the people moving to Nashville and it becoming much more like an Austin of Texas versus like eastern Tennessee of the state.
WRIGHT: Regardless, the tax revenue is leaving.
PHILLIP: Next for us, new details tonight about what federal agents were looking for when they searched Congresswoman Ilhan Omar's home and what a judge said needed to be off limits in that search. We'll debate, next.
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[23:25:00]
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PHILLIP: Tonight, we are learning more about the Justice Department's search of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar's D.C. home. Sources tell CNN that the DOJ is looking into whether Omar and her late father gave false statements in decades-old immigration paperwork. One source says that the government could try to expand that investigation into whether Omar engaged in fraud and conspiracy to hide it.
People familiar with the investigation tell CNN that at least a dozen subpoenas have been issued since last Friday to witnesses in the case, most of them relatives of Omar.
We are also learning that the judge who approved the search warrant limited the documents that the DOJ could gather, a move to protect Omar's legislative work from investigators. Omar has denied any wrongdoing and hasn't been charged with a crime.
President Trump's long history of going after Omar could potentially complicate any case against the congresswoman, but that didn't stop him from renewing those very attacks today.
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TRUMP: Everybody here, you're the people that built America. You're not the people that demand everything like Ilhan Omar who says -- who comes in from a ninth-rate country. It's not even third rate, ninth rate. She comes over to this country, and she said, I have constitutional rights, I have a constitutional right to be in this country. And then they come over here and they tell us how we should run the United States of America. No, thank you. No, thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, it seems to me the bottom line in this situation is that when you've spent as much time as Trump and many of his aides have going after, you know, this particular Congresswoman, saying they want to prosecute her, being explicit about how and for what, you better have the goods, right? Like, you better actually come up with the evidence that holds up in court. And based on what we know about what they're looking at, it's a very tricky case that the road -- that they are going down here.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: It's not only that it's tricky, it's the timing of this.
PHILLIP: Yes.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I mean, come on, this is three weeks before an election. This is stuff that is decades old, that has been percolating through the system. I mean, there is no reason for this to happen right now unless it -- unless there is some sort of political motivation because there doesn't seem to be any urgency around this issue. It's not like they discovered something yesterday. This is something that has been apparently working its way through the system as far as we understand it for quite some time. And so, you know, his own statements --
JENNINGS: When did it start? This investigation. Because it has been going on for a while.
PHILLIP: Well, here's the thing.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I think --
PHILLIP: Hold on. Hold on just a second. Hold on a second. Let me just try to answer your question based on what we know in the reporting. Under the Biden administration, they did look into it, but it seems as if that investigation did not go anywhere and it was reopened under Trump.
And so, questions, a lot of questions tonight about why it wasn't pursued by the Biden administration, was it because they didn't find anything? Was it for other reasons? And the Trump re-picking it up doesn't necessarily mean that it has been going for that long.
MARTIN: Right. PHILLIP: It means that they've taken it back up. But, again, there are a lot of issues here, including 26-year-old allegations, including allegations about where they would need to verify information that might not even be verifiable because she fled a civil war in Somalia where record keeping is not great. That's a common problem for refugees.
WRIGHT: You know, I learned a lot from the Mar-a-Lago raid. You do have to have the goods. There have to be records. There has to be credible witness statements. A judge has to sign off of it. They must have something because they had to have probable cause.
[23:29:58]
I really don't like the politicization of this, and I would have said the same thing about the timing during the Trump prosecutorial stuff, which even Eli Honig has talked a lot about on this very panel. He thought a lot of it went too far and the timing was bad.
PHILLIP: Although I would say the timing of the Trump Mar-a-Lago search was not even close to an election. It was not.
WRIGHT: What was the urgency with that one?
PHILLIP: I mean, frankly, the urgency was to get the documents out of Mar-a-Lago. It's a fact that the documents were there. The timing had nothing to do with an election. We are literally three weeks away from an election right now.
JENNINGS: But you don't think she's challenged. She lives in an R&D plus --
PHILLIP: It doesn't -- I mean, it literally doesn't matter. The DOJ -- the DOJ principle isn't about, well, don't do it if they're in a competitive race. There is an election happening. And she's on the ballot. And her party is on the ballot.
MARTIN: Specifically also with the Senate race as well. There's polling that shows that the Senate race is tightening in the state of Minnesota. So, going to try to put her inside the headlines is really something. But what's really fascinating about this, this has happened when Ilhan Omar was a child. We were literally talking about something that happened all those years ago.
So, my real question to you, Scott and to everybody, is this really a can of worms that you guys want to open? Because if a democratic administration gets in there, you want us to start digging into the paperwork of Elon Musk? What about Melania?
WRIGHT: Yes, if it's warranted. If it's warranted and there's a possible cause, yes.
MARTIN: Didn't Elon profess that there was --
WRIGHT: By the way, this is about whether she was 17 or 18, which we don't know about because the staff has given very inconsistent answers about why the ages are inconsistent.
MARTIN: Her father is deceased. He cannot answer for those things. Ilhan Omar was a child. And I think that it's absolutely absurd. So, the real question, once again, is this a can of worms that you guys want to open?
PHILLIP: Let me -- there's a Wall Street Journal talk to --
(CROSSTALK)
Hold on a second. The Wall Street Journal talked to an immigration official, Leon Fresco, who worked in the Justice Department during the Obama administration, and said that the case would hinge on finding material evidence that Omar lied about her own age, rather than her father lying on her behalf. That would make the case significantly easier to prosecute. But either way, they are not traveling down a well-paved road here.
And citizenship de-naturalizations are rare processes that take years to go through the court system. So, I mean, even if there was a there, there here, look, Ilhan Omar's opponent have been very clear, they want to see her stripped of her citizenship. But this seems like a bit of a long shot.
ALLISON: I can't be lost on any of this that it's her, that this is someone that I would put on a list of people that Trump said he was going to go after if he won, like Tish James, like Comey. To date, those haven't really panned out.
I put this somewhat in the bucket. It feels very political. It feels like it's targeted because of her. I think it's targeted because she is Muslim. I think it's targeted because she is from the Minneapolis area. I think it is targeted because he doesn't like her policies.
So, maybe there's something there, maybe it is not, but I think that, like, we're probably kidding ourselves if we don't think there's, like, targeted attack because it is Ilhan Omar.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: And the other thing about this is the ugliness, please, with which he speaks of the Somali community writ large of the country where she comes from. He spent, I think, the other week, actually calling for members of Minneapolis to rise up against members of the Somali community.
I mean, there is a really despicable and ugly way in which he talks about her and her community. That is utterly reprehensible for a president of the United States.
PHILLIP: Right. Next for us, is the Trump administration abandoning Ukraine? The Ukrainian president says that Trump is picking sides in this war, and he's choosing Russia. We'll debate.
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[23:35:00]
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PHILLIP: Tonight, has the U.S. abandoned Ukraine? After Donald Trump announced a new deal to buy Russian fuel, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had this to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE: It's a pity that we are losing -- we are losing strong partner. So, this is my opinion.
PIERS MORGAN, BROADCASTER: You think you're losing America?
ZELENSKYY: Yes. But not because of us. We -- I mean, we can't be weak. Otherwise, we can't survive. That's why it's painful when President Trump chooses one side, not our side. But we are OK that he's in the middle. But if you are in the middle, you have to stay in the middle, not on the wrong side. This is not right side of history.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Both Russian and Ukrainian forces have ramped up attacks on energy infrastructure in recent weeks as movements on the battlefield remain relatively stagnant.
But despite Trump's announcement of a so-called energy ceasefire between the sides this week, the Russian strikes have continued. The Trump administration previously warned Ukraine that it could suspend intelligence sharing and weapons purchases if Ukraine did not stop attacking refineries.
And for two nights in a row, Ukraine has said that it received no early warning about Russian ballistic missile attacks. After a deadly ballistic missile attack hit a major power plant in Kyiv, Ukrainian officials demanded answers, suspecting that the intel lapse was deliberate. U.S. officials blamed the weather for that, and Trump says that information flows continue.
But the fact that we are even asking that question is, Scott, that's -- I don't know. I mean, I'm sure Trump wants the energy infrastructure attacks to stop.
[23:40:02]
JENNINGS: Yes.
PHILLIP: But it is also true that Russia is not stopping. He is putting no pressure on Russia to stop their energy infrastructure attacks. And then if they are, in fact, withholding intelligence, which the Ukrainians believe that they are, the price of that is real lives, like real people being killed in these attacks.
JENNINGS: Yes. The president has said the information sharing does continue on intelligence. So, I think we should just be clear about that. But this idea of a ceasefire on the energy infrastructure, I know what he wants, and Lord knows I agree with him. You just don't have a trustworthy partner in Russia to deal with on something like this. Imminently predictable that they would just slough it off and keep doing what they think they need to do to crush Ukraine. You can't trust them. This is the enemy. These are the Russians.
Now, it has always been true that the only way to end this is through some kind of negotiated peace. Both sides are going to have to come together and have some kind of negotiated peace. But the idea that the Russians would be the most trustworthy partner in that and that you could cajole them or somehow -- whatever you call it, it's never been a realistic idea to me.
PHILLIP: He's not even putting any pressure on Russia at all. All of the pressure is landing on Ukraine. And he is treating Ukraine like an enemy.
MARTIN: Right.
PHILLIP: I mean, I saw a tweet from Eric Erickson earlier today that said we are acting like the bad guys in this scenario, we are not siding with the country that was attacked, that is being -- Russia is trying to take over --
MARTIN: Right.
PHILLIP: -- an entire country in Europe.
MARTIN: Right. And we literally have --
WRIGHT: -- Ukraine a couple hundred billion at this point.
PHILLIP: I'm talking about the president's behavior.
WRIGHT: Yes. Sad point.
PHILLIP: Right now. Yes. Right at this moment. Right?
MARTIN: And we also have the Budapest memorandum, which I know you're very aware of. We have the reality that there was a promise, that in order for Ukraine to give up their nuclear weapons, the United States would go and defend them against Russian aggression. That is exactly why we're going and we're supporting. So, the fact that we are playing this game of footsie to where, to Scott's point, trying to effectively act like Russia is a reliable partner is absurd.
ALLISON: Why do you think he's doing that?
WRIGHT: That's because he's not ideological about foreign policy. It's probably his greatest weakness and occasionally a strength, but he does not do the Reagan, H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, that are bad actors and there are good actors.
PHILLIP: What does that mean practically in this situation? I mean, being non-ideological, what does that get the United States?
WRIGHT: It means he doesn't believe that, I don't think, from what I've seen, that Russia is a totalitarian dictatorship. PHILLIP: But you don't have to be ideological to understand that Russia is invading another country. That has nothing to do with ideology.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Forget Russia invading another country.
(CROSSTALK)
Let's forget that Russian invaded. Let's even say -- let's be non- ideological about that. Let's say, who cares? Is Russia a friend of the United States? Is Vladimir Putin -- even if you want to exclude the idea of Ukraine and you want to be America first about this, is in any way, shape or form, Vladimir Putin, a friend of the United States? As Scott points out, a trustworthy partner of the United States? Do they wish the United States in any way, shape, or form well? Do they want to help our democracy in any way? So, leave aside Ukraine.
ALLISON: Yes.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: And so, the argument -- actually, the argument for actually giving money to Ukraine has always been actually a self- serving one. Let them fight the battle. Let Ukraine fight the battle for us. We don't have to then actually send troops to defend NATO because that we are obliged to do.
WRIGHT: China is watching all this very closely because we are pledged to defend Taiwan, and they just want to see their tit for tat.
ALLISON: Yes.
WRIGHT: And it's very, very scary, what's going on.
JENNINGS: You know, I think a couple things could be true. I agree with everything you just said. These are not our friends. It's an enemy. At the same time, Zelenskyy, interesting guy, he has been frustrating at times for both Trump and Biden. There has been reporting on his frustrating interactions with Biden, too.
So, what's going on in the background, I think, sometimes, we don't necessarily know, but the macro issue here is, how can you ever make a deal to do anything with the Russians and expect them to keep it? You could never have any expectation that they are going to do anything on our behalf.
WRIGHT: Same issue with Iran.
MARTIN: It doesn't work.
ALLISON: I wonder, when we were in the 2024 debate and he was saying he could end this war on day one, and we're now like two years in and this still hasn't happened, some of us argue that maybe his posture on foreign affairs was a bit naive.
[23:45:04]
And I'm wondering if, like, you may be coming around to your point that how are we trusting Russia. Maybe even if Zelenskyy right now is not -- is frustrating, I would take frustration over an enemy any day. And so, go back to the question. Is this behavior making us safer as a country?
JENNINGS: It wasn't that long ago, by the way, that we were promising the Ukrainians the ability to build Patriot missiles and have the interceptors that they need. That was a good development. That was just a few weeks ago, a few months ago. And so, this new development, I'm dead certain that the president wants to do whatever he can do to settle this. So, the question is, how do you settle it with somebody like Vladimir Putin? How do you settle it with a bad enemy of the United States?
PHILLIP: I think there are separate issues, right? There is what will it take to end the war. And then there's also what Trump wants for his own political survival in this moment.
WRIGHT: Well, that's what's interesting.
PHILLIP: And I think that is -- those are now two different issues that are on the table when it comes to this conflict. I don't think that this whole attacking Zelenskyy over the energy infrastructure attacks and the siding with Putin on that, I don't think any of that has to do with ending the war.
MARTIN: Yes.
PHILLIP: That has to do with Donald Trump being mad that diesel prices are high.
WRIGHT: Yes. He has a very myopic view on it.
PHILLIP: Look, I mean, if that's the case, what he's saying essentially is that he's willing to sacrifice the United States' national security interests for maybe a temporary very small blip in global diesel prices.
WRIGHT: Yes. And there's no one making that case in the Republican Party right now. There are very few people making that case. Maybe Marco Rubio. Lindsey Graham is gone. You know, that intellectual conservative movement vis-a-vis foreign policy is pretty empty and hollowed out right now, arguing for America's role in the world in that particular way.
And what's fascinating is, America, you can see it in the public opinion data. Americans do not perceive Russia to be a threat in the way that they used to be. They really only care about the diesel prices, and it's a rational, short-term view.
MARTIN: I think that's --
WRIGHT: But they're not thinking about the foreign policy in the way that we are.
JENNINGS: I do agree with you that people have these concerns, 100% agree with you. But I do think Americans, most of us, can tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys.
WRIGHT: Yes.
MARTIN: Yes.
WRIGHT: But it's shifting.
JENNINGS: For the bad guys, IRGC. They're the bad guys. Radical Islamic terrorists are the bad guys. So, I think most of us can still tell the difference. And in this conflict, the Russians are the bad guys. I think most Americans know that. I think they would love the president to be able to settle it. And I think testing out economic incentives here is not an invalid idea. But you have to have some verifiable Russian restraint, and we don't have.
PHILLIP: I disagree. It is an invalid idea to economically incentivize Russia in a way that gives them more fuel for the war machine that is pursuing a deadly war. That is a bad idea.
JENNINGS: Well, you have to have some verifiable restraint.
PHILLIP: Economic incentives are so great for them and so terrible for us, and it will not do anything to end this war. There is no rationale for it.
MARTIN: And to add on to your point, we're talking about less than a day's worth of diesel.
PHILLIP: Yes.
MARTIN: This is going to have a very small amount --
(CROSSTALK)
WRIGHT: That was actually already agreed to be sold.
MARTIN: It's a very small amount.
PHILLIP: All right. Next for us, we're going to react to your feedback from cnn.com/abby. Stay with us. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:50:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: And now, viewer feedback from cnn.com/abby. Ok, so, we were talking about Texas, we were talking about Tennessee. This viewer asks, why do people move from blue states with high taxes to red states with no taxes and still vote blue? Make that make sense.
JENNINGS: That's a great question.
ALLISON: They like the policies. JENNINGS: They want to go and turn these red places into where they just came from. They need to go and adopt the politics that attracted them in the first place.
PHILLIP: That is a risk.
MARTIN: You know, one of the fascinating things is that, sometimes, you get what happened in Austin. When they did pro-housing policies for the first time ever, they saw a reduction in rent. So, because that coalition came together, they were able to do something really good in Austin, it was able to go on lower prices.
ALLISON: I think people want the policies of blue states. They just want the extremely wealthy folks to be taxed accordingly so people across the country can also have those policies.
PHILLIP: I think it's one of those interesting things. I want to see five, 10 years from now what all this moving around does politically because, yes, I mean, the nationals and the Austins of the world --
GARCIA-NAVARRO: You had all these red state people coming down to Florida, and then it changed the demographics.
JENNINGS: I was in Yuma, Arizona the other day. Literally everybody on that said they had moved there from California sometime in the last couple of years. It was amazing. All these people come across.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I mean, you heard that in the Talarico event where this woman was, like, people coming from California shouldn't be allowed to live in Texas.
(LAUGHTER)
It made me laugh so much. I mean, it made me just laugh about the California people, not that she was obviously suffering, to be clear.
PHILLIP: OK. Another viewer says, aren't people really looking for the boring middle? Either extreme is toxic. Not totally sure if this is a reference to Talarico, our discussion about that, but there is something about kind of like presenting yourself as a candidate who is somewhere in the middle.
WRIGHT: Well, every general election candidate does moderate. That's the traditional strategy, whether it's statewide or nationwide. But the unfortunate part is, no, a lot of people don't want the middle. Especially in the midterms, a lot of people are angry and they're scared and they're going out to vote accordingly for their team.
MARTIN: I think that, personally, people want a government that delivers for them.
[23:54:59]
And I think that people are sick of the gridlock that's going on.
ALLISON: I think people want who really fight for them, who hear them.
MARTIN: And so, it's not really about how far they are on the spectrum, it's about whether or not government works.
ALLISON: I think the reason why Donald Trump worked -- it's about fighters. We've been seeing this over and over. Do you listen to me? Do you hear me? And will you fight for me? And will you calm my mind?
PHILLIP: One more. I think Trump is going to sell access to the live stream execution.
MARTIN: That's crazy.
ALLISON: He shouldn't do it. Not that he probably won't. That is the craziest response. Your response should have been, like, he won't do that, and you're like, he shouldn't, because it's possible in Donald Trump's world.
JENNINGS: I don't speak for him, but I'm just saying they should not live stream this.
PHILLIP: In fairness, CNN is reporting that he didn't realize that the person being executed was a quadriplegic and maybe is rethinking it. But still, he hasn't rethought it just yet.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: You know, I think this is, like, the worst idea. And the fact is that he was embracing it to begin with is the problem, not if the man is in a wheelchair and the optics would be horrific. It's just that it's inhumane and it says something about America that is pretty ugly.
PHILLIP: All right. Just one last word from our viewers. Marsha, Marsha, Marsha.
ALLISON: Love it.
(LAUGHTER)
MARTIN: Bless her heart.
(LAUGHTER)
PHILLIP: That's what that last part said. All right, before we go, you can stream the show live or watch on-demand any time with an All Access subscription. Scan that Q.R. code on your screen or go to cnn.com/watch to learn more.
Thank you for watching "NewsNight." The news continues after this.
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