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Laura Coates Live

Courts Put An Electric Shock Collar on DOGE; Viral Conspiracy Theories Come Out About Celebrities Getting Paid Millions from USAID; Laura Coates Sits Down with Historic Black Church Leader; Musk People Allegedly Shut Off All USAID and All Payments Using the System; Louisiana Issues Arrest Warrant Against New York Doctor; Proud Boys Leader Enrique Tarrio Says He Will Run For Office; Actress Karla Sofia Gascon Makes a Tearful Apology. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired February 06, 2025 - 23:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[23:00:00]

LAURA COATES, CNN ANCHOR: Well, tonight, the courts put an electric shock collar on DOGE. But will it be enough to stop Elon Musk? Plus, have you seen these viral conspiracy theories about celebrities getting paid millions of bucks from the U.S. aid? Just wait and see what we uncovered in our fact check. And a very special conversation with the leader of Historic Black Church who just landed what he calls a karmic victory against the Proud Boys. Tonight, on "Laura Coates Live".

Well, it's day 18 of Donald Trump's second term. Yes, it hasn't even been three weeks. And the blitz to shrink the government is actually facing resistance from Lady Justice. The question tonight, though, is whether her scales can withstand the very deliberate pressure coming her way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE BANNON, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF STRATEGIST: I say it's both scale, depth and urgency. That's why you're seeing, and look, I strongly believe in the Flood Zone Theory which is just overwhelmed the opposition. Lawsuits are coming from everywhere.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: Yeah, there are lawsuits flying everywhere and yes, Steve Bannon seems to be celebrating that point but is he only projecting confidence? Because there's evidence tonight that those lawsuits are actually not just everywhere, they're actually perhaps working, at least for now.

I mean, take Elon Musk's plan to force millions of federal workers to quit their jobs, I mean not quit. Take the fork in the road. That was the phrase by midnight. Well, a judge stepped in and said, not so fast. That's going to have to wait until at least Monday so the legal challenges and briefs can really play out.

Now, a different federal judge also hammered Trump's plan to end birthright citizenship. And here is what that Reagan appointee said when he issued the pause. Quote, "It has become ever more apparent that to our president, the rule of law is but an impediment to his policy goals. The rule of law is, according to him, something to navigate around or simply ignore whether that be for political or personal gain."

But an impediment. That's judge for sarcasm. And in the ongoing battle over at the FBI, well, the judge temporarily prevented the DOJ from sharing the names of FBI agents who worked on January 6th cases. That's not to say that Trump and Musk have not been successful in disrupting Washington. Oh no, they certainly have.

Take USAID as just one example. We learned tonight that the agency is going from 10,000 global employees to less than 300. And that number may have been enough Sparta, only for three days if you recall. Less than 300 employees worldwide for that agency? Well, critics say that goes way beyond the efforts to cut the wasteful spending that Musk says is motivating him.

But my next guest says Democrats should not be discouraged. Instead, he says now is the time to lean on Lady Justice. Quote, "Trump's flood the zone, executive actions and personnel purges should be countered with an equally massive flood of legal challenges, not just to stop them, but to burst his aura of invincibility.

Former Democratic Congressman Tom Malinowski wrote that and he is here with me now. Recall that he also served as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor in the Obama administration.

COATES: Congressman, thank you so much for joining us. You had a really compelling piece about what exactly you thought Democrats ought to be doing. And one of the things was that you didn't think they should come from a position of weakness and complain, but various positions of strength. And on that point, you've got some ideas on how to stop Trump, and one of them is using the courts. Explain.

TOM MALINOWSKI (D) FORMER CONGRESSMAN: One of them, yeah. So look, I think what we're getting from Trump is psychological warfare. He doesn't have any more power, really, than any president before him, except for the fact that everyone is afraid of him, especially people in his own party.

And so, you have this flood the zone approach, five outrages every single day, and the goal is to try to make people who are his critics, Democrats, moderate Republicans, so afraid, so tired, so exhausted, so helpless that we just feel paralysis.

[23:05:03]

And we got to remember our strengths. One of them is the federal judiciary and the fact that no matter who appointed these judges for the most part, they will enforce the law. If you're doing something illegal as the president of the United States, they will enforce the law. If you're a charity, if you're a non-profit, and you're told you cannot help the people that Congress gave you money to help, you should be taking them to court. But I also think a little bit of a danger for Democrats in politics,

in Congress, I don't want them over relying on the courts either. Because you know, at the end of the day, the Supremes, may well just say, you got a dispute between the legislative branch and the executive branch. You guys, come on, work it out yourselves. And so Democrats, particularly in the House where they have the power, also need to assert themselves.

COATES: Well, the power is interesting because they have a thin majority for Republicans. Democrats will be relied on, of course, to pass certain legislation, to be able to get those cans that they've kicked down the road now to actually do something about it.

You suggest, in one part, that they should be freezing the opportunity for Republicans to have things like the government shutdown averted or to flex their power of reliance. How could they specifically use that thin majority to their advantage?

MALINOWSKI: Yeah, so here's how thin it is. Republicans in the House cannot lose a single vote where they lose.

COATES: Right.

MALINOWSKI: So, I was in the House, I was a moderate Democrat. I think government shutdowns are stupid. But like, the government's being shut down. Big parts of it are not just being shut down, they're being dismantled and sold for scrap.

And if someone were to tell me, and I'm still in the House of Representatives, hey, pass an appropriations bill to give the executive branch money, what I would be saying is, well, why should I do that if I don't have an ironclad guarantee that you're going to respect the Constitution and spend the money that we give you? If I give you $100 to set up a community health center, you better spend a hundred dollars to set up that community health center.

COATES: But would you trust even a so-called ironclad guarantee? What would give you that assurance that you wouldn't shake on it and then there's the fingers crossed behind the back because of the political pressure?

MALINOWSKI: I think that could be negotiated. I think if there were a written commitment from OMB, from the Office of Management and the budget, from the president that, you know, we may dispute the constitutionality of this impoundment but we are going to do what it says. And then they don't, then the legal cases have even more weight and power because you have a clear commitment that the president made that he's violating.

COATES: I'm not one to miss a Sparta or 300 reference. So, I want to go right there to what CNN's learning this evening that under 300 essential staffers are expected to be kept at USAID. That's the agency that one official says, that he's describing what it would be as, quote, "The worst case scenario of essentially one person for each field mission and a few folks in D.C." I mean, what would come of that? MALINOWSKI: Well, number one, China and Russia can't believe their

luck right now because they have spent the last 20 years railing against USAID because what USAID does, for the most part, works. It buys influence for the United States on the cheap without us having to go to war.

China is actually spending billions of dollars now trying to copy what USAID does. Cultural diplomacy, scholarships, support for communities, road building, infrastructure building in places like Africa and Latin America. The very thing that Trump says he -- we should be scared of, is the thing that USAID helps avert.

And Marco Rubio, who strikes me as a very -- in kind of a pathetic strange position right now keeps saying, no we're just looking for efficiencies. Well, they just decided to furlough 97 percent as you mentioned, of -- of the staff. That's not looking for efficiencies. You are dismantling this agency that has represented America, bought goodwill for American influence since the 1950s and 1960s.

COATES: It would strike me that the abrupt withholding of that goodwill could have dire consequences for our security in the long run, as well.

MALINOWSKI: One hundred percent, yes.

COATES: Thank you so much for your words.

MALINOWSKI: Thank you.

COATES: It's a really compelling piece. Tom Malinowski, thank you so much. Look, the mini feud between Elon Musk and Steve Bannon, it might not be so mini after all. It's starting to spill out into the open. Listen to what Bannon said, giving somewhat of a, let's call this a backhanded compliment to Musk.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAGGIE SEVERNS, "WSJ" REPORTER: This week we learned that Musk has access to Treasury's payment systems. Should he be able to see or change those payments?

BANNON: Elon's an engineer. He thinks of things in an engineering framework. So, the work Elon's doing is very important. He's already identified something we've tried to get rid of for years -- the House Freedom Caucus tried to get rid of for years, and the USAID.

[23:10:04]

Statutorily, it hasn't been removed. It's going to be rolled up under. It looks like Marco Rubio, but it looks like you're going to have the backing of President Trump to actually zero out USAID, which has been a -- something people have focused on forever.

So, in that regard, he's doing good work. I don't think, and I don't think you can do it regularitarily, have it outside consulting firm actually take over the control of the payments from the government. But Scott Bessent and I think the lawyers over at Treasury have been pretty adamant.

It's a read-only access now and if any other access is granted, it may be something to do with the coding or some way to do that's easier for them to manage but not to actually control the payments, which I think is a Treasury function.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: So, what I'm hearing is good work, but not good enough. Well, Bannon has also criticized Musk for not cutting from the defense budget, to which Musk then wrote today, "Bannon is a great talker, but not a great doer. What did he get done this week? Nothing."

I want to bring in White House Bureau Chief for Politico, Dasha Burns, Republican strategist Lance Trover, and CNN political commentator Karen Finney. Good to have you all here. Lance, let me begin with you on this, because the Treasury Secretary says that DOGE has this read- only access.

But then CNN's reporting that four days after the inauguration, Musk people tried to immediately shut off all USAID and all the payments using the system. So, is it that they really just want read-only access? What can you tell us?

LANCE TROVER, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, I'm not in the Treasury Department, I don't know, but I trust the Treasury Secretary is being honest with the voters in terms of what is going on. Look, this is a sea change in Washington, and I look at what's going on here through two lenses.

What's going on here in Washington where the Democrats are teaming up with the bureaucrats who want to keep the status quo as we know it, and then outside of the Beltway and the rest of America who's looking and saying, oh yeah, Donald Trump's just doing exactly what we sent him to Washington to do.

If you look at Natalie Allison's story in "The Washington Post" this morning, she goes out to Pennsylvania, talks to a bunch of voters. Even the Democrat in that story was praising Donald Trump for his immigration stance. So, again, this hair on fire approach that happens here inside the Beltway, I don't believe is translating to what's happening out in the rest of America.

KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: So, if you read the "Minneapolis Star Tribune" for example --

COATES: Thank you for quoting my hometown paper in Minnesota.

FINNEY: Just for example.

COATES: See, that's how you do it on my show. This is what you do. You get that extra 30 seconds. Tell me more about this, Karen. Tell me more about this.

FINNEY: Let me tell you about this. There's a story today about the fact that you have farmers in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, who are trying to figure out how will they replace the revenue that they get from USAID because USAID contracts with American farmers. It's $2 billion.

So, it's not just about bureaucrats in Washington. No, it's about a real impact on the American people. What if you're a doctor at a V.A. hospital and you're trying to figure out, what do I do about my patients? If I'm not here next week, what do I tell them? What if you're dealing with veterans with PTSD? You say, go find yourself somebody else?

I mean, they're very -- the point is we all can agree that there is waste and abuse and there need to be cuts. But it's how you do it. It's do it the smart way and in a way that you're not harming the American people.

COATES: In some ways, it's also who is doing it, who is the person. There was a "Wall Street Journal" report about a 25-year-old DOGE staffer with access to the sensitive payment system that we've all been talking about resigning after he was linked to a social media account that had been deleted. People can't find anything, of course. It advocated racism and eugenics. You have to wonder how this was not flagged before.

DASHA BURNS, WHITE HOUSE BUREAU CHIEF, POLITICO: I have to tell you the reporting that I've been doing on how Musk has been moving so quickly, running fast, breaking things, as a lot of people have been putting it, that's not surprising to me at all. I mean, he's bringing over the kinds of people that he'd have at his tech companies.

Those aren't necessarily the people that would be, you know, have the sort of vetting that you need for government. And he's moving so fast. And some of the folks in Trump world that I've talked to, he said he doesn't quite know what he's doing. But he's going in there with a hammer and smashing stuff.

And in some cases, creating great headlines for Trump and in some cases, causing some problems. And the question that a lot of people in Trump world are trying to figure out is like, how long will the benefit outweigh the cost and is that tipping point coming?

COATES: You do wonder, are Republicans able to keep pace with him? I mean, that's been a real question. If they're, on the one hand, I've heard about sort of "Wreck It-Ralph" and the good aspect of that. On the other hand, I mean, it sounds at times that Republicans are almost losing their breath trying to justify and be on board because they're still learning about it in real time.

TROVER: Well, that may be true, but that's how this president has always operated. But I don't think there's --

COATES: Is that a good thing, though?

TROVER: Yeah, I don't think it's a bad thing.

[23:15:01] Look, when you're talking about the speed that Elon's moving versus the speed of government -- if we relied on the speed of government, nothing would happen in Washington, which is exactly what Democrats and the bureaucrats want. They want to keep everything the same. So, I don't --

COATES: But is that a fair assessment that nothing has gotten done with the current pacing? I mean, I agree. I've been a federal employee.

FINNEY: Yeah. COATES: I enjoy some of my downtime. But we also had a lot of work to do, and there was a lot of work that was done.

FINNEY: And a lot of these people consider themselves, I mean, they are issue area experts. If you worked at NOAA, for example, and thank God for those who are there who tell us when the hurricanes are coming and help people prepare. What are they supposed to do? I mean, these are people who -- think about the people at the NTSB who are now investigating the horrible crash that happened. What if they weren't there?

So, again, it -- moving fast but move smart. And that's not happening. The other thing though that we're not paying enough attention to is the potential for corruption. So, it's not insignificant that the first thing they did is fire all the I.G.s.

And what was the I.G. of USAID doing? Investigating Starlink, which is Elon Musk's company. And so, he goes in there willy-nilly, has control of everything. He had a million-dollar contract with USAID that was under investigation.

COATES: A perfect segue, because, Dash, you have some reporting about the relationship between Steve Bannon and Elon Musk. Is he softening his tone or are we just seeing some more subtle shade?

BURNS: It's a dance. It's a -- I would say delicate dance, but I don't think either of those gentlemen, you would describe as delicate.

COATES: Two left feet, maybe.

BURNS: That's right. I mean, look, like in multiple conversations with Bannon, he has bashed Musk. In my talks with him, he said he's abusing his proximity to the President, that he at one point advocated for Susie Wiles to sit him down and give him a talking to and tell him to take it easy.

But at the same time, people like Bannon and Bannon himself are behind the idea of what Musk should be doing. And that's largely what I'm hearing from Trump World. They like it in theory, but in practice, it's getting a little too big. And they're used to one bowl in the China shop. They're not used to two.

COATES: That was your point, though, about the idea of the being different was enticing. But is Elon Musk, as opposed to the mandate of Trump, as you said, which is going to outweigh, which is going to be more productive in the long run, to follow the disruptive nature of Elon Musk or --

TROVER: Well, Donald Trump's disruptive by nature. That's how he ran when he announced in 2015. That's how he ran and how he became president. And I would argue that voters were under no illusions. I say this all the time. Voters were under no illusions about what he was going to come in and do and he made it very clear to them. So, it should not be a surprise to anyone.

FINNEY: But they didn't say that Elon Musk was going to have access to your child's Social Security number --

COATES: Right.

FINNEY: -- as well as yours.

BURNS: The Trump team knew that that's what it was going to be.

FINNEY: Correct.

BURNS: I mean, nobody quite knew what DOGE was going to be, what Musk's actual role was going to be, if it was going to be an external entity, an internal entity. And now it is what it is. And they're all still trying to fill that out. Even 18 days later.

FINNEY: Yeah.

COATES: A lot of lingering questions about what that, that's right. I'll say it again. Only 18 days, everyone. Thank you, everyone here. I appreciate it.

Up next, the viral claims that USAID spent millions of bucks funding celebrity photo ops. "The Post" getting seen by tens of millions of people. Is there any truth to it? Well, we put CNN's Daniel Dale on the case, and he's live with us next.

And later, the Trump administration ramping up its deportation efforts with a new lawsuit against sanctuary cities. New York Governor Kathy Hochul standing by to respond.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:58:00]

COATES: All right, what came first, the chicken or the egg? Well, in this case, was it the Trump administration's crackdown on USAID or the conspiracies about the agency on Twitter? Things like condoms in Gaza to transgender operas.

But tonight, a new outrageous claim is taking social media by storm. This time, alleging the USAID has been funding celebrity trips to Ukraine after the war began to increase the popularity of their president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

A video reposted by Elon Musk and Donald Trump Jr., Wednesday, is claiming that USAID paid A-list actors top dollar for these trips, including $4 million to Ben Stiller to take these pictures with Zelenskyy. Five million bucks for Sean Penn for these.

Eight million into Orlando Bloom, 1.5 million to Jean-Claude Van Damme, who was filmed chanting glory to Ukraine in the country in 2022. And finally this, $20 million to Angelina Jolie for this image of her with Ukrainian children in 2022.

Now, those are some pretty big accusations and they've been receiving millions of impressions on social media platforms like X. But what's the truth behind the tweets? Well, for that we turn to CNN reporter and fact checker extraordinaire, Daniel Dale.

I almost felt bad even reading out the allegations because I thought if I say them, they're in the ether and they would have some gravitas. But tell me the reality here. What's going on?

DANIEL DALE, CNN REPORTER: This is all made up. It's completely fake. We do a lot of complicated, nuanced fact checks here on CNN. There's no nuance here. This is conjured out of thin air. So, what happened Laura was this video began circulating, promoted by pro-Russia social media accounts, in which a disembodied voice, like a woman with a British accent, just recited a bunch of celebrities and a bunch of dollar figures.

[23:25:01]

And the key thing is that it had the logo of "E-News", you know, the Entertainment News outlet. So, they were trying to make it look like this was "E-News" report about celebrities. It looked shady as heck, frankly, and it was. It was just completely made up. It's not an "E- News" video. "E-News" had to come out with a statement saying this wasn't us. We didn't air this. We didn't make this.

And Ben Stiller issued a statement on social media saying completely false. His trip to Ukraine, he said, was entirely self-funded. USAID did not provide him a cent. I will add, I don't really know how like celebrity world works. So, it's possible that someone received some amount of money from somebody for one of these trips. But USAID was not paying millions, wasn't paying any amount at all.

COATES: So, what's behind this? Who's behind this? This seems pretty strange to have this accusation.

DALE: So, this video is part of a pattern we've seen since the beginning of the Russian war in Ukraine in 2022. I reported on it, others have, where social media accounts and entities linked to the Russian government by experts who study this stuff have repeatedly put out videos and other content pretending to be from CNN, BBC, "New York Times", other media outlets.

So, they're pushing out pro-Russia content pretending that it's just us doing reporting. I can't say personally for certain that this particular video is from the Russian government, but people who study this stuff full-time say this has all the hallmarks of what they've been doing for about three years now.

COATES: This is a pretty strange deep fake that they would be intentional to target Ukraine. I mean, any idea why this is the angle?

DALE: Well, it's, so it's, you know, people call these dumb face --

COATES: Dumb face. Exactly.

DALE: -- because it looks pretty crude, right?

COATES: It's not that deep.

DALE: It's not that deep. Why now? The purpose of the video, they're basically saying that Zelenskyy's popularity in the West is artificial. It was manipulated by, you know, the big money of the U.S. government.

Surely, people can't actually like this guy. Surely, these famous celebrities couldn't have volunteered for free to go, as Ben Stiller said he did. So, that's the purpose of the video and clearly, it's convinced some powerful people.

COATES: Wow. Daniel Dale, thank you so much. Glad to have you here.

DALE: Thank you.

COATES: A New York doctor facing arrest from the state of Louisiana for allegedly supplying abortion pills to a minor in that state. But New York Governor Kathy Hochul has plans to make sure that never happens. She's here, next.

Plus, the Proud Boys losing their trademark, and you won't believe to whom. So, I'm going to tell you. They lost it to an historic black church. How and why, yeah, stick around for.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:32:05]

COATES: Tonight, Louisiana issuing an arrest warrant against a doctor from New York charged with sending abortion pills across state lines to a minor. This started when Louisiana prosecutors say Dr. Margaret Carpenter sent abortion pills to a mother and her daughter in the state.

The prosecutors believe the mother coerced the daughter to take them. The daughter called 911 after having a medical emergency. And that's when police found out the pills were from New York. And prosecutors charged the mother and Dr. Carpenter for violating Louisiana's strict abortion laws.

The state's attorney general, Liz Murill saying, quote, "At this point, an arrest warrant has been issued for Carpenter and placed into a national crime database, adding that Louisiana will initiate extradition proceedings once she is in custody."

But New York Governor Kathy Hochul is adamant she will not comply with any extradition order. And just this week, Governor Hochul signed a new law meant to shield doctors who provide abortion pills by mail. Joining me now is New York Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul. Governor,

thank you for taking the time to speak with us this evening. I want to ask you about these Louisiana prosecutors because they seem very ready to take any action necessary to try to bring Dr. Carpenter to court in Louisiana. Are you confident that your laws in New York will shield her from prosecution in Louisiana?

GOV. KATHY HOCHUL (D-NEW YORK): Well, we anticipated a situation like this as soon as we lost that fundamental right to reproductive freedom that we had for such a long time until the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

We immediately, in our state capitals, set to create a shield law to protect our doctors for just a case like this. I signed it. I will defend that law. And I will no way in hell, ever, extradited doctor who is simply living up to her oath to take care of patients and to give sometimes life-saving medication to someone who desperately needs it.

I will never turn her over to the authorities in Louisiana where she would face criminal prosecution. And up to 15 years in jail, it is shocking where this country has come to but I will continue to be that line of defense against such actions.

COATES: We have a Louisiana attorney general responded to your New York law and I'm going to quote when he says, "There is an arrest warrant in the National Crime Information Center system. The doctor could be arrested in other places, as you know, if New York won't cooperate. There are other states that will", unquote. Is she essentially then confined to New York? Are you afraid that your law cannot be expansive enough to protect her outside of your borders?

HOCHUL: I would assume there's other states that are like-minded, that actually care about women's rights and doctors' rights.

[23:35:00]

And so, certainly, she should have to be careful about her travel plans, but I can speak for New York. This will not happen in the state of New York. She will not be arrested by any authorities here, and I will never sign a document to turn her over to authorities in Louisiana.

COATES: Just one more point on that. You know, there are -- is it -- part of the law that talks about doctors not having to put their names on prescriptions if they are sent elsewhere. Do you have concerns that that might undermine other areas, not only of privacy, but also accountability if there is an issue with the prescription even outside of the abortion context?

HOCHUL: This relates to this kind of medication and it's something I signed into law just a couple of days ago because the reason they know this doctor's name is because her name was on the prescription bottle.

So, if we're going to continue to protect women's rights and protect our doctors, this was a necessary step to say we should not be showing where that person's name, we can put an address on the bottle. And if there's a complication, certainly it could be tracked down.

But this is not intended to send the name to people in hostile states like Louisiana and others who don't give -- they don't care at all about women's rights and have suppressed them and changed them and taken us back a century. And that's why we have to stand up in New York and say even a law like this I just signed might go a little bit further to protect someone like this doctor whose name was exposed on a bottle.

COATES: We'll continue to follow what's happening there. I want to turn briefly, as well, to the issue of immigration because as you know, it's not been briefly discussed, it's been extensively discussed by this administration on the campaign trail. And now that he has returned to the Oval Office, they are prioritizing immigration.

And just today, they sued Illinois, they sued Chicago over their sanctuary policy. Now, New York State does cooperate with ICE under certain circumstances, but how far are you willing to go with that cooperation?

HOCHUL: What I'll do is follow New York state laws and executive orders that have been in place for some time. And yes, in certain circumstances, we will cooperate with ICE if there's someone who came across our borders illegally and has a criminal record, someone who may be on the terrorism watch list, someone who is committing crimes in our own state.

I have an obligation to protect the people of New York, and I'll do that. So, that requires us to cooperate if they have a warrant for someone's arrest. But in those circumstances only. We're not supporting these mass deportations and sweeps that go into everywhere from sensitive locations like schools and churches. There are people who came here looking for a better life, who are law-abiding, who are actually working, who are contributing to our economy.

Laura, I have 400,000 open jobs in the state of New York right now. We need their help. Now, there should be a legal path. And our borders are far too porous. I support meaningful immigration reform. I wish Congress would actually work on this together instead of just finding ways to thwart this.

But if people would come together and have laws that protect our borders, protect our citizens but have a legal pathway, I think our economy would be much stronger as well as our nation. So, that's our policy in the state of New York.

COATES: But Governor, once people have been potentially swept into either a deportation raid or otherwise, the ability to distinguish and decipher and then protect those who are in this country on an undocumented basis and yet without the criminal records you speak of, how will you be able to react or proactively prevent their deportation?

HOCHUL: What I'm saying is I will not use state resources, our state police, to assist in a situation where there's not a warrant. That is what I'm required to do under law is to draw the distinction in those cases, and that's what we've been doing, not just under this administration, but this is what we did under the Biden administration, as well. So, we're just going to continue our current policy.

COATES: Governor Hochul, thank you so much.

HOCHUL: All right. Thanks, Laura. Have a good night.

COATES: Well, tonight, there are new details in the disturbing beating death of Robert Brooks by state prison officers in New York. The video, difficult to watch to say the least. An attorney for the family says the autopsy confirms the beating you see in this bodycam video was it ultimately killed Mr. Brooks. The autopsy report lists his death as a homicide. The cause? Compression of the neck and multiple blunt force injuries.

Last December, he was carried into a medical exam room, face down, shackled, before officers beat him. Brooks appeared to be compliant. The next day, this man died.

[23:40:00]

Brooks had been convicted of assault and had been serving seven years out of a 12-year sentence. Local prosecutors say a grand jury -- they're going to hear about this case next week. Governor Kathy Hochul is calling for criminal charges, and she has moved to fire the officers involved. One of them has already quit.

The Proud Boys losing their trademark, the right for their name, and now going to a historic black church right here in Washington, D.C. The pastor of that church is standing by, and ahead, she's got all the Oscar buzz, but Karla Sofia Gascon's hopes for an Academy Award, they could be dashed by her own actions.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:45:10]

COATES: Enrique Tarrio, the Proud Boys leader who was sentenced to 22 years in prison for a seditious conspiracy, then pardoned by President Trump, is now saying he's going to run for office. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ENRIQUE TARRIO, FORMER PROUD BOYS LEADER: I think my future is in politics. I think I'm going to take a serious look at running for office at some point in 2026 or 2028. And I believe that there is a path for that because it is my passion. I am going to take my time with picking what office specifically, what district? Is it going to be local? Is it going to be at a federal level? I don't know, but I will tell you that I have made a decision.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: I wonder if the pardon created the world as his oyster. Well, Tarrio's comments come as a Washington, D.C. judge stripped the Proud Boys of their trademark name just this week, ruling that the far-right group can no longer legally use the name or profit from the sale of merchandise without the permission from the Metropolitan AME Church here in Washington, D.C.

The judge's ruling intended to satisfy a nearly $3 million judgment against the Proud Boys for vandalizing the historic church back in 2020, ripping down a Black Lives Matter flag. In a night that saw widespread violence and flag burning at another D.C. church, police say that Enrique Tarrio took part in the melee and was later arrested on vandalism charges.

Tarrio responding to judge's ruling saying, quote, "This organization masquerading as a church must be subjected to a thorough audit and its non-profit status revoked immediately."

I want to bring in William H. Lamar, the fourth. He is the pastor at the Metropolitan AME Church. Reverend, thank you for joining me this evening. You have called that decision by the judge a victory and said it was karmic. What do you mean?

WILLIAM H. LAMAR IV, PASTOR, METROPOLITIAN AME CHURCH: I mean that the very thought that they assume that they could do violence to our sacred space and that it would go first of all unanswered, that we would allow that to stand. These are persons who have no clue about who we have been in this nation.

From the very beginning we have resisted, we have fought, and we have sought to create democracy in this space. We've been undeterred, we've been unrelenting, and still in this moment we're undeterred and unrelenting.

And we will never let that type of violence. I think that even to hear what he said today, it is not to be dignified with speech, but we are to stiffen our backs, continue to fight. And if we're going to continue to be in this space, make the nation true to what it says it's about.

COATES: Surely, there must be some anxiety around either violent retribution, physical or verbal. Let alone the threat of having your non-profit status removed. We're in a different political climate.

LAMAR IV: We most certainly are, but the weight of law does not support what he says can happen. But of course, that does not deter much of what we see today. What is clear to me is there are those who think that employing violence as a political tactic will silence people, will cause us to shrink. But really for us, Laura, it causes us to grow stronger.

Because really what we want people to know is the victory for Metropolitan today is a victory for all of those who think in this space that we have lost, people who are demuring and shrinking. There are victories going on across the nation, and we want to not only celebrate ours, but lift up others who are fighting human beings can exist freely in this nation without fear of retribution because of what they believe, who they are, where they gather.

COATES: Having trademark rights and being able to capitalize on them is a very powerful thing in this sort of environment.

LAMAR IV: It is. Its is.

COATES: I spoke with Enrique Tarrio recently and he mentioned that merchandising would be a part of his future, at least in the short term, provided he also wants to run for some political office. What would you do if the Proud Boys asked permission to use the name or sell merchandise for money?

LAMAR IV: We would say no. There would be no circumstances under which we would allow them to use this symbol to further their white supremacist ideologies, their fascist imaginings. No.

COATES: Will you police this continuously?

LAMAR IV: Our attorneys will continue to watch. We intend fully for them to not defy this order, and we will continue to seek the remedy of the law should they violate this order.

[23:50:00]

The reason that we went after the trademark is they defied the nearly $3 million judgment of Judge Kravitz. And so, we decided that we would do what was necessary to get what the court said was ours, and we will continue to do that.

COATES: What is your opinion of President Trump's decision to pardon him?

LAMAR IV: I think that this is of a piece with a strand of the American reality. I think that it is related to the myth of the lost cause, celebrating those who would do the very thing that the nation says it stands against those who would be traitors, those who would do insurrection.

And I think that unless those who do these things are punished, punished swiftly and seriously, then others will continue to think that it is a path that they can engage. This is why we stood in the way of what they did to us, because not only should it never happen to us, but it should never happen to anyone else.

COATES: Reverend, thank you so much. A pleasure having you on.

LAMAR IV: Thank you.

COATES: Up next, why the actress with the most Oscar buzz is apologizing tonight.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:55:31]

COATES: Tonight, a new twist in the drama consuming the movie Netflix hopes sweeps the Oscars. The star of "Emelia Perez", Karla Sofia Gascon, issuing a new apology for racist and problematic posts that resurfaced after her historic nomination. Gascon posting a photo of the cast on Instagram, writing, quote, "I sincerely apologize to everyone who has been hurt along the way."

She made history as the first openly transgender woman nominated for best actress, and "Emelia Perez" has the most Oscar nominations. But now that golden moment for the cast and, frankly, Netflix could be in jeopardy. Here's CNN's Elizabeth Wagmeister.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(MOVIE CLIP "EMELIA PEREZ")

ELIZABETH WAGMEISTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): "Emelia Perez", Netflix's big Oscar contender with 13 nominations. Now, reduced to a tearful apology from its breakout star, Karla Sofia Gascon, whose controversial tweets shocked Hollywood at the height of her Oscar campaign.

The tweets, uncovered by an independent writer, included this 2016 post. "Islam is becoming a hotbed of infection for humanity that urgently needs to be cured." Alongside a Muslim family photo, she called Islam a "deep, disgusting humanity".

During the protest of police killing of George Floyd, Gascon called Floyd "A drug addict swindler whose death has served to once again demonstrate that there are people who still consider black people to be monkeys without rights and consider policemen to be assassins. They're all wrong."

In an exclusive interview with CNN En Espanol's Juan Carlos Arciniegas, Gascon apologized and said she's not a racist. "I have been condemned and sacrificed and crucified and stoned without a trial and with no option to defend myself," she said, tearfully adding that she felt the public made her out to be a terrible monster.

It's a stunning turn of events for Gascon who made history just last month as the first openly transgender actor to ever be nominated for an Oscar.

CLAYTON DAVIS, "VARIETY" SENIOR AWARDS EDITOR: The reconciling of the moment is like this historic nomination. We're supposed to be celebrating. She would have been prominently displayed and cut to during the Oscar telecast.

WAGMEISTER (voice-over): In another resurfaced post, Gascon mocked the Oscar telecast itself, calling it a "vindictive film award ceremony". "I didn't know if I was watching an Afro-Korean festival, a Black Lives Matter demonstration, or March 8th," apparently referring to International Women's Day.

The Academy immediately unfollowed Gascon on social media, and her co- stars and the film's director are distancing themselves, too.

(MOVIE CLIP)

UNKNOWN: He desires to remain anonymous.

WAGMEISTER (voice-over): Zoe Saldana, who won the Golden Globe last month, is now vying for her first Oscar and spoke to Variety's Clayton Davis.

ZOE SALDANA (voice-over): I'm very sad. I'm also disappointed.

WAGMEISTER (voice-over): Despite the growing backlash, Gascon says she won't pull out of the race. "I cannot step down from an Oscar nomination," she said, "because I have not committed any crime, nor have I harmed anyone." Few doubt the power of Gascon's performance. She plays a complex role, a cartel leader, both as a man and a woman. But now, many are asking how Netflix missed a huge landmine on its road to Oscar Gold.

DAVIS: All that work and money was flushed down the toilet just a week ago.

WAGMEISTER: Now, Laura, Netflix has not publicly commented on this situation at all. I have reached out to them, have not heard back, but I do hear that Netflix is distancing themselves from Karla Sofia Gascon in an effort to salvage this awards campaign.

Remember, there are so many people who have worked on this film. It's much larger than Carla Sofia. So, they are hoping that they can put the focus on their other cast and crew members so that this film still can walk away with some trophies on Oscars night. Laura?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COATES: Elizabeth, thank you. And thank you all for watching. "Anderson Cooper 360" is next.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight on "360", the world's richest man -- how his decisions are affecting the world's poorest people, America's largest workforce and federal functions touching all our lives. Also tonight --