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Murdoch's Exit Puts Spotlight On Wounded Democracy; Congress Goes Home With Just Eight Days Until Government Shutdown; Reaction Pours Into President Biden's Decision To Offer Work Permits And Temporary Legal Status To Half A Million Migrants; Anchor Abby Phillip Sits Down With Jeffrey Goldberg To Discuss Politics; Automakers Union Strike Gets Even More Intense. Automakers Union Chief Says He Will Order More Critical Plants To Shut Down If The Big Three Automakers Don't Improve Their Offers. Aired 10-11p ET

Aired September 21, 2023 - 22:00   ET

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

[22:00:02]

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: It is a second straight day of sit-down meetings to end the walkout. And a source told CNN that both sides left that meeting feeling encouraged.

Any deal, of course, would still need to be ratified by the actual union members. And then the major studios could turn their attention to the actors union, which is also still on strike tonight. Even an agreement with just the Writers Guild though could mean the return of some talk shows. We've seen that in the news this week, not just daytime, but also late night.

We'll see how that goes. We will keep you updated.

In the meantime, thank you so much for joining us. CNN PRIMETIME with Abby Phillip starts right now.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Objectively, American democracy is in perilous condition. The nation's politics, our poison, truth has become optional. Instead of desired or even required, the republic has, of course, always faced threats to it, even before Rupert Murdoch. But so much of the current state of our democracy can be traced back to the beast of his creation.

Good evening, everyone. I'm Abby Phillip, and Rupert Murdoch is stepping down as CEO of Fox News tonight. His legacy is outrage porn, partisan red meat, stoking relentless culture wars.

But it all started with what you could argue is a noble vision to create a center-right news network, to elevate more perspectives that aren't based in Gotham or in Washington, but instead, stoking division seemed to become Murdoch's mission, so did power and so did the money.

Fox became a mouthpiece for Republican administrations, a mouthpiece really for Donald Trump, and eventually a vehicle for his baseless conspiracies.

Before we discuss this tonight, it's important to really illustrate just a small taste of this mission 25 years in the making.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TUCKER CARLSON, FORMER FOX NEWS HOST: White supremacy, that's the problem. This is a hoax.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We keep marrying other species and other ethnics and other --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you sure you're not suffering from some of the causes of dementia right now?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: See, the problem is that the Swedes have pure genes, okay. They marry other Swedes, because that's the rule. Finland, Finns marry other Finns, so they have a pure society. In America, we marry everybody.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Asian people are not liberal, you know, by nature. They're usually more industrious and hardworking.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're a Muslim. So why did you write a book about the founder of Christianity?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, say you're a cocaine dealer, and you kind of look like one a little bit.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For all you kids watching at home, Santa just is white, but this person is just arguing that maybe we should also have a black Santa, but, you know, Santa is what he is.

CARLSON: What precisely is diversity our strength.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I have something in common with Obama, and I don't even know what the big deal is. He's a African anyway.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A fist bump, a pound, a terrorist fist jab.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You grew up on tacos, correct?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, I did not grow up --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She's Colombian.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, I didn't know.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm Nicaraguan.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Okay.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Catholics write letters and Muslims stab you with letter openers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Many Americans, including this one, believe Barack Obama's emotional attachment to the Muslim world has hurt the USA.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This guy should go back to burning the taxpayer- funded incense to whatever pagan foreign deity he's worshiping because it's not Jesus.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She won't remove Congresswoman Omar from the Foreign Relations Committee because -- why? Because she thinks a little of America? Who is she representing? Because it isn't America.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Maybe tomorrow he says he's going to transition to a woman, better yet, maybe a black woman, maybe even better, a half - black, half-Pacific islander, something like that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Slaves that worked there were well-fed and had decent lodgings provided by the government.

CARLSON: How did we wind up with a country in which feminists do science?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's got to be some downside to having a woman president, right, something that may not fit with that office, correct?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm going to say no, Bill.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I used to think women just shouldn't be able to vote. Now, I think at least liberal women should not be able to hold office.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm telling you to shut up. But anyway --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wait. I mean, you shut up, know your role and shut your mouth.

HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: I'm sure he'll be happy to hear that, Chris. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I saw some evil laughter.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Evil.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Evil laughter.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, how do you -- what's evil laughter?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know, just the way her face contorted.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Michelle Obama is so -- like the duchess, when she speaks about --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She's kind of annoying that way.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She is. By the way --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And how well could she be eating? She needs to drop a few. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bill is the average American here and I'm President Obama.

[22:05:01]

This is the way I feel. I feel like President Obama is just saying, you know what, I've got that $3.5 trillion dollar budget that we're doing, you know?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The biggest myth of all time is that sweatshops are bad.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: By the way, Halloween is a liberal holiday because we're teaching our children to beg for something for free.

CARLSON: The war on Christmas is a global struggle.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The factor began spotlighting companies that refused to say the words, Merry Christmas.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am tolerant. I'm all for free speech and free rights, just not on December 25th.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As far as torture goes, at least in this controlled experiment, to me, this seemed like a pretty efficient mechanism to get someone to talk and then still have them alive and healthy within minutes.

CARLSON: Woke M&Ms have returned.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You would let everybody get married who want to get married. You want to marry a turtle, you can.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Clearly, Nickelodeon is pushing a global warming agenda.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We ask why there's violence in our schools, but we've systematically removed God from our schools. Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If the feds had not stripped us of our natural rights to keep ourselves safe by keeping and bearing arms, 9/11 would never have happened.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Explosive developments in the mysterious murder of former DNC Staffer Seth Rich.

If true, this could become one of the biggest scandals in American history and could mean that Rich could have been murdered under very suspicious circumstances.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This virus should be compared to the flu, because, at worst, at worst case scenario, it could be the flu.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This was not and is not a pandemic. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We like the fact that there's a lot of cases in low-risk populations because that's exactly how we're going to get herd immunity.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These mRNA vaccines, the mRNA COVID vaccines, need to be withdrawn from the market now. No one should get them. No one should get boosted.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look at it right there, the same workers who stayed behind and now wheeling out the suitcases that were under that rectangular table there.

CARLSON: The footage appears to show poll workers pulling ballots out of suitcases after they told poll monitors to go home.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sidney, we talked about the Dominion software. I know that there were voting irregularities.

SIDNEY POWELL, FORMER TRUMP ATTORNEY: That is where the fraud took place, where they were flipping votes in the computer system or adding votes that did not exist.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dominion Voting Systems, you have described it with algorithms in which were designed to be inaccurate rather than to be a secure system.

POWELL: I can hardly wait to put forth all the evidence we have collected on Dominion, starting with the fact it was created to produce altered voting results in Venezuela for Hugo Chavez.

RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER TRUMP ATTORNEY: We have a machine, the Dominion machine, that's filled with holes that have Swiss cheese and was developed to steal elections and being used in the states that are involved.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIP: That is Fox News, 25 years of it. And, of course, those last few clips are lies and they cost Fox more than $700 million.

Now, you can cherry-pick any outlets, blunders, mistakes, embarrassments, but the difference here is that what you saw are not anomalies. They are features, not a bug. And one of their tricks of the trade is repetition, daily, even hourly. If you say the talking point consistently enough, Americans become addicted to the outrage. In fact, in the case of January 6th, people blindly believed those talking points. They acted on them. And many of those defendants have testified in court before being sent to prison that that was the case.

Now, I asked in a recent deposition whether the rationale for allowing those lies to spread on his platform was, quote, not red or blue, but green, Murdoch replied, correct.

Now, in recent years, it's been reported that Murdoch has been furious with Trump. And it makes sense. His network repeated these lies and it hit the kingmaker in his pocketbook. But Murdoch sowed that fabric and he rewarded the loudest voices in the room. He accelerated this idea that if someone called out a lie and called it a lie, you're a liberal stooge, you're a hack, not to be trusted, you are woke, whatever that means. And there is no doubt that it's working for his bottom line, at least.

But the question is tonight at what cost? At what cost to America? And at what cost to all of us?

Joining me now is Conservative Lawyer George Conway, CNN Political Commentator Ana Navarro and Staff Writer for The Washington Post Sarah Ellison.

George, what has the cost been of all of this?

GEORGE CONWAY, CONSERVATIVE LAWYER: The cost is that you have a large segment of the population that is detached from reality, detached from facts. And if you try to present them with evidence or facts, they will turn it off.

[22:10:01]

They will stop listening. They will simply spew the opposite. And they are addicted to hearing what they want to hear, whether it is true or not?

And we saw that in with the Fox's experience that led to the payment of its $787 million settlement, where the sometimes they would tell the truth on Fox and they get blowback for it and they realized they couldn't do that.

So, they kept putting on Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani even though they knew that, as the emails that were produced in discovery showed, they're peddling lies.

PHILLIP: It is getting worse. I mean, you all are both former Republicans and, you know --

ANA NAVARRO, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I'm still a registered one.

PHILLIP: Still a Republican. But I Imagine you were -- have been on Fox News. Do you think it's getting worse?

NAVARRO: I have the distinct honor of never having been on Fox News, never having been invited to Fox News, never will I go to Fox News because I think it's a cesspool of conspiracy theories and lies. And, look, what is the cost to America? It's the cost to our democracy. It's the cost to civility. It's the cost to truth and facts.

The amount of people in this country who absolutely believe conspiracy theories, and you talked about the last few clips being true, no. We just saw the baddies and oldies of Fox News for six full minutes, including conspiracy theories against the death of Seth Rich. That cost them money to, remember?

PHILLIP: Yes. NAVARRO: Remember the one about Obama not being born in this country, that conspiracy theory, and what that has done to America, the rise of racism, the promotion of CRT as some sort of evil thing going on that was threatening children, the homophobia against LGBTQ, I mean, it's been -- the cost has been more division, more lies, less facts.

It's just been -- you know, it's been a cesspool over and over, but it's been successful for Rupert Murdoch, if the measure is financial success.

PHILLIP: What's your view on that? I mean, because as Ana just pointed out, it cost them money. That Seth Rich thing costs them money. The Dominion lawsuit costs them money. It may not even be over yet. How does that factor in?

SARAH ELLISON, STAFF WRITER, THE WASHINGTON POST: I think some of that is the cost of doing business when you are in the business of promoting -- you know, when we talk about what they were saying during the aftermath of the 2020 election, what we learned from all of those documents that came out from the Dominion lawsuit was that they had to respect their audience. They didn't want to lose their audience.

And I remember one of our headlines was they were fearful that if they told the truth, they were going to lose their audience.

And I think this is an element of Rupert Murdoch sort of creating a viewership that wanted his product and then he had to chase that viewership and down a $787 million settlement. So, it did come back to bite him, but it's sort of reaping what he sowed.

PHILLIP: Yes, I mean, this is not -- it may seem like an episode of succession, but the consequences are so significant for this country. I mean, do any of you have a sense that this succession plan, the son coming into power is going to really change anything for Fox?

NAVARRO: Why would it? I mean, why -- he's been training under his father all of these years, right, in the same way that Rupert Murdoch trained under his father. I mean, you know, you've got to look at what Rupert Murdoch has done. And we talk about this country, but it's not only this country. It's also the United Kingdom. It's also Australia. This is a guy who took a small little paper in Australia and has turned it into a worldwide news conglomerate, including not just Fox, right, but a bastion, like The Wall Street Journal, which is supposed to be held at a different standard, let's say, than a Fox News.

So, you know, I think when it comes to counting dollars and cents, the amount that they paid to Dominion, that's chump change to what they have earned. And why would they change the formula?

CONWAY: Yes.

PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, Murdoch, in his own words, he doesn't even like Trump, but they're so in bed in this. He almost can't even get out of the bed that he's made for himself.

CONWAY: Right. I mean, essentially, they were like selling drugs. I mean, the drugs were lies and they addicted an audience to it, and so they can't stop. And that that's going to be the interesting question. If it's high -- you know, I was an MNA lawyer in a prior life and a litigator. And one of the things that happens when you have a company that is family-controlled, it's a public company, but because of the dual share stock structure, the Murdochs have a disproportionate share of the voting control.

[22:15:09]

When the patriarch of such a family passes on or passes the baton, there often is a management vacuum and the -- some of the members of the family want to sell and this company could get sold, and the question is who's going to buy it? The problem is whoever buys it is going to want a return on their investment. And they're not going to want to destroy the franchise. And so there's a good chance that they're going to have economic incentives to keep it going.

I think the only thing that might stop them is the fact that the media environment is changing generally of how cable news is distributed. And also the Fox population, the viewership is kind of aging out. I mean, it's a much older core (ph).

NAVARRO: Don't you think what stops it is Rupert Murdoch staying on as chairman emeritus? I mean, he's 92 but he seems to be in full control of his faculties. And I suspect that's the play, right?

CONWAY: It may be.

PHILLIP: What are your views on that, Sarah?

ELLISON: Well, I think that one thing that's very clear is that the Rupert Murdoch's sons, and now Lachlan is the only one that's left involved with the company, the one that is not as conservative already left the company, Lachlan has already said we're not going to change the market position of Fox News because he does not want to drive his father's company into the ground. So, the only -- I mean, I think that there's a real risk in changing the political position of Fox. Lachlan doesn't want to do that politically and he doesn't want to do that from a business perspective.

I think that these other lawsuits that are still out there, Smartmatic still has a $2.7 billion lawsuit against Fox, I don't see them changing their -- I mean, I think that the points that we've been making, which is that no one is really running Fox, the audience is running Fox.

PHILLIP: That's an interesting point. Before we go, this is in Murdoch's letter to his staff. He says, most of the media is in cahoots with the elites peddling political narratives rather than pursuing the truth. It's very rich.

NAVARRO: There is something that just has got to stick in our craw, particularly those of us who were not born with silver spoons in our mouth, like Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch, when they turn around and call other people the elite.

PHILLIP: I mean --

CONWAY: It's psychological projection of the highest order.

PHILLIP: That's Rupert's psychological projection. George, Ana and Sarah, thank you all so much for joining us tonight.

And coming up next for us, the government is about to shut down in a week and Congress is, believe it or not, going home. They're taking an early weekend even. So, we'll speak to one of the Republicans who's in the middle of all of this chaos.

Plus, the Ukrainian president gets a cold shoulder from some on Capitol Hill as he pleads for more money. This, as he learns that one of his NATO allies is pulling arms.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:20:00]

PHILLIP: In just eight days, the American government will shut down, and the people who are responsible have decided to go home.

Now, keep this in mind, everyone knew that this deadline was coming, and yet they left Washington for six whole weeks and has spent the last two weeks back here bickering, fighting and name calling while facing a shutdown that will close agencies and American service members. They won't get paid.

So, last night, when we came on the air, Kevin McCarthy had outlined a plan that met some of the hardliners' demands from his caucus, a plan that would extend the deadline another month. But tonight there is still no progress, only this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): This is a whole new concept of individuals that just want to burn the head place down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: And joining me now is Republican Congressman Ken Buck of Colorado.

Congressman Buck, we got a week left before a potential government shutdown. There is no short-term deal in sight. So, why on earth are you and your colleagues going home?

REP. KEN BUCK (R-CO): Well, first of all, Abby, I am here in Washington, D.C. I will be here all weekend in Washington, D.C. I will be working with others to try to reach that agreement that will keep the government open. I don't believe that government is going to shut down in eight days. I think we will have a plan. We will pass a bill without any Democrat support. And we will move forward to make sure that Americans have confidence in government and understand that we're keeping this government open and funded. PHILLIP: So, earlier this week, just so that folks understand, you voted against the defense spending bill, which is part of this process. But today, you did switch your vote to a yes. It did still fail, though. You seem to have been satisfied with what the speaker put on the table, but your colleagues are not.

At this point, to avoid a shutdown, why not reach across the aisle two Democrats to make a deal, a deal, by the way, that would pass the House and maybe have a chance to pass the Senate as well?

BUCK: Yes. So, the bill that was on the floor today was the defense appropriations bill. And it was a procedural vote. I had voted against it because several of my colleagues wanted the numbers for all 12 of the appropriations bill so we could see how this fit in. We got those numbers yesterday. We changed our votes. Some other members objected to Ukraine funding and a few other things and they voted no today.

I think it's important to realize that the Senate hasn't passed on the floor of the House many appropriations bills. The House has passed one and we're looking at passing a few more on Saturday. I believe members are going to be called back for that vote on Saturday. But the continuing resolution is a number that the Democrats put on the floor last year. So, this year's appropriations were passed last year.

Every Republican voted against that bill because the number was so high and the continuing resolution would continue that spending level.

[22:25:00]

So, a lot of Republicans, including myself, are against that spending level.

PHILLIP: So, you're not willing to work with Democrats even if it means avoiding a shutdown?

BUCK: Oh, no, I'm absolutely willing to work with Democrats. They're not willing to work with me. The bottom line is we can't keep spending the amount of money that we're spending. This country is going broke. We will have $2 trillion of debt, the highest amount of debt that we've ever had in this country's history this year. We can't keep going at that rate.

And that's why I think it's so important to make sure people come together, find ways to cut spending so that we can get in a manageable area for debt.

PHILLIP: So, Speaker McCarthy, when he left the floor today, he was visibly frustrated. He criticized the far right flank of your conference for wanting to, quote, just burn the place down. What's your view of that? Who is burning the place down?

BUCK: Yes, I don't think -- I think Kevin was probably very frustrated and was speaking out. One, I don't think it's a great idea for the speaker to do that because he's got to go back to those people and try to get their votes for the next bill. But I do think that we have a difference in our conference over the importance of deficit spending and creating more national debt and the speaker's job is to bring people together and find a way to move bills forward. I am confident that that will happen in the next week.

PHILLIP: But do you see his -- I mean, do you understand his frustration? I mean, he seems to be saying, I'm putting all of the things that it sounds like you want on the table and some members -- there are definitely some members in the conference who are saying, we won't vote for any continuing resolution at all.

BUCK: Yes, I don't think that's the case. I think that those members are saying, we're not going to vote for a continuing resolution at this number.

When Kevin McCarthy was running for speaker, he told the Freedom Caucus members that he would be willing to write appropriations bills at the $1.471 trillion number. He has now moved that number up significantly as a result of his negotiations with the president for the debt ceiling bill. And those -- you can't promise a group of people two different things and then expect not to have the check come due someday. And right now is the time when that check is coming due.

I still think we will be able to work through those issues, reach a compromise and make sure we keep government open.

PHILLIP: All right. The clock is absolutely ticking now for you and your colleagues on the Hill. Congressman Ken Buck, thank you.

BUCK: Thank you.

PHILLIP: And up next, a New York Republican reacts to the president's decision to give work permits to nearly half a million migrants as the border crisis explodes.

Plus, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs says that Donald Trump did not want wounded veterans at events. The new revelations ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:30:00]

PHILLIP: Tonight, reaction is pouring into President Biden's decision to offer work permits and temporary legal status to half a million migrants. Now, this move is in large part a reaction to the pressure that he's facing from blue states, including from New York. You heard the governor on this show last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATHY HOCHUL (D), NEW YORK GOVERNOR: Forty-one percent of the people in our shelters today are from Venezuela. They're literally from around the world, West Africa, South and Central America. They're coming from all over, but we have to let the word out that when you come to New York, we're not going to have more hotel rooms. We don't have capacity. So, we have to also message properly that we're at our limit. If

you're going to leave your country, go somewhere else. But the smarter thing is to apply for asylum before you leave your country and then you'll have a different experience when you arrive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: And joining me now is Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis, a Republican from New York. Congresswoman, thanks for joining us tonight.

NICOLE MALLIOTAKIS (R-NY), REPRESENTATIVE: Good evening.

PHILLIP: Governor Hochul, last night in that interview, she also called on you when your colleagues --your Republican colleagues from the state of New York, to do something about comprehensive immigration reform, which is I think you would agree at the heart of this problem. Why isn't that happening?

MALLIOTAKIS: Actually, we've done quite a bit. We've voted already to secure the border, to stem the flow, to increase the number of visas. I've introduced legislation that would allow for a number of different type of visa category numbers to increase.

We've also supported expanding the number of judges to hear these cases quicker, because we know that half to two thirds of these individuals claiming asylum are denied when they get to court because they don't have legitimate asylum cases. The reality is we don't have a partner in the Senate that is willing to support any of our legislation and they haven't done any of their own.

PHILLIP: Well, I think one of the issues is, I mean, what you're pointing out are all parts of this but the overall immigration system is broken. That's why when people talk about comprehensive reform, that's not happening. I mean, wouldn't you agree?

MALLIOTAKIS: No, it hasn't happened when the Democrats controlled either. The problem is this. Our president decided to put in place executive orders that have allowed for this unsustainable flow to occur. I and my office have helped hundreds of immigrants who have followed the rules, have done everything right, have been stuck in bureaucracy, gained citizenship, green cards, and work authorization.

Right now, the policy that the president put in place allows for those individuals who are coming over the border today to get appointments and be heard prior to the people who have been waiting in line, and that's wrong. I actually have somebody who had work authorization, lost their work authorization because it ended, and now they're saying they have to wait 16 months to get it renewed.

So, the policy that the president put out yesterday would put all these individuals ahead of that constituent who has been here working, following the rules and doing everything right. So, it's an unsustainable flow that we have to stop at the border if we are going to address the backlog in the system.

[22:35:00]

Now, the mayor and the governor keep incentivizing people to come to New York. Hochul says one thing on your show yesterday, but quite frankly, she has sent an invitation to people from around the world to come to New York and they get free services, free housing, free education, free college tuition. She even wants Section 8 Housing. That was one of the requests she made of the President.

PHILLIP: Are you referring to, just for clarity's purposes, are you referring to New York's right to shelter, that, you know, the leaders of New York, the mayor and perhaps the governor would say requires that they provide shelter to these migrants.

MALLIOTAKIS: So, it doesn't actually. The right to shelter decree passed in -- it was 1979, it was a court degree that was intended for homeless New Yorkers. It was never intended as the governor finally alluded to last night, she admitted that never intended for everybody on the planet who would come to New York City.

In fact, it's -- it's illogical to think that that policy would apply to eight billion people on the planet should they come to New York City. That is why we are in the situation we're in right now, because the mayor has misinterpreted that right to shelter law and insisted that these individuals had to be housed.

Do you know what happened in my district? They took away an assisted living from our senior citizens. They literally kicked out senior citizens in March and then turned around this organization and kind of deal with the city to house migrants there. How is that fair? How is that right?

PHILLIP: I think the mayor would argue that, and I think he did this morning, he argued that he can't just decide to not enforce the right to shelter. It has to go through a legal process. But I do want to ask you, speaking of the mayor here, he has said in the past that he thinks that this issue could destroy New York City without drastic federal intervention.

And you saw President Biden was in the city this week. He met with the governor, Governor Hochul, but he didn't meet with Adams. What do you think is going on there, and is that relationship where it needs to be in order to get to a resolution on this problem?

MALLIOTAKIS: Well, I think it is disappointing that the President came to New York City and didn't even go to see any of these facilities. The Roosevelt Hotel, which the mayor wanted him to go visit, was the site where they've already had dozens of arrests. These individuals have actually committed crime in our city, and that's a problem in itself.

But the problem really is that it is unsustainable, and that's why I say the mayor opened these cans of worms. He should have not done this, and he should have allowed groups, outside groups, to sue him if he wanted, and then go to court. But what I'll say is this. The reality is that federal solution is necessary. That's why we passed a border security bill to stem the flow. I am open to working on issues of increasing visas so we can track who's coming in and out of our country.

People can come, as my parents did to this country, and have opportunity and pursue a better life. But we need to know who is coming in and out of this country. In a post-9-11 world, of all places, New York should be concerned that there are 1.6 million individuals that have come in the country. We don't know who they are, where they are, or what their intentions are, in addition to the six million that have been encountered at the border and have made their way, you know, throughout the country, including New York.

So, I would say to my colleagues, Senator Schumer, work with us. We have a solution that we passed to secure the border. You may want to see some other aspects, work authorization work. You know, let's come together. But the Senate has to pass something in order for us to do that and reconcile our differences.

I think -- I think, this is the right opportunity for Republicans and Democrats to come together. But if we don't send the flow, the system will continue to be inundated and we will continue going through this every month until we actually stop the flow and deal with the backlog that we have currently.

PHILLIP: It'll be interesting to see if there's any movement on this because I think both parties now agree it's at crisis levels all over the country, not just at the border. Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis, thank you very much for joining us.

MALLIOTAKIS: Thank you.

PHILLIP: And outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, revealing his fears about nuclear weapons when it comes to Donald Trump and what he fears if Trump is elected again. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN (voice-over): Captain Luis Avila, a U.S. soldier severely wounded by an IED explosion December 2011 in Afghanistan, uses music therapy as a critical component to his healing. Captain Avila will now join the Joint Service Quartet in singing "God Bless America". (END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: That was a moving moment during a welcome ceremony for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Mark Milley, back in 2019. But it turns out that it may have been the initial moment that Chairman Milley gained insight into the former president Donald Trump's view of members of the military.

Now, according to a stunning new profile in "The Atlantic", following wounded Army Captain Luis Avila's rendition of "God Bless America", Trump walked over to congratulate and embrace him. But moments after that, the former president told Chairman Milley, quote, "Why do you bring people like that here? No one wants to see that -- the wounded. Never let Avila appear in public again", Trump told Milley.

Joining me now is the Editor-in-Chief of "The Atlantic", Jeffrey Goldberg. He is the author of that profile, The Patriot, how General Mark Milley protected the constitution from Donald Trump. That moment, Jeffrey, is a searing moment just recounted on paper. But what was it like to hear Milley recount that to you?

JEFFREY GOLDBERG, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF "THE ATLANTIC": Well, I'm not going to say how he reacted to all these things or what we talked about specifically, but there were a lot of witnesses to that. And I think it's true that for Mark Milley, like a lot of people who worked in and around that administration, it was a gradual or sometimes not so gradual process of learning about the character and the proclivities of the former president.

[22:45:00]

I think that was a moment that was deeply unnatural, right, for American military leaders, not just Mark Milley, because they venerate veterans and combat survivors like Captain Avila, right? They have the universal respect and admiration and sympathy of generals. So, the idea that you would hide them is it runs again, it's repugnant, it runs counter to their instincts.

PHILLIP: But then again, Trump is still the same person who told John McCain, you know, he's not a hero because he was captured. I mean, this is the same person.

GOLDBERG: Yeah, I like people who aren't shot down, was Trump's -- yeah, and so -- so, that goes to this point. I don't think Mark Milley, when he came in 2019, thought he was dealing with Mr. Rogers. But again, the interesting thing to me about the progression is, it didn't -- by the way, it took until Lafayette Square the next year for Mark Milley to fully understand what he's dealing with here, you know, in terms of president. And very, very hard thing for him to do because that is the commander in chief.

PHILLIP: One of the things that you note in this piece is that Trump picked Milley because he thought he looked like a general. He's a big guy. He's got a general's face --

GOLDBERG: Yeah.

PHILLIP: -- square, big eyebrows. What is he really like? And how did that factor in to whether they were really able to be compatible?

GOLDBERG: Right. We know people who cover Trump know that he always says this line, that guy looks out of central casting. He casts people for roles. He doesn't interview them, per se. You look like a Secretary of State. You look like a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. But what he didn't understand, beneath that tank-like build, very strong guy, big combat veteran and all, was a Princeton-educated historian, right? And not only that, what he didn't understand, and this is where the

relationship fell apart, as it did with a lot of other people, Jim Mattis and John Kelly, other generals who came in, because maybe in part, they looked the part. What he didn't understand was Mark Milley was committed to the principle that the military reports in essence, to the Constitution, not to the President of the United States.

And he didn't understand that these guys, who have risen in the ranks all the way to general, have their own code of conduct and ethics and behavior that ran counter to what Trump thought, maybe based on what he saw in movies, how he thought he should act. And so, it was a clash almost from the beginning, as it was with a lot of other people that Trump hired.

PHILLIP: And ultimately, in some of the anecdotes that we'll talk about next, that is the central conflict that erupts really between the election and January 6th.

GOLDBERG: Right. Exactly.

PHILLIP: Jeffrey, stand by. Coming up next, why Milley thinks that a second Trump term could threaten his freedom.

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[22:50:00]

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ASHER: And we're back now with the editor-in-chief of "The Atlantic", Jeffrey Goldberg. Jeffrey, one of the stunning things in this piece is that Milley told you that if Trump is elected again, he thinks that, quote, "Trump will start throwing people in jail, and I'd be at the top of the list."

GOLDBERG: He's told that to a lot of them. He's told that to some of his friends and various people. This is not surprising in a way. If you recall, a little while back, Trump told some of his supporters at a rally, I'm going to be your retribution. And by that, he also means that I'm going to get my revenge. And all the people --

PHILLIP: And he wants retribution against Milley for what?

GOLDBERG: Well, he thinks that Milley, like other people in the administration, subverted his Trump platform, the whole MAGA platform. He believes that the military served him, right? He did not take that civics course that many of us took which said that the military is there to uphold the Constitution, it doesn't work. You report to the Commander-in-Chief, but if the Commander-in-Chief tells you to do something that's illegal or immoral, you don't do it, right?

And so, it's not just Milley's problem. I mean, there are a lot of people who work for Donald Trump now who understand that if Trump comes back into power, Trump will try to use the Justice Department, which he will staff with his own people, try to use the Justice Department to prosecute them. For what? We don't know. Remember, the details are always hard to understand.

PHILLIP: But a key moment for Milley, and we alluded to this earlier, is this Lafayette Square moment during the George Floyd protests. He's walking with Trump up until a certain point. He says, absolutely positively shouldn't have been there. That's also, it seems to me, a pretty searing moment for him.

GOLDBERG: Yeah. Well, that was a pivot moment in his life where he said, I cannot go where this guy wants me to go. Remember, at the same time, there's also a discourse in the White House. Trump asks Milley and Esper, the defense secretary, says, why can't you just shoot them, the demonstrators, in the legs? And they're like, because it's America? Because we don't do that? We don't take the military? We don't put them out on the streets and just start shooting people you don't like in the legs?

And this is the interesting thing, and you hear this over and over again. Trump doesn't understand. He didn't understand that concept, that that's not what the military is there for. It's not why they joined. And it's not what their oath says.

PHILLIP: He literally says here, this is in your piece, "you guys," -- referring to combat soldiers, "are all just killers."

GOLDBERG: Right.

PHILLIP: What's the difference?

GOLDBERG: Right. And here, you know, we were talking a little bit a while ago about who Millie is.

[22:55:00]

It's like he's a big combat veteran, Iraq, Afghanistan. He's a hockey player growing up. But he's also a serious Catholic. He's also a serious intellectual who reads history. And he's a serious student of the Constitution. And those are the parts that maybe Trump didn't see.

PHILLIP: Yeah, didn't see, maybe didn't understand, or didn't care for. Jeffrey Goldberg, thank you very much for going through all of that for us. And coming up next, the autoworkers are out with a warning to the big three -- come back with a better offer or else. What the union is threatening to do, next.

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[23:00:00]

PHILLIP: Before we go tonight, we are hours away from yet another deadline before the automakers' strike gets even more intense. The union chief says that he will order more critical plants to shut down if the big three automakers don't improve their offers. CNN, of course, will be all over it. But that's it for me in CNN PRIMETIME. "CNN TONIGHT" with Laura Coates starts right now. Hey, Laura.

LAURA COATES, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, Abby. Nice to see you. PHILLIP: You, too.