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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Won't Rule Out Force To Take Greenland, Panama Canal; Trump Understands Russia's Feelings Toward Ukraine And NATO; Trump Rips Biden Over Transition, Contradicting His Team's Praise; Palisades Fire Races Through Los Angeles; Zuckerberg Makes Exact Opposite Reaction To The 2024 Election. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired January 07, 2025 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST (voice over): Tonight, what Trump wants.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT-ELECT: This will be the golden age of America.
PHILLIP: The president-elect's press conference serves familiar rants.
TRUMP: The policy where no windmills are being built.
PHILLIP: Familiar grievances.
TRUMP: It'll only be a fake report.
PHILLIP: And an anything goes foreign policy that doesn't rule out new global conflicts.
TRUMP: I can't assure you on either of those two.
Plus, fact is fiction, and whatever you say is reality. Meta does away with fact checking on its platform, clearing the way for anyone to say virtually anything.
Live at the table, Scott Jennings, Ashley Allison, Congressman Tony Gonzales and Congressman Ro Khanna.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in Washington.
Let's get right to what America is talking about, the Trump show. Today, the president-elect gave a press conference, and he basically wants to take his infamous sharpie to redraw the world map. Donald Trump gave glimpses into his foreign policy views in a marathon session with reporters that was entirely reminiscent of his first four years in office. He made promises. He made threats. He made references to famous friends, and he dropped jaws in diplomatic circles all around the globe when he would not rule out using force against a NATO ally.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Can you assure the world that as you try to get control of these areas, you are not going to use military or economic coercion?
TRUMP: No. You're talking about Panama and Greenland. No, I can't assure you on either of those two. But I can say this. We need them for economic security. The Panama Canal was built for our military.
REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE) will not use military?
TRUMP: I'm not going to commit to that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Joining us in our fifth seat at the table, Josh Rogin. He's a Washington Post global opinions columnist and the author of Chaos Under Heaven, Trump, Xi, and the Battle for the 21st Century.
We are here once again, Josh Rogin, talking about Greenland and Panama. Let me just read the prime minister of Greenland's statement. Let me repeat, Greenland belongs to the people of Greenland. Our future and fight for independence is our business.
Donald Trump is basically saying, if I want it, I might take it, and I might use U.S. troops to do it.
JOE ROGIN, GLOBAL OPINIONS COLUMNIST, THE WASHINGTON POST: Right, well, I place most of the blame on this latest iteration of the controversy on David Sanger, not on Donald Trump, because he asked a question that Donald Trump would obviously answer in the way that he did. He said, will you rule out military attack on Greenland? No, I'm not going to rule it out. Okay. Everybody knows that what Donald Trump's going to say, right?
PHILLIP: If he's going to rule out military force.
ROGIN: But nobody at this panel, nobody watching today thinks that Donald Trump is going to use American troops to invade Greenland because it's a crazy thing to say. It's a crazy thing to do. So, that means that what he's done is he's created a diplomatic incident and a controversy with our NATO ally for no real reason, which would only really play into the hands of our adversaries, because, of course, the Greenland government is going to say, why would we want to trade one colonial ruler for another colonial ruler? That's not what happens in the 21st century. That's what happened in the 19th century. And, of course, the Chinese government is going to come in and say, oh, those Americans, they want to attack you, we're going to invest in you, and we're going to give you development. Isn't that better? And, of course, they're going to say, yes.
So, in a way, it's a tempest in a teapot. It's a made up controversy. It's a kabuki diplomacy scandal, because if he hadn't been asked that, he wouldn't have said that, but now we have to deal with it, we have to talk about it like it's a real thing. It's actually a really crazy idea.
PHILLIP: I still think it is within Donald Trump's power, he is about to be the president of the United States to say, no, we're not going to take another country by force. I mean, why didn't he say that?
REP. TONY GONZALES (R-TX): I think President Trump is basically saying everything is on the table in every single situation before he even gets in that spot, which I think is a good thing.
PHILLIP: Let's follow this along the logical lines, right? Everything is on the table, including using military force to take control over another country, maybe two.
[22:05:00]
So, when China says, I'm just going to take Taiwan because it's in our national security interests and they have national security resources that we need, we're going to say, okay.
GONZALES: I don't think he necessarily is saying we're going to take it by military force. What he's saying is -- the way I interpret it is Denmark's a pretty cool place. It'd be a whole lot cooler if they sold it to the United States, right? It's just he's having some fun with it. I think his policies are going to be, America is back. We are so back, meaning everyone is on notice. The world is on notice. Donald Trump is letting the world know he's not messing around. He's not even in office yet. And once again, everything's on the table from a foreign policy standpoint.
ROGIN: But America is not an expansionist military power, not in the 21st century.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Why?
ROGIN: Because that's --
JENNINGS: Why not?
ROGIN: Because that's not the world that we live in.
PHILLIP: Hold on, Scott. You answered that question.
ASHLEY ALLISON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.
PHILLIP: Why is the United States not --
ROGIN: So, you're for attacking Greenland, Scott. Is that what you're saying?
PHILLIP: Why is the United States not an expansionist military power?
ROGIN: You're open to the idea of attacking Greenland?
JENNINGS: No. We don't need to attack Greenland. We can buy it. ROGIN: We can't buy it. It's not up for sale. So, what you're saying is not true.
PHILLIP: We have to create a world order --
JENNINGS: Everything's not for sale until it is.
PHILLIP: Hang on, Scott. We have to create a world order in which we said, you cannot just decide you want that country and then take your military and go into that country and take it, okay? So, that is the era of not being in an expansionist military era for the United States, and you're saying that's not true. Why is it not?
JENNINGS: Well, I mean you can think small, if you want to. I think Trump's thinking big and he's thinking about U.S. interests. There are U.S. interests in Greenland. They have rare earth minerals. We already have some kind of space facility there and it would help fortify us against the Russians. The Panama Canal is, of course, of interest when you consider the Chinese incursions and influence in this hemisphere.
What Donald Trump is saying to the world is, we are not a shrinking violet anymore. We are the United States of America. We are the preeminent superpower. And reporters keep asking him to rule things out and take things off the table. And it would be the height of stupidity to do so now or to anything else before he takes office. Why would he tell the rest of the world what he may or may not do here?
PHILLIP: Here's one reason why. Let me play what he said. This was speaking about Putin's invasion of Ukraine and describing it in incredibly favorable terms. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: A big part of the problem was Russia for many, many years, long before Putin said you could never have NATO involved with Ukraine. Now, they've said that, that's been like written in stone. And somewhere along the line, Biden said, no, they should be able to join NATO. Well, then Russia has somebody right on their doorstep, and I could understand their feeling about that. But there were a lot of mistakes made in that negotiation.
Well, my view is that it was always understood. In fact, I believe that they had a deal and then Biden broke it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROGIN: This is deeply wrong on several levels. First of all, the promise to give Ukraine a path to NATO was made by George W. Bush in 2008 and the rest of NATO. It's in Ukraine's Constitution, okay? And if Donald Trump wants to change that, that's one thing. But what we can't allow is the idea that Putin gets to decide what Ukraine gets to do. Because the entire war in Ukraine is based on the idea that Ukraine gets to decide what Ukraine wants to do. It's a country. They have people there. They're allowed to decide what alliances they want to be in and they don't have to ask Putin for permission and Donald Trump can't give them permission and Putin can't give them permission. It's their own country. They've got their own people. And Donald Trump doesn't seem to understand that. That's a huge problem.
REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA): I know some people think, oh, is this fun or is it keeping options open or is it Trump thinking big? But you know who thought big? It was FDR, it was Woodrow Wilson, it was an America that said, we are the country that believes in self-determination of people around the world. And you know who benefited from that? My grandfather, who was in jail for four years alongside Gandhi, fighting for independence. I want an America that is strong because of the principles we stand for, unlike the British Empire, unlike other colonial empires, a nation that believes in the self-determination of people.
We're going to celebrate Jimmy Carter's life. He is the person who stood with the Torrijos-Carter agreement in recognizing Panama's self- determination because that was important for America and Latin America.
ALLISON: I also think it's important that --
GONZALES: Ro, you're going to get this America. And you and I are going to work together in order to make sure we get this America back on track.
It's an exciting time. I think it's an exciting time for all of us. Just like you said, so many of us have had generations upon generations of families that have come in here and made the impossible possible. We got to get back to rooting for America. You know, when you watch the Olympics and you're watching curling, I mean, and you have no idea where that person's from or what background, all they have is an American flag on their shoulder and you're rooting for them to win the gold medal. We got to get back to that.
ALLISON: Yes. But I just -- okay. I think that if you're the president of the United States or the president-elect that a reporter is allowed to ask you whatever type of question they want, particularly when it involves using military force, and I think that the office requires somebody with the responsibility to say that, no, I'm not going to send our troops into war or to use military force.
[22:10:01]
I would hope that that would be what --
PHILLIP: And can I just note that when Canada came up, he actually didn't say he was --
ALLISON: Yes.
ROGIN: (INAUDIBLE) going to use economic force.
(CROSSTALKS)
ALLISON: And I think it also -- I mean the American people made decisions, but there was a time when Donald Trump was actually running for office and people weren't asking him tough questions like this. And so we find ourselves, they weren't. They were not asking him tough questions about --
JENNINGS: Who did more media interactions? Trump or Harris?
ALLISON: Yes, on friendly news outlets. But --
JENNINGS: No. Who did more press?
ALLISON: You say, we don't want to talk about the past, so let's talk about the future.
JENNINGS: You said he doesn't answer questions. He answered more questions today than Biden did in four years.
ALLISON: I'm saying when questions, nobody asked Donald Trump about using military force, and when he did, he started calling people like Liz Cheney warmongers, and now he's saying he's not opposed to using military force to take over Greenland and Panama. That is completely contradictory to what he was saying in the election. It is highly problematic, and that is why I think we should take the blame off of the Greenland thing for -- to stay here and put it at Scott's feet now.
ROGIN: Okay. I blame half Scott and half David Sanger.
JENNINGS: I want -- look, to me, the greatest points are that he's looking around our region, our hemisphere, around the world and saying what would it be in the U.S. interest to do, not to do, to have, not to have, what is in our best interest? And one other issue, he is also signaling something critical to our enemies around the world. No one respected Joe Biden. No one thought he would do anything. People don't know what Donald Trump might do, and there is value in that.
PHILLIP: I'm sorry, but I have to call this out. Because at the end of the day, this is the 21st century, okay? And the United States is not running around the world and saying, I must have that, we'll take it, okay? This is not like the colonial era. So, are we really in a world in which you are comfortable saying that the United States is now going to be one of those countries that just takes whatever they feel like taking on the map? That's really the world view --
ROGIN: That's what Russia does. That's what China does. We're supposed to be better than that, Scott.
JENNINGS: I think he is saying that he is willing to look around the world and say, what is in the best interest of the United States? We already have a partnership with Greenland. And we already know that they have things that we could benefit from. And this does not have to be a hostile conversation.
PHILLIP: I'm not disputing the nature of the problem. The question is, what is the solution? The solution that Trump has put on the table is one that does not make any sense and also abandons American principles.
ROGIN: Exactly.
JENNINGS: The answer to every question asked of Donald Trump is maybe, every question.
PHILLIP: Except when he's asked, oh, are you going to take over --
ROGIN: I totally agree with Scott that he might be just blowing smoke and it might amount to absolutely nothing. And that's the best case scenario is that he's totally blowing smoke and he'll never do anything, and let's hope that's the case. But in the case that he actually decides to use American power to coerce an ally into doing something that they don't want to do, which it won't work anyway, he will be playing into the Chinese hands, and he will be sending our allies into the arms of our enemies in the most strategically stupid way you could possibly imagine.
So, you can say, yes he recognizes what America's interests are, but that's only the first step. The next step is doing something that advances those interests, and threatening countries, and bullying them, especially our allies, and sending them into the arms of our adversaries, by saying strategically stupid things is the opposite --
ALLISON: Why did he run on that?
JENNINGS: Do you think Greenland and Denmark are going to go running to the Chinese? Is that what you're saying?
ROGIN: What's going on in Greenland right now, if you care to know about it, is that the Chinese are investing billions of dollars into developing Greenland.
JENNINGS: Not just Greenland, all over the world.
ROGIN: Yes.
JENNINGS: And that's a major freaking problem.
ROGIN: It is a problem.
ALLISON: So, we just have to take over all of the countries where the Chinese are?
ROGIN: So, we can either combat that problem by offering them alternative investment, or we can threaten them and bully them. Are we going to engage them positively or negatively?
PHILLIP: You talked about Jimmy Carter. I mean, one of the reasons that that treaty came to pass was because there was a period of riots and violence in Panama as a result of our ownership, so to speak, of the Panama Canal. The treaty was intended to put a stop to that. So, the idea that we're just going to go back in and take it over, it seems to be inviting an era of the United States just buying into yet another period of guerrilla attacks against our own people. And is that really a victory? Is that really what Donald Trump wants?
KHANNA: It was also to give us relationships in Latin America so we could win the Cold War because we wanted Latin America to represent the United States. But here's the difference. Look, Donald Trump, even if you don't take him seriously, that he's actually going to invade, he views the world as his own terms, as a negotiator, as a transactional matter, as a bluffer. And that's one mode of governance. But there used to be a different mode. Both Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter represented that in different ways. And that was an America that believed in principle, an America that didn't just lead with bluffing and negotiation.
[22:15:05]
And I think there's a place for that. I think that's what the lesson of Jimmy Carter's life that we should remember regardless of where you are, that principles matter.
PHILLIP: My other question, and maybe we'll save this for another day, is whatever happened to lowering grocery prices?
ALLISON: I know, that's right.
GONZALES: We're going to get to that. You know --
PHILLIP: Where is the -- when are we going to get the plan for that?
JENNINGS: As soon as we fix the energy problems.
GONZALES: I think we're going to get to that, you know?
ROGIN: Invade Panama and Greenland.
GONZALES: When I was in the military, I actually traveled through the Panama Canal, I traveled through the locks. It's an amazing thing, amazing sight to see. And guess who built that? Americans built that. And so we need to get back to the point of how are we bringing these countries together. Years ago, I mean, at the very beginning of this border crisis, one of the very first persons that I sat down with was the foreign minister of Panama that was basically begging me. I was a brand new member. She was begging me to essentially help with this border crisis. So, I think there's some value in this.
And this is where I think the House needs to lead, right? The president is going to maybe paint with broad strokes, but this is where the House needs to go in there and have a very defined point.
PHILLIP: All right. Josh Rogin, thank you very much for joining us. Everyone else, stick around.
Coming up next, Donald Trump also went after the man he's replacing, but his criticism doesn't quite match what his own team is saying.
Plus, Mark Zuckerberg makes another move to appeal to MAGA. This time, he's insisting that facts are subjective. We'll discuss.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, not on the same page. Donald Trump is telling a very different story than his own most trusted advisers about what exactly is happening behind the scenes in this transition. Now, if you believe Trump's people, the transition is going very well. Susie Wiles, the incoming chief of staff, says that Jeff Zients, the outgoing chief of staff, has been very helpful. Trump's incoming Middle East envoy offered up a very similar story.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVE WITKOFF, TRUMP'S PICK FOR SPECIAL ENVOY TO THE MIDDLE EAST: We're just very collaborative together. I mean, this is a tense negotiation. So, no one has pride of authorship. We are totally outcome-oriented.
He's got a solid team. And I appreciate it that they're allowing us to be collaborative.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: But the president-elect himself suggests that the transition is a disaster. And he is none too pleased with the current president.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We are inheriting a difficult situation from the outgoing administration and they're trying everything they can to make it more difficult.
I've been disappointed to see the Biden administration's attempt to block the reforms of the American people and that they voted for.
President Biden's actions yesterday on offshore drilling -- banning offshore drilling will not stand. I will reverse it immediately.
This was a Biden fiasco that he got as he could. That should have never happened.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, what he's talking about there, a series of things that the president has done in this lame duck period. He talked about the offshore drilling. He commuted some sentences of death row inmates, clemency for nearly 1,500 others. He secured the confirmation of the 235th federal judge, forgave $4.2 billion in student debt.
Congressman Khanna, it sounds like President Biden is presidenting and Donald Trump does not like it very much right now.
KHANNA: That's a little rich for the person who didn't even recognize President Biden's victory to be criticizing President Biden and Vice President Harris, who have been so gracious in the transition. In fact, J.D. Vance in the House chamber was clapping for Kamala Harris for having the grace and the dignity to recognize who won the election.
So, you have an administration, who, of course, is going to do everything to finish the term, but has been totally celebrating the transition of power. PHILLIP: And actually spent a lot of time waiting for the Trump transition to do the legal parts of what they needed to do in order to get going with it.
By contrast, as the congressman pointed out, four years ago, here's The Washington Post, the White House escalating tensions orders agencies to rebuff Biden transition. Trump transition threatens national security and public safety. Trump blocks Biden's incoming staff in unprecedented ways, and we go on and on and on. Trump knows a lot about blocking transitions because he did it.
JENNINGS: I'm certain that there is cooperation going on at the staff level. But what Donald Trump is talking about is a real thing, Joe Biden taking actions that are not in the best interest of the American people.
Two things in particular that have come up, one is this offshore drilling ban, which I assume because Biden isn't actually fully in control of things, his crazy staff is running around cooking up every crazy idea, and this is one of them, but the other was the cutting of the deal with the federal employees to continue to let them work from home and keep our federal office buildings empty for years into the future.
Biden and his people are materially trying to tie the hands of Donald Trump on energy and turn Washington, D.C. into a bureaucratic ghost town on the eve of a new administration coming in, not to mention the decisions they made on Ukraine to let them have offensive weapons into Russia, which, you know, I kind of support, but that should have been done in collaboration with the incoming administration. That's all transition stuff, too, and I think Donald Trump has a point.
ALLISON: Well, guess what, Scott? Joe Biden is still the president. So, guess what he gets to do? He gets to run this country the way he wants. Now, on January 20th --
JENNINGS: He gets to keep digging.
ALLISON: On January 20th, Donald Trump can do all that he wants. He can go after Greenland, go after Panama Canal, and go after Canada, if that's what he wants to do. But that wasn't what he promised the American people. Joe Biden is still making good on some of the promises that people who did elect him for four years, a full four- year term.
[22:25:02]
I will say, I agree, I think that cooperation is happening at the staff level, I remember when I was at the White House and the transition was going into Obama. We were told direct orders from the boss that you will be as gracious and as giving to the next administration. I also remember being on the transition when Joe Biden was elected president and not getting that same respect from the Trump administration. So, a lot of it does happen on the staff level.
What Donald Trump wants Joe Biden to do is to just hand over the keys to the castle and let him put -- but that's not how governments work. That's not how our democracy -- we have a Constitution. We have a date of inauguration, and on January 20th, go have your way, but that's not what --
JENNINGS: You often say this isn't what Donald Trump was elected to do. Was Joe Biden elected to send federal workers home for the next ten years? Was Joe Biden elected to end offshore drilling? Was he elect -- I mean, are these the things that he ran on? I mean, or is this just sort of like fever swamp ideas you do at the end of the term because you want to be kind of jerk about it?
ALLISON: Well, on the federal work, we know telework policy has been something that's been in place when you were in the White House, I was in the White House and federal. And he also came --
JENNINGS: (INAUDIBLE) trying to make COVID last forever.
ALLISON: No, not at all.
GONZALES: President Trump is counting the days to where he's in office. And guess what? So is America. America has spoken. So, regardless of what happens, I view it as it's a wash, because on day one, President Trump already has a plan on how to kind of wipe the slate clean. But also Congress is working alongside it.
You know, this weekend, the House Republicans met together. You can't get members to meet on a Monday, more or less a Saturday. It was well attended. It was well-instructed. Mike Johnson has really unified everyone. Leader Thune was there. So, to see this level of cooperation before House Republicans or Republicans have even taken over, I think there's a lot of positive in this.
But whatever happens in the next, you know, 10 days, 15 days, I think a lot of that is going to be washed clean with a new slate.
PHILLIP: I think you're exactly right about that. Donald Trump, on the other hand, somehow thinks that once it's done, he can't undo it, which, you know, unfortunately for Biden, that's not true.
Everyone hang tight. Coming up next, breaking Tonight, the state of emergency right now in Los Angeles County as wildfires are threatening homes and schools, burning up nearly four football fields per minute. We'll take you live to that disaster scene, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:31:53]
PHILLIP: Breaking news tonight, fires burning at the speed of nearly four football fields per minute. In Southern California, it is life or death for thousands of people right now, many of them racing from their -- from their homes as the Palisades fire races through Los Angeles.
The city is under a state of emergency. Thirty thousand people have now been told to evacuate. CNN's Nick Watt has been in the middle of those fires quite literally all night, and he joins us now. Nick, tell us what is happening right now.
NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, right now Abby there are a few hundred firefighters on the ground here in Los Angeles trying to take as many homes as they possibly can and trying to stop this fire spreading even more densely populated areas down by Santa Monica.
We, right now, are up in the hills in the Pacific Palisades. The fire started up in the trails, up in the scrub, just all these houses and the Santa Ana winds just whipped that flame through this beautiful community destroying countless homes, sending about 30,000 people fleeing -- mandatory evacuations.
Now, so many people were trying to get out so fast that the roads -- part of the issue here is the roads around here are just narrow, little, sometimes not much more than the lane wide. So, people just abandoned their cars and they dragged with them whatever they could and those cars that they left behind, the fire department had to get them out the way so they could get the fire trucks in.
So, bulldozers, moving cars out the way without any regard because they wanted to try and come in to try and save as many houses and also to try to contain this fire. It is raging and the wind is only going to get worse. And the problem with the wind, these embers get taken out, miles pop, another spot fire.
I was just looking at -- you can't really see it from the camera. But I was just looking out over these little canyons and it's an apocalyptic scene you just see houses. You just see fire dotted in the darkness. So, it's not going to peak the wind until the early hours of the morning. Now, the fire department, they knew this was coming. Everybody knew the Santa Ana winds were coming.
So, they pre-positioned men. They pre-positioned equipment. But still, they are struggling to fight this fire. And the fire department actually set up their command center on the other side of the Pacific Coast Highway. So, you've got Pacific Ocean, Pacific Coast Highway, and then where we are, where all the fire is.
Nobody really thought the fire was going to jump that wide Pacific Coast Highway -- it did. And so, the firefighters have had to move their command post because the fire has forced them to do that. So, all this wind right now is the issue, but also the fact that for months here in L.A., we just have not had any rain.
So, up here, there is so much wind. This dry vegetation just waiting to burn. That is the danger. That is the enemy. So, couple of hundred firefighters are going to be at this all night to try to contain this fire. We have seen, as I said, people trying to flee.
[22:35:00]
I've also spoken to some people who tried to evacuate, couldn't, because the roads were just so jammed. So, they've just gone home, sat down, and they're just waiting it out and praying for the best.
Now, other people just outside the evacuation. I mean, I live just outside the evacuation zone right now, so my wife has packed up our, you know, belongings, our financial records, our kids' photos, all that kind of stuff, ready to go, should we have to.
If this fire were to reach Santa Monica, that would be an -- historic and horrific event. It is horrific enough up here, but further down, more people, more houses, more fuel, more horror. So, for now, a couple of firefighters trying to keep this as contained as they possibly can. But right now, I'd say, they're not winning this battle. Abby.
PHILLIP: Nick, as you said, an apocalyptic scene behind you. We can see it here from Washington. Please stay safe. We're going to continue to follow this story. "Laura Coates Live" is going to have much more from California and these fires up next within the hour. Stay with us.
Coming up here though, it is a new era with new rules on meta. No more fact checking, no more rules around violent speech. And President- elect Trump is taking credit for it. A special guest is going to join us at the table, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:40:43]
PHILLIP: Tonight, Meta breaks the fact check machine, literally. The social media giant today has announced that it is doing away with the people who monitor misinformation on its platforms.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK ZUCKERBERG, CEO, META: The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech. We're going to get rid of fact checkers and replace them with community notes, similar to X, starting in the U.S.
After Trump first got elected in 2016, the legacy media wrote non-stop about how misinformation was a threat to democracy. We tried in good faith to address those concerns without becoming the arbiters of truth. But the fact-checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they've created, especially in the U.S.
PHILLIP: It's a decision that got two thumbs up from the president- elect.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT AND PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (R): I thought it was a very good news conference. I think they've -- honestly, I think they've come a long way -- Meta Facebook. I think they've come a long way.
UNKNOWN: Do you think he's directly responding to the threats that you have made to him in the past?
TRUMP: Probably. (END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Joining us in our fifth seat at the table, Teddy Schleifer, a "New York Times" reporter who's been covering all of this. Teddy, I have a lot of questions about the t-shirt, the chain, and the very expensive watch he was wearing. But on the Mark Zuckerberg change-up, what is behind this, you think?
TEDDY SCHLEIFER, "NEW YORK TIMES" REPORTER: So, Mark Zuckerberg is making the exact opposite reaction to the 2024 election, he had in 2016. When Trump won eight years ago, that was sort of the beginning of this era of what was then Facebook, where Mark Zuckerberg was obsessed with kind of pleasing his critics in the media, in the Democratic Party, from other people in technology.
Now, Mark appears obsessed with pleasing the new administration. And this is not somebody who I think has particularly strong political beliefs at his core. Like, this is not somebody, you know, as everyone knows he dropped out of college. He is not somebody who, we talked to his friends, as I did for a piece this summer.
He's not somebody who, you know, feels super strongly about tax issues or abortion politics or climate change. This is somebody who, at this point in his life at least, cares primarily about being liked and being liked by the incoming administration.
PHILLIP: What about the money?
ALLISON: Money.
SCHLEIFER: The money.
PHILLIP: The dollar sign.
ALLISON: Well, I think --
SCHLEIFER: Right.
ALLISON: - this is going to be, first of all, getting rid of a huge chunk of trust and safety that's going to save them a ton of money. This is an environment in which Facebook Meta wants to compete in the A.I. space. Everybody's trying to make Trump happy. I mean, fundamentally, isn't this about his shareholders?
SCHLEIFER: I think, obviously, there's a massive anti-trust investigation that, you know, the incoming administration is going to have a lot of power over. I don't think it's really about the cost of the employees as much as it is about Trump's -- Mark Zuckerberg sees an existential risk to his company. I mean, Donald Trump has talked about putting Mark Zuckerberg in jail. He sees probably an existential risk to himself.
PHILLIP: Yes, this is -- this is the part about going to jail. This was actually bizarrely in a coffee table book. He says, "Mark Zuckerberg would come to the Oval Office to see me be as nice as anyone could be, while always plotting to install shameful lock boxes in a true plot against the president.
We are watching him closely, and if he does anything illegal this time, he'll spend the rest of his life in prison, as will others who cheat in the 2024 election." And you heard President Trump today say, yes, I think that these kinds of threats had something to do with it.
GONZALES: Abby, I think it's about trust. And Elon Musk put out, you know, this is cool. I think part of it is how does Meta regain that trust? No doubt that Facebook is -- a lot of Americans are getting their information from there and China and Russia, Iran, bad actors have used these bots in order to fill things.
X has kind of gone a different route and has allowed everyone to police themselves. It's an interesting model. I'm glad Meta is picking it up. But once again, it's about regaining the trust, these social -- these social media platforms. They can't just be the wild, wild west. But a lot of times, let's let Americans police ourselves. Let's get back to some of that. I think -- I think that it's a positive thing.
KHANNA: Look, I am a strong defender of free speech. But you can't say I'm for free speech and then engage in intimidation.
[22:45:01]
We saw this with Jeff Bezos and the "The Washington Post" pulling punches. We saw it with the "L.A. Times". Now, we're seeing Facebook, which is a private entity, trying to do things because Donald Trump's asking.
And what is shameful about Meta, the bit that there should be bipartisan outrage, is they're doing nothing to protect the kids. And they've been peddling with algorithms, information that is causing young girls to have suicidal thoughts, eating disorders.
Jonathan Haidt has a book, "Anxious Generation", that exposes all of that. And Meta has been lobbying to block the Kids Online Safety Act, which passed the Senate 68 votes. And someone needs to ask Zuckerberg about that.
PHILLIP: You know what? I wasn't planning on taking it there, but I think it is such an important point. This is actually a huge distraction from the thing that he's probably under the most pressure about. I don't know that anybody was saying there's not enough free speech on Facebook. First of all, I mean, not a lot of people, you know, younger than the age of 35 are using Facebook anymore, anyway.
Nobody wants Facebook to be this free speech panacea. I just -- I'm curious about where this is even coming from outside of pleasing a Trump-focused narrative that there is a speech problem on certain social media platforms.
JENNINGS: I'll tell you where it's coming from, from the right, and that is that these fact-checkers brought this on themselves. They beclowned themselves. They're not fact-checkers. They're partisan sledgehammers. They're partisan assassins. They're not checking any facts. They're -- they exist -- they exist not that part --
PHILLIP: Partisan assassins?
JENNINGS: -- not to check facts. They exist to try to screw Republicans. Let's be honest. That is what they have become and Facebook entered in to this situation where these people were effectively making things up to try to tilt the narrative in this country on a lot of different issues.
He was right to get out of this and he is also right to follow the X model of community notes. You're going to get far better fact checking, far better information by crowdsourcing this the way Elon Musk has done it. It's going to be a lot more fair. It's going to be a lot more fair than it has been, because the fact checkers were ridiculous.
PHILLIP: I don't have any problem, actually, with the fact --checkers. To be honest, I think it's fine to use community notes, because frankly, some community notes utilize fact-checking resources. And it's fast. It can be faster in some cases.
The thing that I thought was amusing about this announcement was that he was like, you know what, we're going to move what's left of our, you know, trust and safety to Texas where there are no concerns about bias, which makes no sense because Texas --
GONZALES: Unless you're from Texas. And then you're like damn right, come to Texas.
PHILLIP: I should come to you on this one.
GONZALES: The last state of freedom, come on down.
PHILLIP: No offense to Texas, I love missing Texas, but Texas is like any other place in this country. Why not say, hey, we're going to distribute this around the country where we can say, it's no one place is going to be the center of our workforce when it comes to arbitrating some of these disputes.
ALLISON: Look, I think this issue, across platforms. Today, it is Meta. I have a slightly different take on X. I think that people Feel like X is very slanted towards the right since Elon Musk bought it in 2022. I'm not saying it always was but I think that you can look and you can tell the Algorithms and the ways that you know, when you go to -- I don't even follow Elon Musk.
I don't think and I always see his tweets because he owns it and so that's what he gets to do and that's -- he's -- he owns a private company and that's fine. You know, that's what corporations can do. I think there's a bigger conversation that at Congress actually is going to have to handle.
And I actually think that there is bipartisan support. I forget the Democrat, but I know Josh Hawley is one of the folks who has been really interested in putting some regulatory provisions on social media platforms. I don't think Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk should be the arbiters of truth either, actually. But who is then? Maybe it is crowdsourced.
UNKNOWN: The American people.
ALLISON: The American -- yes, but there also have to be leaders that are arbiters of truth, as well. And so, there has to be like, we don't want our politicians, we don't want our elected officials to be lying to the American people for political gain. We can come back to some of those norms.
But right now, I do think social media is out of control and it is with A.I., the bots are on both sides, interference is coming from both sides. And I just think that we need to do some leveling of the playing ground or we do tread into this place where because most of Americans are getting our news, facts and opinions are going to become one in the same and that is not a good thing for our country.
KHANNA: Scott, look, you were very effective for Donald Trump in the months you were on. But I'll give you this, you aren't peddling conspiracy theories, right? You can make your point without engaging in some -- you're not demeaning people because of their race or their gender or being violent.
And Tony, you don't do that in Congress. And what we need is more people within the bounds of public discourse and not have these things turn into just misinformation zones and zones of hate.
[22:50:00]
JENNINGS: I don't disagree with you about the danger of outright misinformation or even hate. I am concerned about who and what kind of people get to set those boundaries. And what conservatives have become concerned about over the years is that full institutional control of information distribution hubs seems to have been on the left.
And now, liberals are howling about what Zuckerberg has done today because, you know, there's been a bit of a bounce back or a pull back from the left having full control of the boundaries of the discourse. I'm in agreement with you that misinformation and blatant disinformation is bad.
But you have to admit, some of the things that we were told was missed and disinformation over the years turned out not to be. And you got in big trouble if you decided to go outside those boundaries when the institutional elites were telling you to stop or worse to you.
PHILLIP: Let me give Meta some credit here. They published the changes to their policies online. You can see what has changed. One of the things that's changed is now struck from the Meta policy is that dehumanizing speech, including calling people certain objects, including women as a household object or property, or objects in general.
Black people as farm equipment, transgender or non-binary people as it, that has been taken out of the policy. So, that is now allowed, I guess, to describe women as household objects and black people as farm objects. What's the point of this? SCHLEIFER: The fact that this, let's look at how this was announced
today. This was announced on "Fox and Friends". It was announced following a kind of month and a half-long campaign by Meta, by Mark Zuckerberg, to curry favor with Donald Trump.
He went to tomorrow's logo. He donated to the Trump inaugural. And, you know, Mark Zuckerberg has hired Republican political advisors. They elevated Republican political advisor to be in charge of their political office.
PHILLIP: Put a Trump confidant on his board.
SCHLEIFER: Correct. Just the other day, Diana White. So, the fact is this policy is to aimed at one person. It is aimed at the President of the United States who is coming in and look this Facebook and Meta and Mark Zuckerberg are probably being more overt than any other company right now in trying to curry favor with the next president.
But the policy platform that they're pushing and all the policies laid out, Abby, are primarily, you know, is it really a considered change because they believe X, Y or Z? Or is this just kind of much more tactical, much more of a strategic move that they want to have, you know, not be broken up.
PHILLIP: It hit us over the head by a two by four -- about -- we don't --
SCHLEIFER: It is not subtle.
PHILLIP: It's not, you see --
JENNINGS: You say it's aimed at one person, but isn't it aimed at half the country? I mean, they're a business. They have --
SCHLEIFER: -- the roll-out.
JENNINGS: But the aim is to try to get as many people, any company trying to get people to use their product, and I'm just telling you, on the right, some of these technology products have lost favor.
PHILLIP: I think actually, Scott, the numbers show, a lot of conservatives use Facebook and have been. Teddy Schleifer, thank you very much for joining us. Everyone else, hold on. Coming up next, our panel is going to give is their night caps including a call for an adult exchange program. We'll tell you what that's about.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:57:49]
PHILLIP: We're back and it's time for the "NewsNight" cap. You each have 30 seconds to say your piece. Congressman Khanna, you're up.
KHANNA: There are going to be a lot of people who will be honoring Jimmy Carter, giving platitudes about how great he was, but we need to look at what he actually stood for. And one of the things he stood for was Medicare for All, and the Democrats should honor him by being for that.
PHILLIP: All right. Congressman.
GONZALES: Texas is the new Hollywood. You know, the prequel to Yellowstone, 1923 and 1944, filmed in Texas. Landman, if you haven't seen Landman, the new series out, it's a lot of fun. A lot of my district is West Texas. A lot of oil and gas. A lot of that hits home. Texas is the new Hollywood.
PHILLIP: All right. OK, I've got another thing to add to my list of things to watch. Go ahead, Scott.
JENNINGS: So, Netflix the other night continued its foray into live events, and they had wrestling. WWE Raw was on Monday night and Hulk Hogan came out and was largely booed by the crowd in Los Angeles. It took me aback, as you know, because I'm a big Hulkamaniac. And I started to think about why that might be.
A, it was likely because he decided to get involved in politics and he was in L.A. and he got booed. But B, my advice to the Hulkster, lean into it. At one point in your career, you became a heel. My advice, dump the yellow and red. Go back to the black and white NWO days. Lean into your new bad guy's MAGA status and own it and continue to generate heat. I know a little about being a wrestling villain and a promotion. And so, my advice is --
ALLISON: He does.
JENNINGS: -- is go back to the NWO.
PHILLIP: I thought he was talking about being on this show.
ALLISON: No.
PHILLIP: But I mean aren't these his people? Shouldn't he be celebrated in this way?
JENNINGS: Yes, I think when you get involved in politics and you know he's obviously had some controversies in his life, as well. It -- you know, it takes a toll on.
PHILLIP: He has a lot of controversies, yes. He has said some very controversial things, anyway, in the past.
JENNINGS: But there's something to generating heat. My advice, lean in.
PHILLIP: All right. Ashley.
ALLISON: OK, I think the country was extremely divided before COVID. But I think after COVID, we all went into our own little cocoons. We've struggled to come back really and socialize with people who we disagree with. And social media is playing a more extreme role in keeping us all in our symbol -- small sub-cultures.
[23:00:00] I would like to introduce an adult cultural exchange program where for one to four months, you extract yourself out of your community, your environment, you go into a community of some people that you don't know, that you disagree with, you really immerse yourself. You don't have to agree with them, but you treat folks with respect. You swap, it's like a life swap for adults kind of, type of thing.
UNKNOWN: It sounds like an employment.
ALLISON: But you keep job security, you learn more about people, and we start to talk to one another again.
PHILLIP: Fascinating idea. Everyone, thank you very much, "NewsNight". "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
