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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump, Hours From Inauguration, Plans 100-Plus Actions On Day 1; Trump Becomes Crypto Billionaire Overnight After Coin; TikTok Restores Service To U.S. Users, Crediting Trump. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired January 19, 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 ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, American carnage, or American revival. A day before he solemnly swears the president-elect previews --
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT-ELECT: Every radical and foolish executive order of the Biden administration will be repealed.
PHILLIP: -- day one of the next four years.
Plus, the profit president, Donald Trump, cashes in on his own crypto coin. Just how high did it send his net worth?
Also, capitulating to China, or sparing Gen Z an existential crisis. Trump unveils a plan to save their social media app of choice, TikTok.
And Chappelle's catharsis. The comedian uses the Saturday Night Live stage to send Donald Trump a message, and to plead the country see past its own pain.
Live at the table, Van Jones, Scott Jennings, Kristen Soltis Anderson, and Ashley Etienne.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening. I'm Abby Philip in Washington on this inauguration eve.
Let's get right to what America is talking about, a taste of things to come. Tonight, just hours before he is sworn in, in a sacred oath to the sanctity of our democracy, Donald Trump reminded the country of two things that he loves to do. One, revel in his own accomplishments, and, two, remind everybody about the day one reckoning that is to come to Washington.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Starting tomorrow, I will act with historic speed and strength and fix every single crisis facing our country. We have to do it. Every radical and foolish executive order of the Biden administration will be repealed within hours of when I take the oath of office. Oh, you're going to have a lot of fun watching television tomorrow.
Somebody said yesterday, sir, don't sign so many in one day. Let's do it over a period of weeks. I said, like hell we're going to do it over weeks. We're going to sign them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Joining us in our fifth seat tonight is Presidential Historian Tim Naftali. I should add a third thing that Donald Trump likes to do is remind Americans about January 6th. He, in addition to what we just played for you, also promised to do this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Tomorrow, everybody in this very large arena will be very happy with my decision on the J6 hostages, very happy. I think you'll be very, very happy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: What a way to go into his inauguration. It's pretty unusual from a historical perspective.
TIM NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Well, sure. First of all, you know, every time we get a new president, they have this opportunity to, to set the stage. And that's their inaugural address. And it's a way to signal what they plan to do. And for some, it's a way to bring us all together. Donald Trump's first inaugural address, we remember, was a divisive speech that was not designed to pull together the kind of coalition, by the way, he could have pulled together, which would have been a nonpartisan coalition that wanted to fix things in America.
And what's so interesting in the last few weeks is that he is not sending the signals that one would hope that he would send suggesting that he'll be giving a rousing speech tomorrow that pulls us together. And --
PHILLIP: I mean, do we really expect --
NAFTALI: No, we don't expect it to be. One of the things about celebrating our democracy is that we want to celebrate the fact that we're going to have a peaceful transition power and that the system worked. And when you celebrate that, you should have, as an American citizen, the hope, the hope that there's an opportunity to come together.
[22:05:03]
I'm not a naive person.
VAN JONES, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I got to hope I'm miserable. I'm sad, I'm frustrated. I'm mad at everybody. Thank you, Scott.
Look, I appreciate what you're trying to do, reminding us that we're supposed to. Look, if you are a progressive or a Democrat right now, if you're watching television, you're watching it probably with some substances, because he's going to unleash this blitzkrieg of attacks on everything we care about, immigrants, clean energy, and nothing we can do about it but watch this stuff. So, I appreciate you, but I'm miserable, I'm upset. And I know you're going to say something, Scott, that's going to make me even more upset. Go ahead.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No, I'm going to make you happy, because, A, we're going to, we're going to cut your taxes too. B, here's what he's going to do, I think, I don't think it's going to be a sweeping speech, I don't think it's going to be full of flowery language, I think it's going to be very workmanlike, and I think the theme of the speech is going to be restoring confidence in America.
And that means two things, I think, to the people that voted for Trump, number one, restoring confidence that the government is actually listening to and responsive to the problems of the American people, and number two, restoring confidence in America on the world stage. I think he is going to go through chapter and verse what he believes the problems in America are and what he personally, as president, can do immediately to fix those problems.
So, I'm not looking for rhetorical flourishes. I am looking for action and I think he's going to deliver.
JONES: You're confident that he's going to give this confident speech, but why are you so confident? You get the inside scoop or are you just praying?
JENNINGS: I mean, I know things.
PHILLIP: And we've got a little bit of a preview from Trump's advisers. Stephen Miller specifically went to Capitol Hill. They're talking about a travel ban, that's probably not going to be a surprise to people, designating cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, they're going to put back in place some Trump era immigration policies, withdraw again from the Paris Climate Accords, permit offshore drilling, et cetera, established DOGE, the January 6th pardons. There's a long list of things that they're going to do in that first, you know, 24, 48 hours.
KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: What is done with pen and phone can be undone with pen and phone. And I think this is a reminder to everyone that if you want lasting change, it's important to make it through the legislature by passing laws that are harder to undo. I think that's a lot of what we're going to see.
It's also important to remember just how different this feels than eight years ago. Eight years ago, we were all saying, we're about to make Donald Trump president. Let's see how this goes. And now we know how it's going to go. And now he knows how it's going to go.
PHILLIP: I think eight years ago was different. It was Donald Trump in different ways.
ANDERSON: I don't think Donald Trump knew eight years ago what he -- I think he had an idea of what he wanted to do with the presidency, but I think it's much clearer this time, and I think he knows much more about how to pull the levers to actually get things done.
ASHLEY ETIENNE, FORMER COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR FOR V.P. HARRIS: Yes. I mean, I can't say that I'm depressed like Van. I am incredibly hopeful. I'm hopeful that Donald Trump will do what he says he's going to do, that he's going to cut taxes for everyone in an equitable way, cut taxes on tips, Social Security, all of the things that he says he's going to do as it relates to the economy.
I'm hopeful that he actually does it because that would be good for America. In fact, it would be best for his voters, that coalition that he actually built. I mean, the dirty little secret that we hardly talk about in politics is that it's his voters that actually need it more than anyone else, that the poorest states in the union are those ruby red states.
But here's what I think I'm most focused on. It's less about Donald Trump and it's more about the opposition. Who is going to rise up and be that Nancy Pelosi, right, against Donald Trump? Who is going to serve as the head and the face of the opposition against the Republicans? Democrats are going to have to call his bluff on everything that he says he's going to do and hold him accountable to it. You said you were going to do this day one, do it. Not just the red meat stuff, like getting rid of migrants, but I'm talking about the economic issues. He said he won on the cost of groceries. I want to see you lower them.
PHILLIP: There's almost nothing in the list that we -- you know, the overview that addresses the price of milk and eggs, and eggs, Lord, the price of eggs has really gone up. And Speaker Johnson was on NBC this, this morning, and he was asked specifically, like what's the Congress going to do about prices? And here's what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KRISTEN WELKER, NBC NEWS HOST: Can you guarantee that under President- elect Trump, under this Republican Congress, that grocery prices will in fact come down?
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): Oh, I don't think there's any question about that because we're going to return to fiscal sanity, as President Trump says, common sense. And that is we're going to make sure we don't have the largest tax increase in U.S. history at the end of this year when the Trump tax cuts would expire. And then we're going to turn the economic engines back on.
WELKER: Is there bottom line one piece of legislation targeted at bringing down grocery prices for the American consumer?
JOHNSON: Well, it's a complex collection of legislation, because we've got to unwind and fix everything. I mean, everything's a mess.
So, it's not just one switch that you flip back on. It's a number of them. And we have to make it all work together, and we will.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[22:10:01]
PHILLIP: It's a pretty tall order he's setting for himself.
NAFTALI: Not so difficult though when the economy is so good. I mean, listen, some -- the hyperbole here is a little much. The economy is doing well. The problem is that not every American has equal opportunity. The problem is that the way in which -- and I believe in capitalism, but the way in which wealth has been distributed over the last 40 years has been a disservice to the middle class and the working class in this country. That's why a lot of people are unhappy.
Fixing everything all at once, yes, but I don't see how tariffs, which will add to the cost of eggs -- well not eggs, but will add to the cost of the other things we like to have in the home, how they're going to help the working class.
PHILLIP: Why don't we hear more from Donald Trump about this?
ETIENNE: We actually have. I mean, right, he said that there's, he cannot guarantee that Americans won't pay more under his tariff plans. He's also said it's very hard to lower the cost of groceries. So, we've heard from Donald Trump. In fact, he's walked back that entire promise that he made in the lead up to the election.
JONES: That makes me very sad because I actually, in anticipation of him coming in office, took all the money I'm going to save on groceries and put it in crypto. So, now you're saying it's not going to happen. I feel like maybe I got snookered.
JENNINGS: So, look, Republicans and conservatives are not central planners. We don't believe in communist government systems where you can just adjust the price of whatever you want, like other countries around the world. What we believe in --
JONES: But Trump promised it.
ETIENNE: Absolutely. And Democrats got -- and Biden got beat up on this issue. You guys beat him up constantly on this issue.
JENNINGS: Of course.
ETIENNE: Because you wanted to win an election.
JENNINGS: Because they spent too much money and inflation went up. And although I hear what you're saying about the economy, the average working class American would ask you to look at how they've been wrecked for the last four years and tell you they'll be -- never dig out of the hole that they're in.
But what the Republicans intend to do is enact a series of free market policies that will, if fully enacted and allowed to work, reduce inflationary pressures and reduce how much it costs to do things in this country, whether that's on the regulatory regime on energy, if we reduce the cost of energy inputs into how much it costs to make and move things around, that will help bring prices down.
But Donald Trump promised a return to sane fiscal policy. But after four years of insane policy, no, it cannot be switched like a communist government overnight.
JONES: Let's talk about a couple things. He did promise to bring the prices of groceries down. That's what he said. And he's got four policies that push in opposite directions.
He says the tax cuts would be helpful, to your point, but he also has tariffs, which go the other direction. Deregulation would be good, to your point of view, but he also says deportation, which is going to put -- so part of the problem with Trumponomics is that you've got two T's and two D's that don't go in the same direction. Tariffs go one direction, taxes go the other, deportations go one direction, deregulation goes the other. And that's why I think people are confused.
ANDERSON: Well, he's definitely got a mandate to do some of these things, right, things like increasing deportations of illegal immigrants. He has a mandate to do it. He says he wants to do it. Public opinion says that they want to do it.
JONES: It's just got to push prices up.
ANDERSON: But on something like tariffs, voters know he's going to do it, but are a little more divided. Even the Republican Party, I think, is a little more divided. This may be one of those things where Donald Trump, at the height of his powers, coming into office with a pretty united Republican Party around him, may find that, as he pursues some, things like his policies on immigration, may keep the party unified. Things like tariffs may be a little more questionable.
PHILLIP: All right. Everyone, stick around. Coming up next, Trump launches a meme coin and creates billions of dollars overnight. How does this all work? And why are many crying foul?
Plus, Dave Chappelle's message for the president-elect on the eve of his next term. This is CNN's special live coverage.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:15:00]
PHILLIP: Getting rich without trying, that is what Donald Trump did this weekend thanks to a meme coin that's gone to the moon. That is Reddit speak for making a lot of money. Crypto gambit, the one that Donald Trump launched this weekend, thanks to his own name and the job he is about to take tomorrow, that has reportedly propelled his net worth to $55 billion. And this is all happening in a single weekend.
Joining us now in our fifth seat remotely is Catherine Rampell, CNN economics commentator and a Washington Post opinion columnist. Catherine, let's just start at the very beginning here, because I think a lot of people don't have any clue, right, and rightfully so, what this is all about. What is a meme coin and why would Donald Trump want one?
CATHERINE RAMPELL, CNN ECONOMICS COMMENTATOR: That's a great question. Basically, these are like stocks. People buy and sell them like stocks, except unlike stocks, there is no underlying inherent value. There's no cash flow. There's no profits. You're not buying a stake in the company. The reason people are buying these things, these meme coins, these tokens is simply that they think someone else down the line will be willing to pay more for them. It's a bet. It's a speculative bet.
These meme coins actually started out as something of a joke. Some of the ones that our viewers may have heard of is Doge Coin or more recently, I'm not kidding, Fart Coin, which is worth about $2 billion. Trump decided that he wanted to get in on this game and release now two, actually one meme stock, or, excuse me, one meme coin under his own name, one under his wife's name, simply so he could cash in and hope that his followers and potentially people who want favors from him down the line are willing to buy.
PHILLIP: All right. So, tell us then your quick thoughts Catherine, about what this all means for Donald Trump.
[22:20:02]
I mean, to me it's extraordinary that he would use his office just before he is about to take it to make billions of dollars.
RAMPELL: Yes. On the one hand, I think this is a massive scam of his own followers who were buying nothing essentially in the hopes that there will be a greater fool down the line to buy more. And right now, look, it's worth a lot, but they still need to be able -- people want to cash out. They need to find a greater fool who will pay more.
On the other hand, maybe they're somewhat shielded from downside losses because there will be a reliable source of individuals, companies, and foreign governments that see this, buying these coins, these tokens, as a very convenient way to pay off the president for favors.
You know, if you're the Saudi government, you no longer need to pretend to stay at a Trump hotel in order to give money to Donald Trump, to bribe Donald Trump. You can just show your digital wallet, and that is sufficient.
PHILLIP: Yes. Bringing it into the room, I mean, a couple of layers of this, not only is this meme coin something that on paper is giving him money, it's also -- they're taking the Trump world, loosely involving his sons, they're taking a cut out of each transaction. So, they're making money off of this in a world in which Republicans are concerned about corruption. Why is this okay? Scott?
JONES: I'll let Scott go first now, but I do want to talk about the bigger picture on here though, but go ahead.
JENNINGS: Well, look, I'm just going to lay out a couple things. Number one, I have no idea how any of this works. So, everything you -- I say to you on television tonight, America, do not take financial advice from me. I keep all my money in what I call Maxwell House Coin, which is a can that I bury in my yard in Kentucky. That's number one. Number two, I have more confidence in this than I have in Hawk Tuah Coin or some of the other things that I've heard. Number three, Donald Trump is a brand. He's been a brand long before he got into politics, and there's always -- there's like a whole cottage industry of people who are mad that Donald Trump is a brand, and that it has existed for 40 years, and I don't guess we're going to change that yet.
PHILLIP: Van, the president -- he's about to be president of the United States, and he's about to be in a position where he regulates this industry, this very industry that had the crypto ball a couple of days ago, that wants him to basically say, government, hands off this entire industry that regular people, you may not know about it, but regular people are putting all kinds of money into crypto, and they don't want any regulation. And Trump might very well give it to them.
JONES: Well, no industry wants regulation, but let me just -- I want to take a big step back here, because how did we wind up with the main focus of crypto being meme coins in the first place, meme coins which are stupid, which are silly? Because when the crypto industry -- I'm a California Democrat, by the way, so I'm very, very passionate about the technology sector.
When the crypto community was trying to be smart, trying to be good, trying to decentralize finance, trying to -- they got slammed by my beloved Joe Biden's administration, by my beloved Elizabeth Warren. They got crushed into butter, and they said, you guys are creating unregulated securities. So, the more useful the coin is, the more they got attacked. The more useless the coin is, the less they got attacked.
So, now you have the entire crypto community piled up on Hawk Tuah Coins and all kind of other stupid stuff. And so, now, us good Democrats say, you guys are too stupid to be allowed to fall for these scams. We're going to regulate you guys out of existence, but people just voted that they don't believe that anymore.
And so here's what's going to happen. A lot of people are buying crypto as a prayer, as a prayer for a better tomorrow, as a hope that somehow something will go good for them.
PHILLIP: Yes.
JONES: And, look, I'm not saying this is good. I'm just going to say -- I'm going to beat Trump up in a second. But how did we get here? We got here not because California innovators were beat up by D.C. and we, and so all the crypto people jumped ship. Now, they're Republicans, they don't want regulation, and these meme coins are all that's left of an industry that had a lot more going for it two years ago. PHILLIP: What I'm talking about here is the role of government in protecting people, protecting regular people. And Donald Trump is, instead of filling that role, getting ready to profit off of this thing. I mean, okay, not an expert here. Let me read from a former Federal Reserve economist. If people want to gamble, I don't really care, but what I care about is when the crypto bubble bursts, and it will burst, it will end up impacting people across the economy, even if they don't have direct investments in crypto, and this new coin is making it worse.
Donald Trump is responsible as president for protecting the American people, not for just opening the doors of the White House to the crypto industry, which he has essentially done with several appointments of people who are either work or worked for crypto, the crypto industry, or are themselves investors, which is -- it's about conflicts, right?
[22:25:01]
ETIENNE: Yes. I mean, there was a reason why he was called the grifter-in-chief in his first term. You know, the Democrats, Capitol Hill, there was a report that was issued that he and his family made multiple millions of dollars off of foreign governments, $5 million in on the Chinese government alone.
So, here's really the threat is that, you know, I was in Qatar on Election Day, I was at a financial summit, and everyone that you have foreign money there, you've got sovereign money there, money from all over the world. And the consensus was that Donald Trump can be bought, that he can be bought in influence simply by dangling some money over his head. So, with him, all roads lead back to the money.
So, that's really the threat for the American people. It's not just that you're buying a meme coin. It's that you don't know what interests of yours that he's selling (INAUDIBLE).
JENNIGNS: I just have to answer this. I just have to answer this.
ETIENNE: Please do, Scott. I expect you to.
JENNINGS: For you to talk about grifters --
ETIENNE: And it's actually good.
JENNINGS: For you to talk about grifters, you worked for Biden and Harris, I just have to ask you, what services and goods did the Bidens provide for all the money that Hunter and family made over the years. Did you consider that grifting or did you consider that productive commerce?
PHILLIP: Actually, Scott, you should actually answer. You should be the one answering that question. Because if you're saying that --
JENNINGS: She called him -- she said called him the grifter-in-chief.
PHILLIP: Listen, Scott -- JENNINGS: This man has been a businessman and a brand for decades.
PHILLIP: I'm saying from your perspective, if I were you, and I were like you up in arms about Joe Biden and the influence of foreign governments, et cetera, I would also be up in arms about this. Why aren't you?
JENNINGS: You guys are claiming things that I don't know are true. You're saying he could be bought. Foreign governments might do this.
PHILLIP: He's making money right now, right now. He's making money right now.
JENNINGS: So what? He is a private businessman, and has been his entire life. He is not in politics as a profession.
PHILLIP: Catherine wants to get in here. Go ahead, Catherine.
RAMPELL: Look, I think this is probably the first time Trump will enter office as a billionaire, on paper anyway, because he is cashing in on the fact that he's becoming president, because he knows that this is a very easy way. And, again, these coins have no inherent value.
The only value is hoping that somebody else will pay more for them. It's basically like a Ponzi scheme. And the idea is here that these will be sustainable for the next few years because there will be greater fools, or at least people who are more interested in ingratiating themselves with the president.
Because by buying these coins, they are effectively putting money in the president-elect's bank account. That is how it works, and that is how it will work, and there are no safeguards here. That is how -- there are no safeguards here. In fact, as we have been discussing, all of that unleashing of the economy by deregulation will apply to this specific market.
So, there is no incentive for Donald Trump to put any safeguards here to either protect the followers of his who are again going to lose their shirts, potentially, if the value of these things crashes, or to provide safeguards so that if the thing doesn't crash because there's a price floor set by all the Saudis and corporate executives who are buying these things, you know, there's no safeguards to protect that either. So, Scott can wish away any potential conflict of interest, but it's very clearly there.
PHILLIP: Yes. Okay, Van, we have to give you the last word.
JONES: Look, there are two things that are bad about this. One is that there are people who are going to get hurt financially. Some people are going to benefit. And it is a backdoor to buy the president. Those things are true. I think the problem that I just want to underscore is there could have been a better regulated crypto industry if Democrats and Republicans had worked together better under the Biden administration. Democrats were too tough on crypto and now we have the worst of all possible worlds, a completely unregulated crypto industry with Donald Trump getting rich off of it.
PHILLIP: All right. Everyone, hang tight. Coming up next, TikTok is coming back online in the United States and the president-elect is taking credit for it. And he's also suggesting that the United States could own half of it. We'll discuss that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:30:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, is Donald Trump a Gen Z savior? And will Congress take advantage of an early opportunity to show some backbone in the face of the soon to be president? Trump is now your favorite influencer's favorite person after he promised to defy the law and spare TikTok from the great internet beyond.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: And as of today, TikTok is back.
Yes, very popular. And, frankly, we have no choice. We have to save it, a lot of jobs. We don't want to give our business to China. We don't want to give our business to other people. So, they'll have a partner, the United States, and they'll have a lot of bidders, and the United States will do what we call a joint venture. And there's no risk. We're not putting up any money. All we're doing is giving them the approval, without which they don't have anything.
So, I don't know, it sounds like that works. What do you think? Good? I think so.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I'm not so sure about that. I'm not sure anybody is very sure what happens at this point.
[22:35:02]
But on the political end, it seems to me this is one of Trump's greatest gifts, is that he can just change on a dime. And it seems everybody just shrugs it off. He, a couple of years ago, was leading the charge to ban TikTok, now he's not. And no one seems to be bothered by that, whatsoever.
ANDERSON: This, in some ways, feels like the bizarro universe 2025 version of Nixon going to China, right? Because Nixon had this brand of being someone who's really tough on China, he was the one that could go. And so it's hard to imagine any other politician but Donald Trump who has said vocally for so long, China, China, China, to be the one to say, you know what? Let's bring TikTok back.
But I also think, and this ties in with the crypto conversation we were just having, that he really senses that he's got the wind at his back when it comes to younger voters in a way Republicans haven't for a while. And whether it's being the president who gets crypto, or does things on crypto, or being the president who gets TikTok and thinks TikTok is good. I do think it's part of his desire to continue trying to build his appeal with Generation Z.
PHILLIP: Yes. And I'm not going to lie, that's a real risk for Democrats that they should absolutely take seriously. To Van's point, some of these things were issues where Democrats had natural constituencies and now they're at risk.
ETIENNE: Well, I mean, for me, I think this raises questions about the reach and the authority of the presidency, whether or not the president can come in and override a federal law, override a Supreme Court decision and say, I have the authority to determine something by myself and alone.
But I also think that this is going to be one of his first tests. You've got Senator Cotton and other Republicans in the Senate that have very exercised on this particular issue for the national security reasons. He said that there is no room for an extension, you know, bucking the president, saying -- the incoming president, saying that there is no room for extension and we shouldn't be handing this thing over to communist rule.
So, I think this is going to be, again, a test of those two things, whether or not the president has authority to do that, to override existing law. If that is the case, then we should all be very scared about that. But then also, will this be his first conflict with his own party?
PHILLIP: So, as you just pointed out, Tom Cotton and Pete Ricketts, both senators, Republican senators say now that the law has taken effect, there is no legal basis for any kind of extension of its effective date.
I think we have Catherine still with us, do we?
RAMPELL: Still here, yes.
PHILLIP: Catherine, you know, let's talk about what he was saying in that clip earlier. He was saying, what about some kind of joint venture? What does he mean by that? And what role would the United States government have in owning TikTok?
RAMPELL: It's a little bit unclear, but not only in that clip, also on Truth Social, he put out a statement indicating that the United States would have a 50 percent ownership stake, which I and many others have interpreted to mean the U.S. government. So, that means a Chinese company owns 50 percent, or a Chinese company plus its shareholders, and the U.S. government owns another 50 percent, which sure sounds like nationalizing a media company, which is kind of an odd move for a president, especially a Republican president.
I mean, I can't tell you how many times, including on this show, I have debated with people about whether President Biden was socialist, but I do not remember President Biden ever threatening to nationalize a gigantic tech company. That is quite literally the definition of socialism, you know, the state owning the means of production or in this particular case the means of production. But that sure is what it sounds like Trump is proposing here that the U.S. government would take an ownership stake going forward and have a joint venture with a Chinese company.
PHILLIP: Scott was just talking about this. I mean, Trump now is actually putting on the table the government essentially partially taking over a private company.
JENNINGS: Well, and previous to that, though, we've heard, you know, Kevin O'Leary, who's been out here. I mean, the previous idea was to have somebody buy TikTok. I mean, that's the point of all --
PHILLIP: That's what the law requires actually, yes.
JENNINGS: And Ashley, I think, actually made a good point. We have a clear law and we have a clear Supreme Court ruling, a 9-0 ruling, and I'm not sure, and these statements from the senators are true. I'm not sure how you get around that issue, and I don't know if Donald Trump thinks the government should own any part of a media company.
But I do think what he's looking for, it sounds to me like, is a way to preserve something that a lot of people like, but not preserve the brainwashing and the data collection that it's a clear intelligence operation from China. And so how do you get rid of the bad, but keep something that people like, and do it in a way that is beneficial to the people of the United States?
I think he's casting about for that solution. I don't know that we have it yet. But I do know what we do have, a clear law and a clear Supreme Court ruling. And so I think Ashley's right. We're going to see a test of this right out of the gate.
PHILLIP: Yes.
JONES: Look he came up with a creative answer to not -- to the actual problem though.
[22:40:04]
That's -- I mean, I like the creativity. The problem is just having half of anything that you don't have control over just means you are letting the same problem fester. In other words, the problem we're trying to solve is China spying and manipulating our kids. If we just have half of a spy manipulation operation, that doesn't actually solve the problem. And whether the money goes to the United States or one of his, you know, kind of cronies, you still didn't solve the problem.
I like that Trump is willing to try to solve this problem though, because for a lot of young -- I didn't know this. A lot of young people are making money honestly, not ripping people off, on TikTok. A lot of small businesses are making honest money. And so if you pull the rug out from under them, I think you hurt a generation. So, I think we should get together. I like the creativity, but that is an answer to a problem -- that's an answer but it doesn't actually solve the problem.
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, on TikTok, I mean, Trump could use his influence to pressure China to sell. China has said that they're not interested in selling. Yes, they'd rather shut it down. It really shows that he doesn't have that kind of influence. He's putting something on the table that the law actually does not allow for. So, at some point, it's either the law is the law of the land or it's not, we will find out, maybe in the next 24 hours.
Catherine, thank you very much for joining us. Everyone else, hold on.
Coming up next, hear Comedian Dave Chappelle's message for Donald Trump ahead of the start of his next term.
Plus, Snoop Dogg is under fire from many of his fans for performing at an inauguration party. We're going to debate that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:45:00]
PHILLIP: Dave Chappelle sure knows his audience. And from the Saturday Night Live stage, he guessed probably correctly that he could reach the most powerful man on the planet with this message.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVE CHAPPELLE, EMMY AWARD-WINNING COMEDIAN: Donald Trump. I know you watch the show. Man, remember whether people voted for you or not, they're all counting on you. Whether they like you or not, they're all counting on you. The whole world is counting on you. I mean this when I say this, good luck, please do better next time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I thought that was actually pretty good, Van, and maybe in a different way than most people think. I think he's tapping into what got Trump elected, which is the idea that people were so flabbergasted by their lives, that they just wanted somebody who would do something, anything that would change things, and Trump is that person.
JONES: Look I give Dave Chappelle a lot of credit. It's the second time that he's gone on the Saturday Night Live show right after Donald Trump was elected and tried to reach out and tried to (INAUDIBLE). The first time, he got toe up. I mean, he was like, he said -- he came out, I wish I had never said anything positive about Trump. But here he came back again, and Dave Chappelle's a serious guy. He's a funny guy, he's a serious guy. And he used that moment, he used that opportunity to try to reach out.
I don't know if saying do better would, you know, might piss Trump off a little bit, because he thinks he did great the last time. But I think that you're going to see a lot of people who are business people, celebrities, fashion people, trying to appeal to the better angels of Trump because you know that if you appeal to the worst angels, you get the worst.
JENNINGS: I think Dave Chappelle is one of the country's foremost truth tellers. And, you know, I love Dave Chappelle. As you know, I called for him to be appointed to the U.S. Senate. That didn't happen. We wish Mr. Husted luck. But -- and I agree with a lot of his message, people are counting on him. I don't agree with the do better because I do think one of the --
PHILLIP: You don't think Trump could do better?
JENNINGS: Well, I think one of the lessons of the election is, people analyzed his four years, people analyzed Biden's four years, and they went scrambling back to Trump. So, I think Trump did do better than Joe Biden did, if you're looking at comparative politics.
But I think Chappelle's message, I think it's a positive message because he's right. Whether you voted for him or not, everybody in the world is counting on Donald Trump. And I will tell you everything I've heard out of them this weekend, these orders that are coming, the focus on hitting the ground running and listening to the working men and women of this country and acting on their behalf, if he does all that, and I think he will, I think people are going to be very happy with what they get out of it.
PHILLIP: So, we got to get to the Snoop of all of this.
ETIENNE: Can I just add one thing? I think the one part of his statement you didn't include here and the point he made earlier in that montage was -- in his monologue was that the country cannot afford for Donald Trump to be petty. And that's the part I think I agree with most. They cannot afford for him to be petty, nor can they afford for him to be political.
PHILLIP: Yes. So, as Van said, there's been a change, and you talked about this too, in culture, in fashion, all of this stuff. Snoop performed at the crypto ball this week, and he got a lot of heat for it, and this clip of what he said eight years ago at Trump's first inauguration has resurfaced. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SNOOP DOGG, RAPPER: So, ain't nobody going to perform for Donald Trump, huh? Which one of you (INAUDIBLE) going to be the first one to do it? I'm waiting. I'm going to roast the (INAUDIBLE) out of one of you. Uncle Tom (INAUDIBLE) for doing it. Which one of you (INAUDIBLE) going to do it first? I suppose the one that performs for himself.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: We could have just bleeped the whole thing out, but, my, my, how things have changed.
ANDERSON: Things have changed a lot. The whole climate around this inauguration feels more like a normal Republican president being inaugurated. It is not a star studded affair, like when Democrats come to town and every celebrity shows up.
[22:50:00]
But you have Carrie Underwood singing at the inauguration tomorrow, I believe. You have Snoop Dogg performing at the crypto ball, which again, not a partisan thing, not a Trump-specific event, but still, it does feel like this is being treated as normal, that eight years ago, Donald Trump gets elected and SNL basically has a funeral. They sing hallelujah. It's the end of the world. And now I think they're realizing, gosh, this is the world we live in now, and the tone across industry after industry is just so different from eight years ago.
JONES: I think the thing about Snoop is, because this is, in some ways, it's personal. Who is Snoop's greatest hero, living hero? Harry O. Who is Harry O.? founder of Death Row Records. How did the founder of Death Row Records get out of prison? Donald Trump commuted his sentence the last day of office. And so Snoop, when you -- that's Snoop Donald Trump never done anything for anybody, but this Snoop has his homeboy home and that's part of what happened.
Now, he's getting tore up and he's going to get tore up, but I think you have to give Snoop a little bit of slack here because Harry O., his biggest mentor, would still be in prison if it weren't for Donald Trump. That's just the truth.
PHILLIP: Yes, but it's not just him. I mean, it's a lot of other people, Nelly also.
JENNINGS: People have a right to change their opinion. I mean, I change my opinion about politicians from time to time. I change my opinion --
PHILLIP: About Donald Trump specifically.
JENNINGS: Absolutely. When he first came in, he didn't -- I'm not from the kind of, the wing of the party that he was from. He wasn't even from my party. I was very skeptical. I thought he had a very successful first term. He's done things that I don't like. He's done things that I really do like. I think most Americans would tell you that they -- some days are skeptical and some days are happy with politicians. We're not monoliths and we're allowed to change our opinion.
And I totally agree with what Kristen said. This has been -- we're back to normal. We're off the slippery slope and we may be on the cusp of some political peace in this country and, damn, don't we need it?
PHILLIP: Doesn't Donald Trump have to make good on his end of that bargain? I want to stick with you on this because I think Trump, you know, yes, he has a mandate but he also has a lot of personal Things that he wants to accomplish if he focuses on those things and not on what you're talking about, the working men and women, I mean, how does that fulfill the thing opportunity that he has?
JENNINGS: I think if he fulfills the basic promises that he made on immigration and on the economy, on national security, on restoring America's place of respect in this world, I think he's going to be perfectly fine. Does that mean every Republican or every American's going to be happy all the time? No, it's politics. It's our right to be unhappy. But I got a lot of confidence in this that honestly, I didn't know that I could have back in 2017, but I do now.
ETIENNE: Abby, I will add this the problem with what snoop has done Is you know, I was in the war room in 2020 and Snoop was perpetuating a lot of disinformation. And these kinds of moves are like a thorn in the side of the Democratic Party, because he's got millions and millions of people who follow him, and he's normalizing Donald Trump in a way that's hard for Democrats to walk back with his own -- with his followers.
And so he's got an ability, Snoop, to speak to sort of real voters and appeal to real voters in a way the Democratic Party doesn't. He stands in a way of that, continues to perpetuate these, you know, disinformation, misinformation about Donald Trump. And, again, it just -- it really confounds the party.
Everyone, stay with me. Coming up next, the panel is going to give us their night caps, including revenge of the nerds.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:55:00]
PHILLIP: And we are back, and it's time for the NewsNight Cap. You each have 30 seconds to say your piece. Van, you're up.
JONES: Well, you're going to see a little bit of the revenge of the nerds tomorrow. As a nerd, I have to point out that four years ago, all the tech titans, the Zuckerbergs, Elon, they were Democrats. And four years later, they are not, because Biden's policies were so tough on crypto, so tough on Silicon Valley, that we turned our friends into enemies, and you're going to see tomorrow, among other things, the revenge of the nerds.
PHILLIP: Wait, Scott, I thought you were coming next, not first.
JENNINGS: There's a reporting tonight that quite a few career diplomats in the U.S. State Department have been asked by Donald Trump's aides to resign ahead of his taking office. And I think there's likely to be some outrage about this, you know, Donald Trump cleaning out the State Department.
A couple of things that you need to know, number one, this was all done by all accounts professionally, and it is the prerogative of the president to have the State Department that he wants. And, number two, the signal that I think this sends is that we're taking the government back. Bureaucrats aren't in charge. The people who we elect are in charge. This sends a good signal that this was handled correctly, and to the people of the United States, your voice is going to be heard more than a career diplomat or a career bureaucrat in Washington, D.C.
PHILLIP: All right. Kristen?
ANDERSON: It's not the most serious of things to be watching for tomorrow, but what will everyone wear? What will people show up in? That's one thing that I think is going to be interesting to see tomorrow is how does the fashion industry and fashion media cover Melania Trump and the Trump family.
Something I noticed today on Instagram, Vogue Magazine, which famously did not have Melania Trump in its pages when she was first lady, despite having many first ladies, Republican and Democrat, over the years, posted about Donald Trump's visit to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and did so in a non-snarky sort of way.
Designer Oscar de la Renta posting about Usha Vance's dress from yesterday as well as Ivanka Trump's coat. A very different approach, it seems.
PHILLIP: Oscar de la Renta making a big statement this weekend.
[23:00:01]
Go ahead, Ash.
ETIENNE: So, on Monday, we will also be honoring Dr. King. And in his honor, I'd like to really refer to one of my favorite quotes by him, and that is the silence of my friends is the greatest betrayal.
And I want to let that hang out there as we go into these next four years, because the concern might be that the cost we pay as a nation might be well too high.
PHILLIP: All right. Everyone, thank you all very much and thank you for watching NewsNight. "Laura Coates Live" starts right now. See you in the morning.
