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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Hegseth Confirmed As Defense Secretary By One Vote; Trump Delivers Orders, Pardons, Retribution In First Week; Do Trump's Moves Have Immediate Impact Beyond The Flash; President Trump Considering Conditions On Aid For California; Trump Wants To Abolish FEMA; Released Proud Boy Leader Wants Retribution. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired January 24, 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 VIDEO CLIP)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST (voice over): Tonight, too fast, too furious. The Trump sequel begins with flash. Some promises kept, while other ones crash.
Plus, from the Fox hole to Foxtrot. The Senate decides the fate of an embattled pick. Also, is he the president of all states, or just the red ones?
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: In California, I have a condition.
PHILLIP: Trump's new rules punishing politics.
And so much for the White House tour. A judge banned some rioters from D.C. without a permission slip while a free Proud Boy makes demands.
ENRIQUE TARRIO, EX-PROUD BOYS LEADER: They need to be investigated.
Live at the table, Van Lathan, T.W. Arrighi, Madison Gesiotto and Chuck Rocha.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening, I'm Abby Phillip in New York.
Let's get right to what America is talking about. Breaking news tonight out of Capitol Hill, the tie goes to MAGA. Drama inside the Senate chamber in Washington as the new vice president did something he's never done before and did something no one ever had to do before for for a position so critical to how the United States functions.
J.D. Vance was forced to break the tie to confirm Pete Hegseth as defense secretary and he had to do it because three Republicans broke ranks with the president, North Carolina's Thom Tillis, Alaska's Lisa Murkowski, Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, and Susan Collins. Thom Tillis actually voted for Pete Hegseth's nomination. Joining us in our fifth seat at the table is Casey Lowes. She's a retired Army lieutenant colonel and a combat veteran. Casey, thanks for being here.
Your reaction to the decision to confirm Pete Hegseth, despite all the concerns about him, according to several of these senators, we don't know about McConnell just yet, concerns about his experience, or lack thereof, and also his comments about women in the military and in combat roles.
LT. COL. CASEY MOES (RET.), U.S. ARMY: Yes. Well, thank you, Abby. It's deeply concerning. And it's disappointing, disappointing to see that he was confirmed. I served in Iraq in 2007 and in '06, 2006, 2007. I was a company commander of military police. I had the privilege to lead men and women in combat. And these comments, I feel like that he's made on the record about women, he's kind of changed his position a couple of times, but the comments he's made already, it degrades their service.
I'm going to tell you the example of one soldier. One of my females got on her truck when her truck was hit with an IED. The squad leader was fatally wounded. It was her calm under pressure that rendered life saving aid to her teammate and her calm that allowed to communicate to the rest of the squad that got out of the kill zone. And now we're talking almost 20 years later. Her service, her sacrifice is labeled a complication and a distraction.
That's what's most concerning, these soldiers that have already done it again and again. And not just her, there's many others.
PHILLIP: What do you think it's going to do to military morale not just to have someone who's had those comments said in the past, but also have someone who really, I mean, I think it has to be said, is going to be in over his head in terms of the size and the scope of this organization?
MOES: I think it's going to be very hard. It's going to be hard for the entire unit. We need someone at the top that can bring unity, cohesiveness, and teamwork. And with the comments he's already made about women and their role in combat, and their role and their contributions, they've already been communicated to that they're less than. They're not a full member of the team. He doesn't think they can do the job, even though they have done the job. They are meeting the standards. And that's going to be tough. It's tough to lead a team like that.
CHUCK ROCHA, CO-HOST, THE LATINO VOTE, PODCAST: There's a political ramification here that we're not talking about. And that's why this is the closest vote we've ever had for secretary. And I think that is the re election and what Trump did in this last election. It scares a lot of Republicans. And they're like, we don't want to go against him because they think he'll use his money to go against him in the primary. I wrote this down that Murkowski's not up until '28, and they tried to primary her last time and then she won in a runoff and her name is Murkowski and they had to spell it out. I'll leave that there.
Second is Thom Tillis who's up right now.
[22:05:00]
That's why Thom Tillis, he wanted to vote against this but he didn't want to have opposition in his primary, and there's a bunch of Congress people lined up to run against him.
And lastly, the one who probably showed the most courage is Susan Collins, who's up for re election in '26 and voted with her heart and decided to vote against this. Look for her to have primary opposition that is funded by Donald Trump and his likes.
PHILLIP: Yes, I mean, they've made it very clear that's what's coming. Do you think that's fair in this situation?
MADISON GESIOTTO, FORMER RNC NATIONAL SPOKESPERSON: Well, I think tonight's result ultimately speaks to the power of the Republican Party right now, to the strength that Senate Republicans have behind Donald Trump. They're standing with him with, you know, what might be the most controversial nominee at this point. There was a point in December in which we thought maybe we would never get to this day. And, obviously, not only did we get here, but he's across the finish line and will be our next secretary of defense.
But when it comes to the role of these senators, a lot of them sat down for extensive periods of time expressing their concerns, talking about some of the questions that they had for him, and ultimately they decided to vote yes.
And I think it's not fair to make that assumption that it's based off of their elections alone. These are intelligent people who I trust their judgment. Many of them I know. I've talked to some of their teams over the past week. And, obviously, thank you to Casey for her service, but, you know, he has clarified some of his positions and where he stands today when it comes to women in combat, and it's not that he doesn't feel they're qualified or that they can't do the job, so they need to meet those same standards.
And so, for those women, like Casey, who have done that we want them there, but for women like me who maybe wouldn't have that physical capacity to meet those standards, I shouldn't be in combat if I were in the military.
PHILLIP: I mean, women have to pass the fitness test, they have to pass the --
GESIOTTO: Right, and that's where he clarified that he stands on that, and I think it continues to be taken out of context.
PHILLIP: I do have a statement that literally just came in from Mitch McConnell. It's the first time we are hearing really what he feels about this. He says this, quote, mere desire to be a change agent is not enough to fill these shoes and dust on boots fails even to distinguish this nominee from multiple predecessors of the last decade, nor is it a precondition for success. Secretaries with distinguished combat experience and time in the trenches have failed at the job. Mr. Hegseth has failed as yet to demonstrate that he will pass this test.
But as he assumes office, the consequences of failure are as high as they have ever been. The United States faces coordinated aggression from adversaries bent on shattering the order, underpinning American security and prosperity. In public comments and in testimony before the Armed Services Committee, Mr. Hegseth did not reckon with this reality.
VAN LATHAN, CO-HOST, HIGHER LEARNING PODCAST WITH VAN LATHAN AND RACHEL LINDSAY: He's going to lose his Secret Service detail going against his guy like that. Look, to me, I think that it's difficult for me to wrap my head around this whole thing and I'm trying to understand it. At on one side of it, Americans are being told that there are foreign threats that are as lethal as ever that we're facing from everywhere, every theater, from the Far East, from the Middle East, from inside of our own borders, from our southern border, from our northern border. And then in that same breath, we put somebody who is just obviously unqualified to lead the most lethal and diverse fighting force in the entire world.
Now, I'm not an expert on the military, but I want anyone to make sense of this as anything other than cronyism, buddy stuff, yes man type of situation. And it makes me uneasy to know that Hegseth is in the position that he's in right now.
PHILLIP: Can I -- I want to just play a bit of that from his confirmation hearing, because it was alluded to in that Mitch McConnell statement. Pete Hegseth talks a lot about, you know, dust on boots and why that made him different from other nominees. But when he was asked about his pressuring of President Trump to pardon people who were accused of war crimes, this is what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY NOMINEE: Senator, as someone who's led men in combat directly and had to make very difficult decisions, I've thought very deeply about the balance between legality and lethality, ensuring that the men and women on the frontlines have the opportunity to destroy with and close the enemy and that lawyers aren't the ones getting in the way.
I'm not talking about disavowing the laws of war or the Geneva Conventions, or the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Sir, I'm talking about restrictive rules of engagement that these men and women behind me understand they've lived with on the battlefield, which has made it more difficult to defeat our enemies.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, Casey, you know, I wonder how that hits your ears, someone you were just in service just a couple years ago. What is he saying about military leadership and how is that going to go down when he's now going to be in charge?
MOES: Well, I think that we've had excellent military leadership so far. I am a little concerned, more than a little concerned of his statements that he would -- that he's made at his confirmation hearing and other ones about his ideas on wanting -- following -- he's saying he's going to follow the Geneva Convention, but he also said he wouldn't necessarily not follow a rule of shooting a protester in the leg.
I mean, these are things that are deeply troubling from someone at this level. And for him to say that having led, you know, some troops in combat -- I led troops in combat, but that doesn't make me qualified to be the secretary of defense, and I arguably served more years than he did. But that doesn't make me qualified to be secretary of defense. So, what does make someone qualified?
T.W. ARRIGHI, VICE PRESIDENT, PUSH DIGITAL GROUP: Well, I don't think there's anyone on planet Earth who has run an organization as large as the Department of Defense. There is no sort of anybody who's going to be ready on day one. Sure, you have generals. Some people have stepped off boards of massive companies and ballistic companies to go serve in that role. I'm not so sure that's great either.
Look, there are massive global threats that are coming down the pike right now. There is a desire, as Pete Hegseth outlines, for a return to a core focus on purely the warrior ethos and lethality in our military. And that's the message he has been trying to bring across.
But I want to make one point about that hearing, because I think that's the reason he got through. I think, in my opinion, when I watched that hearing, I think Markwayne Mullin pointed this out greatly in his commentary, was that I think the Democrats were so over the top in that hearing and came off as so hypocritical that it rallied the troops around Pete Hegseth and pushed him through.
PHILLIP: One thing I will agree with is that I don't think Democrats were particularly effective in that hearing because they didn't go after the parts of the Pete Hegseth biography and story that the Republican senators are the most sensitive to, according to their statements. Collins, Murkowski and McConnell, they are all concerned about his qualifications. They all basically said, we didn't hear what we needed to hear to know that you even have your arms around what the global challenges are and how the Pentagon addresses them. And Democrats spent a lot of time talking about the personal issues, which are significant and they're worthwhile investigating, but we're probably not going to be the things that we're going to change the minds of Republicans.
LATHAN: Yes. Democrats are never effective when they cosplay as Republicans, when they tried -- they did not get an outrage that it comes across hall monitor --
PHILLIP: Moral outrage.
LATHAN: Moral outrage. It comes across hall monitor.
However, I'm not sure that there's anything that they could have said. I mean, the reality is that every single -- when you looked at the entirety of the hearing, every single weak point in his resume was addressed, from his personal failings to his inability to actually run successful smaller businesses, and it doesn't seem like it mattered.
ROCHA: I was smiling when you was reading that statement and I didn't think there was anything funny about the statements. But I was sitting here thinking because I didn't mention Mitch McConnell when I talked about the political ramifications. He's not running for reelection and Mitch McConnell is all out of give a damns. He don't like Donald Trump.
GESIOTTO: Hey, he could run one more time. You never know.
ROCHA: He could, but I don't think he will. But we know he don't like Donald Trump. So, what's good for the goose is good for the gannet, because that's what Mitch McConnell was doing, saying, you want to be petty? Here, hold my beer, I'll show you petty.
PHILLIP: It'll be interesting having McConnell in the Senate for at least a couple of the next years of the Trump administration.
Casey Moes, thank you very much for your service and for joining us tonight. Everyone else, hang tight.
Coming up next, in his hectic very first week, were President Trump's moves consequential, or was it all flash and bang? We'll debate that next as another special guest joins us at the table.
Plus, see what happened when California Democrats confronted Trump on the ground tonight after the president threatened to withhold their disaster aid.
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PHILLIP: Week one with the swipe of a sharpie, Donald Trump again putting a stamp on the federal government so fast and furious. You might have actually missed some of what he did in the hurricane of activity. There were pardons. He renamed the Gulf of America. And, yes, he did begin a large scale immigration crackdown that includes deporting many immigrants and deploying American troops at the border.
But while all of this grabbed attention and headlines, what you're not reading about is what Trump is doing for the economy, even implementing his beloved tariffs, which he promised to do many times.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I'm going to inform her on day one or sooner that if they don't stop this onslaught of criminals and drugs coming into our country, I'm going to immediately impose a 25 percent tariff on everything they send in to the United States of America.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Or doing anything to end the war in Ukraine, which he also promised to do.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: That is a war that's dying to be settled. I will get it settled before I even become president. If I win, when I'm president-elect, and what I'll do is I'll speak to one, I'll speak to the other, I'll get them together.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, despite all the flash this week, the question is whether the hard stuff can still get done and that whether or not all of this is about a photo op.
Joining us at the table is CNN Economics Commentator Catherine Rampell. She's a Washington Post opinion columnist.
Catherine, I want to start on the economy because we know that is the most important thing to Americans. It's the source of their dissatisfaction of the Biden administration, and they believed Trump when he said he would fix it.
I want to play for you what he said at Davos this week about how he would fix it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I'm also going to ask Saudi Arabia and OPEC to bring down the cost of oil.
[22:20:01]
You got to bring it down.
If the price came down the Russia-Ukraine war would end immediately. Right now, the price is high enough that that war will continue. You got to bring down the oil price. You're going to end that war. They should have done it long ago. They're very responsible, actually, to a certain extent for what's taking place. Millions of lives are being lost. With oil prices going down, I'll demand that interest rates drop immediately, and likewise, they should be dropping all over the world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, if you follow that, what he's saying is that he's going to get the Saudis to bring down the price of oil, and then he's going to use that to pressure the Federal Reserve to bring down interest rates, and that is going to be how prices are going to go down for Americans.
CATHERINE RAMPELL, CNN ECONOMICS COMMENTATOR: Look. Trump got elected with a mandate to bring prices down. As I have said many a time, presidents do not actually have the ability to, you know, turn the dial up or down on prices. And, in fact, Trump doesn't even have concepts of a plan for dealing with inflation. He has signed an executive order that basically assigned his cabinet members to come up with concepts of a plan for dealing with inflation, for bringing down costs. There is a long history, of course, of presidents begging OPEC to pump more oil, and maybe it'll work this time, I don't know.
PHILLIP: It could.
RAMPELL: We'll see. But none of that is actually going to address the reason why inflation has been stubbornly high, including that grocery prices continue to be high. Egg prices are now at an all-time high. That's because of bird flu, that's not anything Trump did. But meanwhile he's telling the CDC to stop issuing data and public communications about bird flu, which is probably not helping the situation.
So, to the extent that the American public voted for him to deal with prices, I have seen nothing in the agenda so far that would actually achieve that goal.
ARRIGHI: Lower gas prices, lower costs. That's -- fuel costs impact everything up and down the supply chain. It's one of the key factors when price of gasoline goes up, the price of every good goes up.
RAMPELL: Yes, gasoline has come down a lot in the past year.
ARRIGHI: Sure, and it will go down more if he has Saudi Arabia playing ball. And they showed last administration, Trump 1.0, that they were willing to play ball. They came to the table to negotiate with Israel over normalizing relations. They did lower gas prices and increased demand -- increased pumping.
RAMPELL: They also raised gas prices when he asked them to.
ARRIGHI: But they -- actually just yesterday, they announced that they're going to invest $600 billion more in the United States.
RAMPELL: That's about as much as as they committed to buying weapons under Biden.
ARRIGHI: Wait a minute. We can't have it both ways here. We can't say that it's true that lower costs of fuel bring down prices, and yet say as he's hammering on drilling and getting the international markets to increase their supply that he isn't talking about prices. It quite literally is inflation.
RAMPELL: But I'm saying oil production in the United States is already at an all-time high. We are producing more crude oil in this country than any country has in history ever. The problem is not oil supply at this point. That's not the main issue that consumers are facing. The main issue is that there are other categories of goods and services that have very high prices that Trump has done nothing to do. And, in fact, he actually undid a Biden era executive order to try to cap out of pocket costs on prescription drugs, which is something that --
PHILLIP: Healthcare, housing, rents.
RAMPELL: Yes. None of this is going to help any of that. PHILLIP: These are all things -- I mean, look, just straight up from a numbers perspective, the things that contribute the most to people's pocketbooks are going to be those big ticket items. And it is also true that Trump has said and done nothing to address those things.
ARRIGHI: He's been president for four and a half days. He has also talked massively about cutting red tape and the regulatory thing that makes building impossible to help the housing thing, fighting more lands to develop on. He's talked about a bunch about how do we grow supply base in this country across all sectors, get more people back to work. All those things go to inflation.
RAMPELL: Meanwhile get more people back to work. This is -- I'm glad you brought that up. Because not only is he threatening to deport a large portion of people who are --
ARRIGHI: Who are here illegally.
RAMPELL: He's also planning to de document people. He is cutting off legal pathways to come here. In fact, a few minutes ago, The New York Times just reported that he is ending the parole program that allowed Ukrainians to come in here and potentially causing all of those people to lose their work authorization.
GESIOTTO: And the majority of Americans, as Harry Enten reported on this networker for the past couple days, not only support deporting illegal immigrants and criminals --
RAMPELL: These are legal immigrants.
GESIOTTO: Why don't you let me finish talking, Catherine?
RAMPELL: Because you interrupted me, and I was saying --
GESIOTTO: I'm going to finish what I have to say. Not only do they support deporting illegal immigrants, people who have committed crimes, but they also support less immigration as a whole, which was something surprising to many people as that poll came out. In the past four days, President Trump has done --
RAMPELL: This is a bait and switch.
GESIOTTO: This is not bait and switch. This is the reality. You just don't want to hear it. In the past four days, President Trump has done more than Biden did in four years.
[22:25:02]
That's the reality. He continues to keep promises that he made to the American people. When we talk about oil and gas, he cut burdensome regulations --
PHILLIP: Hold on one second.
GESIOTTO: -- just in those first couple days in the long-term will help on the gas crisis. PHILLIP: Madison is pointing out that on the immigration issue, Trump ran on the most extreme of plans, right? And the American people knew that. They voted for him. Yes. However, he also did -- the economy was central, maybe the central issue in this country. And, again, he's done a lot of things this week You mentioned a bunch of things that he's promised to do but has not actually done.
But one of the other things, I mean, this conversation just reminds me that this is a flood the zone moment for the country, okay? And here's what James Carville had to say about how Democrats ought to be handling it and are handling it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAMES CARVILLE, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Because usually people would put something out and it would be the story of the day and then you could follow that and they'd defend the story of people would attack it and you'd go ahead. Now, he has ten things out there. Of all of the things that you mentioned, what should the Democrats focus on? What they will end up doing is what they always do. They will focus on all shit and they will do no good. Steve Bannon, I think the guy was right. He said, we're just going to flood the zone with shit and we're now flooded with shit. And we just don't have a response. We just don't.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Have Democrats basically failed the test here? I mean, Trump was basically trying to give them so much stuff to deal with that they can't hold any of it in their hands at the same time.
ROCHA: God, for me, be the one to defend Democrats. When I was going to lead this segment, and you stole my thing on the Fast and Furious meets Dumb and Dumber. And I think that what we've seen is a whole bunch of stuff that is crazy.
And, look, at the end of the day, to your point, T. W., if he did half the -- almost said a bad word -- if he did half the stuff that he said he was going to do, I'd be all in. And I don't wish him any ill will. I just think that I've done this long enough, and I grew up on a farm in East Texas enough to just know what I see when I see it, and he says what people want to hear.
And when it comes down to doing it, there wasn't a bunch of workers behind him at the inauguration. They were the richest five people in America for a reason. And that's because he's going to take care of those folks. And maybe he takes care of some working folks well. I hope that he does. But when he don't, this is when these chickens are going to come home to roost because there's a midterm election in less than two years and we will see.
PHILLIP: And he's also said a lot of stuff just for show, okay? Let's be honest. The flights, the deportation flights, big tweet from the press secretary today saying they're starting again, they didn't really ever stop except that now they're happening with military flights, which, according to DOD costs, by my count, I'm not good at math, three times at least as much as a private charter flight, which is what the government --
RAMPELL: Well, especially if they can't land.
PHILLIP: The C-130E, I mean, those numbers are astronomical.
LATHAN: If I could give the Democrats suffice right now, it would be weird advice. I would actually tell them to do less. The Democrats have so many problems in their own house. There's such a crisis of leadership there, messaging there. Deal with that. Do less.
I personally believe that a lot of the Trump agenda is going to be catastrophic for America. I think you're going to see prices raised when you look at farms all over the country with not having workers. These farmers, some of them, Trump supporters have already said this. I think you're going to see people actually be uncomfortable with some of the images that they see coming out of these ICE raids. I think you're also going to see Americans not just inconvenienced in these ICE raids, but also potentially harmed, detained, hurt. So, I think a lot of this stuff is going to backfire. And if it's me and I'm advising them, play a little slower.
GESIOTTO: Yes. I think we saw him on the campaign trail repeatedly make promises about here's what I'm going to do immediately when I get into office, when it comes to the border, when it comes to immigration. A lot of what Biden did getting in is what caused us to see those numbers go up so much. What did Trump do as of the past four days? He declared a national border emergency. He ended birthright citizenship. He ended catch and release. He reinstated remain in Mexico. He designated cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. The list goes on and on and on, but we're seeing those numbers come down already. We'll continue to see them come down.
And what did the Biden administration and Democrats do when supposedly Democrats on this network arguing, hey, we had the list of these people before. Why were they not gone before Trump took office Monday? These are criminals, a lot of them in gangs and they do not belong in this country because Venezuela won't take them back. Well, we'll see the Supreme Court. We'll ask the question about that.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: I just want to ask you one quick thing, because we got to go. Are you okay with the White House using the most expensive means to deport immigrants just for a photo op?
GESIOTTO: I want them out of the country. I want to see our community safer. I've talked to people who have been impacted by this, who have been victims of violent crimes at the hands of illegal immigrants. We have a crime problem in this country as it is.
[22:30:01]
We've talked about it on this show. And the last thing we need is people who aren't even legally supposed to be here adding to that problem.
RAMPELL: But they can't even land the military --
PHILLIP: Okay. That is not an answer.
GESIOTTO: That is an answer.
RAMPELL: NBC reported earlier today that Mexico turned away the military jet that was carrying the deportees because it was an insult to Mexico to have a military --
GESIOTTO: Then they'll go elsewhere but they're not going to stay here.
PHILLIP: All right guys.
GESIOTTO: They're Mexican nationals but they're not Americans and that's not where they're going to be.
RAMPELL: That's not how the law works.
PHILLIP: Thank you.
GESIOTTO: Oh, yes, it is.
PHILLIP: Thank you very much, Catherine, for joining us.
GESIOTTO: It is. They do not have any legal right to be here.
PHILLIP: We got to leave it there. Thank you, Catherine. Appreciate it. Everyone else, stick around.
Coming up next, President Trump is touring California wildfire damage and he says that the state should not get money to rebuild unless it passes voter ID laws. We'll debate that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:35:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, can't we all just get along? Well, it depends on if you believe that Donald Trump is more Jekyll or Hyde. Today, the country captured a tarmac hug between the president and one of his favorite truth social pinatas, California Governor Gavin Newsom. That was a carrot moment, and here is the stick. Soundbite, outlining the president's requirements for delivering federal disaster aid to the state of California.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: So, two things in Los Angeles, voter ID so that the people have a chance to vote. And I want to see the water be released and come down into Los Angeles and throughout the state. Those are the two things. After that, I will be the greatest president that California has ever seen.
(END VIDEO CLIP) PHILLIP: Wow. Conditions being sent to California, not just for aid, but for him being the greatest president that they have ever seen. What do you make of it?
LATHAN: Okay, so I live in Los Angeles and over the past two weeks in Los Angeles, it doesn't matter whether or not you've been directly affected or whether or not you just know people that have been affected. The emotional lift has been enormous. I lived through Hurricane Katrina as well. It's the only thing I can compare it to. You know people that have lost their homes, have lost their family homes. They have no idea where they're going to go for their wealth, the nest egg that they've poured into.
And people are just afraid to build back. It's a really nervous time in a city that doesn't get all of that nervous. It is despicable to me. And I realize that we're here to have different types of opinions and everybody -- it's despicable to me to politicize a moment when there is such fear, such loss, and such uncertainty about the future.
The leaders that I like and the type of leader that I would respect is someone that comes in and says something's happened to you, we're going to find out how it doesn't happen again in the future and we're going to make sure that the entities that exist to make you whole act in the way that they should be acting. Anything short of that and injecting politics into it is a failure and he failed.
ARRIGHI: I could make a few different points today. Right before -- and our hearts go out to everyone in L.A., no question about it. Today, before he went to California, he went to North Carolina. And he did something remarkable. For 20 minutes, he let the victims of that hurricane damage speak and talked about -- named the insurance agencies that did them wrong, named exactly how FEMA did them wrong. And Trump said something's got to change.
Now, it's not unusual for federal grants and aides to have conditions set. But you've got to think, when Donald Trump says something, what is he saying and what's the message he's trying to deliver? One of them is water. There is without question problems with fire mitigation in California. They've been doing it since the Indians roamed that land, controlled burns, forest clear-outs, and that has suffered dramatically. There's no de-salinization plants. We have water flow issues, et cetera.
Voter IDs, he is trying to underscore the point that in California, if people are upset with what is going on around them, they ought to look at the leaders who are left in --
PHILLIP: Okay. I think that's a nice attempt, but voter ID has absolutely nothing --
LATHAN: Nothing to do.
PHILLIP: -- to do with fire mitigation. Nothing.
ARRIGHI: It doesn't. It doesn't. But he didn't put that in the same sentence. They said that was the other condition. PHILLIP: He did.
ARRIGHI: My point is he is bringing up voter ID to --
PHILLIP: We just played it -- I mean, everybody just heard the soundbite.
ARRIGHI: No, I did. He said it. He said it.
PHILLIP: Trump wants to tie voter ID to disaster. It would be one thing if he was saying, we're going to take a look at your fire mitigation policies and make sure you guys are on the right track so this never happens again. That is not what he said.
ARRIGHI: That was the second thing he said. But be that what it may, yes, voter IDs, he's trying to underscore that the people who they are electing aren't representing their interests.
PHILLIP: And that also --
ARRIGHI: He believes voter ID is an issue.
PHILLIP: I mean, the second part of this is why -- it's one thing to say we want to make sure that your policies prevent this from ever happening again. It's another thing to say we are going to hold this over your head, the victims. I mean, if he -- if Joe Biden had said that, okay listen to what I'm saying because I know you're going to say, well Joe Biden didn't give North Carolina.
If Joe Biden had said that he would not give North Carolina victims money because he wanted a change to abortion policy in the state, wouldn't that be outrageous?
ROCHA: Congress decides on who gets this money, and Congress will vote to move that money. And it's funny that we bring up voter ID, because I wrote these down. I know you tune in to hear the numbers from me, is that in the last election in California, I pulled these before I got here, Donald Trump got 150,000 more votes, should make these Republicans happy, than he got last time over Joe Biden.
And us Democrats, voter ID, crap, us Democrats got 3.5 million less votes. That's why he did so well, and he did better than he's ever done in California. That don't mean you don't give them the money. They should have nothing to do with the money, but Donald Trump did have support there. There's plenty of people voting -- less people voted for Biden than voted for Trump in the last election.
[22:39:59]
Oh, let me finish. The congressional delegation there, so if you want to know if any of these Republicans in California would support giving money to their state, even though most of the areas that burn, and this shouldn't matter, are Democratic congressional districts, 43 Democrats in the House in California and non-Republicans. You come here for the numbers, ladies and gentlemen. ARRIGHI: And by the way, I'm not advocating we do not give money to
California. That is not what I'm advocating for. I am simply trying to explain what the -- the underly -- what Donald Trump says and what he is trying to deliver as a matter of fact.
GESIOTTO: I think at the end of the --
PHILLIP: That is what he's saying. And I think it's a question of whether we're okay with that as a country. And maybe we are. Maybe people are like, well, you can only get the money if the president decides that he likes you.
GEIOTTO: I think at the end of the day, he's going to make sure that these victims are okay. He's going to do what needs to be done. He's gonna put all Americans first. He ran on an American first policy and he wants to make sure that we take care of our own first before we start going all around the world and taking care of everybody else.
PHILLIP: So you don't believe what he says?
GESIOTTO: But also, if you watch when he sat down today and he sat down with Mayor Bass, he sat down with others, he heard the concerns of many people in California, just like he did in North Carolina. And one of the things that he continued to hear was we won't be able to rebuild for 18 months. And he asked a lot of the right questions. And he asked the mayor, will you commit to me that this will not be the way? And she said, no, it won't be 18 months -- between 18 months.
He said, well, why isn't it not tonight? So they started talking about hazardous waste. And he said, well, what's gonna be hazardous waste that needs to be cleared? Is that gonna be something that continues to drag this out so people can't rebuild their homes?
PHILLIP: Right.
GESIOTTO: So he asked a lot of the questions that people were concerned about.
PHILLIP: I get it.
GESIOTTO: We talked to the organizations. And so he is being the voice for many of these people who are very frustrated with the Democratic officials who they, in some cases elected, and don't feel represent them.
PHILLIP: I get it. I get it. Donald Trump -- first of all, there's a lot of frustration in California. I think you would believe that. People are frustrated. They want to rebuild. All that stuff. But Trump is also saying in the same breath, he wants to get rid of FEMA. He wants to condition aid to California. I don't think that that's something to gloss over. As you just spent the first half of the show talking about Trump keeping promises.
GESIOTTO: When it comes to FEMA, typically, he's talking about sending that money directly to the states, potentially. It's something to be explored or may not end up happening. But when we look at the past 20 years of disaster across this country, I can't think of many times where FEMA did a great job. You look at Hurricane Katrina --
PHILLIP: FEMA is paying bills.
GESIOTTO: You look at many other, and you look at a lot of the waste, fraud, and abuse within FEMA. Maybe that money can be better.
PHILLIP: FEMA is still paying the bills for Katrina, for Harvey, for Ian. These are all in red states. They are still housing people from Hurricane Helene.
GESIOTTO: But maybe that money would be better used going straight to the states.
PHILLIP: Even when we are not paying attention to what FEMA is doing, FEMA is housing people. They are providing grants to people. They are helping people rebuild. It is happening.
GESIOTTO: Right, but could that money potentially not be better used at the state and local level where they have direct access to these people, where they may know their needs immediately quicker and may be able to meet them? That is a question worth exploring at the very least.
PHILLIP: All right, everyone, hang on. We got to go -- we've got to move on, but coming up next, the convicted Proud Boy leader who President Trump just freed joins CNN tonight and makes some demands. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:45:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, dancing himself clean, Enrique Tarrio, the Proud Boys leader, is now free, and it's all thanks to Donald Trump. He's also now attempting to pretend like he never said what he said when a judge sentenced him to 22 years in prison. The Department of Justice said this about his role in the insurrection. "Tarrio privately claimed credit for the riot at the Capitol, telling Proud Boys senior leadership, make no mistake, we did this."
Now, tonight in a brand new interview with CNN's Laura Coates, Tarrio is channeling Shaggy, saying it wasn't me.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ENRIQUE TARRIO, FORMER LEADER OF PROUD BOYS, PARDONED BY TRUMP: I want to be clear. When I say I am sorry or I apologize for those -- to those officers that were assaulted and those members of Congress that were scared. I want to be clear. I was -- I said I'm sorry for it, but then I said, but I -- it wasn't because of me. It wasn't because of my actions that that occurred. It's just me being sorry for what happened that day. And, you know, I truly was. So I do stand by those statements.
(END VIDEO CLIP) PHILLIP: Look, it's not what he told the judge. And visually, he's sitting there. He's wearing a giant Make America Great Again hat. He is a visual representation of Trump's incredibly controversial decision not only to pardon the violent ones, but the people who organized the violent ones.
ARRIGHI: Yeah, I'm not a member of the Proud Boys. I thought January 6th was a really dark day. I had a lot of friends who were members and press members who were in the building. It scared the living daylights out of me. So yeah, I mean, he's gonna make his case publicly. He's a free man. He has this freedom of speech, but I don't think we should be heading down a road that day ever happens again.
LATHAN: I have a question for you guys. How does it feel to be the party of the Proud Boys?
ARRIGHI: I don't think we are.
LATHAN: You more certainly are.
ARRIGHI: I think we are the party of the 56 percent of Americans who voted for Donald, or 50 whatever percent of Americans who voted for Donald Trump. And that -- and the Proud Boys are like, I don't know, what, a few handfuls of dozen?
LATHAN: You're that as well, but he was making -- he was wearing a Make America Great Again hat. He has the --
ARRIGHI: How about the Democratic Party being the party of anarchists?
LATHAN: Well, we can do the what about-ism all of later.
ARRIGHI: Oh, you just did.
LATHAN: No, no, no, I didn't do what about-ism. I'm talking about what's happening right now, not --
GESIOTTO: But you're saying because someone wears a Make America Great Again hat that that person necessarily represents every single person in the Republican Party.
LATHAN: No, no, no. I'm saying that he -- what I'm saying is that the leader of your party, the figurehead of your party, the emperor of your party, he made the decision to pardon --
GESIOTTO: He pardoned people. It doesn't mean he's a member of a certain group.
LATHAN: -- to pardon people -- to pardon people who, like, abused and assaulted police officers.
[22:50:00]
And now that guy, and by the way, not only that, but these same individuals have -- it's been rumored that they're going to visit Capitol Hill, talk to people, maybe be invited to the White House. You don't feel like at all that that is Trump putting a rubber stamp on it?
GESIOTTO: I think if the president decided to pardon people, and he viewed this as a political persecution, which I think many people in the country do look at these cases, J.D. Vance, the vice president, bringing attention to one of them the other day in which someone who spent eight minutes peacefully walking through the Capitol that day was sentenced to 18 months in prison. They weren't violent. They didn't steal anything. They didn't break anything.
PHILLIP: Then why didn't Trump just pardon those people and not pardon the people who assaulted police officers?
GESIOTTO: Let me finish what I have to say because there are many cases --
PHILLIP: And not -- and not commute the sentences of the people who organized weapons and a violent attack on the Capitol? Why didn't he take the day or two and just take a look at the records and pardon the people who, if they were peaceful, they were peaceful.
GESIOTTO: So you look at a lot of these cases, again political persecution. A lot of this was rubber stamped by the judges in these cases and so you saw instances and let me --
PHILLIP: Actually --
GESIOTTO: -- let me get to the point, Abby.
PHILLIP: -- all of it -- but you know what, but I have to correct you because --
GESIOTTO: Every single motion --
PHILLIP: -- when you look at a lot of these records --
GESIOTTO: -- by the prosecution was granted --
PHILLIP: -- that's not true.
GESIOTTO: -- in some of these cases not -- yes, it is true.
PHILLIP: There were some case where people -- look, we had an attorney here a couple of days ago.
GESIOTTO: I'm an attorney as well.
PHILLIP: No, no, who represented some of the January 6th insurrectionists. He represented three clients. And several of his clients were being asked -- the judge was being asked by DOJ for lengthy sentences, years-long sentences. And you know what happened? The judge said, no, we're going to give them eight months, we're going to give them probation. So the system was operating in a way in which some --
GESIOTTO: Not in every single case, and that's the problem. PHILLIP: Okay, I'm not making a blanket statement, okay? I'm talking
about -- I'm saying that there were -- you were making a blanket statement about rubber stamps. I'm saying there's plenty of evidence --
GESIOTTO: I'm not saying in every case --
PHILLIP: -- that there were not rubber stamps happening.
GESIOTTO: -- what I'm saying in a lot of the cases, it was political persecution, rubber stamped by the judges. Every single prosecution motion was granted, every single defense motion denied. Again, they showed a 22-minute video in this specific person's case in which they were only in it for less than one minute. They showed the worst moments of that day, 22 minutes. This guy is in there less than one minute. No violence, didn't break anything, didn't steal anything, 18 months in prison.
PHILLIP: Are you comfortable -- are you comfortable --
GESIOTTO: Typically when you see a protest, that person might get a $50 fine.
PHILLIP: But are you comfortable tying on the help of -- listen, obviously --
GESIOTTO: We can't stand for that as Americans, even if we don't support obviously what happened on January 6th.
PHILLIP: Wait, but can you stand for the people who assaulted police officers? You can stand for that?
GESIOTTO: I'm not saying I stand for assaulting police officers.
PHILLIP: I just don't understand --
GESIOTTO: Never would I, but I don't stand --
PHILLIP: Where's the outrage --
GESIOTTO: -- for someone getting an unfair sentence, whether it's assaulting police officer or any other crime.
PHILLIP: Where's the outrage against people who were violent, Madison.
GESIOTTO: You want to see people sentences fairly. Like when we see people --
PHILLIP: I'm so surprised.
GESIOTTO: -- we see so many black people in this country sentenced unfairly --
LATHAN: Hold on. No, don't do -- don't do that.
GESIOTTO: -- when it comes to marijuana. LATHAN: Don't do that. No, wait, wait.
GESIOTTO: That's a fact.
LATHAN: We ain't in it. Don't -- don't -- No, we ain't in it. No.
GESIOTTO: Please explain to me why. Why would you want to see anybody unjustly sentenced --
LATHAN: I don't want to see nobody -- don't do that.
GESIOTTO: -- based off of their political party or the color of their skin?
LATHAN: Do the January 6th (ph). Don't do the black people because --
GESIOTTO: I'm happy to have this debate with you.
LATHAN: We've been going to prison unfairly for decades.
GESIOTTO: Hundred percent. Which is why criminal justice reform is something that has been needed to be had for a long time.
LATHAN: Right, but we're not gonna make January 6th into the -- don't leave us out of it, man. Come on, man.
GESIOTTO: The concept is unfairly sentencing someone based off the color of their skin or their political party.
PHILLIP: I got to -- I got to stop the conversation because we do have to go, but I will say, I mean, look, marijuana convictions are one thing. People who are pardoned for assaulting police officers, breaking and entering the Capitol to stop the peaceful transfer of power, organizing militias against the United States government, that is a completely different story.
In just a few minutes, you can watch this whole interview that Laura had with Enrique Tarrio. It's on "Laura Coates Live" coming up just next. Everyone stay with me coming up next, our panel is going to give us their nightcaps, dry January style. They'll tell us what vice or something or someone that we should all be giving up for a month.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:55:00]
PHILLIP: We're back and it's time for the news nightcap dry January edition. You each have a few seconds to tell us your vices, whatever you think we should be giving up this month. Madison, you're first.
GESIOTO: Okay. Not a drinker, not a smoker, never had a coffee, but I love to eat. Hibachi is what I gave up for dry January. Shout out to my boys, Austin, Reddy, Colton, everybody out at Wasabi in North Canton, Ohio. I'll be back in about 10 days. Maybe what, less now. We're getting close.
ROCHA: I've already given up beef and beer years ago. Me giving up my bourbon after dinner and my salty snacks has got me pissed off.
PHILLIP: Salty snacks.
ARRIGHI: Society, the press, stop talking about history without Googling it first. William Henry Harrison did not die from pneumonia caught in his inauguration. He died from contaminated water from poop at the White House. It killed Zachary Taylor and James K. Polk too. Google that.
LATHAN: I'm giving up giving up stuff. I'm going to continue to do everything I've been doing. I'm going to continue to go to the same websites. We won't have to talk about them. Everything that I already do, I'm going to do it forever. I'm setting my ways.
ROCHA: And we're going back to the last thing, you shouldn't wear sunglasses inside. He should give that up too for that Tarrio boy. You won't wear sunglasses inside the house.
PHILLIP: Madison, I honestly, I didn't realize hibachi was that much of an addiction.
GESIOTTO: Oh yeah.
PHILLIP: That's very surprising.
GESIOTTO: It's actually number three to pancakes, pasta.
PHILLIP: Wow. All right. That's what life is like --
GESIOTTO: It's pretty darn good.
PHILLIP: Where do you live? Ohio?
GESIOTTO: Ohio.
[23:00:00]
PHILLIP: Alright everyone, thank you very much. Have a great weekend. Thanks for watching "NewsNight." We'll see you tomorrow morning, 10:00 a.m. with our conversation show, "Table for Five." We've got a great group of guests for you tomorrow morning. "Laura Coates Live," though, starts right now.