Return to Transcripts main page

CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip

Elon Musk Dismantling Government, Accessing Systems; Trump and Musk Orchestrate Takeover of Humanitarian Agency; Trump's Trade War on Pause for 30 Days After Talks. "NewsNight" Tackles Trump Tariffs; Two Cabinet Nominations Face A Critical Hurdle; Boy Saves Baby Sister's Life in Philadelphia Tragedy. Aired 10-11p ET

Aired February 03, 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 (on camera): Tonight, a government smash and grab. Elon Musk's soldiers break down the digital doors to your data in the name of cleaning up the federal bureaucracy. Why?

Plus, a tariff war, but what is it good for? Is Donald Trump really fighting to save American lives from foreign drugs or is he just trying to collect from the country's closest allies?

Also, Democrats in a time of trouble managed to find an answer for now on how to play the same anti-Trump note.

And a second chance for someone Trump once fired for palling around with white nationalists and who just said the president should put white men in charge now gets an invite to fill a high ranking role inside the State Department.

Live at the table, Scott Jennings, Bakari Sellers, Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis and Chuck Rocha.

Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here they do.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIP (voice over): Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York.

Let's get right to what America is talking about, Elon Musk and his appetite for destruction. Tonight, a question for the new president of the United States, us the tech billionaire really running your government?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: He's got access only to letting people go that he thinks are no good, if we agree with him. And it's only if we agree with him. He's a very talented guy from the standpoint of management and costs. Elon can't do and won't do anything without our approval. And we'll give them the approval where appropriate, where not appropriate, we won't.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Trump says that he's keeping tabs on Musk as he works feverishly to kill off entire agencies, including the world's largest foreign aid agency, to outright ignore Congress and to run roughshod over the law, to deny Lutheran organizations any government, money that gets used in places like Central Ohio to fund domestic violence shelters. He's taking the techie credo of move fast and break things quite seriously and literally, locking out employees from their jobs, having his engineers break into government databases, and trying to preserve a cloak of anonymity for the teenagers and 20-somethings tasked with picking apart the federal government for parts.

Joining us in our fifth seat at the table is Mimi Rocah, she is, was the district attorney for Westchester County in New York and was an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York as well.

Let's start with the legalities of it why don't we, Mimi, because I think one of the big questions people have is what exactly is Elon Musk's job and does he have the requisite requirements to do all the things that he's doing? So, the White House said today that he's a special government employee, meaning that he's in a temporary role. He's not taking a salary. But there are a lot of questions about why does he then, with that role, get access to all the personal data of maybe the entire country, taxpayers, and all federal employees? What questions do you have about all this?

MIMI ROCAH, FORMER WESTCHESTER COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: I have so many questions. And the first question I would say is, exactly, what is his role? I mean, this has never been defined other than calling him the head of this made up entity. It's not even an agency. And that is, you know, people can be advisers to a president. Trump could pick really anyone he wants to be a presidential advisor.

But Elon Musk is essentially, as far as I can tell, and we don't really know everything he's doing, he seems to be running the government. I mean, even in that answer that President Trump gave, that Elon Musk fires people that he doesn't think are doing a good job. Well, what are his standards for doing that? Has he ever said what they are? And it doesn't seem that there's actually any standards. In fact, the standard seems to be if you worked on or touched any kind of case of the Department of Justice or FBI, that President Trump didn't like or doesn't approve of, then you get fired.

PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, it seems like in some of these cases, they just did control after certain buzzwords, and then they were like, okay, it's gone. That's no way to -- even if you're looking for waste, fraud, and abuse, that's no way to do that.

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: But, I mean, I think we're beyond waste, fraud, and abuse, and I think that most Americans, regardless of who you are, Democrat, Republican, I'm from South Carolina, whether or not you're from New York, black, white or otherwise have a problem with someone who's unelected, an oligarch who has access to your personal information.

[22:05:01]

There is not one Republican who can sit around this table or anywhere else and tell me that Elon Musk has any right, whatsoever, to my date of birth, Social Security number, address, any personal filings, et cetera.

And so we want to have a conversation about waste, fraud and abuse. That actually is a conversation that is good for the American public to have. Let's have that with the members of the United States Congress. Let's have that through hearings in public. But Elon Musk going in to the Department of Treasury and overruling governmental bureaucrats who've been there for a very long period of time, those civil service workers who've been there for a long period of time, so he can have access to your private data, now that should be a red flag for every red blooded American.

PHILLIP: Good news for you is that we have a couple Republicans at the table. Congresswoman, I mean, what about that? I mean, and by the way, you and Congress authorized a lot of this spending, and he is not Senate confirmed. He's not been to the Congress, as far as I know, in any sort of capacity where he would have -- there would be oversight over him. So, why does he get access to this information?

REP. NICOLE MALLIOTAKIS (R-NY): Well, first of all, I don't think Elon Musk has any more access to this information than some of those federal bureaucrats that you talk about that are working in those agencies, they also deal with this personal information, but it's not protected information by federal law, right? There's protected information, your Social Security number, they're protected under IRS law. So, that's number one.

Number two, I am a member of Congress, we do earmark funds for these agencies. And we don't like the way that these federal bureaucrats, quite frankly, are making these decisions. And so I think it is appropriate for the executive branch.

PHILLIP: So, why don't you just legislate? I mean, I think that's the question.

MALLIOTAKIS: Well, because that's not the way the budget --

PHILLIP: But Congress -- no. You, Congresswoman, you have the power. You have the power to budget.

MALLIOTAKIS: We budget for agencies.

PHILLIP: You have the power to spend, to take away money, you have the power to structure agencies, you have the power to create, destroy agencies, you can actually do all of those things from Congress.

MALLIOTAKIS: Yes. And if I could answer that question, what I would say is we do. We do do the budget. We allocate funding for specific agencies, for specific purposes. It is when we see these federal bureaucrats spending this money and making decisions on grants and loans and making decisions that are not within what we anticipated or was intended for.

And that is why I thought it was appropriate for President Trump to pause some of these grants that were going out because they were going out for some ridiculous things. And Congress -- by the way, Elon Musk's role is an advisory role. Let's be clear about that. He is not going to be slashing -- we're going to be making that final determination as members of Congress.

PHILLIP: I should also just say, Elon doesn't think that's the case, because he's been saying pretty point blank, this is going away. We've gotten rid of this. We've gotten rid of that. And the money has stopped flowing.

SELLERS: Respectfully, Congresswoman, it was his aides who sent notices today to USAID saying, don't come to work. And I hear your point about cutting spending and everything. And, look, I'm not going to die on a hill that says that these agencies don't have some frivolous spending that we need to rein in. But the fact is, do you know sitting here today that Elon Musk and his aides do not have access to my Social Security number? You don't know that, and that is troublesome, because as a member of Congress, you should know that.

But what we do know is he went into Treasury, he locked people out, he fired individuals, and now Elon Musk and his aides -- and this is not a partisan attack by any stretch. This is, look, I deserve to know where my information is, and why someone who is unelected, we don't even know what his job title is, have access to that.

PHILLIP: So why is it -- and that's an important question. Why is it, Scott, that Elon Musk claims that it is a crime to tweet out the names of the six individuals who I have to assume are government employees, maybe they're not, who are going around and carrying out his orders and telling people, for example, to not come into work at an entire federal agency who are going into the treasury asking for access to a sensitive payment system. How is it a crime to know who those people are?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I don't know if it's a crime or not. I think it's certainly untoward to try to out --

PHILLIP: Why.

JENNINGS: Because you're trying to stick an angry mob on people who are showing up to try to act on behalf of the president of the United States.

PHILLIP: First of all, this is his platform, okay? If his own platform is an angry mob, that's one thing. But he also does this all the time, and these are people who are doing things that affect Americans. They're working in the government. So, I don't see why it needs to be a secret.

JENNINGS: They're doing things that affect the bureaucracy, which is why you see all the rage today.

PHILLIP: You don't think that this stuff affects Americans, Scott? JENNINGS: I mean, yes, probably in a positive way. And I'm glad to see Democrats are coming around to the idea that the unelected people who might be involved in the running of our country are important because you seem to have no interest in that for the last four years under the last administration.

Here's the bottom line. The American people, the American -- you know what that means, is that you had a president who was not functional and you know it.

SELLERS: Oh, you're talking about Biden, okay.

PHILLIP: So, actually, by that same token, I mean, if you're concerned about the people around Joe Biden running the government, why aren't you concerned about --

[22:10:01]

JENNINGS: Because I don't have any concern that this president is functional. He's a functional president and Musk is an agent of the president.

PHILLIP: Why are not you concerned that Elon Musk is, according to a lot of reports, someone that no one around the president wants to even cross because he's so powerful and he has leverage over this president because he spent $250 million to get him elected?

JENNINGS: Look, the president was elected. He runs the government. Elon Musk is an agent of the executive branch at the direction of the president. And as the president said today, he's not doing anything that he doesn't have permission to do.

And I will just remind you all, one of the things he was elected to do is to shake up Washington, stop doing business as usual, and rein in an out of control bureaucracy that, as the congresswoman correctly pointed out, is spending money in ways that was never intended.

CHUCK ROCHA, CO-HOST, THE LATINO VOTE PODCAST: As Bakari said, I don't think anybody here is having an argument about, we'd all love to see our taxpayer dollars spent in a wiser way, whether Joe Biden or not.

JENNINGS: Congratulations. Welcome to the Republican Party, because that's what we're doing.

ROCHA: What we're saying here, you would think that if you -- you're not going to get me with the hat joke. You almost pulled me in.

Look, we all sit around here like Donald Trump got 90 percent of the election, like he won by 90 percent. The last time I checked, Donald Trump got less than half of all the votes cast. That don't mean he didn't win. Try that out, Republicans. He's our elected leader, and he won all the battleground states and all the above. But we got to do this in a better way if we're going to move forward.

And what we're seeing, Democrats and Scott made fun of me the whole time, and I wasn't one of them saying, democracy's on the line. Well, today, as I get here, it seems like democracy is on the line from everything I've seen at the Treasury Department, especially if he's got my Social Security number. He don't know what he's going to do with it.

JENNINGS: Do you two believe that he is specifically looking -- I mean that, is a level of self-aggrandizement that I don't understand.

ROCHA: But, actually -- no. I mean, no. But Scott, honestly --

PHILLIP: Wait, do you believe that -- do they believe what, Scott?

JENNINGS: They both seem to believe that he is specifically looking -- these two guys think that he's looking --

SELLERS: Oh, I don't think Elon Musk knows me. I mean, Elon Musk probably confuses me with Michael B. Jordan, like most people on the street. But that's neither here nor there. What I am saying though is that respect, respectfully, no would know (ph). Respectfully, we are sitting here as educated people and the problem is we don't know what Elon Musk has and what Elon Musk does not have.

JENNINGS: That's true of the whole government. They have all your information already.

SELLERS: But there was a process for that, there was oversight for that. And the fact is these bureaucrats who you all are lambasting up here that he ran out at least had a direct report, somebody who could rein them in, they could come in front of Congress.

PHILLIP: They have ethics rules. They have all --

ROCAH: They have government rules that they have to abide by and regulations and transparency. Put names of federal employees are actually supposed to be public.

SELLERS: And there's a statue that prevents them from accessing classified information.

ROCAH: And I know this sounds quaint, but they actually -- most government civil service employees, which is who we're actually talking about, in comparison to Elon Musk, do follow the rules and regulations that Congress has set out for them and disclosures. Elon Musk going to make a financial disclosure, are we going to know his conflicts of interest?

PHILLIP: Three of your colleagues in the Senate, Senator Bill Cassidy, Jerry Moran, and Thom Tillis, they've raised some red flags over what's happening at USAID. Cassidy wants to know why clinics in Africa are not getting the drugs that that USAID provides. Jerry Moran is wondering why there's American food rotting in ports of entry. And Thom Tillis says, if you just shut down every program in there, I think it's a mistake, and it will have policy and political consequences. But that's exactly what Elon Musk did. He shut USAID down. MALLIOTAKIS: Well, first of all, going back to the transparency, you have not had a more transparent president than President Donald Trump. Every executive order, every conversation he has with a world leader, there is a printout. It is on social media and we are learning what's going on in real time.

PHILLIP: But when did he say that he's shutting down USAID and tell us why he's doing it?

MALLIOTAKIS: Well, first of all, USAID, and I sat on the Foreign Affairs Committee and I've tried to expose this as a member on those committee hearings. I mean, we cannot get any accountability from this agency. We can't get any metrics from this agency. This is a real bureaucratic mess, the USAID. The money's being spent and shoveled to countries all over the world, countries that hate us for programs that -- I mean, you have countries that, where people are starving and they're focusing on, you know, DEI and transgender programming.

It's ridiculous. I mean, eventually it becomes I hear that, but this is the fact. These are facts are.

(CROSSTALKS)

MALLIOTAKIS: This is actually where money is going to.

PHILLIP: What I'm saying, first of all, I'm not denying -- listen, I don't know what you're, what specifically you're talking about. But I do know that there's a lot of money that does not go to any of those things. One of the programs Cassidy's talking about is PEPFAR. That is a Republican program. That is a Republican program.

MALLIOTAKIS: Yes, that's right. You found one good program.

SELLERS: No. I mean, damage-stricken Sudan.

PHILLIP: No, look --

SELLERS: I mean, we're talking about --

PHILLIP: Here's the real point here. Congresswoman, you are elected to legislate. If you want to change where the money goes at PEPFAR, you have the power to do that. Why not do that in a transparent way so that the American people can see?

MALLIOTAKIS: And that is what we are doing right now. That is exactly what we're doing.

[22:15:00]

We're trying to put a pause on this funding going out the door so we can see exactly what it's being used for because our intention when we appropriated this money is not being spent that way. What I will say is you have these bureaucrats sitting at these agencies, they come before Congress, we have hearings, we try to get to the bottom of where this money is going, $50 million for condoms in Gaza, for example. PHILLIP: Well, Congresswoman, there are --

MALLIOTAKIS: No, but these are real things. You guys are rolling your eyes like as if these are not actual line items. These are actual line items.

PHILLIP: We know that there was not $50 million spent for condoms in Gaza. There was zero dollars spent on condoms in the Middle East. That is a complete falsehood and a lie.

MALLIOTAKIS: So, the White House put that out there as a --

PHILLIP: I'm not going to blame you for it. I'm going to blame the White House. I'm going to blame the president. Congresswoman, I'm going to blame the president who upped the dollar amount to $100 million. It is false. Okay?

MALLIOTAKIS: It's $50 million as far as I know.

PHILLIP: It is false. The answer is zero. There is none. So, you cannot use that as an example.

JENNINGS: As a Republican who worked in the White House for President Bush when PEPFAR was passed, I think it's one of the most successful things for American soft power we've ever done. I think George W. Bush may have saved more human lives than any other president. This is an example of a positive use of American soft power.

But there is a difference between soft power and stupid spending. And there is a long list of things today, as the congresswoman pointed out, that all Americans would regard as stupid and not in line with any U.S. interests.

And let me say one more thing.

PHILLIP: I'm not denying that. The question is how you do it, Scott. Are you going to just shut down a whole agency or are you going to find the waste and stop it?

JENNINGS: The USAID bureaucracy is not American soft power. It's the money and the strategic direction. Today, he put Marco Rubio, our secretary of state, our chief foreign policy officer, in charge of USAID. Soft power will not stop, but out of control bureaucracy will stop, and that will help us.

PHILLIP: Bill Cassidy says that it's stopped, and he wants to know why. And it'll be interesting to see if Congress is actually going to do something about it.

Mimi, thank you very much for joining us. Everyone else, stick around.

Coming up next, Donald Trump's trade war lasted about 24 hours, for now, at least. So, did the president win here, or did he completely cave? Another special guest is going to join us in our fifth seat.

Plus, Trump once fired him as a white nationalist -- for his white nationalist ties. Now he is back promoting him to a top job at the State Department just weeks after he said only competent white men should be in charge. We're going to discuss that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:20:00]

PHILLIP: Did Donald Trump actually win anything? The president walked the United States to the very edge of a trade war with Mexico and, of all places, Canada. The two nations, Trump says, blinked. And he says that they are offering clear, tangible concessions.

But take a look at what Trump, quote/unquote, won, and it adds up to something you re-gift your neighbor with new wrapping paper. In exchange for abandoning tariffs, Trump says Mexico is sending 10,000 troops to the border and Canada is implementing a $1.3 billion border plan. Only Mexico and Canada were already doing that. Mexico sent 15,000 troops to the border in 2019 during the first Trump term and then 10,000 troops when Biden was president. Canada. Trump announced the same border plan that Trump is touting today themselves back in December, weeks before Trump took office.

The actual thing Donald Trump might have won, though, for now, is the good graces of Wall Street traders. The market started the day with a spiral, and then Trump announced the deal, and the spiral turned into a stabilizing rally.

Joining us at the table are Catherine Rampell, CNN's economics commentator, and CNN International Anchor and CNN Business Editor-at- Large Richard Quest.

Richard, I'll have to start with you on this one. I mean, a game of chicken, but for what?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR AND CORRESPOINDENT: Oh, well, yes. Let's just take the markets, first of all. The markets went down very sharply because they feared the worst. They rallied back because the worst didn't happen. But if anybody believes that it won't all happen again, then they're a fool. These markets are anticipating and at the first whiff of another real tariff war, they will go down again because the interconnected nature of business between Canada, Mexico and the United States is so close with the Europeans similarly, you cannot mess around with this and there not be consequences. It is as simple as that.

PHILLIP: I mean, some people lost money today, and it does not seem that there is any good reason why. All of these things that Trump said that he was getting, he's either gotten more in the past, or it was already announced in the past.

JENNINGS: I disagree. First of all, I think the reason he did this is one simple phrase, behavior modification. He's trying to modify the behavior of our neighbors, and he's already having some success with these strategies. If you look at what he did with Colombia, if you look at what the news was over --

CATHERINE RAMPELL, CNN ECONOMICS AND POLITICS COMMENTATOR: Nothing happened with Colombia either.

JENNINGS: He took the people if you look.

RAMPELL: They were taking deportation --

JENNINGS: I love this show. This is my favorite show. Let's all scream at Scott.

RAMPELL: It's called informing our audience.

PHILLIP: Hold on.

RAMPELL: No, Colombia was already taking deportation flights.

PHILLIP: Scott, I do know that you love this part of this.

JENNINGS: I know. Well, I know I'm right.

PHILLIP: But I'm here to keep you on task because we are talking about Mexico and Canada. You're trying to change the subject of Colombia.

JENNINGS: No, I'm not. I'm wrapping it all together.

[22:25:00]

It's all part of the same thing.

PHILLIP: Let's go back to what Trump got for threatening a 25 percent tariff on Mexico and Canada. What did he get?

JENNINGS: On Mexico, he got a permanent set of troops, not temporary, just during surges. We got permanent troops. And on Canada -- let me tell you what he got. Let me tell you what he got.

PHILLIP: Hold up, you can't just like insert your own qualifications into this. Where does it say that it's permanent?

JENNINGS: The White House told me tonight that the commitment they have for Mexico is that they will put permanent troops in the game.

RAMPELL: Do you know how many troops Mexico had on the on the border last year?

JENNINNGS: It goes up and down.

RAMPELL: 15,000.

JENNINGS: It goes up and down. It's only -- it's temporary. So now they're getting a permanent force.

RAMPELL: Is 10,000 more or less than 15,000?

JENNINGS: Is permanent better than temporary?

MALLIOTAKIS: You know what's more? The 93 percent decrease in border crossings. That's what we have today under President Donald Trump.

RAMPELL: That happened under Biden.

MALLIOTAKIS: No, it did not.

PHILLIP: (INAUDIBLE) year over year?

JENNINGS: How'd it go for four years, Catherine? Are you saying it was good?

PHILLIP: Hold on, Scott. Hang on a second.

MALLIOTAKIS: Since President Trump took office, there's been a 93 percent decrease on border crossings.

RAMPELL: That's not accurate.

MALLIOTAKIS: That is accurate.

RAMPELL: Look at CBP data. It fell last year.

MALLIOTAKIS: It's in the hundreds now versus the thousands a day.

PHILLIP: For context, the number was very low when Trump took office. And now it's lower, okay? So, that's fine. But at the same time, the question is, he threatened --

MALLIOTAKIS: And how high was it under Joe Biden, though? It was thousands and thousands a day.

PHILLIP: I'm going to keep everybody on task here on the topic that we're talking about.

MALLIOTAKIS: No.

PHILLIP: 25 percent threatened tariff.

MALLIOTAKIS: Yes.

PHILLIP: What did he get in concessions, concretely, from these two countries?

JENNINGS: Well, you didn't let us finish on Canada, by the way, because he did get new things on Canada, which I'm sure you know. And I'm just going to read you Justin Trudeau's own statement. Canada is making new, and if I'll define it for you, that means not previously existing, commitments to appoint a fentanyl czar, list cartels as terrorists, ensure 24/7 eyes on the border, launch a joint task force to make money laundering and organized crime.

PHILLIP: Richard, I'm going to let you in here.

JENNINGS: This is all new. It's all new.

SELLERS: Can I say something before we go to commercial? PHILLIP: Richard, just give me one second. One second. We got to make sure that this is clear because you just put fentanyl on the table figuratively. They're 43 pounds.

JENNINGS: Thank God it's not literal.

PHILLIP: 43 pounds of fentanyl from Canada, from the northern border, okay? That's not 4,300, not 43,000. 43. Richard?

QUEST: Okay. So we got these new this and new that, the results. But was it worth pissing off and offending Canada, which is one of your closest allies? Was it worth all the angst, the drama, the raw emotion, when you could have had it with a negotiation?

SELLERS: Can I also chime in? I mean, is that a direct question?

QUEST: Well, no, it is a direct question.

SELLERS: It is a direct question, I'm sorry.

JENNINGS: Richard, so you seem to be extraordinarily worked up about what amounted to 12 hours of conversations between our governments. And the net result of it was everybody who didn't want tariffs should be -- like you, should be happy. Everybody who wants less immigration should be happy. And everybody who wants less fentanyl, we should all be saying it's a win-win.

(CROSSTALKS)

QUEST: This is going to have a back to bite in a way. First of all, Colombia. Second of all, Mexico. Third of all, Canada. Then you've got the European Union. All these allies are going to remember that they were bullied at the edge of a --

JENNINGS: No. They're going to remember that the United States is the dominant nation.

RAMPELL: They're going to remember that Trump just once --

JENNINGS: And we have a president. And now we have a president.

SELLERS: Really quickly, I mean, everybody's chimed in, I've been patient, nobody's ever really said that. That's true. But one of the things we forgot about in this entire kind of B.S. trade war and the posturing of Donald Trump versus other countries is the American public. And when you talk about the markets going up and down, when you talk about the chaos that this administration has caused for a trade war that results in tangibly no yards gained, I mean, this is the epitome of running a double reverse in the backfield, having the most amazing two-yard run you've ever had in your lifetime, right? You expend a bunch of energy, but you don't move the ball far down the field at all.

But you still have Americans who are facing these everyday rising costs. The best example I can give you of rising costs, today, Waffle House added a $0.50 surcharge across the country to eggs, a $0.50 cent surcharge.

JENNINNGS: Why?

SELLERS: Because of the rising cost of eggs and bird flu and everything else.

JENNINGS: They're killing to flocks.

SELLERS: But what I'm saying is that -- what I'm saying --

JENNINGS: Just so we're clear.

SELLERS: What I'm also saying to you, Scott, is that in all of these, in all of these arguments that everybody's making, no one is talking about the fact that the consumer, the American public, the people who have their 401(k)s in the market, the people who are buying goods every day, those are the people who are caught in this chaos. It's not a game of chicken.

JENNINGS: No tariffs were levied. None were levied.

SELLERS: But it's the uncertainty and the chaos.

RAMPELL: Okay. First of all, Trump is trying to repackage the status quo as a victory.

[22:30:03]

That's what the leaders of these foreign countries are learning. You don't actually have to give Trump anything.

PHILLIP: You just have to make it seem like --

RAMPELL: You have to let him announce victory on TV. Second of all, it's not actually back to the status quo. It is worse than the status quo. As Richard points out, we have tarnished our relationships with our allies whose help we need to rein in China, which I know you care about.

Beyond that, think about the additional uncertainty that's being added to the business environment right now if you are a company and you don't know if tariffs are coming or they're not coming. You don't know if your input costs are going to go up or they're not going to go up.

BAKARI SELLERS (D) FORMER SOUTH CAROLINA STATE REPRESENTATIVE: Right. That's true.

RAMPELL: Why would you invest? Why would you invest in oil pipelines, for example, to Canada? I know you really care about the Keystone pipeline, for example.

REP. NICOLLE MALLIOTAKIS (R-NY): I mean, the one that Biden killed.

UNKNOWN: Yeah, that one.

RAMPELL: You know that would be the oil coming from Canada, from Canada, which Trump is now threatening to tariff. Why would any money be --

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: But we have a deal.

RAMPELL: We have a 30-day deal for nothing.

JENNINGS: You guys -- you guys ranked your talking points 12 hours ago. It's 10 o'clock. Look what happened in the interval period? We had an agreement.

SELLERS: You asked the question.

RAMPELL: What happened?

UNKNOWN: You made the point.

RAMPELL: Nothing.

JENNINGS: The three people got together and said, you know what? Trump is right and we'll help you.

RAMPELL: We will do exactly what we -- no, they said we will do exactly -- Trump is going to figure out he got rolled and you know what's going to happen?

PHILLIP: And you know what Scott? I just want -- this one to Scott because Trump apparently agreed at the request of both Canada and Mexico to stop the flow of illegal guns into their country, which is our big export into Canada and Mexico. So, maybe something did change. I mean, I didn't realize that Trump was interested in gun control and that respect.

QUEST: Scott, you said something that, you just said, that maybe the world, the world will learn that the U.S. is the dominant.

JENNINGS: Yeah.

QUEST: So, that's a version of where does the 800 pound gorilla sit, wherever it likes. But the reality is, that's true, no one would deny it. But it's a bully's mentality. It's a bully's mentality to go around the world saying, my way or the highway.

MALLIOTAKIS: Is it a bully or is it a leader standing up for his country and his people? Because the reality is, I'm still shocked that she said --

RAMPELL: He's taxing our people. He is taxing our people.

MALLIOTAKIS: I'm still in shock that you actually said that the border crossings went down under Biden.

RAMPELL: They did go down under Biden. Do you know why? Do you know why they went down?

MALLIOTAKIS: This is sort of disingenuous.

PHILLIP: Wait, wait, hold on. RAMPELL: These are public data.

PHILLIP: Hold on. These are knowable facts.

MALLIOTAKIS: We had -- we had millions of people into this country --

PHILLIP: Listen, I want you to understand -- I want you to understand that I'm just going to clarify, because people are confused, right? Border crossings were at historic levels under Joe Biden - 100 percent true.

MALLIOTAKIS: Historically high.

PHILLIP: Yes, historically high.

MALLIOTAKIS: Just want to make sure it can be historically low.

PHILLIP: No, historically high levels under Joe Biden. One hundred percent. But by the end of his term, before Donald Trump went into office, they decreased to a low level --

JENNINGS: Why?

PHILLIP: - Because finally after three years, hold on.

RAMPELL: No that's not what happened. Look at the timeline. Look at the timeline.

MALLIOTAKIS: They saw that -- they saw that Donald Trump was coming.

RAMPELL: No.

PHILLIP: -- what I'm going to say because Joe Biden realized that the border was a political issue. He put in place programs that helped to stop the flow late in the game. He did it late but here's the thing. I want to play -- guys --

RAMPELL: Actually the more important thing is that you got Mexico to send in the troops to the border --

PHILLIP: And I want to play --

MALLIOTAKIS: We are-- hold on a second. I just have to say something because we're here in the heart of New York City and no city has seen this crisis more than ours. The way that we have seen gang members taking over our streets --

PHILLIP: I get it.

MALLIOTAKIS: the way we have seen crimes committed, stabbings, murders, police officers being assaulted. The thing is that Joe Biden created that crisis with his policies.

PHILLIP: Nobody is denying that. We're just talking about the numbers but I want to play because you were talking -- you were talking about Donald Trump and his relationship with our foreign allies. I want to play what he said about Canada today from the White House. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We don't need them to build our cars. I'd rather see Detroit or South Carolina or any one of our Tennessee, any one of our states build the cars. They could do it very easily. We don't need them for lumber. We don't need them for anything.

I'd like to see Canada become our 51st state. We give them protection -- military protection. Some people say that would be a long shot. If people wanted to play the game right, it would be 100 percent certain that they'd become a state. But a lot of people don't like to play the game because they don't have a threshold at pain.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: A threshold for pain for acquiring another -- 51st state.

SELLERS: This is -- this is my problem with this entire discussion. First, that's not how cars are made. That's first. There's no such thing as a wholly made American vehicle.

[22:35:00]

Parts come from Mexico, parts come from Canada. All of these parts in the big three are then combined to make those vehicles here in this country. And so we need to understand that there is a nexus of teamwork that goes into place amongst our North American allies.

The second thing is, and you alluded to this, but you didn't quite follow up, is the fact that he actually today said that in this battle of tariffs, et cetera, that Americans were going to have to feel some pain. He actually said that we were -- that people were going to, if Joe Biden, since you always want to go back to the last four years.

If Joe Biden at any point in time said that he was going to have an initiative where Americans would feel some pain, those same New Yorkers that you're talking about are going to have to, you have to go back in your district and tell them that our trade policy means you're going to have to feel some pain in your pocketbooks that already hurt. That doesn't sound like a winning strategy.

QUEST: There's one, Catherine may want to jump in on this. There's one thing that does amuse me most, and this is this idea that tariffs are not inflationary. The president specifically said they're not inflationary. I've been doing this a long time. I've seen enough studies that all prove tariffs put up prices. They are inflationary, both in the short term and in the long term, because they get passed on to the consumer. Scott, do you accept that tariffs are inflationary?

JENNINGS: I accept that tariffs are taxes. And I accept that some prices could go up. And Bakari, you're right. Donald Trump said -- Donald Trump said that you may feel some pain. But let me tell you why he said it. Because fentanyl is a scourge on this country. SELLERS: Unquestionably.

JENNINGS: Illegal immigration and the violence that's come with it is a scourge on this country and we have a moral obligation.

PHILLIP: Let's be -- okay. Let's be --

RAMPELL: He did nothing about any of this. Let us be honest. Let us be also honest, when we talk about fentanyl, it is not coming predominantly from Canada. He was talking about making Canada a 51st state. Do -- and if he was talking about fentanyl, that would be completely disingenuous because that's not where the fentanyl is coming from.

But on the tariffs, to your point, tariffs are inflationary, they are taxes, and if Donald Trump were to talk to his friend William McKinley, he would find out it is a bad political strategy to put tariffs on the American people. They lost dozens and dozens of Republican seats in the midterms after those tariffs went into place.

Richard Quest, Catherine Rampell, thank you both very much for joining us. Everyone else, hang tight. Coming up next, Trump's choice for a key role at the State Department. He was reportedly fired in the first Trump administration after speaking at a conference with white nationalists. So why is he back? We'll discuss.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:42:09]

PHILLIP: From speechwriter, to fired, to appointed, to one of the most high profile jobs inside of the Trump State Department, that is Darren Beatty's career trajectory. It's a MAGA comeback story. And if you skip over the part where he was fired for speaking at a conference attended by white nationalists, and if you ignore the smattering of racist and racially insensitive social media posts that he's made, here's a brief rundown of what they are courtesy of CNN's K-file.

Quote, "Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work." This is what he said in October. And then there's these from 2021 where he says, "Black people should kneel before MAGA and that they should learn their place in society." That is a quote. And believe it or not, one of those people he was talking about was Tim Scott. So, I don't know what was going on there.

CHUCK ROCHA, "THE LATINO VOTE" PODCAST CO-HOST: They could have nominated this guy to be some kind of cabinet secretary. That's so old, 19 -- 2016 or whatever. Look, we're in a whole different time now. And what I'm getting at is that, Donald Trump just pardoned 1500 white nationalists, white nationalists, like folks that are out committing crimes every single day. I get tired of my Republican friends talking about safety.

PHILLIP: Wait, hold on, hold on. I don't think we can call, look, the January 6th people who were convicted, many of them were convicted of crimes. ROCHA: Sure, I'm getting in trouble.

PHILLIP: Yes, I mean, because you cannot just call 1600 people white nationalists. Many of them were convicted of crimes. Many of them have ties to far right entities, militia groups, et cetera. But the vast majority of them were people who did bad things and were punished for them and now are set free by this --

ROCHA: And now you're going to have one as a deputy secretary of this department.

SELLERS: I mean, my problem is this, and this is one of the things that my good friend, who I actually love her writing, I'm going to buy the book for Scott. But Nikole Hannah-Jones, she talked about the fact that Donald Trump is not pushing an economic agenda, instead he's pushing a racial one. And it's very difficult sometimes when you get caught in the kind of sensationalism of this anti-DEI rhetoric or the fact that you are eliminating Black History Month or these things in the separate departments.

And one of the things Democrats have to do is do a better job of kind of sifting through all of this, all of this nonsense and loud racist rhetoric that comes like a bullhorn from this White House, with this example in particular, and talk about the issues that matter.

This guy right here is despicable. And the fact that he is despicable and he is a racist, and he gets to have a seat this close to Marco Rubio, says a great deal about Marco Rubio, and it says a great deal about the president of the United States.

PHILLIP: Should the President, congresswoman, rethink this appointment?

MALLIOTAKIS: Look, I don't know who this guy is, quite frankly. He had me, well --

PHILLIP: Based on what we --

MALLIOTAKIS: Yeah, well, what I'll say is, I defended Elon Musk tonight. I defended the Trump terrorist, I thought it was a good thing. It's getting our border secure, getting the job done. I don't know who this guy is, and certainly what you put up there and what he said, I think is inappropriate and disrespectful. And maybe he should be reconsidering that.

[22:45:01]

But look, I think we need to be cautious, the people that we've put into these positions of influence and power, and we need to make sure that they are going to be respectful of our nation's values. And it just seems to me that I don't know where this guy came from, quite frankly, so I'm not going to stand here and defend him.

PHILLIP: It's interesting.

SELLERS: Fair. PHILLIP: Yeah, I know. I mean, you certainly do not have to. I don't

know where this guy came from either, but Vivek Ramaswamy had this to say about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VIVEK RAMASWAMY (R) FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I would describe him as filling a vacuum in the MAGA movement that I think needs to be filled, which is an intellectual beacon. MAGA movement has been a great populist movement across this country, but one of the things that I think we need in order to take this movement to the next level is an intellectual foundation of who we are and what we stand for.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: And I don't even, I mean, maybe, let's pause it, he didn't know about the racist tweets. The ADL put out a statement back in 2020 condemning him back then. So how is this person who would say that black people need to know their place in society and intellectual of any kind, it's bizarre.

JENNINGS: Yeah, I don't -- I'm like the Congresswoman, I don't have any familiarity with them. However, what I would say is based on what you read tonight, one of the things about the Trump coalition is that it is seeking to stop dividing Americans by race and start uniting Americans by our unique American values.

Some of these things, I think, are divisive by race, which is something we criticize Democrats for trying to divide us by race, this idea of competent white men. The message is we want the best competent people, period. And this idea of kneeling before a political entity, the only person you should kneel before is God.

And so I just, I think, I think, some of these people are provocateurs. And I think they say things for their own personal reasons. I think if you're Trump. The question is, is my movement about a continuation of division along racial lines or a continuation of the unification because he did better with minority voters than any Republican in a half a century.

SELLERS: There's one -- one quick point that I want to make before we wrap and this will be really quick. One of the people that he said needed to kneel was actually a Republican intellectual. Her name was Kay Cole James. We are 180 degrees different on public policy and politics, but a 70-year-old black woman doesn't need to be told by anyone that she needs to be kneeling to anything.

PHILLIP: That is exactly right. Everyone, thank you very much for joining us. Coming up next. We're going to tell you a story of a young man that proves that heroes come in all sizes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:56:55]

PHILLIP: Tonight, proof that size doesn't matter when it comes to superheroes. Friday night started out as most Friday nights do for one Philadelphia family, with a trip, of course, to Dunkin' Donuts. Andre Howard was at the wheel with his three kids buckled in their seats.

Strawberry, sugar, and yes, something sweet. A taste of summer on a dark, wintry night. That is all the Howard family wanted when fate and scrap metal intervened. Dad hung a right onto Busselton Avenue when he heard what we all couldn't stop watching on Friday night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: A medevac flight nose diving and then hitting with 300 miles per hour force into a stretch of Philadelphia pavement. People for blocks had to duck and cover -- people like the Howards. The boom scared them. And then the chaos and careening debris scared them even more. They saw the worst of it. The sky burning orange. A man burned beyond recognition.

Howard threw his car into reverse and sprinted backwards with as much horsepower as he could to try to outrun that shrapnel. Time slowed down, and as it did, little Andre did something that I'm not sure many of us would have had the presence of mind to do. Something that was pure instinct. A decision too quick to really even think about. And something that probably saved a life, nearly at the expense of his own.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDRE HOWARD, FATHER: He told his little sister, "Get down," and he grabs her. I hear the glass shatter, turned around, there's a piece of metal sticking out of my son's head.

(END VIDEO CLIP))

PHILLIP: Andre dove on top of his sister. She was safe, but Andre was far from it. He was unconscious. There was metal protruding from his head, and the next few minutes, according to Andre Sr., were more chaos than the crash itself.

They got out of the truck, there was blood gushing everywhere, a shirt became a tourniquet. And a woman stood guard over the other kids as a police car suddenly became an ambulance. The blue and red lights lighting their way to a hospital and to more uncertainty.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOWARD: They pretty much told us my son wasn't supposed to make it. Jefferson also told us that they didn't do children, trauma, surgeries, but they did for us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: This all had the telltale signs of the worst kind of tragedy. Innocence stolen by random circumstance, one life for another in a trade no one would ever understand. Only the script went a different way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LASHAWN HAMIEL, MOTHER: He's good. He's pushing through. He's strong.

HOWARD: He's a superhero.

HAMIEL: He's a superhero.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: He's a superhero. Hope or perhaps God found its way into the cracks of the hospital doors and onto the scalpels that worked on little Andre.

[22:55:01]

He's going to survive. He'll walk, he'll see, and all of the things that weren't supposed to happen that his parents were told wouldn't happen, happened. So, if you find yourself in Philly, know that you are in the company of a real life breathing superhero.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(22:59:47)

PHILLIP: Tomorrow is going to be a consequential day for the Trump administration. Two cabinet nominations face a critical hurdle. Will the finance committee give a thumbs up or a thumbs down to RFK Jr. as the next health and human services secretary, while the agency -- the intelligence committee will determine the fate of Tulsi Gabbard to lead the intelligence agencies?

Now, both of them are far from sure things. And even if both nominations do successfully make it out of committee, a full Senate floor vote is another test of Trump's early power. Thank you very much for watching "NewsNight". "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.