Return to Transcripts main page
CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Musk Staffer Resigns Over Posts Pushing Racism, Eugenics; Emails Show, Musk Team Sought to Shut Down Government Payments; Trump to Fire Nearly Every USAID Worker, Keeping Only 300. President Trump Back to Limelight; FBI Send an Anonymous Letter. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired February 06, 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 ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, the judge standing in the way of Elon Musk's great purge and the DOGE staffer who helped lead the charge is now out of the job after a disturbing revelation.
Plus, the president polishes his scalpel to cut away thousands of health jobs as new bird flu infections put doctors on alert.
Also, the producer president, Trump tries to put some show business sheen his vision for the country.
Live at the table, Solomon Jones, Madison Gesiotto, Adrienne Elrod, Melik Abdul and Cari Champion.
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. The DOGE is in the details. Tonight, the country is starting to get clued in about what Elon Musk and his digital army are exactly up to. But here's what we are learning tonight. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that a 25- year-old DOGE staffer resigned today over links to social media posts advocating racism and eugenics. That former staffer was one of the people at the center of a very important legal dispute over accessing a sensitive Treasury Department payment system. And a source tells CNN that in emails four days after Trump's inauguration, Musk's associates tried to have the then-acting secretary of the Treasury stop all USAID payments. That's the first known indication that DOGE tried to use the Treasury's tools to advance Trump's agenda.
Now, we've also learned that Trump's energy secretary let a DOGE rep access the department's I.T. system, despite objections from the general counsel. Now, this is all fitting into a picture of what we are starting to know about what they've been doing. Yes, Trump wants to shrink the government, all good and well, but there is a process in place that the career employees were trying to protect and some of these people doing it clearly didn't go through vetting, because if they did, some of these posts would have been found. And in the meantime it was only these career employees that stopped them from tinkering with the systems and stopping payments that control trillions of dollars of U.S. government money.
SOLOMON JONES, AWARD-WINNING COLUMNIST, THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER: The thing that really is that a federal judge told us 25-year-old, look, you can continue to access the data, but don't share it. He's a 25-year-old in the age of social media. He's not only sharing that data, he's sharing everything about himself. And that's how he got in trouble. And that's how we know he wasn't vetted. So, you had these unvetted people, these people who've gone through no background check, with access to everyone's data, your Social Security number, your name, your address, your age, everything, to be able to steal your identity or whatever else they want to do with it. It's very dangerous.
And so, it's not even the fact that he had these racist posts. It's the fact that they allowed him to go into this data or anyone to go into this data without being vetted or having a background check.
MADISON GESIOTTO, FORMER RNC NATIONAL SPOKESPERSON: Well, I think the treasury secretary made it pretty clear that they only have read-only access, that two of the DOGE members are actually Treasury employees now. He did the final interview on one of them. Obviously, the guy who's now out --
PHILLIP: One of them is now fired, yes.
GESIOTTO: The guy who's now out, absolutely unacceptable what he did. We don't want racists anywhere in our government, especially here right now in this Trump administration. So, glad to see him gone. I saw some of the posts, absolutely disgusting.
But when we talk about what they're doing, it's very important work, and what they've been able to uncover just in these short couple weeks I think is absolutely incredible. I don't care whether you're a Republican or you're a Democrat, we support getting rid of waste, fraud, and abuse in our government.
PHILLIP: So, the emails show that it wasn't -- you know, maybe they had read-only access, but they were pressuring government employees to do this stuff. Tom Krause, a former tech executive and now the top DOJ staffer at Treasury, told Lebryk, this is the Treasury acting secretary, that he could have legal risk himself if he chose not to comply with this directive to simply stop all payments.
[22:05:01]
These are federally authorized by the Congress payments that they are according, to the law, obligated to fulfill. He was threatening him with legal exposure.
MELIK ABDUL, GOP POLITICAL STRATEGIST: Yes. So, this is part of the problem that I have with DOGE. I think that in most people who've talked about it, most people agree that this is a good effort to get out the waste, fraud and abuse in government. But DOGE, being the entity that it is, and because for all intents and purposes, it is a presidential commission, and Donald Trump has given it much more authority than I thought that it would have, I think that people need to seriously consider whether or not, in the direction that DOGE is going -- there is no reason that this person should not have been vetted, but they weren't. And a simple, probably Twitter search would have found whatever the information and, you know, the offensive comments that the person made. That did not happen.
And for someone who runs a social media website, the idea that he didn't vet his own people is concerning to me. And it speaks to why I continue to say that Elon Musk will be a distraction for the president.
PHILLIP: And, again, a 25-year-old with fingers on the trigger.
ABDUL: And it's fine for him being 25.
ADRIENNE ELROD, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER AND SENIOR SPOKESPERSON, HARRIS 2024 CAMPAIGN: I don't know about that.
(CROSSTALKS)
ELROD: And what does he know about getting rid of waste, fraud and abuse? He's 25 years old.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: And who Trump named as the acting secretary had been in that role through Democrat and Republican presidents. He was a just a tried and true career employee. He didn't have an agenda. He's just like, my job is to protect the system so that random people don't get into it. And it turns out, I guess he was right to push back, but he was pushed out for it.
CARI CHAMPION, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I'm really curious as to why we think this 25-year-old wasn't vetted. I mean, we don't.
PHILLIP: I think the point that you're right, we don't know.
CHAMPION: Okay.
PHILLIP: We don't know what vetting they had. We were told that they had all --
CHAMPION: In fact, I would even question the fact to think that, in fact, he was vetted. He was the person for the job. He was what Elon wanted. He was the person he needed because they thought alike. I don't know how we don't know.
Elon is a very smart man and he is in charge of X or Twitter. He bought it. He knows what it takes. You can look up anybody. He can look up anything he wants, quite frankly. Well, let's not all act as if he didn't have the ability to know who this young man is and what he said and what he tweeted and perhaps thought maybe he could bury it. But as we know, nothing is ever deleted. We always sit here in this world. Nothing is ever gone.
ELROD: It came out within two weeks of him being in this position.
CHAMPION: And it finds very -- I'm very interested in finding out why we all assume you that this man wasn't there to do the job that he was set to do, vetted and all.
(CROSSTALKS)
JONES: Maybe he might have been vetted by Elon Musk. My problem is that he wasn't vetted by the government.
CHAMPION: And I'm not implying. I'm, in fact, saying that perhaps that is the case. And the reason why I am saying that, because he also tweets that way, talks that way, Xs that way, has always --
GESIOTTO: Elon Musk has never tweeted those racist remarks.
CHAMPION: Let's not do that. Let's not do that. Let's not do that. Today, that is not true.
PHILLIP: Let me just interject here for a second, but this is part and parcel to what's happening right now. We're in I guess week two, maybe three of the Trump administration. And already a lot of the things that they're trying to do because of the way that they're doing it, maybe the objectives are things that Americans can agree with, but the methods are running afoul of the law.
The courts have already paused the birthright citizenship, the worker buyout deadline, the federal funding freeze, and also this transgender prison policy. The courts are having to step in here because they're saying that this stuff is just blatantly illegal.
ELROD: Yes. And, Abby, let me say this. I mean, I think, you know, Democrats, Republicans, nonpartisans on this panel can all agree. Government has bloat. This is something that the American people wanted. They wanted President Trump to come in and kind of clear some of this out. But they've completely botched this from the very beginning. They've broken the laws, they've hired this 25-year-old kid. What does he even know about how to clean up government, right? Exactly.
So, like they were given this chance, and you're already starting to see Trump's approval ratings on this particular issue in terms of dealing with the government, reducing the bloat, you know, the federal spending freeze. I think it's something like 62 percent of Americans do not support that. So, you're already starting to see his goodwill going down with some of the voters because they have screwed this up.
There are Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate who would like to see government bloat being reduced. And then we're talking about this.
CHAMPION: Everyone wants the bloat gone. I don't think anybody disagrees with that on this panel. But to your point, here we have this 25-year-old, whether he's vetted or not, and whether I'm implying Elon is a racist -- I'm not even saying he's a racist. I'm saying you -- the facts are there. You can decide. But the reality is that as we look at a 25-year-old who has said things that are so disgusting, I have to believe that you would vet someone like that, or at least you know what he's capable of saying, that they live that particular generation.
[22:10:09]
They live on -- that's what they do. That's social media. That's what they do. I have a hard time believing they didn't know who this person was. And I have a hard time also believing that Elon is innocent of all of this.
And so this is another example. You talk about this civil servant, this 35-year civil servant who is working not to make money, who's been through all different administrations to do his job, and he's being removed because he's too partial. He's too -- he's sitting at a position where he's living right in the middle is what we need.
PHILLIP: The other thing is, you know, where's Congress in all of this? Like Elon Musk was saying in response to all of this that Lebryk broke the law by allowing known fraudulent transactions to proceed in the hundreds of thousands, whatever.
GESIOTTO: Billions, they say.
PHILLIP: So, okay, let's posit that's true. There is a process to identify fraud in the government. And we're not actually talking about Elon Musk addressing just the fraud. He wanted to stop everything. So, why not just address the fraud?
GESIOTTO: I think part of the problem, and to Adrienne's point, yes, we can all say that everybody in Washington, Republicans and Democrats, support getting rid of the bloat, but they're partially the reason why we have. The career civil servants and members of Congress on both sides of the aisle have got us to the point we are today with over $36 trillion in debt.
And when you look at some of the things that we've been feeding our money to, taxpayer dollars, we all work very hard for our money across this country, people making $10,000 a year to $1 million or more a year. They're giving their money to the government year after year. And you look at $6 million going to tourism in Egypt. Why are we paying for these things? $32,000 for a trans comic book in Peru, $2.5 million for E.V. vehicles in Vietnam.
PHILLIP: Are any of those things fraud or are they just things you don't like?
GESIOTTO: No, I mean this is --
PHILLIP: Because there's a big difference between fraud and things you don't like.
GESIOTTO: Well, there's -- I mean, I think, waste, fraud, and abuse, these are wasteful spending. But then we're also seeing billions of dollars of fraudulent entities --
PHILLIP: What is fraud, right? Is fraud money that is being stolen, that is being deceptively taken from the government, or is it just political programs that this administration doesn't like and can cut at any time if they want to? If they want to, they don't want to pay for tourism in Egypt, they can just stop paying for tourism in Egypt. They don't have to shut down the Treasury payments --
GESIOTTO: But that stuff would fall under wasteful spending, obviously. But when we go back, there's also billions of dollars that they've been talking about just over the past day of fraudulent entities being approved, despite being proven to be fraudulent entities. That's a major problem. And no one's done anything about it. Even after they discovered these are fraudulent, they continue to feed the money.
And then, of course, we saw under the Biden administration when our government fed money to funders of terrorism. That money ended up going to Hamas even after the October 7th terrorism attack in Israel.
PHILLIP: I'm with you on the fraud, right? Like we know that there's fraud. We know that people die and they move and the checks still keep going. So, the government obviously doesn't want that to happen.
GESIOTTO: But what about funding money to Hamas after October 7th?
PHILLIP: Elon has a really important role that he can play in using technology to identify when these things are happening and stop it from happening. But, again, that's not what happened here.
(CROSSTALKS)
CHAMPION: What's Elon's job.
JONES: I just need to say this. The inspectors general that they fired, that was their job. And so they get rid of all the inspectors general who are there, who are nonpartisan, who are there to inspect what happens in those departments. And then they leave it to Elon and his crew of people who have not been vetted by the government. My problem is that The Wall Street Journal comes out with this and not the government. The government should have known.
CHAMPION: Why is Elon in charge --
GESIOTTO: Because he's one of the most successful, smartest, (INAUDIBLE) richest man in the world.
CHAMPION: Why is he in charge --
GESIOTTO: I would love for him to come into my company, into my government, specifically. CHAMPION: And I say this with all due respect, he doesn't even go here, and I say that all the time. Why is this man, who is not really a part of this country and its plans, especially when we're talking about birth rights and every other aspect, why is he in charge of our government?
GESIOTTO: What do you mean he's not a part of this country?
CHAMPION: He's not from here. He doesn't even go here. That's the wrong joke.
GESIOTTO: So, if you aren't born here, you can't be a part of the government? Is that what you're saying?
CHAMPION: No, what I'm saying is, they run on that. That is their big thing. Go back home to where you belong.
GESIOTTO: You're not making any sense. Elon's proud to be here in America. He's proud to have his business here. He's proud to be American. He came here. He wanted to immigrate to this country.
CHAMPION: Why are you so adamant in defending someone who doesn't have anything to do with our government?
GESIOTTO: Because, once again, you ask what his qualifications are.
CHAMPION: Please tell me.
GESIOTTO: I reminded you, he's the smartest, richest, and one of the most successful people in the world. He's brilliant.
CHAMPION: What does that mean?
GESIOTTO: I think most people in this country would be proud to have him doing what he's doing.
You talk about people being fired that are supposed to do this. None of them have done their job. Where have they been the past 30 years that all of this has been going on? Where have they been?
PHILLIP: We're moving from this conversation.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Everyone, thank you, stick around. We've got much more ahead.
More breaking news tonight, President Trump planning to fire nearly all USAID workers, and there are some reports that he's targeting health agencies next as well.
[22:15:03]
Another special guest is going to join us in our fifth seat.
Plus, from the horse riding to Sharpie signing. Is Trump winning hearts and minds with an optics presidency?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight, 300. The Trump administration wants to cut the entire USAID workforce down to the size of a Spartan battalion. Right now, USAID has 10,000 people posted across the world, many of whom have already been cut off from their systems, including email. One USAID official says bluntly, it's the worst case scenario of essentially one person for each field mission and a few folks in D.C.
[22:20:07]
But, Secretary of State Marco Rubio framed what was happening this week as a minor impact.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARCO RUBIO, SECRETARY OF STATE: I issued a blanket waiver that said if this is life saving programs, okay, if it's providing food or medicine or anything that is saving lives and is immediate and urgent, you're not included in the freeze. I don't know how much more clear we can be than that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Joining us in our fifth seat at the table is Dr. Chris Pernell. She is the director of the NAACP Center for Health Equity and the region at large at the American College of Preventative Medicine. Dr. Pernell going from 10,000 to 300 means there's no way that the lifesaving programs, which there are many that USAID runs and funds, no way that those programs can continue.
DR. CHRIS T. PERNELL, DIRECTOR, NAACP CENTER FOR HEALTH EQUITY: No way. Look, we have a sick democracy. Okay. I'm a physician. I deal in symptoms. I deal in signs. We have a sick democracy when we continue to put our nation and the world, if you will, at threat, our health and our safety are under threat because of decisions that are so- called being in the done in the name of efficiency when they're like arbitrary, they're not rooted in science. They're not leaning into the public health practice and saying, are there opportunities to maximize by having the right people in the right roles at the right time? That's not what's happening.
ABDUL: And I think there's something to be said about the manner in which this is happening. I do think that there should have been more of a review process to see what the implications are. I don't have a problem with USAID going, being like folded within the State Department. That type of stuff, when it comes to government, it happens all the time. But I do think there needs to be some more clarity on the exceptions, because there are certain exemptions that the Trump administration has announced a Marco Rubio, kind of alluded to that.
PHILLIP: A 300 staff, there are no exceptions.
PERNELL: I was going to say, what examples are there, from 10,000 to 300?
PHILLIP: That was Tuesday, right? So, this is -- we're now on Thursday, believe it or not, the longest week ever. But he seemed to have been caught blindsided.
ABDUL: Well, the word that they're using is essential, and so they haven't defined what essential is. But I think it's important to at least define what essential is, because this is part of the transparency that we want.
PERNELL: Public health scientists and physicians should be defining that, right?
ABDUL: But we don't know how they're defining it.
PHILLIP: Melik, here's the thing, I don't think -- look, to be honest, it's a numbers game, okay? It's fewer than 300 people for a global agency. It is just impossible for these missions to continue at those staffing levels.
PERNELL: Say, HIV/AIDS, how are you going to be able to be a world leader and a global world leader around HIV/AIDS with a dismantled force like that? So, how are we going to be able to beat back infectious diseases otherwise that are still, still being amplified across the globe? You cannot effectively lead by cutting down the staff of that magnitude.
ABDUL: But it's USAID the only entity in government that does that?
PERNELL: It's not the only entity, but it is a very important entity. And if you want to create vacuums that give the opportunity for threats that proliferate, that's what you would do. That's why I said it's a sick democracy. It doesn't make good medical sense or public health sense.
JONES: I think there's an anti science vein that's definitely all of this. We like the science that we like, right? We like A.I. We like electric cars because Elon Musk makes lots of money from them, but we don't like science that says maybe you shouldn't put as much carbon in the air. We don't like science that says maybe you should treat diseases in foreign countries so that these people don't get on planes and come here and start another pandemic. We don't like that science. We like the science we make money from, and I think that is the problem. You're putting money in your political ends just beforehand.
PHILLIP: I just want to play real quick what Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham both have said over the years about this type of funding and why it matters.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RUBIO: We don't have to give foreign aid. We do so because it furthers our national interest. That's why we give foreign aid.
A lot of times people say, well, cut foreign aid. Foreign aid is less than 1 percent of our budget. But foreign aid can make a difference when properly used. It will not be easy to radicalize people who are alive because the American taxpayers saved their lives and the lives of their children.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): As a Republican, I believe that soft power, for lack of a better term, is the key to winning the war as much as hard power. And, Mark, we're going to give you more money.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I appreciate efficiency, but it's ridiculous to cut these accounts this much, given the threats we face.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ELROD: Look, that's called soft diplomacy. That's exactly what you heard Marco Rubio talking about, Lindsey Graham.
But here's the bottom line, Abby, and I think this is where I'm actually -- I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think, politically, this is kind of where Trump was a little bit smart. He came in and said the American people don't really understand what USAID does, especially my voters who supported me.
[22:25:00]
They look at some of the decisions that the Biden administration made, which I completely don't agree with this ethos, but I'm just saying we know this from the polling that they cared more about people in other countries around the globe than me in my everyday life. So, it was really easy for Trump to come in and try to hastily cut all these jobs at USAID.
The real picture, though, is this does hurt American diplomacy across the globe. It does hurt people and it doesn't just hurt people globally, it hurts people in the United States. There is funding that comes out of USAID that, for example, will hurt farmers if those funding cuts happen. In Minnesota, there's an article that just came out today that was talking about all the farmers in certain parts of the Midwest who are going to lose some of their support if some of these programs go into effect. So, that's the story that we have to tell. How does it impact the American people?
PHILLIP: I want to just get you on this because we have you here for this segment, but there is a bird flu situation happening that could worsen. There are also talks that there could be significant cuts to the health agencies as well. Explain to us what that means for our health as we're facing the unknown with the bird flu and our eggs are costing double digits at the grocery store.
PERNELL: You know, I think it's best for me to explain it through the lens of the pandemic. I was a C-suite executive at a safety net hospital when COVID hit, right? And we had a then Trump administration that fomented anti-science, fomented misinformation and disinformation. And, flatly, we were not prepared, had dwindled our pandemic and public health preparedness.
So, you look back and see how poorly we performed at that time, and it looks like we haven't learned our lessons. When threats are proliferating, whether across the globe or when those same threats are here at home, we could talk about the bird flu, we could talk about in Kansas, there's tuberculosis outbreak, we could talk about measles, cases cropping up all across the United States. You don't gut the very force. And I'm going to use that word deliberately. You don't gut the very force. That's your safety net. They are your guardrails to ensure that everyday Americans can be well and can be thrived.
It's misguided. It doesn't make sense. It's actually frankly stupid.
GESIOTTO: I think there is some legitimate questions, though, to be had here, and we see trust across the country has declined following COVID in public health officials.
PERNELL: But why did trust decline?
GESIOTTO: Because we were told repeatedly that masks work, that social distancing works.
PERNELL: Masks still work.
GESIOTTO: We were told this vaccine is safe.
PERNELL: We also had a president who told people they could do bleach, we also had a president that talked about drugs that weren't proven.
PHILLIP: Dr. Pernell, let me let Madison finish so that you can understand what she's saying.
GESIOTTO: I think there's legitimate questions as to whether we can trust the so-called experts. And I think people across the country feel this sentiment. And I think by rolling your eyes, we're not saying that doctors are bad or every expert is bad, but I think those are legitimate questions, because we were told this vaccine is safe. This will stop the spread of COVID. And then they evolved into saying, well, it's not going to stop, but it's going to slow it and all those things.
(CROSSTALKS)
GESIOTTO: And so many people have suffered adverse effects as a result of a vaccine, in the last lawsuits have not shown that.
PERNELL: Lawsuits have not shown that.
GESIOTTO: Yes, they have.
PERNELL: My father died during this COVID pandemic. My cousin died -- Let me finish. My cousins died during this COVID pandemic. My sister was a long COVID survivor. I volunteered for that COVID vaccine trial. I was the executive in a safety net hospital in Newark, New Jersey. We saw the data, we saw millions, we saw more than 1 million Americans died. You know, we would have seen more if we didn't have the vaccine.
GESIOTTO: So, what's going on with the side effects? Why can't you address the vaccine when they told us it was not adverse effects are something different?
PERNELL: And because of that, let me just finish this point, side effects and adverse effects are two different things.
GESIOTTO: It's normal for people to get myocarditis from the vaccine when we were told it was safe?
PERNELL: No, it's not normal for people to get myocarditis, but that's not what's happening.
And let's go back to what you were saying, the so-called experts.
GESIOTTO: It is what's happening.
PERNELL: We have a so-called leader in the White House that's making decision --
ABDUL: He is the president. He's not so-called.
PERNELL: No, that's making decisions.
GESIOTTO: He's the president of the United States.
PERNELL: -- that is not rooted in public health science.
GESIOTTO: But the science was not the truth. What we were told was the science is not the truth.
PERNELL: The science is true. The science is true. Yes, they do.
PHILLIP: Madison, give me a second because look we can't hear when everybody's talking at the same time and we also have to go, but I want to make sure that she can finish her thought. I want to let you finish your thought, but we cannot do it at the same time.
PERNELL: Thank you. So, what I was saying before, and I will reiterate because it's so important for the American public to know this. When you gut the very teams, scientists, physicians, leaders, who have been trained, who have studied, who have lived experience, so that we are not caught flat footed, so that we are not unable to neutralize threats, you only proliferate threats in the United States and you proliferate those threats abroad.
[22:30:04]
This is not pseudoscience. This is not conjecture. This is not imagination. This is hardcore truth. And there is a fundamental lack of understanding in the White House right now. You see it with projections of cutting NIH, projections of cutting HHS, CDC, CMS. It doesn't make sense. And you're not going to find any physician that's going to sit here and tell you that those actions are tantamount to good health and well-being.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST: We've got to leave it there. Dr. Chris Pernell, thank you very much for joining us. Everyone else, stay with us. Coming up, the power of the picture, how the Trump administration is
using the photo op to send their messages about what their priorities are. Our panel will discuss that next.
[22:35:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: TV rules the nation, or at least the nation as Donald Trump sees it. It's why the president is putting together a made-for-TV event like the ones that I'm about to show you. Cameos by cabinet secretaries at the border and in New Orleans, signatures, smiling faces as he banned transgender women from women's sports. Ride-alongs as ICE goes door to door in cities looking for immigrants.
Cari Champion is back with us. I think it's worth noting that this strategy is, first of all, a very
Trumpian strategy, but also it works. It really works.
CARI CHAMPION, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes, he's he does well at TV. He's the apprentice when I was a local reporter in West Palm Beach, I would tell people the stories of how I used to go to Mar-a-Lago and interview him and he loved the camera, there was not a camera he would turn away. He liked the way people would look.
He in fact told one of my photographers one time, hey, can you just make sure the next time you come, you look presentable? I like the way people look.
So, everything is about what it looks like. But it also speaks to the fact that he knows his base and how simple they are, how it doesn't take much to entertain them, but he knows how to entertain them and it's working. And I always wonder if in fact, at some point, and this goes for everyone. Because from my understanding, all across the board, Democrats, Republicans, in the middle, whomever you are, there are things about Trump that is very appealing.
There are things about him that are appealing. Things about him about other presidents as well that are appealing. There is this -- and I've had this conversation with a few of my friends. There's been a handful of presidents that have had society in a chokehold for less of a better term. Meaning, they are paying attention.
PHILLIP: Well, I mean, the optics --
(CROSSTALK)
CHAMPION: They -- it's Barack, it's him.
PHILLIP: Look, I think the optics --
CHAMPION: It's him, it's, and Bill Clinton that they pay attention. Yes.
PHILLIP: -- Ronald Reagan understood this as well.
CHAMPION: Sure, sure.
PHILLIP: Adrienne, this is your wheelhouse.
ADRIENNE ELROD, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER & SENIOR SPOKESPERSON, HARRIS 2024 CAMPAIGN: Yes. Optics matter.
PHILLIP: And I have to say that, frankly, if the Biden administration had paid better attention to that, they might have been better off.
CHAMPION: I agree with her on that. I agree with you on that.
ELROD: I completely agree with that. Look, it's all about storytelling, especially with so much noise that's coming at us every single day. These visuals break through.
CHAMPION: Yes.
ELROD: I think that the Biden administration, and I also think Democrats going forward, should have taken a page out of how the January 6th committee handle some of their visuals.
They hired a team to literally produce videos ready for made-TV and social media. They really painted the picture in a 45-second to a one- minute sound bite. That is what we have to start doing as a Democratic Party. We're going to capture the attention of independent voters, swing voters, people who are just living their everyday lives. We have to meet them where they are. And a lot of that is the visuals and the storytelling.
MELIK ABDUL, GOP POLITICAL STRATEGIST: Well, I definitely hope that Democrats follow the lead of the January 6th commission, because we saw, despite that prime time showing that they did, it didn't do enough to change the election. I'll disagree with you.
ELROD: Right.
ABDUL: It is not that this is for a Trump base because the base is easily entertained. Seventy-six million people voted for Donald Trump.
CHAMPION: I've heard that before.
ABDUL: And so, to a soup -- well, you know, I mean, that's just the truth. So, you don't have to make a distinction between the 76 million people because they too were attracted to many of those same things. So, it wasn't just that Trump's base who doesn't know any better or easily entertains.
CHAMPION: I think that Trump looks for people who have a certain, something about them that's a je ne sais quoi, for lack of a better word. And he wants to make sure --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: People said --
CHAMPION: He calls it just, the telegenic. You can stand in front of a camera and hold attention. You can make people.
ABDUL: For his cabinet nominees, that's absolutely the case.
PHILLIP: He says for a lot of people that they are out of central casting. That is how --
CHAMPION: One hundred percent. Well, 100 percent.
ABDUL: If you look at the people that he chose, that's exactly one of the reasons because they were good spokespeople. And that's what Donald Trump wanted this time around. I love seeing Kristi Noem on the horse, people mock her.
ELROD: Why?
ABDUL: Well, for one, because she rides horses. That's literally -- that's literally what she does.
CHAMPION: What does that have to do with her job?
PHILLIP: But here's the thing, though.
ABDUL: Nothing.
CHAMPION: Thank you.
PHILLIP: But here's the thing, though.
CHAMPION: What does that have to do with her job?
PHILLIP: The -- whether you've supported Trump or you don't, the imagery actually projects promises made, promises kept on immigration.
ABDUL: Yes. In stretch.
PHILLIP: Even the liberals understand and believe that Trump is carrying out that promise. And part of it is the way that he is doing it, using military airplanes, --
ABDUL: Yes.
PHILLIP: -- doing it on camera, taking Dr. Phil a little bit.
ABDUL: Going to the Super Bowl.
ELROD: Yes.
ABDUL: He's literally the first president to go to the Super Bowl.
MADISON GESIOTTO, FMR. RNC NATIONAL SPOKESPERSON: Yes, I mean, optics and visuals. Optics of course matter. I'm going to have to disagree with Adrienne. I don't think we could have had good optics for Biden. I think he'd be a tough one to have good optics for --
(CROSSTALK)
ELROD: OK. All right.
GESIOTTO: -- during his administration.
CHAMPION: Genuinely, he would have been a very tough person --
(CROSSTALK)
ABDUL: Fair point. Fair point.
CHAMPION: -- to make look really good.
GESIOTTO: I completely disagree with that. That's what -- and you can, and we can respectfully disagree on that. But I think the reason why the optics are working so well in these first couple weeks for President Trump is just because of what Abby said. He made all of these promises, whether you like it or not, this is what he promised to voters on the campaign trail.
[22:39:58]
CHAMPION: He's doing what he said he'd do.
GESIOTTO: Throughout this cycle, he's doing exactly what he said he'd do. And not only is he doing it, he's doing it at a speed I don't think even a lot of Republicans expected. You know, you look back at his first administration in 2017, I think he was really getting his feet wet in Washington. He didn't have quite as much support in Congress, unfortunately, which is why he had struggles getting some of his agenda across the finish line.
I think he's moving very quickly. I think we're going to see a lot of Republicans get in line much more quickly in this administration, in Congress.
PHILLIP: They're already in line.
(CROSSTALK)
CHAMPION: Yes, yes, right. They're already in line.
PHILLIP: They are.
CHAMPION: They're ready to do it.
GESIOTTO: We're seeing that with the cabinet secretaries. And, of course, now he's announcing wanting to extend those tax cuts.
CHAMPION: Look, you may disagree with the Biden aspect, and that's fine, but I do agree with the fact that we, I think that Democrats in general could take a page out of his book. Do exactly what you say. And make it plain.
ELROD: Yes, exactly.
CHAMPION: And make it plain.
ELROD: We're not looking backward. We're looking forward. But I do think that we have to figure out how to be better storytellers.
CHAMPION: One hundred percent.
ELROD: And we can do that through surrogates. We can do that through visual mediums, through social media, through well-produced condoms. But, you know, we have to do better jobs.
(CROSSTALK)
ABDUL: But, of course, you have to figure out what story you're going to tell.
PHILLIP: Yes, that's true.
ABDUL: I think you have to figure that out first.
PHILLIP: Yes, that's true. And I think Madison is --
GESIOTTO: Well, Trump is giving us a lot to work with.
PHILLIP: Madison is onto something. I think President Biden struggled himself --
GESIOTTO: Yes.
PHILLIP: -- to be the face of his own administration, and that ultimately is why he wasn't on the ticket.
ABDUL: That's right. They booted him out.
PHILLIP: Everyone, hold on. Coming up next, just in, an anonymous FBI agent is speaking out as his job is on the line, thanks to President Trump, the letter that he wrote is going viral. That's next.
[22:45:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight, another anonymous, an unnamed FBI special agent is defending his colleagues who investigated the insurrection as Donald Trump prepares to boot the men and women who did their duty from their jobs.
CNN has obtained this letter, and it is unsparing. It's entitled, Uncommon Sense Was a Common Vice. The author offers what he or she calls a vignette, free of political bias or moral judgment.
The document runs through a job history and a prolific one at that, preventing ISIS attacks, securing a hostage from the Taliban, listening to wiretaps to help take apart a violent drug gang, recruiting a source to provide intel on Putin's military, infiltrating a child trafficking operation, monitoring deep cover spies.
In other words, take these words seriously. Quote, "currently, there is an effort to call a significant number of career special agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigations. This is an unthinkable action that will gravely undermine the security of the nation."
And these two, about the uncertainty of what happens now. Quote, "I am now sitting in my home listening to my children play and laugh in the backyard, oblivious to the prospect that their father may be fired in a few days. Fired for conducting a legally authorized investigation. Fired for doing the job he was hired to do. I have to wonder when I am gone, who will do the quiet work that is behind the facade of your average neighbor?"
It's a really powerful letter and just to underscore it. It's an amalgamation of the types of people who work at the FBI, who are now all in the crosshairs, thousands and thousands of them, who may have just touched a piece of paperwork that ended up at the January 6th investigation.
ABDUL: We all saw what happened January 6th. This is the part that I'm really struggling to understand. I'm struggling to understand how anyone could position that as if that was right, as if it was not worthy of investigation, as if the FBI was wrong to do its job and investigate what was obviously a crime that all of us watched happen in real time.
PHILLIP: And actually, I mean, don't you remember when Mitch McConnell basically said a criminal investigation is the means to get justice for what happened on January 6th?
ELROD: Yes, there was a time that a lot of Republicans came to the table. And so, let's also remember that Kevin McCarthy and other Republicans went to the floor within 24 hours of the insurrection and said, this is a problem. Donald Trump needs to stop this.
CHAMPION: Right.
ELROD: He needs to stop this behavior. That the fact that this is happening, Abby, look, this is something that Donald Trump said he was going to do on the campaign trail. He was going to, quote, unquote, get rid of the deep state. He was going to punish people who were focusing on, were investigating January 6. He said he was going to do this.
But now we're actually seeing this come to fruition. And Americans should be very alarmed about this. I think we're just at the beginning. This letter, I can guarantee you, we're going to see more and more of this.
I have plenty of friends who worked at the Department of Justice and the FBI during the Biden administration. They know very well people who are terrified.
(CROSSTALK)
CHAMPION: And the fact that this letter has to be written anonymously because obviously they're afraid that they're going to lose their jobs, which will probably happen. He's doing exactly what he said he would do. And I know there are a lot of people who are rooting him on because as you point out, 76 million people voted for him. But the reality is, is that this is a very despicable and disgraceful
thing that is happening. And I almost feel like who is defending these people who are being attacked? I know there are these last-minute and I don't want to jump on the Democrats. And I know there are these last-minute court orders and people are taking people to court, but I feel as if they're putting it on the people that are being actually threatened and attacked.
And they're like, here you go, figure that out. There's no way to actually fight what's happening in real time because it's never happened. We don't know what's happening.
(CROSSTALK)
GESIOTTO: There's no precedent.
CHAMPION: We don't know how to handle this.
PHILLIP: You're right, Madison. I'm curious about that because a big chunk of the letter is about all the other things, these same special agents are involved in, preventing terror attacks, preventing school shootings, those types of -- that type -- those types of investigations have to continue to happen. And if they don't, who's going to do them?
[22:49:59]
GESIOTTO: Yes, all very important work, but I'd like to just quickly go back to the statement made by the acting Deputy Attorney General, Emily Beauvais, who said the agents who simply followed their duties and acted ethically have no concerns for their jobs.
And so I think it's a media panic that continues to perpetuate this false narrative that all of these people are going to be fired simply for working. The false narrative is that 5,000 people are going to be fired for working on the January 6th case when they're literally saying that's not true.
(CROSSTALK)
CHAMPION: What's the real narrative?
GESIOTTO: They're giving no reassurance.
CHAMPION: What's the real narrative?
GESIOTTO: If you let me finish, I'll let you know.
CHAMPION: What's the real narrative?
GESIOTTO: They're giving no reassurances, of course, for people who acted corruptly or targeted people.
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: No. Who's to decide who acted corruptly? CHAMPION: Where is the real narrative.
UNKNOWN: Who's to decide that?
GESIOTTO: Well, I think that's what they're going to do.
UNKNOWN: Who's they?
GESIOTTO: And then I think one of the other concerns is when they're looking at --
CHAMPION: She's not going to answer that.
GESIOTTO: I'm answering it right now.
CHAMPION: I'd love to know who they are.
PHILLIP: Can I ask you a question?
GESIOTTO: If you guys would ever let me finish what I'm saying, --
PHILLIP: Yes.
GESIOTTO: -- there's 38,000 people that work for the FBI. Thirteen thousand of those are agents. Out of that group of people, 5,000 people were put on January 6th.
CHAMPION: My gosh.
GESIOTTO: So, if there's somebody who cares about all the things that Abby just mentioned, these very important cases, you might be a little bit concerned about why 5,000 people were put on this.
PHILLIP: Well, let me take this one.
GESIOTTO: That seems excessive.
UNKNOWN: Because there were thousands of people in this.
GESIOTTO: But second of all, the reassurance is --
ELROD: Because there was an insurrection in the United States.
CHAMPION: Don't bring that up. Don't do the facts.
PHILLIP: Madison, let me ask you a question in response to what you just said. OK? The January 6th insurrection was a crime, right?
GESIOTTO: Absolutely.
PHILLIP: And it involved thousands and thousands of people. So, what part of that is corrupt?
GESIOTTO: There is crimes committed that day in which people were charged and they deserve prison time. We've talked about that on the show when it comes to violence and it comes to, of course, some of those things that we saw in the videos. I don't think anybody with a brain would dispute that.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Except for Donald Trump because he pardoned them.
GESIOTTO: However, as we've also -- as we've also --
UNKNOWN: He let them all out.
CHAMPION: Let's not bring that up.
GESIOTTO: -- as we've talked about on the show, there was also cases in which people were overcharged or over-sentenced. I don't care whether it's January 6th or anything else, no one in this country should be sentenced unfairly or unjustly. And so, that's one of the --
(CROSSTALK)
ELROD: I'm not talking about FBI agents. Nor did I say that an FBI agent said this.
PHILLIP: Hold on a second.
ELROD: I'm an attorney. I wouldn't know that.
PHILLIP: Thanks for saying that, Adrienne. Because I think it's a really important point. They went through a legal process. A judge, sometimes a jury, decided their sentence, whether they were guilty or innocent, whether they went to jail or did not.
Those FBI special agents were in charge of investigating and charging.
(CROSSTALK)
GESIOTTO: And that's why they're going to keep their jobs if they were assigned to the scene.
PHILLIP: That is their jobs. They're not responsible for the consequences that come as a result of people breaking the law.
GESIOTTO: And nobody said that they were.
PHILLIP: Everyone, stay with me. Coming up next, the panel gives their nightcaps, the diss track edition. We'll explain what that means next.
[22:55:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KENDRICK LAMAR, RAPPER: I have to be who I am authentically, and if the world can't accept that, then so be it. But who rocking with it, I'm going to go put it all the way out there, whether it's in private or whether it's on the main stage.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: We are back and it's time for the news nightcap diss track edition. That was of course Kendrick Lamar previewing his Super Bowl halftime show. He won five Grammy Awards last weekend for Not Like Us. His diss track slamming Drake. Clearly it pays to keep a grudge.
So now you each have 30 seconds to tell us who your diss track is going to be about, Adrienne.
ELROD: Listen, I'm going to say Abby, mine has nothing to do with hip hop or rap music. Mine has everything to do with something that I go through every time I go to an airport, which is the following. Number one, I'm going to diss on people who stand on the walking escalator or the walking sidewalk. Block the whole thing. That drives me crazy.
PHILLIP: Fair.
ELROD: I also can't stand it when you are like in boarding group seven and you hover around boarding group one through four and you're trying to break through one through four. So, I'm just going to go through airport etiquette. Also, when people stand in the rental car line for 30 minutes, that drives me crazy.
PHILLIP: Airport foolishness now.
ELROD: Yes, exactly.
ABDUL: My diss track is for the people who don't believe in nuance. The idea that anybody, because you support Donald Trump, people think that you're not supposed agree with him on anything. Because you support Joe Biden or Democrats, people feel as if that you can't concede on any point.
I think that we need to get to a point where nuance actually matters. And I don't care what the people out there say. Yes, at the end of the day, I still support Donald Trump, just like many people still support the Democratic Party. I think we need to get some nuance into our politics.
PHILLIP: He's dissing like half of the time.
CHAMPION: Yes, I can --
UNKNOWN: Well, I have on my Eagles green tie today. I have on my Eagles socks as well because we are going to the Super Bowl. My diss is for the Chiefs.
PHILLIP: Oh.
UNKNOWN: Ref is for the Chiefs because they not like us. Right? They not like us? They not like us? Birds hot in the streets because they not like us. They not like us. They not like us.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: On the socks. UNKNOWN: Watch my homes get beat because they not like us.
PHILLIP: It is Thursday. I'm going to talk to you on Saturday.
GESIOTTO: I brought my entire list of people that are going to be on my diss track. But now that we don't have time for it, I'm going to have to choose the NFL refs in general. After my husband's former team, the Pittsburgh Steelers, were no longer in the playoffs, I was rooting for the Buffalo Bills. If you saw the game, you saw the fourth and one call, totally unacceptable. So, my diss track tonight is against NFL refs going into the Sunday Super Bowl.
PHILLIP: Not popular people, unfortunately.
CHAMPION: Similar to a little bit of what everybody's saying, the nuance of it all, the people who are just not have the appropriate etiquette, what you don't like with the refs, and obviously you don't like the Chiefs.
Mine is about the Drake fans, Drake more specifically, but the people who are siding with Drake.
[23:00:02]
I am from Los Angeles, so of course I love Kendrick Lamar. And I will say this. This is as old as the inception of hip hop. If you lose, you lose. Go home. Take the L like a man. Take the L like a woman. Go home. You can't complain. You can't go to court. Take the loss, Drake, and the people who are defending him. Just take the L. He has, in large, to me, has a bigger career than Kendrick thus far. So come back and be bigger and better.
PHILLIP: All right, everyone. Thank you very much. Thank you for watching NewsNight. Laura Coates Live starts right now.
