Return to Transcripts main page
CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Accused Of Defying Court Orders, Igniting Historic Clash; Judges Block Trump's Plan To Upend The Government; Trump Won't Give Details On Plans To Lower Prices; Trump Threatens To Cancel Ceasefire Deal if All Hostages Will Not Return Home; Kanye West Deactivates His X Account Following Rants On His Anti-Semitic Posts. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired February 10, 2025 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST (voice over): Tonight, make me.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: No judge should frankly be allowed to make that kind of a decision.
PHILLIP: The president tiptoes up to the line of daring to defy the courts and ushering in a constitutional cluster.
Plus --
TRUMP: Let hell break out.
PHILLIP: -- the president gives advice to Israel on what to do next if Hamas misses a deadline to return the hostages.
Also, Donald Trump levies new tariffs as Americans say they'd like to see him pay more attention to cutting the cost of their everyday lives.
And selling swastikas, seek hyling (ph) online, Kanye West tells us he's a Nazi. Should platforms let him say it?
Live at the table, Gretchen Carlson, Scott Jennings, Chris Sununu and Alencia Johnson.
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's talking about, the battle of the branches. Tonight, we are watching a fight between the president and the courts that could lightly shove the country into a constitutional calamity.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: It's a shame what's happening, Mark. It's really a shame. But judges should be ruling. They shouldn't be dictating what you're supposed to be doing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Judges should be doing exactly that, ruling about what is legal and what a president can and cannot do. At least since 1803, and Marbury versus Madison, which quite literally says, it is emphatically the province and the duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.
The president, as you heard, doesn't believe that when a decision defies what he believes the law should be. This is really important, though, because judges do keep telling Trump, no. And there are some clues that Donald Trump and his people are saying, don't listen.
The Trump administration has apparently kept billions of federal dollars frozen, despite a judge's orders. The administration has also apparently not reinstated some USAID workers who were put on leave. That's also despite a judge's order. And so now, the country gets to find out what happens when Trump's unstoppable executive force of will meets the immovable object of a co-equal judiciary that says over and over again that he's breaking the law.
Joining us in our fifth seat is CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig. He's a former state and federal prosecutor, also our legal guru here at CNN.
So, I quoted Marbury versus Madison. You tell me what you make of this idea that the Trump administration is saying the courts don't have a role here.
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, they're wrong, for sure. I mean, let me get sort of two areas here that are out of bounds. It is not a constitutional crisis for a new president to come in and issue a spate of executive orders, even if liberals hate those executive orders. That's not a constitutional crisis. Also not a constitutional crisis, for scores of federal judges to block some or all of those. Again, that's the way our system is supposed to work.
I try to keep this phrase constitutional crisis behind heavy glass. And I only use it when the question, what happens next, when we don't have an answer to that. We are not at that point yet. Donald Trump and his administration have gotten a whole slew of really bad rulings that they really hate and they're making a lot of noises about defying them, but they have not done that yet. Their next step, which they are doing, is appealing.
PHILLIP: Can I ask you though, I mean, two judges said you're not complying with this ruling. So, what do you make of that?
HONIG: But those are sort of technical disputes that are not uncommon in cases where the judge said you have to unfreeze spending and then some was frozen and some was unfrozen. That's the kind of thing that ordinarily gets ironed out in the course of litigation. But where we're going to have a problem is if people pick up on, if people in the administration pick up on the clues that J.D. Vance sort of very unsubtly left in his tweet where he basically said, if judges tell us what to do, then it's illegal.
PHILLIP: Yes. Let me read the tweet just so people understand. He wrote this on Sunday. If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal.
[22:05:03]
If a judge tried to command the attorney general on how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that's also illegal. Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power. The word legitimate is doing a lot of work here, but we do know that judges do get to say whether the executive is complying with the law or not. That's been the case for decades, hundreds of years.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think there's a difference between saying whether you're complying with the law and then you have these individual district court judges setting effectively broad federal policy that is specifically reserved for the president of the United States.
I think we do have a constitutional crisis and it's being caused by these judges. They're not here to tell us how to spend the money. They're not here to set broad federal policy. That is the president's job as elected by the people. These judges are supposed to be settling discreet, specific matters, not policy setting.
I think Vance is right. I think Trump has a point. And these judges want nothing more to continue the lawfare against Trump.
PHILLIP: I don't think anybody's going to be surprised to hear that you think Trump is right. However, just on a real important technical point here, one of the disputes, one of the main disputes is whether the executive branch can just decide not to spend money that another co-equal branch has said ought to be spent. So, it's not just about forcing the federal government to spend money. It's saying Congress said you need to spend this money this way and the executive branch saying, no, I don't feel like it, and the courts say you have to comply with the spending.
JENNINGS: Well, my answer to that simply is It is the executive branch's job to figure out how to spend money once it is appropriated by Congress. And sometimes they spend money that's not been appropriated, but the correct political control is between the executive and the Congress, not some random federal judge.
PHILLIP: I want to return to that because that is also a major legal question, but go ahead.
GRETCHEN CARLSON, JOURNALIST AND CO-FOUNDER, LIFT OUR VOICES: Do you really think that J.D. Vance's tweet is only about these district judges? This is about -- no, this is a slippery slope, because they're going to move on to what the next ruling is. They're setting the stage so that they can say that executive branch has control now over the judicial branch. They're setting the stage.
And for people who think that President Trump has not planned all of this, he pushes the envelope constantly. There was January 6th. He has a myriad of people out there that would support the executive branch being able to rule over the judicial branch, because there have been no repercussions. And when there are not consequences and when there are not repercussions, you get away with it.
JENNINGS: I get it. You want individual federal judges who hate Donald Trump --
CARLSON: No, I don't.
JENNINGS: -- to tie him up for four years.
CARLSON: No, I don't, not at all.
JENNINGS: If you want a big policy question decided, let the Supreme Court do it. But in the interim, the executive has to be allowed to govern.
PHILLIP: How do we get to the Supreme Court? Can somebody tell me that?
JENNINGS: And that's fine, but you can't tie him up until it gets there.
PHILLIP: We get to the Supreme Court by the judge's ruling, things going to appeal. And then it goes up.
JENNINGS: And in the meantime, what happens? Trump can't act.
PHILLIP: In the meantime, you're supposed to comply with the court's rulings. Am I wrong about that?
CHRIS SUNUNU (R), FORMER NEW HAMPSHIRE GOVERNOR: Well, you're supposed to comply. But Scott's absolutely right in that the court cannot say you have to spend these dollars today.
So, as a governor, I dealt with this. We got things challenged in state court and federal court. It's all judge shopped by the way. Judges don't randomly get these cases. There's a reason that these cases are filed in Boston, the Boston court or district, Rhode Island, because they know they're going to get a judge --
PHILLIP: That's a great bipartisan practice as well.
SUNUNU: Yes. Oh, both sides do it. I mean, I think --
HONIG: I think that was that district court and judge one guy in Texas shut down Joe Biden.
JENNINGS: But you raised the right point. Should the president, the singular president, should he have to share the presidency with 300 district court judges? No, absolutely not. ALENCIA JOHNSON, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER, HARRIS 2024 CAMPAIGN: But the point though, you made a really good point, that there have been judges that shut down some of President Biden's executive actions, and they understand, the Biden administration understood that he ignored the checks and balances.
JENNINGS: The Supreme Court tried to stop me, but they never will. Who said that? Who said that? Who said that? Joe Biden.
PHILLIP: Yes. But, Scott, he actually didn't ignore it.
JENNINGS: He did. They continued to plow forward with student loan forgiveness. No, he didn't.
HONIG: Let me set the record on that.
(CROSSTALKS)
HONIG: I hated the student loan forgiveness policy.
JENNINGS: What did he say out loud?
HONIG: I thought it was, I thought it was a ridiculous policy. I thought it was unconstitutional. I predicted it would get struck down. It did get struck down and I applauded. He did not ignore it, though. He went and tried under a different law.
JENNINGS: So, he ignored it.
HONIG: No, that's not ignoring it.
(CROSSTALKS)
HONIG: But let me just understand where you stand. If a district court judge rules in a way that the president dislikes, should the president listen or should the president defy?
JENNINGS: If a district court judge tries to usurp the authority of the chief executive of this country, he should absolutely defy it. There's a difference between broad policy decisions and discrete disputes between parties. That's the difference. If I want a policy decided, I'll take it to the Supreme Court.
JOHNSON: But what about checks and balances? Well, Scott, you're all about checks and balances.
JENNINGS: Of a district court judge? Who elected them?
PHILLIP: What I can't get with is you talking in these bizarre, broad generalities.
JENNINGS: It's not bizarre.
PHILLIP: Every single one of these cases deals with a discrete issue, okay?
[22:10:01]
It deals with funding. It deals with certain constitutionally or statutorily-appointed roles. Every single one of these things is a distinct thing and they're all being dealt with by different judges. So, it's not broad swaths of policy here.
JENNINGS: It is.
PHILLIP: When the court says Congress, you know, appropriated this money, you must unfreeze it while we litigate this, why can't Trump comply with that?
JENNINGS: So, you're saying that a judge should decide how and when money is spent for years and not the president of the United States?
PHILLIP: Scott, let me explain it a little bit more slowly. A judge is saying --
JENNINGS: You don't have to talk to me like that. I have a position on this and you have an opinion. We can disagree.
PHILLIP: Yes, but I'm saying you listen to me because you're not listening and you're making claims that are not connected to the facts. The judge is saying, Congress appropriated a certain amount of money. We need to litigate this. While we litigate this, we're going to put a hold on the actions that you took that might be unconstitutional.
JENNINGS: So while we litigate this, I'm a judge and I'm in charge of the executive branch and you're not? Forget it. I totally disagree.
SUNUNU: You just can't compel the executive branch to spend the dollars. You can't do that. They can't say we're going to start -- the judges are going to start writing a check.
PHILLIP: Have you heard of the Impoundment Control Act of 1974?
SUNUNU: No.
PHILLIP: Okay. Well, let me play this --
SUNUNU: And by the way, none of your viewers have either.
PHILLIP: Okay. Well, I'm going to, I'm going to play this clip for you. This is in Congress. Russ Vought, who is the architect of a lot of this, was being questioned in Congress about the Impoundment Control Act, which actually says that the executive branch should spend the money how Congress appropriated it. Here's what he said is going on right now in the federal government.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. GARY PETERS (D-MI): Do you believe the Impoundment Control Act of 19 or 1974 is the law of the land that you must follow?
RUSSELL VOUGHT, DIRECTOR, U.S. OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET: It is the law of the land. As you know, the president has run on that issue. He believes it's unconstitutional. For 200 years, presidents had the ability to spend less than an appropriation if they could do it for less. And we have seen the extent to which this law has contributed to waste, fraud, and abuse.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, Elie, this is the law of the land. They might be wanting to challenge it, but it is the law.
HONIG: Right. The impoundment control act says essentially the president cannot block money allocated by Congress. To the power of district court judges, and I understand your point, Scott. I understand the frustration people have when a district court judge blocks a broad mandate from the chief executive, the elected chief executive. Ultimately, you know, the big issues go up to the Supreme Court, but I guess I would ask both of you, what if a district court judge had blocked Barack Obama's DACA plan, the DREAMERs plan, right? And he said, heck with you, I'm doing it anyway, would you be okay with that or would you have a problem with that? Would that be okay?
SUNUNU: So, again, that's where we're forgetting a key piece of the third branch of government. That's where Congress steps in, right? You have to remember that a judge can't just say, well, I'm going to arbitrarily block something. They say, I'm blocking it because of this, and Congress can step in and be more specific and more refined if they want to.
CARLSON: But how does that work with Congress who's appropriated funds for all of these other agencies, and now the executive branch is stepping on Congress?
SUNUNU: If Congress appropriates $20 million for a program, as the chief executive, do I have to spend $20 million on that program?
PHILLIP: Well, actually, this is what I'm trying to -- this is why I brought --
SUNUNU: Because if I don't, what's the number?
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: I know that the Impoundment Control Act thing sounds really wonky, but I guess the point I'm trying to make is that I understand the idea of testing laws you want to see how far you can go. The question that you are asking has been answered by the courts, okay? The reason that the Impoundment Control Act exists is to say that when Congress says we appropriate this money, it should be spent that way. That's their power. They have the power of the purse.
SUNUNU: Every state in the country, when we pass a balanced budget, and I'll explain what a balanced budget is to everyone in Washington in a minute.
PHILLIP: But I'm saying that hasn't been proven in the courts.
SUNUNU: There's hundreds of millions of dollars in New Hampshire that intentionally do not get spend on certain programs.
PHILLIP: What about when the Trump administration says to Congress, you created this agency, we're going to just decide it doesn't exist anymore?
SUNUNU: Again, he runs the executive branch. He can decide who works for the executive branch. He can decide who works for the executive branch.
PHILLIP: So, where does this end?
SUNUNU: It doesn't.
PHILLIP: Congress creates an agency, the executive says, eh, to heck with it. Congress appropriates money, the executive branch says, eh, to heck with it. Where does this end?
SUNUNU: So, it ends -- you can go back and I like what they're doing and they're going to whiteboard these programs out and they're going to force each of these departments to come back and actually justify their existence, which no one in Washington has done for decades. If you want NIH money to go forward, explain to me why, how, and how it's going to be spent.
PHILLIP: All right. So, the next Democratic president who says ICE is going to just disappear, I expect that the two of you will say, that sounds decent.
JENNINGS: Look, no matter who the president is, the duly elected chief executive of this country, they should not be sharing the broad plenary powers of the presidency with 300 individual district court judges. That is not what the people want.
PHILLIP: That is a great position to take when you are in power.
JENNINGS: I will believe it no matter what.
(CROSSTALKS)
[22:15:00]
PHILLIP: When you are not in power, it's a totally different situation.
JOHNSON: Are you going to continue to have that --
JENNINGS: I don't believe district court judges have more power than the chief executive president of the United States.
PHILLIP: We will hold you to that, Scott Jennings.
JENNINGS: Good luck winning an election in four years, by the way, at the current state of the Democratic Party. You may be arguing with me when I'm 70.
PHILLIP: When Obama's things were struck down, when Biden's things were struck down, you thought those were the right decisions.
JENNINGS: How do you know what I thought? I don't remember being on this show.
PHILLIP: You just talked about the student loans. I'm sure you think the DACA should have been struck down.
Anyway, Elie Honig, thank you very much. I appreciate it. Everyone else, hold on.
Coming up next, more breaking news, Donald Trump sets a Saturday deadline for Hamas to release all of the hostages, or, quote, all hell will break loose. Another special guest will join us at the table.
Plus, as Trump levies new tariffs tonight, some Republican senators are worried about DOGE cuts in their state.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, the country has a fever and Donald Trump's prescription is, of course, more tariffs. This time, he's imposing a 25 percent charge on steel and aluminum.
So, how does this help you at home every day? Well, according to the latest polling, you're not so sure. 66 percent of Americans say that Trump has not done enough to lower prices in his first few weeks in office. And Trump himself doesn't exactly have answers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRET BAIER, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: If all goes to plan, when do you think families will be able to feel prices going down, groceries, energy, or are you kind of saying to them, hang on, inflation may get worse until it gets better?
TRUMP: No, I think we're going to become a rich. And, look, we're not that rich right now. We owe $36 trillion. That's because we let all these nations take advantage of us. And I'm not going to let that happen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Joining us in our fifth seat at the table is CNN Global Economic Analyst Rana Foroohar, global business columnist and associate editor at the Financial Times.
So, you know, I want to get to the prices thing, very important, and critically important actually when you look at what people voted on. But Trump is committed to tariffs, he's doing them. These steel and aluminum tariffs, how should people understand what they do?
RANA FOROOHAR, CNN GLOBAL ECONOMIC ANALYST: So, it's complicated. There's the price issue, right, which we're going to, we're going to talk about. That tends to be a negative. Tariffs raise prices in the short-term, no doubt about that.
But what the president's trying to do, and what President Biden also tried to do, was basically change the way the entire global steel industry works, right? Americans would like to make more steel. We would like to make it at lower prices. In order to do that, you sometimes have to protect the industry so that it can grow, so that it can change.
Unfortunately, this doesn't happen overnight, and tariffs tend to be a really blunt instrument. So, right now, the president is putting, you know, unilateral tariffs on many different countries. At the end of the day, China is really the problem. China is the country that's producing a lot of cheap steel. Now, a lot of it doesn't come directly into the U.S., but it goes to other countries, and then it can come in through excess capacity. Very, very complicated, it takes time.
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, look, it just to give you a sense of it, just to your point, when it comes to steel, China's right up there in the top five. And they're almost where Mexico is in terms of how much the U.S. imports.
But the broader issue is, you know, I certainly get the steel issue for Trump, for Biden as well, but on prices, people are wondering when are the groceries going to go down? When are the housing costs going to go down? When are the inputs into their lives going to go down?
SUNUNU: Effectively, they're not though, right? That would be deflation. When we say price is going to, and if they finally stabilize at above 1 percent inflation. If you had everything go down 10 percent, that might sound great, but that means we have a massive economic crisis in the country, right?
PHILLIP: Exactly.
SUNUNU: So, when we talk about price stabilization, we want it to get back to about 1 percent, which is kind of where you want things to be.
The other issue is people don't realize the amount of inflation that is regulatory driven, which Trump is really driving on. So, you're going to see tariffs come in hard and fast. They're painful a little bit. That's why he's doing them quick and early to hopefully get through it. Negotiate some better long-term deals overseas, and then he can pull back on them, at the same time get rid of all this regulation and bureaucracy and red tape, specifically on energy, right? An elderly family or a low income family has to turn on that light switch and pay these massive energy subsidies because of regulation as much as anybody else. That's where we can see some, I would say, deflation on the energy side. But you don't want every product in America going down in price. It sounds good. But it would be an economic disaster.
PHILLIP: When it comes to voters and what they asked for, what Trump promised them, how do you square the promises with what they're actually going to get?
CARLSON: See, the price of steel is not going to go down for everyone because there are American companies that rely on those imports of steel, right? So, now those prices are going to go up for them. And the last time that they did this back, I believe in 2020, '21, you know, the studies showed that actually the economy suffered as a result of that because you had -- yes, you had the increase of production of steel and aluminum from U.S. makers, but then you had the high tariffs coming in with the higher prices and that actually deflated the economy.
FOROOHAR: One of the issues here is that the president, and, again, President Biden before him, they're trying to change the entire nature of the U.S. economy. We haven't had an economy that, frankly, for about the last half century, has been all about lowering prices and raising stock, lowering prices for consumers, raising stock prices, right? We have a kind of a financialized economy. We're trying to shift to more of a production-based economy because of things like COVID, the war in Ukraine, conflict around the world. It's taught us that it's good to make things as well as to buy things, right? But this is a complicated process. It doesn't happen overnight.
[22:25:00]
This is really like a five, ten-year process.
JOHNSON: And I actually -- I think that's all fine, that it's a five, ten-year process that both presidents, President Biden and President Trump, actually think that we need to figure out a new system. But you said something that I wanted to pick up on this part about low income families, about elderly families, about people who are struggling to make ends meet.
This whole conversation about how it has to -- we have to feel some pain at first. Those families cannot afford to feel pain. They are literally one paycheck away from losing everything that they have, and some of them voted for Donald Trump so that they could find relief. And these tariffs are going to make it even harder for them to find relief. It's going to make it even harder for them to pay their bills, to make sure their children have food on their table, to make sure that they have what they need to go to school.
And so what about those people that are depending on this president, whether they voted on him or not, because he has to govern for all Americans, what about those people who are going to, who are not privileged enough, to have to deal with price inflation, like those of us around the table?
JENNINGS: Couple things. Number one, glad to hear some acknowledgement of the pain that was inflicted on people over the last four years.
JOHNSON: No, I said the pain that these tariffs are going to cause on the American people number.
JENNINGS: But you said they're already in pain. Where'd that pain come from?
JOHNSON: No. That pain came from Donald Trump's first presidency that Donald -- that President Biden actually had to fix the economy on. Scott, you know that's true.
JENNINGS: Here's the deal on these steel tariffs. You're exactly right. It's all about China. They make steel. They also have cutouts all over the world.
PHILLIP: But they're not subject to these 25 percent tariffs. This is Canada and Mexico.
FOROOHAR: Well, there's going to be unilateral 25 percent tariffs. Tariffs are a blunt instrument, right? They are going to hit allies and adversaries alike. But the steel market is global, right? And so China has been for the last, you know, 20 years or so, producing a lot of cheap steel. If it doesn't go into the U.S., it goes into other markets.
By the way, this is a problem in other areas, electric vehicles, plane tech, lithium batteries. I mean, right now, there's a lot of tension because nobody -- no country, be it, you know, a European country, the U.S., wants to be the place where China dumps the cheap stuff. And that's why we're in this situation.
JENNINGS: And China using the indirect cutouts around the world, unfinished products, loopholes that popped up during the Biden administration, it all helps China. So, my view is this is aimed squarely at trying to control China's influence over what is a really important industry, not just economically, but also for national security purposes.
We have to make steel. We have to make steel. This stuff goes into military vehicles and all kinds of stuff we had. So, there's the economy we have to talk about, but there's a national security implication to allowing China to control the world's steel market. We have to control it. It's in our national security interest.
PHILLIP: One other thing that's happening is all the DOGE cuts are going on, and some Republican lawmakers are realizing that it affects them and their states. One of them is Katie Britt, who is speaking out against Alabama institutions that are not going to be getting NIH funding. She says that she wants a smart, targeted approach in order to save jobs in her state. We're going to start seeing a lot more of this.
CARLSON: And this is what I was saying in the commercial break, that why didn't they break out the white board before they pulled all the funding and say, you have four weeks to come to us and tell us what's your most important spending, because we are going to be making cuts, which I think most Americans agree with. But instead, they just went in with the bulldozer. And that's why you're seeing all of these repercussions now, including Republicans who are knocking on --
PHILLIP: Yes. And on that, Governor, it's like the NIH --
SUNUNU: They're not white boarding this. The NIH funds have been massively abused. Up to 50 percent go to overhead and administrative costs to these universities. That should be -- they're saying, we're going to cap that at 15 percent, like most other government contracts. PHILLIP: Well, I guess what I'm asking is, I mean, and I suspect that some of your -- the people in the state of New Hampshire would be affected by things like this, but --
SUNUNU: Yes, a bunch of overpaid academics that have been abusing the system.
PHILLIP: Oh, wait, hold on just a second. What I'm talking about is medical research, which is what these things fund. And I think Katie Britt is talking about this too. There's a concern that just broadly cutting is going to basically stop the creation of medical research all across the country.
SUNUNU: Katie Britt is worried about a bunch of professors getting fired. What this is saying is for the million dollars we're going to give you, $850,000 actually has to be spent on that medical research, the product, not 50 percent of it on salaries.
PHILLIP: You're not concerned that this is going to have an impact on cancer research, on medical trials?
SUNUNU: No. Theoretically, more dollars go to cancer research and less to go to the professors.
PHILLIP: Theoretically, but people who know how these things work say that's not what's going to happen.
SUNUNU: Because it's their job.
JENNINGS: Because they're the ones abusing it right now.
SUNUNU: The university system has abused the American public and this grant system for ages.
FOROOHAR: Look, I'm, I think Gretchen's got a point here. Everybody wants cuts. Everybody knows government can be made more efficient. But the administration isn't helping itself by coming in and doing things that -- I mean, if you look at Article 1 of the Constitution, it says basically you just can't come in and bulldoze entire agencies.
[22:30:05]
Now, USAID was actually not a bad place to start from sort of a P.R. perspective in some ways because there's a lot of inefficiency, but then you go on to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, then you go on to many things that I think a lot of Americans would say are doing a good job.
It's not helping them to do it this way.
JENNINGS: Why isn't it helping them?
FOROOHAR: It's because it's making a lot of people feel that illegal things are happening. Just get out the whiteboard. I agree with that. I think it's it. JENNINGS: I don't know. He's got his highest approval ratings ever as
serving as president right now, so I'm just trying to figure out why you think it's not helping.
FOROOHAR: I'm looking at federal judges. I was hearing you speak beforehand. I'm looking at all the judges that are saying, you know, hey, there's so much illegal stuff happening right now that they're having a hard time even prioritizing it.
Ultimately, that undermines faith in government. That undermines faith in how government is undermining it.
JENNINGS: I totally agree.
PHILLIP: I think undermining faith in government is the point.
JENNINGS: I totally agree. It undermines faith to change nothing.
PHILLIP: Rana, thank you very much for joining us. Everyone else, stick around.
Coming up next, President Trump is threatening hell is going to break out if Hamas doesn't release all of the hostages by noon on Saturday. This is amid new comments about his plans to turn Gaza into a real estate location. We'll discuss next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:35:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight, a suggestion from Washington to Jerusalem.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I'm going to let that be because that's Israel's decision. But as far as I'm concerned, if all of the hostages aren't returned by Saturday at 12:00, I think it's an appropriate time. I would say cancel it and all bets are off and let hell break out. After that, it's going to be a different ballgame.
REPORTER: When you say all hell is going to break loose, are you speaking about retaliation from Israel?
TRUMP: You'll find out. And they'll find out, too. Hamas will find out what I mean.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Joining us at the table now is Reena Ninan, and she is a veteran foreign affairs correspondent and the founder of Good Trouble Productions. Reena, on top of what Trump just said there, one of the reasons the hostage deal is in question right now is also because of some other things that he has been saying. I want to play what he told Brett Baier about the Palestinians who are in Gaza and what would happen to them under his plan to remake the Gaza Strip.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRETT BAIER, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Would the Palestinians have the right to return?
TRUMP: No big money spend -- no, they wouldn't, because they're going to have much better housing, much better. In other words, I'm talking about building a permanent place for them, because if they have to return now, it will be years before you could ever.
It's not habitable. It would be years before it could happen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: A right to return. That's a pretty key phrase. And Trump says they don't have a right to go back.
REENA NINAN, VETERAN FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT AND FOUNDER, GOOD TROUBLE PRODUCTIONS: You know, we've seen under President Trump in the first administration, there are things in the Middle East he was able to do that no other president has been able to do before.
This is not a diplomatic solution of moving a capital to Jerusalem or creating diplomatic relations with the Emirates. What we're talking about is the potential of moving two million people, many of whom live well beneath the poverty level, almost 100 percent. It's up like 85 percent.
They're not moving to a deluxe apartment in the sky on the Rafah border or in Egypt anywhere. What also is happening is you're seeing the diplomatic channels operating. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in town, the foreign minister of Egypt meeting with the Secretary of State, and then tomorrow King Abdullah of Jordan also meeting with the President.
These are states that have helped the United States -- countries that have helped the United States. And what's happening right now, with aid being cut, people don't realize it. Wheat in Egypt is being subsidized by the United States.
There is water issues. There are education issues in Egypt. Israel does not need a failed state, an armed state, or multiple failed states at its border.
PHILLIP: So Trump has also, in addition to saying the Palestinians should just leave and not come back, he's also said, well, if Jordan and Egypt don't take them, we're just going to withhold aid. What do you make of that?
SUNUNU: Look, there's a big strategy going on here, without a doubt. Very little of what Donald Trump does is without strategy. I know it seems like he's shooting off the cuff, but on this one I think he's basically saying, yes, these countries are going to take the refugees. They're saying we're not going to take them. He's saying, okay, then you're going to pay for it.
You're going to pay and build and have a vested interest in rebuilding Gaza, helping keeping Hamas out permanently if you want these refugees to then have to be able to come back. But it doesn't happen overnight.
And, again, most of these neighbors are gone. They're already leveled. They're already gone. They're not living in the rubble per se. They're already living in these refugee camps.
So he's forcing all the Middle East partners that have been a big part of this problem anyways because they abandoned the Palestinians decades ago to come to the table and say you're going to be part of a bigger, more longer-term stabilization in that area.
PHILLIP: Do you think that what he says, as he's said repeatedly now, I don't think the Palestinians should be able to come back, do you think that that is real or is it bluster?
NINAN: But this is what Donald Trump has done. You know, he has taken longstanding U.S. foreign policy and turned it up on its head. That's how we've seen some of the biggest initiatives in the Middle East taking place under his watch.
But what we're talking about with Gaza is a totally different situation. He has now set a deadline. If he does not reach that deadline or, you know, there aren't a lot of things you can do when he's talking about retaliation, right, we know what he means.
But when he crosses that deadline, if he doesn't take action, there are other countries that are watching, from France to Mexico, you know, allies, longtime allies that have been threatened.
So whatever happens on Saturday has the potential of launching a new phase in what has been a ceasefire after 16 months of war.
[22:40:03]
PHILLIP: It's a good point that, I mean, he's set a line now with that statement about Saturday. And obviously we all agree with the intended outcome, that all the hostages would come home. But what happens if they don't?
JENNINGS: Well, a couple of things. Number one, I interviewed Marco Rubio today for a half an hour, and he echoed exactly what the governor said. A lot of people in the Middle East talk a lot, but they don't do anything.
And it's now time for them to do something to help solve this problem. That's number one.
Number two, look at these people that have been released. I'm sure this is the best of it. What happens when the next that's why Hamas doesn't want to release anymore, because this is the best. And if you've seen this video, it's horrific. They are savages. You cannot trust them.
Donald Trump has every right to be angry and to say to the rest of the world, we cannot let Hamas dictate the terms of what happens here.
Hamas is used to doing this and playing these games, and everybody says, whoa, we've got to do this, we've got to do that. That is over. These savages lost the war.
They need to send the people back, and if they don't, I hope Trump enforces the red line that there will be hell to pay.
PHILLIP: Look, I broadly think you're right about the state of play, but the question is, again, as Reena pointed out, what happens if --
JENNINGS: Hell to pay. That's what he said.
PHILLIP: He set a line. What's going to happen on Saturday?
JENNINGS: He said hell will rain down or whatever he said today, and I hope he's talking to Israel about it. These people cannot be allowed to continuously rape, kidnap, murder, take hostages, make deals, break deals, have ceasefires, break ceasefires. It's over.
PHILLIP: Let me just play one more thing. This is about Ukraine.
He made these comments also to Brett Baier. Didn't get a lot of attention because the Gaza situation is very acute, but take a listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: They have tremendously valuable land in terms of rare earth, in terms of oil and gas, in terms of other things. I want to have our money secured because we're spending hundreds of billions of dollars, and, you know, they may make a deal, they may not make a deal, they may be Russian someday or they may not be Russian someday, but we're going to have all this money in there, and I say I want it back.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I get the bargaining quid pro quo, but nowhere in there did he say, Ukraine, you know, we want Ukraine to be a free, independent state. That was not in the comments.
CARLSON: It's completely changed from Republicans just 48 years ago. Would we agree with that? That Republicans always would support sovereign nations.
I mean, like they do Israel, right? I mean, now I'm asking the Republicans at the table. Like, this is a completely different--
JENNINGS: He wants the war to end. I wanted to let you finish, but I'll answer you. He wants the war to end. You cannot spend billions indefinitely. He is absolutely right about the strategic implications of what exists in Ukraine. This cannot go on for years or decades.
A peace has to come out of this somehow, someway. That's what he is trying to do. I hope he gets it. We should all hope that he gets it.
SUNUNU: And it's going to be a negotiated settlement. It's not going to be an all-Ukraine or all-Russia win. Clearly there are priorities.
CARLSON: That would never have happened in years ago.
JOHNSON: And Donald Trump to have, you know, a peaceful solution.
SUNUNU: It's not going to be unilaterally decided just between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. NATO is going to be involved.
NINAN: You think that you can snap your fingers and war ends. Here's the thing. Every president in my lifetime practically has gotten ensnared in the Middle East when they did not want to be ensnared in the Middle East.
When you're talking about this land grab in Gaza, what do you say to Putin when he suddenly wants to land grab in Ukraine? What do you say to China when they suddenly want to land grab in Taiwan? Come on in.
We did it over in Gaza. Go ahead. It's yours.
PHILLIP: Yes, I mean, I think the deal-making mentality works, except when you have a situation like Taiwan when there is no deal to be had. It's either China takes it or they don't. It's not a negotiation.
SUNUNU: But everything is different to equate Gaza, Ukraine, and Taiwan. Those are all very different situations.
PHILLIP: But there are also precedents that are being set. I think that's what Reena's great point was. Reenna, thank you very much for joining us. Everyone else, hang tight.
Coming up next, Kanye West says he is a Nazi and loves Hitler. He's also selling shirts with swastikas on them. So should social media companies be giving him the space to promote this anti-Semitism? We'll discuss.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:45:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Would you defend hate speech or a hate T-shirt? Kanye West, or Ye, bought a Super Bowl ad for Yeezy.com only when people clicked over to the website after the game they found this, a white T-shirt emblazoned with a swastika, the symbol of Nazi hate.
Now, Ye called it performance art. But if you want to believe that this is a stunt, here is what the rapper said this weekend on X. Quote, "I'm a Nazi. Hitler was so fresh. Elon stole my Nazi swag. Jewish people actually hate white people and use black people." That's just a little bit of a sampling of it.
Now, the First Amendment gives everybody the right to say generally what they want. But should social media megaphones allow a megastar to say that?
Kanye West has 32 million followers on X.
CARLSON: Apparently, when this went through the legal system about whether or not Fox could actually buy some of these ads, they aired on local stations during the Super Bowl.
Apparently, it was approved by standards and practices. My question tonight, as an almost lawyer who took the LSATs but didn't go to law school, is did they actually know that he could change the website to have a different, you know, thing for sale when the actual ad goes up?
Or did they actually even look into that? Or did they just look at what was on at the time?
PHILLIP: To your point, when they looked at it earlier in the day, it had other merchandise on it, and then it changed to have the swastika T-shirt. But the question of who Kanye West is and who Ye is when he's been posting, that's clear.
[22:50:09]
SUNUNU: Yes, he's a jackass. I mean, Yes, this is a performance act. He's a jackass, and they can decide what they want to promote.
JOHNSON: Sure, I miss the old Kanye, the college dropout Kanye, brilliant, creative at the time. But this conversation we're having, it's interesting. We're talking about should social media police him and remove all this.
I mean, Elon Musk gave a Nazi salute on Inauguration Day. There has been this welcoming of --
PHILLIP: Look, just because I don't want us to go down this road.
JOHNSON: I don't want us to go down this road. Some people think that it looks like that.
PHILLIP: Many people do not. Some people, including Scott, do not.
JOHNSON: And some people are interpreting some of this, and he's saying that this is art. If we're going into this interpretation place, that's a slippery slope. I think we have to be very definitive on what is hate speech, and this is hate speech.
PHILLIP: Do you think -- but the question is.
JOHNSON: And it should be loud. PHILLIP: Should X, I mean, people were saying, including a lot of very
prominent people, why is his account still up? He's spewing nonstop Nazi --
JENNINGS: I think it's down on X, right?
PHILLIP: Well, he took it down. X didn't do anything about it.
I mean, it was getting put in people's feeds at a certain point. Do you think that there's a role for X and all these social media companies, when it's this explicit, to just take it down?
JENNINGS: Yes, I think it's worth them discussing. I mean, they're obviously extremely defensive of the notion of the protection of free speech, as we all should be.
I think as a business practice, do you want to be known as somebody who's essentially allowing it? It's an interesting dispute. If I were running a business, I wouldn't want to have Kanye West within a million miles of what I'm doing.
PHILLIP: So you would take it down?
JENNINGS: Look, it would be my business -- not a government -- it would be my private business decision. I don't want to have anything to do with this guy. By the way, I think what he did to his girlfriend at the Grammys the other day was totally disgusting as well.
He proves time and again that he is disgusting and toxic, and if I had a business, I wouldn't want to have his brain anywhere near mine.
CARLSON: Not going to come down on X, as long as Elon Musk is in charge. Not going to probably come down on Facebook either, because they don't have fact-checkers anymore. Okay? So the social media people --
SUNUNU: What was that? I don't think this needs a fact-checker.
CARLSON: A lot.
PHILLIP: Yes, but I mean --
SUNUNU: What facts are we checking?
PHILLIP: Unfortunately, we got to go. But I think one of the reasons that this is coming up is that both of these platforms have said, we're a free speech platform. We're not going to de-platform people for saying things you don't like.
SUNUNU: And that's their choice.
PHILLIP: While this is something that a lot of people don't like, and a lot of Jewish people believe is hate speech, which it is. It's anti- Semitic.
So everyone stay with me. Coming up next, the panel tells us what they think should also go the way of the little old penny, as in extinct.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:55:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: We're back and it's time for the Newsnight cap, the penny edition.
President Trump says that he's ordered the end for the penny in a way to reduce government spending. It is worth noting, though, that the U.S. Mint says Congress is the only one that has the power to actually do that.
But here at this table, you each have 30 seconds to tell us what else you would do unilaterally without Congress and get rid of just like the penny.
SUNUNU: Well, I'm the politician. I'm going to start by saying let's get rid of political ads because nobody likes them. Everyone hates them. I used to write my own political ads and I never even saw them.
JENNINGS: Boo. Boo, Sununu, Boo.
SUNUNU: I hate political ads.
JOHNSON: I love that one.
SUNUNU: I hate them. On behalf of political consultants.
JENNINGS: Boo.
CARLSON: I love that one.
PHILLIP: Some T.V. stations in your state would want to have a word with you about that one.
SUNUNU: Hey, I won four terms. Who cares?
JOHNSON: What about political ads? I would get rid of the armchair quarterbacks who like to give their two cents on how Jalen Hurts should play or whether or not Kendrick Lamar is a creative genius because, quite frankly, Jalen Hurts is one of the best players.
I'm a Cowboys fan. I can say that Jalen Hurts is one of the best players. And Kendrick Lamar, whether or not the halftime show was for you, that is a Pulitzer Prize winning creative.
So these armchair quarterbacks, they can keep their two cents to themselves.
PHILLIP: That's true.
JENNINGS: What about their one cent? CARLSON: They don't have one. They're not going to have them anymore.
All right, I'm going totally in a different direction because this is one of my pet peeves.
You know when you go to get a coffee and you pay like $7.50 for it already and then you pay with a credit card and it comes up, what do you want to tip? No.
PHILLIP: And the options are $1, $3, or $6.
CARLSON: Yes, because it makes you feel guilty if you don't tip.
JENNINGS: And they're staring you down.
CARLSON: Yes, exactly. Okay, so last week I did this. I was in Arizona. And I actually did give a tip to round it up to $10.
And the actual worker said to me, oh, gosh, no, we don't take any of those tips. I was like, that is the right answer. Because you're putting people on the spot, you know, to have to do the right thing.
JOHNSON: And the company should be paying them more.
CARLSON: Exactly.
PHILLIP: Not us. And I think that it also diminishes the people who actually, they work for their tips. And then it also gives people tip fatigue. They don't want to tip at all. And people deserve to be tipped.
JENNINGS: I think we need an executive order on this one.
CARLSON: Oh, gosh. Break out the whiteboard.
JENNINGS: You could be responsible for the next 80-20 Trump issue.
PHILLIP: That's true.
JENNINGS: All right, this will debut old man Scott tonight. I did not like the bright headlights on modern cars. I drive down the road, I look at these headlights, I am completely blinded by them.
I don't understand the technology or why it's happening. I just know that I cannot see. Can we please have headlights like what we had when I got my driver's license, which enabled me to both see the car and the road and not drive off into the side of a ditch?
Bad, bright headlights.
[23:00:08]
PHILLIP: You know, I think you're right about that. Those types of headlights, they're designed for you as the driver to be able to see, but nobody else can see on the road. It's insane.
JOHNSON: And don't let it rain or anything. It's even worse. JENNINGS: Glare, terrible.
PHILLIP: Guys, great job. I would vote for every single one of you. Only for your executive actions.
SUNUNU: It's all right.
JENNINGS: The news was the worst.
PHILLIP: All right, everyone. Thank you very much for watching "Newsnight." "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
