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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Markets Tumble Over Fears Of Trump's Economic Agenda; Musk's Companies Suffering Issues As He Faces D.C. Pressure; Musk Calls Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) A Traitor Over Ukraine Trip; Trump Administration Tries To Deport Mahmoud Khalil; Michelle Obama And Brother Craig Robinson Launch Podcast. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired March 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, the stock seesaw, the markets take another wild swing as the president won't predict whether the U.S. will slide into the word, which shall not be named.
Plus, Musk's malfunction fights, outages, setbacks. A closer look at how his world has turned since coming to Washington.
Also, from the indispensable nation to the adversarial nation. The world uses the United States as a foil to mock, to boo, and to put political points on the board.
And the president plays judge and jury by taking away the green card of a student who organized anti-Israel protests.
Live at the Table, Daniel Koh, Scott Jennings, Ana Navarro, Bruce Blakeman, and Van Lathan.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York.
Let's get right to what America's talking about, palpable panic on Wall Street. Red numbers and worries about something else that starts with an R, recession. The big board since the end of February reads like a Goosebumps novel you wish you could stop reading. And while the president says, judge not by the stock market, lest ye be judged by the stock market, some of his closest allies sound as alarmed as everyone else.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LARRY KUDLOW, FOX BUSINESS HOST: At the moment, the stock market seems to be in full-fledged revolt.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Dow is 1,500 points below where it was when Donald Trump took office. That's not a good look.
CHARLIE GASPARINO, JOURNALIST: I think some of this is a sales job. They have to go out there and maybe stop talking about tariffs.
STEVE MOORE, AUTHOR: The problem I see is that Trump has sort of led with this whole tariff barrage, and I think it's very unsettling to markets, and it's sort of the one thing that Trump is doing that's probably not, especially in the short-term, healthy for the economy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: It sounds like things are going swimmingly, Scott Jennings.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I guess it depends on what measurements you want to look at. I mean, yes, there's certainly been turbulence in the stock market. I think the president's economic vision related to tariffs and then what the Congress might do with the reconciliation package, making permanent the tax cuts, unleashing American energy, he thinks it's all going to work together to do a couple of things. One, stimulate American manufacturing, two, maybe reduce the price of doing business in this country on the energy front, and, three, give the middle class and the working class in this country a chance at better jobs. And it won't happen overnight. And he's been pretty clear he's willing to accept a little short-term pain if it means long term gain for the working men and women of this country.
PHILLIP: If the short term pain ends in a recession, then what?
BRUCE BLAKEMAN (R), NASSAU COUNTY, NEW YORK EXECUTIVE: Well, I think it's too early to predict a recession. You need two quarters of that kind of downturn. I think that basically the people that are most concerned are the institutional traders and the day traders in their basement. Most investors are long-term investors. They don't invest on trends. They invest in companies that they have faith in. So, the market goes up, the market goes down.
PHILLIP: These losses are significant and they do add up. I mean, if you just look at --
BLAKEMAN: Only if you're going to cash in your 401(k).
PHILLIP: Yes. But if you're just -- you just have money in the stock market, which a lot of Americans do, both for retirement and also just regular people, they have money that they put away there to try to make some money off the gains that were there about a year ago, they've lost money.
And the numbers are pretty clear since Election Day, the Dow, the Nasdaq, the S&P all down since inauguration, even a shorter period of time, still --
BLAKEMAN: You only lose money if you sell your stocks. If you're a long-term investor and you're investing in a company that you have faith in, you keep that investment. If you're a day trader, or you're an institutional trader, yes, you gamble on trends. And right now, there's a downward trend.
But I also agree that in the long-term, I think that these things will be good for the economy. It'll create jobs. They'll create manufacturing security. It'll create energy security. I think in the long-term, it'll be good. I think this is a chess game, not a checkers game.
VAN LATHAN, CO-HOST, HIGHER LEARNING PODCAST WITH VAN LATHAN AND RACHEL LINDSAY: I don't think people voted on the long-term. I think what people were told was that there was economic strife last year with -- or last couple of years with inflation, prices going crazy, and that they were told that the relief would be coming, and relief would be coming in an administration that were expert whiz kids at dealing with the economy, and when they got there, they would fix it.
[22:05:14]
So, now there's a cultural calculus here asking Americans to wait longer for economic relief that they thought was going to be there, I don't think they're that durable.
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: And I think it's somewhat callous to tell to people to tell people who live paycheck to paycheck you can endure a little short-term pain. There are people in this world who aren't billionaires, I mean, you know, people who aren't represented maybe in this cabinet and in this administration as much.
Look, I think what you're seeing is a response to the chaos and uncertainty. What Donald Trump is doing with these announced trade wars, what he's doing with tariffs it's almost comical if it didn't have an economic effect. It's like, you know, he puts the tariff in, he puts the tariff out, he puts the tariff in, he puts the tariff out, then he does the hokey pokey, and he turns us all around. It is absolutely insane.
And it is playing -- it's also affecting American psyche, it's affecting consumer confidence. If people don't spend as much, people are scared, they feel uncertain, they are nervous. They're looking at the numbers. If you are a state worker with your pension funding and you're looking at these numbers, you are nervous because you're depending on that.
DAN KOH, FORMER WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY CABINET SECRETARY UNDER PRESIDENT BIDEN: And, look, the polls are saying that only 26 percent of Americans think that this will have a positive effect on the economy to begin with. And Trump is a businessman and he should know that the markets do not like uncertainty. They like certainty. So, seeing all the different changes that you talked about, Ana, it is really concerning to the American public and it's something that I think that we need to take seriously.
Also, the administration is not consistent in its stances on this, right? The treasury secretary said there won't be a recession. Trump is leaving the door open. So, that's causing even more uncertainty.
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, let's play with a clip from Maria Bartiromo. I mean, he was asked directly about this and here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARIA BARTIROMO, FOX BUSINESS HOST: Are you expecting a recession this year?
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition, because what we're doing is very big. We're bringing wealth back to America. That's a big thing. And there are always periods of -- it takes a little time. It takes a little time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: He's talking about that period of transition is -- what he's talking about is his firm belief that tariffs are going to be the main way that the United States brings in revenue, never mind what they do to the prices that people actually pay when they purchase goods in a global economy.
I mean, Scott, virtually, no one who understands economics believes that tariffs are a good idea, including all those people that we played in the clip to get into this conversation, most of whom side with Trump. They believe in Trump. They're supporters of his.
JENNINGS: Yes, he firmly believes in it. It's his theory. And guess what? He ran on it and he got elected on it. And for his theory to take root, it will take some period of time, and he will rise and fall on this theory.
PHILLIP: Are you comfortable with Trump rolling the dice on the United States' economy based on his hunch that we should go back to, you know, the McKinley era tariffs?
JENNINGS: Am I comfortable that the person who was duly elected president of the United States be allowed to govern in the way that he said he would in order to win the election? Of course I am.
PHILLIP: I mean, that is the question.
JENNINGS: And guess what? We have elections every two years in this country and we can deal with it if people don't like it.
NAVARRO: We are a government of checks and balances. And, frankly, most conservatives, until Trump decided differently, were against trade wars and against tariffs.
JENNINGS: Many still are. I mean, there's still a huge split in the party.
NAVARRO: But they're not speaking up. Because when it comes to Trump --
JENNINGS: I heard Rand Paul (INAUDIBLE) about it. I mean, some are.
BLAKEMAN: Isn't it funny that the Republican Party now is the party that's talking about jobs and primarily union jobs, and they're talking about creating economic security for manufacturing jobs, bringing manufacturing jobs back to America? Isn't that what we want to do? Isn't that what the Democrats were talking about?
PHILLIP: And that's all good and well, but I don't under -- I think one of the issues is that I was I saw a tweet from David Sachs who, again, supports this president, he says, nobody can understand what the strategy is. If there is a strategy that's around manufacturing and around all of those things, the White House hasn't really laid it out. Because people who are paid a lot of money to pay attention to these things are sitting here confused.
KOH: And, look, Republicans purport themselves to be the party of low taxes. These tariffs are a tax on working class Americans. So, I'm not sure how you square that.
LATHAN: Well, I mean, first of all, I don't think that he ran on tariffs. I think that he ran on economic relief. I don't think that he ran on the possibility of recession or people being even more miserated than they were the last couple of years. I think tariffs are a big strategy, but it's his job and his administration's job to make the case to the American people about how they are going to benefit them.
[22:10:02]
JENNINGS: I actually agree with this. Part of this is a messaging issue that would reassure the American people, but also reassure the markets. I mean, part of what you're doing when you're putting in economic policies is you got to have time for the policies to work, but you also have to give the markets and the people in this business the confidence that it will work. And so I think part of this is we're doing it. Here's why we think it's going to work. And we're going to go do a sales job on that over a period of time.
Look, it's not going to happen overnight. I don't think it's right to judge a presidency on seven weeks or one day in the market or a couple of weeks in the market. He has earned the right to let his economic program work. And we'll see if it does.
NAVARRO: It is important that if there are more days like this, and I hope there are not, that we hear from this administration, that we hear from Donald Trump, who we hear about on just about any other subject and who, when he was running and when he wasn't president, would not shut up about the market, right. He talked about it ad nauseam about that and the price of eggs. He's gone fairly quiet on both.
PHILLIP: Yes, he did.
JENNINGS: He did not spike the price of eggs. For the thousandth time, Joe Biden killed all the chicken.
LATHAN: Well, he promised to bring the egg prices back down.
JENNINGS: How long will it take to make a chicken? They got to grow. PHILLIP: Here's the thing, J.D. Vance was in the grocery store looking at $4 a dozen eggs. They are now $10 a dozen. And he didn't create the problem, but he's the president. And I think people expect --
JENNINGS: Yes. But all the people who --
BLAKEMAN: Donald Trump didn't create the bird flu, and that's the driving factor with the price of the eggs.
PHILLIP: I totally agree. He didn't create the bird flu, but the lack of attention to those types of issues, I think, is at the crux of the affordability issue for families, is that when Trump is trying to raise prices, not lower the ones that people pay every day, I think that there's a disconnect there.
BLAKEMAN: Well, the federal government's put $400 million into looking at remedies for the bird flu, looking at vaccinations for the animals, looking at other remedies that will help give confidence back.
NAVARRO: Okay, what's really laughable here is for all of these people who used to attack Joe Biden over the price of eggs, which was also affected and as a result of the bird flu and who used to not accept that as the reason for it have now turned into avian scientists.
KOH: And guess what organization funded bird flu research worldwide? USAID. And he cut 83 percent of that.
JENNINGS: Look, the bird flu --
BLAKEMAN: And you're for the other investments that USAID made?
PHILLIP: Coming up next, Elon Musk is having a tough day. His companies are taking some hits and he just called a senator who is a military and a space hero a traitor.
Plus, a judge blocks Donald Trump's efforts to deport a Palestinian activist on a college campus. So, what exactly constitutes illegal speech in this era? We'll debate.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:15:00]
PHILLIP: It's only Monday but Elon Musk may very well have a lock on the worst week in Washington. He is certainly having a trying month. Tesla shares dropped 15 percent and now some of the investors want their money back. X sputtering along with outages today, depriving the good people of the internet from their hot takes. SpaceX ended last week by showering the Caribbean with rocket debris. And for Musk's next trick, he's going to tackle entitlements by suggesting the entire thing is a Democrat conspiracy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ELON MUSK, HEAD, DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY: Most of the federal spending is entitlements. So, that's like the big one to eliminate. That's the sort of half trillion, maybe $600, $700 billion a year. That is also a mechanism by which the Democrats attract and retain illegal immigrants by essentially paying them to come here and then turning them into voters.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: He said that with a very serious face, even though it's nonsense.
LATHAN: Yes. You all got to bench Elon, man. You are all going to have to bench Elon. Elon is not going to be long for this world as a major American political figure. I watched his interview with Fox. He said -- during the interview, he said, I don't know why I have to do this. He's annoyed at the perch that he is on right now and the way he's being perceived. He's opened himself up to a level of scrutiny that I don't think that he's going to be able to bear. I don't think so.
PHILLIP: Well, his companies are certainly having a hard time.
BLAKEMAN: Well, listen, I don't think we're going to have to pass the hat for Elon Musk. The guy's worth $300 billion. Do the math. If he put his money in tax free government bonds, he would get $15 billion dollars a year without touching the principal. So, these setbacks that people are so concerned about, I wouldn't worry about it.
I think it's patriotic what he's doing. I think that he's a disrupter. I think he is looking for fraud, corruption, and waste. And you know what? If we find fraud, corruption, and waste, and we end it, then we have more money for hospitals, we have more money for education, we have more money for infrastructure. Is that a bad thing? Is that a bad thing?
(CROSSTALKS)
NAVARRO: I'll tell you what is bad and what is not patriotic is calling Mark Kelly a traitor. He called him a traitor today for having gone and visited Ukraine, which many Republicans and Democrats in Congress and in the Senate have done in the last several years. Mark Kelly is a naval aviator. He flew missions in the Gulf War. He has logged over 5,000 hours flying for Navy. He then went on to be the pilot for the space shuttle. He serves in Congress.
[22:20:00]
Elon Musk has absolutely no right, who has never served this country, who serves a president who made up a story about bone spurs so he could avoid the draft, has absolutely no right to call Mark Kelly, who is a patriot, who has served this country, to the point of risking his life and calling him a traitor. That is something we should all condemn.
BLAKEMAN: I don't like that kind of language from either side, and it's gotten out of hand. I think that the discourse now --
PHILLIP: I've had to do this a lot of times on the show, but like I guess it's very easy to say either side to every single thing, but in response to what she said, what do you say about what Elon has to say?
BLAKEMAN: Well, first of all, I would never denigrate somebody who served our country and call them a traitor unless I had material evidence that they were actually a traitor. So, I think that Elon Musk is not a politician. He's not somebody that is what we would say politically astute, but I think he serves a great purpose in uncovering fraud, corruption, and waste, and I think it's a patriotic act on his part.
KOH: Look, I spent five years in city hall working on government efficiency projects, and here's my advice for Elon. It's one thing to talk about efficiency, but what people actually care about, as you know, sir, as a local official, they care about efficacy. So, if you look on the DOGE board, it just shows how much they're cutting from the federal government. How about a board that shows how long passport times are taking, that shows how quickly people in the Veterans Affairs are getting their benefits? That's what people actually care about. And if he does that board and shows that he's making progress on that, that's showing that government is actually working for people. I think everyone here can get behind that.
PHILLIP: Scott?
JENNINGS: I think on the entitlement issue, which you played, the president is in charge. He has made it perfectly clear he is not touching Social Security, Medicare, and even Medicaid, other than to say if there is fraud in any program, he'd like to root out the fraud. That's period. He's the president. The buck stops with the president. He's been clear about that since he started running in 2015.
PHILLIP: I mean, Republicans are getting ready to cut a lot from Medicare --
JENNINGS: Well, you call it cuts. They're calling it -- it could be slowing the growth of the program or rooting out fraud, but that's different --
PHILLIP: Well, I mean, well, here's the reason I have a lot --
LATHAN: They're going to find $880 million dollars worth of fraud?
PHILLIP: Yes. And I have a lot of reasons to doubt what you're saying because when you -- Scott, hang on a second.
JENNINGS: There's a huge population in this country that should not be on welfare.
PHILLIP: Scott, okay, first of all --
LATHAN: Well, that's actually not --
PHILLIP: Hold on a second. Welfare is not the biggest driver of this actually, but what I'm saying is that DOGE has put all this money on the board and they've said, oh, this is waste, fraud and abuse. And when you really look at it, they're just programs that Elon and the president and random 20-something-year-olds don't like. So, when you say fraud and abuse, there's not a lot of --
JENNINGS: Waste. The first word is usually waste, and they consider it to be waste.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: They are not actually doing that. When Congress authorizes money for a program, or a program is duly authorized, that's not waste, fraud, and abuse. That's just something you don't like.
JENNINGS: Abby, everybody wants to find waste, fraud, and abuse until somebody actually does it.
LATHAN: Do you think people -- no, it's been done.
JENNINGS: This is the problem. This is the problem. They're actually saying, okay, maybe this is wasteful. And then Washington goes crazy.
LATHAN: That's untrue. It's been done. The Clinton administration was able to put together an --
JENNINGS: 30-something years ago?
LATHAN: Right. But the point of it is the way that they --
PHILLIP: You all keep saying it's never happened, and it definitely happened in a bipartisan --
LATHAN: It's been done. But the way that they went about it was to study for six months, and then to take a longer time to understand which government jobs needed to be rooted out. He fired a bunch of people, he ended with a bunch. It's been done. It's just the way that you guys are doing it.
JENNINGS: I know. And the way that we're doing it is that you don't want us to do it. In 2019, we spent $4.4 trillion as a government. Last year, we spent $6.2 trillion. The government's gotten more expensive and much larger over the last five years.
The only question Republicans have is, does it have to be this large? And does it have to be this expensive? That's the question. Elon's finally trying to cut into it, and the Republicans in Congress need to help.
LATHAN: Well, you guys should start it in your own house, because your president drove up the deficit as much as anybody ever has, maybe more than anyone.
JENNINGS: And why?
LATHAN: So, then --
JENNINGS: Have you a memory of it?
LATHAN: I do remember. Even before then though, even before that though. Everybody's got Google. So, the reality of it is this. If no one is against, no one that I know, is against finding ways for fraud and abuse in the government. However, the way that you go about doing it, you don't play with American's lives, you don't play with their jobs, you don't do things haphazardly where you have to fire people, then --
JENNINGS: Can you name one thing you'd do differently? Like what you say --
LATHAN: Oh, so now you're going to make me in charge of those?
JENNINGS: I'm asking.
LATHAN: Okay.
JENNINGS: You say you're against waste, fraud and abuse. What would you consider the government to do this wasteful today?
LATHAN: Okay. Well then what I would do if I was looking for ways for our abuse is I would start in the Defense Department and at the Pentagon, I will start with the defense industrial complex of America. And I would look there.
JENNINGS: I think you and Elon are in agreement on that.
LATHAN: Well, he hasn't. So, the question is, when are they going to get around to it?
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: But, Scott -- but hold on. One of the other things, you started your comment by saying the president's in charge, he's not going to touch Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid. That's where all the money is, Scott, which is why --
JENNINGS: We're fighting over 28 percent.
BLAKEMAN: No, he said he wasn't going to cut entitlements.
[22:25:00]
PHILLIP: No. I'm telling you --
BLAKEMAN: They are going to look for fraud in Medicaid. They are going to look for fraud in Medicare.
PHILLIP: I'm telling you what Scott said. Scott said that he wasn't going to touch it. Elon said correctly that's where all the money is. So, if you guys actually want to produce savings, you are going to have to touch it.
NAVARRO: Actually, we started this segment -- wait, we started this segment talking about the fact that the president's closest aid, the guy who was attached at the hip to him, Elon Musk, called an American hero a traitor today.
BLAKEMAN: Okay, but you said that already. NAVARRO: No, because you haven't condemned it.
BLAKEMAN: What does that got to do with --
NAVARRO: Because that's what this segment was about, actually. And you haven't condemned it.
BLAKEMAN: What does that got to do with this?
NAVARRO: Because you want to talk about something else instead of condemning what is condemnable.
PHILLIP: I will say that Bruce did -- well, maybe I shouldn't go so far as to say condemn, but you said that you do not condemn that kind of language.
LATHAN: Who's basically saying chill?
BLAKEMAN: I don't like it.
PHILLIP: So, he did say that, but --
KOH: Let's talk what this is actually doing. I think the people who are paid to I.D. bodies of people killed in action who can't work right now are not waste, fraud, and abuse. I think that these kind of things that we're seeing, the people who oversee our nuclear stockpile are not waste, fraud and abuse. These mistakes can't happen. It's too critical to our country.
NAVARRO: The veterans who we promised we would protect --
JENNINGS: We will never spend, unless some administration has the guts to see this through, we will never, ever spend less, we will never have a smaller government. Everything has a constituency in Washington.
PHILLIP: I take your point about finding the spending that you want to cut, but I think there's no question, even Republicans agree, we talked about this last week, this has been done in a haphazard way to the point where the president himself had to hear it from his cabinet secretaries who were asking, what's happening at the V.A.? Why are you cutting all these people? The transportation secretary said they were trying to cut air traffic controllers.
JENNINGS: I hope the cabinet -- I hope the cabinet and Elon --
PHILLIP: They had to speak up because it wasn't being done well.
JENNINGS: But, ultimately, this is not a conversation that can be put off forever.
And I feel like this is what Washington does. They try to just push it back as far as they can, and then we'll get the next guy in and maybe it won't happen. That's how you go from $4.4 trillion to $6.2 trillion in five years. NAVARRO: The Republicans have begun saying that it needs to be a scalpel, not a sledgehammer. And it has been a sledgehammer for the last two months.
PHILLIP: And as Van has pointed out, it has been done in a bipartisan fashion in a way that did not result in a bunch of chaos. So, we'll talk about it more as we go along.
Coming up next, President Trump is trying to deport an organizer of college protests sparking a debate about free speech in this country.
Plus, Michelle Obama makes a surprise announcement about her future.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:32:17]
PHILLIP: Tonight, a judge freezing in place what critics call chilling and what MAGA allies see as justice. The Trump administration is trying to deport Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate and activist who disrupted campus life with anti-Israel protests. He is now in an ICE detention facility in Louisiana.
The ACLU calls the punishment intimidation and an unmistakable First Amendment violation. The President is making an example of him and warning that he is the first of many cases that will play out just like this, where protest is punished. I think there's a lot of different views about these campus protests.
BLAKEMAN: I think there should be only one view.
PHILLIP: But -- but I think the question here is about whether speech can result in people's legal rights being taken.
BLAKEMAN: He's a virulent anti-Semite. He came here on a student visa. He's paid by a terrorist organization that beheads babies.
PHILLIP: Excuse me --
UNKNOWN: What evidence do you have of him?
BLAKEMAN: I have -- I have evidence.
PHILLIP: I'm sorry, just to be clear. You're alleging that he's paid by who?
BLAKEMAN: He's a paid protester.
PHILLIP: By who? Well, I didn't ask my intelligence division exactly who paid for him. But he's being paid by -- he's being paid.
PHILLIP: That's a pretty explosive allegation. Who is he being paid by?
BLAKEMAN: Can I ask you a question?
NAVARRO: No, you said you had evidence. Who is he being paid by?
BLAKEMAN: He's being paid by --
PHILLIP: I mean --
BLAKEMAN: -- organizations that are anti-American, that are engaged in nefarious activities. I don't ask my intelligence division to give me --
NAVARRO: Well, then, don't come on national TV and say thing. Don't come on national TV --
BLAKEMAN: Do you know who he's being paid by?
NAVARRO: I don't, and I'm not alleging that he's being paid.
BLAKEMAN: Are you okay with what he's doing? Are you okay with it?
NAVARRO: I'm not alleging he's being paid by, because I don't know.
BLAKEMAN: Are you okay with anti-Semitism? Are you okay with intimidating --
NAVARRO: You are coming on national TV and using this platform to -- saying things. No, I'm not.
(CROSSTALK)
BLAKEMAN: -- Jewish students? Are you okay with hate speech?
NAVARRO: Don't make this about that. Make it about the family.
BLAKEMAN: That's exactly what it's about.
NAVARRO: You talk louder, it doesn't mean anything. You are making this about --
BLAKEMAN: I'm sorry.
NAVARRO: You are saying things on national TV that you cannot corroborate. That is irresponsible. And you should not come and use the CNN platform --
BLAKE: Well, why don't you ask the NYPD Intelligence Bureau?
NAVARRO: Well, let them --
BLAKEMAN: Why don't you ask the FBI and the CIA?
NAVARRO: Because I don't speak to them.
BLAKEMAN: They know exactly what's going on.
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: If there's evidence, bring it out. PHILLIP: Hold on, I'm going to ask one more time. Do you know for a
fact that he is being paid by another entity, especially a terrorist organization? Can you state that as a fact?
BLAKEMAN: I can state with the fact that he's being paid as the other professional protesters are being paid by anti-American organizations that are engaged in nefarious activities.
PHILLIP: So, if that allegation --
BLAKEMAN: That I can confirm.
PHILLIP: Okay, so, so, Bruce, I'm just going to say it right here. You've just made that claim.
[22:35:00]
There's no evidence that I know of. There's no evidence that you've provided of that.
BLAKEMAN: Well, he can sue me then.
PHILLIP: And, and, I mean --
BLAKEMAN: And it will come out in court.
PHILLIP: He's free to do whatever he wants. But the United States government has not made that allegation. They have not made charges against him on that front.
BLAKEMAN: Of course they made that allegation.
PHILLIP: No, they --
BLAKEMAN: That's why he's being detained.
NAVARRO: No, they have not.
PHILLIP: No they have not.
LATHAN: So, this is the chilling effect of stomping on the First Amendment. Essentially, you're saying that he's a terrorist. Essentially, you're saying that he's being paid by a terrorist organization because --
BLAKEMAN: He's supporting a terrorist organization.
LATHAN: He's not. He's not supporting the terrorist organization.
BLAKEMAN: He gives out pro-Hamas literature. He intimidates Jewish students. He engaged in hate speech.
LATHAN: None of that is reality. What we have --
BLAKEMAN: He engaged in violence. Are we condoning that now? LATHAN: What I'm condoning is this. I'm condoning Americans and people all over the world that have an issue with what's happening in Gaza to be able to use their voice legally and peacefully to protest that. And I think that as Americans, we should support that. I think that -- I think that everyone here has made a big deal about free speech in the last couple of years.
I think we've had this conversation culturally. We've had this conversation in the courts. And to me, when I see authoritarianism like this, saying that anyone who has a view that there should be a genocide in Gaza is a terrorist, then I see that.
BLAKEMAN: That's not true. Free speech means that you have an area where you can engage in protest. You can be pro-Gaza. You can be pro- Palestinian. You can do all that. And that is condoned and it is allowed. When you intimidate, when you occupy buildings, when you create fear in students that go to school, that's hate speech. That's not protected speech under the Constitution.
PHILLIP: Let me just state one thing, Bruce, just, or maybe it's a question for you. But all of those things that you're saying, you're characterizing the overall protests at Columbia, which include many other students.
One of the things, as I've looked into this, is that he is the leader of the student organization. There were many people involved in this, including many people who were not even a part of that organization.
So, how do you know that he personally is responsible for any of those things that you're talking about, let alone our -- are you -- if you're accusing him of having done something illegal, there have been no charges against him from a legal perspective.
BLAKEMAN: Well, I believe that he's been engaged in hate speech. I believe that he's been engaged in intimidation.
PHILLIP: So, is hate speech -- is hate speech -- that's the crux of the question.
JENNINGS: I don't think that he --
PHILLIP: Is hate speech grounds for somebody to lose their legal rights in this country? Is that what you're saying?
JENNINGS: I don't think hate speech is actually the issue. He's a resident alien. He can be deported under U.S. law for -- if the Secretary of State has any reasonable ground to believe he would have a potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequence, and you mentioned the student organization. The student organization put out -- no let me finish.
PHILLIP: Before you move on because I think that's a really important point right?
JENNINGS: Yeah.
PHILLIP: That's the statute that they're using.
JENNINGS: Yeah.
PHILLIP: Have you seen any evidence to suggest that there is actually a serious reason to believe that this student is going to be a threat to national security in this country?
JENNINGS: I certainly watched the abomination that's gone on at Columbia and gone another place.
PILLIP: Okay, so a threat to national security.
JENNINGS: And I'll just tell you that his organization --
PHILLIP: I mean, I'm not going to let you move on because this is the problem.
JENNINGS: Yeah, I'll tell you why it's a threat to national security --
PHILLIP: Scott.
JENNINGS: --- if you let me answer you.
PHILLIP: Well, Scott.
JENNINGS: You want me to answer you or not?
PHILLIP: Okay.
JENNINGS: His organization says, we are dedicated fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization.
PHILLIP: Okay.
JENNINGS: He's not a citizen. He doesn't need to be here.
PHILLIP: I don't want to --I don't want to move on.
NAVARRO: In my -- in my view, it was a failure by Columbia University. They could have expelled him. They could abandoned him from campus, and they should have if he violated their policy.
Look, every student has a right to attend school without fear of intimidation, right? But what we are doing here with this -- the message that this is sending is a message to scare anybody from protesting.
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: That's absolutely wrong.
PHILLIP: And Scott, you just described him having viewpoints that you disagree with. Again, is that enough to have someone lose their rights in this country?
JENNINGS: He has viewpoints that, in my opinion, jeopardize the security of the United States.
PHILLIP: How? But how?
JENNINGS: He is -- he is obviously --obviously a radical who is here to form a --
LATHAN: No, he's not a radical at all.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: So, has he committed -- has he committed violence against the United States government, Scott?
JENNINGS: You're saying eradicate --
BLAKEMAN: He wants to destroy western civilization.
JENNINGS: -- western civilization doesn't make you a radical?
PHILLIP: Scott, has he acted in any way that is violence against the United States government?
JENNINGS: I think these -- I think these protests and the violence they have fomented, and the intimidation and fear against the Jewish kids on these campuses is absolutely an act of insurrection against the United States.
PHILLIP: But you're -- okay.
BLAKEMAN: I don't think -- I don't think anyone here is condoning.
PHILLIP: But I just - the irony of you saying that that's an act of insurrection against the United States and this President -- when this President--
JENNINGS: Of course he would love to see this government fall. Would he not?
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: Yeah. I wonder --
PHILLIP: When this President just pardoned people who actually --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: --conducted an insurrection against the United States is amazing to me. Go ahead, Dan.
(CROSSTALK)
[22:40:00]
LATHAN: Yeah, I wonder if you guys have the same feeling about humanization--
(CROSSTALK)
LATHAN: -- as you do about organizations that -- or anybody like that, that was involved in the January 6th insurrection and was important.
JENNINGS: Do not -- have never condone it.
KOH: Wait, wait.
PHILLIP: Go ahead, Dan.
KOH: Nobody at this table is condoning anti-Semitism. I think we need to take a step back and realize the implications of what the President has done without due process. On his Truth social post, he not only referenced anti-Semitism, he referenced anti-American speech. Does anyone here know what he means by anti-American speech? Because I certainly don't.
And so, leaving that up to President Trump, I think there's a lot of Americans out there who would be pretty concerned about him using his own interpretation of anti-American to do things without due process.
PHILLIP: Is anti-American speech, Scott -- that's enough?
UNKNOWN: Yes.
JENNINGS: Look, what they have engaged in is a clear threat to the United States. And if you want the United States to be overrun by radicals the way Europe has, be my guess. But I think the president needs to stand up for the integrity of the United States.
PHILLIP: But Scott, what is the threat?
JENNINGS: The threat of our country and our college campuses being overrun by radicals who are trying to run Jewish kids off of campuses.
LATHAN: They're not trying to run Jewish kids.
JENNINGS: Yes they are in UCLA. In UCLA, they won't even let them go to class. Columbia is in abomination.
LATHAN: No, They're not -- first of all, they were -- first of all, there were violent counter protests at UCLA that were done by Jewish organizations.
JENNINGS: No, both sides. Anti-Semitism is a scourge on this country. Do not --
LATHAN: Oh my God. It absolutely is a scourge on this country, but what is not a scourge on this country is people that are protesting for the lives of children in Gaza. People that are protesting a war that's gone on way too long with thousands -- they're not protesting. There are many Jewish kids, Columbia students that are out there protesting with people.
PHILLIP: One of the things, so let me just show.
BLAKEMAN: Hamas beheaded babies, raped women --
PHILLIP: Bruce, Bruce, hold on. Just stop right there for one second, okay?
BLAKESMAN: Will do.
PHILLIP: All right. Because you're also making many more claims that we don't have time to go through right now. Ann Coulter, who is no -- you know, bleeding-heart liberal. She says, "There is almost no one I want to deport. But unless they've committed a crime," --
NAVARRO: No. "No one I don't want to deport."
PHILLIP: -- "no one I don't want to deport", excuse me.
NAVARRO: You got that one wrong.
PHILLIP: "There's almost no one I don't want to deport unless they've committed a crime, isn't this a violation of the First Amendment?" And what she's responding to is a story about Zionist organizations that are preparing a list of foreign, what "The New York Post" describes as pro-Hamas students, hoping that Trump will deport them.
So, now we have a system in which allegedly, some kids are going to collect names of other students on their campuses, send them to the United States government to have them deported?
BLAKEMAN: You know, Zionists are typically anti-Semites.
PHILLIP: I'm sorry, what?
BLAKEMAN: They never, they never, I mean, people who criticize Zionists, yes. Anti-Zionists are people that are anti-Semites. They never criticize any other country. They never criticize Venezuela. They never criticize China. They never criticize North Korea. It's always Israel, Israel. And that to me is an anti-Semite.
NAVARRO: Can I ask one thing though?
PHILLIP: But I mean, it's kind of honestly a change of the subject. The question is --
BLAKEMAN: Not for me it isn't.
PHILLIP: Well, no.
LATHAN: So, any criticism of the state of Israel is anti-Semitic. Let's just put that --
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: Well, actually --
BLAKEMAN: When you only criticize Israel, and you criticize them unfairly, and you never talk about Venezuela, North Korea, China, Russia. PHILLIP: This is not a debate about anti-Semitism, to be honest. It's a question of whether just because you make a statement - a political statement, that some people disagree with, you can be targeted for removal from this country as a student. A group of students collecting a list of people and sending them to ---
(CROSSTALK)
BLAKEMAN: It's not just the statement, it's the actions, too. It's the intimidation. It's the harassment. It's the hate speech. It's the violence.
NAVARRO: Listen.
BLAKEMAN: It's occupying buildings.
PHILLIP: So, don't you think that the government then has to produce some evidence that this particular student was actually engaged in those specific actions?
BLAKEMAN: I think Scott quoted the law very succinctly.
PHILLIP: No, no. But I'm saying --
BLAKEMAN: He's not a citizen.
PHILLIP: I'm talking about based on what you are saying.
BLAKEMAN: He's here as a privilege, not a right.
PHILLIP: What you are saying is that it's not the statements, it's the actions. So, don't they have to prove that there were actions?
JENNINGS: I mean, isn't it pretty clear the actions of voice taking place on the campus of Columbia and dozens if not hundreds of thousands of people?
NAVARRO: The statute you quoted --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: You're saying it's not clear what's going on at Columbia?
UNKNOWN: Absolutely not.
UNKNOWN: No, no, I'm saying --
NAVARRO: Can we take this out of the Columbia thing?
PHILLIP: Let me just finish my thought, Ana. What I'm saying is that it is not clear that this particular student has engaged in the specific actions that he was talking about. And you've shown me no evidence of that either.
JENNINGS: Okay, well, guess what? He is not a citizen. If he were a citizen I might feel differently. He's a guest in this country. PHILLIP: Okay.
JENNINGS: It's my view and it's the Trump administration.
PHILLIP: But it doesn't matter.
JENNINGS: No, I didn't walk in here with my gumshoe investigative case, Abby. But here's what I do think. This guy's running an organization at Columbia that has ruined two solid years of people's lives.
PHILLIP: He's saying that someone should be deported --
JENNINGS: Yes.
PHILLIP: -- based on allegations that you have not substantiated.
JENNINGS: I should --
[22:45:00]
I think he should be deported based on what the Trump administration has already identified. He is a threat to the national.
PHILLIP: Okay, you think he needed to be deported based on his affiliation with a group of --
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: But here's the problem. Today, we're talking -- tonight, we're talking about this particular case. But the statute you quoted, it's an obscure statute -- old statute that's being used, is about being against U.S. foreign policy, right? So, for example, when I was part of protests in Miami, when the Clinton administration and Janet Reno returned Elian Gonzalez to Cuba, is that then --
JENNINGS: Were you trying to eradicate Western civilization?
NAVARRO: No, I was trying to stop the U.S. government --
JENNINGS: Okay.
NAVARRO: -- and I was protesting against what the U.S. government had done.
JENNINGS: Were you occupying buildings? Were you occupying buildings? Were you fomenting violence?
NAVARRO: I was protesting -- I was protesting against -- I was doing what that -- what that -- I was doing what that statute says. I was against U.S. foreign policy at the time. We were shutting down streets. We were shutting down buildings. We were doing all sorts of things.
JENNINGS: Were you inciting others to engage in violence? Were you chasing people around? Were you intimidating people? No. LATHAN: Just to be clear, just to be clear from President Trump's view. One view, one group of violent protesters that occupy the building, they all get pardoned. The others get shipped off back to their country and excoriated in front.
That is a massive, massive hole of hypocrisy right there. And it demonstrates to me that it's not about whether or not you're part of the insurrection or anything. We shouldn't get into a debate about parties.
BLAKEMAN: No, no. It has nothing to do with debate about parties.
LATHAN: This is about what they are protesting.
JENNINGS: Look, my view is that we're in a fight for the future of Western civilization. This guy's on the wrong side of it, and he don't need to be here.
NAVARRO: And if the court rules against -- if the court rules against -- against the government, this president is going to abide by that rule?
JENNINGS: I hope it goes to the Supreme Court. I think it's a landmark case.
NAVARRO: I do, too.
PHILLIP: All right, I think we're going to leave it there.
NAVARRO: I think it will go to the Supreme Court.
PHILLIP: Coming up next, Michelle Obama's announcement about her future and what it may mean for American politics. We'll discuss.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(22:51:32)
PHILLIP: If you don't like the Obama bros, how about an actual Obama? Michelle, the former first lady, and her brother, Craig Robinson, are launching their own pod where they promised to save nothing but to provide plenty of experts, special guests and opinions.
And the people want to know, Michelle Obama, what is her future? Because last we checked, Democrats are in the deserts, they're in the wilderness and Michelle Obama, she is at the top of the pile choice for president. There's really no one else who is more popular than her in this party. What's she going to do?
PHILLIP: I think she's living her best life. I think she's doing whatever the hell she wants, wearing whatever the hell she wants, putting her hair in whatever shape she wants it. Look, I think that -- I've always thought that the messages and the shape of a political party come from the people.
And when you see those people that are doing impromptu protests, or those thousands and thousands of people that are showing up to see Bernie Sanders speak truth, people who are showing up to Republican town halls and holding those folks accountable, I think that that's where the future of the Democratic Party is going to come from.
Folks who think that there's going to be some sort of magic bullet, some sort of magic cohesive message that drops like manna from heaven or from the mouth of Michelle Obama or Schumer or you name it are wrong. It's going to be about the people. They're going to say --
BLAKEMAN: I don't think the Democratic Party has a problem with the messenger. I think they have a part of a problem with the messaging. I think that people aren't buying what they're selling. People don't want open borders. People want law and order. People want jobs.
They want economic development and I think basically, that's why President Trump won. And I think that's why we held the majority in the Congress. And I think that basically, it's not their messenger. It's their messaging. People don't like their message.
PHILLIP: Although there are fewer people who are better at being the messenger and the message than Michelle Obama. I mean, she just is a better communicator than most people.
KOH: And I think people see her as incredibly authentic, because she always is true to who she is, right? And I thought what was notable about the podcast description is it's not politics, right? It's about life, how you deal with life and bringing on guests who are helpful with that. And we live in a time that's very uncertain. People are scared. There's division, I think. There's a lot of need for authenticity from Democrats and Republicans.
LATHAN: I got news from Michelle Obama. Nobody cares. We need Michelle Obama to say something that is going to make us feel okay with how things are going right now. If I give Donald Trump credit for one thing, he completely deprogrammed the right.
He deprogrammed them, he reprogrammed them to speak to their constituency in a way that moves the people. There's got to be somebody that does that for the Democrats. Michelle Obama is the most trusted voice on the left by far.
It's malpractice if the people that are wondering and uncertain about the trajectory of this country don't get something out of her podcast. She's got to do it, I don't know. Like, it's just another lifestyle podcast.
PHILLIP: She can't stay out of it. She can't just --
LATHAN: Can't stay out of it.
NAVARRO: She's making money and having fun.
JENNINGS: You know, we all are sort of all, it's like, programmed to talk about how great she is and how smart she is. I mean, she campaigned a lot for Kamala Harris. She was a key speaker of the Democratic National Convention. Barack Obama was a key strategist for this whole thing that happened last year. And yet somehow Donald Trump still won.
So, I'm rethinking the premise of that -- she's the answer to the future, or that any politician is the answer to Democratic parties.
UNKNOWN: She's not a politician.
NAVARRO: She's so good that Melania Trump stole her speech.
JENNINGS: I'm sorry, what?
NAVARRO: She's so good that Melania Trump plagiarized her speech, or do you not remember?
UNKNOWN: And you like her, Scott?
NAVARRO: At the Republican convention.
LATHAN: Scott, you like Michelle Obama?
JENNINGS: Yeah, I think she's fine. But I'm just, but just after the, and I think, and I thought she gave a wonderful speech as far as convention speeches go. I'm just looking at what happened last fall. The Obamas helped engineer Biden's ouster. They put in Harris, they quarter ran the campaign. She campaigned for him and it was a total failure. I'm just wondering how good they really are.
PHILLIP: I think people like her because she is staying out of it.
BLAKEMAN: I think people like her because she's conducted herself with great dignity since she has left the White House and I think people on both sides of the aisle appreciate that even though that she's partisan.
PHILLIP: Thank you everyone. Coming up next, underway tonight, a massive desperate search for a college student who's missing in the Dominican Republic. Laura Coates has much more on this and it starts next.
NAVARRO: Nothing good happens --
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
