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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Americans Souring on Trump Amid Economic Rollercoaster; Rosie O'Donnell Flees to Ireland in Protest of Trump Win; Anti-Americanism on Rise Globally Amid Trump's Trade Wars. Newsom Gives Bannon A Platform; Judge Blocks President Trump from Punishing Law Firms. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired March 12, 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]
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ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, unpopular. Instead of very shrewd, Donald Trump is now viewed not as a celebrated head of state, but as weakening the economy he said he would fix.
Plus, the president in Wonderland, a judge tells Trump point blank, he can't act like the queen of hearts yelling off with their head.
Also, the odd couple, Gavin Newsom puts a mic in front of Steve Bannon.
GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): I also appreciate that you call balls and strikes.
STEVE BANNON, FORMER TRUMP ADVISER: I'm just honored you had me on here.
PHILLIP: Inviting anger.
ADAM KINZINGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: This is insane.
PHILLIP: And head-scratching from fellow Democrats.
And may the wind be always at your back. An original Trump foe, Rosie O'Donnell --
D. TRUMP: You're better off not knowing her.
PHILLIP: -- does what most celebs just talk about doing.
Live at the table, Ana Navarro, Shermichael Singleton, Christine Quinn, Kevin O'Leary, and Fred Trump.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEO CLIP) PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening, I'm Abby Phillip in New York, let's get right to what America is talking about. They let you do anything, or do they? Tonight, Donald Trump has finally found out what the country won't let him do in the middle of 5th Avenue. It's a question our friend S.E. Cupp is asking after the president once bet his voters would remain loyal pretty much no matter what.
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D. TRUMP: I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose any voters, okay? It's like incredible.
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PHILLIP: In the intervening nine years, he's been mostly right about that. He survived two impeachments. He engineered a comeback from steering a mob towards the Capitol, democracy, quid pro quos, MAGA has followed Trump down those rabbit holes.
But Trump may have finally found the one line his voters won't skip over with him, the trade war he's starting and the economic upheaval that could drain retirement accounts and run up bills in the checking line. The CNN polls that are out today show that Americans are right now deeply dissatisfied with the president. 56 percent say that they don't like Trump's management of the economy. That is his worst mark since the start of his first term. And 42 percent in our new poll say that the economy is the issue that matters most to them.
Joining us in our fifth seat is CNN Global Economic Analyst Rana Foroohar. But I want to start first, before we get to the economics of it, and there's a lot to get to, on the politics of this all, Ana Navarro, because Trump, I think, really has had a lot of leash from the American public throughout his political career. But on this, they've been pretty clear. The polling says, when it comes to tariffs, okay, specifically, are you happy with Trump's handling of tariffs? 61 percent say they disapprove. That's pretty much a huge chunk of America saying, no, thank you, Mr. President.
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, look, there's the dissatisfaction of America, I think most Americans are against trade wars, are against tariffs, particularly because we are seeing them waged against some of our strongest allies and trading partners, right, like Canada, like Mexico. But it's also the way he's gone about it, where it seems like every hour, every day he's contradicting himself. So, the uncertainty, the chaos, the fear, the nerves that is causing is having an effect and it is affecting people's psyche and the way they spend, you know?
And I think that because it is so tied what we're seeing in the economy, the markets, so tied to those actions with the tariffs and the things that he's been doing for two months, you can't blame this one on Biden. This is squarely on Trump.
PHILLIP: And the things that I hear the most from people is, why would he do this? I think there's like an expectations thing that's happening where their expectations of Trump's stewardship of the economy were actually pretty high. And then they're like, but he's messing a good thing up. And that's kind of what it seems like is happening right now.
RANA FOROOHAR, CNN GLOBAL ECONOMIC ANALYST: 100 percent. You know, and the business community is starting to get really worried. I'm hearing from a lot of CEOs. They're starting to talk to each other and just say, what the heck is going on? You know, there was a Yale conference of CEOs a couple days ago, and this was a big topic.
[22:05:02]
People were very negative, very concerned about, you know, not just the effects of, say, you know, inputs to, you know, cars, but say, is Canada going to shut off your energy to your factory in the upper Midwest? You know, what's it going to mean if there is full blown trade war for business and job creation. And at the same time, retirees, I can't tell you how many people are calling me, emailing me and saying, what should I do with my money? You know, it doesn't seem like the S&P or even America is a safe bet anymore. That's something that doesn't go away quickly. You know, people just don't know what to expect. And it's creating this really deep sense of fear. And, by the way, economic research shows that when that sense of fear sets in, it takes a long time to go away. It takes a year, two years, sometimes more.
PHILLIP: Yes. Kevin, I mean, you understand that. The markets are speaking with one voice. They are saying thumbs down, don't like it. And the CEOs are being pretty straightforward. Jamie Dimon, a month ago, he said -- or a month-and-a-half ago, he said if tariffs are inflationary, but it's good for national security, so be it. Get over it. Today, he's saying I don't think the American worker goes to work in the morning, changes what they're going to do because they write about tariffs, but I do think companies might and uncertainty is not a good thing.
KEVIN O'LEARY, CHAIRMAN, O'LEARY VENTURES AND SHARK TANK INVESTOR: Okay. Let's separate the market from the policy. So, stock markets correct about every 18 months as much as 10 to 20 percent. We're right in the middle of that right now. It's actually healthy. I mean, it feels terrible when it's occurring, but corrections have been part of the market for 150 years, so let's get over that.
Let's talk about the policy of tariffs. Tariffs in this situation are not long term yet. Even Lutnick today said he's having the premier of Ontario tomorrow morning for discussions to bring down the heat on car and electricity issues. The challenge with Canada, which we just talked about, is they have no leader. Trudeau was kicked out on Sunday night at midnight. They're going to have a new leader in 90 days. Lutnick himself said this morning. Let's wait until the new person who's going to be Prime Minister is in place and start a Pan-Canadian negotiation.
Now, tariffs themselves, nobody understands. If you ask the average person walking down the street what's a tariff, they have no idea. What Trump is trying to do is to reset the tariff schedules that were set in place after the Second World War in every single country. Not just Canada, not just Mexico, but Germany, and England, and France, and Switzerland, and India.
So, it's very simple. Let's say we make sugar as we do and India makes sugar and they put 110 percent tariff on our sugar going to India. Why don't we just reciprocate?
So, what happens in a trade war where tariffs are escalated is when both sides say to each other --
PHILLIP: But I do want to distinguish between what you're talking about, reciprocal tariffs, which he's promised are coming.
O'LEARY: That's coming April 2nd.
PHILLIP: Yes, right, he's promised are coming. And what has actually been happening now, which is that Trump claims that there are going to be massive across the board tariffs on two countries that we have a trade agreement with.
O'LEARY: Abby, I know you don't like Trump's style.
PHILLIP: No, I'm just --
O'LEARY: You haven't liked it for 12 years.
PHILLIP: I don't want people to be confused, is what I'm saying, about what we're talking about here. What the markets are reacting to right now is Trump saying 25 percent on Mexico and Canada, and then the next day saying, oh, never mind, 50 percent on steel and aluminum.
O'LEARY: That's called negotiating.
PHILLIP: And then six hours later, oh, never mind, but that's what they're reacting to.
CHRISTINE QUINN (D), FORMER SPEAKER, NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL: Look, I don't think you can Right off what is happening in the market right now is just a correction, one.
O'LEARY: It is a correction.
QUINN: Two, Americans may or may not understand tariffs, but you know what they understand. They were promised that egg prices and other prices were going to go down. And what they're watching in the market, which seems to be a reaction to tariffs, is their retirement funds disappear. And they're making it very clear that they hold one person accountable in the poll numbers, Donald Trump. He won and us Democrats lost because we didn't focus enough on the economy and we didn't focus it In a way that was tangible and understandable to Americans.
NAVARRO: Do you really think Americans are so dumb that they don't understand tariffs, that they don't understand that something's going to cost 25 percent more? Honestly, I think the person who doesn't understand tariffs is Donald Trump, who often says that it is the country that he's going to tariff that are going to pay those tariffs when we all know it is us.
QUINN: Mexico was going to pay for the wall.
NAVARRO: Who's going to end up paying the tariffs?
O'LEARY: Actually, people don't understand tariffs.
SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: So, in 1991, we had a $30 billion dollar trade deficit. Fast forward to 2022, $950 billion dollars. That's a 3,000-plus percent increase. No one said anything about the price of goods going up, or at least acknowledge the price of goods, except for people on my side going up over the past four years. And the point was made that it takes Americans about a year or two to get over the pain. Well, I guess it's going to take an additional 48 years than to get over the previous 4 years.
I think the president is right to attempt a reset as it pertains to our trade. I spent, I don't know, an hour on my way up here looking at all these old articles coming out of liberal outlets over the past 10, 15, 20 years talking about the disaster free trade has had on middle class America, how it's destroyed manufacturing in this country, how once upon a time, the Rust Belt was thriving.
[22:10:11]
Now it's in decay. You can't blame that on Donald Trump for wanting to focus and put a microscope and saying, wait a minute here, we have left a significant percent of our portfolio of markets behind. Let's fix that.
FOROOHAR: I want to respond to this because, you know, it's a little more nuanced. You know, I've written some of those articles and I've written three books actually about the problems with the neoliberal trading system. But there is a difference between doing what Trump one did, which is, you know, raising the scrim on the global trading relationship, particularly between the U.S. and China and saying, there's a problem, we have to rebalance. If you're going to do that, you need to have your allies with you. And that's what Biden did. He came in and said, we're going to keep some of those tariffs.
SINGLETON: That's what he did?
FOROOHAR: Yes, he did. And I'll tell you give me a minute and I'll explain.
SINGLETON: Yes, please.
FOROOHAR: He came in and he said, we're going to keep some of those tariffs in place, but we're also going to have an industrial strategy where we start working with allies to try and figure out how to rebuild, you know, parts of the manufacturing industry. We're trying to retrain workers.
SINGLETON: How effective is this strategy?
FOROOHAR: Well, the chips industry, for starters, in 18 months --
SINGLETON: I mean, looking at the economy over four years, it was a disaster.
FOROOHAR: Let me just -- oh, please. You know, in 18 months, the Biden administration brought back semiconductors, which hadn't been in this country in 50 years. That's no small thing.
Back to what Trump's doing this time, again, I'm not against tariffs, but if you're going to rebuild industry, you need to work with allies. You need that shared demand. And right now, by trying to do it all at once, by trying to reset everything and all alone, I don't think you're going to be able to get to that endgame of rebuilding industry. I really don't. I mean, you need Canada, for example.
O'LEARY: You referenced the Chips and Science Act, a total waste of money.
FOROOHAR: Not at all.
O'LEARY: I as a private investor would never give Intel a dime. It's being sold for car parts right now. Crappy management, I was forced to pay as a taxpayer to a really crappy company.
(CROSSTALKS)
FOROOHAR: That's ludicrous.
O'LEARY: Horrible bill, horrible bill. I'm saying it right now because it's a horrible bill and I hope it gets shut down.
FOROOHAR: I'll let Rana respond to this because, look, I've talked to people who are in the defense industry, people who are in the technology industry, no one says that about chips and science.
O'LEARY: I'm saying it right now.
PHILLIP: Here's what they do say. They say it could have gone even further.
O'LEARY: More money to Intel? Why? The private sector won't invest in it.
PHILLIP: They say it could have gone even further. Republicans, by the way, voted for it. Let's be clear about that.
FOROOHAR: Was it a good idea for anybody, for the U.S., for China, for Europe to have 92 percent of semiconductors made in Taiwan? No, it wasn't. But private industry was not bringing that back to the U.S.
O'LEARY: You can change the tax policy to get --
FOROOHAR: The government did that, okay?
O'LEARY: Never pick companies.
SINGLETON: I take that point. I actually don't disagree. You've even had companies as of this year saying that they're going to invest further in chip development in the U.S. So, I don't disagree with that.
Again, the premise of the argument that I'm making here, though, that's one particular sector. We're still behind significantly as it pertains to manufacturing writ large. And to put a spotlight and focus on that, to at least return some of that back to the United States, I don't think they're certainly a bad thing.
FOROOHAR: Well, I'll tell you what's not going to help manufacturing. If Canada starts making factories in the upper Midwest, they spot prices for energy.
SINGLETON: Canada relies more on the U.S. than the U.S. relies on Canada.
FOROOHAR: Because Trump is not working with allies. It's such low hanging fruit. China's laughing all the way to the bank on this, by the way. They're just looking out --
SINGLETON: All the way? Because the last time I looked at their economic condition, it doesn't look very great. You should know that.
FOROOHAR: Oh, hello. They played a long game. It's not about the quarter. It's not about the company. It's about the state and it's about building a pathway and sticking to it. We have to do that. And warring with adversaries and allies alike is not the way to do that. It just isn't right.
PHILLIP: We got to leave it here for this conversation, guys, but much more ahead. Rana, thank you very much for joining us, as always. Everyone else stick around.
Coming up next, one of Donald Trump's mortal enemies says that she left the United States in protest of his presidency. But is Rosie O'Donnell's move a weak or a strong form of speaking out? Fred Trump will join us in our fifth seat at the table.
Plus, liberals are furious with Gavin Newsom as he gives platform to Steve Bannon.
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KINZINGER: Many of us on the right sacrificed our careers taking these people on and Newsom's trying to make a career with them. This is insane.
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[22:15:00]
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ROSIE O'DONNELL, COMEDIAN AND FORMER TALK SHOW HOST: There he is hair looping, going, everyone deserves a second chance. Like the first wife had an affair, like the second wife had an affair, had kids both times, and he's the moral compass 20-year-olds in America. That will (INAUDIBLE) spin, my friends.
D. TRUMP: It was disgraceful. I mean, here's a horrible human being, a terrible woman. She looks bad and she sounds bad. And believe me, as bad as she looks, she's worse in spite. Look, Rosie's a loser.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You've called women you don't like fat pigs, dogs, slobs.
D. TRUMP: Only Rosie O'Donnell.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Rosie O'Donnell and Donald Trump obviously are not friends, but the former talk show host is taking literally what other celebrities don't take seriously, leaving the United States.
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O'DONNELL: When, you know, it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America, that's when we will consider coming back.
The personal is political.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Of course, this came up at the White House today.
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REPORTER: Why in the world would you let Rosie O'Donnell move to Ireland? It's just going to lower your happiness level.
D. TRUMP: That's true.
[22:20:00]
Thank you. I like that question. Do you know you have Rosie O'Donnell? Do you know who she is? Do you know who she is? You're better off not knowing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: That was awkward in about 25 seconds there. Fred Trump is the president's nephew and he is at the table with us now. This conversation about Rosie O'Donnell is about Rosie, but it's really not about Rosie. It's about whether it -- this is a serious step for people to take to leave the country just because of Donald Trump.
QUINN: Look, most people who are afraid and really nervous now don't have the resources or the wherewithal to go to other countries. So, I think the more important thing about this isn't that she's gone to Ireland where her grandparents were from, et cetera. It's the fact that there is really tremendous fear in people of color communities, in the LGBTQ-plus community. People are worried about their rights being taken away and don't know what to do about that. And that is what we should take from this.
PHILLIP: Fred, is this fighting or is this running away?
FRED TRUMP, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S NEPHEW: Fighting on whose part?
PHILLIP: On Rosie's part. I mean, I think she kind of sees this as a stand that she's taking.
F. TRUMP: She had an opportunity four years ago to do the same thing and leave the country, but she stayed. You know, not to exactly sound like Donald, but I agree with her. She's not a funny person. I've had two personal anecdotes. She's an unpleasant person. If she wants to leave, that's her choice. Good for her.
NAVARRO: Well, I've worked with her. She's a friend of mine. I don't think she's an unpleasant person at all, so maybe she finds you unpleasant. But I was there at that Republican debate. It was in Cleveland, the first Republican debate in 2016 when he made that that comment and the entire place erupted in laughter. And I had my phone on my lap and I remember I felt it vibrate and I looked down and it was Rosie O'Donnell. And she said to me, I'm watching this debate with my children. What do I say to my kids?
And so, look, I think I think we have seen in the last two months that when Trump said that he was going to be the retribution and that he was going to take retribution, we've seen in these last two months that he meant it. And, certainly, Rosie O'Donnell is somebody that he doesn't like. She doesn't like him either. And I think for Rosie's mental health, for the well being of her child, Rosie O'Donnell is not only a celebrity, she's an LGBTQ person, an activist, she's the mother of a child with special needs.
Listen, everybody's doing certain things to like find a balance of how to fight back and retain their mental health. And there's a lot of people who maybe can't afford to go to Spain or to -- you know, or to Ireland but that are tuning out and figuring out ways of self care.
As I was sitting here in the previous segment, I got an email, a text from one of my good friends saying, let's go to Madrid. People are thinking about this because this is a lot happening in America.
F. TRUMP: If you don't mind you brought up people with special needs. My young son has complex disabilities.
NAVARRO: Yes.
F. TRUMP: I am fully involved in advocating for the disabled. So, millions of these folks do not have that same opportunity. Perhaps you should stay and fight. Stay and fight.
O'LEARY: Who gives a --
F. TRUMP: Thank you. O'LEARY: -- beep about Rosie O'Donnell and where she wants to go? I don't care what celebrities think about politicians or who they want to vote for. I think the last election proved it doesn't matter who you are.
NAVARRO: You are a celebrity (INAUDIBLE) on politics.
O'LEARY: Who cares what I think in terms of my picking a politician or who I vote for? You make your own decision. If she wants to move to Phnom Penh, move to Phnom Penh. She wants to go to Ireland, great. It's a better passport. You get an E.U. passport, not the British one. It's better. But who gives a beep?
NAVARRO: Well, Kevin, obviously, Donald Trump does if he is bringing it up and discussing it with the leader of Ireland in the Oval Office.
O'LEARY: You honor her by spending this much time worried about what she thinks or where she goes.
NAVARRO: I'm good with that.
O'LEARY: I don't get it.
SINGLETON: I want to touch on something Fred said. If you have disagreement with the president, you have disagreement with the Republican Party, and you feel strongly enough about these issues, fight for what you believe in. I'm a bit dismayed, if I'm going to be honest with you, about a lot of these celebrities who've made all of this money in America, because of Americans criticizing how terrible this country is, yet you became rich in this country. I'm not certain she would become rich in Ireland. Yet they go to these other places and then they advocate for how bad and destructive our policies are, our politics are, yet she lived this amazing life in America that allowed her to get on a private plane to go move to Ireland. That's ridiculous.
NAVARRO: She didn't become rich under Donald Trump.
PHILLIP: It's all fine and dandy to criticize the United States when you're here. But then you go to the rest of the world where you probably wouldn't have had the same opportunities, where you don't have the same level of ability to go from, you know, rags to riches like many of these celebrities do.
[22:25:10]
And then it's popular to be anti-American, in a way.
QUINN: Look, Rosie has been consistent in her politics throughout her entire life. So, you cannot call her kind of a Johnny come lately to the positions and the fears she is espousing. I think the issue is what she said. The politics is personal. Personal is politics. She feels, as she's articulated, that for her and her children, the children of an LGBTQ parent, there is a real potential of rights being stripped away. And no one can argue that the LGBTQ community is not under attack right now from the Trump administration, very different than it was in the Biden administration. Would I ever leave this country? No. But she's fearful and that's what she felt was best for her child. And you can't criticize decisions people make with the best interest of their children in mind.
F. TRUMP: Why is it a gender story?
O'LEARY: What does this have to do with gender?
PHILLIP: She didn't say, she was talking about LGBT.
SINGLETON: I'm not criticizing the decision to leave. She has every right to leave and I'm happy she's gone. But my point is, with the profile and megaphone that she has, being a celebrity, and you talk about being an LGBTQ rights advocate, why not use that stardom to advocate for people in your community versus hopping on a freaking plane going to Ireland?
NAVARRO: She's done that her entire life and really has been an advocate and an activist her entire life.
PHILLIP: Kevin, just don't talk about politics.
NAVARRO: I think today she put herself and her well being.
O'LEARY: First, I must say that after this conversation, I've been enlightened. I won't be able to sleep tonight worried about that.
F. TRUMP: Sort of along those lines. I mean, this is what we have to get used to. I mean, here's the leader of an ally of ours, Ireland, having to answer a question like this was a week, two weeks ago, you know, the reporter asking a question about Zelenskyy's T-shirt, or, you know --
PHILLIP: Welcome to the --
F. TRUMP: No, I understand that.
PHILLIP: Welcome to the new White House where Trump lets virtually anybody in.
F. TRUMP: Well, the new White House, same as the old White House four years ago.
NAVARRO: Well, can you imagine asking about somebody, about Rosie O'Donnell being allowed in Ireland? Could there be a more Irish name than Rosie O'Donnell? I mean --
F. TRUMP: Kevin O'Leary, I just think it's simple.
O'LEARY: Don't have my passport.
SINGLETON: Stop criticizing America when you leave this place, and you've gotten rich on the backs of Americans. Just stop doing that. NAVARRO: Well, if you criticize it here, you might end up fired, or you might end up investigated, you might end up audited, you might end up, you know, having retribution from the federal government.
PHILLIP: We've got to leave it there, guys. Coming up next --
O'LEARY: That's it, I'm getting a GoFundMe Rosie.
PHILLIP: -- he is one of MAGA's original disciples.
NAVARRO: She's doing okay.
PHILLIP: And recently, he served prison time, and yet Steve Bannon just got a platform from the one and only Gavin Newsom. Liberals are furious about that. We'll debate.
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[22:30:00]
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Should Democrats talk to any and everyone even if that someone is an election denier and architect of MAGA populism? Gavin Newsom has a new podcast you may have heard, and he believes that the answer to that is yes. That's why he's talking to Steve Bannon.
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STEVE BANNON, FORMER TRUMP WH CHIEF STRATEGIST: I think that's a lesson that we learned after President Trump. And, look, you know, we disagree on this, but President Trump won the 2020 election.
And we were kind of shattered as a movement when he left Washington D.C, and we had to go back to basics to say, you know, it can't be somebody else do something. You know, we had to do something, and that's where we went back to really a pure populist movement to go at the grassroots, the precinct strategy, and kind of rebuild ourselves from there.
GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D) CALIFORNIA: Well, and -- and I appreciate the notion of agency that we're not bystanders in the world. It's decisions, not conditions, that determine our fate and future.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: It's things like that, casual, unchallenged, election denialism. That's why Adam Kinzinger says this was all a mistake.
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ADAM KINZINGER (R) FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE, ILLINOIS: Bannon is the author of this chaos we're seeing right now. Bannon is the one that says you need to flood the zone with shit. Bannon is the one that has basically authored where we are and what Donald Trump wants.
And because Gavin Newsom wants to run for president and thinks he's going to be this healer, he brings on this nationalist. Many of us on the right sacrificed our careers taking these people on, and Newsom's trying to make a career with them. This is insane.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So this was my one of many moments like this, where Newsom has invited conservatives on. He had Charlie Kirk on. He had Michael Savage and now Steve Bannon. And look, is it wrong to talk to him? Does he disagree with you?
SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I don't think it's wrong. And with Kirk, he talked about how his younger son is a big fan. I mean, the reality is Democrats really need to have some introspection here. Why did they lose this election? They seemingly still don't understand why.
They don't get why a slew of younger men, younger people, people of color have moved more to the right than hell, as long as I've been a Republican, I can't ever remember some of the numbers that we've seen in this most recent election.
So if you're a Democrat talking to the people who are partially responsible for this new movement and understanding the how and the why, I think is tactically smart.
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: And you know what? Republicans didn't win -- Trump didn't win by, talking to Democrats.
[22:35:00]
He won by getting the base out and getting the base energized. And I don't know. Look. On the one hand, I would say to you, we've -- I -- this is now, like, the second or third time that I'm commenting on who Gavin Newsom had on his podcast.
So, he's getting attention, right? Last week, it was the thing about the transgender comment. Today, it's -- it's Steve Bannon. So he's getting attention that I'm not sure he would be getting if he were talking to some Democrat.
UNKNOWN: Right.
NAVARRO: And that's why being said, if he's going to run for president, he's got to go through a Democratic primary before you know -- he's got to crawl before he runs. He's got to win a primary, and I'm not sure this is a good strategy to win a Democratic primary.
CHRISTINE QUINN (D) FORMER SPEAKER, NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL: And you know what voters hate? People who are not authentic. Gavin Newsom is identity shopping. He's putting out different positions flip flopping on the transgender issue, interviewing Steve Bannon, not challenging that Trump won the election.
And then he's going to see what the polls say about it. People hate that. I don't disagree. We should really look hard at ourselves as Democrats on why we lost. But if you run away from who you are, you're not being introspective. You're being a coward. He should drill down on who he is. He should be a good governor, put out a good record, and that will be compelling.
FRED TRUMP, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S NEPHEW: But, let me caution my fellow Democrats. I am a Democrat. He is a governor and I think governors generally make the best presidents. He runs a state that is just so mismanaged. And if anybody thinks that he, sitting down with Steve Bannon, who's not going to give away the keys to the store in terms of, Republican talking points and -- and strategies.
Okay, I get it. He -- TikTok apparently was not so welcome to, this idea today. YouTube, better? Okay. He runs a state terribly, and that's an issue for me. And, again, I think it should be an issue for all Democrats.
NAVARRO: And he's going to invite MAGAs. I'll tell you who I would tune in for if he invites his ex-wife, Kimberly Goldwyn.
UNKNOWN: Oh, my God.
KEVIN O'LEARY, CHAIRMAN, O'LEARY VENTURES AND "SHARK TANK" INVESTOR: I think what's missing with that podcast is you got to have a neon light --
QUINN: Oh.
O'LEAR: -- flickering behind you. He's got, like, his living room.
NAVARRO: Yeah. He needs better lights.
O'LEARY: Hey. It sucks.
NAVARRO: Those are.
O'LEARY: Somebody's got to do a set design for you because the hot podcast have neon lights and cool stuff on the desk and, like, a football.
QUINN: That's a key issue here. It's a key issue.
PHILLIP: My -- my friend and California resident, Peter Hamby, smart guy, he says this. "Here was Newsom doing precisely what smarty pants Democrat strategists were calling for in the wake of the November elections, breaking with the left on unpopular issues, like on the trans issue? Check. Engaging with voices outside of the blue cultural bubble? Check. Experimenting with new media channels that have become dominated by right wingers? Check." I mean, is he, in fact, checking all of the boxes?
QUINN: But whose boxes are they, right? They're -- is that the voters' box?
PHILLIP: People said that Democrats should do after the election is what he's doing.
QUINN: I don't think that, we, Democrats lost because we stood with transgender people. We, Democrats lost because we didn't drill down on the economy and what was hurting people in their pocketbooks. It wasn't the one issue. It was the lack of having other issues clearly articulated. But, again, he had a position prior where he stood with the transgender community. He's never stood with MAGA people before. He's looking to create himself into making himself --
O'LEARY: I'm honored to have three Democrats here.
QUINN: -- into something different.
NAVARRO: I'm not a Democrat. I'm a registered Republican. I voted against Ron DeSantis in the primaries.
O'LEARY: Okay. Well, let me ask you to do that. You just don't like your elected leader right now.
NAVARRO: I don't know. I don't like any of them.
O'LEARY: Okay, but let me ask the two Democrats. We hear a lot of reasoning as to why the party lost. What about saying your candidate was terrible?
F. TRUMP: Oh, I'll tell you exactly where Biden lost me.
O'LEARY: I'm not -- I'm talking about Harris.
F. TRUMP: Harris. Yeah. Well, let me just go back to --
O'LEARY: I'm going to give her 2.6 out of 10.
F. TRUMP: Biden lost me when he was going to be the transitional president. When he decided to run again, that's when I was --
O'LEARY: Why did you put Harris in this?
F. TRUMP: I did not do that.
PHILLIP: Well, this is the other part. Can I just play real quick? This -- this is what he says about -- I Steve Bannon actually spent a lot of time praising Democrats on this podcast. Here's what he had to say.
(BEHIN VIDEO CLIP)
BANNON: One of the best is Roe Khanna. Roe's economic patriotism, which we always kid him as just ripping off Navarre and my economic nationalism, is, is you know, he's an economic populist, so is Fetterman, and then Sherrod Brown. Sherrod Brown, I think, has been a -- economic populist for a long time, so there are very strong voices in the Democratic Party.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I I guess I -- the question is, are there lessons here from Steve Bannon who is, an unsavory character for a lot of people on the left, but who, understands the core of MAGA populism that according to him is also the core of the Democratic Party, people like Ro Khanna, John Fetterman.
SINGLETON: First of all, shout out to Ro Khanna. I'm a big Ro Khanna fan.
[22:40:00]
Love the guy. He's a Democrat. Have had incredible conversations with him --
PHILLIP: Friend of the show. He's been on here a few times.
SINGLETON: --about -- about economics, about working class people in this this country, and I oftentimes tell the Congressman, your party is not where you are on some of these issues. And I believe that to be true. Whether you like Bannon or not, he does understand working class people on the right.
Democrats have yet to figure out working class individuals on the left, and they also have a male deficit issue. They continue to lose men, and they don't know why. It's not just economic issues. It's a lot of cultural issues that have pushed men away. If they don't figure that out, they're going to continue to have issues.
NAVARRO: Can I ask you a question. What's -- what's up with Steve Bannon? Because, I mean, I don't see him near Trump much. And he well, aside from the, you know, wearing three jackets at the same time. But he you know, every time he's -- he's quoted, he's, like, attacking Elon Musk, calling him an illegal immigrant, a parasitic illegal immigrant and things like that. What's -- what's the story?
PHILLIP: I think -- I think he's a purist, and he thinks that Elon is, an oligarch. He likes the cuts, but he doesn't like Elon as a character.
NAVARRO: What part of Steve Bannon strikes you as pure?
PHILLIP: No. No. I mean --
SINGLETON: But I think Bannon -- I think Bannon really does believe, and I think he's right in this regard, that there is a sort of meritocratic hubris that exists among the elites in this country, and they really have forgotten a lot of people. And from his position, individuals like Musk aren't representative of what the MAGA movement at the court was supposed to represent.
SINGLETON: I want to --
(CROSSTALK)
SINGLETON: -- what you're saying into one issue. The Democratic Party somehow in the last six years has lost the working man. How's that possible?
F. TRUMP: And they lost the oligarchs, by the way.
SINGLETON: But, I mean, how is it that that Donald Trump could steal from the Democratic Party, the working man, and the unions? How is that possible?
PHILLIP: And people like you at the same time. It is very hard.
O'LEARY: How's it possible?
PHILLIP: It is. It's a good question. We'll be talking a lot about it, everyone. Coming up next for us, we have much more breaking news tonight. A judge is comparing Trump to the queen of hearts as the President is punishing a law firm that represents Democrats. We'll discuss that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:46:42]
PHILLIP: Tonight, a 30-minute courtroom rebuke of the President of The United States. Judge Beryl Howell just rejected a Trump attempt to punish a law firm with links to a who's who of Democrats.
So, here's the background. This firm is called Perkins Coie, and they are based in Seattle. But they have long represented Democrats, including Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign. The firm commissioned the Steele dossier, an opposition research document that compiled salacious and unverified accusations against Trump.
The President is now trying to limit who Perkins Coie can represent by suspending security clearances and barring government contractors from retaining that firm. By the judge's decision, it read like -- it read out from the bench. It stops all of that. And it read how an Aaron Sorkin, script might read of a judge, telling someone off from the bench.
Howell describes, "The executive order as punishment for a singling out an entity for being disloyal of Trump. She went full Alice in Wonderland, comparing Trump to the Queen of Hearts and admonishing him the legal equivalent of yelling off with their heads.
And that that cannot be the reality that we are living under." That was Howell's bottom line. She says, "The chilling effect of this executive order, 14230 threatens to significantly undermine the integrity of our entire legal system."
Now, this fight is not the only one that Trump is waging. He's also waging it against a second law firm. And the idea here is to prevent people from being represented by a law firm because he doesn't like that.
O'LEARY: Did you know what the law partners are saying across the land now on this and other situations? If you're the partner and you're part of the partnership of a law firm, you've got to make sure you're bipartisan. You have to represent Republicans, Democrats and Independents. Never let your firm become partisan because this happens to you.
NAVARRO: Yeah, but --
(CROSSTALK)
O'LEARY: For business.
PHILLIP: I think that the whole point of this is that is --
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: Kevin, I don't -- is there another case you can think of where a President of the United States sought retribution in this manner against --
O'LEARY: We are in a new time.
NAVARRO: Is it authoritarianism? Is it McCarthyism. This is the retribution that we were talking about, Rosie O'Donnell.
O'LEARY: Okay, that's great. Now let's talk reality. Watch what firms do now. They're going to make sure that they're bipartisan. They don't need these things.
NAVARRO: No. This is not great. And it's not great to -- to just -- it's not great to --
O'LEARY: Maybe so but I live in reality.
NAVARRO: I live in the United States of America.
QUINN: Right.
NAVARRO: And then it is not great to shrug your shoulders while the President of the United States uses every asset he has and every force he has to penalize people. Do you understand the level of --
O'LEARY: Are you talking about Biden now?
NAVARRO: No. I'm talking about Donald J. Trump.
O'LEARY: Oh, I was confused.
PHILLIP: Kevin, the right to counsel is literally in the constitution.
UNKNOWN: Right.
PHILLIP: That is why but that's why this has gone to this level is because he's not just saying, oh, I'm going to punish this company, which would be bad enough. He's punishing the law firm and preventing people from retaining counsel. He's preventing people from having adequate counsel to retain them in cases where they need access to classified data and information. That's why this has got --
(CROSSTALK)
O'LEARY: But Abby --
(CROSSTALK) PHILLIP: Hold on, Kevin. We're going to let Shermichael --
SINGLETON: Let's remember the Steele dossier and how much stuff that we have now discovered was completely made up. I am not opposed to the President suspending their security clearances. There are law firms across this country you can go somewhere else.
[22:50:00]
The mistakes that this firm made with the so -- did I say it was a -- was a cancel election interference in my opinion.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: You were comfortable with the President of the United States saying, I'm going to use an executive order to blackball an individual law firm simply because you don't like bad decisions that they made?
SINGLETON: No, I am -- I'm comfortable with --
PHILLIP: And when there's a Democratic president and they say the same thing, to another law firm, you would do things that --
SINGLETON: Well, I'll tell you -- I will tell you what I'm comfortable with.
QUINN: Make no mistake. It won't stop this one firm.
(CROSSTALK)
SINGLETON: Well, I will tell you -- I will tell you what I'm comfortable with. I am comfortable -- I am not comfortable with, number one. A law firm knowingly, and I assume they knew this, putting out incorrect falsified information into the ethos.
PHILLIP: But that's not actually -- let me -- hold on.
(CROSSTALK)
SINGLETON: And for the President -- and for the President to restrict -- to restrict security clearance is not a bad thing.
PHILLIP: Hold on a second. Let me just correct some -- some on a factual basis here. You're -- you're alleging that the law firm put out the information of the Steele dossier, which is not actually what happened. They commissioned a dossier, and it was leaked. They did not --
UNKNOWN: Right.
PHILLIP -- put it out into the world.
SINGLETON: Did they try to clean it up?
PHILLIP: Law firms do --
SINGLETON: Did they issue an apology?
PHILLIP: Shermichael, you're --
SINGLETON: Did they say a mistake occurred?
PHILLIP: I know -- I know you've hired a lot of lawyers. You know that lawyers are hired in politics to do research. That is what they are hired to do.
SINGLETON: Yeah, but I also know when you make a mistake, Abby --
PHILLIP: And so, the ability of law firms --
SINGLETON: -- you come out and attempt to correct the mistake. They didn't do that.
PHILLIP: -- the ability of law firms to collect information whether it's true or false is not something that the government has ever penalized.
QUINN: And let's pull the lens out a little bit. If anyone thinks this is the only law firm that Donald Trump is going to try to do this, they're crazy.
PHILLIP: He's already doing it with Covington and Burling. He's already done it.
QUINN: And there will be more and more and more. And the judge is right. This is totally inappropriate, outrageous behavior on the part of a President to try to deny Americans, which is at the core of this, their right to representation.
SHERMICHAEL: Who has been denied representation.
O'LEARY: No one's been law fair.
SHERMICHAEL: Who has been denied representation. There are thousands of lawyers in America.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Fred, get a word here. Just for a second. Go ahead, Fred.
F. TRUMP: I just want to say, and we've seen this for years now, underestimate Donald and his team at your own peril, because it's not going to end here with --
QUINN: They'll find it underway.
F. TRUMP: It will -- it will just keep coming up, and it'll go up the chain. We'll carry it every single go to the Supreme Court, and who knows what happens then?
NAVARRO: I don't know what's going to compel him to abide by any of these, of these judgments. Do you know that a part of the things that he did with this law firm is ban the employees of this law firm from going into federal buildings.
QUINN: Yeah.
NAVARRO: I mean, some of this stuff is just so petty and -- and so and so crazy. And if you want to penalize, if you have an issue with a lawyer or a law firm, there are mechanisms where you can seek disbarment of a lawyer.
SINGLETON: Sure. Sure.
NAVARRO: You can seek, you know, you can seek penalties to a law firm, but not --
O'LEARY: But why are you only criticizing Trump? What happened to Biden? Same thing was going on during the Biden --
QUINN: Biden never did -- no. He never did --
(CROSSTALK)
O'LEARY: Both of them have done this.
UNKNOWN: Who did Biden ban?
PHILLIP: Hold on a second. Kevin.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Can you provide any evidence of what you're saying?
QUINN: Advise managers by law firms did he ban from entering federal bills?
O'LEARY: Pointing out law fair.
QUINN: None.
O'LEARY: The use of law firms and warring with lawyers, some --some of the lawyers are single cell amoeba, and they came out of the ocean.
QUINN: Did --did Joe Biden ever say to a firm, your security clearances are gone, your employees can't go into a federal building, and totally you can't apply for government contracts? Never.
O'LEARY: No, you're right. He did much worse.
QUINN: Oh, please.
O'LEARY: He used the whole system to chase the guy that was competing with him in a lot of people.
PHILLIP: Kevin --
QUINN: Oh --
PHILLIP: Let me go back to one of the things that you said that that I think bears some scrutiny here. You're suggesting that if law firms are just bipartisan, Trump's just going to leave them alone. That there's no evidence to --
O'LEARY: No. No. I'm talking about long after Trump.
PHILLIP: No. No. What I'm saying is that what Donald Trump is saying is that if you, in any part of your firm, ever oppose me, this could be a penalty for you. So the chilling effect. This is why -
O'LEARY: Abby, you are a lawyer. Are you not?
PHILIP: I'm actually not.
PHILLIP: So you were once and you studied law?
PHILLIP: I'll take that as a compliment.
O'LEARY: Okay. I thought you were very --
PHILLIP: But let me -- let me -- but answer the question here. If that is what's happening, and basically law firms say, we can't afford as a business proposition to ever take a case that is on the wrong side of Donald Trump, what kind of impact do you think that will have on the practice of representing people in this country?
O'LEARY: Telling you what's actually happening in law firms today in Boston, in New York, in Miami. I work with a lot of lawyers. I pay a lot of lawyers. They're beginning to think about this long term. They don't want their firms associated with one party or another anymore. Not just because of Donald Trump.
PHILLIP: If only that would be enough to protect them.
NAVARRO: Right. Frankly --
PHILLIP: But I don't think that there is any reason to believe that that is the case.
NAVARRO: But maybe lobbying shops are associated with one party or another, but most law firms --
O'LEARY: No. Have you noticed what the lobbying shots are doing now, the big ones? They are bipartisan.
[22:55:00]
PHILLIP: Wait a second, okay?
NAVARO: Most law firms don't care about your partisanship. They care that you pay their bills.
O'LEARY: Well, I guess that is changing.
SINGLETON: That is true.
PHILLIP: All right. Shermichael, very last word. SINGLETON: Just quickly, I'm going to say the Steele dossier was
commissioned by this law firm. It was ultimately leaked. I am not opposed to the president saying we're going to restrict your security clearances. Ana, would I restrict them from going into federal buildings? Probably not. But should they have security clearances? Absolutely not after what they did.
PHILLIP: Well, okay. The lawyers involved, maybe. He's talking about the entire law firm. People who have nothing to do with --
SINGLETON: Partners had to know something about it.
PHILLIP: People who had nothing to do with the Steele dossier, but we got to leave it there, everyone. Thank you very much. We'll be back in a moment.
[COMMERCIAL BREAK]
